by S T G Hill
“I know what you mean,” Sybil replied, “I’ve just been crazy busy with classes, so I’m sorry. You seem pretty cool.”
“Cool?” Ellie said, incredulous.
“Yeah, that whole loner, I-can-take-care-of-myself vibe. It’s cool.”
“If you say so,” Ellie said. No one had ever thought of her as cool, much less told her so.
She could tell that Sybil wanted to say something else. The other girl kept flipping slowly through the old, faded pages of the text without really reading them.
Finally, she spoke up, “So, you know Thorn, don’t you?”
“I guess. He recruited me and all,” Ellie said.
“He’s pretty cool too, isn’t he?” Sybil said, pointedly looking directly at the book and not at Ellie. Although Ellie had no trouble spotting the blossoming blush in Sybil’s cheeks.
“He’s… something. Why? Do you like him or something?”
“Do you?” Sybil said, glancing up at her and then back down.
It all clicked into place in Ellie’s mind.
“You like Thorn,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Sybil looked like she could set that tome on fire if she lowered her face another few inches towards the table.
Then Ellie saw the rest of it. “And you think I like Thorn. I don’t. Not even a little.”
She mostly thought about how to get him to answer more of her questions. And she had so many of those.
“But I see the way you guys look at each other in the cafeteria…” Sybil said, her voice mouse-like.
Ellie laughed. The sound echoed throughout the library, and she cut it off. “I don’t like him at all. I look at him like that because he’s such a jerk to me and I don’t know why. But if you want him, he’s all yours. I won’t get in your way, believe me.”
Sybil’s blush faded slowly and she became more friendly and talkative after that.
Ellie couldn’t really bring herself to believe that all this time Sybil thought that she liked Thorn.
How could she even think that? It was completely ridiculous to her.
Thorn wasn’t the worst looking guy in the school. Not by a long shot, but that didn’t really matter to Ellie.
They laughed and joked about foiling Matilda in the dining hall. And Sybil shared a story about one time when a different pyromaniac student had singed off most of his hair and Turnbull had been the monitor again. The student, who’d formerly possessed straight black hair, came away from Turnbull’s ministrations with a frizzy fro of orange that made him look like Ronald MacDonald’s nephew.
Ellie felt comfortable around Sybil. Almost as comfortable as she did around Arabella.
They’d just settled into a discussion about what they’d like to do to John Farthing to get him back for all his pranks when a booming voice spoke. It sounded like it came from the walls of the library.
“ALL STUDENTS REPORT TO THE MAGISTER’S HALL AT ONCE.”
“Has this ever happened before?” Ellie asked.
Sybil shook her head, “Not that I can remember.”
“We better get going.”
They found the nearest portal door and used that to get to the entrance lobby. Behind them, back in the hallway, the large old tome closed itself and floated back to its place on the shelf.
“Have you ever seen it this busy?” Ellie asked while they walked down the winding cobbled path that led from the library to Sourcewell’s main thoroughfare.
Ellie had never found out just how many students attended classes here, but if the crowds flowing down the various paths and streets from the different dorms and halls were any indication, it had to be close to a thousand. Maybe more.
“Once,” Sybil said between breaths. Everyone moved so quickly, the air buzzing with electric excitement and curiosity. Also, Sybil was shorter than Ellie and she had to make up for it with more rapid strides. “There was a surprise visit from the magister of another academy, and we all had to gather to welcome her.”
“Come on, I want to get there quick so we can be near the front,” Ellie said.
She wanted to see who it was. She hadn’t left the campus in months. It would be good to see a new face. But she also didn’t want to leave Sybil behind.
Not with things going so well between them.
“I’m trying!” Sybil said.
Even Ellie’s legs ached by the time they reached the quad in front of the Magister’s Hall. Her calves tightened up, and she wanted a glass of water.
“Wow,” Ellie breathed, her pain forgotten.
She stopped so suddenly that Sybil ran into her back, and they both nearly tumbled over.
Before the quad had been a paved courtyard lined with moving statues and a few stone benches. Well, the statues were still there. But that was about it.
Long rows of stepped seating ran down either side of the quad. And now there was a raised section at the main entrance to the hall itself.
Students started piling onto the seats. That nervous energy from before permeated the air here.
Little shocks of flame and lightning licked around as people threw annoying little spells at each other.
One of the upperclassmen, not Thorn, but in that same green robe, actually flew through the air to perch on the top row of seating.
Though she figured Thorn had to be around somewhere. Everyone from the entire school was there.
“If you want a good seat we better move,” Sybil said.
“Oh, right,” Ellie replied.
It actually wasn’t that hard. As students are wont to do, many of them sat up high near the back, shunning the first two rows for now.
Ellie and Sybil sat next to each other right in the front, on the right hand side of the quad. There were no backrests, of course, so Ellie leaned forward a little and grabbed the edge of the stone slab that made up the bench. She’d expected it to be rough, but it was perfectly smooth.
Polished by magic, she knew.
Although she didn’t know who’d cast the spell to create it. Arabella had told her that big, grandiose spells were not really possible for many left in the magical world. Though she hadn’t said why.
But if this wasn’t considered powerful magic, what was?
Had Aurelius done this? Ellie hadn’t seen the magister himself since that first week she arrived.
“Hey, there’s Master Shaffir!” Sybil said.
Ellie followed her gaze. Shaffir stood in his blue robe on that raised portion near the doors. Soon, Arabella in her red robe joined him. Then finally the gray-robed Prognosticator Prime, whose name was Parker Stonebridge.
And finally, Aurelius Cassiodorian emerged from the open doors of the hall behind him, taking his place front and center.
When he appeared, everyone quieted down. Someone behind Ellie arced a blue-white bolt of electricity at a girl near the front, but then everyone nearby glared at the perpetrator and he sank back.
Ellie leaned forward farther and looked down the main walkway away from the Magister’s Hall.
There was no one coming. How long were they going to have to sit there?
She hoped not too long. The smooth stone of the bench wasn’t exactly comfortable.
“How does this usually happen—” Ellie started.
Sybil shushed her, then nodded back down towards the empty pathway.
Somewhat annoyed, Ellie turned his eyes in that direction.
Oh, she thought.
Where before there had been nothing, a slice had formed in the air. As they watched, it widened into a broad rectangular window the same width as the pathway.
It was a doorway into another place. Ellie caught a glimpse of what looked like some sort of library or study, the walls lined with bookcases.
The edges were crisp and so thin Ellie couldn’t see them. That room existed within the bounds of the window and then the rest of the campus seemed to exist around it with no space between them.
The fine hairs on her forearms and the back of her neck rose
and prickled.
“Oh my God,” Sybil whispered.
“What?” Ellie said, unable to tear hear eyes away.
“There are only, like, three sorcerers still alive who can make a breach portal like that.”
“Who?” Ellie said.
“Shh…” someone sitting higher up admonished them.
A sort of reverent silence had befallen the entire student body of Sourcewell. Ellie had never been anywhere on campus this quiet. Not even Master Shaffir could settle everyone down this much.
Two figures appeared in the new doorway, both tall, but one taller and broader than the other. Ellie squinted hard, but couldn’t make out their faces yet. They both wore well-cut business suits.
Until they stepped through the doorway.
As he stepped through, the larger man’s suit gave way to flowing gray robes. The other’s dissolved and was replaced by red robes.
“It’s Belt,” someone whispered behind them. More murmurs spread the student body, like leaves on tree branches all stirred lightly by the same breeze.
“Who?” Ellie hazarded, trying to keep her voice low.
Sybil leaned in close. Ellie picked up the awed tone in her voice, despite the low volume, “The man on the right is Darius Belt. He’s a benefactor to the school. Someone told me he’s 400 years old…”
She said his name strangely: Duh-RYE-us. Ellie had never heard that name before.
Ellie squinted, trying to get a better look. Belt was well-built, with a dark head of hair and sharp, harshly-handsome features. If someone had pointed him out to her on the street, she wouldn’t have thought him any older than 40. Maybe not even that.
He wasn’t a pale man, but he also wasn’t dark, except for his hair.
Although he also looked familiar, though Ellie couldn’t place why.
He walked with confidence, his face a lesson in detached stoicism. The beautiful buildings and landscapes of Sourcewell Academy didn’t even earn from him a single glance.
“That other guy… I don’t know him,” Sybil said as the two men drew nearer, now at the start of the two long sets of seats that flanked the pathway.
When she got a clear look at the second new arrival’s face, her stomach twisted up in knots.
Her shoulder burned and prickled where he had grabbed her.
“I know him,” Ellie said.
She’d never forget the slim, dark-haired boy who’d first tried to trick her into coming with him and then tried to force her to.
The last she’d seen him he’d been crumpled unconscious across from her in that alley behind the Linden movie theater, his clothes smoking.
She glared hard at him, her mind and bottom a storm of hot anger and cold fear. She couldn’t count how many mornings she’d woken in a cold sweat, her shoulder aching and burning, as she relived those few moments when he’d taken hold of her in the alley.
Or that slimy seductive touch of his that seemed to melt away her willpower.
The two came closer. They walked with quick, measured strides that would take them to the waiting Primes and Magister Cassiodorian, not sparing a glance to either side at the rows of overawed students.
Her body prickled and tingled. She barely noticed the flow of hot energy running down her arms.
“Ellie?” Sybil said.
The two men came up even with where Ellie sat.
Burn, she thought, the word coming unbidden to her mind. She lunged out with an awful snarl on her face, seeing nothing but Caspian.
Everyone gasped.
When Caspian saw her, his expression twisted to shock and he recoiled backwards.
Ellie stretched out her arms, meaning to grab him. Her hands glowed white hot and the air around them shivered with a haze of heat.
Burn. Burn like you burned me.
Almost casually, Darius Belt snatched her wrists up and pinned them together. The heat coming from her hands didn’t faze him at all.
Her whole body trembled in impotent rage. She struggled against the strength of that grip, the energy flowing from her chest slamming through her in a torrent.
For just an instant, she almost slipped free. One of Belt’s eyebrows quirked up ever so slightly, and he squeezed her wrists harder.
The tunnel vision that had overtaken Ellie dissolved when he lifted her up off her feet so that she dangled in the air in front of him.
“Keep him away from me!” Ellie said.
Had Ellie not been distracted by Caspian’s presence, she would have been awed at the ease with which Darius Belt restrained her.
“What is going on here, Cassiodorian?” Belt said. His voice boomed unnaturally.
Arabella reached him almost immediately. Ellie realized that she must have started forward as soon as she saw Ellie lunge up from her bench.
The other Primes weren’t far behind. Aurelius stayed where he stood, hands clasped calmly in front of him.
“Ellie? What’s going on?” Arabella said.
She made no move to free Ellie from Belt’s grasp. His strong fingers dug into her wrists, and she winced at the feeling of bones grinding together.
In fact, Arabella Thrace seemed almost afraid of Belt. Shaffir and Stonebridge also stopped short, as though uncertain what to do next.
Ellie had never known Master Shaffir to not know what the proper thing to do was.
Who is this guy?
“Who are you?” Caspian said.
That fired her up again. “We both know what you tried to do. Arabella… Master Thrace, he’s the guy who tried to kidnap me that day! He attacked Thorn and me! He’s the one. Go on, tell them what you did!”
Caspian merely cocked his head at her, confused amusement on his face.
Belt frowned. A thin line appeared between his eyebrows, and he lifted Ellie higher so that their faces were on a level. “When did this supposedly happen?”
His voice had returned to a normal volume. It must have been some amplification spell before that he’d used so that Magister Cassiodorian would hear him.
“A couple months ago. In Brooklyn, outside the Linden theater multiplex. Go on, ask him.”
Belt considered here. No one said anything, though Ellie could feel how tense Arabella was behind her.
“Thorn, come down here,” Master Shaffir said.
Ellie couldn’t turn to see, but she heard people shuffling around and muttering. And then heavy footsteps on the pathway that could only be Thorn coming to stand beside his mentor.
“Thorn,” Caspian said.
“She’s lying again. I don’t know why,” Thorn said.
Ellie snarled again and flailed her legs, trying to break free. She may as well have been in steel handcuffs for all the good it did.
“You’re the liar!” Ellie said.
“Thorn,” Belt said, looking over Ellie’s shoulder at him, “You don’t need to tell me what I already know.”
Thorn bristled, but didn’t say anything.
Belt set her down. She started to pull away, and he started to let her. But then his grip on her tightened once more.
She saw him considering the missing tip of her left pinky finger. An awful feeling of violation washed through her.
Then he released her so suddenly that she stumbled backwards. Arabella caught her and kept her hands on Ellie’s shoulders.
Then a sensation of warm calmness washed away most of the anger, fear, and burning hatred.
“I’m sorry,” Arabella whispered to her.
“I know,” Darius Belt continued, apparently no longer interested in Ellie, “Because that entire month I kept Caspian sequestered so that he could concentrate on his studies. Unless I am now being accused of lying.”
Why is everyone lying? Ellie wondered. Though the calming influence of Arabella’s spell made it difficult to care anymore.
“No one is accusing you of lying, Master Belt,” Shaffir said.
Belt nodded slightly as though he expected nothing else. “Good. Now, I would like to finish with this
little walk so that Cassiodorian and I can get down to the matter of why we came all this way. Will there be further interruptions?”
He glanced down at Ellie, then up to Arabella standing behind her.
“None,” Arabella said.
A diminishing part of Ellie wanted to shout and continue the fight. She didn’t.
Belt, Caspian, Stonebridge, and Shaffir all continued back towards the entrance of the Magister’s Hall while Ellie and Arabella watched from the pathway.
Caspian glanced back at her. In spite of Arabella’s spell, something hot wormed its way up Ellie’s stomach.
Caspian withdrew his glance when Belt leaned towards him slightly and said something.
“Who is he, really?” Ellie said.
“Darius Belt is one of the primary benefactors of Sourcewell Academy,” Arabella said, “But you might know him from your previous life as the head of the Panopsys Corporation.”
It hit Ellie then where she recognized him from. Not that she ever read them, but she saw the headlines at newsstands and online. Bloomberg, Forbes, the Times, so many others. Interviews with Belt about some big corporate thing or other.
“How is that even possible?” Ellie said, remembering what Sybil told her about Belt being centuries old.
“Another time, perhaps,” Arabella said, “Now, I need to take you somewhere else.”
And how does Belt know Thorn?
Chapter 10
Ellie couldn’t get an answer to that final unspoken question. She didn’t see Thorn at all. Not for an entire month.
He didn’t eat down in the cafeteria. Master Shaffir never called him in for another channeling demonstration in a lecture. She hadn’t even seen his sandy head of hair bobbing around in any of the halls.
He’d disappeared.
Not that Ellie liked being seen much around campus, either. Since her little outburst, people did their best to keep away from her.
Except for jerks like Matilda and John Farthing, who now called her Dancing Ab, usually followed with them mocking the way she’d struggled against Belt when he’d held her.
And Sybil of course. Not long after that episode with Belt, Sybil came to her room one night and told her that was the coolest, baddest thing she’d ever seen a student try to do.
