Chapter 18

            “Acacia! Wake up!” Acacia awoke to loud pounding outside her door. “Coming!” she called back. Claris stood outside the doorway, dressed in a sky-blue tunic and a brown skirt, plus black boots. She threw a red shirt, black shimmery skirt, and black leggings to Acacia.

            “Get dressed, quick. Annice wants to show you something,” Claris explained. Acacia tossed her clothes on, brushed her teeth, and rushed out of her room to meet Claris.

            “Where are we going?” Acacia asked when Claris led her down a hallway she hadn’t seen the night before. “To Annice’s room,” Claris answered. They went down the next left corridor and turned right, which opened to a white, golden framed door. Shouts of excitement and shock bounced off the walls.

            Claris pushed the door open, and Acacia was sure she’d squeaked, because, wow. Instead of the brown ropey tail that Annice had, it was now a thinner, black one, with upside-down blackish separated hearts lining the way to the smallest heart at the very tip, which turned out to be a stinger.

            “Whoa, what happened to your tail?” Acacia gaped. Annice laughed and spun her new scorpion-contraption around in the air, sending everyone ducking to the floor. “Sorry. I guess it changed shape and size overnight, and I woke up with this!” Annice gestured at her tail.

            “Yay?” Acacia pumped an unenthusiastic fist in the air. Was she supposed to feel happy about this? Or scared that Annice had a stinger? Claris broke the silence by announcing that Annice should have an Ability Battle with her.

            Ability Battles were quite popular in Dyia. The battle took place when someone wanted to battle another person with his or her abilities, for a bet, or just for testing and fun. Claris was a Voicer (Superability) and a Timestopper (Magiability). But she could only use her Voicer Superability, because timestopping would freeze the entire planet they were on, and that would be utterly disastrous.

            Add that, versus a Tail ability and Electric Elemental . . . . This could only end well. “Aren’t we supposed to be discovering what made me stay alive when Gullen bit me?” Acacia reminded them.

            Annice brightened. “Lifea showed me to her library last night since she would be busy today. Follow me!” She gestured for them to come. “Lifea?” Acacia wondered out loud. Why would she help them if she wanted revenge? But at the same time, if they found out the answer soon, they could get home earlier . . . .

            “Welcome, to the—actually, I’m not sure what they call it, so . . . welcome, to Lifea’s Library!” Annice waved her arms around the wooden double-doors leading inside.

            It wasn’t as elegant or tall as Elvina’s Royal Library, but it was twice the width. The library’s shelves were also especially awesome, since they weren’t straight, but each shelf was twisted in a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree angle, just enough for a person to slip in and out.

            Two flights of curved stairs led up to a glass balconied, giant spiral shelf filled with all sorts of books. The curls of shorter shelves ended at a bean bag area, complete with three couches and blankets. Annice flopped onto a beanbag.

            “Lifea also searched the library personally last night, so all the books are here,” Annice dug through the pile, handing Acacia a yellowed scroll. “I read this before in our school’s library. Some of the books and scrolls are the same editions.”

                                                List of Elements:

Fire, Earth, Ice, Darkness, Light, Water, Electricity, Shadow, Air, Poison, Life, Magic

            “You think I’m a Poison Elemental?” Acacia murmured. Annice shrugged. “It’s pretty impossible, since people usually only have one Elemenability, but you have to admit it’s a solid theory, right?”

            Acacia nodded slowly. She didn’t entirely disagree, but . . . only one in a million people got two Elemenabilities. Annice’s theory was mostly correct though. It was probably an ability that saved her life. Just not a Poison Elemental.

            “Are there any other abilities, that are not Elemenabilities that could withstand a Scaler’s poisonous bite?” Acacia asked. Annice frowned, checking the purple-banded book again before saying, “I think there are, like um, Healer, and Resister, maybe a few others?”

            Claris slipped into a curl-shelf labelled ‘Abilities’. “I’ll search here!” Acacia sighed. Another library search. The past two days had been all about those. Which meant annoyingly boring walking around and reading. It felt like a waste. Especially when there turned out to be nothing.

            Around her fifth curl-shelf search, Bloome and Lifea entered the library. Both elves avoided Acacia’s eyes, especially Bloome, but now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that, so Acacia asked Lifea, “Did you find anything?”

            The elven girl shrugged. “Not really. Have you?”

            No. But Acacia had a valid theory. “Do you have anything in Sunhilde that can tell if someone has an ability?” Lifea glanced at Bloome. “We do,” she seemed so hesitant to use it, but when Bloome threw a longing look Acacia’s way, she said, “If you want to use it now, you can.”

            Lifea led their group out of her library and into the domed atrium. Swirls of metallic vines shot from the ground to the epicentre of the large dome, and a rainbow glass orb was nestled in the thick vines.

            “I know what that is!” Annice practically yelled, sprinting over to the metal vines. “That’s a Typearl!” Typearls were unique pearls found only at Seaside Sirenade, the home of the sirens. They could sense the type of ability someone who touched it was going to get. They could also tell how many abilities someone would get, so it was super popular among schools.

            Acacia had used it once, during her Dyia’s School of Magic entrance exam. That was how she knew she was going to get three abilities. But Principal Ganeo had refused to let her see what type of ability, so she didn’t know.

            “This is a very specific species of Typearl, called the Garo-bushiness Colisttosa, and it can sense exactly what ability you’re going to get,” Bloome explained. Claris raised an eyebrow as Annice squealed like she had just gotten her dream pet—a Fliox, basically a fox-like animal with miniature wings.

            “Just put your hand here,” Lifea instructed, grabbing Acacia’s hand. Lifea’s hand felt cold and bony to the touch, and Acacia winced at the shiver up her spine. Once her hand grazed the Typearl, it buzzed to life, humming with an electric sort of energy.

            The pinks on the rainbow pearl mixed with blue, becoming a violet-purple colour. The violets traced Acacia’s hand, and the pearl started to shake and heat up, and Acacia was sure it would explode until it let out a resounding ‘beep!’.

            Gears whirred and slowed as Acacia removed her hand and a word flashed across the screen. Even though they were a soothing sky-blue hue, and even though they faded away after two seconds, everyone still got a glimpse of the unheard words.

                                    ABILITY STATUS: UNDETECTABLE