I arrived at the Wus' with simultaneously the most and least luggage I have ever brought on a road trip. To a nonmagical person who didn't know the score, I had nothing with me but a small yellow backpack. In reality, that backpack had 3000 square feet of capacity, and I had a second storage space the size of a walk-in closet in my ring - and that doesn't count the extradimensional spaces I stored inside my extradimensional spaces.

  Despite looking underpacked, I was ready for a four-day road trip. I had books, games, music playlists, and the best snacks I have ever brought on a road trip (because time does not pass for items in my backpack and ring, keeping hot food hot and cold food cold). This was the first time I road tripped without a cooler, but also the first time I road tripped with ice cream cones and steaming, foamy lattes as snacks. Somehow, the lattes didn't even tip over inside my ring and the ice cream didn't get on anything else.

  The ring was among the items Crystal and Tansy piled into the kitchen the day - or rather, one of the days - we looted Grandma's house. It took my mother five more days to look for the keys, and by that time, I had helped myself.

  After reading Grandma's letter, Crystal and I found her list of supplies I would need for school. It was heavy on gardening, animal care, and potions supplies: a trowel, gardening gloves, a silver knife, a steel knife, a mortar and pestle, a cauldron, enchanted collars, and so on. Once we realized the large amount of space inside the backpack and that my grandparents would never need their magical supplies again and my mother was likely to get rid of my grandparents' stuff, we just took everything. I'm not even sure what all we got.

  Among our finds were magical animal and plant carriers, seeds and rootstock for magical plants, dried herbs, a trove of exotic potions ingredients, a knife with an obsidian blade, enchanted jewelry, a pair of glasses with some unknown magical power and a blue aura, many more books, and several filing cabinets filled with years of my grandparents' notes and letters.

  Because we were moving fast, we mostly just tossed things into the bag if we had any indication they had to do with nature or magic. Crystal helped me grab anything with an aura, plus anything her intuition suggested, and I took everything I recognized as related to plants or animals. I found a pair of earrings I remembered Grandma Juniper wearing - gold studs that looked like four leaf clovers - and I put them on.

  Crystal was shuffling through the top drawer in my grandfather's desk. She turned around, handing me a small blue bottle of something, and then paused. "Angelica, your aura is gone."

  "What?" I asked, wondering a) how? and b) is that a bad thing?

  I didn't wonder for long because the answer appeared in my head in Tansy's voice. "You're wearing Juniper's enchanted earrings. They hide your aura color."

  "Tansy says it's the earrings," I told Crystal. "I just put them on. Grandma Juniper always wore them, and I thought they would be a nice thing to remember her by. Do you think it will be a problem if my aura is hidden?"

  "No," said Crystal. "A lot of people hide their auras. Your aura reveals how much power you have. Just like nonmagical people don't walk around wearing T-shirts advertising their ages or salaries, magical people often conceal their auras - or they change the appearance of their aura color to mislead people. A powerful archmage with an ultraviolet aura might walk around with an aura that appears green. Hiding your power can avoid negative attention due to lacking power or being very powerful."

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  I decided to keep the earrings on.

  A search through the pet supplies uncovered a cat collar that hid Tansy's blue aura too. I was wearing my earrings to remember my grandmother, and the aura suppression was merely a side effect. However, with the stigma around mind magic, I decided it was a good idea to disguise the cat. Fortunately, Tansy agreed. Even a nonmagical cat won't keep a collar on for long if they don't want to.

  With the house as thoroughly looted as we could accomplish before Crystal sensed my mom would look for the keys, I moved on to filling out my Artemisia paperwork.

  The day after I sent it off, my UW dorm assignment arrived: Witte. Or as it is commonly known, Shitty Witte. Damn. I had asked for Lakeshore. Good thing I now had a better college option. Whatever my dorm will be like in San Diego, I'll be with Crystal and we'll be learning magic.

  Wanting to put off any confrontation with my mother, I left everything magical at the Wus' house, including the bag, the earrings, and (with her consent) the cat. Bringing that stuff home would be telling on myself.

  Mr. and Mrs. Wu were supportive. They were thrilled their daughter's best friend was joining her at college, and I think they were relieved they no longer had to hide their magic from me too. They promised to bring me to Artemisia if my mother refused, since they were taking Crystal there anyway.

  Once my enrollment at Artemisia was confirmed, I formally withdrew my enrollment at UW. Then I faced my mother.

  Well... that's a misleading way to put it. The chronology happened in that order, but there were several weeks in between changing my college enrollment and telling my mom. I had a hunch it would go badly (it kinda did) and things would become tense in our house (they kinda did), so I delayed until the last possible moment.

  One day in August, I was busy pruning the houseplants when my mom casually mentioned that she hadn't received a UW tuition bill. Two other women in her book club also have children starting at UW in the fall, and they had received their first bills. Mom was planning to call the registrar's office. I decided it would be relatively less disastrous if my mom heard the truth from me instead of the registrar, so I spilled.

  Everything came tumbling out. Everything. Including many tears and no shortage of snot. I blurted out that I know our family is magical, and Mom hid it from me, and she deprived me of a relationship with my grandparents, and I finished with the announcement that I had already changed my enrollment to Artemisia. Oh, and I had the money and transportation there if she did not want to support me.

  Her reaction was better than I'd expected but not as good as I'd hoped. She didn't get angry and she didn't yell. She was obviously upset though. She apologized for hurting me but she told me there were "reasons" and then refused to elaborate on what those reasons might be. She said she was not going to stand in my way if I wanted to go to Artemisia, but she would prefer if I accepted the Wus' offer for a ride.

  Our relationship felt strained over my last few weeks at home. I was able to bring my backpack and Tansy home, but still kept all of the other magical items packed up because I wasn't eager to answer my mother's questions about them. Tansy was good company in those weeks.

  Finally, the day arrived. I spent the morning making last minute runs to Bradbury's for lattes and The Chocolate Shoppe for cones of "This $&@! Just Got Serious"-flavored ice cream to store in my ring for the trip. Then Mom and Jo dropped me and Tansy at the Wus' house. We exchanged one final hug, and then everyone got in the car.

  In four days, I would be in San Diego.

  Actually, nevermind. Mrs. Wu did something magical with a small rock she was holding, and then the car was on a street lined with palm and jacaranda trees and there was a taco shop at the end of the block. We had teleported.