Magic University: The Tower and the Tears

Chapter One
Kyle was surprised to hear his cell phone ringing at nine in the morning. He cracked open an eye and fumbled for the phone in his pack, knocking a few things out onto the floor, momentarily not even sure where he and Alex were, then recognizing the enclosed porch they'd been sharing as a bedroom for the past two weeks. They'd moved around so much this summer that in his half-asleep state his brain needed to catch up.
"Hello?"
"Kyle Wadsworth?" It was a voice with a slightly disapproving tone, familiar, yet he couldn't quite place it.
"Um, yes?" But then he suddenly had it. "Master Brandish?"
"Quite. You're late for orientation."
"Orientation?" Kyle sat up, blinking. "I thought classes didn't start until..."
"Have you not been receiving letters or e-mail? You are supposed to be attending the freshman orientation you missed last year."
"Oh, sh—um...when did it start?"
"Yesterday."
"I'm on Cape Cod..." Kyle began to fish around, stuffing scattered belongings back into his pack, then stopped when something he picked up made a crunching sound. He set the small black square aside and began to look for his jeans. "So I'm not that far away."
"Well, thank mighty Minerva for that," she said drily. "I suggest you be here by two o'clock if possible, when we are having a house meeting in the common room."
"I'm packing right now. Thanks for calling." He flipped the phone shut and pulled on the jeans he found hung on the back of the door.
Alex was either still unconscious or pretending to be, sprawled halfway off the mattress on the floor. There was still a smudge of paint on his forehead, mostly obscured by his hair.
Kyle's own hair was nearly as wild, sun-bleached and overgrown from a summer spent bumming around the beach towns of the Cape with Alex, picking up odd jobs when they had to, like this last one, helping a guy named Jones repaint his boat and staying on his porch in exchange.
Somehow Alex always found them a place to sleep when it was raining, or a bar with free appetizers when they were nearly broke and hungry, or a ride to the next town when it was time to move on.
What Kyle needed now was to get back to Boston. Well, to Cambridge. To Harvard. To Veritas. He buttoned his jeans and nudged Alex on the foot. "Hey."
"Hay is for horses," Alex said and rolled over, hiding his head under one arm.
"I'm going back. Apparently I was supposed to be there yesterday." Kyle hunted around to see if he had a clean shirt. "Shit. That probably means they've been bombarding Agatha with letters." Although, he thought, he hadn't received a phone call from his great aunt. Perhaps she'd just been tossing them out, afraid they were bills. "How should I get back?"
"Bus, train, boat, or hitch," Alex mumbled, then forced himself to sit up. "I can't remember. What town are we in?"
"Onset." It was a nice little town, not crammed with tourists like some and not overbuilt with rich people's summer homes like others.
Alex grunted. "Hitch. You need me to come with, or have you got the knack now?"
"Jones's boat isn't finished." Kyle chewed his lip for a moment, classes and campus seeming unreal and far away and the life of living hand to mouth and painting the boat seeming very present and compelling.
"Tsk. What's more important, the boat or your education? I'll stay and finish the boat. It's almost done, anyhow." Alex shook out his hair. "You mean you're leaving this second?"
"Yeah. Brandish wants me there for a house meeting at two."
"Circe's creamy left tit," Alex swore. "And it's what, noon now?"
Kyle checked his phone. "No, only nine."
"Oh, well, in that case..." Alex fell back into a heap and pulled the pillow over his face. "See you when I get there," he said, voice muffled by the pillow.
Kyle laughed. "All right." He pulled on a shirt, rolled his jacket up and put it in the top of his pack, then finished picking up his belongings.
The square of black plastic opened to show two ovals, one of peacock blue eyeshadow, one of glass. A makeup mirror. It was shattered. Kyle had no idea where he'd gotten it. Somewhere along the way one of the women he or Alex had met must have left it. He closed it carefully, small slivers crunching, and tossed it into the garbage can out back as he made his way to the road.