Zoe spared a glance at the other few students who had yet to leave the lounge. This was not a line of questioning she wanted to get into in front of others. “Let me show you to your rooms. You can ask questions there.”
She led the girls up to the third floor and stopped in front of a room.
“Room three-thirteen?” Juliana asked.
“What luck! I’d sure hate to be those poor folk in room seven-seven-seven.” Oddly, Zoe didn’t detect much sarcasm in Eva’s voice.
“There are only three floors in both dorms, room three-twenty is as high as it goes.”
Zoe ignored Eva’s scoff as she held out two black cards. “These will open the door to your room with a swipe. They will also open all amenity rooms in this building as well as anywhere else you have access to across the entire campus. Don’t lose them.”
She pulled out her own card and opened the door. Inside was the standard dorm room for the Rickenbacker. Three beds with plenty of storage drawers beneath them and a desk at the end of each bed. Two windows gave plenty of space between the beds. There was a small kitchen and dining area. No open stoves but there was a fridge and microwave.
A single bathroom lay through a small door.
“You can fight amongst yourselves which bed you want. There will be a third member of your dorm arriving sometime this summer, so do keep the spare clean.”
The two girls immediately darted for the beds with walls. They set their things down on their respective desks and Eva turned back to Zoe.
“Should I be worried that our extra luggage isn’t here?”
“It is being brought in a second vehicle. It should be delivered by the time we finish eating. If you did not put your name on it, there is an office adjacent to the lobby that has a lost and found.
“Unless I am mistaken you had concerns about our recruitment methods?”
Eva sat on the bed she had chosen and regarded Zoe with a wary look. “I’m not complaining. I doubt I would have even attended any kind of magical schooling without you. However, I’ve heard rumors,” she said as her eyes flicked towards Juliana who had taken a seat on her own bed, “that this school is barely holding together.”
Zoe thought about deflecting completely, but decided to edge around the issue. “Our reputation is poor, it is true. Yet every student in all six years of this school are on the same scholarship that you are. If we were so poorly off, we would not be able to afford such things.
“As for our reputation itself, well, it is a complicated issue. You will learn more about it in the future, I am sure. For now just focus on your schooling and rest assured that plans are already in motion to elevate our school in our peer’s eyes.”
Eva did not respond, she just frowned in thought. Juliana looked bored by the short discussion, like she wanted nothing more than to flop down on her bed and sleep.
“On an unrelated note,” Zoe lied as she pulled a small pamphlet out of her breast pocket, “there is a seminar that will meet several times this summer. It is meant for older students, but I ask that you attend even if you cannot participate right away.
“You can ask me questions if you have them later.” She dropped the paper on the small dining table. “Lets finish up our tour before we miss dinner. After that, I am sure that Miss Rivas at the least would like to sleep.”
Thankfully, Eva left her pet carrier on the desk.
The two girls followed her on the tour through the building’s facilities. They stopped by the alchemy lab, though both seemed disappointed they would not be allowed inside without supervision until they finished their second year. The library seemed of particular interest to Eva though she seemed a bit disappointed by the small size. Zoe quickly stressed that there was a much larger library within the main school building.
The recreational areas seemed to please the girls. The pool disguised as a massive beach and the hot tubs that looked like natural hot springs atop a snowy mountain were especially well received by Eva; she seemed more happy that there was actual magic present than she was about the water.
Juliana found one of the study rooms to her liking. It was a smaller room with a ceiling that showed the sky and stars above as if there weren’t light from any source, regardless of the actual time of day.
At the end of the tour, the two girls began whispering to each other. Eva spoke up. “We can take our meal in our rooms, right?”
“I don’t see why not,” Zoe said with a shrug. “There is a communal kitchen near the lobby we started at, they will serve you meals there. There is a large dining room adjoining the kitchen if you wish to socialize with some of your future classmates.”
“I’m exhausted,” Juliana said. “I will probably fall asleep the moment I get food in me. I’d rather not have to climb stairs between the eating and the sleeping.”
Zoe wondered for a moment if that was an excuse to get out of her presence. The deep rings beneath the blond’s eyes convinced her otherwise.
