by Oxford, Rain
“What if someone makes something up?”
“I’m good at what I do.”
* * *
I was lying in the snow, but I wasn’t cold and it didn’t feel wet. After a moment, I realized I was on the roof of the building that Astrid and I used to visit. Suddenly, Astrid was there, sitting next to me. I smelled her first; her wild, odd, but not unpleasant scent. Although she wasn’t a child anymore, she wore the same old-fashioned white nightgown she had when we were kids.
When she leaned against me and kissed me, I thought it was going to be like the chaste kiss we shared when we were preteens. Instead, she kissed me passionately, like a lover. I reached up and ran my fingers through her hair until she broke the kiss and leaned back a little. She opened her mouth to speak and I wanted to stop her. I didn’t want to hear what I knew she was going to say.
A loud roar startled me awake. I opened my eyes and sat up, confused and disorientated. I was in my bed at the school.
“What the hell was that?” Darwin asked Henry, having been woken as well.
“Vampire. I smell a vampire.” He pointed to the window, which was open. A small gust blew a little bit of snow in. “Whoever it was is gone now.”
* * *
Tanaka-Sensei closed her eyes, expecting us to do the same. I had been dreading this class; how was I supposed to be graded on meditation? There were six of us students sitting on mats in the martial arts room, including Becky, Amelia, and three others. We were supposed to begin class with meditation every time.
“How did we end up in this class?” Becky asked.
“It’s random,” Tanaka-Sensei said. “There are a number of classes like this, and which one you end up in happens by chance.”
“Can we transfer out?”
“No. You can request a class starting in your third circle, though. In this class, you will learn to focus and visualize. What is more powerful, a knife or a flashlight?” she asked.
Becky opened her mouth, but I put my hand on her arm to stop her. Obediently, her mouth snapped shut, so one of the other students, a wizard my age named Oden, stated what was apparently the obvious. “A knife can kill someone.”
I interrupted. “Actually, if you judge its ‘power’ on its ability to be used as a weapon, you could kill someone by beating them over the head with a flashlight.”
“You should be the teacher, Devon; we can learn all kinds of mundane objects with which to bludgeon people,” Becky said.
“Focus, students,” Tanaka-Sensei said. “Devon is correct, and so is Oden. The light of a flashlight itself is not dangerous. For the most part, people think that the most dangerous thing any light can do is blind someone. How many of you have played with a laser before?”
“I had one of those that my cat used to chase,” Oden said.
“A laser is an intense, concentrated beam of light that can range from those that will blind you if you look into them to those that can split an atom. Lasers are currently being used by humans in surgery and even to cut metal. Because of the effect magic has on technology, we are advised to stay away from them.
“By focusing light into a laser, you can turn something virtually harmless into something extremely dangerous. You can do the same thing with magic through visualization. Maybe you can’t cut metal, but you would be surprised what you can do with the proper focus. In this class, we are going to work on your visualization. I bet none of you can hold out your hand and visualize an apple in your palm until you can feel it, smell it, and taste it. When you can focus your thoughts, visualize that hard, you will surprise yourself with what you can do.”
* * *
In Alchemy & Potions, I had professor Langril again, which I figured was to be expected since he was my elemental mentor. We were in the same classroom, with the same five classmates I had the previous semester.
“Mack, your scars are healing up well,” I said.
He grinned widely and gently stroked the white scars on his right cheek. “My girlfriend has been putting medicine on it. Oh, and I brought gloves this time. I’m not going to get cut, burned, bitten, or–” He screamed and we both looked down.
There was a large black scorpion crawling up his leg. Becky rushed forth and took the scorpion from his black pant-leg. “Sorry, Mack! This is Katie.”
“You have a pet scorpion? Are you insane?”
“Oh, don’t worry. Her stinger was removed. I normally keep her in her cage, but she keeps escaping and crawling into warm, dark spaces. She must have been trying to get into your pants.”
“Let’s get started,” Professor Langril said, moving to the front of the room. “Now, this year, Professor Barton has decided his class is the best in potions and he wants to challenge you all. Alpha Flagstone, acting second to the headmaster, personally believes that competition is good between classes, so he has offered a reward for the winner.”
“Money?” Tali asked.
“Better! We get better ingredients for our class. With that, we can make better healing potions for Mack.”
“I’m in!” Mack volunteered. After that, we spent the class reviewing ingredients.
My last class of the day was Magic in Everyday Life, which was taught by Remington. Once again, I shared the class with Darwin. This time, however, there was only one other fae; Amelia. I sat at the end of the row, Darwin sat next to me, and Amelia sat on the other side of him.
“Where is the rest of the class?” one of the students asked. There were only ten of us when it was time for class to start.
“This is a second circle class and the majority of students who dropped out after the introduction of vampires were entering this circle. Now, I’m not going to teach you the way Mr. Hans had planned to. Instead, you will have two major writing assignments and five application tests.”
“What is an application test?” Darwin asked.
“You must use something you learned in class.”
“We didn’t learn much magic before Professor Hans died,” Amelia said. “None of my classes used much magic.”
“Professor Hans was an excellent teacher who knew you needed a strong foundation in knowledge and the inner workings of magic. If you jump in headfirst, you’re probably going to fail, in which case you will doubt your own power. There is also the possibility that you could succeed, but things would go terribly wrong because you don’t know what you’re doing.
“Magic is a battle of will over reality. Even potions are ninety percent mental. Magic is primarily a sequence of mental exercises; focus, imagine, visualize, project, and will. Balance is necessary, especially in elemental magic, which is the force of nature in magic and people. Every wizard is driven by the essence of elemental magic.
“Someone could levitate a book across the room driven by wisdom, and that would be air elemental magic, whereas someone who was doing the exact same thing in self-defense, with passion and fear, would be using fire magic.”
“What about fae? Some of us use elemental magic, but some of us use psychic magic,” Darwin said.
“And we will work on both in this class,” Remy assured him. “Because you missed a lot of Professor Hans’s background information, this class will move slower than I would like, but we will definitely cover more magic.”
“Did you graduate from this school?” a wizard in the front row asked.
“Yes, I did. I also failed my first semester. I believed that I could blow off my elemental training and my father would make sure I passed. It didn’t work well for me. I got the air element and my mentor, Professor Mura, was not a forgiving woman. When she told my father I hadn’t passed, he told her I would retake the semester, since I passed all my classes, and asked her to be harder on me.”
“Is it true you’re dating Alpha Flagstone?” the same wizard asked.
She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“I thought you were dating Devon Sanders,” the witch next to him said.
Half the class turned to look at me. Darwin started laughi
ng.
“No, Devon has a childhood sweetheart he’s saving himself for,” Remy said, grinning. “Wasn’t that what you said, Darwin?”
I groaned. In the four years I spent at a local, mundane university, I had been pretty much ignored, which was exactly how I liked it. While there was gossiping and students goofing off, few people even knew my name. I went into my undergraduate program right after graduating high school, so I was no older than my classmates, but I took my studies very seriously.
At that time in my life, my priorities consisted of building a safe foundation under me. I wanted independence, routine, and a hefty income so I could leave everything Astrid did to me behind me. It had been my intention to take care of my mother, but then I graduated and began working as a private investigator, and I soon realized I couldn’t give her the constant care she needed.
When my reputation was solid and I started earning an income greater than I had dared to hope, I got my mother the best apartment available with a full time live-in nurse. Unfortunately, I met Regina right afterwards.
Apparently, paranormal schools were very different. From what I had learned in my first semester here, power was a constant struggle. The immensely powerful paranormals wanted more power, the moderately powerful acted like it was a game, and the weak were used as stepping stools.
There were slow days, where nobody died and battles were kept to the practice field, but there were also days where I just had to stop and gawk. There was no such thing as routine at Quintessence.
* * *
Henry, Darwin, and I were eating dinner in the dining room a few hours later. “Any word on the witness?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah; word has gotten out that they’re looking for a witness, which means he or she is going to shut up. Nobody knows about the death yet, so they don’t know what the witness was supposed to have seen.”
“Can you track him by smell?”
“No. If I could, Alpha Flagstone already would have. Don’t worry; I’ll get it.”
“I’m wondering if the cases are connected. The council said they’re here because they want to make sure the vampires are integrating well, but Vincent thinks something else is going on.” I stood. “I’m going to see if Becky knows anything.”
“I can do that, bro,” Darwin said.
“Wouldn’t the students get suspicious if you ask too many questions?” I asked. He shrugged. “I can do this. Just worry about finding that witness.” I took my tray over to Becky, who was sitting a few tables away with her friends. The two women I often saw her hanging out with sat across from her, so I sat in the empty spot beside her. Her friends gaped at me, but I ignored them.
“Hi, Devon,” Becky said. “I can’t get you out of detention for Kale Lucos.”
“I know. I was actually hoping you could tell me why the council is here.”
“To make sure the vampires are being treated fairly and that they’re working well as students here.”
“Uh-huh. And why are they really here?”
She smirked. “Have you asked my father?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. He’s not a particularly friendly man.”
“So you don’t know anything?”
She shrugged. “All I know is that about two weeks ago, they all had a fit over something. Women are not allowed in the council, so we’re not even allowed to overhear anything. I could be arrested for knowing they were upset about something.”
“In that case, we’re just discussing our classes. But I can see you’re busy, so I’ll leave you alone.”
“See you later,” she said.
* * *
When my roommates and I returned to the room, Ghost was sitting on my desk.
“What’s wrong, cat?” I asked. He leapt off my desk, hit the floor, and ran out the door. I sighed. “I’ll see you two later.” I chased the cat through the hallways, into the castle, and up several flights of stairs. By the time I caught up to Ghost in a hallway on the third floor, he was rubbing pointedly against a spot on the wall to the left between two doors. “That’s a wall, idiot,” I explained.
The cat glared at me and looked up at the gas light scone.
I sighed again. “Why not?” I approached it and turned the knob to shut the gas off. Since nothing happened, I pressed it in and was rewarded with the soft yet distinct sound of metal sliding against metal. The cat pushed against the drywall again and a two-foot wide section gave, forming a narrow doorway into a dark passage. He gave me a glare and then disappeared into the dark.
I followed him in, hesitantly, as the route was rather cramped, and the door closed behind me so it was completely black. After about twenty minutes, I ran into the cat and stumbled. I reaching out to stop my fall, I felt brick, and ran my hand down the wall instinctively. There was a flexible panel and what was obviously a handle, so I knelt and pulled it open. Dim light spilled in.
Dark glass separated me from the room in front of me, but I knew it was hiding me from anyone in the other room. From the angle, it took me a moment to realize I was looking into the one of the offices from a fireplace. Professor Langril was standing over Dr. Martin, who was sitting in a chair.
“You can’t tell the council anything,” Langril said.
“I just told them there wasn’t a cause of death.”
“Logan has already figured it out.”
“He’s not my enemy,” Dr. Martin said.
Professor Langril sighed. “Don’t say anything more about it or they will get you, too. We have to find the key or there will be a lot more deaths. Logan and Vincent already know about it because Ghost got Heather’s letter.”
“Not from Heather.”
“No, of course not. Heather was far too careful. Devon got it, but he couldn’t understand it.”
“Why do you think Logan made you Devon’s mentor?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking of bringing Devon in on this, but Logan must know that, and he would want Devon on his side. The only thing I can think of is that Logan plans to have Devon spy on me.”
“I can see that.”
“But he wouldn’t risk Devon finding the key unless he had Devon on his side. Thank god Devon has John’s power and not Vincent’s.”
“I disagree there. The only thing that stopped Vincent and John from destroying everything was that they hated each other. Devon has John’s power. If he joined Vincent, they would crush anything that got in their way. If they found the last key, yours wouldn’t even matter.”
“You’re right. We have to make Devon join with us.”
“How? Heather was the personable one. I think everyone is in agreement that you’re insane.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
Langril went to the dark corner of the room and vanished. Mr. Martin sighed and pulled a book off of his desk to read.
Ghost was gone, so I shut the flimsy metal shutter and made my way out. When I got back to the door, I pressed against it and released, since it opened inward. The door popped open, so I pulled it back and stepped into the brightly lit hall. It closed behind me. I didn’t encounter any problems on the way back to my room.
* * *
I knew I was dreaming, for nothing else could explain why I was standing in the library with Heather. She wore the same jean shorts and blue blouse as she had when she died, only the shirt was closed. It was also covered in blood.
“Why the library?” I asked.
“Why not? I like the library. This is the library where you found me. Do you know what book I was looking at?”
“No.”
“You should find out.”
* * *
I woke fast, but calmly. Since it was only a few minutes before the Circle-Five students started knocking on doors, I got up and headed for my shower. When I arrived at the Laws of Magic classroom, Alpha Flagstone was nowhere to be seen. I asked a student who had Remy’s class right before and was told that they were chatting.
The shifter was a few minutes late and obviously distracted when he did arrive. Personally, I thought the relationship was good for him. The shifter, while fair, was very strict and unforgiving. It was understandable when he was in charge of handling all of the pack shifters, but probably not great for his health. Remy, on the other hand, seemed to like arguing. How the two made it work, I didn’t know, but it was apparent that they did.
“Today, we’re going to talk about the Law of Names,” he said.
“Didn’t we cover that last year?” I asked.
“Well, we will cover it again. A lot of you didn’t do well on the questions pertaining to this law on your final exam. Knowing the complete and true name of an object, being or process gives you complete control over it.”
“By object, you mean I can control my cell phone if I know it’s an iPhone?” one of the students asked.
“No. That would be silly. We are going to talk about living and nonliving creatures first.”
“Nonliving. Like necromancy?” I asked.
“For example, yes. There are also golems, elementals, and the like. The Law of Names works because a name is a definition as well as a contagion link. There is a lot of history behind this law and some of you already knew something about it before we discussed it the first time. In many of the older cultures, a mother would whisper her child’s true name to the infant on the day he or she is born, and then give the child a false name for everyone else to use.”
“How was the child supposed to know his true name?”
“He wasn’t. Most humans who know anything about wizards are hesitant to give out their real name or full name.”
“Can wizards control shifters with the shifter’s real name?”
“If they are powerful enough.”
“Has anyone tried to control you? Do you have a secret name?”
“I do have a secret name, which only two people know. And yes; a wizard did once try to control me. Two have, actually, but neither had my name.”
