by Eva Chase
The corner of my mouth twitched with a smile I couldn’t restrain. That should make her think again if she felt like screwing with my magic, anyway.
I scrambled to recreate my original scent as Professor Viceport nodded to my neighbor and offered a couple of suggestions. The lavender prickled my nose a little more pungently than I’d have preferred, and the sweetness of the cookie scent overwhelmed the doughy aspect that I liked best, but at least I had an approximation of what I’d been going for when Viceport stopped in front of me.
“Ready, Miss Bloodstone?” she said in the icy voice that only I seemed to receive. Her pale eyes, equally cold, peered at me from behind the rectangular panes of her glasses. Between that, her wispy ash-blond pixie cut, and her skinny but elegant frame, she fit the “Ice Queen” nickname a whole lot better than I ever had.
“It still needs some refining,” I said, “but you’ll get the general idea.”
I started to speak to adjust the bubble so she could take a sniff inside—and another tingle raced past me, this one ten times as violent as before. I didn’t have a chance to so much as flinch before my shell of magic burst apart with a force that smacked my face. And Viceport’s too, from her wince. The scent I’d conjured dissipated in an instant.
“Miss Bloodstone,” Professor Viceport said sharply, raising her chin and peering down her nose at me. “I expect a mage of your supposed caliber to maintain far better control over your conjurings. Have you learned nothing in the last three months?”
My hand clenched on the desktop. I forced my voice to stay even. “There wasn’t a flaw in my conjuring. Someone else shattered it.”
She sniffed. “Come now, you should at least be above blaming others for your own failings. Although perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.”
What was that supposed to mean? I held my frustration in by a fraying thread of self-control. “I’m simply telling you the truth. It isn’t as if sabotaging other students is an uncommon occurrence around here, is it?” It wasn’t that she couldn’t believe someone would have done it, only that she’d rather blame me.
“I’m sure all of your classmates are currently fully occupied with their own work. You must admit you’ve had plenty of struggles in the past. Now—”
A low voice interrupted from the other side of the room. “Rory’s telling the truth. I saw Victory cast something at her.”
My head jerked around at the same time Viceport’s did. We both stared at Connar. He looked back at us, his expression tense even though his tone had been matter-of-fact.
Victory had turned to look at him too, although her eyes were narrowed into a glare. Beside her, Cressida’s face had turned pink with a nervous flush. They obviously hadn’t expected to be taking on two scions today.
“Professor Viceport,” my nemesis said quickly in her most honeyed voice, “I think Connar must have misinterpreted what he saw of my casting—”
Connar shifted his already impressive form taller in his seat. “I’m the most skilled Physicality mage out of all the students at Blood U,” he said firmly. “I know how to tell what I’m looking at.”
Viceport’s mouth twisted as if she resented having to address this new development at all. She sighed.
“Well,” she said, “I can’t give credit to anyone, since it appears you all bungled what you meant to do.” Her gaze slid back to me. “Even if your fellow students decide to interfere, it’s up to you to keep your castings solid. I’ll evaluate your performance in this exercise based on past demonstrations.”
A whole lot of which I’d struggled with for reasons I didn’t totally understand. But I didn’t see how else I could argue with her. At least Victory wasn’t getting any praise for getting caught in her trick.
I thought that would be the end of it, but Connar spoke up again, his voice quieter but still grave enough to command attention. “There’s actually something else I need to talk to you about, Professor. After class lets out.”
Victory and Cressida shot wary glances Connar’s way as they gathered their things to go at the end of the workshop, but he didn’t acknowledge them in the slightest. Whatever he had to talk to Professor Viceport about, they were obviously worried it might have to do with them… but they couldn’t defend themselves without admitting they’d done something that needed defending. After a moment, they filed out of the room with the rest of the class.
I grabbed my purse, planning to follow—very carefully, in case of potential ambush on the stairs—but Connar motioned to me as he went to the professor’s desk. His expression wasn’t just grim but a little green now. Whatever he was going to talk about, he didn’t feel good about it.
“You should hear this too,” he said.
Viceport folded her hands together where she was standing behind her desk, her lips pursing. “What is this about, Mr. Stormhurst? I don’t think there’s anything more to be discussed regarding today’s performances.”
“It’s not about today.” Connar inhaled sharply. “You’ve gotten a skewed impression of Rory’s abilities in Physicality not just today but for the last two months. I’ve been intermittently… interfering with her conjurings. Weakening them, making them disperse. I know protecting our castings is an important skill too, but I think you can agree that expecting a student just learning how to control her abilities to protect herself from the top student in that area is above and beyond.”
My whole body had chilled. It took me a second before I could force out the words. “You were throwing off my spells, all that time…?” He’d done it so subtly I’d never even suspected someone else’s magic had meddled with mine.
Now he looked even more sick. “I stopped a couple of weeks before the end of term. I shouldn’t have—it’s complicated.” He fixed his gaze on Professor Viceport. “The successful castings that Rory has managed are reflective of her true abilities, not the others. I regret interfering, and I think she should be judged based on her actual talent. That’s why I’m telling you.”
Viceport had gone a bit paler even than usual. She pinched her nose just below the bridge of her glasses as if she had a headache. “All right,” she said. “Thank you for your candor, Mr. Stormhurst. Credit to Physicality for carrying out your intentions in a way neither I nor Miss Bloodstone clearly caught on to. I’ll keep this information in mind as we proceed.”
I wasn’t even surprised anymore that she didn’t offer any punishment or even a chiding word. Blood U encouraged its students to be cutthroat. Any of the professors, even Banefield, would have said it was my job to learn how to defend myself. But Connar’s admission still left me numb, as if I hadn’t already known he’d made himself my enemy.
Viceport appeared to be done with us, so I hurried on out of the room. Connar didn’t have any trouble catching up, though.
“Rory,” he said, following me down the stairs, “I’m sorry. That’s why I told her—why I wanted you to hear it too. I know I can’t make up for everything unless you know everything I’ve done.”
I walked on without looking back at him. “If you expect kudos just for owning up to doing something shitty—”
“I don’t.” He swallowed audibly. “I’m trying to do the right thing—that’s all I’ve ever been doing. I honestly thought I was doing the right thing before. All I can tell you is how sorry I am and how stupid I feel for not listening to my gut sooner. And that’s it. There’s nothing else I did to trip you up that you don’t know about it. I felt like shit the whole time I was doing even that much.”
“So why the fuck did you do it?” I spun on him at the next landing. “I still don’t understand that. Did Malcolm ask you to attack my work?”
The guilty tightening of his mouth told me enough.
“Oh,” I said. “And of course you had to go along with it because he’s such a good friend.”
“He is,” Connar said. “When he isn’t being a jackass, anyway, which is actually most of the time, as hard as that might be for you to believe. But he’s wrong about
this—he’s wrong about you—and I’ve told him that, more times than just the other day. I’ll keep telling him until he sees it.” He paused. “I can make up for screwing up your castings directly—if you want any extra tutoring—I can teach you the best tricks I’ve learned over the years…”
The hope that crept across his face with the offer made my insides ache all over again. “Let me see,” I said abruptly.
He blinked at me. “See what?”
“That you’re telling the truth. That this isn’t another way to mess with me. Let me use insight on you.”
I’d done it once before, skimming the surface of his mind, without him even knowing it. But I wanted full access right now—and I also wanted to see how he’d react to the request.
He hesitated, as I guessed anyone would when asked to open up the contents of their head for someone else to rummage through. Then he nodded. “Go ahead. Look as much as you want. I owe you that.”
He came down the last step to stand on the landing next to me. I fixed my gaze on his forehead, tamping down on my awareness of his presence, his body, so close to mine.
“Franco,” I murmured.
Connar had taken down any walls he normally kept up. I tumbled straight into the whirl of impressions. A pang of guilt raced through my awareness, followed by a burn of shame, a flicker of Malcolm’s furious face in the scions’ lounge, a wave of loss as I’d crumbled the dragon figurine I’d made for Connar in his hand. Over it all was the stark sear of desperation and longing as he looked at me right now, wanting so badly for me to recognize his repentance.
The force of all those emotions squeezed the breath from my lungs. I pulled myself back out with a gulp of air. Connar watched me, waiting, his hand closed tight around the railing.
He was sorry. I believed that now without a doubt. But he’d also honestly thought that tearing me down was a reasonable expression of loyalty not that long ago. The regret he felt today wasn’t necessarily permanent.
“Okay,” I said. “Apology accepted. Forgiveness might take a little longer. So will deciding whether to trust you with that extra help.”
“Of course,” Connar said with obvious relief. “Take all the time you need.”
He dipped his head to me and continued on down the stairs, giving me space as well. I watched him disappear around the bend, somehow feeling even more uncertain than I had before.
Chapter Eleven
Rory
I might not be looking to continue my romance with Jude, but he had taught me some useful things during our brief friendship-and-more. One of those was not to worry about breaking the rules so much as ensuring I didn’t get caught. So I watched the hall that held the teaching staff’s quarters carefully as I magically sprung the lock on Professor Banefield’s office door, but I didn’t hesitate before stepping inside.
It’d been nearly a month since his death, but the maintenance staff had left the room pretty much as it’d always been. I’d heard that Ms. Grimsworth was having trouble tracking down his next of kin. The new junior Insight professor she’d brought on had taken a different, vacant office.
As my gaze traveled over the familiar bookshelves and the desk where I’d so often sat across from my mentor, my heart squeezed. The air smelt a little stale and the space was dim with the curtain mostly pulled over the small window, but something of Banefield’s upbeat demeanor still lingered.
He’d been the only authority figure at the school who’d been anything like warm with me. Maybe I hadn’t agreed with his attitudes about Naries—the same ones so many other fearmancers shared—but he’d been willing to listen to my arguments. He’d seemed to really consider them. He’d talked me through so many of my worries and my struggles with my magic.
And when push came to shove, he’d put his whole life on the line to save me.
I dragged in a breath past the heaviness in my chest and began my circuit of the room. Every book, every container on the shelves, I needed to check for some spot, obvious or hidden, where the key he’d placed in my hand might fit. It didn’t seem likely that he’d been keeping whatever he wanted me to find right here, or he’d have handed it straight to me, but I didn’t have much else to go on.
The office didn’t turn up anything. There were a couple of drawers with keyholes on the desk, but one of them was already unlocked and the other one didn’t accept my key. I walked over to the far door that led into the professor’s private quarters, the weight inside me getting heavier.
The last time I’d been in those rooms, I’d cured Professor Banefield of his cursed illness—and then he’d tried to destroy my magic. Instead he’d ended up gouging his own heart.
I braced myself as I murmured the unlocking spell and eased the door open. The hall on the other side was equally dim. But the maintenance staff had clearly come through here to do some basic clean-up. Only a hint of the sickly sweat smell from his long sickness remained in the air. The tiled floor in the kitchen shone pale beige, no trace of his blood remaining. Even in his bedroom, where he’d lain in a stupor for weeks, the bed had been made with clean sheets tucked neatly around the mattress.
I wouldn’t have wanted to see the mess, but this sanitized space left my skin creeping. It was as if Banefield’s final days and selfless sacrifice had been completely erased. You wouldn’t have known anyone had existed in this space at all recently.
Walking into the kitchen made my wrist twinge where Banefield had gripped it so hard he’d bruised me. I shoved the memories aside and forced myself to focus on my search. I needed to find something to give me a direction. Otherwise that sacrifice of his wouldn’t have accomplished half of what he’d wanted it to.
I didn’t discover any secret safes or secured cupboards. My spirits had sunk by the time I reached the last focus of my search, the living room. No unexpected objects lay behind the sofa or the armchairs. The side tables had no compartments, and the drawer on the oak coffee table opened at my tug. All it held were a few papers.
With a looming sense of hopelessness, I sifted through them. My hand paused over an envelope. I drew it out.
The envelope and the papers inside didn’t offer any specific clues. They appeared to be a letter from a friend or colleague about some area of magical study Banefield had been researching—nothing to do with me, as the date at the top was from before I’d even arrived here. But they gave me something else that might be even better.
The letter hadn’t been sent to Professor Banefield here at the university. The writing on the envelope was an address in a town I didn’t recognize somewhere else in New York state.
Of course Banefield had his own home apart from here. A place he might have felt was more secure from the people who’d wished me and him harm?
I took a picture of the address with my phone. As soon as I had the chance to take a road trip out there, I’d have to find out whether that place held the answers I needed.
As I took my seat for my morning Persuasion seminar a couple days later, I found myself eyeing Professor Crowford’s lightly lined face more warily than in the past. I couldn't have said I'd been especially fond of him before, even though he’d intervened a couple of times to save me from potential embarrassment when Malcolm and I had faced off. The professor always kept a suavely detached air as if he saw our squabbles and other classroom activities as a mild amusement rather than anything serious.
The summer project he’d chosen made me rethink my neutral opinion of him. He wasn’t just dismissive of the Naries like every fearmancer I’d talked to other than Declan was—he’d thought it’d be a good idea to encourage the entire student body to manipulate them way beyond what normally happened here. There was a particularly cruel, callous side hiding under those fading good looks.
I was distracted from my analysis by Malcolm’s arrival. The Nightwood scion didn’t look at me as he sauntered across the room to claim the seat at the other end of the row, but my whole body sprang into extra alertness. Persuasion was his specialty, and he
did enjoy using it on me.
And he still hadn’t done anything to get back at me for that kiss I’d intended in mockery the other day.
A couple more students filed in, leaving one empty desk at the back. Professor Crowford considered it and then the doorway, and seemed to decide whoever hadn’t yet arrived shouldn’t hold up class. He stepped around his desk and clapped his hands authoritatively.
“All right, let’s get down to business. Since I set you off on your project this summer, I suppose I’d better supply you with some innovative strategies for accomplishing your goals. One thing I want you to keep in mind is that while we most often focus on using persuasive spells to direct the actions of others, they can be equally powerful in directing thoughts and emotions. For a more subtle change in behavior, that’s where you’ll want to at least start.”
He went on to describe a trick for provoking a mild emotion in your target using your own memories as a sort of fuel. I found myself listening intently despite my qualms about the project, because hell, I still needed to do some persuading, even if it was with good intentions.
Benjamin had seemed pretty excited about the clubhouse idea the few times I’d encouraged his discussions with the others along as they’d worked out their design proposal, but you never knew when doubts might set in. Especially since there were at least a couple other mages who’d be pushing him in different directions.
A faint warmth brushed over my left knee. I glanced down automatically, my leg stiffening, but… nothing was there. My pant leg looked perfectly normal.
But as I watched, the sensation returned. If I hadn’t been looking right at my knee, I’d have sworn someone had teased their fingers across it and then, slowly, softly, settled their hand just above it. It wasn’t an especially intimate touch, and the carefulness of it stopped me from leaping out of my chair in response. It held there, a spot of gentle warmth in a gesture that could have been comforting if it hadn’t been so bizarre and unexpected.
