“Pick a card, any card,” Miranda says, fanning out our deck of homemade flashcards in front of me. She’s used that same line so many times that I’m starting to wonder if she’s woven some subtle magic through it, to make this feel like a game instead of a grueling cram session. We’re sitting in the grass of the north quad at the Western College of Locks and Keys, testing the limits of a limitless pot of coffee and waiting...

Nathan “Please stop looking so glum, you two,” Professor Chicory tells us, tapping a stack of papers against her desk. “This happens all the time.” Professor Chicory’s personal office has a recessed floor, so that she can stand at her full eight-foot height at one side of her desk, and Ruby and I can sit at the other, with our faces level with hers. She looks strangely less intimidating this close up. Her centaur hooves c...

Nathan Miranda and I lead Ruby from the dorms to the parking lot, and then halfway across town to a little suburb in the northern valley. Or rather, Oakley leads us there. Ruby stays on her trail at a careful distance, only occasionally catching up into visual range to confirm that it’s still Oakley we’re chasing. The watch is still with her. Whenever I worry that Ruby might be getting too scared to continue, she gives me...

Ruby Oakley has been given an emergency housing transfer, and her status as a WCLK student is under official review. For the first time since I arrived on campus, I can lock my bedroom door and go to bed feeling safe. I’m sure to be assigned a new roommate soon, but as Nathan keeps reminding me whenever I get nervous about it, they’re practically guaranteed to be a step up. Our midterm project hasn’t officially been grade...

It’s a relief to know that my chastity belt can recognize what’s going on, if belatedly, and I’m not in danger of literally crushing myself. Still, any idle fantasies I might have harbored about whispering, “The sky is red, water is dry” to myself in my room, just to see what it feels like to be comically well-endowed, evaporate within hours of bearing the curse. The smallest of fibs add up shockingly quickly. After just...