Book with a magic school in the sky, woman protagonist can do all the different types of magic, mentor is a firebird

Question

This story is set in the modern day, and I know it was written in the past 10 years. It is young adult fantasy.

There is a magic school in the sky, I think. I remember that the people who can do magic, can do a specific type like gravity or seer or something like that. The main character is a woman who can do all the different types of magic, and she has a friend who is savvy with technology. Has a mentor (the classic old guy) who is a phoenix or a firebird of some sort. She attends this school that is in the sky, and only a few people in the government know about it. Her mother ends up being evil.

I would like help identifying this series I just can't remember any names.

Answer 1

I haven't read it myself so I can't comment on all of your descriptions, but with the themes of birds, magic school, modern day, magic female protagonist and friend who is technologically savvy it sounds like it could be All The Birds in The Sky by Charlie Jane Anders.

From summaries it seems to be about a girl who discovers she is a witch, turns into a bird, flies away and finds a magic school. Years later she returns to San Francisco after learning to control her powers and meets her childhood friend who has made some kind of a time machine. I can't find anything about a firebird but apparently she is brought to the magic school by some kind of wizard.

Answer 2

This is a bit of a stretch but it may be the Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone (specifically the first book, Three Parts Dead).

A god has died, and it’s up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart.

Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.

Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.

When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts—and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.

Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Three Parts Dead introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.

Tara can perform necromancy, maybe other types of magic (I can't remember off hand) and she has a friend, Abelard, who is a kind of engineer/monk.

The university Tara graduates from is in the sky and she almost gets thrown out (literally) just before graduation.