Magic Unseen (Exile Academy Book 1) Read online

  Magic Unseen

  Exile Academy Book One

  J.S. Diaz

  Copyright © 2020 by J.S. Diaz

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Acknowledgments

  This story took a village. Thank you so much to Fern, Emily, Kris and Betacritique for your time and energy. I am eternally grateful for your little bit of magic.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  FREE Story

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  High school didn’t prepare me for having control and dominion over water. To be fair, I didn’t learn any traditional life skills either. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  It’s your birthday, Ascensión! was the subject line of the first email I opened that morning. I wondered exactly who at Waffle Emporium crafted that sentence. Clearly someone who had never wished another human being good tidings on a special day. Did this person misunderstand the task of well-wishing, or did they simply conflate it with the stating of a fact?

  If I cared about trivial crap like birthdays, I might be bummed that a faceless chain who managed to get me on their mailing list would be my only acknowledgment that I turned eighteen. But, I don’t. So I’m not.

  I know what you’re thinking. Just accept the happy birthday from your local diner and go collect your free pancakes. Good advice.

  Slamming my dinosaur of a laptop shut, I rolled out of bed. Luckily, nothing was ever more than a couple of feet away from me in my studio apartment. My bedroom, living room, and dining room were all the same place. The enormous, olive green, bean bag couch I picked up at a second-hand store served as a bed, sofa, and chair. Convenient.

  Glancing at my phone, I decided I had just enough time to do something special on the true MVP of the year. Free bulk pick up day. Tucking my pajama pants into my high-top Converse and throwing a hoodie over my t-shirt instead of putting on a bra, I picked up the two moving boxes I’d been holding onto for just this occasion. Having decided I was going to ask for a promotion at work today, it really was a red-letter day for me.

  When I stepped out into the breezeway of my u-shaped apartment complex, I didn’t care that my long, brown hair was still in the messy bun I’d slept in. Standing at the top of the stairs, I hesitated. The boxes were heavier than I anticipated, and tripping on concrete stairs wasn’t on my to-do list.

  “Need a hand?” Trent asked.

  For a moment, I considered pretending I hadn’t heard him, but my head had already swiveled around at the sound of his voice. Damn it, muscle memory. At six-foot-four, he was nearly a foot taller than me. I craned my head up to see his blue eyes glittering in the south Florida sunlight.

  “I’m good,” I replied, holding the boxes closer to my chest and turning away from him. He wasn’t going to dazzle me with those pretty eyes or glossy, black hair wet from the shower.

  “Come on, Ace. It’s not a blemish on your independent woman card to let me help,” he said, his deep voice vibrating in his chest as he easily snatched both boxes out of my hands and started down the stairs without me.

  I narrowed my eyes. Trent might’ve acted with the intention to help, but his tone and the obnoxious way he carried the stupid boxes so easily infuriated me. If his legs weren’t so long, he wouldn’t have beaten me down three flights of stairs.

  “I didn’t accept your help,” I said, breathless as I tried to snatch the boxes out of his grasp. He held them above his head as he took long strides toward the curb.

  I gritted my teeth, hating how small and powerless he always made me feel. As if he were some big brother playing keep-away with a megawatt smile and probable good intentions.

  Nearly jogging to keep up with his wide gait, we crossed the half-empty parking lot before stopping on the sidewalk. The curb was stacked high with broken furniture, outdated electronics, and more than one stained mattress haphazardly wrapped in plastic. I hadn’t been the only one waiting for bulk trash day.

  Dumping my boxes on a tilted computer chair that had seen better days before a cat got a hold of it, he took the liberty of opening the top box. “Why are you throwing this away?”

  I slammed the box closed and pushed him back. His thick body, muscly only at the biceps, remained unmoved. “None of your business. Do I go through your trash and ask questions?”

  Trent swatted my hand away like I hadn’t spoken. “Yeah, but I don’t throw away trophies. Look at all this shit. Ribbons, metals, plaques. Did you really win all of this?”

  Sweat rolled down my back. The hoodie had been a mistake. Even in autumn, Miami was uncomfortably hot and humid. “It is none of your business,” I repeated, this time enunciating each word carefully as if we’d had a failure to communicate the first time.

  “You never told me you were a swimmer,” he commented, ignoring me as I pulled uselessly at his hands. “Is that you? What the hell is a Screeching Opossum?”

  Trent was holding a framed picture of my high school swim team. I was standing in the middle of the group of matching black and gray bathing suits. My hair was shorter then, and my mom had convinced me to wear it in two braids. The sight of my own smile made my heart ache. I couldn’t take the reminder of a life long gone.

  Without a word, I snatched the frame from his hands and tossed it into the box before slamming the lid closed and wishing I’d taped it shut. Stomping away wasn’t the best look, but I couldn’t stand for him to see the unwanted tears welling up in my eyes.

  I raced up the stairs, ignoring the burning in my thighs. Before I could catch a glimpse of the street, I bolted toward my front door. If he was still poking around in my graveyard, I didn’t want to know.

  An hour later, I was showered and changed into my very sexy, black, slip resistant clogs, very flattering black pants, and a tucked in white t-shirt. I know this might be difficult, but try not to drool.

  I must have been inspired by my old photo because before I knew it, I had styled my wet hair into two French braids, one on each side of my head. In a rare moment of vanity, I added a little eyeliner and mascara that made my brown eyes look reddish. If it hadn’t been for my tragic uniform, I’d almost admit I looked cute.

  Throwing on my red leather jacket and backpack with clean clothes for after work, I slipped on my bike helmet before grabbing a big orange bowl filled with candy off the kitchenette counter
. I popped a little Trick or Treat sign in the middle, ready to set it on the plant stand I’d borrowed from the neighbor. This Halloween, I’d splurged on name brand goodies in an effort to avoid my front door getting pelted with eggs. Giving in to terrorists’ demands wasn’t optimal, but I couldn’t spend two hours of my life cleaning off the mess. Not again.

  When I opened my front door, I was greeted by a panting delivery guy stomping up the stairs. “Do you people not have elevators?” he asked, airing out his polo shirt.

  “Allegedly,” I replied noncommittally. It had taken me a while to get used to the incline too, but over a year in, the lack of elevator didn’t bother me anymore.

  “Are you 3G?” he asked, wiping the sweat from his chubby face. Before I could answer in the affirmative, he looked down at the large envelope in his hands. His eyebrow furrowed as he lost countless brain cells trying to pronounce my name. “Miss de la Cruz?” he said after surely finding my first name unpronounceable.

  “Guilty,” I replied before accepting the package and signing his screen.

  Looking at the sender, I could have cursed, but I sighed instead. Touché, universe. Waffle Emporium wasn’t the only entity that cared that I’d reached legal adulthood. The State of Florida was on notice too.

  Riding my bike out of my complex, where the state helped all of us pay rent, I sped past the quickly changing landscape. Thanks to the never-ending thirst for more tall, glassy, high-rises, we were one of the last bastions for the broke to live near Biscayne Bay. With salt-spray in my nostrils and warm wind in my face, I’d forgotten all about my shitty birthday.

  Twenty minutes later, I was chaining my bike to the fence outside the back entrance to Abacus, a fancy farm-to-table type deal in the heart of downtown Miami. I took a last deep inhale of clean air and caught a glimpse of the dimming sun before it disappeared over the skyscrapers. It was a final respite before ten hours in the dish pit.

  I’d barely had time to put away my stuff in the lockers along the back wall near the kitchen when Andy walked in behind me. As soon as I smelled his cheap, musky cologne, my lip twitched.

  “Hey, Ass, I didn’t know you’d be working tonight,” he said before clanging open his usual locker. “Shouldn’t you be scaring kids while riding around on your broom tonight?” His thin mustache, connected to an equally thin goatee, poked up at an awkward angle while he chuckled to himself. Carlos, his friend for inexplicable reasons, had the decency to elbow him in the ribs and shake his head.

  Carlos smiled at me apologetically. “I’m sorry, Ace. He’s a dick.”

  “Aww, no.” I smiled wide and bright, causing confusion in Carlos’ dark brown eyes. “That would be such an insult to dicks.”

  I turned to grab a clean, white apron while Carlos laughed behind me. I didn’t need to look at Andy to know he was seething. He was the kind of guy who called girls bitches for politely and gently turning down his request for a date. I still had the text to prove it.

  “Shit,” Andy cursed under his breath. “I forgot my shoes.”

  Carlos shook his head. “That’s why I come dressed man. You can’t forget anything that way.”

  I tried so hard to keep my smirk to myself. I failed.

  “Tony!” I called for the manager as soon as he stepped out of his office. By the tablet in his hand, I knew he was about to have the pre-dinner meeting with the front of the house. I needed to hurry.

  “What’s up, Ace?” He made a valiant effort to hide has lack of enthusiasm. “I literally have one minute,” he said, looking down at his expensive smart watch.

  I resisted the urge to make a joke about him being a one-minute man. Relieving the tension with my usual coping mechanism wasn’t worth the ding for being inappropriate.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the line cook position. I know yesterday was Juan’s last day and I wanted to—”

  “I’m sorry,” he interrupted me, looking more embarrassed than apologetic. “I gave the spot to Andy yesterday.”

  He whispered to me in Spanish that he didn’t know I was interested, even though that was a lie. I’d told him multiple times before I didn’t want to die in the dish pit. I let it go, and he insisted that if it didn’t work out with Andy, he’d definitely give me a shot. That was probably a lie too.

  His use of Spanish was obnoxious for two reasons. First, we were in Miami. Almost everyone spoke Spanish regardless of heritage, so he wasn’t being slick or conspiratorial. Second, I didn’t like feeling manipulated. As if having grandparents who fled to America well before either of us existed made us instant confidants.

  I couldn’t let him finish spinning his bullshit. “You know this is the second time you’ve passed me up for that job. Does it have anything to do with the fact that I’m the only woman in the back?”

  His face was a changing pattern of colors and emotions like a cuttlefish camouflaging against a coral reef. “No, of course not,” he stammered once he landed on ghostly pale. “Ace, you’re one of my best . . .”

  I walked away. It wasn’t the night for lame excuses. Set up in front of my three sinks, one full of soap, the middle clean water, and the last sanitizer, I popped in my headphones and cracked my knuckles.

  With the practiced ease of a drummer playing a solo or a gymnast doing a routine, I scrubbed and washed and rinsed with music blaring in my ears. When I’d first started working as a dishwasher, my entire body would get sore. It hadn’t been just my feet aching, which I’d expected from standing on a rubber mat ten to twelve hours a day, but it was my back, arms, and legs too.

  Until I’d started, I had no idea what a physical job it would be. Eight months later, I was a pro. As I moved with the ease of a flag twisting in the breeze, my hands immersed in the nearly scalding hot water, I was a machine.

  My body buzzed from the adrenaline. Keeping up with the never-ending tide was an exhilarating challenge. Kind of like high-stakes Tetris where everyone is waiting for you to finish so they can start.

  I know it’s lame. Don’t judge me, okay?

  It wasn’t that I was ignorant to the water pooling at my feet; it just wasn’t out of place. Restaurant kitchens, especially ones as busy as ours, are wet places. Things fall on the floor, water spills from the sink, and not-quite-dry dishes leave droplets everywhere, which was why there were black mats covering nearly every inch of the floor and why we spent an hour and a half cleaning the place after service.

  But for reasons I never want to really dive into for fear of what I might find, I felt that trickle of water. It was like a length of string uncoiling around my feet.

  There are a few things I know for sure. One, it was not my fault Andy wasn’t wearing proper kitchen shoes that would’ve kept their grip when he walked through a slippery puddle. Two, it was not my fault he was struggling to keep up on his first night as a line cook. Three, it was definitely not my fault that he was bouncing around reaching for things in his station while holding a very sharp knife when he stepped between two mats that weren’t perfectly aligned.

  So even though objectively speaking none of that could’ve been my fault, an acrid pang of guilt still turned my stomach and made me nauseated when Andy fell and sliced open his palm. When he hurled the most vile, sexist insult at me when I rushed to his side with a towel, I felt a little less guilty about taking his job.

  The sun was rising over the dark blue waters of Biscayne Bay when I finally peeled off my sweaty work clothes and pulled on a pair of leggings and a clean t-shirt. After the service, the guys in the kitchen stayed behind to teach me some basics. My first night as a line cook hadn’t been disastrous, but I was green and it showed. I’d tried to give them my share of the tips for the night, but they wouldn’t hear of it.

  Until that night, I hadn’t realized I wasn’t invisible there. It was a good feeling, like warm maple syrup moving slowly through my chest. Climbing on my bike and leaving the groggy, wakening city behind, I decided on the Waffle Emporium for a belated birthday breakfast.

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; After breakfast, I’d caught a second wind. With the strange kind of adrenaline that’s only possible in sleepless youth, I stopped at the grocery store to collect a dozen items on the list buried at the bottom of my backpack. An hour later, my bike was loaded and I was walking it too Apartment 1A.

  “Morning. Miss Marsha!” I called through the screen door. The front door was open, letting out the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the sounds of the morning news.

  Max, a little gray poodle jumped at the doorknob on the other side of the screen while he barked as if hoping he could open the door out of sheer willpower. “Hey, buddy, bet you’ve been waiting for me,” I whispered to him through the mesh.

  Marsha, an elderly woman with dark skin and cropped salt and pepper hair, made her way slowly to the door. Judging by her housecoat and slippers, she couldn’t have been waiting on me very long. She let me in, and I put away her groceries while she finished her modest breakfast. When I was done, I took Max out on a slightly shorter walk than usual, though I promised him I’d walk him extra in the evening.

  When we returned, Marsha was dressed and sitting at her usual station, a chair right by her front door where she could watch everyone coming and going all day. When I first moved in, I thought Marsha was nosy, and she was a little. But then I realized that since she’d lived in the building for over fifty years, she felt it was her duty to watch over every resident of the Ivory Court Apartment Complex no matter what. When her kids grew up and bought their own homes, they begged her to move with them. It had been a big fuss, she’d told me while laughing. But, through health scares and two attempted burglaries, she’d remained steadfast. They’d have to carry her out when the Man Upstairs called her, she’d said. With a laugh she’d added that she hoped the paramedics that declared her dead were cute. For an old lady, she was surprisingly raunchy.