Unveiling Magic

by Chloe Garner

  “How would you do it, if you were us?” Ethan asked after a moment. “If you could break the rules and if you could talk to students without being Lady Harrington?”

  She lifted her chin.

  “I would start with the cottages,” she said. “I would sweep them to find which of them have cellular access. As soon as they see me coming, they put up patches to keep me from finding out they’ve poked holes in the shielding, but you could get close without them putting up the temporary patches. It is my best estimation that the person involved in the first blackroot cast was perfectly permitted to be in the school, and that they had to inform the outside world somehow that the cast was ready and in place.”

  “We were thinking cottages, too,” Shack said. “We were just thinking about trying to get people’s text history.”

  She shook her head.

  “Find the cottages with holes in the cellular shielding, then look at who was in the building the night that the silverthorn was cast.”

  Ethan hesitated.

  “You know that?” he asked, and she gave him a wan smile.

  “Of course. My office recognizes every legitimate person on this campus.”

  Ethan hadn’t accounted for anything like that in his breakout potions.

  “You knew we were here,” he said, and she nodded.

  “I know that you sometimes go to the library to study late at night, presumably because of Mr. MacMillan’s study music selections.”

  Ethan nodded slowly.

  “And because I like to think that I’m sneaking around,” he said.

  “This is my job, young man,” she said. “You underestimate me entirely if you think I am unaware of the more trivial things going on at my school, simply because I do not react to them. I would rather know that they are happening than drive my students’ attempts to disguise their activities further underground.”

  “You’re a smart lady,” Shack said.

  “That means so much, coming from you, Mr. MacMillan,” Lady Harrington answered.

  “So we’ll go find out who’s got access to the outside world,” Ethan said. “And then we’ll compare that against your records…”

  “Oh, no,” Lady Harrington said. “No. You misunderstand me. That is what I would do. With the information on whose attempts to elude the warding have been successful, I will check my own records, and I will take appropriate action to inspect the resulting students who meet both requirements.”

  “You don’t want to do that,” Ethan said, not sure why not yet, but also not wanting to let control completely go.

  “Is that so?” Lady Harrington asked.

  “Yeah,” Shack said. “If you talk to the students who were in the building when the cast was set, they might figure out that you’ve got more security on the building than you told the Council about…”

  “What do you know about the plans I submitted to the council?” Lady Harrington asked, and Shack fell silent.

  “I’ve seen them,” Ethan said. “And I bet the saboteur has, too. They’ve managed to avoid you knowing about them all this time, is it really possible that it’s luck and skill and not inside information? I mean, you’re talking about someone who already agreed to be the insider for the Superiors. They know how valuable it is to have inside information.”

  She pursed her lips.

  “And what would you suggest?” she asked.

  “Let us talk to them,” Ethan said. “Everyone knows I’m feuding with my dad right now. We could put out the word that Mrs. MacMillan threatened to send Shack into the darkness because she thinks he’s hiding information about my girlfriend…”

  “Girlfriend,” Lady Harrington said dryly, and he shrugged.

  “I asked, she said yes. Is it more complicated than that? Anyway, they also know that Mrs. Blake isn’t on good terms with the Council, either. If I played dumb the right way, they could think that I’m sympathetic to the Superiors, and try to use me.”

  “Quite a dangerous game you two play,” Lady Harrington said quietly. “Being children of the Council has rubbed off on you.”

  “That’s another thing,” Ethan said. “Shack has a theory that they’re hunting Council kids.”

  She nodded.

  “We’ve noticed, and the Council agrees.”

  Ethan dropped his chin.

  “My ma knows that there might be a group of people literally trying to kill me, and she left me here?” Shack asked.

  “They agreed that withdrawing their students would generate the appearance of a lack of faith, and they chose not to do that.”

  “We’re their second-string kids, anyway,” Ethan said.

  “That’s quite a cold view of it,” Lady Harrington said, and Ethan shrugged.

  “My brother is the heir apparent at Council,” he said. “It was in this very room that my father threatened to put me out on the front lines without support, because I wouldn’t help him find Valerie Blake.”

  “I assure you with great confidence that neither of your parents would carry out the threats they were making over Miss Blake,” Lady Harrington said. “Now. If you do not get moving, you are going to be late for breakfast, and that absence will be noted.”

  “What is my brother doing, all those times that he’s not in class?” Ethan asked, and she shook her head.

  “The upperclassmen have a certain amount of liberty that we go to some lengths to protect,” she said. “I know that he is not generally in the building, and I know that it does not appear that he is spending that time studying for other classes.”

  Ethan drew his head back.

  “My brother isn’t doing well in his classes?” he asked, and Lady Harrington raised her eyebrows.

  “Those words never left my mouth, now did they, young man?”

  “I never heard about him getting suspended,” Ethan said.

  “It was largely overturned,” Lady Harrington said. “He was allowed to stay at his cottage and do his work, turning it in at leisure during the week, or the week after. It had no material impact on his academics, though it was allowed to remain in his file.”

  “Horrors,” Shack muttered.

  “Please go on, now,” she said. “You should appear at breakfast in the same way that you always do, and it would be best if you unwound your casting on the defenses from the same location where you first cast it.”

  Ethan nodded, then looked at Shack.

  This had not happened the way he’d expected it.

  His friend stood.

  “We’ll be in touch,” he said and Ethan shook his head.

  Shack had nerve.

  Lady Harrington watched them coolly, and Ethan stood, going to the door and opening it. Shack went past him and Ethan glanced back at Lady Harrington. She shook her head at him, unimpressed, and he shrugged.

  He couldn’t do better.

  He was already doing the best he could.

  “Um,” Hanson said from the front window as Valerie finished packing up what she thought was worth taking from the kitchen. “Val, you should come see this.”

  Valerie left Sasha with the bags and went to stand next to Hanson at the window.

  There was a car parked against the curb, there in front of the house, and Hanson’s mom was getting out of it.

  “You think we can outrun her?” Valerie asked, and he shook his head.

  “She goes out running with my dad when he’s in town, and he runs six miles a day.”

  “What about stealing the car?” Valerie asked.

  “Do you know how to drive?” Hanson asked, and she shrugged.

  “How hard could it be?” she asked.

  “She will have taken the keys with her,” Hanson said, and Valerie shrugged, looking over her shoulder.

  “Sasha is good with locks, right?” she asked.

  “I could unlock the doors,” Sasha answered. “But not start the ignition.”

  “If we split up, she couldn’t catch all of us,” Valerie said.

  “She wo
uld only go after you,” Hanson said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  It had been a bad bet.

  She’d been kind of elated, after talking to Daphne. It had felt like she’d unlocked something important and now all she had to do was open it.

  But it had been a bad bet.

  She’d wagered that her parents would find her, or that no one would find her, and instead Martha Cox had found her, and that meant she was going to have to fight the woman over going back to Survival School or - worse - just going to see the Council.

  Some safehouse somewhere, with just Ethan’s dad to talk to.

  Valerie shuddered.

  “I assume you don’t like the idea of me hurting your mom,” she said as Martha walked across the front yard.

  “We’ve got bigger problems than that,” Sasha said, running from the kitchen and peering out the front window. She moved around from side to side, like a cat watching a bird. “Do you see them?”

  “What are you talking about?” Valerie answered.

  “The Pure,” Sasha said. “Or someone with some really strong magic. They’re trying to blow up the detection spell I put on the house.”

  “But not the protection spell I did?” Valerie asked.

  “I can’t even tell it’s there,” Sasha admitted. “I’ve been taking your word, especially since Daphne was so aware of it.”

  “Okay,” Valerie said. “Maybe it’s just Hanson’s mom.”

  The woman had gotten to the side door, by now, and was out of sight.

  Valerie looked at Hanson. He pressed his lips, then shook his head.

  “I wish I knew what to tell you,” he finally said, when there was a knock on the door.

  “I can defend myself, if it comes to that,” she said softly. “What’s the worst thing she’s going to do to me?”

  “Drag you back to school, I think, or in front of the Council,” Hanson said. “I know she doesn’t want you dead, and she won’t hurt me. I don’t think she’d do anything to Sasha unless she got in the way.”

  Valerie straightened, letting her shoulders fall away from her ears and she went to the door as the knock repeated itself.

  “So don’t get in the way,” she said, opening the door.

  “So,” Shack said at breakfast. “One thing we didn’t talk about with Lady Harrington.”

  “How we’re supposed to casually get out to the cottages when the entire school is on lockdown?” Ethan answered, and Shack nodded.

  “Yup.”

  “What’s up, guys?” Milton asked, setting a tray down next to them. Ethan looked over at his long-time acquaintance with knew eyes.

  Milton was an insurrectionist.

  He just didn’t talk like one very much.

  He was too thoughtful for the big speeches.

  Could be he was the brains and that someone else was the access to the outside world, still.

  “Just wish we could figure out how to get everything back to normal,” Ethan said, shaking his head. “Everyone missing and the school shut down… Stupid to just be hanging out here waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Are you considering calling your dad and asking him to pull you out?” Milton asked. “Because according to the handbook, if you leave for more than three continuous weeks or you announce you’re withdrawing before the final exams, you don’t get credit for the year, and they’re very hesitant to take freshmen who are older than the rest of them, even by a year.”

  “No, I’m not threatening to bail,” Ethan said. “I just wish they’d get on with it, you know? It’s like… they aren’t even changing anything at this point. Are we really that much safer in our rooms than in class?”

  “First time I’ve ever heard you moan about not having classes,” Shack said passively, looking around the room. Ann was sitting with a table of girls, and seemed to have no use for the Council brats table today.

  It had been a few days since she’d sat with them.

  “You don’t have to tell me it’s strange,” Ethan said. “It’s just so boring being locked in our rooms all day.”

  “They have to correct the fault in the defenses,” Milton said, turning to his breakfast. “Otherwise the parents are going to shut the place down. Two attacks with casualties? Lady Harrington is lucky she hasn’t been executed by the Council for dereliction.”

  “That’s not fair,” Ethan said. “Someone attacked us. From the inside, it looks like. How is she supposed to keep all the spells from working, when someone on the inside is casting them? At a magic school?”

  Milton shrugged.

  “Her problem, not ours. At least they probably won’t attack us again, so long as Valerie is gone. She finally did something right, by us.”

  “You do remember that she and Ethan made up, right?” Shack asked, and Milton raised his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, am I not allowed to point out that three of us are dead because she was here? She’s a military asset, and she should be held at a military-grade establishment. If we held to Geneva conventions, we’d be breaking them, hiding her in with children.”

  “She isn’t an asset,” Ethan growled. “She’s the same age as the rest of us, and she isn’t legally allowed to be considered part of the war.”

  Milton snorted.

  “Right up until the Council needs her, right?”

  Ethan looked over at Shack.

  He couldn’t argue with that.

  “Where do you think she is?” Milton asked. “You think she’s still alive?”

  “Dude,” Shack said. “Too far.”

  “I bet Sasha Mills didn’t make it,” Milton went on, chewing thoughtfully. “Valerie is basically defenseless in the face of real magic, but Sasha? She’s just soft. She’s supposed to be behind lines, taking in survivors and trying to keep them alive.”

  “When did you get so dark, man?” Ethan asked.

  Ethan shrugged.

  “They called up my sister,” he said.

  “Hadn’t heard,” Shack said, and Milton nodded.

  “Yeah. My mom fought it, but they said that they have to make an example and prove that Council kids aren’t immune.”

  Shack and Ethan glanced at each other.

  Certain kids were definitely still immune, but Milton’s mom was far enough down the food chain, and part of a different power sect, and it wasn’t all that surprising that Merck and Mrs. MacMillan would be willing to sacrifice Milton’s sister.

  “She isn’t out fighting, is she?” Ethan asked, and Milton shook his head.

  “No, she’s tactical support, actually, and she’s having a great time. Gets to boss around everyone, and where she landed, everyone cares that she’s a Council kid. So. She landed on her feet well enough, but she’s still a target.”

  “We’re all targets until this war ends,” Shack said.

  Milton nodded.

  “That’s why it’s better for the really juicy targets to not be here. It just gives them an excuse.”

  “But them attacking here is still bad,” Ethan said, and Milton frowned hard.

  “Why would you even ask that? They killed Patrick and Conrad.”

  Ethan nodded.

  “Just, you could make a case that forcing the Council to treat this like the real war that it is, and to get serious about it rather than playing politics, that it could be better for everyone.”

  “Are you questioning how your parents are running the war?” Milton asked. “Because clearly my mom is out of power.”

  Ethan shrugged.

  “Everyone knows there are politics,” he said. “There are people out there who are actually working against both sides, I heard.”

  “Suicide squad?” Milton asked. “The Superiors are enough to crush anyone without the Council to back them.”

  “What does your mom say about the last war?” Ethan asked, and Milton scrunched his face to the side.

  “I don’t know. What do you mean?”

  “Like,” Ethan said, feelin
g out how he wanted to pitch this. “Just. They’re these rabid fanatic genocidalists, right?”

  Milton shrugged.

  “So?”

  “How did we not know that, at the end of the last war? How did we let them get away?”

  “We didn’t want to interrogate everyone. The war was over, and we won,” Milton said. “You know this story. I don’t want to talk about the peace divide with you. There’s no point.”

  “No, just hear me out,” Ethan said. “If they’re all completely crazy, why would we have had to interrogate them to figure out who was crazy?”

  Milton set his mouth for a moment, then shook his head.

  “I give up. Why?”

  “I’m not sure they were,” Ethan said.

  “Are you humanizing the Superiors?” Milton asked. “You do need something better to do with your time.”

  “No, that’s not… Okay, so maybe I am. Why not?” Ethan asked. “If we’re going to run this war, you know, one day, we need to understand why they’re doing it, and I’m not convinced they were all just bonkers.”

  Milton shook his head.

  “You’re adorable,” he said. “We are never going to run this war, the three of us. My sister is going to hot-foot it up the chain of command, with my mother quietly running interference for her, and my sister is going to be on the Council before we even graduate. And you know they don’t let two people on the council with the same last name.”

  “Then get her to marry someone,” Ethan said dismissively. “You see my point.”

  “No,” Milton said. “I don’t.”

  “The point is that I’m not sure they’re all crazy,” Ethan said, trying one more time. “But they’re still all fighting against us. What does that say?”

  “That they’re afraid of the crazy ones?” Milton said, finishing his breakfast. “You’re getting cabin fever, Ethan. Pull it together.”

  Ethan frowned after him as Milton went to throw his trash away and took up with another table.