by Anne Zoelle
Despite the alarming nature of the conversation, I had found most of the stated sentiment to be true. The hands-off nature of the staff, and magical gifts of enterprising students, combined to create the atmosphere of campus—competitive, invigorating, and dangerous. If one graduated from the prestigious Academy, to the community it meant you could take care of yourself.
“Well, they will care when the school is destroyed.”
“Revolution,” someone whispered.
“Collapse of magic,” someone else said. “Just like those half-formed horned beasts we just battled.”
There was almost never a line at an arch. And the group was clustered in front, rather then actually trying to get through. The magic under my cuff moved restlessly, as if it too thought that getting in the midst of the group would be entirely the wrong move.
I made eye contact with one of the boys at the side of the group. Then with another boy who was watching me as well. Both boys I had seen frequently over the past two days...now that I thought on it. Watching me.
Ringing alarms exploded in my brain and kicked in some much needed adrenaline to my slowed system.
“Get out of there, Ren,” Christian said.
“That's her? You have to be sure,” someone whispered, though with my senses suddenly so sharply attuned, I could hear it clearly.
“A bunch of us from Lolinet have been investigating and we are sure,” one of the two boys who had been watching me said.
“We are next here, if we don't deal with the perpetrator now. It was our arch that was destroyed,” said the other.
“Get out of there, Ren!” Christian yelled.
“Fine. We'll know soon enough. Do you have it?” murmured the pretty girl from that first cafeteria table.
They were going to use some device, to keep their attack on me from registering. Just like they had said at the party. I connected to my shields. I would go down fighting.
“There you are, dearest.”
I turned sharply to see Delia sauntering toward me from the west, a wicker basket hanging from her arm.
“I thought for sure that you remembered the place where we met for Henry's sixteenth birthday party.”
My focused mind immediately entered her track. “Memory loss. Sorry.” I accepted her loose embrace.
Delia leaned back, shaking her head. “All of these strange events happening. Henry was diagnosed with proximity madness yesterday. I bet you caught something. Let's get you to the clinic. They cleared up Henry in a quick minute.”
The other students muttered harshly to each other and slowly dispersed, though Camille Straught's eyes lingered upon me, as did those of the two boys.
Delia hooked her elbow with mine and pointed us toward the dorms. I mechanically followed her lead, bypassing the arch and walking across the wide field and toward the stairs that would take us to the eighth circle.
“What are you doing here?” I murmured to Delia as we drew far enough away from the lingering members of the hunting party.
“I was looking for you.” Delia handed me the basket, keeping one arm hooked with mine. “To make up for leaving you alone at the party.”
“How did you find me?”
“You still have my card in your pocket.”
I blinked. I had put on the same jeans, it was true. I hadn't realized I was carrying a tracking device. I had to restrain the urge to pluck it out and toss it in panic.
“Why?” I asked as we walked, figuring she would understand the real question. Or questions really. Why had she helped me? Why had she lied? What did she want?
She cocked her head. “You are interesting, and I am excellent at emotion magic. You have a weirdly strong loyalty vibe. Abnormal. I want it. We are going to be friends.”
I looked at the basket in my hand.
She laughed. “The apples are not poisoned. Listen, a bunch of us are going to the combat demonstration. Do you want to join?”
In another life, yes. Combat mages were revered on campus, and the demonstrations, games, and competitions were the sporting events to go to. However... “I don't think it's a good idea.”
She looked at my outfit. “You do need to change, but that's not the worst I've seen.”
I looked down at my jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt.
“Come on. We'll sit smack in the front and talk about dear Henry and how you, too, were cured. Totally back to normal, nothing newly feral about you.”
“No, I can't risk going to the demonstration.” I couldn't risk being trapped.
“I'll just have to spread the tendrils of subterfuge myself then. I'm excellent at it,” she said without a hint of modesty.
Delia had just helped me out in a big way, but still...
She squeezed my arm, the edges of her mouth lifting in the sharp humor she always seemed to display. “Stop thinking. We are going to be friends.”
~*~
Delia joined us at lunch every other day from then on, and Delia and Mike got on like crack partners on...crack. That they had never found each other before was almost sad. And Mike had taken to teasing her in a disturbingly flirty way.
Delia, true to her word, spread all sorts of stories, and the two boys who had been watching me had started to watch others again as well.
The list of people who knew some of my secrets was growing, though. I wasn't sure whether Mike knew, but Neph, Will, Olivia, and Delia were well aware I was newly feral. I was pretty sure Stevens had known it from the first. And, unnervingly, Constantine too.
He reminded me a little of Mr. Verisetti. Enough to be on my guard. Though I sensed that Mr. Verisetti had come from nothing and clawed his way to dark false insouciance, whereas Constantine had very obviously been born to extreme wealth with the type of careless blitheness that only came from bitterness.
I came back from a squad visit to him, annoyed. There had been a girl outside his door when I had arrived, and she had been sobbing, “He doesn't love me!”
Constantine had been unrepentant when I'd asked him about it.
“She's boring,” he'd said. He couldn't even come up with her name.
“So how did it go?” Olivia asked as I entered and flopped on my bed.
“Lousy. Two small toads and one giant one.”
“Someone turned into a giant toad?”
“No, I have a friend who sometimes qualifies.” I wasn't completely sure Constantine had friends, to be truthful. But I couldn't very well say he was a repeat offender who blurred the line to fellow conspirator. The justice magic prevented such a thing.
Olivia frowned. “Who?”
I leaned back against my pillows and looked at my framed sketch before focusing on her again. “His name is Constantine.”
Olivia straightened—and that was a hard feat considering her back was straighter than anyone's I had ever seen. “What did he do?”
I shook my head, hazarding a guess from her reaction that she knew him. There was an anti-gossip enchantment in the tablet's magic, not that that stopped determined teenagers and twenty-somethings from figuring things out—as Olivia obviously had from his name, and the fact that I had returned from call. But the enchantment helped at least make things shadier and unconfirmed.
“No, I mean, what did he do to you.”
“Oh. Nothing.” In fact, Constantine seemed to look upon me as some sort of strange pet he wasn't sure yet if he was going to keep or kill. “He just isn't very nice to people in general.”
She looked relieved. “Oh, good. He's bad news.”
Like all those crying girls hadn't given that away. “Old magic?”
“The oldest.” She shook her head, mouth tight. “He should have been expelled first season here, but it will never happen.”
“I kind of got that impression. You know him outside of school?”
“My mother and his father are fierce allies and fiercer enemies.” She shrugged, as if that weren't a little creepy. “But he and I have little to do with each other.”
That didn't surprise me. Olivia was upright and uptight. Ok, well, there were all those notes about taking over the world and finding minions, but so far she hadn't stepped a toe out of line and was a repressed and staid lady of privilege, working hard to exceed every expectation. Constantine was a rich boy with far too much money, time, and probably magic, on his hands—seeking to undermine every expectation.
And he had made enough references for me to guess that his father was his least favorite person in life.
“Are all the old families connected?”
“No.”
“What about the Dares?”
Thankfully, Olivia never seemed to find anything I asked strange. I was a little like a weird pet for her too, I think.
“They don't deign to enter politics. They barely leave their island fortress. They just buy and fund what they are interested in. A more high set and close-knit family would be hard to find. And the Dares are only ever interested in anything for the good of their family.” She gave me an unreadable look—she was great at those—then pulled a tome off her shelf. “This has a comprehensive listing of the old families, their alliances, and affiliations.”
“Debrett's for magic users?”
“Yes.”
I should have been less surprised that Olivia would know the reference. “How do you know what Debrett's is?” I only did because of a project I had done on the British Royal Family.
“I know the lineage of everyone of consequence in every layer.”
She didn't look as if she was kidding. And Olivia didn't kid. “Oh.”
She went back to work, but I really wanted to talk for some reason. “What are you doing?”
She gave me a look that said I was edging close to a zap. “Practicing lines for my debate class.”
I blinked. “How do you practice lines for a debate?”
Her expression said I was four words away from a zap.
“I can help,” I said quickly. “Do you want to debate me?” I could really use the practice rallying from verbal stupidity.
“I don't think that will work.” But there was a hesitation in her words, and I jumped on it.
“I would really like to help.”
I could feel the need inside Olivia. I caught glimpses of her covered emotions every now and again. Like my magic had tagged her and was keen to notice and point out changes when they occurred.
“Very well.”
“Great!”
Two hours later my eyes crossed as Olivia verbally crushed me again.
“I'm not sure I am helping you,” I said, feeling like I had been run over by my own brain—and lost.
“You have a unique style of argument. Half of it is measured and thoughtful, and the other half jumps all over the place—random and emotional.” She pursed her lips. “And you are very naïve. Arguing with you makes good practice for dealing with less logical beings.”
Great. “Great! Happy to help.”
We set a time for her to crush me every other night. I was wiped half the time, but the contentment radiating from Olivia at the end of each session made it worth the loss of my dignity. And I was learning valuable information about mage culture that I wouldn't have otherwise—social customs and ethics about this world that would have slipped me by.
~*~
At three weeks remaining until deadline—in the literal sense of the word—my pace increased from feverish to frenzied. I was painting and experimenting in Okai, attending classes and doing homework, doing projects for Stevens, helping Olivia with her debates, helping Will with his Layer project, helping Neph learn how to draw while I learned how to dance, helping Delia and Mike with a weird weather project that had sounded unbearably interesting, helping Constantine make a vortex inside an ottoman—something that was assuredly illegal, but also unbearably interesting—and staring at Alexander Dare when he wasn't looking.
My first red milestone—which I had scheduled for thirteen weeks' post-mortem—was approaching at breakneck speed, and I had only managed to make my blob matter into a four foot zombie before running out of fingernails and ear lobes.
Thank goodness for Nephthys, who had managed to magic everything back on me so far. Community service kept me extremely busy too, as a yeti, a troll, and a Level Six green dragon had popped onto campus in the last two weeks. We had experienced an earthquake, a tornado, and three layer shifts, all of which I had been told in passing were not normal.
But I was too busy to worry about normal.
I accidentally forked my hand at lunch one day.
Mike stared at me frankly. “You look terrible.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Delia raised a brow. “You do look terrible.”
“I haven't been sleeping much. I'll catch up this weekend.” There was no way that would be true, though. I had a full schedule planned for Saturday and Sunday.
“Ren, Ren, Ren. Sleep is for rejuvenation. The life force of all good mages.”
Olivia stabbed at a leaf in her salad. It was her version of a verbal sneer. I'd had to coax her to lunch today, and with Delia here, I had a feeling Olivia was regretting it.
“Will and Olivia barely sleep.” I felt it necessary to point out.
“As I said, the life force of all good mages,” Delia said.
Mike snickered, then jumped up, swearing.
Will innocently took another bite of his sandwich.
“Where's Nephyths?” Mike asked, rubbing his side as he sat back down.
“Practice.” I tried not to fork myself again as I attempted another stab at a tortellini.
“That's too bad. She'd help you.”
“You can transfer sleep to someone else?” I asked, interested.
Mike looked at me as if I were an idiot. “She's a Muse.”
I stared at him. “Oh.” That explained...a lot...and nothing at the same time. “She helps people feel restful? I do always feel great after being near her.”
Mike and Delia were looking at me like I was a moron. Olivia gave a large sigh.
Will smiled, and didn't hide the fondness in his eyes, which made me return his smile. “You didn't know?”
“I think I still don't. But you should probably explain it to me tomorrow.” I put my head down on my arms feeling slightly better, as I always did when I thought of my friends.
“Dream of good things,” Christian's voice soothed.
I took a tiny nap, hearing them arguing over me in my dreams, Delia demanding that someone tell me something and Will telling her to shut up.
Olivia nudged me awake and I looked up to see that we were the only two left. I contemplated my lack of sleep and whether I truly needed more as we left the cafeteria. The bright sunlight hurt. But I was fine. Just a few more weeks, then I could catch up.
Olivia stiffened next to me. I followed her gaze to a girl approaching us on the grass.
“Well, it if isn't little Miss Perfect Defender.” The girl sneered at Olivia.
It was really strange. The tablet was in my hand, and I was zapping the girl before I even realized it.
I promptly turned into a toad. I tried to swear, but only a croak emerged.
Olivia heaved another great sigh and stepped over me, shielding me. I could barely hear anything with my toad hearing, but I got the gist from Olivia's suddenly giant body movements that she was arguing vehemently on my behalf.
Or perhaps she was agreeing with the other girl, as to how stupid I was, but whichever it was, she was doing it vehemently. I was very proud.
The girl turned, nose in the air, and stomped off.
I turned my toad nose toward my roommate again. She looked at me, then at the tablet. She was considering what to do, I could see it on her face even from the great distance now between us. I gave a croak. She squatted down and nudged the tablet with her finger, then nudged me. I tried to look affronted, but all I managed was another croak and a sideways hop-slide. Being a toad made one entirely uncoordinated.
Olivia's brows furrowed. “
Karmically based?”
I nodded my toad head. God, I was going to get it from Wellingham. Would he expel me for this? I gave a mournful croak.
Olivia sighed. “I can't believe to what levels I have sunk.” She touched the tablet with one finger and touched my toad head with another.
“Ren promises to clean the entrance hall of Dorm Twenty-Five.” She looked at me darkly. “Don't you Ren?”
I fervently nodded my little toad head beneath her finger. The magic swirled out of the tablet and around Olivia and into me.
Olivia gracefully rose and stepped back, as I transformed back into a girl.
“Ugh.” I frantically wiped my mouth. “Being a toad is awful.”
“Well, you shouldn't have done that.” Although, Olivia didn't look as irritated as I would have expected. The other girl was obviously not on her favorite person list.
“Yes, yes. But thanks. How did you know what to do?” I brushed my hands against my legs. I still felt vaguely toadish.
“Many things are karmically based in Old Magic households. One learns how to use the spells.”
“Well, thanks. The spell bound you to it too, didn't it?”
“Yes. But you will complete the task.” Or I will end you, was left unsaid. “Next time, hop on and make your own deal.”
I considered the tablet. “Hey, that's a great idea.”
If I was caught alone...as long as I was willing to pay the price... I gave a dark laugh and rubbed my hands together.
Olivia didn't seem to have any trouble interpreting the gesture. “Do it, and I won't take your case, if you get in trouble.”
“Olivia!” I put my hand to my heart. “Why would you say such a thing?”
She rolled her eyes and started walking back to the dorm. I hurried to follow.
“But what if I'm outnumbered?”
“In defense of yourself, the tablet likely won't penalize you.”
“Psshhh. Like it knows.” Of course, I well knew that the freaky thing did know.
She gave me an “I-can't-believe-I-put-up-with-you” look. “Did you intend to defend yourself?”
