There were still people going about their day, simulating the hustle of a true city, but everything seemed to be darker, and the air felt heavier. There was no honking of vehicles, or the sounds of people talking or any of the other loud sounds that would pollute a popular city. It was as if she were in a silent memory of a town now populated by ghosts and spirits. She looked around at the buildings made of various greys and whites and creams, a few shorter than a couple of storeys, perhaps five at the smallest, but all made in some sharp gothic style with gargoyles and griffin statues dotting every other building.
In the skyline were spirals and cathedrals with statues of weeping winged angels wielding ancient weapons decorating their entrances, pillars made in ancient Greek and roman style holding up ceilings of concrete molded into domes or around clocks that had arms that did not seem to move at all.
The streetlights were erect and straight, instead of the drooping kind that Andrea was used to seeing in a modern city, made of a black metal that looked like it was actually made of dark glass when one stared long enough, with burning candles surrounded on four sides of glass sat up top, the light they emitted unnaturally more than a candle ought to shine. In fact, everything that was metal around them was enameled black, including robots and guard railings and phone booths.
Phone booths? She gawked, what the hell is this world…?
In fact, this entire city seemed to be purposefully fashioned like that. Filled with modern versions of cars and people walking around in modern styled clothing that she would find in any other metropolitan city. Buildings had neon-styled signs advertising their name and what they sold, shops like convenience stores or vape stores and even a weed dispensary down the road from them. The few conversations she could hear were in modern speech and there were billboards promoting a new product or a new movie coming out this upcoming summer. But there were anachronisms in things like phone booths, the roads being cobbled instead of tarred, people walking around with sheathed-swords or shields, police officers mounted upon shadow steeds that blew out smoke from their large nostrils. It was as if Victorian London had been gentrified by hipsters, and it felt awful to admit, but she liked it. They stood at a roundabout, the center of which was a fountain of a female angel with large wings, wearing an actual bronze breastplate with a real bronze tipped spear in the right hand and a bronze-colored shield in her left. Greaves and guards covered her lower legs and forearm, and her feet were bound in leather boots.
From her empty eyes poured water, another display of weeping that made Andrea uncomfortable to look at, "Julian…. Where are we?" she asked in a dumbfounded tone, tempted to walk and see every part of this dark city that was lit by an unnatural trinity of moon, electricity and magic.
"This is Calriddia." He said, lightly grabbing her shoulder to guide her out the path of a man running faster than a human being ought to be able to, "We are late as is. We must hurry."
"How come we can't hear anything?" she asked, and he raised an eyebrow, a momentary expression of confusion painted on his face before he seemed to notice it too, "Apologies, it is of my own doing." He said, snapping his fingers to allow a wave of noise to crash down onto Andrea's ears, bringing the atmosphere of an urban city that had sorely been missing, "I prefer not to have my ears bombarded by nonsense. Which is why talking to you has been a hell of an experience."
She stuck her tongue out at him as they continued down the road filled with restaurants and art galleries on either side, Andrea finding it difficult to pull her eyes away from the instruments playing themselves in the corner of one restaurant filled with patrons laughing and conversing, as if such were an everyday thing. She felt Julian's large hand wrap around her arm, "Andrea." He spoke calmly, but she could detect the annoyance in his tone, "We are late."
"Sorry." she said sheepishly, following him as they began to ascend a hill.
Andrea had been terrified to speak again, lest he finally lose his temper with her and magic'd her out of existence, but the curiosity of all of it had gotten too much once they walked past a building with a scarlet eye with a black slit iris decorated upon its double marble doors.
"Does this city exist on like…. Some other dimension or something?"
Julian looked back over his shoulder towards her, "Yes, in a way, it does. There are a handful of magical cities around the world, a few hundred towns, and perhaps a thousand villages too. Usually, the fog is enough to keep people out, but for the big metropolitan areas like London, a little bit more creativity is needed…. Can you guess as to why?"
Andrea was beginning to tire as they reached the top of the hill, already feeling a little drowsy even after having just slept a good night's rest just recently, but the view of the city had been breath-taking enough to deem it all as worth it.
"I…. I am not sure…."
Julian sighed, "Well, more people mean a higher chance of discovery. As you know, some people have a strong enough connection to the Source to see things, usually not strong enough to see with much understanding, but just enough. If 1-in-100 ordinary people are touched enough to see at the very least something, those odds might be nothing in a large village or even middle-sized town, but you could imagine just how much more prevalent it would be in a city like London."
Andrea whistled, "The magic community in China or India must be having a tough time of it."
He almost smiled at that, "I would assume so. Have you noticed something in the air?"
She yawned, "Yeah, it…. Feels heavy and tastes weird."
Julian raised an eyebrow, "You cannot be already tired. You just slept."
She yawned once more and stretched, "Hey, I don't know what to say, but I've had a lot on my plate the past week. Cut me a break, Julian."
He did not look happy with her, more than usual, and the sight of his…. Annoyance? Irritation? Disappointment could not have been the right word, because he barely cared about her enough to have expectations in the first place, ate at her a little, "What? What did I do now, Julian?"
He turned to look ahead, pointing to the corner of the road where on the next road over, there were railings placed in the middle of the road, "This is the nearest stop for the Cabbage Cart, think of it as what you have in your San Francisco. This will bring you into town should you wish to spend some of your free time here, especially on weekends."
They arrived at the corner just in time for a cart to come barreling down the hill to stop right in front of them. He entered the cart before her, tapping a black card that he had pulled out of thin air against the wristband of the cart's driver before turning to look down at Andrea, "Come on, the trip will take us up to Camelot."
She stifled another yawn and joined him to sit towards the back, the only other people in the 33-seat sized cart was an old lady in a cloak busy having an impassioned argument with the cat in her lap, and a pair of twins sat silently next to each other in what looked to be the school's uniform.
"Why is the air thicker and heavier here?" Andrea asked as she took her seat next to him, "It feels like I'm wearing three extra layers of clothing."
Julian nodded his head, "It's called the Hide 'n Seek, colloquially. An area spell, focused on taking a little bit of magic from each occupant in the city, does so to fuel this dimension's magic to keep it existing the way it is. No amount of fog manipulation could ever match this."
Andrea could not stop the yawn from grabbing hold of her, and her eyes were beginning to get heavy, "Bruh, is this juju what has me so dead?"
"It shouldn't." He snapped, "There are far too many people in the city to even notice that you're losing any energy at all. It's the equivalent to a drop of blood, Andrea."
She frowned up at him, "Well, sorry if it's got me feeling some type of way, but I'm still new to this magic thing, remember?"
He did not answer, and so Andrea rolled her eyes and focused on the view of the city, to hell with him and his magical elitism, she thought, as the idea of sleep was thrown to the back of her mind by the wonderful view of the city. In the center was a white-marble building as big as any she had ever seen, a domed masterpiece with four angels standing tall and beautifully, carved out to perfection, with cherubs surrounding each of them and holding above their heads something glowing that looked like halos from where Andrea sat.
The dome was made of glass, with its sills and frames made of pure gold that glinted and gleamed the reflection of light sent by a moon that shone so brightly as to make the stars around it useless. Around the central marble building were a forest worth of the greys and whites and creams Andrea had seen before, and on the northern end was what looked like an army made up of trees with black bark and leaves, a terrifying version of nature's forests that she could not imagine any bird or bug would ever want to live in.
Or rather, imagine the birds and bugs that do….
There was a mountain range in the north-east that had a tower of jet-black in front of it that had that same scarlet eye with the black slit carved into it, but this time, the eye was bordered by a ring that had spikes sticking out of it, looking like a grunge version of the four cardinal points. Despite the grotesqueness of the sight, it took all her willpower to look away from a carved eye that seemed to be staring back at her.
"What the hell is that eye-thing about?" she asked Julian, half-surprised that he still was willing to answer her, "The Gods Eye." He said, placing a hand on her shoulder to force her to look elsewhere, "You are never to go anywhere that has that symbol. Even six feet near it, do you understand?"
Andrea looked at him with a raised eyebrow, "If it's that bad, why is it allowed in the city?"
Julian pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it, "You'll cover that more in your Religious Studies, and your Arcane History class as well. But in short, they are crazy religious cultists who worship the worst parts of the Source, the parts where the evils of man seem to have carved a place of their own."
Andrea gulped and did her best to avoid looking at the tower again, "No lie, that's a little creepy…. And so, do you believe in a god then?"
Julian folded his arms, "No."
She decided not to press him on the issue and instead focused on the other sides of the city. In the eastern part of it was another gothic styled building built up atop a hill with a faceless man statue holding up a torch that had a blue flame hovering above it, the flame looked no bigger than Andrea's fist from how far away she was, but must have been massive up close. Behind the man was something that looked like a coliseum but made in shining white marble with gold and silver dotted around it, a stadium fit for gods. Around them, she started to notice that the restaurants and small townhouses began to drift away, replaced by taller apartment buildings, and libraries and bookstores and even a few small malls here and there. Down the one street they passed came loud music and every building pestered by lines of young adults, a row of bars and clubs and lounges that Andrea was excited to visit as soon as she had the chance.
"Focus on your studies, Andrea." Julian said immediately, as if he was reading her mind, Wait! A terrifying realization dawned on her there and then, what if he was reading my mind?!
"Can you read minds?" she asked, and he looked up at her and raised an eyebrow, "Why do you ask?"
Andrea thought back over all the times that he seemed to do something that seemed like a reaction to a thought or observation of hers, and even then, whilst she was replaying all their interactions, he had a wry smile force its way onto his face, "Julian…."
He shrugged, "No, well…. If we're going by exact definition, then no. It's more like I have a spell active that…. Allows me to empathize more, like I can surmise what you are thinking off of what you are feeling. I noted your desire to go and have adventures upon Theresa Avenue through feeling your excitement when you saw it, less so that I read your actual thoughts."
Andrea raised an eyebrow at him, "No ways is the great Julian Nerva, god above men, using his magic to try and empathize with people."
He gazed down at his pocket watch again and stood up with her large suitcase in hand, "We're here."
The cart stopped as if he ordered it to, right outside a small stop with a large group of students waiting outside.
She followed after him nervously, nerves that only seemed to get worse when she noted the silence of the previously lively crowd upon Julian and her exit.
The group of young adults, the youngest of them looked no younger than seventeen, parted like the Red Sea to allow Julian to walk through the stop unimpeded, earning a few, "Good evening, Mr. Nerva"'s as they left the stop.
Andrea heard a few comments about her but tried her best to ignore them, but it was all too much for her first day, and it forced her to walk closer towards Julian, whose cold demeanor was now all of a sudden the warmest thing in this strange city.
"You're quite popular." She noted, as they walked past a few small houses and apartments that had flags and banners on them, invoking thoughts of the frat and sorority houses that Andrea always scoffed at, but a part of her kind of wanted to also experience.
"No," Julian answered bluntly, "I am just their headmaster, and a Nerva. It's more fear than popularity."
Andrea wanted to roll her eyes at him, but he had said it so matter-of-factly that she could not help but take him seriously, and so she followed after him in silence, walking past students either coming back from a night out, or heading out for a night out, all of them going out of their way to acknowledge Julian. They turned a corner, and before them was a large wall that was only eclipsed in height by a hedge and was separated into two by a large metal gate that had a turnstile next to it. Above the gate was an insignia of a woman's arm appearing out of a body of water, and in her hand gripped tightly was a shining sword.
The guards at the gate, previously disinterested in the people who came and went, were all on their feet when they saw Julian and scrambled to open the gate and stand at attention as he barely acknowledged their greetings and entered the campus. Andrea had believed that she had seen just about everything today but was left in awe at the school that greeted her. Before them were large fields of grass that were designated by the paint on their surface as to which sport they were for, with each corner of the massive field having courts of some sort to provide another alternative, like basketball or netball or tennis, with the one corner, to her eye, being filled with astro-turf most likely for field hockey.
The road that started from the gate curved around the field like the athletics track did, elevated on its northern side by a hill that led to a massive pavilion with a scoreboard firmly set upon its middle, with a set of Greek god-Esque statues wielding javelins and shot-puts on either side of the large scoreboard.
"This is gate E." Julian told her, "It will be the closest gate to the Cabbage Carts, and so whenever you wish to leave campus, I would advise taking this route."
He began to follow the road with her suitcase still in hand, somehow not even close to being a little out of breath like her. Andrea followed him, noting the rows of trees on their left that separated the road and fields from the large Olympic-sized swimming pools to their right. They soon arrived at the pavilion and walked beneath the Gods forever locked in competition, entering a pavilion that had a sort of two-level suite to their left, and bars and restaurants to their right, with the walls covered in dark brown boards filled with the names of individuals who had excelled at their respective sport. She searched long and hard but could not find Julian's name there, "Huh…. I thought that the great Julian Nerva would've at the very least gotten a spot on these boards."
She teased him, but he only reacted with the shaking of his head, "My schooling was done in France, obviously."
Andrea sheepishly shrugged, "I forgot. So…. Are your names on the boards of the French school?"
"No."
"Why not?" She pressed and was slightly annoyed by the sigh that left his mouth, "I don't much like sports…. well, no, that is not true, I do. But they were beginning to become all too time consuming, pulling me away from mastering my magic."
That answer made Andrea frown, "But… sports are supposed to be fun, y'know, the kind of thing you look to do away from all the serious stuff."
He snorted at that, "Fun? You're in competition with other people, how could that ever be just fun. Fifteen other boys on a rugby field, or eleven on a soccer field, or even one other person in squash or tennis, makes no difference the number, I never found any fun in losing."
"Well, I mean," Andrea scrambled for words, "It's more about the activity and…. Stuff, y'know, not just the result Bruh."
Julian scoffed as he opened the door for her to exit the pavilion and enter a pathway made in the middle of a beautiful garden awash with an army of colors that she had never seen on flowers before, "The result is everything, elsewise why have one at all?"
She cocked her head at him, "You're a strange dude, do you know that? Like why are you wired the way that you are?
"I do not know," he said, "But it was something that vexed your mother greatly, if memory serves."
She usually was annoyed whenever he brought up her mother, but this time, Julian had said it in a more…. Sad wouldn't be the right word, Andrea thought, she couldn't imagine Julian Nerva being anything other than smug or bored.
"Did you love her?" she asked, after the two had walked through the pathway, Andrea reaching out to touch a flower as large as her hand, its petals a beautiful mix of white and blue. Julian did not answer her immediately, but even just the day she had spent with him had taught her that he would eventually, once he had thought over his words correctly, "I do not know." He finally said, the pathway long gone as they entered a hallway to an interior that looked like some fancy boarding school was made from some medieval castle. There were blue and red and yellow lockers pressed against light grey and white walls, with corners decorated with small statues of either griffons or sphinxes or lions.
"She…. I do not remember spending so much time with someone and not being bored by them." Julian nodded, "So perhaps I did."
She stopped and looked up at him, looking into those big eyes that were too pretty to call empty and forced to meet his blank stare by the instinctual pull in her gut, "Julian…. Are you my father?"