by Helen Harper
He stared at me silently for several moments. I tried to return his gaze, but ended up dropping my eyes to the floor. He’d given me a chance and I’d blown it.
After what seemed to be an eternity, he finally spoke. “So, it seems that you’ve gotten yourself into quite a lot of bother. I have to admit, I’d rather hoped that you’d manage to hold out longer than a day.” He stepped inside the tiny room. “So what do you have to say for yourself? The Dean is really rather keen that you never darken his door ever again.”
My cheeks warmed involuntarily. “I’m sorry. I just have a bad temper. I flipped out and I know I shouldn’t have. I’ll accept whatever punishment you choose, but you can’t take this out on Mrs. Alcoon. It’s not her fault. I’ll do anything and go anywhere, just please let her go.”
“We’ve been through this. The deal was that you went through training so that we know you can control your impulses and your magic, and then we’d take the spell off. There doesn’t seem to be very much control in the slightest on your part. By the founder, you only just took the oath less than thirty minutes before you attacked a mage without any provocation!”
I lifted my head. “That’s not fair! I was provoked! He tricked me into shaving off my hair. I was just trying to do what I was told so that I could be a good initiate. When I found out it was all just a joke on his part, I got angry. That’s all.”
The Arch-Mage stared at me. “Do you mean to tell me that I had to interrupt a council meeting to come all the way here because of a little hazing? I thought you were tougher than that.”
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise.”
He sighed heavily and sat down on the bed then, apparently appreciating how uncomfortable it was, changed his mind and stood back up. “The thing is that I’m sure you mean that right now. But if you can’t even control your temper, then all this is for naught. What happens next time you feel provoked? The point of you being here is to learn control so that you don’t misuse your power. It appears that all you are really learning, Miss Smith, is how to be as violent as possible.”
“Please,” I said in a very small voice. “She’s depending on me. I really will be good.”
He stared at me for a long moment while I held my breath. I knew that the Arch-Mage was a decent sort; our previous encounter in London when I’d broken into the Ministry had proven that. But I also knew that I hadn’t given him all that many options after almost killing one of his mages. I could well imagine that the Ministry, 99% per of whom were already baying for my blood as it was, were putting extraordinary pressure on him to deal with me once and for all.
“You have one final chance,” he said finally.
My heart leapt in my chest, but he held up a single digit in warning.
“However, there is a caveat. Once a week you will attend anger management counselling in London. And if you so much as send a dirty look in the direction of anyone else at this facility, then there will be nothing else I can do.”
I was nodding vigorously. I’d take any olive branch, even if it meant talking to some shrink about my feelings.
The Arch-Mage stared at me, hard. “I mean it, Miss Smith. One more fuck-up and you’re done.”
“I won’t let you down. I promise.”
He didn’t look as if he entirely believed me, but I would just have to prove otherwise to him. And maybe the counselling would help a bit. God knew that I needed to do something to start controlling my temper. It seemed to be getting worse and worse as each day went by.
“It’s for the best if you stay in your room for the remainder of the day. I will have some food sent up to you. You can begin your studies tomorrow, with Friday afternoons off for the counselling. I will smooth things over with Dean Michaels for now.” Something flickered across his eyes as he said that. For a moment, I thought it might be a gleam of self-satisfaction, but it was gone before I could really analyse it.
I blinked my acknowledgement, and the Arch-Mage left without another word. Sinking down onto the floor, I exhaled loudly. I was pretty sure that I’d had a very lucky escape.
*
The next morning, it was Mary who came to escort me to the dining hall. I guessed that she had volunteered for the duty; it was more than likely that after the display yesterday no one else was keen to be my escort. I hoped that Thomas was alright. I didn’t like him, but that didn’t mean I wished pain and suffering on him. Mary at least smiled at me tentatively.
“You know, it’ll probably grow back really quickly.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly, “it probably will.”
She stuck close to me all the way to the dining hall, but didn’t say anything else. When we entered the large room, the conversation died instantly and I could feel a hundred pairs of eyes on me, both teenager and adult. I took a quick glance around, noting with some relief that the room had been put back into order and looked exactly as it had the day before, prior to my tantrum. I strove hard to ignore the stares, and helped myself to the coffee, drinking it quickly and scalding my tongue so that I could get out of there as quickly as possible. Once I was done, Mary nodded and jerked her head to the door.
When we were back outside, she spoke again. “You have Kinesis first. The mages have decided that you will have private lessons, seeing as how you are, like, so new and, well, you know.”
Unfortunately, I did know. I trailed after her along various narrow cobbled pathways, from either side of which loomed different buildings of all manner of shapes and sizes. I hadn’t fully appreciated just how large the academy’s complex was until this point. We eventually ended up in a smallish room at the far end of a squat structure that seemed to be some considerable distance away from the main building that housed the cafeteria and dorms. Waiting inside was a rather nervous looking mage of about thirty years old. I didn’t envy him this task, I had to admit. Who would want to teach the psycho bitch to move things around with her mind? Mary stated that she would be back in two hours’ time to take me to my next lesson. I tried to give her a warm smile of gratitude, but she was already turning back to the door to leave.
The nervous looking mage stuck out his hand, and then thought better of it, suddenly withdrawing his palm before I could even begin to reach for it. My soul sank an inch inside as he hastily introduced himself as Mage Slocombe, and then immediately positioned his slumped body at the opposite end of the room, as far away from me as he could possibly get. I tried hard not to let it affect me, and straightened my posture and lifted my chin.
In the centre of the room, inside a small chalk circle, lay a tiny little pebble. Mage Slocombe instructed me in a small reedy voice to sit down and watch the stone. I did as he bade, hunkering down cross-legged on the floor, and awaited my next instructions. No more were forthcoming, however. I stared at that damn pebble for the whole two hours, all the while wondering if I was supposed to be doing something to make it move. My eyes smarted and my legs were so numb when Mary returned to pick me up that it took me several moments to be able to stand properly and move. I thanked the mage quietly for his teaching, trying so very hard not to acknowledge the shaft of pain that ran through me at the look of sheer relief on his face that the session was over, and then we left.
“A bit of good old stone staring, huh?” Mary was clearly feeling a bit more talkative now.
Relieved that her naturally bubbly personality was reasserting itself, I nodded vigorously. “Yeah, what on earth is that all about? Is something supposed to happen?”
She grinned, cute dimples appearing in her cheeks as she did so. “Perhaps. You’ll just have to wait and see. Some initiates spend months with the staring thing, and others pick it up in, like, just a few hours.”
“You know I’m not actually a mage though, right?”
“I guess you’ll be doing a lot of staring, then,” she giggled a bit, leaving me feeling no better at all whatsoever, and depositing my unhappy self outside a shiny aluminum looking door that appeared completely out of place in
this old building. Apparently, this was for Evocation.
Once inside, the mage, who seemed even more nervous – if that were possible – than Slocombe had been, warned me very carefully that I could only perform Evocation magic inside one of the specially proofed rooms. Should I choose to attempt it anywhere else, then there was the danger that I would summon some kind of spirit that would wreak all kinds of havoc before it could be contained. It quickly became clear, however, that I was a long way off summoning anything at all. I was given a quick demonstration with some kind of water sprite, but even though I followed the mage’s instructions to the letter, when I tried it for myself absolutely nothing happened. By the end of the lesson, sweat was dripping off my face and seeping through my robe, and I had accomplished nothing whatsoever. The mage shrugged and then almost pushed me back out of the door.
Mary was waiting outside with a grin on her face. “How did it go?”
“This magic stuff is as hard as it looks,” I commented, wiping my brow with my sleeve.
“Ah, you’ll get the hang of it in no time. You’ve got a bit of time now to grab a bite to eat, and then you need to hit the library.”
“Library? Thank God – maybe this is something I can do.”
Mary grimaced. “Yeah, perhaps. You’ll need to start with all the Level One reading to match your practical skill sets in the different disciplines. Everyone starts at one. There are five levels to get through and, believe me, it gets harder as you go along. At your level right now, most of it is pretty dry. It’s a lot of background knowledge, history, that kind of thing.”
I felt relieved. At least I knew that I could read. “Sounds right up my alley. When do I start the other disciplines?
“You’ll begin Illusion and Divination tomorrow.”
“And Protection?” I tried – and failed – to keep the hope out of my voice.
Mary’s expression, however, was rueful. “Sorry. The trainers have decided that you’ve already passed Level One in Protection, even though you can’t throw a basic ward yet. I guess they want you to focus on the other disciplines rather than the stuff that might, you know, kill people.”
Fuck. That had been the only discipline that I felt I really needed to learn something in to help me control myself a bit. Not only that, but it was definitely the only discipline that appeared I’d have any hope of mastering.
“So,” I began, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer, “I need to pass Level One in all disciplines before I can move up to Level Two?”
“Yeah. And then you need to achieve Level Two in all disciplines also, although after that you can specialise in just the one or two that you’re particularly talented in.”
Great. Forget this taking five years, it was more likely to take me five hundred. That is if I didn’t get thrown out beforehand. I wasn’t a quitter, however. I wouldn’t let myself become defeated after just one morning.
“Forget the food,” I said decisively. “Show me where the library is.”
Mary looked surprised, but shrugged and nodded acquiescence, and we headed off.
I hadn’t quite been prepared for the grandeur that the training academy’s library was going to suggest was on offer. Up until now, the rooms had looked much like those of any other institution, strange metal surrounding the Evocation room aside, of course. However, even on approach, the doors of the library proclaimed both style as well as substance. They were vast creatures of construction: heavy oak panels with carved designs of different flora and fauna expertly inlaid into them. I couldn’t help but trace my fingers over them in awe, coming to rest at the edge of a dragon’s tail that curved its way across one of the panels.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if, like, dragons really did exist?” commented Mary, wistfully.
I looked at her sharply but she didn’t really seem to notice. “Well, they do exist,” I said, trying to aim for a matter of fact air.
Her brow furrowed for a moment, then cleared. “Oh, you mean the wyverns, right? But they’re not really dragons, are they? They’re more like dragon-lite.”
“They’re apparently distant cousins,” I said absently, still running the tip of my finger over the dragon’s body.
“Of creatures that don’t exist any more though.”
I made a non-committal noise. This probably really wasn’t the time to be getting into chats about dragons.
“Have you ever seen one?” Mary asked suddenly.
“What? A dragon?” Only every time I look in the mirror, I thought. “Um…,” God, I was useless liar.
“No, silly – a wyvern.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. I had to take lots down when I lived in Cornwall.” Funny how those memories were now so precious. I smiled to myself. “There was this one wyvern that was so brightly coloured blue and with such a loud shriek that we were sure that the villagers nearby were going to either hear or see it and come and investigate. You know us shifters don’t have skills like you do. We can’t just wave our hands in the air and make things appear to be different to what they are. It’s a lot more complicated for us to hide the otherworld from humans than it is for you.”
Mary was staring at me. “What?” I asked.
“You said ‘us shifters’.”
I squirmed, suddenly embarrassed. “Oh. I didn’t mean that. I’m not a shifter, I just…I just spent a lot of time around them that’s all. I grew up with them.”
“Are they not a bit scary? I mean, we hear stories that they, like, eat their young and that kind of thing.”
I gazed at Mary in astonishment. Surely she had to be pulling my leg. The sincerity in her eyes suggested differently, however. “Fuck, no. Where on earth did you hear that? All mages can’t think that, can they?” I thought of Alex. He hadn’t seemed to ever think that the shifters were cannibalistic. Why on earth would any mage agree to work with them if they believed that tripe?
“Well, I don’t know. The trainers say it’s not true, but you kind of hear some stories now and then, you know?”
“No, Mary, I don’t know. Shifters are the most trustworthy, loyal and friendly people you could ever meet. They would never do anything as awful as that.” A little voice poked inside me, suggesting that I’d thought some pretty terrible things about the Brethren, who were technically the Shifters, with a capital ‘s’, of the shapeshifter world.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I’ve never met one, so it’s difficult to know these things.”
“Yeah, but mages work with shifters all the time,” I protested.
“Only when the Arch-Mage makes them and so that there can be some kind of peace between us. Not because we like them.”
I was absolutely horrified. “Is that what you really think?” I had no idea what Corrigan and the Brethren’s opinion of mages was, but I was certain that the local shifters, such as my old pack in Cornwall, had never held any animosity towards the mages. Some wariness, sure – who wouldn’t be wary of someone who holds a range of magical powers that they can wield at their disposal? But to be so hostile as to suggest something like they ate their young and that we didn’t like them? I shook my head. The world was a much more complicated place than I’d ever realised when I lived in my quiet little pocket of Cornwall.
Mary shrugged. “I’d never really thought about it much.” She peered at me anxiously. “You’re not, like, angry, are you?”
I guessed I deserved that little note of worry. “No, Mary, I’m not angry. Just a bit sad is all, I think.”
She was clearly relieved. “Oh, okay, cool. Listen, I think we can smooth things over with the others if we can show that you can be a good sport. You know, let bygones be bygones, that kind of thing?”
I didn’t really think I cared that much what a bunch of adolescent pre-mages thought of me, but I thought it’d probably be best to play along. “Sure, how do we do that?”
“We come up with a nickname for you, you know now that you’re bald. We could call you, um, baldy? Or maybe egghead? That would fit with you being s
o keen to go to the library and all.”
I kept my face carefully expressionless. “A nickname. Yeah. What a great idea. Or we could, you know, just not do that.”
Mary missed by lack of enthusiasm. “Awesome! I’ll start thinking of some names and then you can pick the one you’d like the best.” She beamed at me. “This is really going to help you, like, fit in more.” She glanced down at her watch and her faced paled suddenly. “Oh, I’ve got to go. Are you okay from here? Can you make it back to your own room and to the dining hall without any problems?”
“Sure,” I reassured her.
“Okay. Lunch is at 1pm and then you’ve got Illusion, Divination and then dinner at 7pm. The librarian inside who’s called Slim will tell you what to do.” She gave me a big wave and then ran off.
I watched her go and then reached out to touch the wooden dragon just one more time. “Hey little guy,” I whispered to it.
Then I pulled my hand away and opened the door.
Chapter Four
An inadvertent gasp left me. I hadn’t expected anything on this scale, even after seeing the ornate library doors.
The entire room was massive. Vast stained glass windows surrounded two sides, letting in bolts of coloured light that danced over the towering teak bookshelves housing stacks and stacks of books. I took a step forward and looked up in awe. There must have been at least three storeys housed inside that one cavernous space, and every inch was filled with space, light and knowledge. There was a curving wrought iron staircase to the left of the room, leading upwards to a mezzanine level that contained even more stacks. The glorious scent of old ink and vellum wafted towards my nostrils and I inhaled deeply, briefly closing my eyes. Here, more than anywhere else that I’d visited in the academy, I felt at home.
I moved forward to the first row of bookshelves and slowly walked down it, trailing my index finger across the titles, feeling the different textures and raised embossed letters engraved inside. Some of the books appeared old, perhaps by even hundreds of years, whilst others could have been published yesterday. Every so often, a title caught my interest, and I hooked it off the shelf to peer at the cover before sliding it back into its place. There were the inevitable tomes relating to the five disciplines, but also histories, treatises on different denizens of the otherworld, spell guides and instructions…I took in the range incredulously. My thoughts inevitably flickered back to the smouldering remains of the Clava bookshop. Mrs. Alcoon would love it here. I loved it here.
