by Maria Amor
The class murmured a response to the question, and the professor leaned against his desk. Dylan had always liked Professor Braden; of all the professors, he was the only one Dylan had ever actually missed. The man was in his late twenties, and when Dylan had started at Sandrine, the professor had been fresh. While he’d been too young as a new student to take Braden’s classes, he’d encountered the man in the halls, heard about him from other students, and just before he’d left for good had finally had the chance to learn from him.
“Today we’re going to be learning a little more about the intersections of different elements,” Braden said, “and of course, how that can impact manifestations of energy—or as laymen like to call it: magic.” Dylan felt a little tingle of interest at the topic. It was one he’d read about a few times in the texts the students were given, but one he didn’t quite understand; and he was eager to understand it better. “Turn to page one seventy-two in your books for this class.”
Dylan opened his book and settled in to the lesson, thinking in the back of his mind about the situation with Julia. They had managed to discover a few things about the accusations of theft, but not very much about the teachers who’d left during the summer beyond what Ardan had been able to tell them.
All of the students who accused air-aligned or water-aligned students of thefts that we could talk to said that they were told who was likely to have stolen from them, Dylan thought. Neither he nor Julia had been able to get a decent answer to how people could accuse someone of stealing when the items in question were still in their rooms, and there was no evidence whatsoever of anyone sneaking into dorm rooms.
“Now that most of you have reached the stage where you’re in full possession of your abilities, the mixed manifestations are something that will be useful to you,” Braden was saying. “Each of the elements interacts with other elements in particular ways—and with particular signs.”
Dylan looked down at his textbook; the books that Sandrine used for the subject of elemental alignments were old indeed—most of them had originally been written before America had existed, some of them before England had brought Scotland or Ireland into its control, loose as that had been. The textbook for Braden’s class had been lightly updated over the years, but the basic information was still there.
“One example that won’t be of much use—except to illustrate the point—for you guys is when fire and air interact. Of course, we all know that fire and air fuel each other, but the direct intersection of the elements produces something rather interesting: lightning.” Dylan—along with the rest of the class—started slightly at that revelation. “Of course, not all lightning that people see is the result of those energies mingling, but the direct interaction does cause it.”
“So, if—for example—a fire-aligned person, and an air-aligned person, were to...”
“If they were sufficiently full of elemental energy, yes—there would be a lightning storm as a pyrotechnic counterpart to their amorous activities,” Braden replied, with a little grin. “But more practical matters for now. Obviously, for you guys, the most important intersections are with water.”
Braden turned towards the board and Dylan looked down at his book for a moment; the illustrations, he had to admit, were top notch: crisp, clean, and vivid, originally drawn by alchemists but updated for the modern age.
“Of the elements, water obviously has certain idiosyncrasies that are missing from air, fire, or earth,” Braden explained. “And as such, the intersections with those elements tend to take on interesting forms.” He began writing something on the board and Dylan wrote it down without really paying attention to the words he was scribbling.
He glanced at the book from time to time, keeping pace with the lecture: water and earth produced ice—the solidification of water—while water and fire produced fog. “Water and air, of course, produces something we can predict pretty well: rain,” Braden said. Dylan thought of Julia once again; their energies hadn’t mingled much in that way, but he could remember once or twice—notably when she had power surges—when drizzles of rain had accompanied the moment when he’d infused her with his energy.
But thinking of that brought Dylan’s mind around to the subject of Julia’s ongoing crusade. She was determined to get to the bottom of the issue with the dean, the accusations, and what the new teachers were doing; she was, he knew, probably going to try and convince him to accost another teacher to get more information about the former teachers’ scandal. Someone needs to tell her that when she jumps to conclusions, there should be something that at least pretends to be a net underneath her.
“And from this we can see that sometimes the intersections between energies can bring us a little more depth to our use of our elemental alignments,” Braden was saying. “We have some very kind volunteers here, to help us demonstrate.”
The class broke up into groups, and Braden called in his “volunteers”: seniors at the school, Guardians aligned with air, earth, and fire. “We’ve got three representatives for each element, so there’s enough energy to go around,” Braden explained. “You’ll each get a chance to mingle your energies, to see the resulting forms that the energies manifest.”
Dylan wasn’t entirely looking forward to the exercise, but he knew that it wasn’t really an optional thing; Sandrine was very strong on hands-on learning when it came to elemental alignment classes.
He milled around with his group, moving from one of the upperclassmen Guardians to another, but thinking about what little they’d uncovered about the situation behind the scenes at the school all the while. Julia was in a class of her own, maybe working with upperclassmen as well, depending on what her air-aligned teacher had decided to cover that day.
It was difficult not to worry about what could happen to her during classes they were separated for. What if she has a power surge? Who’s going to help her? She was less than a year away from attaining her full abilities, and he’d been with her for the last major power surge: it had been between classes, in the hallway, and he’d only just managed to help her duck into a closet before the worst of it came over her.
Dylan tried to shake off the thought of Julia being in some form of danger by focusing on the mystery of their predicament: there were relics that had supposedly gone missing, but which were never lost, a dean who was enmeshed in either ignoring or micromanaging his staff and cutting programs for the students—overall, one would say, a terrible fit for a school—and accusations of thefts that were enough to start driving out more and more of the air-aligned creatures at the school.
Now a few weeks into the spring semester, Dylan had to admit that he, too, felt like there were too many coincidences for the things to be totally unrelated, no matter how random they looked.
He thought about his interactions with the students he’d talked to; he wasn’t as capable of easy charm as Julia was, but he’d managed to play on the emotions of a few earth-aligned students to get them to tell him what they could—and what they would.
All of the teachers who had suggested potential thieves had been ones that the Dean had hired; there had to be something in that, but Dylan couldn’t say what. Most of the professors who had been kicked out of the school had either been air-aligned or water-aligned, as opposed to earth or fire alignments.
It’s still possible that he’s just bigoted against the mutable-element alignments, Dylan reminded himself. But he had to agree with Julia: why would the dean go so far unless he was making some kind of profit, unless he was getting something out of it? Just being bigoted didn’t explain it, not on its own. And why was the school advisory board just letting it happen?
Why wasn’t the council doing something about the situation at Sandrine? With the changelings gone, and some of the fae withdrawing their students, it was—or should have been, at least—a scandal. And yet, somehow, no one seemed to be talking about it outside of the school.
Before he knew it, the class was over, and Dylan shook himself out of his thought
s to gather up his things as the rest of the class began to file out. “Dylan,” Professor Braden said from the front of the room. “Can I talk to you for a few moments?” He considered his schedule; Julia would have another class within her alignment, so he wouldn’t be needed anyway.
“Sure,” Dylan said, confused and intrigued at the same time. He set his book down and let his backpack slip to the floor, turning to walk up to the professor’s desk.
“We’ll just wait for the students to clear out,” Braden suggested. “I’ve got a planning period this hour.”
“I’m supposed to be in another class, but if you give me a pass I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
“Your next period teacher—Halls—knows I wanted to talk to you, anyway,” Braden said. He crossed his arms over his chest and both Dylan and the professor waited until the room cleared. All at once, they were alone, and Dylan felt more than a little anxious. This was a planned-for conversation? He’d thought—at most—that Braden had noticed how distracted he was.
“What’s going on?”
“Have a seat,” Braden said. He gestured to the chair next to his desk and Dylan took it, feeling his anxiety intensify.
“Okay,” Dylan said, hoping against hope that whatever Braden had to say to him, it wouldn’t be too harsh a lecture.
“Everyone knows you’re set to protect Julia,” Braden said. “That’s why you’re rooming with air-aligned students, why you’re in almost all the same classes, in spite of the fact that she’s ahead of you in English and you’re ahead of her in Science, academically speaking.” Dylan nodded. The decision had apparently been that it didn’t matter that much for them to compromise on the academic subjects, as long as neither got too far behind; with their families and alignments, they were unlikely to end up in fields or industries that needed the kind of academic rigor that came with pushing themselves.
“Are you worried I’m not doing a good enough job?” Dylan frowned.
“Yes and no,” Braden said, smiling wryly. “You’re doing a very good job of being at her side, and being her companion. But there are things that are going on at this school that represent a danger to both of you—things that shouldn’t exist, but that realistically, do.”
“Like?” Sweat broke out on Dylan’s palms, on the small of his back, at the base of his skull, just at the hairline.
“I have it on good authority that Julia and you are investigating some of the strangeness that’s been going on at this school,” Braden said. “And if you two keep going in the same way that you have been, you’re in danger of alerting the wrong people to the fact of what you’re doing.”
“So what do you suggest?” Dylan gestured aimlessly. “It’s not like I have any real authority over Julia. I can’t tell her to stop being curious, and if you’ve ever had to deal with a girl who’s determined to figure something out…” Braden laughed out loud.
“I have dealt with many, many girls who are determined to figure something out,” Braden said. “I understand the issue—trust me on that. Especially with such a self-willed young woman as Julia is.” He sighed. “The trouble is that the two of you really need to stay under the radar as much as possible. And the way Julia’s going about figuring out what’s going on is bound to get her noticed by the wrong people.”
“So tell me what to do, then,” Dylan told the professor.
“I’m going to explain a few things to you,” Braden said. “And you can pass the information on to Julia, and if luck is a force in this world at all, she’ll accept it, understand it, and move on with her life.” Luck isn’t a force in this world, then, Dylan thought. He couldn’t imagine Julia just accepting the information, and moving on with her life, without full satisfaction—and he was pretty sure that Professor Braden didn’t intend to just explain everything and propose a solution.
“Go ahead,” Dylan said.
“The dean has powerful friends, or—more to the point right now—at least a couple of very powerful friends, and that is how he came to be in the position he’s in,” Braden explained. “He’s not in a position to be removed, if that’s what Julia is looking for.”
“She really just wants to understand what’s going on,” Dylan told the professor. “The changelings leaving the school made her feel responsible, since no one seems to be investigating things, no one seems to be taking charge of all the weird crap going on.”
“You know what happened to the professors over the summer,” Braden half-asked.
“We know something about it,” Dylan admitted. “Ardan told us.”
“He mentioned it to me,” Braden said. “Obviously, you’ve drawn the parallels to what’s going on with the air-aligned students, and a few of the water-aligned students at the school.”
“Are you saying I’m wrong in that?” Dylan raised an eyebrow. If it had been any other professor, he wouldn’t have been quite so daring.
“Not entirely,” Braden said, after a moment of considering. “But I want you to keep in mind that the most important goal for both of you is to get through the school year intact, right?” He returned Dylan’s raised eyebrow.
“I wish you’d just tell me straight up what you want to tell me,” Dylan said. “Stop hinting and tell me what you want me to tell Julia.”
“The dean is very powerful due to the company he keeps,” Braden said, matter-of-factly. “The professors who left were falsely accused, just like your fellow students. The relics were stolen and not stolen—the same as the objects your friends have been accused of taking. But I want you to know: there’s no good thing that can come out of trying to bring this to light.”
“So you’re saying that the relics are still being stolen—and not stolen?” Dylan frowned at that phrasing.
“They’re being stolen, but no one can—currently—prove it,” Braden replied. “When people go to look for them, they’re still there, at least in appearance.”
“But why would Dimitrios want the relics, anyway?” That was the aspect of the whole situation that made no sense to him; while some of the relics had inherent uses in magical applications, they didn’t all have those properties, and even those that did were difficult for Guardians to control or wield.
“He’s very interested in relics,” Braden replied, echoing what they’d heard at the New Years’ party. “That’s why he was given the position here.” That was slightly different from what the boy at the party had said, and Dylan’s interest perked at it.
“I thought that was why he took the job here,” Dylan said.
“It is. And it’s why it was given to him by the friends he has,” Braden confirmed. “But that’s as much as I can tell you at this point. Pass it along to your charge, and hopefully—with her bright mind—she’ll be able to put enough together about it to know why she needs to be more careful.” Dylan doubted that; not that Julia could put it together, but that figuring the situation out would in any way convince her to back off.
“I should probably get to class,” Dylan said, when the silence dragged on for a few moments.
“Are you seeing Ruth this weekend? I know you and Julia spend some time with her.”
“I don’t know yet,” Dylan admitted.
“If you do, tell her I said hello, and that I’m waiting eagerly for my next invitation to tea,” Braden said, rising from his seat. Dylan took the cue, and went back to his desk to collect his things. He glanced at the time. It wouldn’t even be worth it to go to class, but he wasn’t going to get caught in the hallways with no excuse for roaming. One more hour, and then you can tell her all about it, Dylan told himself. But he was still certain that no matter what he told Julia, she’d still want to move ahead with whatever plans she was concocting.
CHAPTER 21
“You know,” Julia said, looking at Dylan as she paused in her pacing back and forth in her bedroom, in her parents’ apartment in Manhattan, “everyone always accuses the air-aligned folks of being cryptic, but you water-aligned people are just as bad.”
&nb
sp; “You’re telling me that you haven’t figured it out?” Dylan looked more satisfied than Julia would have liked; she scowled at him, for a moment forgetting all of the goodwill that had come up between the two of them since they’d started to more or less live together.
“I’m telling you that it doesn’t make sense,” Julia replied. “If the relics are being stolen, there has to be some kind of evidence of it.”
“He didn’t say there’s no evidence,” Dylan said. “Just that the relics still appear to be there.” Julia caught her bottom lip between her teeth and looked out through her window, thinking about the conundrum—it was worse than a riddle—that Dylan’s professor had posed. The thefts of the relics were related to the accusations of theft against the air-aligned students. The new teachers were related as well.
She’d been considering the question ever since Dylan had posed it to her after classes a few days before, and the whole drive home from Sandrine, they’d talked about it. But while Dylan didn’t seem to have figured it out, Julia hadn’t either; and the fact that he seemed to be closer to the answer than she was frustrated her. Think! Think! Obviously, Braden thought that she could figure it out from the hints he’d given; but just as obviously, he hadn’t expected it to be all that easy.
The relics still looked like they were where they should be; that meant—obviously—that they were somehow being duplicated. But how were they being stolen in the first place? And what was anyone getting out of stealing them? The relics at Sandrine weren’t the sort of thing that a person could easily sell; they were too recognizable to the community that would have any use for them, and normal, non-supernatural humans wouldn’t consider most of them in any way valuable.
