Light of Equality (Hawthorn Academy Book 5)

by D. R. Perry

  "Because you aren't sure what your name is?" I shrugged. "Her kind were victims for ages, moved from one place to another and fed from. Maybe Kiln was the only name she could think of that wouldn’t hurt anyone."

  "My mom never had much empathy," Hal said, "And she’s the opposite of genuine under the masks she wears in public. No, Aliyah. I can't afford to entertain the idea that she's somehow secretly sad. You never met her, so I don't blame you for misjudging her."

  "Parents screw up." Faith put her arm around him, leaning his head on her shoulder. "They're flawed, they make mistakes. The really bad ones do horrifying shit on purpose, like sell their kids to the highest bidder, which is my guess about how she ended up here."

  I couldn't say anything. My own folks were as close to perfect as you could get, despite my mom's estranged family. Anything I said would sound trite, so I looked at the paper again, trying to think of an alternate path to discovering Stephanie's true identity. My brain kept going back to Logan's parents and how they’d put out an Amber Alert to the police. That gave me an idea.

  "Have you thought about missing person records? Cold cases?"

  "No." Hal blinked. "I hadn't."

  "I had." Faith sighed. "It takes a lot of in-person legwork all over New England. We'd have to hire someone for that. A private investigator."

  "How much do you think it would cost?" Hal raised an eyebrow.

  "No clue." I shrugged. "I don't know whether minors like us can legally hire them anyway, but it's something to look into."

  "I'll check on it." Hal gave me a wan grin. "Thanks for brainstorming with us, Aliyah."

  "I'd hardly call that a brainstorm, but you're welcome. I was wondering, what brought you here?"

  "More vitamins for Nin and a checkup. Can you believe it's been almost six months since the last time?"

  "Wow." I shook my head. "So much has happened since then."

  "How's Dylan holding up, by the way?" Faith asked. "We've barely seen him since the beginning of the year."

  "He's not doing so great. Feels left out of everything, mostly." I sighed. "At least he's got guitar."

  "It must be even worse with the café closed. I heard about you confronting Alex the night it happened. Good job getting information out of him. Maybe that's why he finally gave the report to us."

  "That's not why I did it. Total knee-jerk reaction. I'm kind of embarrassed." I let out a deflated little sigh. "At least I didn't light up the lobby in a bad way."

  "I don't blame you one bit." Faith sniffed. "We still need to keep an eye on him. You know how Grace has our entire social structure planned out? You can be sure Tempe's got something similar going on, and if I were her, I'd counter you with Alex. You might have caught him off-guard that time, but be careful."

  "I'm sorry, Faith." Hal shook his head. "You should be the one leading our crowd. You were born for this, but instead, you're stuck ushering me around."

  "I wouldn't be anywhere but with you, and Grace is doing just fine." Faith squeezed his hand. "That girl has an uncanny knack for managing any task she puts her mind to. Besides, I like using my powers for good." She grinned.

  "What did Grace say the first day? We're going to nice them to death?"

  "It might not be that simple, but that's the idea, and I'm sticking to it." Hal nodded. "What did you say last year? Kindness is punk AF?"

  We all laughed at that. Bubbe returned with Nin's vitamins to a room full of mirthful teenagers. I followed as we escorted Faith and Hal out the front door. After they left, I turned to my grandmother and hugged her.

  "Bubbe, thank you."

  "What for?"

  "For being so kind to my friends. Helping us all. Going above and beyond. I appreciate it."

  "Bissel, it's the least I can do. After we get to be a certain age, many adults think back to the teenage years, remember it as some golden age, but then we get even older and remember the rest. How hard it all was at the same time."

  "There's something Logan says in Creatives: that it's almost impossible for something bright to stand out unless the background’s darker. He's talking about art, I know, but isn't art like life?"

  "And the other way around." She sighed, but the corners of her mouth turned up instead of down. "I know I already did my rounds, but would you like to have a look at our current guests?"

  Of course I would. I followed my grandmother down the hall, filling the rest of my Saturday with the familiar but still fascinating task of helping around her office.

  Chapter Five

  Much like the previous year, the weeks went by in routine. Bubbe returned Clementine to campus on Monday at dinner time. I saw it happen; we had our take-out dinners adjacent to Darren. The lounge was cramped because only part of it had opened before the café, which remained closed.

  Familiar Bonding proceeded, and we discovered Lena's element was poison. That shocked me. Shyness wasn't usually a personality trait amongst poison magi, and possums tended to avoid them, but she ended up bonding with the little marsupial despite all that.

  Arick was a wood magus like Lee Young. He didn't find his familiar among the ones Nurse Smith presented, either. He bonded with one in the library, but not before he completely lost hope. I only saw it because I offered to return a book for Ezekiel.

  "It's not going to happen, Mr. Ashford." Arick put his head down on the counter, something I'd never seen a student do in the library. "Is Academic as boring as they say?"

  "Why not have a look at the introductory text, Arick?"

  He pulled a large battered volume out from under the counter and set it beside the boy's head. It made a faint booming sound, but hollower than I would have expected from a tome that size. Arick stood up immediately, staring at the cover, which shook slightly before bouncing up and down.

  "Oh, dear." Mr. Ashford took a step backward. "Cover your faces, students!"

  As if in demonstration, he held his palms over his mouth and nose, like the masks carpenters wear to keep out wood shavings. Moments later, I copied him, rushing to Arick's side to encourage him to do the same. I knew what was coming.

  The book's cover flipped open, letting out a voluminous cloud of papery dust. I squinted, wanting to see the critter emerge. I'd never watched one hatch before.

  The pointy head looked more canine than reptilian, but that was because bookwyrms were chimera. It shook its mane out, sending up more dust, then yawned, revealing its froglike tongue. When it tried to climb out of the now-hollow tome its egg had been laid in, the poor creature succeeded but ended up falling headfirst off the counter.

  "I got you!" Arick dropped to his knees, catching the critter in his hands.

  Mr. Ashford lowered his hands, holding them to his heart and smiling. My mouth dropped open as I watched Arick stare into the bookwyrm's eyes. It let out a dusty croak.

  "You're welcome, Skinner." He stood up absently, totally enthralled with the wingless critter perched in his hands.

  "Your bookwyrm's name is Skinner?" I grinned. "Like the psychologist?"

  "He hatched from an education textbook, so that makes sense," Mr. Ashford said.

  "Well, it looks like you've got yourself a familiar, Arick." I grinned.

  After that, he was all smiles. He waited with me as I returned the book, and I had the privilege of going with him to tell Nurse Smith the good news. Our remaining time in Familiar Bonding was spent on critter training and care, much to Dorian's relief. He and Mercy still needed practice.

  Faith and Hal ended up asking Nurse Smith to conduct lessons in the same room as his infusions, mostly so they had company. He seemed slightly better, which was no small relief, especially with the specter of Parents’ Night spooking Logan. He talked about it at breakfast one day.

  "I don't know what to do, Aliyah." Logan shook his head, then gazed into his glass of juice. "They're going to show up. It's Elanor's last year. What if they try to take me home?"

  "It's Massachusetts, and my mom knows all the laws, which are in your fa
vor. She'll be here with Bubbe. They'll stick up for you."

  "I can't shake the feeling that they're going to do something awful." He shuddered, almost knocking over his glass.

  "I understand, mate." Dylan patted his shoulder. "This year has sucked so far, but once we're past Parents’ Night, it's all fun stuff. Extramurals. Remember that? Maybe there's some good on the horizon."

  "I guess so." Logan shrugged. "It's just, nobody else had their parents toss them out, then call the cops on them."

  "You might be wrong about that." I waved a hand at the bustling cafeteria, thinking about my mom. "Maybe nobody here has been through that, but somewhere in the world, it probably happened before."

  "I'm still scared. Can't help the feeling it'll go sideways no matter what I do. I know what you say about assumptions, so I guess I'm an ass."

  "At least you're a smart ass, Logan." Dorian sauntered by with a tray full of empty plates. "I wouldn't be managing if it weren't for you, so at any rate, I'm glad you're here."

  Logan stared at Dorian like he was a cooler full of ice-cold soda on a hundred-degree day at the beach. He strode by, seemingly oblivious to the attention.

  "If I could only find a girl who looked at me the way you do at the Goth." Elanor appeared from somewhere behind me, shaking her head. "You've got it bad."

  "No, I don't." Logan jerked his arm so hard he knocked over his juice.

  It spilled across the table, splashing the remains of my breakfast sandwich in the process. I managed to avoid any of it dripping on me, thanks to Ember. She swooped down, flapping her wings to keep it from falling off the side like an orange waterfall. I tossed a stack of napkins on the liquid to soak up the deluge.

  "Just say something to him already." Elanor sighed. "Do what you can about the stuff you have control over."

  "Yeah, unlike your parents." Dylan rolled his eyes. "If you're going to give him sisterly advice, better to reassure him about that elephant in the room."

  "I can't." She gazed at her shoes. "I'm not an insurance company, and they're practically acts of God. I'll distract them as much as I can." Elanor looked back up at Logan. "I wish they weren't giving you so much grief."

  "Thanks, Elanor."

  "For nothing." I finished mopping up the orange juice, dropping the sodden napkin on my tray.

  "Whatever, Miss Healthy Normal Family." With that, Elanor flounced away.

  "What did she just call me?" I blinked.

  "It's several steps up from the crap Charity said about you last year." Dylan shrugged, then placed his hands on the table. The tips of his fingers paled slightly. "Anyway."

  Something about his fingernails must've caught his attention because he studied them. He cleared his throat, opened his mouth, then closed it again. After another moment, he leaned back and shook his head. Whatever he was going to tell us remained a mystery.

  "Aliyah, I wanted to ask." Logan started bussing the trays. "Will you go to the dance with me? As friends again, I mean. I just don't want to be there by myself, you know."

  "Sure, Logan. At least none of us has to go with Alex Onassis."

  We all laughed, Dylan somewhat flatly. It broke the tension enough to get us through that day, at least.

  As the week wore on, I noticed Hal wasn't as late to class as he'd been at the end of last year. He came in just after the bell, a vast improvement. We partnered up in lab again while Faith headed Bailey off, leaving Dorian with Logan, who was responsible for him academically anyway. Matchmaking had everything to do with it since Faith and Hal noticed Logan’s crush.

  "You look way better." I waved a hand at his improved color and posture. "Is it the new treatments in Boston?"

  "Partly, but Faith's been helping between classes. We meet at that stained glass mural and do the therapies Bubbe gave us last year." He recorded an observation about the fluid in the flask in front of us.

  "Well, I'm glad that's working and that the doctors allow it."

  "Me too. Who'd have thought the fact that she's an undeath magus would be so serendipitous."

  "Coincidence." I smiled at my friend. "You guys are destined."

  "I won't wager against you on that." He nodded back.

  Neither of us said the obvious: that she was literally saving his life. I think he worried, wondered whether things between them were one-sided. From where I sat, it went both ways. Her family was so toxic it could give Alex's poison a run for its money.

  I pondered my ex-boyfriend. Last year, he'd given Charity a vow to help with some heinous effort, but so far, he’d only denied poisoning Clementine and sent genealogy records to Hal. I couldn't allow his baffling behavior too much real estate in my mind. Faith was right; his mere presence could foil me by distraction if I wasn't careful.

  Temperance was the definitive force in the social scene for first-years, and Alex was almost always on her arm. So far, it hadn't extended to us. Bailey hung out with the third-years. Elanor Pierce was their It Girl, and dating Alex had backfired because Noah hated him. Most of the third-years snubbed Tempe.

  That left her with no choice but to set up a stationary orbit around Elanor's group in hopes of catching defectors before they switched allegiance to Grace. That vindicated her social strategy enough for my classmates to accept Dylan’s misery as collateral damage.

  Every Wednesday, the school cafeteria had high tea after Familiar Bonding. The crowd around Grace grew, while Temperance's dwindled.

  Arick Magnuson brought Giselle Ambersmith, who was his lab partner, to hang out the first week and introduced others each Wednesday. I kept my eye on the rest of the first-years every time because Alex had been sneaky last year, and I had no reason to think he’d changed.

  If only I had more information. Bubbe was my only source, and she remained mum about the lab results. The headmaster continued working on the mystery. He'd sent a memo requesting staff and faculty to come forward with information but had let nothing else slip where Hal could hear or see it. Nurse Smith kept his lips zipped so tightly on the matter that he'd excluded Ezekiel.

  The week before Parents’ Night, Grace declared she needed me for some rounds through the dorm. She had me drag a canvas-covered wheeled rack up the stairs from Creatives and then along the third-floor hall. At first, I wasn't sure what she was up to, but after we knocked on Kitty’s and Faith's door, I realized this was the result of her secret project.

  Grace hadn't spent all summer just making clothes for herself. She'd made outfits for everyone in our year except Dorian, who she couldn't have planned for.

  "Are you sure you don't have changelings in your family, Grace?" Kitty winked. "Because there’s this total fairy godmother vibe going on right now."

  "Nope." She shook her head. "A little dragon shifter way back on Mom's side is all. Otherwise, just magi. Anyway, do you like it?"

  "It's so awesome, I can't even find words." Kitty held the red and orange dress up against her body. It looked like it was made of fire, flickering in the lights like a garment of flames.

  "I never would've chosen something like this for myself, but I would've been wrong." Faith shook her head, holding the draped and flowing lavender gown with pale green and gold accents at arm's length and staring at it. "It's beautiful, a real work of art."

  "Thanks." Grace blinked. She wasn't unaccustomed to praise, but Faith gave it so rarely even I was surprised. "Come on, Aliyah. If we want to get this done before lights out, we've got to head to the next room."

  "Can I go?" Faith asked. "It's Lee and Hal next, right?

  "Sure." Grace nodded.

  Kitty went back in their room, and the three of us made our way down the hall to the next one. Lee answered the door when we knocked, then nodded and invited us in.

  "You didn't have to, Grace." Hal shook his head, gazing down at the ensemble he'd laid out on his bed. The jacket and pants were black damask with a very subtle ram's head pattern, but the tie and vest matched Faith's color scheme.

  "I wanted to."

 
"All the same, send me an invoice." He grinned. "Dad budgeted for my event attire this year, and if you don't, he'll head into town and buy something I don't like nearly as much."

  "Me too." Lee stood in front of his mirror, holding his outfit up with the hanger under his chin. His suit was a deep earthy brown with a pine-green cravat that featured a glittering pin matching his signature purple bangs. He looked over his shoulder and grinned. "I was just going to wear my blazer. This is awesome."

  "Do you have a date this year, Lee?" Faith raised her eyebrow.

  "Maybe I’ll bring someone, but only with the headmaster’s permission."

  "He'll say yes," Hal stated.

  Before I could ask who Lee's mysterious date was, we headed out of the room and down the hall once again. This time, we stopped at Eston’s and Dorian's room. Grace didn't have anything for Dorian because she hadn't met him until school started, but Eston was overjoyed to see the retro-styled powder-blue suit with its black cummerbund and bow tie. His shirt was ruffled and a darker blue like lapis lazuli, which matched his glasses.

  Hailey and Bailey were utterly surprised to see us with the garment rack. Hailey's excitement was palpable, though her sister kept shooting the three of us suspicious glances. The garments weren't anywhere near identical, despite the twins having the same build and coloring.

  “I look like a unicorn!” Hailey giggled. Her dress was cocktail length, fun and cute with a kicky circle skirt in iridescent pink fabric. The entire dress had an ombre effect that reminded me of the sky at sunrise. Bailey's dress was a bias-cut maxi with a mermaid skirt. White rosettes that looked like cirrus clouds ran along the spaghetti straps, crisscrossing at the waist in front and trailing down the back of the sky blue gown.

  Finally, we got to Dylan’s and Logan's room, where Grace first produced a navy-blue suit with gold buttons and seafoam accessories. Logan oohed and ahhed over it while Dylan sat at his desk, emphatically jotting words down in his class notebook.

  "Come away from that homework and check out your new duds."

  "Really?" He turned his head and raised an eyebrow, his lip curling into a sneer. "You shouldn't have."