“A lesson in…” Rachel glanced at her boyfriend.
Grinning, Gaius held his left arm straight and then pushed down on it with the finger of his right hand. He had made the same gesture a month and a half ago, while sitting in the fog-shrouded belfry discussing the jumbo jet that had nearly crashed into Roanoke Hall.
“Wait!” Rachel caught on. “Is this about Sigfried and me flying into the aeroplane?”
Locke stepped up to the blackboard and expounded upon the basics of force, acceleration, mass, and velocity. Much of this Rachel had figured out intuitively, but he drew together concepts she had not consciously connected. As his bright green pen squeaked over the white board, Rachel felt as if a door were opening in her mind, beyond which lay a new world.
William was a superb teacher. He seemed to answer her questions as soon as they occurred to her, before she could even voice them. She could not tell if this was magic, or if he was merely a natural teacher who understood his subject matter so well that he could anticipate any inquiry. She listened, utterly enthralled, her perfect memory tracking everything: her mind leapt ahead and drew conclusions; instantly made comparisons to earlier explanations; and prompted her with questions, which she immediately voiced—unless he was already answering them. As he spoke, she jotted down vector drawings for broom motions and billiard balls on the paper Gaius had given her for taking notes. She waited, eyes wide, eager to learn more.
After explaining the basics of physics, William changed the subject to sorcery. He spoke, in particular, about the turlu cantrip—the one that stopped a moving object in mid-air. He explained that some spells require a particular state of mind for proper casting. It helped to have a clear idea of the desired effect. Visualizing this effect could improve the outcome. It could help even more, if one understood the basic science of the effect.
“Just because sorcerers circumvent physical laws,” William explained, “does not mean those laws are not there. Working with these laws can lead to a much more effective result.”
The pure physics fascinated Rachel—but when he reached the part about magic, he had her complete attention. It was as if everything wonderful in the universe had converged in one place. She was so pleased with Gaius for arranging this surprise. If she had not already loved him, she would have fallen in love with him then and there.
Hours passed. Even Gaius started to look a bit distracted, but Locke kept going. Finally, Rachel reached a point where even she could not consciously absorb any more. She needed time to process. She could memorize facts instantly, but mastering equations and complex scientific principles required significant mental effort.
William put down his marker. “That is all for today. You may always come back and discuss this again, Miss Griffin.”
Rachel rubbed her eyes and stretched. “Thank you very much!”
“Do not mention it. My pleasure.”
“Now,” Gaius jumped to his feet, “it’s finally time for what I wanted to show you.”
• • •
William led them to a room with a screen on the wall and a couple of comfortable couches. There was also a handsome desk. Having grown up surrounded by antiques, Rachel judged the desk to be mint condition Sixteen Hundreds, possibly from one of the French kings.
“What now?” asked Rachel.
“We’re going to watch a little TV,” Gaius drawled airily.
“A television?” Rachel said curiously. “I thought they looked like boxes. That looks like a sideways talking glass. Are you making them to look like glasses now?”
“Yes.” Gaius looked really amused. “Yes, we are.”
William winked at Rachel and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
Gaius sat on the couch and patted the seat next to him. He manipulated the controls and turned on the television. “The TV show’s called Automan.”
Rachel sat beside him and watched with great interest, examining everything.
The show was rather odd. The two main characters rode around in mundane vehicles. One character glowed blue and was immune to inertia, and the other was a normal policeman. Whenever the vehicles went from full speed to an instant stop, the first man was unaffected, but the second man was not. Seeing the policeman shoot forward and slam against the dashboard, while the other man sat perfectly helped illustrate the physics William had been describing.
“Okay,” Gaius turned to her when the episode ended. Rachel was still in a daze, as if she had been part of the story and now had to wake up and remember who she really was. “Now, we’re going to discuss the turlu cantrip.”
She was instantly alert. “Oh, goody!”
“There are two ways that this cantrip can function. In one, the force in X direction might be applied in the opposite direction with no ‘buffer.’ If you’re going slow, that’s not too bad. But if you’re going really, really fast, you do not want to be decelerated to zero instantly by an opposite force. You might smoosh or get badly injured.
“So there is a second way to use the cantrip. The force in X direction is not canceled. Instead, it is subtracted. This causes an instantaneous removal of inertia, like the man who glowed blue in the show we just watched. It causes the person no discomfort whatsoever. If you cast the spell this way, it’s much harder. Often you get a much smaller effect or complete failure of the spell. So, normally, you could not use it against anything big or fast.
“Buuuuut, and here is the cool part that William and O.I. discovered,” Gaius continued smoothly. “If you understand the math for the vectors involved, you can imagine the resulting inertia being subtracted from your target and added somewhere else.
“With some practice, you can not only get bigger objects to stop, you can also whomp other objects with the force you just removed. And the best part is: It’s not an exact science. If you know the math perfectly, you get an amazing result. But you can still have a really brilliant result by imagining it without the actual equations.”
“You mean, if I were good at this, I could have, say, taken momentum from the jumbo jet and used it to knock over trees, or move boulders, or something like that?”
“Exactly.”
“Wow. That’s smashing!”
“Or rather, not smashing—if we are lucky,” joked Gaius.
They both laughed.
Rachel had already desired to master the turlu cantrip. But now, she was even more motivated. She felt as if she were falling in love with physics. She soaked up everything Gaius told her, listening and absorbing, but saying very little. The class with William and the television show had given her so much to think about that she felt dazed.
She felt doubly dazed when she remembered how early it had been, Detroit time, when she woke up in London, many, many hours ago. Giddy with fatigue, she leaned over and kissed Gaius. He kissed her back.
It was her first real kiss. It did not last longer than usual, but it was a fiercer kiss with touch of passion, not the light pecks they had previously shared. When she drew away, Gaius looked a little dreamy.
“I’d like to go home,” she murmured, clutching her wooden plaque and her roses.
“Of course,” Gaius said. He stood and spoke to no one in particular, “Locke, I could use transit back to school.”
William Locke appeared in a flash of light. A cup of coffee steamed in his hand. He smiled at her. The odor of the rich brew made Rachel’s stomach grumble. He led them outside into the cold and dark. Rachel slipped back into her red coat. They walked back along the well-lit path to the street beyond the perimeter of the wards protecting Ouroboros Industries.
“You could jump to us, when Gaius called you from the room with the telly, but you couldn’t jump us home from there?” asked Rachel.
Locke smiled and nodded, “Large portions of the O.I. campus are warded. We can’t have strangers jumping into our restricted areas.”
The older boy took Rachel’s hand and Gaius’s. Another flash of light, and they were back at the docks in the darkness and th
e falling snow. Gaius and William put their black robes over their clothing, and the three of them walked back to school together. Rachel held Gaius’s hand. She was in a daze, but not to such a degree that she forgot to curtsy to Locke and thank him.
“My pleasure, Miss Griffin.” He nodded and departed.
Gaius walked her back to Dare Hall. When they reached it, he leaned forward solicitously. “Are you okay?”
Rachel nodded and smiled; however, her eyes were not entirely focused. Her thoughts raced, caught up in force and vectors. She wound her arms around his neck and looked up at him through half-closed lashes.
Without thinking, she whispered, “If I hadn’t loved you already, Gaius Valiant, I would have fallen in love with you today.”
He nuzzled her cheek, whispering, “Love you, too.”
He kissed a bit longer than normal. Finally, he pulled away and grinned at her. “Okay, I have returned you to your dorm. Now it’s up to you to not walk into things, Miss Distracted.”
He gave her a nigh bone-cracking hug and then departed. Rachel tripped up the stair to her room. No one was there, so she went next door to Joy O’Keefe’s room. Grabbing the other girl, Rachel danced around with her, chanting, “He said he loved me! He said he loved me!”
Joy, a bubbly girl with mousy brown hair and a heart-shaped face, laughed as she danced. “That must be wonderful. I wish I wasn’t crazy for some jerk who cares nothing for me. On the other hand, I am really glad Zoë doesn’t have a boyfriend either. I’ve been thinking of casting spells so she lives out her life as a crazy cat woman. Where is Zoë, anyway?”
“No idea,” murmured Rachel.
Still in a daze, she returned to her room and began drawing charts and diagrams, applying what she had just discovered to what she instinctively understood about flying and billiards. She fell asleep mid-chart, dreaming of math and vectors.
Chapter Five:
The Black Bracelet of Dread
The next morning, she hurriedly changed the garments she wore under her robes and stumbled to class, still scribbling equations in her notebook. The morning went by in a blur. At lunch, Joy O’Keefe came by and asked if Rachel had seen Zoë. Rachel shook her head.
Joy pouted. “She went to bed after me and got up before me. That’s really weird. Usually, she’s a layabout, and I practically have to roll her out of bed to get her to class on time. Do you think she’s avoiding me? I can’t find the princess either. Neither of them was in Art or Math.”
“Sorry, can’t help you,” Rachel murmured. “Haven’t seen them.”
A tray of food lay before her, but Rachel ignored it, concentrating on understanding the math she had been shown the previous day. A few minutes later, she overheard Sigfried Smith talking to his familiar, Lucky the Dragon. Sigfried was tall and brawny for his fourteen years. He was also superhumanly handsome with golden curls. Lucky was a red and gold lung, a Chinese water dragon, long and sinewy and covered with the softest fur. He did not have wings, but he could snake through the air, undulating like a sideways sine wave.
“Lucky,” Siggy announced loudly, “someone has broken the brain of one of the members of my harem of cute sorceresses in schoolgirl uniforms. See? Girls are very delicate. They get broken up over anything. I would ask her what’s bugging her, but the answer would probably involve emotions, or girly stuff. I know! I will ask a girl!”
Sigfried turned to his girlfriend, Valerie Hunt, who had just arrived with her tray and was taking the seat beside him. She had short golden-blond hair and a charmingly square jawline. A camera, hanging from a red strap, bounced against her side.
“Psst. Valerie. Have you noticed Miss Griffin acting oddly lately? Oddlier? More odd than normal odd, I mean?”
“Um…” said Valerie.
“Perhaps,” he continued sagely, “someone with more tact than Sigfried Foot-in-Mouth-up-to-the-Kneecap Smith should investigate, or even talk to her, to find out what’s what.”
“What do you think it is?” asked Valerie.
Sigfried shrugged. “I assume it’s child-skeleton shock, or nearly-being-sacrificed-to-Kronos shock, or maybe it’s murder-of-elf-friend-from-other-dimension shock, or almost-killed-by-Headless-Horseman shock, or barely-avoided-flying-into-a-jumbo-jet shock, or couldn’t-save-Mrs-Egg shock, perhaps multiple-whole-families-killed-in-front-of-their-children-for-over-a-century shock, or math-tutor-turned-into-an-evil-dragon shock, or…maybe she read something in the sports section that upset her. I notice she’s been talking to that proctor, Fuentes, about flying polo. She must really like the sport. Maybe her favorite team lost a big game.”
“That’s a lot of…shocks,” murmured Valerie.
“Or maybe she lost money gambling,” said Siggy. “Do the Wise gamble?”
“Not if they are wise Wise,” Valerie quipped back. Then, she whispered, “I’ll look into it. Subtle like.”
Valerie rose, sat down next to Rachel, and proceeded to speak in her normal voice. “Hey, Rachel, you seem distracted or, maybe a better way to put it would be stunned. You don’t seem upset, but it’s kinda weird anyway. Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?”
Rachel shoved her notebook toward Valerie and pointed at the diagrams. Without looking up, she murmured, “I’m trying to work out the forces involved with vector and mass when cornering on a broom.”
Valerie nodded. Without a word, she rose and returned to her seat next to Sigfried.
“It’s math. Stunned by math,” Valerie whispered loudly. “I am not sure there’s a cure.”
• • •
As Rachel was placing her lunch tray on the conveyor belt that brought the dirty dishes downstairs to the dish room, she nearly ran into Princess Nastasia’s older brother, Ivan Romanov. The tall blond college student flashed her one of his ready smiles. He had dirty blond hair and eyes of deep brown.
“Message for you, Mini Griffin,” he said in his delightful Magical Australian accent. “My sister asked me to let you know that she’s been called home. But she’ll be back. No worries.”
“Oh. That explains why she wasn’t in class,” Rachel said. Looking back in her memory, she realizing that Joy had been right. So caught up had she been in physics that she had not noticed her best friend was missing. She felt chagrined.
“I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive her for her unexpected trip,” Ivan joked.
Rachel drew herself up and spoke with a primness that rivaled Nastasia’s. “Since I recently went to visit my older sister, I can hardly complain about others spending time with their families.” She paused. “Do you know if Zoë went with her?”
“Don’t know. Sorry.” Ivan shrugged. “It’s possible.”
Rachel started to walk away, but she doubled back. “By the way, did you ever get a chance to speak to your mother about speaking to my father about marrying my sister Laurel?”
Ivan looked a bit flustered. “Only in passing. Mother doesn’t seem to be too against the idea of me marrying beneath my station. I am thinking, though, it might be best if your sister started working for the circus and, perhaps, if she could get disowned by your parents? That way at least my father would be completely for it. He seems set on annoying my mother.”
“I’ll let her know,” Rachel said woodenly.
Beneath his station? It took every ounce of her being to refrain from blurting out, in her most arch and British voice: Oh? So, we Griffins are good enough for the kingdom of Bavaria—which even the Unwary have heard of—but not for the unknown and nigh-broke kingdom of Magical Australia?
Still, as she walked away, she could not help imagining a few choice words she might share with the Queen of Magical Australia, were she to be given the chance. The Griffins might not be royalty, but they were of the highest nobility. They could trace their lineage back over two thousand years, longer than any current dynasty, and at least three Griffin daughters had become queens. Magical Australia, on the other hand, was a country of so little importance that even many of the
Wise had not heard of it. Their currency was pink Monopoly money, and no other country accepted it. They should be so lucky as to gain a Griffin!
• • •
That night was the weekly meeting of the Knights of Walpurgis. Rachel and Sigfried arrived at the gym early. Rachel left her blood-brother with Salome Iscariot, his girlfriend’s best friend, and went to sit beside Gaius near the head of the long table. It was a relief to be able to do so without worrying about disapproving looks from Nastasia—so much of a relief that Rachel was rather surprised to realize how burdensome her best friend’s disapproval had become.
After the wonderful evening she spent with Gaius and William, she was even more eager to spend time with her boyfriend. If only he and the princess could become friends.
Rachel smiled at the other Knights as they entered. The first person to return her smile was Penny Royal, who had a reputation for being a detective. Rachel had noticed that Dread occasionally spoke with the sharp-eyed young woman during the second half of the Knights’ meetings. Rachel found this noteworthy, as Dread almost never spoke to anyone, outside of his own people, other than to answer questions or give instructions. She was quite curious about what the prince and the detective might be saying to each other.
Others were not as friendly. Romulus Starkadder, the Crown Prince of Transylvania, was so aloof that he could not be bothered to acknowledge Rachel’s existence with more than the slightest of nods. Many of the Thaumaturgy students, especially those who lived in Drake Hall, were outright hostile. Eunice Chase, a junior at the Upper School who had been the patron of Rachel’s rival, Cydney Graves, glared at her in a way that made Rachel feel quite small.
Mark Williams, the young man who had knocked her off her broom during the battle with Dr. Mordeau back in early September, threw her a goofy smile as he took his seat. He did not seem to be a bad fellow, despite Gaius’s poor opinion of him. He seemed to become embarrassed whenever Rachel spoke to him; however, maybe because her boyfriend had forced him to apologize to her in front of the whole dining hall.
The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 6
