Arcane Dropout 2

by Edmund Hughes

  They left the Seruna Center and slowly traversed Primhaven’s campus, taking in the sounds and sights of the perpetually green weather. A few of Mattis’s bonded squirrels were climbing up Morrigan’s statue in the distance, though Lee had no idea whether it was of their own accord or at her command.

  “How did your interrogation with the prisoner go?” asked Harper.

  “Calling it an interrogation would be a bit of a stretch. She didn’t say much.”

  “It was the same for me. No amount of threatening or basic logic was enough to crack her resolve. It bodes worse for her than it does for us, given what the alternative will be.”

  Lee nodded, and his thoughts turned back to what Gabby had said to him just as he’d been about to leave the previous night. He considered whether it made sense to tell Harper about how she’d mentioned Zoe. He didn’t like keeping information from her, but he was concerned about how she might react, primarily toward Gabby if she suspected the girl actually had vital information. He decided to err on the side of trust.

  “I showed her the picture I carry with me,” he said.

  “The one of your sister?”

  “Yeah. It was enough to get Zoe’s name out of her.”

  Harper’s walking pace slowed and she folded her arms across her chest as though she’d grown suddenly cold. “It’s possible that she heard our discussion. The fact that she knows Zoe’s name doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” said Lee.

  Harper was quiet for close to a minute before she spoke again. “Play it slow. Show her as much kindness as you can. Fulfill any reasonable requests she makes. Build her trust.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Lee ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “Do you really think Zoe might be involved in this?”

  The question was hard to ask, and he knew the answer would be equally hard for Harper to give.

  “I don’t know,” she said, after a pause. “If she is, it can’t be willingly. I refuse to believe that she’d…”

  “Harper?” Lee set his hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  She set her hand on top of his and gave a small squeeze before pulling back from him.

  “I’m fine. You should visit the prisoner before it gets any later.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Lee made his way downstairs into the underground jail with two trays of fresh chocolate chip cookies that were still warm from the oven, two big glasses of milk, and a book. Gabby was doing pushups, but she stopped and took a seat on her bed as Lee approached her cell. She’d taken off her robe and was clad only in a tank top and tights, and her skin glistened with sweat.

  “Hey Gabby. I come bearing gifts. Here, I hope you like epic fantasy.”

  He slid the cookies and the book through the food slot and carefully fit the glass of milk through the vertical gaps in the cell bars. Gabby waited for a few seconds before standing up from the bed and accepting them. She looked wary of the food, but the way her eyes lingered on the book’s cover made it clear that she appreciated it.

  “Is there anything else you need?” asked Lee. “There are limits to what I can do, obviously, but you don’t have to suffer in here.”

  Gabby picked up one of the cookies and took a bite out of it. Lee started eating one of his own, as did Tess, who made sure to give each cookie a generous dunk in the milk.

  The same awkward tension that had lingered through the beginning of his last visit with Gabby returned in full force. Lee wasn’t sure how to approach getting her to trust him and open up, like Harper wanted. He could tell her another story from his life, but that felt like a shot in the dark.

  “Ask her about monster girls,” said Tess, through a mouthful of cookie crumbs.

  Lee raised an eyebrow.

  “She summoned those lamias, remember,” said Tess. “If it doesn’t help her feel more comfortable talking to you, at least it might help you understand more about your new part-time job.”

  He recognized a good point when he heard one.

  “Hey, how did you manage that spell that let you summon the lamias during our fight?” asked Lee.

  A slight twinkle appeared in Gabby’s eyes.

  “Why do you want to know?” she asked.

  “Just curious. It was an impressive spell to call three of them like that, but they didn’t attack me. At least, not in a way that caused damage.”

  Gabby had started on another cookie, and Lee was starting to think that she’d returned to stonewalling him, when she gave a small shrug.

  “I did not mark them originally,” she said. “I was taught the spell by my previous employer.”

  Lee resisted the temptation to ask who in particular her employer was, sensing that it would cause her to clam up again.

  “So it’s two spells then,” he said. “One to mark the entity or entities, and then one to summon them. And they’re both conjuration spells?”

  Gabby quirked an eyebrow at him. “Yes. This is just how summoning from the Core Realm works. It is not secret information. You don’t know this?”

  “I’ve been lax in my studies.” Lee flashed a smile. “Anyway, your lamias didn’t attack me. It seemed more like they were, uh, interested in me, if you catch my meaning.”

  Gabby rolled her eyes. “I was watching the battle, you don’t have to be coy. I thought you’d used illusion magic to pacify them. They should have killed you.”

  “Clearly they didn’t,” said Lee. “It was actually kind of fun.”

  “At the very least they should have kept you wrapped up. You did something to them, at the end. I felt the resonance. It was unlike any spell I’ve encountered before.”

  “Just an old trick of mine. I’ve heard that occasionally monster girls will become intrigued by certain men. Do you know why that is?”

  “I do not know for sure, but I have a theory,” said Gabby. “The men who can tame monster girls, much like the person who marked the lamias for the initial spell I used, are usually powerful mages and sorcerers. Monster girls have an innate sense of their sexuality and take advantage of it. In the same way a coyote backed into a corner will hiss and growl, a monster girl facing a powerful man will attempt to seduce them.”

  “Huh,” said Lee. “That actually makes quite a bit of sense.”

  “In your case, it doesn’t.” Gabby drew closer to the bars and favored Lee with an intense stare. “You are not a powerful mage. You’re too young, too ignorant, too weak with magic. No offense. It just doesn’t add up.”

  “Must be something else then.”

  “What’s your secret?” asked Gabby. “You have one, I can tell.”

  Lee smiled. She was perceptive, and even though it forced him to be on guard while talking to her, it certainly added some spice to their conversation.

  “You’re not wrong,” he said. “But it’s as you said. It’s my secret.”

  “You think you can leverage it for information from me?”

  “No, that would never work,” said Lee. “I would if I could, but if I told you, I think things would just end badly for us both.”

  Gabby didn’t press the point. Lee folded his arms, purposely letting the silence return for a moment.

  “Let’s talk like normal people,” said Lee. “You know, the usual stuff. Family, life events, future aspirations…”

  “I have no family.”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  He held her gaze, even though it felt hard and a little mean. Being an orphan royally sucked, and talking about how much it sucked only increased the capacity of the suckage. Gabby stared back, and it was almost like looking into a broken mirror, her expression threatening to crack into useless shards.

  “My parents died when I was young,” said Gabby. “They said ‘no’ to the wrong people. I was alone, on my own, and I did what I had to in order to survive. I stand by every choice I made, even the bad ones.”

  “You had your magic,” said Lee. “The Potent
ial. That must have helped.”

  “A double-edged sword. It made me into a target, into a young girl that was useful for more than just drug smuggling and sex. I might have been better off without my talents.”

  “Why didn’t you try to reach out to the Order of Chaldea?” asked Lee.

  Gabby barked a laugh. “I would have just ended up in a cell sooner. I was using my magic in ways that would make you sick to your stomach by the time I was fourteen and first heard of their existence. It isn’t that simple. Nothing is that simple.”

  “I feel so bad for her,” whispered Tess. “She never really got a choice.”

  Lee let his stare soften and then drop. He still wasn’t sure how much of what she was saying was the truth, but he could tell that Gabby wasn’t a horrible person. He found himself wishing that he knew more about the details of what had landed her in prison to begin with.

  “You keep looking over your shoulder,” said Gabby. “Why?”

  “My neck has a kink in it.”

  “Liar.” She took hold of the bars and stared directly at Tess, who let out a little nervous squeak. “I have a suspicion.”

  Lee held his tongue, unsure of how to play the situation. He’d been trying to get her to let her guard down, but the opposite had happened. He’d gotten too comfortable and now she had an opening.

  “It’s not just the two of us in this room, is it?” asked Gabby.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do.” Gabby smiled and sat down on the bed. “Will you tell me the truth if I guess correctly?”

  Lee said nothing.

  “Your master is in the room with us,” said Gabby. “She’s under an illusion veil, so I can’t see her, but she’s giving you instruction on how to manipulate me.”

  Lee dipped his head forward. “That would be right up her alley, but no. Harper isn’t here. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “You expect me to just take your word on that?”

  “I expect you to trust me, yeah,” said Lee.

  “With nothing to back up your claim?”

  “Isn’t that what trust is?”

  CHAPTER 21

  It was later than Lee had realized when he emerged back out onto campus. He headed back to his dorm with Tess after grabbing a quick dinner from the dining hall, though the cookies had spoiled most of his appetite.

  The lights were on in his dorm room when he arrived back, and for the first time in the past few days, Toma was present. He was standing in front of one of the dorm’s walls, which he’d turned into a collage of photos of Nurse Susie and various initiates, with the relationships between them connected by strands of red string.

  “Uh, hey Toma,” said Lee. “How’s it going?”

  The scowl Toma shot at him reminded Lee of how their last conversation had gone.

  “Are you here to make fun of me again?” he snapped. “I’m not cracked, Lee. I know what I heard. Nurse Susie is having an affair with a student.”

  “Is it really an affair if she’s not married?”

  “It’s unethical!” said Toma. “There’s like, a power imbalance. Can you imagine being a student and having a woman like that, in a position of authority—a school nurse, no less—seducing you? Can you even imagine what it would be like?”

  Lee considered showing Toma the selfies Nurse Susie had sent him, but he had the creeping suspicion that it would only further complicate the situation. As much as it pained him to see his friend drowning in paranoia, Toma wasn’t thinking rationally any more.

  “Look, I’m so close!” said Toma. “This is Angie Louis, the adept that was in her office yesterday. She’s friends with Doug Bronson, over here…”

  Toma traced his finger along one of the strands of red string to another photo.

  “Doug Bronson hasn’t been within a hundred feet of the infirmary that I’ve seen in the past few days,” he said. “A little suspicious, don’t you think?”

  “How is him not being around Nurse Susie suspicious?”

  “You’re not thinking the way they do, Lee,” said Toma. “I think they know I’m watching them. They’ve all realized that I’ve caught on to their game and are taunting me. Especially Nurse Susie! She’s seen me watching the infirmary before and it’s almost like she’s flaunting herself! It gets me so hot and bothered.”

  “You don’t say,” muttered Lee. “How much sleep have you been getting lately?”

  “I’ll sleep when I get to the bottom of this,” said Toma.

  He returned his attention to his diagram, mouthing words as he connected more photos with more strands of red string. Lee sighed and stretched out on his bed, pulling Tess into his mystic stream to cuddle with him.

  They couldn’t converse openly or fool around while Toma was awake, so Lee pulled out his phone and brought up the show they’d been watching. Tess grinned as he started a new episode, shifting to use his chest as a pillow as the opening credits rolled.

  ***

  He had the next morning free since Instructor Constantine, the illusion teacher, was still on medical leave. The encounter with the slime girl had left him flush with essence, and he remembered Harper’s warning about failing him if he didn’t manage to get his grade up in her elemental class, so he headed for the Spell Range to put some practice in.

  Most students were in classes, so he had no trouble securing a casting lane for himself. He was in the middle of preparing his first spell, the fire blast that he’d struggled with the previous day, when he felt someone’s gaze on his back.

  Eliza was watching him from one of the windows, and she drew back as Lee turned to face her. He had an internal debate over whether to ignore her or not, and as usual, Tess chimed in with her opinion.

  “There’s never going to be a better time to work things out with her,” she said. “Eliza’s your friend, Lee. She might even become more than that, eventually.”

  “You’re probably right. At least about the first part.”

  He headed back outside. Eliza made an attempt at slipping away, but he jogged over to her before she could.

  “Practicing spells, Eliza?” he asked.

  “I, uh, was just…” She cleared her throat. “I was just walking by and I noticed you in there.”

  “Come on,” he said. “Hasn’t this gone on for long enough? Can we just be like we were before?”

  She was wearing grey sweatpants and a pastel-blue t-shirt that contrasted perfectly with her curly reddish-brown hair. She furrowed her brow and stared at the grass.

  “It’s my fault,” she said. “I was mad at you when we dueled before. I didn’t want to go easy on you, but maybe…”

  “You know what?” said Lee. “If this is all about your feelings after our duel, I know how we can settle it.”

  Lee took her by the hand and pulled her with him, heading through the Spell Range until he spotted Instructor Daniels, who was overseeing the area for the day. The alteration instructor didn’t react as they approached, only turning to face them after they’d been standing nearby for a couple of seconds.

  “Oh,” said Daniels. “Hi.”

  “Eliza and I would like to use one of the dueling chambers,” said Lee.

  “Lee, I don’t know about this…” Eliza frowned and gave a small shake of her head.

  “One of… the dueling chambers,” said Daniels. “For dueling?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. Right.” Daniels looked toward the central tower which held the chambers. “The top one should be open. Go on ahead.”

  “Thank you.”

  Lee was still holding Eliza’s hand, and she followed him as they made their way up the spiral staircase that ran around the tower containing the dueling chambers. They went through the topmost doorway, entering the open, circular space on the other side.

  “I really don’t think this is a good idea,” said Eliza.

  “Are you scared to lose?” asked Lee.

  “Of course not!�
��

  “Then duel me. If I win, it’ll be proof to you that I haven’t given up on being a mage. If you win, at least we’ll have absolute confirmation as to which of us is the stronger spellcaster.”

  “I don’t want to duel you!” shouted Eliza. “You just don’t get it, Lee. I never wanted to duel you in the first place. I just wanted…”

  She stared at the floor, her cheeks turning a deep shade of red.

  “I’ll give you whatever you want,” said Lee. “How about this? The loser has to do whatever the winner says. If you want me to stop talking to you, or focus on being a better mage, or whatever, I’ll do it.”

  Eliza started to shake her head no, but then stopped, as though an idea had come to her. She licked her lips and stared Lee in the eyes. “Whatever I want? You won’t be mad or drag your feet while doing it?”

  “Assuming you win, which won’t be nearly as easy for you this time around,” he said.

  A small smile played across Eliza’s lips, the first one Lee had seen in days. “Deal.”

  “Be gentle, Lee,” said Tess. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea to duel her again, but Eliza is sensitive.”

  “Well, then I’m going to kick her sensitive butt,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER 22

  They both took up position across from each other, standing twenty feet apart in the center of the massive chamber. Eliza in her tight t-shirt and sweatpants didn’t exactly strike fear in Lee’s heart, but he knew that if he didn’t take her seriously as an opponent, the duel would have a similar outcome to the first.

  “I’ll drop my handkerchief,” called Eliza. “When it hits the ground, the duel starts. Are you ready?”

  “I was born ready,” said Lee.

  Both Eliza and Tess rolled their eyes in unison.

  “Be careful,” whispered Tess. “You have more essence this time around after your playtime with the slime, but you’ll still need to finish the duel quickly. I can help you cast maybe five or six spells, less if it’s elemental magic.”