by Sarina Dorie
I took it from her and shoved it into my pocket. I handed her another. She didn’t deserve to be treated like a pariah. No one did.
I said, “I’ve made a few of those same mistakes too.” And a few enemies.
“You did?” She pulled away. “So the rumor is true? You don’t know this stuff either?” She dried her eyes.
“Yeah, it’s hard being the least magical teacher.”
“I heard about what your third-period class did.” She grimaced. “That must have been brutal.”
“So you understand why I’m concerned. I don’t want people taking things out on you because you’re new. You were the only one who reacted differently in the affinity fire so people assume things—even if they shouldn’t. I don’t want this to create more negative attention.” I swallowed. “At the staff meeting today, Mr. Thatch offered to, um, question you.” That sounded a little less scary than torture. I didn’t want to alarm her. We could build up to the severity of the situation. “I wanted to warn you. I don’t know what else I can do. Maybe you can ask to have another teacher present.” I felt so powerless. “Maybe Mr. Khaba?” Thatch wouldn’t dare to do anything cruel with Khaba present.
She waved me off. “Mr. Thatch already talked to me. We’re cool. He asked me about my meeting with Dean Khaba and when I told him, he asked, ‘Did you do it?’ I said, ‘No,’ and then he asked me how I was liking my fun class. That’s art.” She shrugged. “Mr. Thatch isn’t as bad as I first thought he was. He only punishes the bad kids in the detention dungeon. He loaned me books to read to help me get caught up so I’d know how to fit in better.”
“That’s nice… .” For real? It sounded like he’d given her something more useful than what he’d given me. “Did it help?”
“Well, not yet. It’s a lot of reading, and they give loads of homework here. I’m only on the first book, but he said there’s no rush.” She shrugged. “He lets me read in his room after school.”
Hmm. That didn’t sound like the Felix Thatch I knew. What was he up to? Did he suspect her Red affinity? Perhaps he intended to do something to her. “Maybe you should hang out with people your own age during your breaks. You should study with friends.” Not alone with some creepy older man.
She bit her lip. “I don’t have any friends.”
“Yet.” I squeezed her shoulder. “You will. Maybe if you study in the library, you’ll meet other kids your age.”
Someone screamed in my classroom, “Take that, penis breath!” Light flashed, and I ran back into the classroom, the conversation with Imani coming to a premature end.
After school I found Thatch’s classroom empty. Two students were strung up in the dungeon, sobbing and screaming. I ducked my head down and passed them. They whimpered and called out to me. I hurried past, guilty and conflicted about Thatch’s method of discipline.
I didn’t feel quite as guilty as I rounded the corner to Thatch’s office and their cries stopped.
“Man, I am so bored,” one of them said.
“This is so lame. I didn’t even punch Jeremy that hard. It wasn’t like I broke his nose.”
“Yeah, but it was bleeding.”
Thatch sat at his desk. I wondered if Imani had convinced him of her innocence or he had pretended to believe her—pretended to be nice to her—so that he could better keep an eye on her. He shoved the book he was reading into the lowest desk drawer. No screams went off. He removed a package from the second drawer and placed it on the table. The air smelled vaguely of chocolate.
He folded his hands in front of him. “Sit.”
I sat in my torture chair, trying to avoid the rusty bolts sticking up along the perimeter. I got right to the point. “Imani didn’t break into the principal’s office. She had no reason to steal something. And she’s smart enough she doesn’t need an answer key.”
“I know.” The candlelight in the room cast his face in flickering shadows, making it difficult to read the expression on his face.
“You do?”
He tossed his glossy black hair over his shoulder. His beautiful mane was his most redeeming feature. “I’ve been a teacher for over forty years. With experience, one develops an uncanny ability to know when one is being lied to.”
“Whoa, how old are you?” He didn’t look a day over thirty-five. Maybe forty if he aged well, but he had to be using some kind of wrinkle-free glamour.
“That is none of your concern. The point is, I didn’t need to question her.”
“I thought… .” I swallowed. I had feared he might torture her into a false confession. Or pretend to be nice so she might confess and then he’d punish her.
“You thought what? That I would torture an innocent student for the pleasure of it?”
“Well, that is what you led the staff to believe.” A shrill scream punctuated the air, coming from the dungeon beyond.
“Have you ever given the idea of hell much thought?” He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. The lazy tilt of his head, the relaxed slouch in his chair, and the way he half closed his eyes reminded me of a satisfied cat after it had feasted on a mouse. “Have you ever considered where the devil must have begun?”
I had no idea where he was going with this.
“What is the job of a school teacher other than to police and punish students? I have become detention master in this miserable job. I perform the necessary evils because everyone else thinks they are too clean and pure to do so themselves.” He sighed overdramatically.
“Um… .”
“Just as the devil, I only punish those who … deserve it.” His lips twitched as he said the word “deserve,” as though it brought him amusement.
That hint of emotion whispered of a humanity. I could almost believe he had a nice person inside him, waiting to burst free. With the light flickering across his face and the smile softening the harsh line of his lips, it reminded me of how beautiful he was. Not just his hair, but his face, his smile, the smoky slate of his eyes.
I wet my lips, forcing myself to look away from the perfection of his features. “Is that how you see yourself? As the devil?”
He ignored the question. “I had no reason to punish Imani Washington.” He leaned forward. “The principal’s reasoning is flawed. He and Khaba assumed it was one of the students.” His lips curled into a smug smirk.
“You don’t think it was one of the students?” Did he know I suspected him?
He snorted. “This came in the mail for you.” He pushed the package across the desk. The box was one of the standard flat-rate sizes from the post office. “It was accidentally placed in my mailbox in the office. Your box is overflowing with papers. I suggest you clean it out so that little mix-ups like this don’t happen in the future.”
The packing tape had already been cut and the contents looked as though they had been rifled through. My mom had sent me a few of the things I had asked for and a few things I hadn’t. She’d sent me some postcards of art from the Friday Art Walk in town, two boxes of color pencils, three pairs of cotton underwear—clean underwear was just the kind of thing my mom would worry about—and a note. I shoved the underwear under the color pencils, my embarrassment turning to anger. The big jerk had gone through my package?
Probably he’d read the note from my mom as well. It said:
Clarissa,
I’ll go through some of your other boxes next weekend, but I wanted to send you your lockpick kit so you could get into your closet. I miss you. Hugs and kisses.
Mom
Thatch folded his hand on the desk. The implication sank in. I was so busted.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A Deal with the Devil
This looked bad.
I’d stuck my neck out claiming I knew the break-in hadn’t been done by the student in question. Thatch hadn’t thought Imani had been the one to break into the principal’s office. He thought it was an adult. Me.
The lockpick box was small. Now
that I looked more closely, I could see it peeking out from under the color pencils. Craptacular.
“I didn’t break into Jeb’s office,” I said quickly.
He leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smirk on his face. “You had the motivation. You wanted a taste of his forbidden knowledge.”
“I wanted to know about my biological mother, yes. That didn’t mean I was going to break into the principal’s office.”
“No, but you planned on breaking into my office? Into the library? Haven’t you ever heard curiosity killed the cat?”
And the former art teachers.
I stared at the meager contents of my box. It had been a pretty stupid idea.
This was the kind of thing that could get a teacher fired from a school, especially a teacher whose mother had already established her criminal history and plenty of prejudice for her future generations.
I had a bad feeling about what he was going to do to me now. “Are you going to chain me up in the dungeon?”
“Only if you haven’t done your homework.”
I stared at him uncomprehendingly. Was he saying what I thought he was? Hope blossomed inside me. “Are you going to teach me magic?”
“That depends on you. I am willing to make a bargain with you.”
I thought back to all his references to being like the devil. “I’m not going to agree to let you drain me.”
“I didn’t think you would.” His lips curled upward in amusement. “If you would be so kind as to allow me to continue… . I will teach you magic if you promise to start behaving as a professional and cease your endless inquiries about my personal life.”
He meant about him and my mother. Him and the missing books. All the secrets he’d been trying to keep from me. Did that mean I was close to discovering something? This was the ultimate temptation. What was more important, learning magic or learning if he had been my mother’s accomplice? Magic or figuring out if he had killed the other art teachers?
“Well?” he asked.
I wouldn’t survive teaching the school year without magic.
“I want you to teach me,” I said.
He waved his wand at the stack of books on his desk. One slid out of the middle of the pile and levitated in front of me. “Your first task is to read, Magical Etiquette for Dunces.” The way he looked me up and down told me who the dunce in the room was.
The volume fell, and I had to dive out of the chair to catch it on top of the box I was already holding. The book was about as thick as an unabridged dictionary.
“More reading?” I asked.
He flicked his wand at the stack and another floated toward me and then another. “Next you shall read, Runes for Defensive Magic and then The History of Magic, volumes one, two and three.”
I struggled to hold the heavy tomes. “What about practical magic? How will I actually learn to ward off the kids’ spells?” I didn’t want to get turned into a Jackson Pollock painting like the last teacher.
“After you’ve completed your required reading, we shall discuss the practical application of wards and shield charms.”
“This isn’t teaching me. You’re just handing me books again. I need to learn how to protect myself in case someone tries to hex me onto a ceiling again.”
“Continue with your meditations and lucid-dreaming exercises. I will ensure your classroom is properly warded against hexes, curses and malicious charms.”
“But—”
He stood. “And I forbid you to allow Julian Thistledown to construct half-assed wards that will interfere with my superior magic.”
I didn’t know how he knew. “If I want Julian’s wards—”
“If I am to teach you, I expect you to follow my instructions.” A malicious smile curled his lips upward. “And if you want someone else to teach you, you may take your complaints to Jeb. That is, if Mrs. Keahi is willing to schedule an appointment for you.”
If he thought assigning reading was teaching and keeping up his end of the bargain, then I would find my own covert way to inquire about him and his past to spite him. Like in old stories about making pacts with the devil, I would have to be sly and outwit him. I would be as shrewd as my biological mother.
I shuffled the books around to hold them better and placed the box on top. Inches away from my nose, the aroma of chocolate became even stronger. One of the items caught my eye.
“Why is there an empty Ziploc bag?” Almost empty. There were brown crumbs and flakes of coconut. I yanked it open. It smelled like pecans, coconut and chocolate. My mom’s earthquake brownies? Where were they?
He coughed. “As I said before, I thought the box was intended for me. Your mother should have put her note at the top of the box instead of the bottom.”
It was one thing to go through my box. Quite another to eat my brownies! That was unforgivable. Fuming, I left.
As I stomped down the hall, it occurred to me, Thatch hadn’t actually been nasty with me. I’d gotten off easy. Maybe it had been my mom’s brownies. Her cooking was more mood-altering than Prozac and Khaba’s sweets combined. I should have taken advantage of that. I could have asked him questions and asked him for the color pencils he hadn’t been willing to give me earlier in the year.
When I got to my room, I realized there weren’t any actual tools in the lockpick kit. That meant Thatch had them. He could have used the kit to break into Jeb’s office. Was this why he hadn’t pressed the matter of me being the culprit? More than ever I wanted to know what he was keeping secret.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Dungeon Master’s Rules
After school the next day, I went to Julian’s classroom and told him about Thatch’s mandate. “He said if he’s going to be my teacher, he won’t allow anyone to cast wards on me. You included.”
Julian set aside his lesson plans. “Is he teaching you then?”
“If only. He gave me a truckload of books to read.” I sat in one of the student desks, admiring the way sunlight glistened in his hair and made his skin glow. “The only practical exercises I’m doing are basic, trying to figure out the difference between reality and dreaming while I’m asleep.”
“Don’t let Thatch discourage you. You’ll get there.” He bit his lip. “I could help you with some simple spells. Are you free right now? I can show you plant magic.”
Thatch had forbidden Julian from casting protecting spells on me. He hadn’t said anything about Julian teaching me. I needed to learn magic. I would take what I could get, even if I had to learn in secret.
“That would be great!” I could barely contain my excitement.
He removed a potted plant from his desk and set it on the student desk where I sat. Though there were no flowers on the green shrubby bush, I recognized it as an oleander from the days I had helped my mom grow plants in the garden.
Julian seated himself in a chair next to me. “I’m going to show you how to make flowers bloom. This is a simple trick even beginners can do easily.”
He touched his wand to a stem. The air shimmered green and smelled fresh like spring. A sprig shot out and turned into a bud. The flower opened and blossomed so that a single pink star stood out amongst the viridian leaves.
“I push my will into my affinity and then take a thread of that and visualize it flowing up my arm, into my hand, and out my wand. It’s important to keep your intention firmly fixed in your mind.”
“I don’t have a wand.”
“You don’t need one at this stage for simple magic, but it will help focus the energies to a concentrated point of exit as you become more advanced.” He lifted my hand and placed it near a different stem, walking me through the process.
My belly fluttered at his touch. I tried to ignore the excited anticipation inside me. A balloon of energy swelled up just under my diaphragm, making it difficult to breathe.
“That’s right. I can feel it,” Julian said. “We just have to draw some of that magic out of y
ou.” He made a motion with his hand in front of me as though he was scooping a handful of water out of a well.
I whimpered at the shock of energy jolting through me. It felt as though his hand was inside me, caressing my organs. The sensation shifted from pleasure to pain. My stomach twisted. Julian released me and jumped back. Magic crackled out my hand, blue light flashing. I fell out of my chair and turned away from the flare of heat. The burnt perfume of lightning lingered in the air.
“Well, that was odd.” Julian coughed. “That shouldn’t have happened with me here to help you.”
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d proven myself to be a freak.
I blinked, still seeing spots of dancing light. As those cleared, I gasped. The entire plant was a blackened crisp. Julian waved the smoke away. Shakily, I clambered back into my chair.
I stared in horror at what I had done. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to destroy your plant.”
“It’s all right. Accidents happen.” He used his wand to cast a spell. The smoke traveled in a cloud to the open window.
I shook my head, tears filling my eyes. “You don’t understand. I can’t have any accidents.” Thatch had said he would drain me if I had any more accidents. This was just the kind of excuse he was looking for to show Jeb why I was a menace. And I was. If I had used magic while students had been around, one of them might have gotten hurt.
“We all have accidents when we’re starting out. All of us.” He placed an arm around my shoulder. “I’ll bring the plant to the greenhouse. Grandmother Bluehorse might be able to do something for it.”
I touched a finger to one of the blackened leaves. It crumbled into ash. Charred shapes that might have been flowers littered the shrub, though it was difficult to tell now that everything was barbeque.
