by Cecilia Tan
“That’s what I mean,” Kyle said. “You know, a date, but the find-out-whether-there-will-be-a-second-date kind of date, rather than the already-committed-to-giving-a-relationship-a-try kind of date.”
That made her laugh. “Okay. I can go along with that.”
“Good. Just, um, not too expensive a place. I’m kind of on a budget...” He grinned at her sheepishly.
“All right.” She linked her arm with his. “I really don’t care where we go. In fact, let’s go somewhere we don’t have to put on nicer clothes. You like Mexican?”
“Mexican is good. Or what about Spanish? I walked past a Spanish place on the way to campus this morning?”
She made a face, then looked at him curiously. “I’m really picky about Spanish food,” she said.
“Oh, is that place no good?”
She stopped walking and faced him. “You really don’t know anything about the magical world, do you?”
He shook his head, wondering what Earth-shattering thing she was about to tell him. “Is it a faux pasto eat Spanish food because of...of the Inquisition or something?”
She burst out laughing. “No, no.” Her face was alight with mirth and he wondered what else he could say to make her laugh like that. Only, intentionally. “You don’t know much about the Inquisition, either, I’m guessing.”
“Um, beyond that it happened and that Monty Python made fun of it, not really,” he admitted. “I’m supposed to be taking European history this year—except it looks like I’m not going to, since I’ll be here.”
She smiled. “You’re cute. Okay, sure. Let’s have Spanish food. I’ll order. Come on.”
She took him by the hand, which for some reason made Kyle’s heart do happy flips in his chest, and led him toward the nearest gate into Harvard Square.
* * * *
Jess apparently did know a lot about Spanish food. Not only that, but she spoke Spanish, which led to Kyle wondering if Torralva was a Spanish name, which led to Jess finally telling him it was a very old magical family name.
“He was basically one of the most famous enchanters in Spain in the early 1500s,” she said. “He was the healer to Charles V, and reputed among his enemies to be a necromancer, while his supporters thought he talked to angels. The Inquisitors tried him for sorcery, imprisoned and tortured him for three years, and eventually they let him go to Rome...” She shrugged. “There are as many myths about him as there are truths. Let’s just say that it would be a bit like you saying you were descended directly from Merlin.”
Kyle was pushing his spoon through a kind of runny vanilla custard by then, trying to decide if it would be rude to lick the dish. “Are there descendants of Merlin?”
Jess shrugged. “If there are, they aren’t saying so, anyway. England’s had a really fucked-up history in terms of magical suppression, too, and they had some kind of internal civil war in the 1990s that came and went so fast that the other countries never even got to pick sides, from what I understand. But...yeah. People get all in a twist about my ancestry. It’s a pain.”
“Huh. I’m supposedly related to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but...well, now, come to think of it, Dean Bell did kind of raise an eyebrow at my name.” He gave in and picked up the little glass dish and licked at the cream.
She nodded, seemingly unperturbed by his behavior. “Seems like many of the great American magical figures have been poets, too. Well, I suppose not just American. English language. Shakespeare, Blake...”
“Blake! William Blake?”
She grinned. “Yes, and William Shakespeare.”
“Blake, who claimed to have breakfast with an angel every morning?”
“Yes, that Blake.”
“Wait, so are angels real? You said your ancestor talked to them, too...”
She held up her hands. “Slow down, slow down. The first thing you’re going to find when you explore the magical world is that a lot of what you know is true. The second thing you’ll find, though, is that nothing is as you’ve been taught. Come on, let’s walk while we talk.”
She left money on the table, and as Kyle was digging out his wallet, she waved at him to put it away, as if annoyed he’d even try to pay any of it. Kyle wondered if that meant it wasn’t as much of a date as he’d hoped after all, but he was still too fascinated by her and all she had to say to argue about it.
They walked back toward the subway station, where street musicians were playing. Across the way, in front of a bookstore, a man was juggling while riding a unicycle. “So the first thing you have to get used to, if you have preconceptions of magic, is that there’s no such thing as good or evil,” she said, as they walked along. The air was still warm and plenty of people were walking the streets at this hour. “There isn’t ‘black magic’ and ‘white magic’ and although there’s almost certainly a God, if there are angels or devils they don’t actually have anything to do with what we do.”
“But wouldn’t it be evil to use magic to kill?” he asked.
She shook her head. “You can get into what the definition of evil is. Is killing evil? Are animals that hunt for their food evil? Are we, for eating meat?”
He thought about it for a moment. “But animals need to eat. It’s different when one man kills another.”
“Is it? What if they are at war, or it’s self defense? What if one of them is suffering and the other one is releasing him from suffering?”
“Well, okay, but what if the only reason the one killed the other was...for power? Not to survive or defend his family or whatever, but just because it would further his ends?”
Jess turned to look at him as they walked. “Then is it the killing itself that’s evil, or the motivation behind it? Desire for power could drive a man to do many things other than kill. Rape, pillage, embezzle, lie...is there something special about death?”
“Hm, I guess not.” It had seemed so obvious a minute ago. “I guess that’s why they say ‘power corrupts’?”
“And ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely,’” she quoted. “But when it comes to magic,” and she said the word magic a little quieter than the others, “it is a power. So is physical strength, or intelligence. But fire, for example, is not good or evil. It has the power to destroy, to burn down a forest or a building, but we couldn’t live without light or heat, could we? And we harness the power of fire to run machines, light our cities, build things, et cetera. Fire itself, though, is just a power—and magic is like that. A force of nature that can’t really be judged by human morality.”
He nodded. “So...what can I do with...with magic?” He followed her lead, saying the word most quietly at the end of his sentence.
“That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? Just like you can have two equally intelligent people but one will be good at math and the other at language, we’ll have to find out where your talents lie.” She led him up past another group of street musicians. “Have you ever had prophetic dreams, or the sudden feeling like you knew what was about to happen?”
He thought about it. “Not really.”
“If you can’t think of an incident right away, you probably aren’t prophetic,” she said. “Usually, if you’ve had one of those dreams... you don’t forget it. It stays with you, almost like it haunts you until it comes true.”
Kyle walked a little faster so he could see her face as they made their way up the sidewalk. “Do you have that kind of dream?”
“I only did once,” she said, pausing in front of the window of a natural foods store, then walking a bit more slowly down a side street. “I was thirteen. I dreamed I was at a masked ball, everyone was dressed for what must have been Carnavale in Venice. There was music and wine and dancing...then this man, dressed like some kind of prince or courtier in a black-and-white mask, took my hand and kissed it, and gestured to the dance floor...” She stopped again, this time looking into the window of an art gallery, except she wasn’t seeing the glass sculptures or jewelry displayed there, Kyle thought. She was seeing the
images of her dream.
She looked up at him suddenly and shook herself. “Um, yeah, so I dreamed I found my true love at Carnavale in Venice, and the next morning I woke up to find I had gotten my period for the first time.” She was blushing.
“And have you ever been to Carnavale in Venice?” Kyle asked.
She shook her head. “I figure I’ll go when I finish school. That doesn’t mean the dream will come true, of course. It could mean a lot of things that I won’t realize make sense until after they happen. I haven’t had another one like that, so I don’t think I’m prophetic, anyway. But we were talking about you.” She started walking more quickly, and Kyle was amazed to find the street they were now walking down seemed to lead right back to the campus. He wondered if that was magic, or if his sense of direction was just wrong. “Do you have a green thumb?” she went on. “Or can you tell when someone’s sick or hurt?”
He shook his head.
“Hmm. Well, Madeleine—that is, Ms. Finch to you, unless you end up in Camella House for real—will probably have some tests to help you determine your aptitudes, maybe to help you pick out classes. Although I’m betting she’s going to put you right into History of Magic and some stuff like that.”
Kyle made a face. “Sounds a bit dull.”
“And probably a class in poetry.”
“Poetry?”
“After all, you’re descended from Longfellow, right?”
“Huh. My cousin used to say I had a way with words.”
“Maybe you’ll be the next great English-language poet and word mage.” Now she looked up shyly. “They say no one’s ever perfected a love potion that really works, after ten centuries of trying, but that a love poem can be irresistible.”
Here her eyes looked like deep pools, like he’d never find what was at the bottom of their depths. He was hardly aware of having stopped walking, one hand catching hers as she faced him. “Let’s go back to your room,” he said.
Her smile was as knowing and alluring as the Mona Lisa’s. “You’re right. You know just what to say.”
They didn’t say anything as she led the way back to the dormitory, not holding Kyle’s hand this time, yet he felt as close as if she had, as if an invisible line were connecting them.
Jess didn’t speak again until she had closed the door behind them. Her room had two beds, from which Kyle supposed she had a roommate, but she latched the door behind them. He decided not to worry about it. There were other things grabbing his attention. Like her hand on his cheek. “Despite my name, I’m not very experienced,” she said, standing so close he could feel the front of her shirt brushing his.
“Name?” he asked, trying to remember where in the Torralva story there was anything about sex. Maybe he’d better study up.
“Never mind,” she said. “I really like you, Kyle. I do. I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”
He slid his arms around the small of her back, which pulled their hips together to create a center of heat between them. “Whatever you want to do is fine. I’m not very experienced either.” He held back from telling her that he’d in fact been considered a total loser in high school and that scoring a gorgeous, smart, funny, and kind girl like her would have been out of the question. There was being honest, and there was oversharing. “I mean, really.” You just met me. I, um, I wasn’t even sure we were going to go beyond the good night kiss, it being a first date and all...
He didn’t voice those thoughts either. Did he really have the power to say the right thing? He let out a slow breath and tried to imagine he did.
“Just tell me when I should stop,” he said, tilting her chin up so that he could kiss her.
“Okay,” she whispered, just before his lips touched hers.
* * * *
Kyle woke up in an unfamiliar bed, his face pressed against a wall that had been painted so many times it felt almost rubber-coated. It took him a while to remember—oh, Jess’s bed.
Looked like Alex’s prediction had come true after all.
The sheets were twisted all around him like he was some kind of Greek statuary, and Jess was nowhere to be seen. The bed was so narrow he was amazed they had fit in it, except that they had literally slept in each other’s arms.
He lay back, blinking against the sunlight coming in her window, wondering when her roommate was going to be back, and thinking about the night before.
She was so beautiful.
She had let him undress her, bit by bit, kissing newly bared skin, sometimes giggling, sometimes sighing, depending on whether the place uncovered was ticklish or not. Until yesterday, he would have described the whole experience as magical.
He dragged some clean clothes out of his bag and got out his toothbrush. On his return from the bathroom, he was unsurprised to find Alex lounging on the couch with a book balanced on his chest. Kyle waved to him.
“Good night, hey, Ace?” Alex said, sitting up to make room for Kyle to sit down if he wanted.
“Yeah, I guess so.” Kyle grinned as he realized he was blushing. “Not...not what I would have expected.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “She give you the talk about ritual purity?”
“Um, yeah,” Kyle said, wondering suddenly if Alex had dated Jess before, or if they were just close friends, or if all magical girls had this thing about how far they were willing to go? “I mean, we’d already said kind of, that we weren’t going all the way. But, yeah.” Jess had explained it wasn’t so much morality that turned her virginity into a prize as much as the amount of power it had potentially for certain kinds of ritual magic. His, too, she’d explained. “I guess it makes sense.” All those virgin sacrifices in stories, and virgins and unicorns, and...he hadn’t needed it explained twice. There had been plenty they could do that was new to him, after all, and they’d both had a very, very good time, at least as far as Kyle could tell. She didn’t seem the type to fake it. “I hadn’t expected to hook up with someone so fast, though. I, uh, I don’t really know if it was just for last night, or just until I find somewhere else to live, or what.”
Alex chuckled. “That sounds like Jess. She’ll tell you the meaning of the star you were born under instead of giving you directions to Star Market.”
“She’s...amazing.” Kyle blushed again as he realized how lovestruck he sounded.
Fortunately, Alex just agreed. “Yeah. So what are your plans for today? You’re meeting with Finch or something and then...?”
“I have no idea. I was supposed to fly back, but I guess that’s not happening. Unless she changes her mind after all and kicks me out...” Kyle found Alex staring at him with a thoughtful expression on his face. “What?”
“You know you signed the student register in blood, right?”
Kyle remembered the pinprick. “Oh, um, I guess I did.”
“That’s a kind of promise. And it’s not as easy as just kicking you out,” Alex said, as he leaned back and crossed his legs again, a sly smile coming over his face. “Or Morgana knows they would have gotten rid of me ten times over.”
“You? Why?”
“Because, as Ms. Finch has quaintly put it, my middle initial ought to be T for trouble. Dean Bell put it much less quaintly.” He shrugged.
“So you’re saying they can’t expel you?”
“They would have to do more than just expel me. They’d have to essentially kick me out of the magical world entirely. The PTBs can get pretty fanatical about secrecy. So you’d be looking at putting me under a geas never to speak a word about magic ever again. More likely, they’d make me forget it completely.”
Kyle stared wide-eyed. “Holy crap. Er, what are PTBs?”
“Powers That Be, my friend. Don’t worry, no one around here can understand half of what I say anyway.” He stretched and yawned. “So what time’s your meeting? I know Jess showed you around yesterday, but...there’s a lot more to see.”
Kyle got the feeling that what Alex would show him would probably be highly different from th
e “official” tour. “Four, at Peyntree Hall.” He glanced back toward Jess’s room.
“Today’s what, Friday? She’s at class until at least two. I’ll show you where we eat and stuff. Come on.”
Kyle grabbed his jacket and followed Alex out of Camella House. “Okay, you have the Sight, right? So, let’s see, Jess probably showed you already, that’s Gladius House there. Scipionis is right behind them where you can’t really see. And the Elwyn Library just past that...“ He pointed in the direction they were walking. ”Most of the houses at Harvard have their own dining halls, but Camella doesn’t...I’m honestly not sure why. So we eat at the others’. Which would you prefer? The snobs or the bookworms?”
Kyle thought for a second. “Isn’t there a fourth house?”
“Nummus. But it’s a hike and I’m hungry. The menu’s the same, only the company’s different.”
“Why would you want to eat with the snobs?”
Alex let another sly smile onto his face. “Because I’m a troublemaker.”
“Oh. Then, how about the bookworms?”
Alex laughed. “You’ll meet the snobs soon enough. If it really was you who rang the bell fourteen times, they’re going to be crazy to meet you.”
“Whatever,” Kyle said. His stomach growled loudly. “Food is food.”
They went past a large building built of gray stone with the shield and the word Veritas over the archway, then came to a very large, wooden-clapboarded house, sandwiched between the previous building and the next one, which looked rather more modern.
Alex led them up the steps to a brass doorknocker shaped like a lion. He rapped it twice and opened the door. Kyle glanced back at it as they entered, wondering what was special about the doorknocker, if anything.
But Alex did not explain. Just led him through a large sitting room lined with bookshelves except for right around the fireplace in one wall, and into an even larger dining room. Kyle guessed it would seat sixty or seventy students at once, though right now there were only maybe twenty seated and three or four milling around what looked like a large salad bar at one end. As they came deeper into the room, which was sunny from the tall windows all along one wall, Kyle could see there was a man in a white chef’s hat and jacket at a serving area in a niche to one side. Presumably there was a whole kitchen behind him. Beyond the salad bar was a station just like the ones at fast-food places for filling your own drinks.
