Instrument of Peace (Symphony of the Cursed Book 1)

by Rebecca Hall

  Hayley wasn’t in Xenobiology with him but she was in Latin and she behaved in exactly the same manner. The only difference was that the teacher ignored her instead of throwing her out. Mitch had been worried that he’d fallen behind and while he’d struggled with the dissections in Xenobiology he’d been fine in Latin after Nikola’s patient instruction. Latin was followed by Alchemy and Mitch did his best to ignore Gwen while reading Nikola’s notes over his shoulder. Unlike their textbook, Nikola made sense.

  They walked to lunch together and Mitch saw Gwen glue herself to Richard’s side and whisper something in his ear.

  “Ignore them,” Nikola advised, piling his plate high with salad.

  “You try it,” Mitch hissed back. Nikola coughed and started adding fresh fruit to his plate.

  “I’m going to eat outside,” Nikola said after clearing his throat.

  “It’s cold out there,” Mitch said.

  “I like fresh air, go sit with your friends, I know you missed them.”

  “I still do,” Mitch said, shaking his head, “but they’re not them any more.” Bates was sitting with Richard, Gwen and Mindy in any case. Mindy was glaring at the corner where Belle and Angel Girl were sitting. Mitch wouldn’t want her glaring at him like that but the two girls didn’t seem to notice.

  Mitch wasn’t sure if Angel Girl noticed anything any more. He’d half expected the school to be talking about him now that he was back from suspension but the only ones who appeared to be doing so were Gwen and Richard. Everyone else was talking about Angel Girl; apparently she’d been behaving oddly ever since the Dance with the Dead and he wasn’t the only one to have noticed the strange distortion of the light.

  “Could one of the Teratos have done this?” he asked, nodding towards her.

  Nikola shrugged and pushed the door open, “Probably not. There aren’t many with the necessary skill in compulsion.” Mitch shuddered, only partially from the cold. Compulsion was illegal for humans but it was merely frowned upon for everything else. It helped them cover it up when they accidentally ate someone.

  “Any way to know for sure?” Mitch asked as they settled in the lee of a tree that almost sheltered them from the wind. Nikola’s magic did the rest.

  “Find someone willing and able to read her mind.”

  Mitch sighed, the only empath he’d ever known was Dr Dalman and telepaths were exceedingly rare; they needed the same spark of celestial magic that Belle and Nikola had and the accounts he’d read suggested that they weren’t entirely stable.

  “Maybe she just decided to ignore the rest of the universe,” he said. It sounded a lot more plausible though he had a hard time believing that she’d just decide to ignore Belle. Nikola shrugged, his mouth full, and Mitch decided to postpone any further pointless speculation until he didn’t have a plate of hot food to eat.

  #

  Mitch wolfed down dinner as quickly as he could. He was meant to help Bates with his maths homework after dinner, he’d all but begged for help earlier, but if he finished early then he could visit Nikola in the infirmary first and Bates had yet to make it to the dining room. He chased the last few peas around his plate and finally succeeded in impaling them on his fork. He washed them down with the last of his juice and returned his tray. For some unfathomable reason they didn’t get dessert on Mondays.

  Much to his relief Nikola was awake and eating dinner when he arrived. Mitch couldn’t help arching his eyebrow when he saw the plate; Nikola had effectively missed lunch but that was a lot of food.

  “I’m hungry,” Nikola said between mouthfuls.

  “You look better,” Mitch said, sitting down. He had to be feeling better as well or he wouldn’t be eating like that.

  “Yeah, the doctor thinks I’ll be able to go to class tomorrow though he’s undecided on whether or not I can do magic. I’m sorry about earlier.”

  “You didn’t ask to be sick,” Mitch pointed out. Nikola had thrown up fifteen minutes into Teratology and again on their way to the infirmary. Mitch hadn’t needed to offer any sort of explanation when they arrived, he’d just helped Nikola to his bed and sat with him until he fell asleep. He’d been on the verge of falling asleep himself when the doctor told him to go to sixth period.

  “I didn’t ask you to take care of me either,” Nikola replied, “thank you.”

  “Anyone would have done it,” Mitch said, uncomfortably aware of the fact that most of the class had edged away from Nikola rather than doing anything of the sort.

  “Sure they would,” Nikola smiled, “do you want some jelly?”

  “You have jelly?” Mitch asked.

  “And ice-cream, neither of which I particularly care for.” Nikola passed him the bowl, followed a second later by the spoon.

  “Are you sure?” Mitch asked though he didn’t particularly want to give up the hokey pokey ice cream now that it was in his hands.

  “I have fruit.”

  “Weirdo,” Mitch muttered. Someone knocked on the door and Mitch flushed guiltily but none of the staff would knock first would they? Mitch hadn’t bothered to knock either and Nikola hadn’t looked at all surprised by his arrival.

  “Come in,” Nikola said. A pale-faced Belle crept into the room, her eyes bloodshot. “Rough lesson?” Nikola asked. She nodded, wiping away tears with the back of one hand.

  “Want to help me eat Nikola’s ice cream?” Mitch asked. Comforting crying girls really needed to be on the curriculum somewhere, it was vastly more practical than the reproductive cycle of a unicorn.

  “The two of you might as well sit up here and use the table like civilised people,” Nikola said curling his legs up underneath him so that they could sit on the foot of the bed. They did as they were told. Mitch hoped Belle liked jelly, he’d eaten most of the ice-cream before she arrived.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Nikola asked. Belle shook her head.

  “Shouldn’t Hayley be with you?” Mitch asked. It was far from the first time Belle had seen something unpleasant and Hayley had always come before.

  “She’s not there any more,” Belle mumbled.

  “She’ll come back,” Mitch said, “she just needs to snap out of whatever this is.” He noted Nikola’s carefully blank expression and hesitated, Nikola knew a lot about magic but he wasn’t sure if it was a conversation they should be having in front of Belle.

  “What?” Nikola asked.

  “Do you really think someone could have compelled her?” Mitch asked. He needed to practice changing the topic and getting his mouth to check in with his brain when caught by surprise.

  “No, it doesn’t always work on magicians, not even young ones, and the Dance took place in summer.”

  “Maybe someone hit her on the head,” Mitch said.

  Belle shook her head, “Azrael woke her up. No one can hurt her.”

  “If you say so,” Mitch said, checking his watch. “I have to go. Are you staying here?”

  Belle shrugged, “They usually let me leave with Hayley but...”

  “Maybe they’ll let you come with me and help Bates with maths. No Mindy,” he added when he saw her expression. Mitch had banned her after it became clear that Bates couldn’t even add two and two when she was around. “Sorry Nikola.” It didn’t seem right to visit just long enough to eat his ice cream and jelly.

  “Just go, I’m going back to sleep anyway.”

  “No books in incomprehensible languages?”

  “I’ll dream about them.”

  Mitch shook his head, “Goodnight, Nikola.”

  Bates wasn’t waiting for him in the common room. Mitch checked the time but he was still a couple of minutes early.

  “I have to get my books,” he said to Belle. She nodded and pointed to a table in an out of the way corner. Mitch grabbed his books and then pounded on Bates’ door. No answer. He listened and then inched the door open, no Bates. Mitch sighed and went back downstairs. Bates was probably in the bathroom or still in the dining hall having lost track of
time, they were both excuses he’d heard before and it gave him a little more time to work on tomorrow’s Latin assignment. Bates never showed up; he ended up helping Belle with her maths instead.

  #

  Nikola was back in class the next day. Angel Girl wasn’t. She was there but Mitch got the impression that she was just going through the motions. She wasn’t doing a very good job of it either. The few times that the teachers managed to get her attention she answered their questions perfectly but most seemed determined to ignore her. She had always been weird, disconnected from the rest of the Academy by her background and sudden admittance, but at least then it had felt like she was aware of them. On some level she had cared, even if it was just about Belle; she didn’t any more. Mitch couldn’t imagine her going into a collapsing building now to rescue a bunch of kids she’d never met before.

  Mitch was relieved to see Nikola in Alchemy. He made a welcome break from Bates who’d explained that he’d decided to hang out with Mindy since Mitch was plainly busy with his new best friend. Mitch had been tempted to yell at him, or hit him, but he had only just come off suspension and Bates wasn’t worth it.

  “He’s jealous,” Nikola said once Mitch had related the first half of his day through gritted teeth. “You’ve been friends for eleven years.”

  “So? It’s not like we were joined at the hip,” Mitch growled.

  “He doesn’t understand Mitchell, it happened while the Twisted Curse was here and it makes no more sense to him than the claim that the zombie horse was a practical joke does to you.”

  “I’d like to think that making a new friend is a little more rational than that.”

  Nikola shrugged, “Just spend more time with him, he’ll get over it.”

  “What about you?” Mitch asked. Nikola rarely sought him out, he seemed content just to sit together in class or to help Mitch with whatever piece of Alchemy he was currently stuck on. He certainly made no effort to monopolise his time.

  “I seem to recall hearing that friends are supposed to want their friends to be happy. Being friends with Bates makes you happy.” Maybe it used to, Mitch thought, he wasn’t sure that it did any more. Lately being with Bates just pissed him off.

  “That’s supposed to work both ways you know,” Mitch growled. Nikola’s abiding love was mythology but there had to be things they could do together that didn’t involve the finer points of Alchemy and Latin. “What would make you happy?”

  “To go home and not have to come back here.”

  “Something that’s actually within my power,” Mitch said though if he thought it would do any good he would have happily shaken Nikola’s guardians until their teeth rattled.

  “You talk to me,” Nikola said, “you don’t call me names behind my back and you visit me when I’m sick.” He drew a deep shuddering breath, “You’re my friend, what more could I want?”

  Mitch swallowed and looked away. Nikola wasn’t exactly setting a high bar there but he clearly meant every word and he knew with sudden clarity that Nikola would never endanger that by pushing for more no matter how lonely he must be. And he had to be lonely, why else would a simple conversation mean so much to him?

  To his relief, Miss Sindri cleared her throat to begin the lesson and Mitch silently promised that he would spend more time with Nikola. If Bates was going to force him to choose between the two of them then so be it.

  “Teratology is that way,” Mitch remarked when Nikola started in the wrong direction after class. Nikola shook his head.

  “Hayley’s magic is completely jacked, I’ll just throw up again if I go near her.”

  “Is that what happened yesterday?” Nikola had thrown up more or less exactly when she’d come in with her intermittent void wings.

  Nikola nodded, “I managed alright last week but I have very definite limits when it comes to stress and I’m past them. The doctor said he’d arrange everything so I can just go sit in the library until magical theory.”

  Mitch hesitated but he’d only just come off suspension and he could imagine the look on Mr McCalis’s face if he was caught cutting class, and he would be caught. “I’ll see you at dinner,” he said finally.

  “I’ll be sitting outside,” Nikola warned. Putting as much distance as he could between him and Hayley.

  “Then I’ll bring a coat, it’s pretty warm today anyway,” Mitch said, backing down the corridor. He was going to have to run to make it to Teratology on time and then Bates would make some crack about Nikola and Hayley would come in and stare into space and...

  Nikola waved. Mitch waved back before turning and dashing off to class. It went exactly as he’d expected with the added fun of his actually being able to sense Hayley’s magic. Nikola was right, it was jacked and it made his skin crawl. It was never a good sign when someone started losing control of their magic, it usually heralded a break from reality and an insane magician had very few of the limitations of a sane one.

  It wasn’t the only thing that was odd though it took him some time to put a finger on it. Hayley’s body went where she wanted it to go regardless of the actual mechanics of doing so. Her arms and legs flowed rather than bending and he almost threw up himself when he realised what it was reminiscent of; the zombie horse. Mitch swallowed and told himself that someone would have noticed if Mindy had killed one of their class mates and reanimated her corpse. Besides, Mindy needed to see her corpse puppets.

  His day did not get any better. Their classes on magical theory had circled back around to neurobiology, this time with far more complex explanations of why they shouldn’t use hand motions and incantations, let alone staffs and wands, than they’d been given when they first went over it a couple of years ago. It managed to be both mind numbingly boring and horribly complex and Mitch couldn’t help being distracted by Angel Girl.

  “Are there any questions?” Mr Crane asked. Mitch blinked and saw that they would be finished in five minutes. He raised his hand. “Mr Mitchell?”

  “Where does Alchemy fit in sir?” Mitch asked.

  Mr Crane muttered something under his breath, his shoulders slumping. Plainly he’d hoped to avoid that question. “Broadly speaking it allows people to access forms of magic that they are not otherwise attuned to.”

  “What about narrowly speaking?” Hikari asked. The rest of the class exchanged quiet laughter, they all enjoyed a chance to trip up one of their teachers.

  “Narrowly speaking, we would be unable to cover the topic before the bell rang and none of you have the background needed to understand the concepts involved.” The bell rang and they all filed out, most of them pausing to give Mitch a high five or pat on the back. Mitch cringed, he’d been hoping for an answer, the question had been bugging him for most of the class.

  His class on practical magic proved to be even more unbearable. For some unknowable reason he’d been paired with Hayley and she performed every task effortlessly. Mitch wouldn’t have minded her mastering magic that he was struggling with if it had looked as if she were actually trying but she performed it all with the same detachment that she did everything. Magic was supposed to require dedication and focus not an absent-minded stare into space. He was relieved when the teacher threw her out.

  Dinner with Nikola almost felt like a picnic, he’d disdained the tables to sit on the ground in one of the few remaining patches of sunlight. Mitch felt magic enfolding him as he sat down, shielding the two of them from the brisk breeze.

  “I thought the doctor didn’t want you using magic,” Mitch said carefully. He didn’t want Nikola to decide that he disapproved and stop. That breeze was cold.

  “He didn’t want me in class,” Nikola said, “he never said anything about not using magic.” He sighed, “Yes, I know I shouldn’t be doing it but if I don’t then I’ll catch a cold and if I sit in there with her I’ll throw up or get a migraine.”

  “Can your magic keep out rain and snow?”

  “If it has to.” Mitch took Nikola’s tray in for him when they
were done and then met him in the library so they could work on their Xenobiology assignments. It would have been a lot easier with Bates’ help, but Bates would probably be an ass about him eating with Nikola and one of the multitude of stress management techniques that had been suggested to him was not putting himself in situations that he knew would be upsetting. He could talk to Bates, rationally, in the morning.

  BURNING

  Mitch stalked along the path, his feet striking the ground with a little more force than was strictly necessary. He’d tried to visit Nikola in the infirmary before meeting Bates so they could revise maths in the library but Nikola had been asleep. Mitch scowled, he’d known that it would only be a matter of time before Nikola was unable to cope with the strain of the upcoming exams and Angel Girl’s erratic magic but he hadn’t expected it to leave Nikola fevered and delirious. He kicked at a rock; Nikola would have been fine if it weren’t for Angel Girl.

  The rock skipped along the path and then whipped back towards him and Mitch yelped when it bounced off his shin and continued on its way, buffeted by the sudden wind. Mitch shivered, he wasn’t dressed for wind. The last week had been remarkably warm and dry. The experts and alarmists were already predicting a drought over summer.

  The wind didn’t care for their predictions, it slapped into him, spotting his clothes with rain. He gasped, rubbing his arms and swearing. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The wind buffeted him again, this time striking at his exposed skin with thousands of needles of biting cold and just as many of scalding heat. Mitch ground his teeth together; it was probably just someone practising magic by the lake. Multiple someones.

  He hugged himself against the cold and picked up his pace a little, if he hurried he’d be able to change into something warm and dry before going to the library. The wind flailed at him again, this time with gravel and grit pulled from the path. One particularly vicious piece scored across his hand and drew blood that was whipped away by the wind.