by Tom Early
“So who can tell me why Sam won?” Nick asked pleasantly, stepping between them in one smooth motion. “And don’t say it’s because one of you is better than the other. If I had thought what was going to happen today would actually have been a proper test of skill, I would have let you bet your rankings on it. I didn’t.”
The two girls were too busy glaring at each other, and I sure as hell wasn’t stupid enough to say anything, so Nick eventually huffed out a sigh and continued. “Right. Well, here’s the breakdown. Sam, the reason you ended up beating Sofia was because of her reliance on shadow magic to win before this. Your bond with the ercinee lets you have a natural advantage against darkness-based magic, and Sofia,” he said, nodding at her, “wasn’t prepared for that. Sofia, to your merit you changed your tactics almost immediately after determining that shadow magic was going to be useless. Problem is that you’re not used to Change magic yet, so you were left with just your intuition to defend yourself.”
Nick paused and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he fixed his posture as well, standing up straight and speaking clearly. All of a sudden, I could see why he was the leader of Obsidian—at the very least, he could give instruction to others, and they would listen.
“You,” Nick said, pointing to Sofia, “need to begin integrating your innate magic with your Change Form. You were right that shadows alone won’t do much against Sam if she has an ercinee on her side. But you have Change magic. Why not make your shadows something a little more material? Or if you prefer a bluff, why not hide a rock inside one of your attacks while the other five are duds, and see if she can guess which one to properly defend against?” He gave her a disarming smile to lessen the sting of his next words. “Aiden had you match up against Sam because he worried about your overreliance on your innate magic. Am I right in thinking that this fight helped teach you the value of doing otherwise?”
Sofia glared at him for a second and then looked down. “Yes,” she muttered.
“Good,” Nick said softly. “Because I see just as much potential in you as I see in Aiden. Why not use your Change magic to take what you can do to a level your brother will never be able to reach?”
“Understood,” Sofia said stiffly and then gave what might have been a curtsy. “Thank you, Nicholas,” she said and flounced out of the room.
Nick turned to Sam. “And you….”
“Let me guess,” Sam said sharply. “I was too straightforward in my attacks, and I lose points for relying on the ercinee to win.”
“Yes and no,” Nick said simply. “You’re an Evocation user. Direct attacks are meant to be your specialty. You use force to overwhelm any defenses and claim victory. But right now and up until the chains, you limited your use of force to simple impact. If you had chosen to shape a blade instead of an orb, perhaps you would not have needed the ercinee’s help to win. Not that there’s anything wrong with relying on a teammate or familiar.”
“But I don’t know how to do any of that,” Sam threw back, clearly agitated. “I’m going on every spell I know here.”
“Then it’s time you learned more and stopped thinking that just because you’re winning means your method is the most effective one,” Nick said with a shrug. “You’re not going to stop being a badass because someone else is teaching you.”
“And since I just got removed from the class that could have taught me more, it’s a little late for that,” Sam hissed, then turned on her heels and stormed out of the room.
“Oh,” Nick said weakly. He turned back to me. “Is, uh, is that true?” I nodded. “Well, shit. That sure as hell takes the oomph out of my lecture. What did she even do?”
“You just got a sample of her personality. Now picture her reaction if someone insulted her or someone she cared about.”
“Ooh.” Nick winced. “Not pretty.”
“Understatement of the year.” I gave him a shrug. “I think I might be able to help deal with that, though. But since you’re apparently a good leader, do you think you could help her put things in perspective? About listening and not letting people get a rise out of her? I tried, but I’m too close to her for it to work.” I sighed. Talking about Sam when she wasn’t here to defend herself felt wrong, but I couldn’t just do nothing. “She’s used to being able to either not care about something and thus ignore the instructor, or to get respect by force from anyone who insults her. And now that we’re here….” I shrugged again.
“She needs to learn that sometimes she does need to keep her head down,” Nick said ruefully and then winced. “God, that sounds awful. Her professor shouldn’t have been a dick like that, and she shouldn’t have to put up with him, but—”
“But that’s the way the system here works,” I said, thinking back to my lovely little talks with Didas that ended up with me being attacked or insulted or both.
“Not the way the brochure made it sound, huh?” Nick asked with a grin.
I raised an eyebrow. “You got a brochure? All I got was Aiden trying to kill me.”
Nick shuddered. “Last year’s Aiden was terrifying. It took me almost two whole years to get that stick out of his ass.”
I tried not to choke on air. “Nice choice of words,”
Nick’s resulting grin was wicked. “Well, I had other plans for his ass anyway, so.”
I tried valiantly not to blush. “Oh my God.”
His grin widened. “Funny, I said that too.”
“Oh my God.” I left the room with the sound of Nick’s cackling following me out. I was going to have to tell Tyler about that particular revelation at some point, and Sam once she was in a better mood. Right now, though, it was time to grit my teeth and get unpleasant business over with. I walked over to the nearest door not in use, inserted my key, and said, “Didas.”
As soon as the door opened, I walked straight over to Didas’s desk, sat down in the chair, and put my cards on the table.
“I need you to do something for me.”
Didas spared me a glance up from whatever he was working on. “Has something happened?”
“I need you to make a professor unban Sam from his class.”
The slightest frown creased the headmaster’s brow. “Did she do something to merit a ban?”
“Not without being needlessly provoked,” I said. “Can you do it?”
“I can,” Didas said idly, turning his attention back to his work. “And I’m busy preparing for your ritual, so I don’t have the time to play the little song and dance of you telling me why I should. Tell me the professor’s name and I will have a word with him. In return, you will cease being needlessly obstinate when circumstances require us to interact with each other.”
I was half tempted to say he was asking too much, but I didn’t. “Deal. I don’t know the professor’s name, but he teaches Law and Arcane Policing.”
“Ah, Professor Laherty,” Didas mused, drawing out a diagram of something incredibly complicated-looking. “Yes, that doesn’t surprise me. Very well—tell your friend that she is welcome to continue taking the course, so long as she does not continue to antagonize the professor.”
“Can you promise the professor will do the same?” I asked, careful to keep my tone polite.
Didas’s eyes glinted. “I will make it eminently clear what will happen if I am forced to deal with problems he causes again.”
“Okaaay.” I backed away. “Just don’t kill him or anything.”
“The ritual will be this weekend. Be ready.” With that, Didas made a slight shooing gesture, and I found myself back in Ares.
I sent Sam a text asking her to talk to me when she had the time and then headed to Ceres for dinner. It was just after six and the hall was crowded, so I went hunting for an open seat and ended up sitting with Septimus and Lailah, who had waved me over when they saw me wandering aimlessly.
“So, how have classes been so far?” Septimus asked. He was eating something that had enough hot sauce on it to make me cringe, but he seemed perfec
tly fine. It was still strange to think of him as the same boy who had been caustic and violent during the Trials, but every day that passed made it feel a little more normal.
I shrugged. “They’ve been pretty good. I didn’t know anything about Infusion magic before this, or Gaia. It’s nice to fill in the gaps.”
“I’ve seen you at the library,” Lailah interjected, her voice quiet and melodic. Her brown eyes looked me over. “You spend almost as much time there as I do.”
I ducked my head shyly. “I have a lot of questions about everything I’ve missed by living on Earth.”
“It’s good to finally be at a place where I can have all my questions answered,” Lailah said. “Even in Rome I can’t find all the books I’m interested in. But here,” she said, her eyes bright, “here they have everything.”
I grinned at her. “Glad to see someone else gets it.”
“I’m going to learn every secret about Gaia that’s kept here,” Lailah said. “Then I’m going out to find the rest of them as well. The Dawn Civilization may be gone, but their relics aren’t. I’ll uncover them, and then we’ll finally know what happened.”
“Just make sure to spend enough time to pass the Arena as well,” Septimus said. “Pursuing history is well and good, but if you can’t defend yourself, then you’ll get kicked out long before you have the time to learn all this place has to offer.”
“I can take care of myself,” Lailah said evenly. She gave me a knowing little smile. “After all, it’s amazing what you can learn by opening a book.”
I decided I liked Lailah, and that reminded me. “Oh, yeah! Lailah, Sam lent me one of your books. It was really good. Thanks for letting me borrow it.”
Lailah held out her fist, and I bumped it with my own. “Anytime, Feayr,” she said with a smile. “But in return you have to tell me what books are good on Earth right now. I’m a little out of the loop.”
I grinned. “Deal, and you can call me Fay. Wait, though, don’t you live in Rome?”
Lailah’s brow furrowed. “I do. Oh—sorry, I should have been more specific. I live in Gaia’s Rome. It can get a bit confusing, I know. The cities only overlap some of the time, so there can be a delay in the news for anyone not important enough to have constant access to the permanent channels.”
I blinked. “Sounds like I have a lot more reading to do.”
“I’ll explain it to you later. I’m meeting with Professor Halley in ten minutes, so I have to go. I’ll see you two around.” Lailah stacked up her plates and silverware neatly and left the table, braids swinging gently as she went. Septimus barely glanced up from his meal, which he was shoveling down with a single-minded intensity.
Once he was finished, he wiped his mouth with a napkin. “So,” he said, his red eyes fixed on me, “now that we’re finally alone, I have a favor to ask of you.” His voice was still mild, but all of a sudden I felt decidedly unnerved.
“Um, sure? What is it?” I resisted the urge to scoot back from the table a little bit.
“Would you spar with me?” Septimus’s voice was earnest. “We may be out of the Trials, but I haven’t forgotten how you beat me then. I’d like the chance to improve.”
He honestly sounded hopeful. I winced. “I… can’t. Sorry.”
Septimus tilted his head, the effect made more apparent by his twisting horns. “Why not?”
I hesitated for a moment and then rolled up my sleeve a little. “I can’t, um, currently use my powers. At least not for a little while.”
Septimus was silent for a moment before he let out a little sigh. “Well, that would explain your low ranking. May I ask what happened, or would that be impolite?”
I wondered if there was any nice way to say “I got possessed by the ancient spirit of Winter and kinda might have gone on a very brief murderous rampage,” and decided that no, there probably wasn’t. Hence the need for Didas to wipe everyone’s memory of that whole mess in the first place. “Sorry, I can’t talk about it.”
Septimus waved me off. “Believe me,” he said with a wry grin, “I understand having things you don’t want to talk about. At least you’ve been polite enough to not ask about the horns, even if I do catch you staring.” I tried to stammer out an apology, and he just laughed. “It’s fine, really. If you ever do get to use your powers again, let me know. Otherwise I’ll just make do.”
After that the conversation turned back to idle chatter about classes and the like. Septimus was doing Summoning, which was apparently the sort of magic both least understood and the most dangerous for casters. I listened to the horror story of a student who once tried to summon something from an old ritual book he’d found in his parents’ library and ended up getting dragged off the face of the planet. They still hadn’t figured out where he’d ended up. I made a mental note to only ever try summoning things from the approved school lists after that.
I ended up reading in my room again until Sam finally texted me to open my door. She walked over to my bed and sat down next to me, just leaning into me for a little bit.
Eventually she pushed herself back upright. “So, what was it you wanted to talk about?” Her voice was a little bit raw, and I didn’t comment on it.
I hesitated for a moment. “If I told you that you could continue taking your class with that awful professor, would you?”
Sam gave me a look. “I got caught up in the moment, Fay. The professor may be an ass, and he may have deserved it, but I shouldn’t have risked my education on it.”
“You’re right; he did deserve it,” I said. “And it sucks that he has the power to punish you when he was the one initially at fault.” I gave her a little nudge. “Fortunately, I have an in with someone who has more power than the professor, so….”
Sam’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Wait. Are you telling me you went to Didas to make Professor Laherty let me back in?”
I shrugged. “I might have.”
“You’re an idiot, Fay. You shouldn’t give that asshole any more power over you than he already has.” Sam actually sounded even angrier than she had earlier.
“Sam, you needed to take this course! What was I supposed to do, just let you give up?” I was being louder than I intended—I hadn’t expected needing to be defensive.
Sam glared at me. “This was my problem to deal with,” she hissed. “I was going to swallow my pride and apologize to the professor tomorrow morning. I made this problem for me, and it was my responsibility to fix it!” She finished off her speech by poking me hard enough in the chest that I flinched back from her.
“Fine,” I said, hurt. “I’m sorry for trying to help you. Won’t happen again.”
Sam threw up her hands. “I can’t deal with this right now,” she snapped and stormed out of the room, leaving me alone and wondering what the hell had just happened.
Chapter Fourteen
WHEN I came downstairs for breakfast the next morning, I was greeted by Nick, who was sitting with Aiden in the kitchen. Nick took one look at my face and promptly poured a mug of coffee for me.
“Judging by your, uh, everything,” Nick said, gesturing to me once I’d had a sip, “I’m guessing your little chat with Sam didn’t go well.”
“I got her back into the course,” I said bitterly. “I don’t get why she’s so upset about that.”
“Really?” Aiden said. “The clue’s in what you just said.”
“What would you know?” I glared at him over my mug. “Sam’s my friend, not yours.”
“Yes, she is,” Aiden said, sighing. “And in temperament dear Samantha is far closer to me than she is to you. And if anyone dared to interfere in my affairs more than I would have wanted them to, I would be upset as well.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means that like me, Samantha is proud of her independence,” Aiden said. “And if someone were to, say, take care of a problem that was hers to deal with, then she would likely see it as a slight on her pride.”
“But I wa
s trying to help her,” I protested. What he was saying did make sense, when I stopped to try to think like Sam. And that was always a scary proposition.
“Sorry, bud, but your intention doesn’t matter as much as the actual result,” Nick said, patting me on the shoulder. “You might have been trying to help her, but if it wasn’t your place to do so in her mind, then you’re the one in the wrong.”
“Not that you have to apologize, of course,” Aiden said, smirking. “I rather like seeing you and Samantha at odds. It’s remarkably refreshing to see your strange little bond has its problems every so often.”
I flipped him off while Nick scowled at him. “Guess who just earned night watch duty tonight,” Nick said, folding his arms.
Aiden groaned. “Must I?”
“You know the price for being an asshole,” Nick said sternly. “I know you have it in you to be nice.”
“Lies and slander,” Aiden shot back.
“Just give her a little more time to cool off,” Nick advised me. “Then go apologize. From what I’ve seen, you two are way too good friends to let something like this linger.”
“I will,” I said honestly, “and thanks. You’re weirdly good at this whole advice thing.”
“I’m a regular old mama bear,” Nick said happily, spreading his arms. “Now shoo, I have to lecture Aiden on the virtues of kindness, and I don’t think he wants you here for that.”
“I don’t want to be here for that,” Aiden said, sighing. “But alas, I have no choice.”
HISTORY OF Gaia was spent with Sam sitting on the far side of the room from me, steadfastly refusing to look at me even once. I focused on the questions everyone was asking to distract myself, but it didn’t work. I spent the entire hour worrying and feeling awful and retaining just about 0 percent of what Professor Hynes was saying in reply. As soon as he dismissed us, I practically ran to Sam.
