by A. L. Knorr
I said, “What’s going on back there? You’re riveted.”
She lowered her voice and leaned forward. “He might be sexy but he hasn’t made many friends. He just tried to sit with the tarty girl with the dark hair. She looked at him like he’s leaving a trail of slime wherever he goes, then left the table with her nose in the air.”
“That’s Jade,” I supplied. “Yeah, he stabbed her in the back last semester.”
“She literally dumped her entire plate of uneaten food in the garbage and left the cafeteria looking ill.” Cecily’s gaze flicked over my shoulder. “Hot guy moved tables and tried to join a threesome playing a card game. Far as I can tell they haven’t said one word to him or even looked his way.”
I took a sip of lemonade and set my glass down with a smile, enjoying her play by play.
Cecily brought her fingers to her temples but still watched Ryan through them, like she was embarrassed but couldn’t look away. “What did that kid do to make everyone dislike him so much?”
I was about to express surprise that she hadn’t heard about the events of the first-year skills exam, but checked myself when I realized how arrogant that would sound. Why would a third-year know about first-year goings on?
“It’s a long story,” I murmured, taking another bite of fish. My meal was suddenly tasting better.
“Did you have something to do with it?” she whispered.
I paused before swallowing, feeling a chill sweep across the back of my neck. “Why?”
“Cause hot guy just fired eye-ball daggers at you.” She shuddered. “I take back the nickname hot guy. He’s good looking, but that was pure venom.”
“We’re not one another’s favorite,” I replied.
“Clearly.” She took another bite, chewed, stopped, gulped. Leaning forward she muttered, “He’s coming this way.”
A moment later Ryan appeared beside our table, looking down at me.
“Can I have a word?” His voice sounded pleasant enough but he said the words through his teeth.
My brain slipped a cog and I took a sip to buy a moment to think. Setting my glass down, I wiped my mouth with my napkin and gestured to Cecily. “Cecily, this is Ryan. Ryan, Cecily Price. Dr. Price’s daughter.”
“Hello.” Cecily looked up with a kind expression, which made me like her even more. I respected someone whose judgment wasn’t based on other people’s opinions. Given enough time with Ryan, she’d figure out he was a rat for herself.
Ryan’s gaze didn’t leave my face. “Cecily,” he said flatly.
Several seconds passed.
“I’ll leave you to it.” Cecily made a move to take her tray elsewhere.
I shot her a pleading look and she froze then sat back down. I felt bad that we’d just met and she found herself in the middle of this awkward exchange, but I loved her for understanding my subliminal request. I could use more friends like her at the academy.
“I’m busy at the moment, Ryan. We’ll have to talk later.” I took another bite, taking my time chewing and swallowing.
You could have speared the suspense hanging between the three of us with a fork.
With a sniff and a jerk of his head, Ryan walked away.
Cecily’s shoulders visibly dropped and she picked up her fork and knife.
I let out a breath and took another bite from my plate. “Sorry about that.”
She waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Are you going to talk to him?”
Swallowing my food, I lifted my drink. “My plan there is to avoid being alone with him for as long as possible.”
She cocked a fine blond brow. “Lover’s quarrel?”
I snorted into my glass.
“What then?”
Before I could answer, Cecily’s gaze shot over my head again and she did a double-take. “Okay, he’s back and he... shaved?”
I gulped my lemonade just in time to avoid spraying it all over Cecily from laughter. “Ryan has a twin. You didn’t know?”
She shook her head in wonder as she watched Gage. I could tell he was making a beeline for us simply by watching her face.
“Good heavens,” she murmured.
Hands clamped down hard on my shoulders in an attempt to startle me.
“Hi, Gage,” I said, eyes on Cecily.
“Damn. Can’t sneak up on you.” He snagged the vacant chair from the table next to us and slid into it facing backward, one leg on either side. He grinned at Cecily and it was like someone had turned on a spotlight. She blinked as though dazzled. He held out a hand for her to shake. “Hi! I’m Gage.”
Bewildered, Cecily shook his hand and introduced herself. I could see the gears turning in her mind.
Gage could too. He directed a questioning look to me, grin still present.
“She just met Ryan.” I explained as I pulled my hair back and used the spare elastic I kept on my wrist to fix it into a low pony. “She didn’t realize you were twins.”
Cecily recovered. “Sorry for staring. I’ve seen you each from a distance but never at the same time. I can be rather unobservant, or so my mother feels the need to remind me. It’s funny I didn’t realize earlier. I mean you’re obviously identical, yet so... different.”
Gage chuckled and slapped out a rhythm on the back of the chair, bobbing his head. “Yeah, we get that a lot.”
He craned his neck to look at the lineup for food, which had dwindled down to a few.
“Go get your dinner, I’ll wait,” I said, marking how Cecily watched him, still with that thinly veiled amazement.
He nodded and sprang from the chair, going to join the back of the line with a bounce in his step. A few students called out greetings and he responded cheerfully.
Cecily blinked like she was trying to knock her crooked vision straight. “Let me see if I have this right. Ryan’s done something to piss everyone off, you’ve done something to piss Ryan off. You and Gage—Ryan’s twin—are together or close to it, and Gage is a class favorite and oblivious to Ryan’s status as outlaw and social leper. Otherwise he might not be so friendly toward you.”
I sat back. “I’m impressed. I don’t think your mom gives your powers of observation near enough credit.”
She shook her head. “A scarecrow wouldn’t miss the drama that just materialized in this cafeteria.” She picked up her fork and narrowed her eyes, smiling with good natured envy. “Your class is way more interesting than ours.”
Four
Close Encounter
I quickly fell in to my new routine. Thursday mornings were my skills class with Basil, so shortly after 10:30 I passed through the quiet main lobby on the way to my room to shower. I would then grab my laptop and spend the rest of the morning in the library. If I was lucky, there was a third-year named Isabel there at the same time. She had been a math-whiz in high school and was willing to help me out with some of the worst trigonometry problems.
As I passed Victory Hall into the foyer, I noticed that the door of the vintage phone box stood open. Basil had told me he spent money every year to keep the antique phone in good working order because it had been his father’s favorite feature of the villa. It had been installed when his dad was just a kid, sometime in the thirties. As a small boy he’d been entranced by the new technology, even more than by the elevators which had come in the following decade.
Assuming a student had used the phone and left the door ajar, I crossed the marble floor intending to shut it.
A shadow caught the corner of my eye, but before I could turn to see what made it a body slammed against me. With a shriek of surprise, I was shoved abruptly into the phone box. Putting my hands up just in time, I stopped myself from crashing against the phone. A starburst of pain radiated from the soft flesh just above my knee as I struck the edge of the narrow bench seat. Turning as the door was shut, I was swallowed in complete darkness with my attacker. The strength and aggression they’d used pointed to one possibility.
“Ryan!” I barked.
Fire
leapt from Ryan’s palm, illuminating his face with a devilish light. It didn’t help that his features were contorted with anger. I was sorely tempted to examine his forehead for horns.
“Put that out, you idiot,” I hissed. “Do you want to light the whole lobby on fire? Let me out.” My guts roiled like the sea in a storm. I knew perfectly well what Ryan was after, just as I also knew I couldn’t avoid him forever.
“Don’t think I care about Basil’s affinity for this place,” Ryan replied, eyes glittering.
A black mark expanded steadily in the wooden paneling of the ceiling. The stained-glass light fixture was already stained with soot. I made a sharp gesture toward the damage.
“Be still and I’ll put it out,” he whispered.
I was the Burned mage here. It seemed he needed reminding of that. With one smooth motion, I slapped an open palm over Ryan’s fire and sucked it into myself, catching him by surprise and snuffing it out. Our gazes clashed like light-sabers as my eyes lit from within. The twin beams shining from our faces lit the box. Our breath mingled and the little hairs on my skin bristled at his body being so close.
I spoke from between clenched teeth, enunciating every consonant. “Get out of my way.”
“Or what?” he sneered, closing another six inches of space between us. I could smell his shower gel. More than that, I could smell his fire; a metallic tang like copper.
I recoiled but pushed bravado into my words. “In case you’ve forgotten, a confrontation with me didn’t go that well the last time.”
He ignored my reminder. “You’ve been avoiding me, Queen Cagney. It’s making me angry. Do you want me to spill your nasty little secret? You broke the rules. Even queens have to pay for their sins.”
I hoped the anxiety his words reared within me didn’t show in my expression, but I had a feeling it did. The corners of Ryan’s mouth turned up, changing the way the shadows played across his face. I could hear my heart’s blood rushing past my eardrums.
Ryan went on before I could form an appropriately biting response. “We’ll do it tomorrow night.”
The light beaming from my eyes faltered like the headlights of a car threatening to go out. “What? Are you insane?”
“Shut up and listen. We’ll do it tomorrow night, I’ve picked a place where we won’t be disturbed.” He grew thoughtful, even dreamy. It was terrifying how badly he wanted this, what he was willing to risk for it. “Meet me at the bus stop for the eleven-fifteen. I’ll bring everything we’ll need.”
Panic wrapped its fingers around my throat. “How many times do I have to tell you? I can’t do it! I don’t know how.”
His gaze sharpened. I could feel his hot breath on my face. “You do.”
“Read my lips. No. I. Don’t. Do you have a death wish? You have to stop this. Ask for something else if you still want to hold my mistakes over my head. I’m telling you now, I can’t save you, and you can’t even trust that I would even if I did know how.”
He hesitated. It was barely discernable, but it was there.
My face inches from his, I did all I could to impregnate my words with truth and gravity. “I’m not lying, Ryan. I have no idea how to help you survive a Burning. If we go ahead with this, you will die.”
His expression softened, all doubt erased. He whispered: “You won’t let me die. You love Gage. For him, you’ll do whatever it takes to see me through. I’ve been watching you since day one. You have a good heart, too good to let something bad happen to me.”
I shook my head, stomach writhing like a speared fish.
He nodded and touched my face, thumb on one side of my jaw, fingers on the other. Heat flared from the five points of contact, swirling through to the back of my skull, then down my neck to join the fire in my torso. My fire thrilled to accept his into itself even as my mind screamed traitor!
“I won’t,” I croaked.
“Yes. You will do it or I will ruin you, just like I said I would. Avoiding me isn’t going to stop me from exposing you for a liar and a cheat. Before you can count backward from three you’ll be expelled, you’ll have no chance at the agency. You’ll find yourself back in that hole Saltford, talking about novels with the local book club and watching Kevin Costner movies with a bunch of naturals.”
His lip curled on the word ‘naturals’, making his contempt clear. His hand tightened on my jaw. I fought the urge to detonate right there in the phone box and throw him through the door.
“Gage’s adoration will turn into disappointment and disgust,” his voice oozed softness. “Yes, that’s what will happen.”
My eyes grew harder and hotter, the light in the little box brightening. Heat baked from my body, heat and fear.
Ryan cocked his head. “Why do you force my hand? You know it doesn’t have to be this way. I can be nice.”
He came closer and I thought he was going to kiss me. Fire surged at the base of my throat, threatening to belch into his mouth if he did. But he released my face and traced a finger from my temple to the base of my ear, igniting a trail of heat.
“I would show you if you’d let me.”
Words piled up behind my teeth, protests, curses, railings.
“Tomorrow night,” he said. “Don’t be late.”
Cool air whooshed into the phone box as he opened the door and backed out. Darkness rushed in again as he closed the door, leaving me alone with a heaving chest and racing mind. My legs shook as I sank onto the bench, a hand against my heart. I leaned against the paneling and let my head drop back to rest on the wood, allowing the heat to drain away. A layer of sweat coated my forehead.
My mind threw a movie onto the full-color screen of my imagination. I saw myself pacing back and forth in front of Ryan’s prone form as he moaned in pain and begged for mercy, a mercy I wasn’t supposed to give until a moment in time I could not deduce. Was I supposed to guess? As smoke spiraled from his fingertips, from his mouth and his nostrils, as I held the sweet elixir of life in my hands, the simple substance which would end his pain and preserve his wretched, miserable life...
I could give it to him early.
As soon as he felt the agony of it, as his tissues blackened and smoked, he would beg me for water. I would give it to him, I’d not be able to deny him. It would take the soul of a medieval torturer, a psychopath without any compassion at all, to watch a mage burn and withhold the thing he was begging for. I could just give him the water the moment he asked for it. He would ask, wouldn’t he? No mage could be strong enough to withstand hours of that kind of pain. It was worse than being burned at the stake. It took longer, and it came from the inside out.
But what if he was strong enough? I’d never met anyone more obsessed than Ryan. Even Dante had the heart of a coward. He wanted the fire but he’d never have been able to bear the torment of a Burning. Ryan was harder somehow. What if he fought me because he knew it was too early? What if he closed his mouth and let the water bubble and steam away, evaporating against his hot skin. Eventually, he’d lose consciousness. The smell of baking flesh would fill my nose and made my eyes sting. Terror would grip my innards like a fist as logic and memory batted a ball back and forth. How long is too long? When do I pour water down his throat? How do I deduce when the door to complete a successful Burning had opened? The window of time was different for every mage. I had survived by pure luck.
I shook my head and snapped off the horrible movie.
“No,” I said aloud, my voice husky. “I won’t do it.”
If I wasn’t going to let him blackmail me then there was only one way out of this mess. The thought of it made my palms clammy and my mouth dry, but it was better than standing over Ryan’s burnt corpse. It was better than being arrested for murder. It was better than having his death on my conscience for the rest of my life. It was better than explaining to Gage why his twin had roasted alive and I’d let it happen because I was afraid of being expelled.
Knees weak and shaky, I got to my feet and stepped out of the phone box.
Closing the door, I stood there with my eyes unfocused and my chest feeling tight from the dread of what I had to do.
Five
Coming Clean
Swaying unsteadily on my feet, I stood outside Basil’s office. I hadn’t been able to concentrate all day as this task loomed over me like a monolith about to fall. Wanda’s words from the night before my first day of school echoed in my memory: he expels thieves on the spot, cheaters too, come to think of it.
What I’d overheard Krispy tell Ryan the time they broke into Dr. Price’s office had reinforced this. The headmaster was hard on cheaters, thieves and liars. So he should be. I’d always admired a firm hand in my authority figures, but I’d never been a rule-breaker. Now I found myself in an impossible situation. The one time I cheat, I’m forced to face the music. That was karma hard at work. I was now personally acquainted with the rock, the hard place, and the space in between. It was so bloody narrow here I could hardly breathe.
I lifted a hand and paused with my knuckles at the ready, mind spiraling round and round, scampering through a haunted forest of possibility. Was there another way out of this? Watching Ryan die was out of the question, and Ryan was not the type to make empty threats. So the only way to defuse his bomb was to explode it myself. No, I had no other choice.
My knuckles rapped against the wood, perhaps for the last time. I wondered if the headmaster would let me stay until arrangements could be made for my flight home or if he’d kick me out tonight and I’d have to book some seedy hotel near the airport. Maybe I should have packed before this conversation.
“Come.”
Too late now.
Pushing the door open, I felt my stomach slide down my spine and quiver like gelatin in my pelvis. I padded onto the ornamental rug and stood by the coffee table.
