Chapter Text
PART ONE: RIO
It feels like a couple of lifetimes ago when Rio had last touched these marl brick walls, textured by weather and students who’d chisel their names or profanities in with their nails. It had always been considered a rite of passage, really, to carve your initial and your first love’s somewhere in a yet unmarred spot— preferably as out of reach as possible, should another misbehaving student get tasked with cleaning up and polishing the outside castle walls.
Rio had never been fortunate enough to find someone she wanted to immortalize herself with, but she would never allow herself to mourn having missed out on the experience; which is why now, twenty years after graduating from this very school, she traces a faded ‘Rio rockz!’ with her thumb, a fond smile on her face.
“Miss Vidal?”
Rio looks up when she hears her name, and watches an older witch with long, grey curly hair walk down the impressive stone stairs that lead from the heavy oak entrance doors to the castle grounds. Her ochre cloak flutters around her surprisingly swift ankles, but what draws Rio’s attention the most is the large blue-black raven flanking the witch, his wingspan wide enough to cover the entirety of the stairs with just one flap.
“Castor informed me of your tardy arrival. I must have overestimated you by expecting you would show up on the premises at the agreed upon time.”
The moment the grey witch takes the last step, she raises her right hand and the raven dives down: he transforms into a ray of silver light, shooting for the witch’s chest like an arrow through the sky, eventually disappearing into her necklace which buzzes and glows faintly before eventually returning to its original state.
Rio bows her head in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, miss Calderu. I swear I must’ve gotten lost somewhere—”
“Don’t try to fool me, miss Vidal. I don’t think I was ever lucky enough to call myself a witness to your punctual attendance for one of my classes, during the entire eight years you were a student at this school.”
Lilia Calderu stands in front of her with a disappointed look on her face, arms crossed and eyebrows raised in anticipation of an explanation.
“I’m sorry, miss Calderu,” Rio says again, digging the pointy tip of her boot into a groove between the cobblestones beneath her feet.
“And miss Vidal?”
“Yeah?”
Rio watches the other witch’s stern look melt into one of the warmest smiles she has ever seen.
“It’s Lilia, now. It’s good to have you back, child. Welcome home.”
Lilia spreads her arms and gestures for Rio to step in for a hug, which she gratefully does: and when burying her nose in the crook of the older witch’s neck, she gets completely engulfed in the all too familiar scent of jasmine incense and something that reminds her of cinnamon rolls.
“I’m not a child anymore, miss Calderu,” Rio mumbles into her hair, “Er— Lilia.”
“How long has it been?”
“Twenty years.”
“Still a child,” Lilia concludes, and Rio squeezes her old professor a little harder.
When the two break apart, Lilia’s hands wrap around Rio’s upper arms as she steps back, giving her the opportunity to take her in.
“You look hungry,” she says, her tone leaving no room for discussion. “Let’s get you to the teacher’s lounge. I’ll have Pietro bring up your suitcases and conjure up some food.”
“Pietro?”
“Remember Wanda Maximoff’s brother? He never passed his graduation exams, but he got offered a job as a janitor. Do you want the tour, or do you remember your way around?”
Even though this castle has been Rio’s home for eight years, some of her memories are murky.
“I’d love the tour.”
“Naturally.”
Lilia beams and slides one of her hands down to squeeze Rio’s hand. With the other, she touches her own necklace again, and it starts glowing before her raven familiar materializes on her outstretched arm.
“Hello Castor,” Rio greets him, offering the back of her index finger for him to nip at. When he carefully takes her finger in his sharp beak, he visibly relaxes.
“Rio,” his low croaky voice sounds, his throat bobbing. Rio laughs, and nods. “Rio,” he says in confirmation.
She knows Castor can’t actually talk to humans, but that doesn’t stop him from remembering and mimicking the name of ever human he’s ever met.
Castor lets go of her finger and turns to Lilia, who tells him to “get Pietro, my dear.” He claps his beak in understanding, and flies off without another word.
Leaving Rio’s suitcases behind, the two women walk up the stairs to the large double entrance doors. There’s a brief unsettling, itchy feeling in Rio’s stomach before Lilia spreads her hands in front of her and murmurs: “Futurum sit praesens.”
The right door clicks open outward and Lilia steps aside, gesturing for Rio to enter first. “Welcome back to Orion Academy.”
The second Rio crosses the threshold, she gets hit with a wave of both nostalgia and confusion: the general structure of the main hall is still the same, but the interior design has completely changed from how she remembers it.
Orion Academy had always been quite a dark place, decorated with moody tapestries, minimal candles and stained glass windows. Now, the whole area seems way brighter and more welcoming: the windows have been replaced by transparent glass, letting actual daylight in; most of the tapestries have been replaced by black and white class photos of graduates; and floating fairy lights – which seem to be humming tunes – cast an inviting glow over the entire space.
The biggest difference and newest additions are the three large pillars in the center of the space. A silver one on the left, a golden one in the middle, and a bronze one on the right. Each pillar is adorned with individual, colorized photos of what seem to be current students, some of them magically popping out and reappearing a bit higher or lower on the pillar in real time.
“You’ll find that some things look a little different, since the passing of headmistress Harkness,” Lilia responds to Rio’s surprised look when she enters the building after her.
Before she can help herself, Rio snorts. “It was about time for that old hag Evawhora to finally—”
Lilia silences her with a reprimanding look, but her features soften quickly. “Evanora definitely had some dated ways of handling things.”
Rio nods slowly as the two of them walk down the main hall past the pillars, toward a large spiral staircase. Evanora Harkness, her old headmistress, had been the one and only reason Rio had declined earlier job offers from Orion. Despite some of her best childhood memories having happened at the Academy, Mrs. Harkness hadn't exactly made Rio’s life any easier when she was still a student, and she couldn’t imagine having to work for her as an adult.
“Her passing caused for multiple new teachers to join the team, like yourself,” Lilia explains when they start their ascent. “So in many ways, things have started to change around here.”
“For the better?” Rio asks, and it’s more of an assumption, but Lilia slows down as they reach the landing and she places her hands on the banister. Overlooking the main hall from up here, her lips press together in a thin line before she nods in agreement.
“Perhaps the most important transformation the school has gone through, is the way the student departments work,” she explains with a royal wave of her hand toward the three pillars.
Student departments. That does sound new.
“The department a student gets placed in, corresponds to the new dormitories we had built. There are three; each with their own head teacher.”
During Rio’s time as a student, classes and dormitories had been based on sex only: girls and boys. That had always seemed terribly outdated.
“So, what, do queer people get separated from the rest now?” Rios asks, a hint of defensiveness in her voice.
“Nothing like that, dear. Evanora hated queers. Our new headmistress loves them."
Rio is not sure she understands what Lilia means by that, but before she can ask, the older witch continues.
“Bronze houses students from Alnitak. The silver department’s name is Alnilam. And gold is called Mintaka.”
“Like Orion’s stars,” Rio remembers, earning herself a praising smile from Lilia.
“Divination was never your best subject, but at least you still know your way around the universe.”
“So what do the departments stand for? Are students separated based on their abilities or traits?”
Lilia looks distracted as she softly huffs while watching one of the portraits, of a boy with brown hair and brown eyes, disappear from his spot high on the silver pillar. He reappears a few feet lower.
As Lilia takes in the golden and bronze pillar too, Rio’s eyes drift from the boy’s portrait to a large window on the other side of the landing, overlooking the lush courtyard. Despite it being a bright and sunny day, it looks like it’s raining– or even snowing. Upon a more focused look, Rio realizes she’s watching blossoms drift by, a soft lilac and pale green in color, falling from two impressively large overhanging trees in the center. The trees look like their branches reach out for each other, never quite able to touch, their heartbreak causing their blossoms to drop like tears.
“Of course not,” Lilia answers, tearing her eyes away from the portraits to look back at Rio. “Our new headmistress thought it was terribly counterproductive to put students with the same personality type together. And I agree— that’s just asking for polarization and underdeveloped interpersonal skills.”
Rio feels the tip of her ears turn pink and makes a mental note to not read any of her high fantasy fiction books anymore. “So what is it?”
To her surprise, Lilia shrugs. “Siblings get separated. Friends can stay together if they wish. Other than that, it’s completely random.”
“So why separate them at all?”
“Our students will inevitably identify with their department. It causes a sense of competitiveness, giving them control over their own education and responsibility. Grades and behavior get rewarded and penalized individually,” Lilia explains, once again waving her hand in the direction of the pillars, “So they gain points and rank themselves. This way, for group projects or extracurriculars, we can make students with equal scores work together.”
Lilia turns away from the banister and walks toward one of the doors on top of a second set of stairs across the landing.
“Is that how classes work, too?” Rio asks, skipping a few steps to follow Lilia.
“No,” the older witch says, placing her hand on the door handle. Now that they’re closer, Rio notices a carving in the wood: a large O with three diagonal dots in the center, the logo of Orion Academy.
“Classes are based on abilities, because that’s just more convenient. Whenever a witch shows their first sign of their element, that’s how their main subject gets determined.”
Rio nods in understanding; this sounds more like what she’s used to. She herself had started showing signs of green witchcraft very early on, when she was still a child. From the first day she had attended Orion, botany had been her main subject, which meant those classes consisted of energetic magic for her. All other classes — like potions, protection, divination — were still in her curriculum, but consisted of practical magic.
“Does that mean I will teach both the energetic and the practical classes?” Rio wants to confirm.
“Yes,” Lilia nods. “A deep dive into intuitive botany with your green apprentices, and lessons in practical plant care for the others.”
The door opens with a creak and the two women step out into a large, round space with lots of natural light coming in through the overgrown glass roof. Two witches, both of around Rio’s age, share a table in the middle of the room and look up when Lilia closes the door behind them.
“Ah, Jennifer, Alice— good to see you here! This is the newest addition to our team, Rio Vidal.”
The two witches, who had been hunched over two cups of tea, look up as Rio and Lilia approach them.
“What’s up? I’m Alice,” says the shorter but edgier witch. “Jen is trying to read my tea leaves but accidentally forgot she’s completely incompetent.”
“Excuse me?” says the other witch, who has gorgeous, glowing skin. “This takes patience, and you have none.”
“You just told me that I’m about to get robbed by a rogue salamander at wandpoint.”
Rio isn’t sure if she should join in on the conversation, but steps closer to glance into the tea cup anyway. “I don’t know, it looks like a raisin to me,” she says hesitantly.
“If I get robbed by a raisin and die, I swear I’m coming back to haunt you all.” Alice lifts her cup to her mouth and loudly slurps up the remaining liquid, wincing when the sludge hits her lips.
“You’d be raisin’ some questions for sure,” Rio quips before she can help herself.
It earns her two snorts and a fond eye roll.
“Rio, huh?” says the not-so-great-at-tea leaves witch, “Jennifer. Charmed.”
Jennifer takes her in with a warm smile, her eyes never leaving Rio’s. Before she can get a chance to grow uncomfortable, Jennifer’s glowing skin sparks familiarity.
“Wait— Jennifer? As in, Jenny Kale?” Rio stammers, trying her hardest not to be starstruck.
“The one and only,” Jennifer nods. The absence of any humbleness becomes blatantly apparent.
“Here we fucking go,” Alice says, crossing her arms and slumping further into her chair. Lilia just chuckles as she offers Rio a cup of tea too, by raising her brows and pointing at the kettle. Rio licks her dry lips and nods gratefully.
“Didn’t you… own a boutique in France?” Rio asks Jennifer, trying to sound unsure to hide her excessive knowledge of the name Jennifer Kale.
“I still do.” Jennifer pulls out a chair to invite Rio to sit next to her. “In Paris, to be exact. And Stockholm, Milan, Tokyo, Dubai, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles and New York. Just as many locations as I’ve won OMA awards. Awards for—”
“Outstanding Magical Abilities,” Rio finishes eagerly.
“Yes,” Jennifer says, surprised but impressed. “Which is a complete coincidence. However, if I happen to win another, I do have a beautiful location in Sydney in mind…”
“So why switch to teaching?” Rio wants to know. She looks up and thanks Lilia when she puts a steaming cup of tea in front of her, smiling when she feels a squeeze on her shoulder.
“Magical skincare has been a passion for a long time, but I turn 250 next year,” Jennifer starts to explain.
“Don’t look a day over 248,” Alice murmurs softly, hiding a grin in her empty cup.
“I felt a call to inspire the next generation of witches,” Jennifer continues as if the interruption hadn’t happened, but Rio hears the stomp of a foot under the table, followed by a muffled groan from Alice.
As Rio sips her tea – jasmine, damn, it’s good – Jennifer gestures to the wall behind her. Only now Rio notices a row of large, nearly floor-to-ceiling portraits, all framed by what look like magical tendrils in different colors.
“So when Lilia wrote to me, I figured I would be doing the school a service by adding my portrait to the professor’s wall.”
Rio lets out a low whistle as she gets up from her chair to take a closer look at the portraits, closing her fingers around her teacup to take it with her.
Jennifer’s has her posed at an angle; a smug smile on her face and her hand and fingers up in the aquam position— the gesture for summoning and controlling the element of water. Her rose colored dress stands out beautifully against the blue magical frame and background.
“Stunning,” Rio whispers, more to herself, but Jennifer clearly appreciates the compliment when she lets out an approving sound.
Taking a few more sips of her tea, Rio wanders along the wall, admiring various portraits of unfamiliar but powerful looking faces, both male and female witches. She stops when she recognizes Alice’s.
Her pose is full frontal, hands in her pocket, and a cocky but challenging eyebrow raised. Her exposed arms show multiple protection runes, but the one that’s partly visible on the back of her right hand stands out the most. Rio recognizes it as the glyph for ignem— summoning fire. Alice’s background and frame are a bright, aggressive red.
“Impressive,” Rio remarks, and Alice doesn’t seem to hate the admiration either.
Right next to Alice’s portrait is Lilia’s: fierce in expression but soft in her aura. She wears her trademark Sicilian robes with pride and elegance, and upon a closer look, Rio notices the cross-stitched ravens on the collar. Down the buttons, along the hem of the robes, a word is spelled out: aeris. Lilia’s divination powers come from her abilities as an air-witch, emphasized by the yellow frame and background.
“Wow, Lilia,” Rio says, her mouth curved down in awe, “you don’t just look like a witch. You look like… a deity.”
Lilia smiles mysteriously and slowly approaches Rio by the wall. “So do you, dear.”
Soft hands land on her shoulders and carefully turn her toward another portrait on the far right of the wall.
The background and magical frame on this portrait are a deep green in color. Her own pose is relaxed but alert, and she playfully holds up a single orchid between her index and middle finger. Her other hand extends down to the ground, fingers curled in readiness to manipulate the earth: terram.
Rio’s breath catches. She does look god-like, which immediately causes a rush of discomfort in her chest. This display of her beauty and her power, it doesn’t feel real. Doesn’t feel deserved.
Her eyes frantically search her own portrait’s features, desperate for a sign to ground her, to counter the exponentially growing imposter syndrome inside of her. But when she locks onto her own eyes, she sees it: just a flash of insecurity readable in her brown irises, the tiniest speck of doubt, of vulnerability. Not apparent to anyone casually admiring the portrait, but definitely there, and just the thing she needs to see to be able to connect herself to this image of her which otherwise feels so foreign.
“That’s, um…”
“I know,” Lilia says empathically, squeezing her shoulder once more before taking the empty tea cup from Rio’s trembling hands. “It’s a lot. But you’re a part of the team now, and hopefully, soon you’ll feel right at home here.”
Rio exhales deeply as she walks back to her chair, rubbing her temple with two fingers.
“You gonna read her tea leaves, Lilia?” Alice grins, and when Rio turns she realizes that her old divination teacher is staring deeply into her teacup, slowly tilting it to make the light hit it better.
“I’m not sure I want a free reading,” Rio groans, shielding her eyes with her hands like blinders on a horse. When she turns back, the tunnel vision her hands create causes her eyes to land on the opposite wall, where a singular, even larger portrait takes up the majority of the space.
“Who is that?” Rio blurts out, awestruck by the intimidating pose of the witch surrounded by a purple background and magical frame. The portrait faces the viewer head-on, and both of her hands are cupped upward at waist height, suggesting the effortless way she conjures up the wild purple magic from her palms.
“Orion’s new headmistress,” Jennifer says, her voice weirdly soft, almost as if whispering out of respect. “I’m sure you’ll meet her soon.”
Rio’s eyes drift from the purple witch’s hands up past her tailored teal cloak, and she swallows at the headmistress’ expression. There’s a dangerous smirk on her face, and the way her chin is slightly tilted up exudes an unfathomable amount of power. Even her long, brown hair cascading down her back and shoulders, add to the natural prevalence of this breathtaking witch.
“What’s her name?” Rio tries to ask casually, failing miserably if the crack in her voice is any indication.
“Agatha,” Jennifer answers, but her voice sounds distant as Rio is still captivated by the portrait.
The headmistress’ element isn’t as apparent in her portrait as it is in that of the other professors, but when Rio locks onto her lively sea blue eyes, she almost gets sucked in while a whispered voice breezes in her ear: “Spiritum.”
“Agatha?” Rio repeats, trying out the feel of the name on her tongue. “Agatha.”
Why does that sound so familiar?
It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for Rio’s eyes to go wide. “Agatha… wait— As in Agatha Harkness?”
“That would be her.”
A deep, feminine voice makes Rio whip around to face the headmistress in the flesh, as if she had suddenly materialized out of thin air. Her hands are pocketed in the same teal coat she’s wearing in her portrait, and there’s a profoundly unimpressed look on her face.
“You’re late.”
“Mrs. Harkness, I’m sorry—” Rio stammers, wildly thrown off guard and humbled by the presence of the daughter of the person she had been making fun of earlier.
“It’s Agatha. Mrs. Harkness is my mother, may her soul eternally deep-fry in the tenth circle of hell.”
Okay, cool. So luckily for Rio, the new headmistress, despite being directly related to her, isn’t a huge fan of Evanora either. Cool, cool.
Now she just has to say something cool to win her over.
“Cool.”
Not that.
“Had you been on time, you could’ve used the remaining time of the day to work on your embarrassingly meager vocabulary. But alas,” Agatha looks her up and down, “your wardrobe is in an even more urgent need of attention.”
Rio jolts at the unexpected jab and looks down at herself, one knee slightly buckling as she takes in her own worn out leggings. The apples of her cheeks start to burn.
“I expect you to tend to that before your first class in the morning. Your uniform will be delivered to your quarters.”
Taking away any privilege of being perceived, Agatha tears her eyes from Rio and strides toward her own portrait, which swings open as she approaches. It reveals another set of stairs, but Rio can’t see much more as the portrait immediately blocks the entrance once Agatha has stepped through.
“You’ll get used to her,” Alice says in pity, very much aware of the vocal roasting Rio had just endured.
“Is she always like that?” Rio asks, still staring at the headmistress’ portrait like she will reappear any second.
“I’m afraid so. But I swear she’s a hundred times better than her mother.”
“I think I’m in love with her.”
Alice starts coughing to cover up her surprise as Jen cackles out a string of unrelated vowels.
“You might want to tone down your masochistic tendencies around her, because I’m not sure she’ll—”
Jennifer gets interrupted by a loud gasp from the other side of the room. The three witches turn to Lilia, who apparently had been staring into Rio’s teacup the whole time.
Just as Rio wants to ask her if she’s okay, Lilia’s body convulses and her eyes turn an eerie silvery-white.
“A new moon, the night is prime.”
Lilia’s voice is raspy and she looks up from the cup, her unfocused eyes staring into the distance as she repeats herself.
“A new moon, the night is prime. The first is born.”
Almost as if in a practiced routine, Alice gets up from her chair and walks over to Lilia to take the cup from her hands and softly caress her scalp through her grey curls.
“She gets these sometimes,” Jennifer explains, not alarmed at all.
Rio watches the scene with a furrow in her brow— she doesn’t recall Lilia ever having such intense episodes while experiencing a surge of divination. “Is… is she okay?” she asks carefully.
“Is who okay?” Lilia shudders one last time, her eyes turn back to their normal color and she looks up at Rio as if nothing happened.
“You,” Alice chuckles as she keeps stroking Lilia’s hair. “You had one, again.”
“Oh! What’d I say?” Lilia asks with an, according to Rio, misplaced sense of excitement.
“You said: A new moon. The night is prime. The first is born.”
Lilia rolls her eyes and sighs in defeat. “So another nonsense one. Bah. I get so tired of those.” She throws up her hands, which Alice takes as a sign that she is in fact okay, so she returns to the table.
“Let me take you to your quarters, dear,” Lilia says to Rio, her soft comforting smile having returned to her face. “I’m going to let you guess how to get there. It’s quite genius, actually—”
“Through there?” Rio guesses, pointing at her own portrait, a tight knot in her stomach.
“How did you… yes. Yes, through there. Come on, let’s see if Pietro has managed to bring up your belongings.”