Instrument of Peace (Symphony of the Cursed Book 1)

by Rebecca Hall

  “We’ll take you to the infirmary,” he said with a frown, “the doctor will give you something to help you sleep. Without dreams,” he added when Belle flinched. “Now, as for you Mr Mitchell, I would like an explanation.”

  “I woke him,” Gwen said hastily, “I thought he might know where Mindy and Bates are.”

  Bates was going to be pissed in the morning, Gwen had just thrown him and Mindy under the bus, but Mitch wasn’t inclined to be sympathetic right now.

  “I don’t,” he said hastily, he’d assumed they were in Bates’ room. “But I’ve been friends with Mindy for years and Belle is in Cullum’s class and she was with him in...” he realised he was blabbling and stopped. Apparently it was enough. Mr McCalis nodded and made no mention of detention.

  “Let’s get you to the infirmary Miss Lamdon, we can discuss any other dreams you might have had in the morning.”

  Belle nodded, remaining suckerfished to Hayley’s side.

  “I guess I’m coming too,” she said awkwardly climbing to her feet while Belle clung to her.

  “Miss FitzGerald, Mr Mitchell, if either of you happen to see Miss Lamdon or Mr Augney tell them to report to my office first thing in the morning.”

  “Yes sir,” they replied in unison as Mitch rose to his feet. Mr McCalis nodded once and shepherded Belle and Hayley towards the stairs, Mitch trailing behind.

  “Can I come too?” Mitch asked when they reached the ground floor, “I want to be able to tell Mindy that her sister is alright.”

  “If you must,” Mr McCalis said, leading the way outside. Mitch shivered and wished he’d thought to put his shirt on. At least it was just a short walk between the dormitories and the infirmary. Much to his surprise the infirmary lights were on, lighting up the empty waiting room and abandoned corridors. Mr McCalis opened the door to one of the wards and groped across the wall until he found the light switch. Hayley helped Belle onto a bed and Mr McCalis went in search of the doctor. Mitch sat down on the next bed and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders.

  “The doctor will be here soon,” Mr McCalis said when he returned, “he’s with Mr Leiser right now. I need to speak with Miss Band, I trust the two of you will go straight back to your own rooms once the doctor has seen to Miss Lamdon.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He passed the doctor on his way out.

  “Dreamless sleep is it?” the doctor asked as he gave Belle a quick check up and detached her from Hayley. He let her keep the torch. “I believe we can manage that.” He opened a cupboard at the end of the room and half-filled one of those little medicine cups with a grainy blue substance. He watched her drain it and gave her a glass of water to wash it down. Less than a minute later she was fast asleep, curled up around her torch.

  “Do either of you need anything?” the doctor asked.

  “No,” Mitch replied, sliding off the bed and folding up the blanket.

  “Then I must return to Nikola,” the doctor said, ushering them towards the door and turning the lights off behind them.

  “Is he ok?” Mitch asked, “there isn’t going to be another earthquake is there?” Out of the corner of his eye Mitch saw Angel Girl shake her head.

  “He says not,” the doctor replied, heading towards Nikola’s room, “so with any luck you’ll be able to sleep through the rest of the night in peace.”

  Mitch rubbed his arms as they walked back towards the dormitory. He thought the temperature had dropped another few degrees while they were inside.

  “What do you know about it?” he asked.

  “Know about what?”

  “Belle’s dream.”

  “Nothing.”

  “You know everything.”

  “Not about Hell,” she said, rounding on him.

  “See, you do know something, Belle never mentioned Hell. It’s supposed to be hot anyway,” Mitch said. It actually sounded pretty good right about now.

  “And you’re an expert are you?” she asked, stalking away.

  “Fine then, Hell is cold. But what about the rest of it? What about ‘him’ and the fall?”

  “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Really?” Mitch lunged and caught her arm, forcing her to stop just outside the dormitory. “Because you have an angel’s feather twisted around your arm.

  “I don’t know anything about Hell or the Fall and I don’t want to,” she said, staring at him with bright white eyes. Mitch wasn’t going to let them put him off this time.

  “If you don’t know anything then why did you flinch?” he asked.

  “Because I’ve dreamed of falling for as long as I can remember,” she said, breaking his grip and slamming the door shut behind her. Mitch stared at the door, half surprised that the window panes had survived such rough treatment. Maybe he should bet on Clairvoyance after all, unless there was some weird dream based magic he wasn’t aware of.

  #

  The weekend was spent moving the gremlins back to their half of the Academy. They’d tried to duck out of helping but Bates and Mindy were both stuck in detention for the foreseeable future and sneaking out wasn’t as enticing when it was pissing down outside. At least Mitch got to slip away for a couple of hours for Cullum’s latest counselling session. It proved to be just as unhelpful and uninformative as usual, making for yet another unpleasant chat with his parents, but it did get him out of the rain. Cullum practically bolted the second it was over, rain or not he still preferred open spaces. Alone and unobserved Mitch slipped down the corridor to Nikola’s room.

  It had changed quite a bit since the start of the year. A chest of drawers and a desk had been moved in and shoved up against one wall, the desk cluttered with books which overflowed onto the drawers. Nikola had even dropped the skeleton impersonation though there were dark rings around his eyes. He still had a cup with a straw in it. He jerked awake as Mitch closed the door, his magic flaring to life as Nikola blinked and muzzily focused on him before shimmering away. Mitch shivered, wondering just how close Nikola was to losing control. They’d been warned that any attempt to suppress their abilities would erode their control and it had been months since Nikola had been allowed to use magic.

  “Another sickbed visit Mitchell?” Nikola asked. “Careful, people might start thinking that you like me.”

  “What makes you think this was my idea? It wasn’t last time,” Mitch said, easing the door closed behind him.

  “The way you keep looking over your shoulder.”

  “Did you hear about Belle?” Mitch said, fixing his eyes on Nikola’s face.

  “I hear about everything that happens in here,” Nikola said, smiling slightly.

  “What’s going on Nikola? Mr McCalis said that you were sick that night as well.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The Hell you don’t,” Mitch said somewhat louder than he had intended to. He flinched and looked over his shoulder. “Angel Girl said the same thing,” he added in a much quieter voice. He could only imagine the kind of trouble he would be in if the doctor caught him yelling at one of his patients, even if it was Nikola.

  “Really?”

  “Nikola,” Mitch growled, his hands clenching into hopeless fists. Nikola might not be impersonating a skeleton any more but he still looked more waif like than was good for him and he had dark rings around his eyes.

  “Someone visited the Academy that night,” Nikola said, “it felt wrong, so wrong.” He shuddered, a little more colour creeping into his face. “I’ve never felt anything like that before and I don’t want to again. You realise that it could have nothing to do with Belle, the timing could just be a coincidence.”

  “You wouldn’t have told me about it if you believed that,” Mitch said.

  “But I do Mitchell, it did something. I don’t know what, that thing played havoc with every sense I have. If you know how to look you can even find its magic.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing, I can’t touch its ma
gic without throwing up and it didn’t feel the need to stick around and admire its handy work.”

  “You said that it was wrong.”

  “So is running with scissors, doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything about it.”

  “What if someone gets hurt?” Mitch asked, he was prepared to bet that Nikola ran with scissors all the time. He probably thought it was fun.

  “Then I’ll throw a party, you’ve made what you think of me crystal clear.”

  “You’re going to be the one getting hurt in a second.”

  “And you wonder why I don’t like you,” Nikola smiled. Belle had probably been dreaming about Nikola, he would be happy to watch the world burn. Mitch shot him one last glare and left, even the pouring rain would be better than this.

  THE LAKE

  “Where’s Bates?” Mitch asked, taking a seat next to Gwen. When Bates did arrive there’d be no one to separate him from Mindy but Mitch didn’t mind that as much as he used to.

  “Guess they finished late,” Mindy said as Mitch began to shovel down his mac and cheese. It felt a little early to be eating lunch, they were back on their regular schedule now that the gremlins had been returned to the primary campus, but Mitch was hungry and he’d need his energy for today’s practical magic lesson.

  “Must be a lot late,” Mitch said between mouthfuls. He’d been halfway to fifth period before he realised his mistake.

  “You don’t need to inhale your food you know,” Gwen said, “it’s not going to run away.” Mitch shrugged; all he had left was half a piece of pasta, some cheesy sauce and a couple of scraps of bacon. He scraped it all together and ate it anyway before turning his attention to his apple.

  “Boys,” Gwen exchanged a look with Mindy and rolled her eyes.

  “There he is,” Mindy said, waving to Bates as he scanned the room for them.

  “I thought mac and cheese was your favourite,” Mitch said when Bates sat down and frowned at his plate rather than immediately digging in. He glanced at Mindy but she just shrugged. Bates was a big guy who could and would eat anything put in front of him. It was theoretically possible to see him with a full plate but it was about as likely as encountering an Awarewolf in the Other world.

  “I just got called up to Dalman’s office,” he said, stabbing at a piece of pasta. It slid off his fork before he could eat it.

  “You two still in trouble for the other night?” Gwen sounded puzzled, the two of them had already been put in detention. Unless they’d been caught sneaking around again that should have been the end of it.

  “Yeah, something like that,” Bates grumbled. No one had been able to find them the other night because they’d taken advantage of the clear night to sneak out and sleep under the stars. Mr McCalis had not been impressed. Bates finally managed to get a forkful of pasta into his mouth.

  “Sorry,” Mitch said. Mr McCalis had accepted his story about checking on his friend’s sister though Mitch wasn’t sure he actually believed it. Everyone else just said how considerate he was, risking detention to check on Belle and then going to the infirmary with her. Angel Girl was probably laughing herself sick over that. Bates shrugged, still stabbing at his pasta with more savagery than skill. At this rate he was going to need a spoon to eat, the pasta wouldn’t be able to stand up to such punishment much longer.

  “How’s Belle?” Mitch asked. It wasn’t a spectacularly successful attempt to change the subject but it was all he could think of.

  “Ask her yourself,” Mindy said, glaring across the room. Mitch twisted around and found Belle seated with Hayley at the back of the room. “They’re putting her up a year,” Mindy said in response to their puzzled faces, Mitch hadn’t been the only one to look. “She was already top of her class so she’s getting one-on-one tutoring until she catches up to the year nines and the specialised magic classes.” Their first two years of magic lessons were just generalised magic; they didn’t get specialised classes until they started secondary school. Most of them didn’t need specialised lessons until then. “She even gets to take the midyear testing though everyone’s reasonably sure that she’s Clairvoyant.”

  Mitch shrugged, most specialities could be identified without the testing but the Academy insisted on it anyway. He supposed it would tell them what Hayley had specialised in; he still hadn’t placed his bet and he didn’t think he’d be able to look up glowing eyes in the library. Bates had shown him what everyone else was betting on and so far the only thing that he was certain of was that everyone else was wrong.

  “Your parents must be happy,” Gwen said carefully. Belle consistently received better grades than her sister and Mindy wasn’t always happy about it.

  “They’re ecstatic,” Mindy muttered, “their little girl is a Clairvoyant and they don’t have to deal with the nightmares.” Mitch shifted uncomfortably as he recalled Belle’s bloodshot eyes. Mindy hadn’t had to deal with them either, just a few weeks’ worth of detention. Clairvoyance was one of the world’s rarest specialities and what little he knew about it suggested that it was also one of the most dangerous.

  “Ah, Mindy?” Gwen said, “I don’t think anyone wants to see spirit bacon.” Mitch glanced down and gulped as he saw the aura engulfing Mindy’s plate. Mindy was a necromancer and while he doubted that she could actually summon the spirit of a pig that had been slaughtered, butchered and cooked, the shattered spirits that he could see were enough to put him off seconds. He was glad that they weren’t any more distinct. If they’d been recognisable pigs he probably would have thrown up. For a second he considered vegetarianism before wondering if plants had spirits as well. Fortunately for his sanity Mindy hadn’t taken any fruit with her lunch.

  “Oh,” Mindy flushed and the spirits vanished.

  “What do you have after lunch?” Gwen asked. She knew his timetable but she was far better at changing the subject than he was.

  “Teratology. What insane project does Henly have for us this term?” Mitch asked. Henly’s preferred method of teaching was the term length research paper.

  “Hyper-saturation,” Gwen replied, “he spent the whole period lecturing us on the effects of residual magic on human beings.”

  “That almost sounds interesting,” Mitch said; residual magic was thought to be responsible for the evolution of most magi-forms.

  Gwen laughed, “He made the vampiric population boom in World War One sound boring, I wouldn’t hold your breath.” Mitch sighed, the sound lost in the ringing of the bell.

  #

  Mitch shivered and huddled a little closer to Gwen. It felt as if the Academy had decided to skip the rest of autumn in favour of jumping straight to winter. Mitch didn’t mind the cold provided there was a wall and heater between him and it, but standing on the shores of the lake while a freezing wind ripped through his clothing was not his idea of fun. He would have to go into town and buy a new jacket over the weekend, none of his fit properly any more.

  He glanced at his classmates, all of them looked as miserable as he was. Almost all of them; Sam was using a little bit of thermomancy to keep herself warm but the other three had the decency to look cold. Whatever today’s magic lesson was it promised to be unpleasant, usually the misery didn’t start until the lesson did. He wondered if Henly was taking this lesson and it was some form of revenge for him almost falling asleep in Teratology. He had tried to pay attention but Henly could make anything sound boring, even the creation of vampires. No wonder he was famous for assigning term length projects, his lessons could put the undead to rest. Maybe he would send them all in search of the Taniwha, although that would be a little backwards since they had gone Taniwha hunting in one of their Cryptozoology lessons last term.

  “Excellent, you’re all here,” Miss Sindri said, striding up to them. She was dressed in a shirt and skirt that was in no way appropriate for the weather. Mitch groaned; Miss Sindri was a Cryomancer, there was no way their close proximity to the lake was a coincidence and no way this could possibly end well. She hande
d them all a Velcro strap.

  “Your task today is a simple one,” she said as they wrapped the Velcro around their arms. “There are twelve buoys in the lake and each buoy has a tag attached to it. You must traverse the lake to retrieve them.”

  Angel Girl was right, Hell was cold.

  “What are you waiting for?” Miss Sindri asked.

  Hikari was the first to move, leaping into the air and soaring towards the first buoy. The aeromancer would probably finish before the rest of them were halfway. Gwen simply walked across the water; it was possible to make illusions so convincing that they could be treated like reality but walking on water had to be a real bitch. Rodrigo was the first to take the plunge, he’d stripped down to his underwear and was shooting through the water faster than your average jet ski.

  Mitch started stripping as well, blushing slightly whenever he saw Miss Sindri. She was one of the youngest teachers and Mitch had a slight crush on her. Miss Sindri ignored him. She was striding backwards and forwards across the lake, fine tendrils of ice spider-webbing out from her. They melted almost instantly but it was only a matter of time before she reduced the water temperature so much that it stayed frozen.

  Clad in nothing but his boxers he waded into the water and halved his estimate of how long they had before the lake froze solid; his teeth were already chattering. Two spells he decided. One to keep him warm and another to make him stronger, he wanted this over as quickly as possible. Maintaining two spells at once was tricky, especially when using words was out of the question, but he didn’t have any good options. He took a couple more steps and dived in.

  It was surprisingly easy. After years of spending the Christmas holidays on the beach he was used to having to fight the surf and occasionally being pounded into the water by a wave he hadn’t noticed until the last second. The lake was calm and clear and with his magic to protect him it was only cold instead of mind-numbing. He reached the first buoy and dived, pulled the tag free and attached it to his Velcro strap before resurfacing and looking for the next buoy. He probably should have spent more time memorising their locations but they were a horribly artificial shade of orange that was impossible to miss. He spotted the second buoy and made for it.