by Jade Alters
“Shut up - would you just shut up? I’m thinking…” River barks.
“Alright, just take it…” I try to stop myself, remembering how well my roommate deals with commands. By then, it’s too late. I see a pulse shoot through her muscle, like a wave through water.
“Don’t tell me to take it easy! This is the only place I can…” River whimpers for a second, before a moment of weakness transforms to one of pure rancor. It’s a pattern I recognize well. “I don’t know what to do!” River screams.
“Alright - River!” I scream when her body contorts like a twizzler. Her skeleton and muscles compress, then expand with a horrific series of cracks, until she’s twice the size she was a second ago. She’s also covered head to toe in dark, long hair, with bulging muscles and a simian grimace locked right onto me. I just had to mention gorillas. Silverback River lumbers straight towards me, fist swinging like an iron club. “River stop!” I shout, then duck when she does the exact inverse.
River’s massive arm leaves a deep imprint in the steel face of our room fridge behind me. I sprint across the room and wheel around while my beast of a roomie shakes out her sore forearm. Her head pivots on a hinge of vengeance. I see my own conflicted reflection in her furious green eyes. She grips the carpet with her jointed toes to fling herself at me again. My hand flies out on a pulse of instinct alone. For the first time in my life, I conjure a flame without anger. I want a wall between me and River, and one ignites. A perfect barrier of flame strikes alive across the length of our carpet, rising almost to the ceiling. I watch River’s eyes through the fire as she paces from one end of it to the other on her forearms.
I’ve never had the fire obey me like this. I keep my hand out for focus, whether or not it actually has anything to do with the barrier. I shake with the fear that it might extinguish itself any second. But, in spite of every worry, my face curls in a smile at the idea that I can control it. Now I just need the right person on the other side of my firewall.
Serge,
The Broken Academy, D Wing
“I’m telling you, these two are going to destroy this place, if they don’t get me expelled first,” I rattle off to my suitemate. Side by side, we sprint through the outer halls of the C Wing classrooms. I didn’t even have a chance to finish going over first day notes with Fey Hartgen before my Dorm Monitoring Amulet lit up my pockets.
“I can run ahead, you know. I could be there before the end of this sentence,” Darius reminds me. As if I could forget. You never forget what a Vampire accessing their full speed does to your eyes and brain. Of all the benefits that come with being Wing Supervisor, having Darius Jecks in the other single room attached to mine is by far one of the best. I try not to overuse his willingness to step in and help. It’s bad form to take advantage of an old friend. If there’s one thing Dalshak Magicians are conditioned to hate, it’s bad form.
“No. I appreciate you coming, but you’re my backup. It wouldn’t go over well with the Council for a Wing Supervisor to send others to take care of his own charges,” I dismiss the tempting idea. I drive my heels down to bound down halls and cut corners as fast as I can. Darius keeps pace without a deep breath or a drop of sweat.
I should have known. In all the times I’ve passed Cece with a casual smile, in the D Wing halls or cafeteria, she’s seemed better. Whatever Thise said to her after the incident in the courtyard stuck, at least a little. We haven’t had so much as a hiccup since then, which I counted as significant progress, even if it was just a week. But, when she left Mystical History… It’s an odd thing, to feel someone else’s anger burn through your clothes. Cece was so distracted by whatever it was that she stormed out without even noticing the hand-shaped burn mark she left on my shirt. Why didn’t I figure she would get into it with River today? Why did I believe that she’d somehow be able to cool off?
It might be because of the girl I saw in class today. The Cece that sat a few feet away from me in Mystical History just now was a very different girl from the one I had to toss in an illusory prison. She was attentive. She was interested. She took more notes than anyone I’ve seen in such a basic class. When she glanced up at me from her notebook from time to time, there was something I might even call sweet in those crystal blue eyes, if I didn’t know any better. If I didn’t know the Cece that’s waiting for me in her room at the end of this last hall. I saw something change in her, right before my eyes, during class. I saw the sweet girl who bounced back so quickly from making an ass of herself when Fey Hartgen put her on the spot transform into something made of hate. I should have known right then what was coming.
This time, when I get to Cece and River’s door, I don’t bother knocking. I don’t bother with the room key ring in my pocket either. I tense and flick my fingers to manipulate the light in the hallway. At my command, it spreads to fill every nook of the keyhole in front of me. The door clicks open.
“Enough!” I roar as the way opens wide. But when I see the girls inside, my hands freeze in front of me. Every word of authoritative volume catches in my throat. I see not two people tangled in a duel to the death, but a stalemate. I see the same sweet girl from class separated from an enormous ape by a solid, controlled wall of fire. Then I see the same transformation I saw in Mystical History. The second she lays eyes on Darius behind me, her solid wall of flame becomes as wild as her eyes. “Cece. Calm down. The hell is happening here?” It takes everything she’s got to tear her eyes away from Darius.
“I… We just… We got into an argument, is all,” Cece growls. I watch her hands twitch in a struggle to rein in her wall of fire.
“Oh, is that all?” I echo. I let anger seep through my tone just a little for the scorch lines on the carpet and ceiling. The oddest thing about the stand-off, though, is that it looks remarkably one-sided. River continues to pace on her knuckles, grunting for vengeance every second. If Cece wasn’t caging her with fire, I don’t doubt she might go for me, too. Cece, however, hasn’t paid River mind since we arrived. Her eyes flit back and forth between me and Darius. “Can you keep it together, or do I need to send you somewhere, too?” I ask. Cece’s lips hang half open, though she makes no sound. She only shakes her head.
I snap my fingers. River drops. She’s human again before she hits the carpet. The whole time I keep my eyes fixed on Cece’s. In them, I see both versions of her warring for control. I watch them wrestle for control of her hand, of the wall of fire that still separates the three of us from River. Cece’s lips quiver with whatever thoughts torture her behind that pretty face. I raise my hands in surrender as I make my way closer to the heat of her protective barrier.
“Can you bring it down?” I ask her. She stares at me, wide-eyed, for a long while before she nods. If there was a word or any series of words strung in just the right phrase to heal the hurt in her eyes, I’d have said them. But I can’t imagine a medicine strong enough to patch the hole I see in her eyes. I can’t help wondering, as I walk within inches of the weakening firewall, what in the hell happened to her?
“What are you going to do to her?” Cece whimpers, arms lowering halfway to her sides.
“Two offenses of room damage in a month, on top of everything else she’s wrecked?” Darius answers, while I’m too captivated by those crystal blue eyes. “A day in the detention cells at least.” Cece’s eyes shoot to him. I watch her pupils shrink in two thirsty pools of hate. Her firewall flames up hotter than ever, sending smoke up my shirt. I recoil with a grunt and turn to find her arms back up, muscles bulging.
“Cece!” I call to her. A second wall branches from the center of her fist before she listens. This new, raging curtain separates me from her and Darius. Her fingers crunch together as if crushing something invisible in the air. Her firewalls threaten to close in on Darius like a red-hot scissor. “Cece. Let me help you, like you were trying to help River!” Cece’s fingers freeze again. Her eyes scrape across the walls, from Darius back to me.
“Leave her be,” Cece demands. Just whe
n I thought I was starting to understand this girl. The last thing I expected her to pull out of her magic, flaming hat, was concern for the girl that tried to crush her with gorilla strength. Still, if there’s a way to do this without flinging Cece into a lightspace prison, that’s what I’m supposed to do, as her Wing Supervisor. More than that…it’s what I want to do for this girl with two such contradictory natures. I know all too much about restraining urges, but I imagine Cece could teach even me a thing or two.
“You two won’t have a problem when she wakes up?” I ask.
“I won’t be here when she wakes up,” Cece sniffles.
“I can get you a new rug, but someone’s going to have to paint the ceiling… I don’t advise asking River,” I say to her as one final warning.
“I’ll paint it later if you bring me some,” Cece concedes.
“Deal,” I say, and back away from the firewall. Cece’s arms drop. A jarring drop in light and temperature befalls the room as every trace of fire swirls out to smoke. Cece drags herself to the window almost immediately. Her arms, she finds, are too weak even to open it now. I start across the room, warning Darius not to follow with a hand up behind me. I don’t have a wild guess why, but there’s something else going on between him and Cece. I see it in her eyes every time she glances him. “Here,” I offer at the window. I slip my fingers around the outside of Cece’s relentless hands and help her open the window. The smoke begins to billow out to the sky.
“Thanks,” Cece whispers. She turns around so quickly, so suddenly, she couldn’t have guessed how close we’d be. Her face hangs in the air an inch away from mine. Her lips are just below mine when I dare to answer, instead of stepping back.
“You don’t see how powerful you really are yet,” I whisper, “But you can’t fool me.” Cece lifts her eyes the extra inch it takes to find mine. The air between her top lip and my bottom one is virtually non-existent. I see confusion and a cry for help inside the blue windows to her soul. I wish I could answer it. I wish I knew how. Cece lifts a surprisingly cool hand to my collar to nudge me gently out of her way. When I step aside, she shoulders hard past Darius, right out the door of her room.
“Sheesh,” Darius shrugs. ‘You know, somehow, I’m sure you deserve this.” I follow in Cece’s wake to my friend’s side and turn him around with a hand on his back.
“You’re an asshole,” I chuckle to him while we pass through the doorway. Laughter returns about an inch of my sanity. I pull it shut behind us. “But you’re probably right too.” I snap my fingers.
River Murtagh will wake up in her charred smokey room, alone, without any idea why she’s not in a detention cell.
Supervisor Perks
Cece, Broken Academy, Room B1A
Even in a supernatural university, designed to help us tame our worst impulses and become our best selves, the administrators still manage to make the classes sound boring. Scale Science. I feel a yawn coming on even as the instructor weaves the words across her parchment blackboard. But then, I’ve got other things on my plate, too. I can’t blame it all on Professor Gaela, who has a good energy about her. How can I focus on the scales under my skin, that I can’t even see, when I’ve got a temperamental roommate breathing down my neck, a ceiling to paint and Serge for a Wing Supervisor? One part smooth Indian silk, one part cryptic, powerful Magician - how could I keep him off my mind?
You don’t see how powerful you really are yet…but you can’t fool me. I mean, who says something like that, with their arms around yours, then walks out? If he was trying to tie my brain in knots, Serge is the best boy scout I’ve ever met. I can’t fool him… What does he know? About Dragons? Maybe a whole lot more than I do, with his position. About me? Maybe more than I thought.
This is precisely why I wall off thoughts of Serge as best I can, at least for the next hour and a half. It’s why I keep my head trained down at my notebook. A misplaced glance could connect me with any one of the thirty other scaly fledglings I share the classroom with, in the Soul of Fire. I imagine some of them have already heard about the girl from D Wing who’s had her Wing Supervisor called on her twice within her first three weeks. The last thing I need to do is let one of them accidentally in and unveil exactly how little attention I’m paying.
This is, after all, my first class in my…supernatural major? I’m sure they don’t call it that, but I’ve yet to hear the proper term. Everyone in this room is a Dragon, like me. Well, not exactly like me. I can tell from the lack of spark in their eyes that they’ve heard most of what Gaela is saying before. I’d wager ninety percent of them were raised by Dragons, or at least with some vague idea of why things ignite around them. I hadn’t given a thought to my birth parents until right about now. Why would I? I had a family. I had a Mom, Dad - I was even lucky enough to have a brother, before that luck ran out in a San Francisco alleyway.
I let in the briefest of thoughts about my birth parents, if only to chase out ones about Serge. The departure of the adoptive family I love hasn’t changed my feelings about the one that birthed me. They gave me up. Let me go. They hurled me out into a world of people I could never fully integrate with, without an idea of how to deal with it. Without the slightest hint of why destruction and hellfire follows in the wake of my every step. I wouldn’t say I hate them, more so that they reside in my mind behind a wall of hateful indifference. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is the emergence of a question from behind that wall. It pokes through like a tiny, stubborn sprout through a city sidewalk. Why? Why would two Dragons give up their baby to a human adoption agency, knowing everything the child would face? They dropped me off in a personal Hell and, because I didn’t know anything else, I called it home.
I jot down a few lazy notes on the backswing of Gaela’s explanation of the class. The anatomy of our true forms. Why humans can’t perceive us for what we really are. How to shed our human disguise, to unleash the beast within. This piques my interest enough to lift my head from my notebook. I remember the breath fleeing my chest when I saw Lee undergo such a metamorphosis, the night we met. I’ve wondered more than once just how he did it. Where does that control come from? Can I really will my body to change? Will my fire to burn only what I set it to?
“This is going to sound counterintuitive because it is. It’s also true,” Gaela announces. For this, she crosses her arms, tucking her enchanted quill under her elbow. She waits in silence until, one by one, her students look up from their mindless scribbles.
She meets eyes with each of us, another student a second. The rush of sensation is overwhelming. A web of flaming thread laces my ember to that of everyone else’s in the room, in the ethereal Soul of Fire between us. I see now that my earlier worries were a bit ungrounded. With so many souls converging together, I can’t pick out any one thought. It’s too much to take in more than feelings. Some of the people around me are exhausted. Some are sad. Some are thrilled to finally be at the Broken Academy. Some have let their minds drift like mine, and are somehow aroused in the middle of a classroom. I can’t deny that I might be one of them, with Serge flickering around the fringes of my brain. Then a single, focused feeling overpowers all others. It comes from Professor Gaela herself, a more experienced navigator of the Soul of Fire. The feeling is concentration and trust. She needs us to know that whatever is about to come out of her mouth is important. Not just on some test. For us all. It’s counterintuitive. It’s true. Now she’s got us all enthralled, she says:
“Fear wears the disguise of control, but in truth, it is its greatest enemy, and yours. So long as you restrain your fire, your form, in fear of what you might do, you will never control it, and you will believe you do. Only when you trust yourself enough to let go, will you gain true control.” Well, at least she warned us. Let go to control yourself. Yeah, makes sense. I write it down anyway, in case it is on a test, and flip to a fresh page without much more thought on it. Maybe it’ll make more sense when I don’t have so much else on my plate.
Wi
th that, Gaela turns back around to jot the next topic on the board. Why Can’t they See us - A Dragon’s Natural Hallucinogen. I follow along with my pencil while the fiery spider web inside me splinters back off a piece at a time, until it’s just me in my head again.
This time around, I don’t bother chasing thoughts of Serge out of my head. There are at least a handful of other horny twenty-somethings around me anyway, and I couldn’t see into their misplaced fantasies. So why should I hold back? If what Gaela said was true, the best way to control these thoughts is to let go - or let them in, in this case - not fight them.
When I think of Serge, there’s not a particular image of sex or even kissing that comes to mind. The air with which he carries himself is so thick, I can’t see past those curious brown eyes. His actions have shown me he cares, but the stoic curtain over those proud eyes makes it impossible for me to tell if it’s me he cares about, or his position as Wing Supervisor. His muscles don’t exactly bulge through his clothes, like Lee’s, but there’s something objectively impressive about the fact that he doesn’t need them. Sure, Lee withstood my fire, and Thise was even able to put it out, but Serge didn’t have to. All he had to do was snap his fingers. Those same hands that command the power to create entire worlds that don’t really exist, helped me open my window when I was too weak. That same statuesque, stone-eyed slender frame that promises to put me under any time I lose it smells like the sweetest spices.
Plus there’s the fact that he’s already withstood more meltdowns than any of my previous boyfriends. Not to say I can even picture Serge as boyfriend material, but he might actually be able to handle me. I might not have to focus so hard on not burning his room to a crisp that sex becomes more work than pleasure.
