by Cecilia Tan
He looked up at the darkness outside the window. He needed to go soon. “All right, then, who should I get to show me how to conjure? I sure as hell am not asking Frost. Oh, wait, didn’t Marigold say she was good at it? Maybe I’ll ask her. Yeah, that’s a good idea.” He stood up and put his notebook into his bag. “See you tomorrow.”
The Scipionis dining hall was quieter than usual when he got there. Between students skipping the meal to study and those there who had books or notes in their hands, and the general atmosphere hanging over the place, Kyle felt almost like he hadn’t left Alex’s side.
Kate and Marigold came in just as he was toying with his dessert, trying to decide if he really wanted to eat it. He waved to them and they waved back so he was hopeful they’d come sit with him once they were done getting their food.
He wondered about the fact that they were always together. He hadn’t really seen anything at all to indicate they were anything but friends and roommates, had he? He tried to remember, but maybe he just hadn’t been paying attention. No, he was pretty sure they were just friends.
They did come to sit with him. “It’s so quiet in here,” he said, as they took seats across the table from each other.
“Is it not like this over at Gladius House?” Kate asked, as she dipped her bread into her soup.
“Well, everyone feels the pressure to do well, but we don’t turn the dining room into a library,” Kyle said. Gladius’s dining hall tended to be pretty sedate, with everyone adhering to manners, but that included not reading at the table and keeping up polite conversation.
Marigold chuckled. “It won’t last. As people’s exams end, it’ll get lively again. Well, except that it will start to empty out as people leave for break. Are you going home for break?”
“No, I got permission to stay here and work on some stuff. I’m still really behind on a lot of things I think I’ll need to have down before then.” All of which was true, though in Kyle’s mind he pictured the amulet he wanted to make.
“Oooh, what are you taking? Do we have any classes together?” Kate asked.
“Well, I got recommended to Master Lester’s Poetry and Prophecy class...”
“Awesome! I think I’m actually getting to TA that one!”
“Really? Cool. Then I’ve got a magical biology seminar. I’m in Principles of Applied Enchantment, and I’m going to take a higher-level poetry writing course.”
Marigold took a bite of her salad, then tried to answer, discovered she had too much in her mouth for that, and covered it with a snort. When she could speak again she went on. “I almost signed up for poetry, but Kate convinced me to take Bell’s ritual arts seminar with her.”
“He’s scary!” Kate protested. “I wasn’t going to do it alone.”
“You wouldn’t have been alone, silly. There’s twenty people in the class.”
“You know what I mean.”
Kyle listened to them bicker back and forth good-naturedly for a while. When it got quiet again, though, he put his hands on the table. “So which one of you wants to teach me to conjure?”
They looked back and forth between them. “You can’t conjure?” Kate blurted out.
Kyle tried not to look wounded. “I’ve never tried.”
“Really?” They looked at each other again. Kate said, “Wow. The second I heard it was possible I went back to my room and started trying it.”
Marigold leaned forward with interest. “I haven’t heard this story. What’s the first thing you conjured?”
“Money, what else?” Kate grinned. “I was about thirteen at the time. I conjured a five-dollar bill. And I immediately went out and spent it on comic books. Well, after a nap, that is. I never found out if the money disappeared later or what. It wasn’t until later I learned that conjured things can fade away again. I hope I didn’t get some cashier in big trouble.”
“Wow, you just got a five-dollar bill like that? I had to start with pennies and work my way up. And I had to start with one in my hand and make more of it. That is so much easier.” She gave Kyle a sly look, then took a five-grain roll off Kate’s tray, held it in her hand, said “Presto!” and there were two.
“Hey, make sure you give me back the real one!”
“Silly. I’m sure I did it right. If you eat it before it disappears you should be fine.” She handed one back, then turned to Kyle. “That one works best with bread and with fish, for some reason.”
“Because fish are less evolutionarily evolved than mammals,” Kate said.
“Evolutionarily evolved?” Marigold said with a snigger.
“You know what I mean.”
Kyle got up and came back with a slice of bread. He held it in his hand. “Okay, so what do I do?”
Marigold frowned slightly, a crease between her eyebrows. “Do you have an exam tomorrow? Because the first time can sometimes really wipe you out...”
“Oh. Um, yeah. Poetry Analysis,” Kyle said. “It’s an essay one, too, so I kind of have to be awake for it.”
“Then you really ought to wait.”
“Okay, I’ll wait. But what do I do?”
The two of them shared another look. This time Kate spoke. “You just kind of...make it happen.”
“Yeah,” Marigold agreed.
“I don’t have to say anything, or wave it around or what have you?”
Kate took a bite of her roll. “Well, you could. You could increase the power of the spell with a preparatory ritual, and maybe enhance the effect with alchemical boosting, and you might find a word of power that helps you tap your own energy. There are lots and lots of ways to gather your power. But the basic action is still the same. You still have to just...do it.”
Marigold sighed and got up from the table. When she came back, she had packed a bunch of things in a to-go box the staff had put out for the students who were taking their meals with them to their labs or to study more. “Here. Take this. Because I know the second you get back to your room, you’re going to try it. Just make sure you’ve set your alarm first, so you’re not late for your exam.”
“Oh, it’s not until two in the afternoon,” Kyle said.
Marigold gave him a look. “Like I said. Make sure you’ve set your alarm first.”
* * * *
Kyle went back to his room with the box of food and a head full of thoughts. After staring at the penny in the palm of his hand for a long time, then switching it to the other side and trying again until his eyes began to hurt because he wasn’t blinking, he gave up and wrote a poem.
Alchemists saw in ancient times
Lead and gold are nearly twins
But the secret they could not divine
Was in the heart, not in the mind
There is a lock deep inside
And a key too small to be seen
But lead to gold I will provide
And like to love, your heart will glean.
He crossed out “provide” and “glean” ten times over and wrote them in again each time as he failed to find better substitutions.
Teen love poetry is always awful, he reminded himself. Just get it out of your system and forget it.
But he didn’t forget it. The next day, during the poetry analysis exam he kept coming back to it in his head. This idea of the alchemy of emotions, and there being a fine line between like and love, and loving as friends and loving as something more. And the fact that he couldn’t seem to achieve either transformation just with the power of his will.
He was pretty sure his essays came out okay even though his mind was only half on them, and he was still in a bit of a fog, thinking about the poem and the ideas he was trying to untangle with it, when he nearly ran into Jess on the steps of Robinson Hall.
“Jess, what are you doing here?”
“I figured I’d meet you and we could go grab dinner together,” she said.
“Sure.” They began walking toward Scipionis House.
“Actually,” she began, after they had gone a few st
eps, “I was thinking maybe we ought to treat ourselves to dinner out somewhere.”
“Oh?” He knew that meant a date. With Jess, “dinner out” always meant “dessert,” too. “Is Monica gone already?”
“She’s actually staying through the break, but she’s out tonight,” Jess said, but her voice was more somber and serious than he would have expected for such an announcement, but he understood when she went on. “Kyle...I...I’ve decided to leave tomorrow instead of waiting until Sunday.”
“Oh.” He was staying through the holiday, but she was going home. “Tomorrow is...tomorrow. Soon, I mean.”
“I know. I’m sorry. My aunt Maria’s only coming for a few days, and my mother needs help getting ready for everyone, and...I changed my ticket already.” She bit her lip. “Are you mad?”
Kyle stopped in his tracks. He put his hands on her shoulders gently. “I’m not angry.”
“But you’re upset.”
“Well, a little. I’m going to be counting the days until you come back as it is.”
Her expression softened. “I know.” She pulled him close, still looking at him. “It’s just your luck they changed the schedule, too. The break’s longer now.”
“I know. I’ve been hearing no end of whining from the Scips about how they liked having the whole break to study for exams,” he said, mustering a small smile. “Personally, I’m glad to get them over with. So where do you want to go?”
“I know I’m going to be eating Spanish food for the next month at home, but...we haven’t been back to that place since our first date.” Her smile made her face glow a little, and Kyle’s heart skipped a beat.
“Okay. You order, though.”
“Of course.” She held his hand all the way to the restaurant and Kyle decided that the feeling of being in love itself, irrespective of reason or direction, was cause for celebration. No wonder there were so many poems about it.
* * * *
By the time they got back to Jess’s room, Kyle’s head was spinning. Jess had made friends with the owner and the next thing he knew, they were being treated to some sangria. Kyle had never had wine, and this was wine and fruit and who knew what else, and it was very hard to drink it slowly. Jess didn’t seem that affected. She said her family drank wine at home all the time. She’d been allowed to have a tiny glass of it, watered down, since she was about ten, and regular strength in small amounts since she was a teenager.
Or maybe she was affected. She hung on his arm as they walked across the campus, and although she was always affectionate, she seemed even more so. Or maybe that was how the wine affected Kyle. Everything seemed softer and more touchable and warmer.
She lit candles all around the room, filling the air with some exotic flower’s scent, and turned on some music with a sinuous sound, violins and sitars and drums. Then he found himself sitting on the bed, watching her undress to the music, peeling her clothes off layer by layer in the most enticing manner she could, looking up at him with her dark penetrating stare, then glancing coquettishly away.
When she was wearing nothing but her earrings and a bracelet, she pushed him back on the bed and started undressing him with great glee, like he was a gift on Christmas morning. She seemed delighted to find his nipples, bending down to lick and suck them, then even more so to discover his cock, already almost completely hard in anticipation.
She crawled over him, pressing a kiss to his mouth, then turning around to put his head between her knees and take his length into her mouth.
This was something new, but the scent of her mixing with the orchid or jasmine or whatever the candle aroma was made his mouth water, and he fitted his hands in the small of her back, pulling her down so his tongue could reach her clit. He’d licked her to orgasm before, but never while she was sucking him at the same time. He suckled at the sensitive nub, flicking it with his tongue and making her jump, then switching to long, soft strokes.
He lost himself in the vertigo of wine and music and scent and her body, the light flickering like a movie seen in a dream. Every time he opened his eyes, her skin looked made of bronze, the globes of her ass perfect and unblemished. Time ceased to pass, until at some point he decided it would be better if she came first. Jess could come two or three times as often as he could; if he spilled now it’d be a half hour before he could go again. He began making a more concerted effort to push her arousal higher, flicking his tongue more directly where it counted, then slipping one finger into her to tickle her G-spot the way she’d taught him to.
She came almost instantly when he did that, the vibrations from her moans going straight through his cock, as she kept it in her mouth. She finally pulled it free when her orgasm had subsided and she caught her breath. She turned around then, placing kisses up his torso until she reached his mouth, still slick with her juices.
“I want to do something special for you,” she said softly, “since it’s the last time you’ll see me for a while. I’m really going to miss you, you know. What would you like?”
He looked up at her, tendrils of her hair curling down toward him. “I like everything, you know that,” he said with a chuckle.
“But don’t you have a favorite thing? Of all the things we do? Or something new you want to try?”
His cock throbbed and he swallowed hard. “The only new thing I want to try is something we said we wouldn’t,” he said, his voice hoarse with suppressed emotion. He had a strong suspicion that when he did try it, it would quickly become his “favorite” thing. “Although there are probably things to try I don’t even know about.”
She grinned at him. “Are you so tempted that I shouldn’t even let you come between my legs?”
“Oh fuck, Jess...” He shuddered as she reached down and stroked his cock. “It’s...it gets harder and harder not to.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”
The next thing he knew, she was straddling his legs and rubbing her clit and slippery lips up and down his cock. He groaned and gripped her bedcovers tight, to keep himself from reaching down to her hips and trying to get inside her.
She shuddered, moving her hips faster, jerking them. “Mm. Think...think I’m going to come, rubbing on your cock like this...” And suddenly she cried out, rubbing not just there, but her cheek against his cheek, her breasts against his chest, a sudden frenzy of friction as she came again. “Oh, Kyle...”
Now he did slip his hands around her back, over her buttocks, to the back of her thighs. “I want to come with you rubbing me, then,” he said. “Just like you are.”
“Mmmm. I might have another one before you get there, unless you’re close...”
“Please do,” he said with a feral grin. “The more, the merrier.”
She began to move again, but this time he urged her into a rhythm that suited him just a little better. Again he sank into sensation and music and scent, losing himself, but never so much that he forgot the rules. When orgasm seized her again, he crushed her tight against him and thrust up against her, pushing her toward his feet a little so that now, as he snapped his hips upward in that desperate last kick for the finish line, the head of his cock slid along her stomach. A burst of hot wetness made the way suddenly slicker as he came, and he kept her tight against him as he milked more spurts out with more thrusts.
He wasn’t aware of having fallen asleep or blacking out until he felt a cool cloth on his forehead, and then her lips kissing gently across his brow.
“Wow,” he said.
“I am really, really going to miss you,” she said again, as she tossed the cloth aside and snuggled down next to him.
“Yeah,” Kyle said, wondering how long he had been out. Long enough for her to clean him up and pull up the blanket, anyway. “I don’t know how I’m going to get through it. I’ve never...had anyone I was going to miss this much.”
“No one?”
He thought about that a moment. “I never knew my parents, so I never missed them. There was, well, there was Jove,
I guess.”
“You haven’t mentioned that name before,” she said, as she rested her arm across his chest.
“He was a cousin of mine, but a much older cousin, like...I’m not even sure how old he was. In his twenties, I guess, when I was ten, eleven, twelve...He came to live with me and my great-aunt for like two years. The two of them fought all the time. It wasn’t a very good situation for him. He up and left suddenly...” He broke off speaking and shrugged.
Jess lifted her head. “You’ve got tears in your eyes.”
It was such an old hurt, Kyle didn’t even realize he could still feel it, until now. “He never even said goodbye. Just...ran off. I kept...I kept thinking he would show up again, or he’d write me or send a postcard from wherever he was...” He drew a long slow breath, trying to keep the tears from falling.
“It’s okay,” Jess said gently, planting a line of soft kisses along his jaw. “Sex makes you vulnerable, you know. It opens your heart in all ways.”
He swallowed. “I don’t want to cry over someone I don’t care about anymore,” he said, letting the breath out as slowly as he’d taken it in.
“Okay,” she said, and kissed his eyelids, one and the other. A few stray tears wet his lashes. “I promise I’ll be back.”
“Okay,” he said, and let her kiss him and stroke his hair softly until he fell asleep.
* * * *
Christmas morning, he went to visit Alex. He hung a small stocking on the window sill for him and told him he’d have to wake up to get what was in it, and who on Earth could sleep on Christmas morning anyway? But Alex didn’t stir.
“Well, it was worth a try, I guess.” Kyle sat down next to him. “You missed how it started snowing last night when I was on my way back from dinner at Ms. Finch’s. Yeah, she took pity on me, seeing as I’m one of the only ones actually staying around. It was the weirdest dinner ever. Her and me, and the first-floor tutor—what’s his name, Hansen? I can’t remember why he’s staying—and her next-door neighbor, and Professor Bengle, and Master Lester and his daughter and her husband whose names I’ve forgotten.”
