Written from the perspective of Philip of Croatia.

Nobody ever tells you the truth about magic schools.

They tell you about dragons and prophecies and chosen ones.

Nobody tells you about exploding toilets.

Or magical acne.

Or spending six months learning how to properly talk to a fish because Professor Theon believes every respectable sorcerer should know how to apologize to marine life.

Nobody writes books about that.

And nobody, absolutely nobody, warns you that a five-foot Georgian girl might someday turn you into a squirrel in front of four hundred people while you’re simply trying to entertain the new kid.

Which, for the record, I almost did.

The squirrel thing was a misunderstanding.

Magic is ninety percent confidence and ten percent pretending you know what you’re doing.

The problem with Miranda is that she belongs to the remaining ten percent.

I have been living on this island for almost four years now. I’m from Croatia, which is a beautiful place if you like the sea and old cities and grandmothers that force-feed you until your soul leaves your body. When I arrived at the School of Magic, I thought I would become the greatest sorcerer the Mediterranean had seen since somebody accidentally invented fire magic while cooking lamb.

Turns out I’m more talented at surviving magical accidents than causing magical miracles.

Still counts if you ask me.

The School of Magic is not what people imagine it to be.

Students don’t walk around looking wise and mysterious.

Yesterday a second-year student accidentally enchanted his own underwear to sing opera every time he sneezes.

There are currently six professors trying to remove an angry cloud from the eastern library because someone thought it would be funny to teach weather magic to twins from Iceland.

And somewhere on this island there is an invisible goat that steals sandals.

No one has caught it for three years.

Magic schools are chaos dressed in beautiful robes.

That morning I woke up upside down.

Literally.

I had fallen asleep while practicing levitation and forgot to cancel the spell.

My roommate Xhuri was sitting on his bed eating figs while staring at me hanging from the ceiling.

“You know,” he said calmly, “normal people usually sleep horizontally.”

“Normal people don’t live in magical Greece.”

“Fair point.”

“Also, I had a breakthrough last night.”

“You’ve been upside down for six hours.”

“Exactly.”

He threw an olive at my face.

I missed catching it because gravity had become more of a philosophical suggestion than an actual law.

Xhuri comes from Albania. He’s one of the strongest elemental sorcerers in our year and probably the nicest human being ever born. He also happens to be ridiculously in love with Mirjana.

Everyone knows it.

The professors know it.

The olive trees know it.

Last week one of the dolphins near the southern cliffs somehow knew it.

He smiled every time Mirjana walked into a room, which happened approximately sixteen times a day because she enjoys making him smile.

Disgusting.

Beautiful.

Mostly disgusting.

By lunchtime the entire school was talking about the new student.

Dimitri.

The guy had arrived yesterday looking like someone had accidentally sent a tourist to Mount Olympus.

Apparently, he spent his first hour trying to understand whether flying fish were normal here.

Which immediately made me like him.

The problem with students who’ve been here too long is that they stop looking around.

They stop asking stupid questions.

The new ones are different. They remind us that this place is absolutely insane.

I found Dimitri sitting beneath an olive tree.

The tree was talking to him.

Not metaphorically.

Actually talking.

“The olives are sweeter this year,” the tree informed him.

“How do you know?” Dimitri asked.

“I grew them.”

“Oh.”

Reasonable answer.

He looked up when I approached.

“Philip!” he smiled.

“I see you’ve discovered talking agriculture.”

“Do all trees talk here?”

“No.”

“Which ones do?”

“The judgmental ones.”

He nodded seriously as though I had revealed ancient wisdom.

We walked toward the lower gardens where first-year students practiced basic spellcasting.

Flying sheep floated across the sky.

“What are those?” Dimitri asked.

“Flying sheep.”

“Obviously.”

“They escaped from agricultural magic.”

“That’s a thing?”

“Everything is a thing here.”

The truth is, nobody understands this school.

Not even the professors.

Especially not the professors.

Magic isn’t like mathematics.

It doesn’t behave because you ask politely.

Sometimes spells fail because you’re sad.

Sometimes they’re stronger because you ate peaches during a full moon.

Professor Theon once spent an entire semester explaining that magic gets offended when people become arrogant.

He may have been drunk when he said it.

We’re still not sure.

Later that afternoon we arrived at the Arena of Winds where students practiced dueling.

Miranda stood alone in the center.

She wore a simple white training robe and looked impossibly small against the marble arena.

Three senior students were challenging her simultaneously.

Poor bastards.

“Why is she fighting three people?” Dimitri asked.

“Because one wasn’t enough.”

The duel began.

Fire.

Water.

Wind.

Miranda simply stood there.

Then she smiled.

I have learned over the years that whenever Miranda smiles during magical combat, it is usually someone’s last opportunity to reconsider their life choices.

Three minutes later:

One student had become blue.

One was floating upside down.

The third couldn’t stop speaking ancient Greek despite not knowing ancient Greek.

The arena erupted with applause.

Dimitri leaned toward me.

“Is she always like this?”

“Worse.”

“Should I be afraid of her?”

“Everyone should.”

That evening the entire school gathered near the western cliffs.

Students laughed around floating lanterns while professors pretended not to enjoy themselves.

Music echoed through the marble halls.

Someone was teaching centaurs how to dance.

A professor had fallen asleep beside a phoenix that snored tiny sparks of fire.

And Dimitri sat quietly looking at the sunset over the Aegean Sea.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

He smiled.

“That I spent thirty years believing magic wasn’t real.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m wondering why nobody told me magic is so ridiculous.”

I laughed.

“Magic isn’t ridiculous.”

“No?”

“No.”

“What is it then?”

I looked around at the impossible school built between sea and stars.

At Miranda laughing with Mirjana.

At Xhuri pretending not to stare at Mirjana when she smiled.

At the floating sheep stealing grapes from first-year students.

At professors arguing with enchanted statues.

At lanterns dancing above ancient marble columns.

And finally, I understood something I had failed to explain to every newcomer that had ever arrived here.

Magic wasn’t dragons.

Or prophecies.

Or becoming the strongest sorcerer in the world.

Magic was simply living in a place where absolutely anything could happen tomorrow.

And somehow, it usually did.

The School of Magic teaches many things.

Spellcasting.

Alchemy.

Astral projection.

Elemental manipulation.

But its greatest lesson is one nobody writes in the official curriculum.

The world is much stranger than anyone dares to believe.

And if you’re lucky enough to find your island, your people and your impossible story…

Never leave.

Because magic isn’t found.

Magic is where you decide to stay.