Felicity's first thought as her taxi puttered up the long drive to Pembroke Academy was that the school was a goddamn castle. This fact shouldn't have surprised her; pictures of Pembroke's campus had dominated in the pages of the glossy catalogues and brochures that were stacked in a neat pile on the corner of her desk back home in Las Vegas. She knew that the buildings and grounds were all based on the ancestral home of Sir Walter Pembroke, the school's founder. The original castle sat on a lonely moor back in Wales; this one on a ridge in southern New Hampshire. Otherwise they were identical.

However, none of the photos could have prepared Felicity for the reality of castle's looming stone walls, its creeping ivy, the shadowy archways that seemed to lead nowhere and everywhere at once, or the three large turrets that thrust into the blazing blue sky overhead.

Felicity's seconds thought was: this is a huge mistake.

She must have arrived just between classes, because Pembroke's student population swarmed all around the taxi as it tried to make its way up to the castle's main entrance. The students barely glanced at the cab, even as some dodged in front of it to get to buildings on the other side of the driveway; they were literally and metaphorically untouchable and they knew it.

Everywhere there was the flash of glossy hair, white teeth, and immaculately pressed gold and green uniforms. Felicity glanced down at her own worn combat boots, still coated in a fine layer of Las Vegas dust and felt more out of place than she had in her entire life.

MIT,she thought, sucking down a gulp of stale taxicab air, remember. This will be worth it.

For the tenth time that morning she wished she had let her mother come drop her off. At the time thy had discussed it, as Felicity had stood in the kitchen of their two bedroom apartment in Vegas imagining herself arriving here, she had wanted to do it alone, as her own independent woman. Now all she wanted was someone to squeeze her hand and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

The taxi driver parked the cab in the rotunda in front of the castle's main entrance and got out to unload Felicity's bags. The skin of Felicity's thighs stuck to the seat as she pushed herself out after him. The temperature had been 79 degrees Fahrenheit when her plane had touched down that morning and it had only gotten hotter since. She shielded her eyes from the stabbing sunlight as she gazed around the campus. Laughter rippled across the grass, a bell peeled somewhere overhead, and the students began to dissolve the buildings that lined the driveway and into the castle itself.

"Where do you want the bags, Miss?" The cab driver asked. He seemed as uncomfortable at Pembroke as Felicity. His eyes flickered around the too bright campus, his hands fluttering aimlessly around his rumpled, half-tucked in shirt.

Felicity pressed her lips together. "I'm not sure"

The email she had received from the enrollment office last week stated that a student ambassador would greet her outside the main entrance when she arrived. So far no one had so much as made eye contact with her. She glanced around for someone to ask for help but most of the students had disappeared like rabbits into holes in the ground at the sound of the bell, and only a few flustered looking ones were left rushing across the grass clutching leather bookbags to their shoulders while bright white sheets of papers flapped at their sides. Then even they were gone.

Felicity stomach churned. Maybe they had forgotten she was arriving today. Or maybe not sending someone to meet her was her punishment for changing her mind two weeks into the semester and deciding to come after all. Or maybe, she thought, the whole thing had been a practical joke from the very beginning; the invitation to apply, the acceptance letter, the scholarship, all the brochures and magazines, they were all elements of an elaborate hoax.

Just as Felicity was beginning to despair a blonde head appeared around the corner of the castle. The head was followed by a body which belonged to a short girl in a rumpled Pembroke uniform who strode across the grass to where Felicity and the taxi driver hovered uncertainly. The girl fussed with her uniform as she walked, straightening the green and gold tie at her neck and tucking the tail of her shirt into her skirt. She wore a windblown smile and a head of tussled golden hair and Felicity felt herself relax slightly at the sight of her, oddly comforted by the fact that dishevelment did in fact exist within the Pembroke's boundaries. As the girl approached, she stuck her hand out.

"Hi," she said, "Are you Felicity?"

Felicity nodded and shook the girl's hand. She had a surprisingly strong grip for someone with so small.

"Great! I'm Sara Lance. I'm the new student ambassador. I'm so sorry for being late. I got, ah..caught up in something."

Out of the corner of her eye, Felicity saw another girl emerge from the corner Sara had appeared from. The second girl was taller and the sun bounced off her long dark hair as she glanced over at them. A slight smile played around her lips as she disappeared into one of the other buildings that lined the drive.

"It's really nice to meet you," Felicity said. "You're the first person I've seen who seems like a real person. Everyone else just looks so put together—" Felicity winced. "I'm sorry that came out wrong. I didn't mean that you don't look put together, it's just I'm all sweaty and then I saw you and I just felt better because you looked kind of rumpled—" Shut up, brain! "—and I'm going to stop talking now because I sound like an idiot."

Sara watched her ramble with the affectionate, amused expression of someone watching a kitten get tangled up in a ball of string.

"You're cute," she said. "And seriously, don't worry. Everyone here might look like they've got it together at first glance but trust me, 60% of the student body is half way to their first stint in rehab. You seem like you have a good head on your shoulders. You're going to be just fine."

Felicity smiled. "You know that probably shouldn't make me feel better but it kind of does."

Sara laughed. "I thought it might." She glanced over at the small pile of suitcases at the end of the taxi. "Is that all of your stuff?"
Felicity nodded. "This and a few things I shipped ahead."

"We can just leave it there for now," Sara said. "One of the porters will bring it up to the dorm later."

Porters? Felicity thought incredulously.

The taxi driver looked relieved when Felicity pressed money into his hand and thanked him for the ride. She felt a pang of unease as the cab disappeared down the driveway, as though her last tie to real world had just rattled away, abandoning her to high walls, ivy, and a student population with a high content of hard drug users.

"Do you have your rooming assignment?" Sara asked.

"Um, yes," Felicity pulled the wrinkled paper on which she'd written the school's address and her room assignment from the back pocket of her jeans. "The Queen Dormitory?"

Sara beamed. She was pretty in the kind of laid back, rumpled way that seemed to belong at a beach among surfer girls and skaters, not private schools and trust funds.

"That's where I am!" she said, linking her arm through Felicity's and walking her toward the castle doors. She lowered her voice. "Seriously, don't listen to anything you hear. We're the best dormitory by far. You're going to love it. So, you ready for the grand tour?"

The grand tour began in the dining hall with its high, beamed ceiling and rows of narrow oak tables. Sunlight spilled through tall eastern facing windows, turning the dust in the air to swirls of gold.

"We're supposed to sit by year, but really you can go wherever you want," Sara said.

After that they peeked into the rec room where several students were playing foosball while others watched a movie on an expansive TV and then Sara pointed out several classrooms where Felicity might have lectures. "Most of the classrooms in the castle are for the humanities: history, literature, Latin. That kind of thing. The science classrooms and computer labs are in the buildings you drove by on the way up here.

Sara ended the tour at their dormitory, which was housed in one of the castle's three turrets. A small plaque on the arched door read: QUEEN

"All the dorms are named after families who gave a shit ton of money to the school," she explained, as she turned a skeleton key in the large metal lock. "This one's named for the Queen family. Oliver and Thea Queen both go here. You'll probably meet them at some point."

Felicity had seen Oliver Queen's picture on the news a hundred times and probably heard the story of how he and his father had been ship wreaked somewhere in the South China Sea just as often. Both Queens had been presumed dead for almost three years until a fishing trawler had discovered Oliver living alone on an inhospitable island and brought him back to the US. He seemed more like a myth to Felicity than a real person. It felt strange to be told that she might meet him.

Felicity turned her attention to the room she would be living in for the next two years. Six four posted beds were set up in circular fashion against the wall. Felicity's things sat in a neat pile at the base of one of the beds furthest from the door. Cold air pumped out of hidden vents, cooling the sweat that had percolated between Felicity's shoulder blades and reminding her that despite the castle's rustic appearance it had more amenities than a Ritz Carlton.

Not that Felicity had ever been in a Ritz Carlton. She had, however, once she had stayed in Las Vegas University dorm for a computer science competition. That room had had cinderblock walls, vinyl mattresses, and definitely no air conditioning. At the time she had thought it was pretty nice.

"Oh great, someone got your stuff," Sara said. "So I guess that bed's yours. I'm right over here." She pointed to a bed next to the door. "And my friend Nyssa is right there." She pulled out her phone out of her pocket, and glanced at the time. "I have chem lab in ten minutes so I better go. Do you have a plan for the rest of the day? You're not starting classes today, are you?"

Felicity shook her head. "I have a meeting with the dean at 3:30. Other than that I'm just going to unpack." She wiped a lock of sweaty hair out of her face. "I might take a shower too."

"The bathrooms are down the hall to the right. I'm done with class at 6. Do you want to meet me in the dining hall for dinner then?"

"That would be great," Felicity said. If she was being honest, she had imagined herself eating alone for the rest of eternity.

"Awesome. Good luck with Dean Winters," Sara said as she backed toward the door. "Whatever you do, don't stare at his mole. He hates that. Oh, and don't stare at his toupee. Actually might want to just avoid eye contact with any part of him if you can. There's a calendar with the boy's rowing team on it behind his desk. I usually try to focus on that at that." With that she disappeared out the door.

For the first time since Felicity had arrived at Pembroke she was alone.

She drifted to one of the wide windows set in the stone wall. It looked out onto the grounds behind castle, where a white pagoda sat next to small lake bordered with curving reeds. The water's mirror-like surface reflected the blue sky and puffy clouds drifting overhead. Beyond the lake the land rolled into thickly forested foothills that rose and fell like humped shoulders and beyond that brown and green mountains thrust up to meet the sky. It was a beautiful. And it could not have looked more different from the home Felicity had left behind.

To Felicity, who was used to the Las Vegas' unending flatness extending in all directions; the mountains and hills seemed foreboding and mysterious, like they were hiding some kind of dark secret within their dips and vales.

A bead of sweat rolled between Felicity's shoulder blades and she glanced down at her watch. She had two hours before her meeting with the dean. Just enough time to take a shower and put most of her things away. Felicity rummaged through her duffle bag until she found a towel and a pair of flip-flops then walked down the hall to the first bathroom she saw.

The water pressure in Pembroke's showers was 100 times better than the weak stream that dripped out of the one Felicity shared with her mom at home. The pounding water beat the sweat and ache and dust from her body and swirling steam and familiar smell of her strawberry shampoo soothed her frazzled nerves. When Felicity shut off the water fifteen minutes later she felt infinitely more optimistic about this whole boarding school situation. She wrapped herself in her towel, stepped out of the stall, and let out a small yelp.

A boy stood at the line of sinks against the wall dressed in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He held a bottle of shaving cream in one hand and a razor in the other. His eyebrows rose in surprise at the sight of her.

"Oh, Jesus, I'm sorry," Felicity said. "You surprised me. I didn't realize this was a co-ed bathroom."

The boy was tall, tanned, and lean. He had close-cropped sandy brown hair and what her mother's trashy magazines would have called "washboard abs." He looked strangely familiar but Felicity couldn't place why. He cocked his head to the side as she spoke. The bird-like quality of the gesture caught her off guard. It seemed too delicate for someone so…solid.

"It's not," he said.

"It's not—?"

The boy glanced at the door and Felicity followed his gaze. MEN was printed in tall, black lettering on the wood. Well, fuck.

"Oh my god," she said. "I am so sorry. This is your bathroom. I'm mean, not yours personally. Just that you're a boy. A man, really. A boy-man."Shut up, shut up, shut up,she thought. But that was like asking the rain to stop falling halfway to the ground. "And I'm a girl," she continued, "you know, boobs and .." she trailed off, cheeks burning"…all that jazz."

The boy had the darkest blue eyes she had ever seen. A hint of a smile played around his lips. Was he just going to stand there and stare at her?

"Okay, then" she said. "I should probably go and let you get on with your, um, manly shaving activities."

With as much dignity as she could manage, Felicity straightened her shoulders and squelched past him and out the door.