Lilly fell sideways.

Falling sideways is a little like walking on your hands: there is an awkward flip of perception and an intense rush of blood to the head. Weight is thrust upon a part of the body that has never bluntly acknowledged gravity's extra attention—in Lilly's case, from her torso up. Her thoughts scrambled for four agonizing seconds before her shoulder crashed into soft ground.

Was it logical she had fallen sideways after dropping feet-first into the gate?

She was dizzy, and a muddy mess of colors swam in her vision. Rubbing her shoulder, she stumbled to her feet and waited for her vision to melt back into focus. When it did, she saw that she was in some sort of tunnel, the sides and the ground composed of blue vines. Thick, cloudy slime oozed between the cracks of the plants.

She stomped. Her sneakers squelched in vine-slime.

Behind her was a long, endless stretch of wet blue plant life with no visible end.

Ahead of her, a bright light. An oval of silver in the distance.

Bring it on.

Lilly ran for it.

The silver was blinding, piercing through the dimness of the tunnel. She squeezed her eyes shut and kept running like a horse raging headfirst into battle—suddenly, the ground turned hard and sent her staggering forward. She had barely opened her eyes and thrust her arms out for balance before hands clamped around both her arms. Shapes materialized, went out of focus, sharpened again. The sounds were murky and chaotic and gave her a headache. As the hands spun her around, Lilly finally registered something.

Orange circular eyes.

Lilly gasped as her mind began to take in the rest of her surroundings. A very odd face filled her field of vision; it was young, with eyes that took up half her face, a tiny upturned nose shaped like a J, and a small mouth the color of pearls (white lips!)—the face looked like a caricature.

The owner of this interesting face gasped and said something in a language Lilly didn't understand.

"I don't...I can't..." Lilly stammered.

The girl's small hand flew up to Lilly's mouth. Lilly jerked back, but the girl's other hand pressed into the knob of Lilly's skull. She shoved something hard and seed-like through Lilly's lipa. Lilly swallowed, yanked away from the girl's hands, and spluttered.

"I've never seen so much blue blood on a person before," the girl said.

Lilly looked up. The rest of the environment still hadn't quite come into focus yet. Everything was dark and the shapes in her vision swam.

"Language pill," the girl explained. "So you can understand everyone. They're a prototype made by Bloom scientists. They have an expiration date of six months, so you should be okay for the rest of the summer."

Lilly pressed a hand to the base of her throat. Language pills?

"Corpsa!" a shrill voice shrieked from behind the girl. "I need her now! The water's cold!"

"Oh!" The girl, Corpsa, grabbed Lilly's wrist and pulled her forward. The room spun again, and this time, Lilly could tell what things were. Sheer rippling fabric took the place of walls, so Lilly figured she was in some sort of large tent. There were orange curtains that divided this tent into several cubicles, and Lilly realized with a start that half the people scrambling around had wings sprawling out of their backs. Their wings were so thin, Lilly wondered that if she touched them her fingernails would rip through the delicate fiber. They were fragile, gorgeous fascinations, butterfly-shaped and dragonfly-fast in the way they fluttered and flapped about.

"We need to talk about you dragging me through a tent with no context of what's going on," Lilly panted. She was ready to tear off some delicate wings if someone didn't tell her what was going on.

"In here," Corpsa said in a tone composed of sugar. She shoved Lilly through one of the orange curtain dividers. In the middle of the sectioned-off cubicle was a silver tub overflowing with pink and purple bubbles. "Get in the tub."

"I'm not stripping in front of you," Lilly snapped. "You do not get to drag me through a strange tent in a new world without telling me what's going on first."

"Self-centered," Corpsa breathed, like Lilly was a wonder to be scrutinized. "What's it like thinking the world revolves around you all the time? Ah, never mind. Get in before you regret—"

A woman exploded through the orange curtains behind them, and Corpsa's mouth snapped shut. Lilly noticed the woman's wings first, a bright electric green that matched her proportionally incorrect eyes. She was much older than Corpsa, her white hair streaked with blue that looked like lightning strikes jolting from her hairline to her shaggy ends.

"What is she still doing like that?" the woman demanded, jerking webbed hands at Lilly in a ferocious gesture. "Look at her! Blue slime. Blue. Slime. All over the kid. I don't have time for this. I've got too many children to prep, Corpsa. She needs to get in the tub right now."

"Wait." Lilly held up a stern finger. "I can undress and bathe myself, thanks."

"No you can't," the woman spat. Lilly scoffed, and Corpsa shrugged an apologetic I told you so. The woman pitched forward; her hands were suddenly on Lilly's shoulders, pushing and pulling at fabric. Before Lilly's shirt was off, the woman shoved her down into the bath. Lilly fell into the tub hard and swallowed a mouthful of soapy water.

Lilly coughed and shivered. The water was freezing.

The woman straightened and turned to Corpsa. "Bring clothes and the sewing kits. Be hasty about it. I've got seven more kids to tailor before the next group comes in."

"You got it, Alys." Corpsa scurried from the room.

Lilly, up to her chin in bubbles, modestly peeled off her shirt and underclothes and sank lower into the water, coaxing the slime from her skin. The older fairy, Alys, put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. "Blue slime?"

"Fifteen minutes ago I hacked a giant wasp many times with an ax," Lilly replied matter-of-factly. "It's wasp blood."

"Well you didn't have to get dirty doing it," Alys grumbled. "I'll give you sixty seconds to wash it off before I do."

Lilly dipped her head low into the bubbles, scrubbed her hair, and began to work the slime from her skin. It sloughed away, floating to the water's surface in thin layers. After what was definitely less than a minute, Alys yelled, "CORPSA!" and the younger fairy scurried back into the room, her arms laden with black and silver fabrics.

"I did the best I could," Corpsa gasped, looking at Lilly. "You look like a size upside-down pineapple."

Lilly sank lower into the ice-cold water. "Um, excuse me?"

"They'll fit fine." Alys set a towel at the edge of the tub. Lilly grabbed it, shivering, and rose from the water.

"If you ever want a boost," started Corpsa thoughtfully as Lilly shook out her wet hair, "I know a great doctor who could lift your bosom for a great price."

Lilly quickly wrapped the towel around her body. "You mean like...boob surgery?"

"I wouldn't call it surgery so much as altering. But I do believe the proper term is breast lift."

"I'm thirteen!"

"I was eight when I had my first breast lift."

"Enough," snapped Alys, snatching the pile of clothes from Corpsa and shoving at Lilly. "Dress. Grab an eyeball bar from the table in the back, then find a shoe size that fits you out there. Corpsa will braid your hair back for you while you eat." She handed Lilly the clothes: a silk shirt, tightly fitting stretchy pants, and black undergarments. "After that, follow the string of kids up the slope to the pond. Quickly." 

The clothes actually fit Lilly better than she expected. She had to adjust and roll and push here and there, but apparently, she was a size upside-down pineapple. While Corpsa plaited her hair into two double french braids so tight it hurt to lift her eyebrows, Lilly ate an eyeball bar. Even when Corpsa informed her it was six hundred calories of hard sugar-cured gibberkrab eyeball, Lilly ate the salty-sweet bar without complaint because she was so hungry, she felt that no food could repulse her. After she finished, she was ushered outside a large tent flap by another young girl, and she caught her first glimpse of the Shifter World beneath the reign of a swollen gold moon:

There were mountains in the distance, purple-black and touched by a thick cluster of colorful stars swirling downwards from the sky. There were hills, too, cresting into rocky points before dipping into breath-jerking valleys. Dense forest fringed this giant hilly clearing. Behind her, the tent shimmered orange and rippled like liquid in a ubiquitous yet brittle breeze only reserved for high mountains. The glow of the tent lit up the clearing, illuminating a hundred kids walking up a steep slope towards the top of the hill.

And the sky. Oh, the sky.

The sky was an explosion of dream-colors; silver stars and green wisps of ether-somethings and purple clouds with their soft edges gilded in the light of an imperfectly ovular golden moon. It was mystery and fantasia, this sky. Wonder on a perfect perch.

"I like looking at the stars, too." 

The voice was so crisp and loud in the blurry chatter from the kids walking up the slope that Lilly whirled around with a star to see a girl perhaps Lilly's own age. Her black hair was tied back into a high, tight ponytail. Her skin was the terra-cotta brown of loam right after a good rain, and her eyes were fixated on Lilly with a gaze so potent she feared this girl was trying to read her mind. 

"Yeah," Lilly replied, a little dazed by the intensity of the girl's stare. 

"Did I scare you?" The girl's lips quirked into a small smile.

"Um...yes? I mean no. No. Definitely not." 

"Grandpops says I can't sneak up on people because they get scared," the girl said softly. Her voice was dreamy and sounded a hundred thousand miles away. "Will you walk up the slope with me?" 

Lilly did, and they melded into the throng of people moving up the hill. When they reached the crest, Lilly could make out a not-quite-circular pond. Although Alys had mentioned a pond, Lilly had not expected just a pond. She'd expected a military base, a Gothic church, an anything. But here was just...a pond in a clearing on the top of a hill beneath a gorgeous sky.

A band of over a hundred kids crowded around the pond's bank. Lilly and the other girl joined them. It then struck her, having brushed up against several other people, that nobody was talking anymore. Every person here was silent, still...as if they were waiting for a president or a solemn preacher to give an introduction. More kids flooded the banks of the pond from the tent in the valley below. They came in waves, descending from chatter to eerie-silence once they reached the bank of the pond. 

She felt magic's charge again...that second pulse, the quiver of a trapped butterfly beneath her wrist.

Lilly would have missed it if the girl beside her had not gasped in surprise: The pond began to bubble.

Lilly would learn in time that water feels magic in the way people do, like fluttering wings inside an organ. She would also learn that water yields to magic's thoughts, so when magic has a request, waves are formed. Over and over again, waves churn up from the depths of oceans, lakes, and rivers, foamy with obedience to the magical current slithering through the invisible veins of the world.

In the pond, bubbles rose to waves, so sudden and harsh everyone on the banks stepped back. These waves were restless, rising twelve feet in the air before doubling over and crashing in foamy explosions.

And then Elliott Way rose from the pond.

The spires came first. They twisted like drills slicing through the pond's black surface, each fifteen feet high. There were eight in total.

The way the rest of the building moved out from the water was a poetic, seamless thing. The sound of it was like musical score at its zenith, the grandest crescendo of a symphony. Waves lapped, crashed, curved, rippled like percussion on steroids. Wind whistled like the shrill cry of a piccolo. Tall rises and archways gained momentum and rose. And rose. And rose.

Wind gushed through the clearing, a gust so strong it yanked Lilly's two braids back. Gasps from the kids burst through the magic-charged air because when the wind touched the building, etchings formed on Elliott Way's surface.

The carvings began on the russet-colored entrance doors. The wind acted as an invisible stylus, carving drawings into Elliott Way's smooth black stone walls. Gold light rushed through the intricate channels carved through the wood, much like a river filling a thousand tiny little chasms, and the gold was a deeper, warmer color than the waxy paleness of the moon. Lilly could hardly make them out, but they looked like pictures, and they spread over every square inch of wall that made up Elliott Way...surface to surface, roof to base, spire to foundation. It lit up Elliott Way in a way no candles or lamps ever could.

"They're stories!" the girl next to Lilly gushed in astonishment. And, now that she mentioned it, Lilly realized the carvings did look like stories. There were too many to point out one exact storyline, but if she looked closely she could see butterflies turning to caterpillars and horses riding on knights' backs, princes and princesses dueling one another, trees growing upside down—

Next came the bridges.

Lilly didn't have time to grasp what was going on. All she could do was watch and think magic as she clutched at the hem of her new training shirt. Ten bridges sprang from the bank of the pond to the soil and the flowers unearthing themselves around the building. Land spread around Elliott Way's perimeter for several yards before ebbing away to the water; the bridges served as a way to get across the pond. Wildflowers burst over the bridge railings and planks, glowing a lavender so bright they looked like beacons. Mushrooms corkscrewed their way through the plants between the planks of the bridges, radiating a luminescent mosaic of a hundred different colors.

Glowing plants. Backward stories. Buildings rising from lakes.

"Gristin," the girl beside Lilly whispered breathlessly. "This is...this is..."

Lilly wasn't sure what the word Gristin meant, but she felt the same way. Wasn't this what she created in her dreams at night? Wasn't this the piece of her soul she'd been missing when she'd felt the practical pressing tight around her mind? When the uncreative teachers in Eldnac chained her imagination up like a prisoner? This was magic. This was decadent exhilarating imagination turned real. 

In the swing and swirl of this magic, Lilly felt the strange yet overwhelming sense of home. The fear from the earlier events of the day eddied...ever-present, but subdued. Melissa would be fine, Mr. Ecscent would take care of her, she could do this whole soldier-keeping-magic-a-secret thing after all...everything felt like it would be okay.

A series of cracking and snapping came from behind the crowd gawking at Elliott Way. Two hundred kids whirled as one to face a ruler-straight row of adults. With Lilly's back to Elliott Way, she could see how the training facility illuminated the landscape with opalescent apparitions that flickered in tune to Elliott Way's pulsating glow. 

Nearly forty adults stood in the row, every single one of them lit up in angelic gold. Each of them, save for the three in the very middle, wore a red vest with gold buttons, varying badges stitched down the pressed tailored uniforms.

"Welcome to Elliott Way," said one of the adults in the middle. She spoke in a way that made Lilly think of crowns and assassins. She wore a white vest with silver buttons and a single pin at her breast. Her black hair was split into a thousand braids, only noticeable by the glittering rings embellishing the body of her twisted locks. She was tall and had skin the same shade as her hair. Her makeup—silver, glittering, space-like—glinted like jewels when it caught the light. "My name is Instructor Amaranth, one of the three Board Members running this facility. We're not here to kill you, but we will murder muscles and mindsets and start building you from scratch." She gestured to the two men on either side of her. One was stocky and looked a little like a frog in his drooping facial features. The other was tall, young, and pale. Both wore bright blue doublets fastened to the throat with yellow buttons. 

The frog-like one grinned. His teeth were yellow. "I'm Instructor Sankem. We are, as a matter of fact, here to hurt you. In every way possible. You'll work through the pain—"

"—But we won't torture you," the paler, younger Board Member said. "My name is Instructor Centurie. A thing about being tortured here in Elliott Way: that's something you'll do all on your own. You should want to be good enough. You should want to be better than you were the day before. That sort of torture makes you a good warrior."

Instructor Sankem nodded in agreement. "My granny once cut off her opponent's balls in an arena, back when training required you to cut people's balls off if you wanted to be better than your opponent."

"Balls," the girl beside Lilly repeated, weighing the word in her mouth. She gasped. "Like—"

"But if any of you purposefully cut off anyone's body parts during your time here, I'll personally see to it that you are severely punished," Instructor Amaranth said, shooting Instructor Sankem a glare. "You're all magic-smiths. You create, control, form. We're here to train you for the upcoming war against the Acids. Currently, Acids are not as prominent of a threat because of the beasts, as I'm sure you're all well aware. Acids have retreated into their underground cities, but that means we get a headstart in training you. Elliott Way can be dangerous, and that means there are three ground rules that will undergo strict consequences if not respected. The first one should be obvious."

"Respect," Instructor Sankem said. "Respect instructors, respect peers, respect these three rules, respect Elliott Way, respect magic, respect your bodies."

"The second rule," continued Instructor Centurie, "is that any instructor here has the right to discipline in any way they see fit, assuming that way doesn't cause broken limbs or death. However, Instructor Stevia has been known to cut off earlobes." 

"And the last rule," Instructor Amaranth finished, "firmly asks you not to leave Elliott Way under any circumstance. You're kids, I understand that. It's tempting to explore, but please keep to Elliott Way. Acid soldiers may have gone into hiding, but homicidal elves, goblins who like to eat ear wax, the conundrum with the eleven beasts are all violent and prominent threats. Are we clear?"

People nodded. No voices rang out.

"You all look terrified," Instructor Sankem said. He exchanged a look with Instructor Centurie; both of their faces broke into grins.

Instructor Amaranth shook her head. "Ignore their smirks. A little fear is good—gets the blood pumping. Why don't we start with an exercise?"

A half-second later, an explosion of water came hurtling out of the pond. It burned bright blue and roared as it passed above the crowd's heads—two hundred kids ducked—and crashed right in front of the three Board Members.

The water shifted. It sprouted arms and legs, stretched nimble fingers, tossed a large helmeted head...it metamorphosed until it stood high on two armored legs. It looked like a knight composed of water, a shield in one fist, a sword strapped to its waist.

Lilly swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. 

"Here at Elliott Way, you'll learn many things about your powers, things we could never teach you," Instructor Centurie said. "Things you'll have to feel through practice, fighting, and exploration. One such time to practice would be now. I want all of you to partner up with someone. Each of you will take a spot in the clearing here and practice turning the water knights back into their original state."

Whispers raced through the crowd. The girl next to Lilly inhaled sharply. Lilly stretched her fingers. What would happen if the instructors found out she could steal things from space? Would they send her away, lock her up? What would they do with Melissa if they knew she'd knowingly kept Lilly's magic a secret? What would they do to Mr. Ecscent?

No. She wouldn't think negatively. Things were going to be okay. They needed to be okay. 

Instruct Amaranth threw up a hand. "All of us will be watching carefully. A suggestion: Do not treat this as a life-or-death situation. Treat this as a way to explore your magic, but know these water knights love the taste of blood."

"Call them vampire water knights," Instructor Sankem added through his wicked smirk. 

"In other words," Instructor Centurie said, "please be careful."

Jets of water suddenly burst from the lake in twos and threes and fours. A minute later, there were a hundred water knights stationed in a semi-circle around the field.

"Partners?" the girl next to Lilly asked. 

"Sure, but do we have a plan?"

"Of course we do! Fight to the death. I'm Kaitlynn, by the way. That's Kaitlynn with two ns. I think it's very nice to have double letters in a name, don't you? It's such a unique thing."

"Um...yeah." Lilly averted her gaze to the field to get a sense of what other people were doing, but her vision was blocked by a giant water knight sauntering towards her and Kaitlynn. It was tall and translucent, tossing a shimmering sword between its watery hands. 

"Oh," Kaitlynn said. "Hello."

The water knight jabbed its sword forward. Kaitlynn and Lilly dove in opposite directions as the knight leapt forward. It turned on Kaitlynn, who threw her hands forward in defense. She spun—she literally twirled like a dancer—and water whooshed from her fingertips with so much force, Lilly could feel the wind it produced from four feet away. The jet of water hit the knight square in the chest, and the knight flew backward.

Kaitlynn smiled, hands on her hips. Lilly, who was still on the ground, propped herself up on her elbows. "That was fun. Oh! I forgot to ask what your name was."

"Lilly." She scrambled to her feet and wiped her hands on her pants. 

"Like the flower! Did your mom name you after the orchid?"

"I never got a chance to ask her." Lilly watched as the water knight drew itself to its full height, twirling the sword in one hand. If the knights were made of water, did that mean the sword was made of water, too? Would the sword merely hit the body like a water splash? 

The knight sprang, and Lilly didn't care if that sword was made of water. It was big and sharp-looking all the same.

Lilly ducked; the knight's sword sliced the air with a high-pitched whistle that told Lilly water wasn't the only thing that made up the weapon. The knight dropped the sword and caught the hem of Lilly's shirt instead. Lilly lost balance and staggered into its steel-plated body.

The water must have materialized into metal or something, because the knob of Lilly's skull hit the knight's chest hard. Pain radiated from the back of her skull into her eyes. 

Kaitlynn flicked her wrists outwards; water exploded from her palms, twin fountains of silver. The knight shoved Lilly out of the way and raised its sword. Lilly whirled just in time to see how Kaitlynn's reflected the blow. 

It...refracted. Reacted. Retracted.

Kaitlynn's water morphed into the shape of eight large butterflies that flew off into the night sky. 

"Woah," Lilly panted.

Kaitlynn gasped, "That's never happened before."

The knight brought its sword down in a sweeping arc, bringing it level with Lilly's head. She ducked again, and this time, in her crouch, she lurched forward and clasped her arms around the knight's legs.

"The sword!" Lilly gulped. "Get the sword!"

It was very possible she would have gotten a blade plunged through her spinal cord if Kaitlynn hadn't grabbed the knight's wrists and yanked upwards. Lilly figured it was also possible that the knight let the sword go because it was so shocked someone was clinging to its legs.

Lilly tugged the knight's legs out from under it; the knight toppled onto its back. She clambered on top of the creature, ripped off its helmet, and began pounding the knight's face with her fists.

She felt like a wildfire had been loosed inside her. 

Jolts of what felt like static electricity shot out from her knuckles, invisible to the naked eye. Later, she learned that every time her fist had slammed against the creature's face, pulses of radiation stolen from somewhere in the universe had quaked through the knight's body, which ultimately caused the knight to melt back into water and soak into the ground.

When the knight dissipated into the earth, Lilly got to her feet, panting. Kaitlynn exclaimed, "That was so cool! You went all—" she punched the air, "—and—" she did several ninja chops, "—and the sword was all like whoosh and whish and my water turned to butterflies! Lilly—is that Lilly with two ls?—what an amazing way to start off our training!"

Lilly was sweating, gulping, and laughing. "I spell my name with two ls. We did it. Kaitlynn, we did it. You...I would've had a blade through my back if you didn't grab the sword. Thank you!"

As the minutes wore on, other partnerships battled their water knights...and they were winning. Fire, winking water-made swords, and the knights glittered in Elliott Way's glow. Plants sprang up from the earth's belly and wrapped around the knights' ankles. Pillars of fire swallowed knights whole. The air had turned humid, and Lilly's wrists were alive with magic's fluttering current. 

She witnessed this all with childlike, absolute wonder.

Childlike, absolute wonder is the sort of wonder one does not normally feel unless all stress is taken away from the heart. It's the kind of wonder that shakes bones right down to raw marrow and brings tears to eyes because, Lilly realized, right now, in this moment, everything was okay.

Any terror she had felt that morning had vanished with this sudden rush of new joy, this wonder, this hopefulness that came from simply witnessing something as magical as kids battling knights and water turning to butterflies and buildings rising from ponds with glowing stories carved on their surfaces.