by S T G Hill
They both stopped dead in the doorway when they saw what, and who, waited for them in the room.
Thorn lay beneath a thin sheet on a narrow bed. His eyes were closed, and Ellie thought he might be sleeping.
Numberless tiny white lights, like a whole field’s worth of fireflies, flitted back and forth above his body. They dipped towards him or flew away.
Ellie and Sybil watched several of the lights drop directly through the sheet into Thorn’s body, while others rose up from him.
“Look, the ones coming out are darker!” Sybil said.
Ellie squinted. It was true. She wondered if maybe they were carrying something bad out of him.
Maybe something like that magical fallout that kept the teachers from rebuilding the campus.
She hadn’t seen magic like this yet. The little points of light seethed over his body, moving through him.
Can he feel it? Ellie wondered.
Sybil chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes darting back and forth. “Should we let him sleep?”
“We should,” Ellie said, “But we can’t.”
She advanced into the room, moving forward warily. How would those little lights react?
They didn’t.
“Thorn?” Ellie said.
This close, she saw the consequences of his magical battle with that Errant. His skin looked tight across his face, his eyes sunken. Normally she thought that Thorn looked tall and strong, the picture of youth.
But now? He seemed delicate, somehow. In a way that she couldn’t put her finger on.
“Thorn?” she said, a little louder.
Still nothing.
“Try touching him?” Sybil said from the doorway.
“I was trying to avoid that,” she replied.
Thorn’s arms and hands rested at his sides against the thin blanket covering his body. Ellie reached out slowly.
For some reason, she expected him to feel cold. But when her palm settled over his knuckles, she felt his warmth.
“Thorn?” she said. She gave his hand a squeeze.
Finally something happened. Thorn shifted beneath his sheet. That cloud of lights shifted with him.
Something warm tickled against Ellie’s palm.
“Oh!” she said, lifting her hand and stepping back. When she turned her palm over one of those little lights shot away from her to rejoin its fellows in the cloud.
She frowned, “It didn’t pass through me…” What does that mean?
“What are you doing here?” Thorn said.
“What, no ‘happy to see you’re okay,’ or anything like that?” Ellie said.
“I knew that you were fine. We can do magic, remember?” Thorn said.
“Well, we’re both glad to see that you’re, you know, not dead. And… and thanks,” Ellie said. She still wasn’t used to anyone really caring whether or not she was dead or alive. It was a new feeling.
It was a good feeling.
“Does it hurt a lot?” Sybil said, “I think I’ve read about those things. They’re vitalights, aren’t they?”
“Vita…?” Ellie said.
“It means ‘life,’ and yes they are,” Thorn said.
Sybil kept glancing at Thorn and then away, a little smile shyly touching her lips and then dropping away. Spots of color appeared in her cheeks.
“Anyway,” Ellie said, “We came to tell you that Belt is at the school. He interrupted the assembly at the amphitheater. He’s going to make the school do something called the Trial of Midas.”
“Minos,” Sybil corrected her.
“Yeah, that,” Ellie said, “It’s all Greek to me.” Sybil grinned as though she’d made a joke. “What? What did I say?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Thorn said, sitting up. The cloud of vitalights shimmered angrily around him, as though upset that they kept interrupting their work.
“Do you know what this trial thing is?” Ellie said.
She didn’t like how Thorn looked. His skin looked too tight, his eyes all sunken.
“Only a little. It’s bad news. Ellie, can we talk privately?” Thorn said, glancing pointedly at Sybil.
Ellie sighed, “Sybil knows everything.”
Thorn jerked back like she’d slapped him. “What? How?”
“Because I told her.”
“That was stupid of you. Ellie, everyone who knows the truth is in danger,” Thorn said, his tone admonishing.
Ellie didn’t care for it. Not even a little. She crossed her arms. “There was no way around it. Can we get back to Belt and this Trial thing?”
Thorn ignored her for a moment, focusing on Sybil, whose blush deepened to an embarrassing shade. “You can’t tell anyone, no matter what. Ellie shouldn’t have told you any of this.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Sybil said, “I just want to help. What do we do?”
“We do nothing,” Thorn said, “Ellie, you need to get away from the school. Today. Now.”
Ellie shook her head, ‘We can’t. Belt’s put the whole place on some sort of magic lockdown.”
Thorn sank down against his pillow, rubbing at his face with both hands. The vitalights swarmed and seethed in and out of his body as though they picked up on his agitation.
He lifted his hands and closed his eyes.
“What are you doing?” Ellie said.
“Checking for any weak spots in the spell around the campus,” Thorn said.
It didn’t take him long to find that there were none.
“So what do we do now?” Sybil said. “I could go to the library. There has to be something there that could at least explain some more of this.”
“There’s not much we can do,” Thorn said. “Not right now, anyway.”
Ellie’s stomach sank. She’d been hoping that Thorn had some secret plan for success, that he was thinking several moves ahead of Belt.
“You guys need to get to class. We don’t want anyone suspecting anything,” Thorn said.
Chapter 18
Parker Stonebridge stood at the front of the classroom. He looked out across the sea of students. So many of them.
Ellie sat near the front of the room, there in body only.
In mind, she was still back in Thorn’s hospital room. He wants me to leave still, she thought. And it didn’t sound like the worst idea.
“I know that this is unusual,” Stonebridge said. He spoke in that slightly nasal, uppity way that people who owned vacation houses in the Hamptons had. “But Magister Cassiodorian and the other Primes and I agree that this is an important lecture, in light of what’s happened.
“Today, we’re going to talk about the ethical use of magic.”
Ellie’s ears pricked.
Parker retreated to the scant safety behind his narrow lectern. “I imagine that many of you have asked yourself why we don’t bring magic to the normal world. Why don’t we just sweep in and solve all problems? Magic is complicated. Magic is dangerous.
“The Errants are proof of that, because magic is also addicting. Not only in how it can make you feel to use, but also in how it can make it feel as though you can do anything. And in that way, it’s open to abuse.
“That is why, in 1793 the Council of Magisters came together and formed a conclave that agreed to keep magic hidden from those without the talent for it. This made it official. The secrecy of magic is of utmost importance, and none of you should forget that.”
Ellie put up her hand, frowning.
Parker, always a little skittish, glanced at her a couple times as though not certain whether he wanted to take any questions. Then he gestured to her, “Yes, Miss Ashwood?”
“Then what’s the point of learning about it if we’re not supposed to do anything with it?” she asked.
“Not like an ab can do any real magic, anyway. What’s it matter?” someone muttered from up ahead of her.
“Quiet!” Stonebridge said, “It’s a good question.”
He stepped out from behind his lectern. His hip bumped into it
and it toppled over, nearly banging into the floor before he caught it with a spell. It righted itself. Parker stared at it a moment longer, as though it had a mind of its own and that it would fall once more as soon as he took his eyes from it.
Everyone in the classroom shared glances. According to Sybil, Parker didn’t really teach many classes. Ellie could understand why.
Satisfied that it wouldn’t tumble over again, Parker turned his attention back to the classroom. “Firstly, we teach you to control it so that it doesn’t control you. Secondly, keeping something secret is… isn’t the same as never using it. Many people, when they finish their schooling, go on to normal careers. Lawyers, bankers, politicians. Magic can do a lot to help with that sort of thing.”
Ellie’s frown deepened. “So they just use it to make themselves more money?”
That seemed anticlimactic to Ellie. So mundanely evil, somehow.
Parker nodded and tugged at one of the sleeves of his robe, “Some, yes. Just look at Darius Belt. Panopsys is a massive corporation with many international ties…”
“What about doctors? Or teachers? Doesn’t anyone use their magic to help people?” Ellie said.
Parker chewed on his bottom lip a little, clearly annoyed at her questions. “Yes, of course. Some do. Others choose to get involved with the magical world itself. Many of you will have that opportunity when you finish your studies at Sourcewell.”
Here he fixed Ellie with a stare with an immediately obvious meaning: And by many of you, I don’t mean you, Miss Ashwood the ab.
This time, Ellie put up her hand. Parker’s right eye twitched. “No more questions for now! I’d like you all to open your copies of Apollionarus’s Of Ethics and Arcanum to Chapter 4 and come up with four points to share with the class.”
Everyone groaned, but when Parker frowned at them they pulled out their books.
John, Matilda’s friend, sat in front of Ellie. He turned around to face her, “You better hope you don’t get picked for the Trial, ab. I don’t think you’ll be able to nag your way through it like you can in class.”
She glared at him and he winked at her, then turned back to his book.
He’d irritated her just enough that she felt the power within her.
Just a little won’t hurt, Ellie thought.
She waved her hand and John’s book flew through the air and crashed against the wall beside the door.
Everyone looked at it, then over at him. Including Parker Stonebridge, who’d once more settled in behind his lectern.
John looked back at her again, his face stormy.
Ellie shrugged, “What? I didn’t do it. I’m an ab, remember?”
She smiled when he looked away.
It was the last bit of real fun Ellie had for quite some time.
Chapter 19
After classes ended for the day, Ellie stayed up for as long as she possibly could sitting in the library with Sybil.
The tips of her fingers had dried out from flipping through dusty old tomes trying to find some mention of the Trial of Minos or the Omenborn.
"There has to be something!" Sybil said, slamming shut the massive cover of a leather-bound book titled The 27 Canticles of Somnolence, "I mean, all the Primes seemed to know what he was talking about! And I know I've read that name, Minos, somewhere..."
Ellie made the mistake of rubbing at her eyes with her dry, dusty fingers.
She jerked back in her chair, sucking in a sharp breath at the sudden exquisite pain of dust against her eyeballs. "Ah!"
"Stop! Stop rubbing!" Sybil said, "You're going to scratch your eyes and then they'll take longer to heal."
With no small amount of willpower, Ellie lowered her hands. Her eyes welled up with stinging tears, trying to wash themselves.
"Just hold still. I learned this spell last year in Professor Tremaine's class..."
"Who's Professor Tremaine?" Ellie said, balling her hands into fists against her thighs. It tickled and itched and stung so much!
"She's the school’s Arcanoparticulates expert. It's a branch of channeling. Now, hold still, I'm trying to remember how this goes..."
Ellie felt the air swish in front of her face while Sybil waved her hands around. "You try holding still with gunk in your eyeballs!"
Then a pleasantly cool wave of magic ran over Ellie's eyes, like a wiper blade over a windshield. The awful sting dropped away, leaving only some hot tears down Ellie's cheeks.
"Better?" Sybil said.
"So much! I need to learn that one," Ellie said, wiping at her cheeks.
Then she let out a yawn mighty enough make her jaw creek.
"You should go to bed," Sybil said, "I've got some left in me. I need to find that book that mentions the trials. Or was it a scroll...?"
"I can't," Ellie replied.
"Why not?"
"Well I know who you got paired with, but I'm bunking with Matilda until they get the campus sorted out, in case you forgot," Ellie said.
Even just mentioning Matilda tied her stomach up.
"You could find a bench somewhere in the library? There's gotta be a channelling spell to conjure up a pillow and a blanket," Sybil said.
"The only thing I'm going to conjure up tonight is my supper if I have to deal with Matilda... And you know what the teachers said: everyone needs to be in the dorms. No one outside, in case of another attack. They'll probably have professors out playing hall monitor all over the place," Ellie said.
She'd already spent a fair amount of time thinking about this issue.
Sybil put her hand on the shiny oak table and smoothed it over the surface, her knuckles glowing for a second. Glowing numbers sharper than any digital clock appeared on the study table.
"Wow it's late!" Sybil said, "Maybe Matilda's asleep?"
"Maybe," Ellie said.
Another jaw-creaking yawn stole over her.
She'd been desperate enough to ask Thorn for help, but Thorn had already been assigned a displaced student.
"Well, better get going," Ellie said, "She can't be any worse than Mr. Fichtner, right?"
Though Mr. Fichtner had always left her alone while she slept. Would Matilda be the same?
Now that she thought of it, Matilda and Mr. Fichtner were rather alike. Casually cruel, uninterested in anyone or anything unless they could use it to their own advantage.
Maybe they're related? If not in blood, then in spirit.
"Ellie?" Sybil said.
Ellie snapped out of her daze, "Sorry, just trying to put off the nightmare." She was sure there'd be plenty of those, both in the waking and sleeping worlds.
"I'll bet she's asleep already! Just go; I'll let you know if I find anything useful," Sybil said.
They hugged, and then Ellie walked over to Bramble Hall.
Chapter 20
Vine Hall doesn't look so bad, she thought. The side of the building that shared the quad with Bramble Hall seemed okay.
Of course, there was only the moonlight and few lamps to see by. They hid the sooty burn scars and the shattered windows.
Maybe there was even a dorm room or two that had gone relatively unscathed. She didn't even mind if it smelled smoky.
It smelled smoky as is.
And then Ellie noticed something that put the kibosh on any hope of finding an empty bed in her old building.
There was a glow. A faint, spectral gray shroud hung over the remains of Vine Hall. If she watched it closely enough it shifted and warped. And not with the wind.
It was the magical fallout that Master Shaffir had mentioned. Even just looking at it turned Ellie's stomach. There was just something so primally wrong about the feelings wafting from the walls.
"Curfew's coming up," someone said behind her.
Ellie had been so absorbed that she hadn't noticed the way the fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck had stood up in warning.
She spun around, every nerve jangling within her.
A gray-robed prognosticator professor she
didn't know stood on the path, the glowing orb of his magical lantern hanging in the air beside him.
"Are you bunking in Bramble Hall, miss?" he said.
"Uh, yeah. Just not super happy about my new roommate."
He cocked his head a little as though that was a ridiculous thing to say. "You'll get along fine. Besides, they're probably asleep already. The curfew is about to start, so it'd be great if you'd get inside."
"Right, yeah," Ellie said, peering into the moon-dappled darkness of the rest of the campus, wondering if anything might be hiding out there.
Belt wouldn't launch another attack the very next night, would he? Ellie told herself her wouldn't. Otherwise why would he have bothered with announcing this Trial thing?
"Good night, miss," the professor said.
"Night," she replied.
He was a smart one. Or maybe his prognosticative ability suggested she might not do as she was told.
Ellie stole a glance over her shoulder and saw him watching her. Waiting for her to go in.
She let out a big sigh and mounted the stairs to the large double doors and went into Bramble Hall.
It was pretty much a mirror of Vine Hall with its nice lobby/study space and beautiful floors.
She pulled her room assignment scroll out and found that Matilda's room was #410.
Four, four, four... she thought as she mounted the single step up to the framed teledoor, which to her eyes still looked ridiculous.
But when she stepped forward she stepped through the wall and onto the fourth floor.
This late, the hall was quiet. Quiet enough for Ellie to hear the floor creak beneath her feet, and quiet enough for her breaths to be far too loud.
It's not too late; I can turn around, she thought all the way to the door to 410, on the right side of the hall.
Please be asleep, Ellie thought when she reached out and put her fingers against the rectangle of steel that took the place of the doorknob.
The metal was warm against her fingers. For just a moment there, she hoped that whoever was responsible for these magical locks had forgotten to update all of them for the new roommate assignments.
