by B. C. Palmer
My instinct had been to run to Lucas and Isaac and see if they could help me study, but over the past couple of weeks that had been a pattern—finding excuses to see them, sometimes even when I didn’t need any kind of help. Serena seemed to think I was under their spell. Not literally, of course. “If you were literally under a spell,” she’d said, “you wouldn’t be asking me whether or not it’s a bad idea to get involved with them. And, for the record, first of all I’m super jealous—but then also… I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but just know that where those boys walk, trouble just kind of springs up in their footsteps like some kind of reverse saints.”
What kind of trouble that was, she thought it was best not to talk about. Which had to mean it was bad, whatever it was, because, as far as I could tell, Serena received actual nourishment from spreading gossip.
So, instead, I had holed up in my room after Friday classes, prepared to spend the weekend buried in books. It was one of the rare moments when Hunter wasn’t around. Not that I minded his presence, but I had begun to think he didn’t actually have any classes. Or that he was sending some kind of doppelganger to classes in his place. Which was entirely possible.
I closed the text on Greek over my notebook and tossed it onto my bed to rest my eyes. Trying to fit all this into my head appeared to short-circuit the part of my brain responsible for blinking regularly, and my eyes burned. I rubbed them until the itch went away and then slumped back against the headboard and my pillow, willing the book to pour its arcane knowledge into my mind.
Magic didn’t work like that, apparently. Which I might have known if I could read Attic Greek and was able to decipher the supplemental texts that Wardwell had recommended to me in that condescending tone he only seemed to use when answering my questions in class.
At least I had a mountain of notes.
My butt was numb from sitting cross-legged for so long, so I swung my legs off the edge of the bed and stood to get my blood flowing again. Tingles spread from my foot all the way to my knee, making every step nearly unbearable. I paced the small area between my bed and Hunter’s, and couldn’t help glancing at the large, leather-bound book on his desk. The one he was always writing in and cussing at. He still hadn’t told me what he was working on and I hadn’t asked again after he bit my head off the first time. It was only curiosity, but it was intense and it had been growing slowly for the last two weeks.
I muttered Briggson’s Arcane Lens and looked through my fanned fingers at the journal and Hunter’s desk. Although the wall lit up with opalescent lines and fields of magical energies, the book itself was unprotected. Which only made me feel more guilty for wanting to peek inside—obviously, he trusted me not to mess with his stuff.
And I wouldn’t understand what was in it anyway. But the desire grew stronger and stronger until my leg was no longer asleep and all feeling had returned to my butt and it was either sit down and go back to studying or just lift the cover and satiate my irrational desire to snoop.
I edged toward the desk, more casual than I needed to be with only me in the room, and with just one finger lifted the front cover of the journal.
As I expected, it didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t so much a magical theory as a mind-map written in plain English. Mostly. Some of it consisted of partial glyphs hastily scribbled so they wouldn’t actually do anything but were close enough to recognize for what they were. Some of the writing, though, was more familiar.
Class of 1999. Seven survivors. Seven princes? Seven planets? Seven elements? Professor Xi only taught about five elements. Were there seven? There were numbers located at the corners of the circled comments, like references. I opened the journal the rest of the way to turn the page and look further. What was his interest in the class of ’99?
And just like that, my ‘luck’ if you could call it that, ran out.
The door opened and I scrambled to close the journal and rush back to my bed and look busy, but given that it took about an eighth of a second to open the door and I did not possess the ability to stop or even slow time, Hunter definitely saw at least my dash away from his desk.
“Hi, Hunter,” I breathed, harder than the little sprint should have caused, “sorry, I was actually just leaving. I’ll get out of your hair and head to the library. I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on and languages to learn so, I’ll just leave you to whatever it is you do when you’re… you know, um… awake, I guess.”
In two weeks, truthfully, I’d only seen Hunter standing up once before. And even then, he was actually sitting back down when I came into the room after lunch, so I hadn’t really seen what he looked like actually on his feet.
Hunter was… big. I probably came up to his chest, and everything about him seemed like someone had taken a regular-sized man and just scaled them up. Big hands, big arms and legs that filled out his uniform, a neck that was too big for the collar of his shirt so it was always unbuttoned. He even had big cheeks and a big nose, though it wasn’t out of proportion. He towered, and when his eyes darkened and he glanced from his stack of books and his journal to me, it was genuinely frightening to imagine him truly angry.
Angry wasn’t what I got. Not exactly. “If I have to start putting protection spells on my shit,” he said, “it’s gonna be bad for you. I’m not good at subtle magic. How about from now on you just promise to mind your own business?”
Cold, like he always was. He uncrossed his arms and strode into the room, closing the door just a little too hard behind him. As always, he went to his desk, sat in his chair, and cracked open his journal and one of the books from the pile. A second later, he muttered a spell and made a smearing sort of motion with his right hand, and in a second the air between us turned thick, obscuring the light like a smudge on reality.
I felt awful for prying. And, yes, for getting caught. Everyone in this damn school made a game of spying and cheating but all I’d done was stick my nose into another student’s work and it made me almost sick to my stomach. Maybe you had to be raised in it. “I’m sorry,” I said as I gathered my books. “Really, Hunter. I promise, I won’t pry again.”
Hunter only waved a hand, dismissing it. He’d said his piece.
Though, I was curious. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d done a bit of math. My parents had been twenty-five and twenty-six when they died, and I’d been four years old, and that was fourteen years ago. Which meant that if they also went to school here, they’d have been in school that year—1999.
Now, if Hunter’s notes were right, and there were only seven survivors that year from whatever had happened, it meant they were two of them.
“Um, I’m sorry,” I said as I turned. “I know, it’s none of my business and I won’t understand, but I… I did see a note that said something about the class of ’99 and seven survivors, and it’s just that I think my parents must have been in school then because they were young when they had me and when they passed. I think they must have been here that year. And they had me so… so they must be two of your seven survivors. Right? Is that what you’re always working on? Because at my exam one of the deans said that—”
Hunter closed his journal and turned slowly in his chair. He un-smudged the air and stared at me, his expression blank. The message was about as clear as it could be. He was busy, and preferred that I go, thanks, or at least sit in the corner and not make noise.
I steeled my nerve. “I know you’re busy,” I said, “and that whatever it is your working on is very important to you. But I didn’t really know my folks. I was four when they died, I barely remember their faces, and my godmother had almost nothing of theirs to share with me. I’ve got nothing, but it looks to me like you… like you have a bit of something that I just feel like would tell me a little about them. Maybe not much, but even just one event in their life. I don’t even have pictures, you know?”
Hunter’s expression did soften a little. He rubbed his bearded jaw and laid one of those paws on top of the book he’d been studying. “I wish I could tell
you something,” he said. “But I can’t. I don’t know what happened that year. That’s the whole point. I had a… a friend, who was a little obsessed. He died. I want to know what he found out, or if he even found out anything. Sorry I don’t know more. But yeah—Jakob Cresswin and Rosalind Valmont were among the seven that survived whatever happened. I don’t know if that makes you feel better or not.”
It was disappointing is what it was.
He glanced past me, at the books strewn over my bed. “What are you working on?”
Conversation? How had I managed to rate that? I almost didn’t know how to respond. “This?” I asked, glancing back at the mess as if he could be talking about something else. “I’m ah… trying to cram Attic Greek into my brain. Afterward, I thought I’d try and mainline Sanskrit, and then etch Latin into the backs of my retinas for a cheat sheet. If you can believe it, they actually don’t teach very many dead languages in public high schools.”
“What’s the problem?” he asked. His question was gruff, but genuine. Dark hair had escaped the band from where he’d tied it, and it gave him a nearly wild look. Which rooming with Hunter often felt like sharing my dorm with a snow leopard.
I arched an eyebrow. I’d lost count but I was pretty sure we were up to, what, almost a hundred words? All at once? I must have hit a nerve. “The problem is that there are something like ten of them to learn,” I said. “I’m behind and can’t even catch up because to catch up I have to do something impossible. I need some kind of… I don’t know, a CIA hothouse or something.”
The corner of his lip almost evidenced a twitch. It went the wrong direction, though. “Obviously you have to do something impossible. That’s the whole point of being here. Just get your hands on some memory enhancement, and learn it all over the weekend.”
He said it like it was the obvious answer. To him it probably was. “What, like some kind of wizard drug?”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “No, not drugs. Alchemy.” He looked away from me, back to his books and was quiet for a long moment. I started to think he expected me to just figure it out when finally he muttered, “Talk to Isaac; he can help you out. He’s Maycomb’s assistant. Alchemy is his specialty path.”
Isaac? Had he been holding out on me? Why had no one mentioned this before? “Thank you for that,” I said. “And again, I’m sorry I messed with your book.”
“Ideally it won’t happen again,” he muttered. But he did pause and glance back at me. “If I do find out anything about your parents, I’ll let you know. Sorry for your loss.”
“It was a long time ago,” I said. I tried to mean it. I always tried to mean it. “I’ll leave you alone.”
He didn’t respond, so I gathered my books and slipped quietly out, focusing on my need to find Isaac so my fading palm tattoo could lead me to him. And as I followed my magic tattoo I had to wonder—what actually had happened that year?
And if so many had died, how had my parents survived?
Isaac
Lucas stretched out on his bed, staring at the ceiling as we talked. More properly, I suppose, we were arguing. “I’m not suggesting we slip it to her when she isn’t looking,” he said. “We just need to find a means of encouraging her to take it.”
“I fail to see how coercion is any different,” I grumbled. I slipped the paper packet off the desk and into my hand. I’d made the pellets at Lucas’s insistence but the more I thought about it, the less I agreed with his strategy. The memory of Amelia’s taste flashed through me, hitting me like a punch. It had been hard to get her off my mind. And by the way Lucas had been more demanding in bed, he’d been thinking about her too. “Messing with memory can be dangerous. She could start remembering things from pre-birth, numinous memories of another dimension and it could go very, very wrong. Not to mention if anything bad should happen while it was in effect.”
“We can manage that,” Lucas said, dismissing that. “We’ll just keep an eye on her, keep her safe, make sure no one bothers her. She’s leagues behind everyone—it’ll do her good anyway. You told Hunter?”
I grimaced at him, though he wasn’t looking. That was a clear indicator of his guilt at even discussing the thing. Lucas always looked me in the eye when we spoke, unless he was uncomfortable with himself. “I did. And he’s against it as well, for the record. And that should say something, you know. When it comes to Nathan, he—”
There was a knock on our door. Lucas hopped up from the bed to answer it.
As if we’d summoned her, Amelia was on the other side. A sliver of cold curled along my spine. Had she heard? The cold was quickly replaced by heat as I let my eyes travel down her. Once again, memories of her soft thighs on either side of my face barreled into me, my cock half hardening with desire. I wondered what it would feel like to fuck her, to fill her as she wrapped her legs around my waist. Or maybe Lucas could have the honors while she returned the favor, stretching those lips of hers around my cock.
“Amy,” Lucas said cheerfully before he glanced back at me, his face frozen in a polite smile. “Here for another lesson?”
She coughed, choking on something, and quickly shook her head although her cheeks took on a deliciously rosy color and, if I wasn’t mistaken, she seemed to go a bit weak in the knees. I would gladly assist her in another so-called lesson; I shifted in my chair to hide the growing bulge. “Don’t mind Lucas,” I told her, “he’s got a one-track mind. You’ve got books. Something giving you trouble?”
Lucas stepped aside. “Come on in,” he said. “We won’t bite unless you ask for it.” Even I could hear the wish in the man’s voice. I crossed one leg over my knee, willing myself to settle down.
Amelia came in, and Lucas helped her with the stack of books. The spines were all linguistics titles. At least five different ones. “Thank you,” she breathed as she shook her arms out from the weight of them. They were not small tomes. “And yes, I’m having trouble. Languages. Everything I’m supposed to be reading is in a different language. Does anyone here actually read all of these? Is there some translation spell that’s not in the primer?”
I pursed my lips as I pulled the book from the top. Predynastic Cantonese. “Sure, of course,” I said as I paged through it. “We have to speak them as well. My parents started me at about six. Attic Greek, first. For six months it’s all they spoke at home. Then another language the next six months, and another after that. Once we got up to eight languages, they started switching every week, then every day, until I was eighteen. We hardly spoke English in the home at all.”
“I had tutors,” Lucas said as he took another book from the stack, a Latin primer, and smiled. “Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Tagalog, Sanskrit. I didn’t learn old Cantonese until high school. I’m only just mastering Akkadian. This is… quite a lot to learn in a short time.”
Amelia only stood awkwardly in the room for a few moments as we spoke. She took Lucas’s desk chair when she grew a bit more comfortable but adjusted her skirt in just such a way that nothing risked showing. So shy still, I mused to myself. Strange that it should be so refreshing. Magicians, as a rule, were raised with a loose sense of sexual propriety. What with sex magic being an official course at any respectable academy of magical arts, there was simply no point in raising children to be ashamed of themselves or their bodies. As a consequence, it was rare to meet a magician—male, female, or any other gender—who was remotely shy about sexuality.
Somehow, it made me want her again all the more.
“Hunter said there could be a solution for that,” Amelia said, the question implied.
I stiffened and pointedly did not look at Lucas though I could feel his eyes on me. “Did he?”
She spread her hands. “I know it could be a lot to ask, but if there’s a way to… enhance my memory? Just for a little while. Hunter seemed to think it was possible, and I don’t want to become reliant on drugs or anything—that’s not the kind of student I want to be—but I just don’t see how I can possibly catch up at this rate. Never mind
learning magic. I can’t even keep up in class because half the time the instructors lecture in other languages. Why they can’t just do it in English…”
Lucas hummed thoughtfully. “The problem is,” he said, “magical knowledge is highly contextual. Translations don’t often lead to effective information because some concepts are entirely native to the original magicians that recorded them. When it comes to almost any other subject it doesn’t matter so much—but with magic, you have to understand the root concepts thoroughly. As it happens, though, you’re in luck. Isaac has something that can help.”
Amelia’s spine straightened. “You do? What is it?”
My jaw tensed, and I wanted to hiss something rude at Lucas, but he gave me an insistent sort of look, urging me with his eyebrows.
If there was anything Amelia could be made to recall from her time with her parents, even the smallest clue could be helpful. I tried to remember that all of this was for Nathan, to try and rectify my and Lucas’s sins. If we were careful, no harm would come to Amelia. “I… recently prepared an alchemical substance that can do what you need,” I said reluctantly. “I was going to use it to binge a few alchemy texts and maybe one of the Solomnic manuals but I can always make another dose. I suppose you need it more than I do.”
I hated lying to anyone, much less Amelia. Lucas could do it with a smile, and make a joke, and misdirect. Hunter never had to lie—he simply didn’t say anything half the time. I’d always been an honest person, though, and it made me sick to hold out the paper packet with the pellets in them.
Amelia accepted the packet with wide eyes. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to cost you study time. Are they difficult to make?”
“It takes about a week,” I said. “But after the first few hours of preparation, it’s mostly just watching and waiting. It’s really no problem. Personal study is all, not for an exam or anything.”
She breathed a sigh of relief and opened the packet to reveal the small pellets inside, each about the size of a pea. One was black, the other white. “Do I just take them together?”
