From the end of the hall, Zaylin noticed a box sitting at the door to her dorm. Nearing it, she stopped and picked it up. It had a decent weight to it. On the top, the label was addressed to her, the return address displaying her grandmother’s name.

Tucking the box under one arm, she pulled her dorm key from a small pocket in her bag and unlocked the door. Inside, two canopy beds waited. Rope tied the curtains back, leaving them visible to anyone who entered. The blankets and pillows on one looked untouched, while the bedding of the other hung partially off the mattress. While the furniture on the half of the room belonging to the tidy bed remained bare, Zaylin’s side stood as a stark contrast. A pile of books sat atop the nightstand beside the untidy bed, while a small portion of Zaylin’s gemstone collection sat neatly on the dresser on that side, spilling over onto a desk built into the wall. Journals and loose-leaf paper crowded the cubbies, and a few colored pens and pencils sat on the desk’s surface.

Tossing her messenger bag onto the unmade bed, she quickly opened the package. Reaching past the packing material, she pulled out a thick, arcane-looking book, a piece of paper carefully taped to the leather-bound front.

Opening it, she quickly read the elegant handwriting:

[i]Zaylin,
Don’t forget your other studies.
Best wishes,
Grandma Devonshire[/i]

Zaylin glanced at the title of the book, the worn, gold writing reading [i]Book of the Dragons[/i] in the scratch-like runes of Dragonscript. She carefully opened to the first yellowed piece of parchment, the paper making a crinkling sound beneath her touch.

Closing the book, Zaylin carefully added it to the small pile on the nightstand before checking herself in the mirror. Pulling out a tube of black lipstick from one of the drawers, she quickly touched up her lips, then went to the closet on her side of the room.

Pushing aside her normal, everyday clothes and a couple spare uniforms, she pulled out two thick staves. At least eight pounds each, a wood cover disguised the metal core. Embedded into the wood, small amethysts spiraled down one, with emeralds on the other. A perfectly round piece of onyx sat at either end of the one with amethysts, the stone wider than the poles, with lapis lazuli on the other. 

With a staff in each hand, she set one down long enough to pull out a piece of paper from a folder in the desk and shove it in her pocket along with her key, then left the dorm room. Leaning the shafts on her shoulder to keep them from dragging on the floor, she made her way through the halls, a few people looking at her and what she carried oddly.

Making it to the grounds outside Wells Hall, the gems in the staffs glittered in the sunlight as she made her way to a secluded spot she had found a couple days after arriving at the academy.