Mage of Shadows

by Austen, Chanel

  She got to her feet as I turned my head just in time to see a well-dressed guy with dark brown hair, maybe a couple inches shorter than I was, pass me by to wrap Yasmina in a very affectionate hug. My suspicion that they were more than friends was confirmed when they finally pulled away from each other, smiling, to look back at me.

  "Nick, this is my boyfriend Mehdy. Mehdy, this is Nicholas Stratus."

  I was right to think that his shoes were nicer than mine, and several times more expensive too. The black loafers were accompanied by pressed black slacks and a button down light-pink shirt that only certain guys can pull off easily, while the rest of us look ridiculous. Mehdy smiled at me as he stuck his hand out to shake, it the kind of smile that fitted so well that it made you doubt if it was practiced, or if he was really that happy to see you.

  "Very nice to finally meet the famous Stratus." He said smoothly, the kind of confident cadence that held almost no trace of an accent. I could place him and Yasmina as vaguely Arabic, though my knowledge of the specific ethnicity was far too limited to ever venture a real guess.

  The Middle Eastern population at the University was fairly significant, though it also seemed to be a rather tight knit society of students that kept close with people of their own background and only had passing acquaintances with anyone else. Sam Albear was the closest Arabic friend that I had, so I could only make assumptions about the whole based off him. Brilliant, witty, a bit arrogant, and a touch too brusque in his dealings with people. Assumptions could only get you so far, however.

  I reached out to shake and felt that all-familiar spark. Mehdy made no note of it, except that maybe his smile turned a touch more impish.

  "Nice to meet you too." I replied with an even gaze, but Mehdy's sea-blue eyes had already turned to look down at my three empty espresso cups with amusement.

  "We call it the User diet." The older student nodded at the cups and crumb-filled plate, "Lots of carbs, a lot of protein, and coffee." His firm grip loosed from my hand and fell back to his side, and he took a seat next to Yasmina, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

  "He's still missing the protein." Yasmina said offhand, her dark eyes teasing, "Stratus is a rail."

  Mehdy wasn't nearly as built as Ruark or even Vik, but his frame still held solid, tempered muscle built steadily over the years. Yet another mage that looked like he could throw a punch, and not just a magical one.

  The handsome dark-haired mage looked me up and down, "You're just a skinny little freshman. But don't worry, we all were." His assurances didn't lessen the sense of embarrassment that I tried and failed to stop from stinging my cheeks.

  The welcome bell jingled cheerfully again, and I would have thought nothing of it if not for fleeting glance my two companions shared, barely a flicker of their eyes and the sudden stiffness in their postures that hadn't been there before. I didn't turn to look for the perpetrator, and didn't have to, as they made themselves known right away.

  Her approach had been silent. The expensive heels she wore made no noise, as if they were afraid to even dare. I only was aware that she was at my shoulder by the sudden sound of her voice.

  "Yasmina, Mehdy." Dulcet, fetching, "Fancy seeing you two here- and who is this?"

  A deceptively small, pale hand came down to rest on my shoulder, and I looked up from my seat to stare warily into the exquisitely perilous eyes of Danae Lincoln. Her hand sat delicately on my shoulder- and I would have felt less uncomfortable if she was gripping it. I felt like prey being set at ease by an experienced predator before they suddenly pounced.

  Before Yasmina or Mehdy said anything, Danae named me herself, "Nicholas Stratus." Her smile was treacherously close to a smirk, "Yes, I've heard about you. Vik likes you."

  How likely was it that this was actually a chance meeting? I had to wonder nervously as I did my best to steel my expression and rose to my feet and took Danae's hand into my own. It was only then that I noticed a few feet behind Danae, Carmen stood looking forlornly at the ground. She looked up to meet my eyes for only a moment, a small fleetingly sad smile playing across her lips for a fractioned second before disappearing again- as if it never really existed in the first place.

  "The pleasure is all mine," I said to Danae, hoping my own tight smile didn't look too strained.

  "Charmed," She replied, then looked past me once again. Without another word she daintily lowered herself into the seat I had temporarily vacated to sit across from Mehdy and Yasmina, ignoring the free seat that had already been there.

  I could only watch with raised brows, and shot a questioning look at Carmen as if to say, is she serious? Carmen didn't respond aloud, but raised her shoulders in something that resembled a shrug- but only just.

  "Did you lose my number, Yasmina?" I heard Danae ask sweetly, "I can write it down for you, we never seem to see each other anymore."

  Yasmina smiled, and it looked a hell of a lot more convincing than my fake smile, "You know how it is, Danae, classwork and extracurriculars keep me busy. I'm sure you have the same problem."

  Mehdy wrapped a protective arm around his girlfriend's shoulder, and smiled at Danae, "You know how it is, Lincoln." He said offhand, "Sometimes we barely have enough time to even see each other- we have to meet this early to do it."

  "Of course, of course." Danae said with a wave of her hand, "We should hang out more often though!" Her icy eyes were suddenly intent, "It wouldn't do for you to forget who your friends are, would it?"

  I felt myself shiver even though the biting stare wasn't directed at me. Admirably, neither Yasmina nor Mehdy flinched in the slightest. Yasmina nodded jovially, "Of course, you are so right. We'll do dinner soon, a double date! Won't that be fun? We haven't seen Bryan in ages!"

  For an instant, something ugly passed across Danae's features before they smoothed out again, "I broke up with Bryan." The pale-blonde girl replied nonchalantly, as if it didn't matter to her.

  "Oh no, that's too bad!" Yasmina sighed mournfully, "I always liked Bryan, he told the funniest jokes."

  "He was an idiot." Danae replied darkly, and I could sense that her patience for the social niceties was wearing thin.

  For a moment I wondered if this could possibly come to blows, and had to mentally berate myself for thinking about how cool it would be to see four experienced mages going at it. I glanced at Carmen who was also still standing, and hadn't said a word. I quietly shuffled over to stand next to her, and she looked up from where her eyes had been burning a quiet hole in the floor. She spared me the faintest of smiles, but nothing else.

  Carmen shifted her hand for a moment, and I saw something faintly white against her naturally bronzed skin. I felt my heart sink as my mind grasped onto a theory that I didn't particularly want to be correct.

  I reached out and held the offending hand for a moment and then let go, trying to smile in a way that I hoped was comforting. I saw the alarmed surprise flit across her face as she did so, and she seemed unsure whether to bolt or return my smile. Carmen hadn't meant for me to see what I had seen.

  Despite her back being turned to us, Danae seemed to sense that I was sharing a moment with her disciple and shifted in her seat to look back at us, gaze calculating.

  "Carmen." She snapped, pointing at the open seat next to her, "Come here."

  The dark haired girl moved as soon as she heard the command, sliding into the seat next to Danae without a word. The female leader of APA gave me a look that clearly read 'back off, she's mine,' before turning back to Yasmina and Mehdy as if I didn't exist anymore.

  "She shows me the ropes and in turn I have to do whatever she wants."

  Carmen's explanation a few weeks back about what it meant to be Danae's servile apprentice suddenly made a lot more sense. It was scary to actually see it. I had to wonder if that would be me, soon. All that was left was to fill in the shadowy figure who would be my master.

  I quietly pulled up my own chair, deciding in typical procrastinatory fashion to leave such future worries
for future Nick. Instead I attempted to listen to the seemingly inconsequential chatter of the four mages as Carmen was dragged into the conversation as well. It seemed to be a necessary talent to veil innocuous banter with hidden meanings and subtle barbs. I mostly sat and tried not to look too uncomfortable and out of depth as I tried to follow the doublespeak- failing miserably for the most part.

  After another fifteen minutes it was nearly six, and Mehdy nonchalantly glanced at his watch, "Well this has been pleasant." He yawned and stretched while he stood, Yasmina joining him, "But I have bugs to count and eggs to collect."

  "I have class." Yasmina offered as way of explanation with a sunny smile, "Coming, Stratus? Your test won't study for itself."

  I nodded as if it wasn't complete BS, "Yeah, you're right. I definitely didn't wake up early to relax at Tim's all day." I chuckled weakly at my own joke and found that no one had joined me, instead staring each other down as if daring the one of the others to blink first.

  From a Normal perspective, it would have been a showdown of the strangest sort. Not one of them looked inherently dangerous at first glance. Mehdy was dressed in pink, for God's sake. The three girls were all fashionably outfitted and wouldn't look out of place on a runway.

  I kind of wanted them to fight, if only to get a glimpse of how far I really had to go to compare with their abilities. But more than that, I was really beginning to despise Danae Lincoln and her thinly veiled politeness. The cracks in her mask were wide crevices, it was easy to see past it to glimpse at something ugly underneath. It was the mask of someone who hated hiding themselves and reminded me of Vik- except he was far better at concealing it.

  Danae thought she was better than anyone else and fiercely wanted to let everyone know it.

  "It was nice meeting you," I said with no real conviction, I honestly didn't care if the blonde believed me or not. My goodbye to Carmen was wordless, only catching her eye briefly. I didn't dare smile at her again. The Hispanic girl's face was carefully blank and she gave me only the briefest shred of a nod. I turned and walked away from the two, who appeared to be staying at the coffee shop.

  My face was stony as I grimly recalled the texture of Carmen's hand- her complexion had made it difficult for me to see- but I felt it. The parallel jagged aberration, a thin irregularity in comparison to the otherwise smooth ridges of her skin. It was a decisive cut across her palm, barely healed and no doubt still tender.

  It was punishment. For what, I didn't know, but I could guess. I didn't have to ask who did it.

  Yasmina, Mehdy, and I didn't speak to each other until we were very far away from Tim Hortons, as if Danae's shadow could cast out and reach us, even from afar. When we did speak, it was a simple goodbye. I could tell that I wasn't the only one shaken by the encounter, though Yasmina and Mehdy didn't seem very willing to go into detail about why, so I could only guess at their fears. Both disappeared into the science building, and I began a lonely trek to the library to try and get some studying done before lab in a few hours.

  Studying, after that? I would be lucky if I didn't throw up the donuts. My stomach was churning dangerously, rebelling against the so-called 'User diet.' I could also feel the beginning of a cheerfully pounding headache taking residence in the forefront of my skull.

  Joy. As was my life. Funny to think that if I could've just managed to sleep through the night, this whole enlightening debacle would have never happened to me. Life was give and take, like that.

  Chapter 8: A Vacation in Normality

  I didn't tell Jimmy or Nishi about meeting Ruark, my fight with the Aberrants, or what happened after. Everything I had learned only served to scare and worry the crap out of me, and I decided it was probably best to spare them that. The assured confidence I had gotten after Vik was lost again, a possibility of a dream newly born morphed into a living nightmare once again.

  They noticed something was off with me, as friends could. I went through a daily routine with the mechanical precision of a robot. I spoke less, studied harder, and saw my grades rise even further in the month that followed. The pride I had felt before had faded into acceptance. Of course I would do better if I studied harder. When I scored higher than anyone on the midterm lab practical, barring one other student (and it wasn't Eliza,) I took it in stride.

  Work at the SEL marched at a monotonous pace. It was an easy job for minimum wage, the most work I had to do was stock books and help out whenever someone was having trouble connecting to the internet or getting into a study room, which was more common than you would expect. Even Raj calmed down when we had work together, using the time to study for his monstrous MCAT that was drawing closer, only a mere six months away.

  Rush week for frats and sororities came and passed, with no word from APA.

  Everyone was puzzled by it. It seemed as if Alpha Phi Alpha was simply skipping out on recruiting this semester, accepting no new pledges. It wasn't unheard of, especially when it was a frat as exclusive as APA- but I had to wonder if there had to be a deeper reason. Maybe Emily's death had shook things up too much and they were… recovering? Things definitely were tense in the falsely pleasant meeting between the four mages some weeks earlier.

  Everyone outside of APA believed them to be a tight-knit group, and that Emily's death had been a shock to them. I knew the grim, ugly truth, however. It was Archanos who killed Emily, her own brothers and sisters were instrumental in killing her. The ugly mysterious schism that I still didn't understand had left a jagged wound that had not yet healed. It was the only conclusion that I could come up with, and even then it was just theory.

  For a while, I tried to believe that Archanos had forgotten about me, and I could therefore forget about them. A foolish fantasy, but it actually worked well most of the time. I even was able to recover a fair bit of my humor, albeit jadedly edged.

  Two months more passed and the semester began to wind down to an end, no one from the frat contacted me. I didn't see Ruark again, nor did I see much of Vik except at a distance when he graced the UGL with his presence, surrounded by his usual cadre of older students that I assumed to be mages. He never looked my way whenever I made a halfhearted attempt to catch his eye for some signal. Danae never appeared came to the library, not that I would welcome it if she did.

  Now I noticed Mehdy and Yasmina whenever they were in the UGL, though they tended to stick with their own group of friends and never hung out with Vik or his people. If I didn't know they were in APA, I would have believed them to be completely Normal.

  I saw Carmen every once in a while; we tiptoed around each other, and publically appeared as nothing more than passing acquaintances. She was the only APA member that seemed to be on good terms with Mehdy and Yasmina, and hung out with their friends. From what I could see, they treated her warmly enough, but I wasn't sure if it was just sympathy because of Emily, or they actually considered her a good friend.

  She and David didn't cross paths much, though they also seemed to be on fairly good terms. It didn't seem awkward when they greeted each other. She genuinely smiled and talked with him for several long minutes and they parted with a mutual hug. He had raised a brow when she greeted me politely by name and I returned the sentiment, but said nothing about it.

  Raj on the other hand…

  "Stratus moving in for the rebound," The Patel boy waggled his eyebrows suggestively when Carmen had walked out of earshot, moving towards Mehdy and Yasmina, "David, are you gonna let him steal your girl?"

  "I didn't know you went for Asian girls, Strat." David said mildly, referring to Tammy, his current girlfriend that he was still going strong with.

  "Neither did I." I replied dryly, while underlining a particularly important looking fact in my Bio textbook, "But Rajkumar must absolutely know more about me than I do myself."

  Here Raj scowled, he hated his full name. "Very funny, Stratus. But seriously, what's up with you and Car-Car?"

  "Nothing is up; I've just talked to her a couple times." I replied truth
fully, just without going into detail.

  Raj grumbled, but didn't insist on further details. Soon enough, Sam, Tammy, and a few others joined us at the table. A rousing debate on the benefits of studying from Berkley Review vs. Examkrackers began almost immediately.

  "You are stupid, man." Sam said, shaking his head at David, "Why bother trying to go through all that material in Berkley, it will just slow you down. Examkrackers is faster."

  "Not enough content review, Sammy-boy." Raj retorted, on David's side, "We aren't all super-brains that remember everything from our classes and don't need a refresher."

  The Chaldean crossed his arms petulantly, "Examkrackers is review, Berkley is like taking the class all over again. It is silly thing to do."

  "Pre-Meds are crazy." Sarah, a petite dark haired girl, muttered from her seat next to Sam at the far end of the table. I didn't really know much about her, other than the fact that she was Pre-Pharm and good friends with Tammy and David.

  Tammy, the peacemaker, broke in, "They both have their good and bad points, one isn't necessarily better than the other… right David?"

  David nodded, though I wasn't sure if it was because Tammy said it, or because he really agreed with his girlfriend's neutral position.

  Forever outspoken, Raj pointed a dramatic finger at Tammy, "He just agrees because you sleep with him. Come on David, grow a pair and disagree, I'm sick of sleeping on the couch anyways." His voice was too loud, even for the normal animated chatter that went on. The tables next to us traded amused looks, and more than a few were openly laughing.

  Tammy's pale skin turned an uncharacteristic shade of red as she glared at a smirking Raj, then hissed, "Why do you have to such an asshole?"

  If anything, Raj's smirk widened even further, while David's frown deepened, "Not cool Raj, that was too far."

  Raj shrugged, "Sorry," He said offhand, and no one believed he meant it for a second. Silence fell over the table however, everyone suddenly interested in their laptop or books in an attempt to distance themselves from the awkward end to the conversation. For a few minutes I actually thought people were going to get some real studying done.