by Cecilia Tan
Michael jumped to his feet. “Tim!”
But Frost screamed and clutched onto Dean Bell, hiding his face in his robes. Brandish moved to block the siren from moving toward them.
Kyle kissed Jess, who had been watching it all upside down. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she answered, almost shyly. But she pulled him down for another kiss and his soft cock slipped free. “Looks like we did it.”
“Yeah.” They kissed one last time, then set about disentangling their limbs and sitting up.
It wasn’t until she stepped out of the circle that her absence hit him like a wave of cold water. Candlin had burst into tears again, and he suspected Frost was crying in Bell’s arms, too. Was that why his own cheeks felt so wet?
Then someone was there with a blanket, wrapping it around his shoulders. Marjory. She held him and stroked his hair and said “I know,” and even though he had no idea what it was she knew, it felt good to hear it.
When he looked up again, after losing track of time, he and Marjory were alone in the room, still sitting in the circle surrounded by candles that were no longer lit. His eyes burned from leftover incense and crying. “There wasn’t time to warn you how...ripped apart you might feel,” she said in a quiet voice. “I mean, even without all the stuff about her and the other guy...”
Kyle shook his head. “I knew. She told me.” He could almost hear Jess saying, like she had that one time, Sex makes you vulnerable, you know. It opens your heart, in all ways.
And Kyle had answered with a lie. I don’t want to cry over someone I don’t care about anymore, he’d said. But if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have been crying. And the same was true now.
“The rest of them are raiding the kitchen at Gladius House,” Marjory said, then, reaching for her glasses and putting them back on. “Do you want to join them?”
He sat back and looked around at the ruined carpet and sighed. “Honestly, I think I’d rather just get a pizza and sleep for a week.”
She smiled at him. “Can you make it to Camella House? Or should I get it delivered here?”
He smiled back. Someone had piled all his party clothes near them, as well as a bathrobe. He pulled on the robe. “Camella House isn’t far. Let’s go.”
April
“What I don’t understand is how he makes it taste the way you think flowers should taste, except that they don’t.” Kyle stared at the vial in his hand as the wind blew his hair into his eyes. He hadn’t had it cut all year, not since last September right before he’d arrived at Harvard. At Veritas.
“What’s to understand? That’s magic,” Alex answered, getting up from the camp chair he’d been sitting in and walking to the edge of the roof to look down. “I’m telling you, Randall is going to be one of the most gifted alchemists of our generation.”
“I believe that,” Kyle said, taking the last sip from the vial and looking around for the flowers he was sure must be strewn all around him. Whatever the stuff was—Randall hadn’t named it yet—it was also very relaxing. Tonight was a good night to relax. Midterms were over, finals were still more than a month away, and tonight the wind was actually warm enough that they could laze around on the roof without needing Red Heat.
Alex held up his empty vial, then snapped his fingers to make it vanish.
Kyle threw his at him. “That’s unfair. Even if it’s just sleight of hand, it’s still unfair.”
Alex grinned. “You need to learn some sleight of hand. It’s useful.”
“Yeah, well.” Kyle was learning there were surprising ways the magical world stayed hidden. One of the most pervasive was in getting exposed as frauds. Which made perfect sense, once Kyle thought about it, but he wouldn’t have come up with it himself.
“So, you have a date for May Day yet?” Alex asked.
Kyle shrugged. “I’m sure Marjory would say yes if I asked.” He’d woken up in her bed the night after the Masque, with fragmentary memories of getting each other off during the night. But she didn’t push, and neither did he.
He’d needed some time to himself after that. The story was all over the school, of course, about how he’d caught Candlin and exposed him as the siren, but so was the story about Jess and Nichols. Kyle found his popularity had never been higher, and at the same time his interest in finding a relationship had never been lower.
At least exactly how Frost had been restored was still a secret.
“Then again, she’s probably got someone lined up already,” Kyle added. “I suppose you and Monica are all set?”
“Yeah, should be. Unless she’s pissed at me that week. I guess I’ll tread carefully.” Alex came and sat down again, took a vial out of the box between their chairs, and thumbed the cork out. “Mm. This one smells like gardenia.”
“I don’t even know what a gardenia is,” Kyle said.
“The Alchemy department does have botany classes, too, you know.”
“Yeah.” Kyle took another vial for himself. “Hmm. Roses. That one I know. I guess I don’t have much time to figure out what I’m taking next semester.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Kyle sipped from the vial. Rose petals, everywhere. Except they weren’t. “More poetry. I’m going to continue with the prophecy commentary stuff, too. But...I’ve been thinking about going into a seminar in Esoteric Studies.”
Alex grinned. “That should be fun.”
“For a while, anyway.” Kyle looked across the campus rooftops, listening to the wind blowing through the newly sprouted leaves on the trees. “Seems like everyone I know who actually specializes in Esoteric Arts is lonely, though.”
“Lonely, or just single?” Alex asked, looking at him more seriously.
“Hmm. Brandish is lonely. I’m sure of it. What happened between her and Bell, anyway?”
Alex downed the rest of his vial and then tossed it from the roof into the dark. “I don’t know exactly, but when they were involved, she was male. I think maybe she started out biologically female, then went male for a while, but then went back? There are rumors galore of course, but near as I can tell, it had something to do with that.”
“And not with the fact that he’s a sanctimonious prick?”
Alex snorted, then coughed. “Oh, just maybe.”
Kyle had gone to Bell’s office the day after the Masque, after getting cleaned up and eating some more. The carpet had still been a wreck but otherwise there was no evidence of what had gone on the night before. He wasn’t sure why he’d felt the need to do what he did, but he went to speak on Candlin’s behalf, and Alex’s, and to just basically make sure that neither of them was getting expelled or the Geas or any of that. He’d gone there to offer to speak to all the Judges, if necessary, but Bell had been the only one he’d talked to.
It hadn’t been an easy conversation. But in the end Candlin was put on academic leave and sent to work with some Esoteric Arts specialists who could help him rein in his sirenic side. Frost was on leave, too, as he was going to need another month to recover at least, and ended up withdrawing for the semester. Alex was taking a light course load and had been given until next fall to work on his junior project.
To this day, Kyle wasn’t completely sure what had convinced Bell to go along with his demands. Only that he’d said all the right things.
He tossed his vial over the edge. “Maybe for May Day I’ll just come up here by myself and wank until it rains...”
“You wouldn’t!“ Alex looked horrified for a moment, then laughed when he saw Kyle was pulling his leg.
“Besides, I’m sure anyone with weather aptitude is going to be trying to make it warm, sunny, and free of mosquitoes.”
Kyle was pretty sure the bit about the mosquitoes was a joke. They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the cheese wheel of the moon emerge from behind the steeple of Memorial Church.
Alex stood. “Believe it or not, I think I’m going to go write a paper.”
Kyle got to his feet, too. �
��Maybe I’ll write a poem.”
They folded their chairs and were just headed to the stairs when Alex stopped dead and Kyle walked into him.
“What?”
Alex pointed.
Michael Candlin was standing there in front of the stairwell door, in black robes that covered his hands and feet.
“Kyle Wadsworth,” he said.
“Michael? Are you all right?”
He spoke as if he hadn’t heard what Kyle had said. “I wanted to say thank you. I know it was you who got Bell to go easy on me. Things are...much better now. They’re letting me register for next semester.”
“That’s good,” Kyle said. “Good.”
“But I wanted to thank you by doing something for you. There isn’t much I can do, really, but sirens are Seers, too, you know. So this prophecy is for you.”
“Michael, you really don’t have to...”
But his eyes had fallen closed and he swayed. Kyle stepped forward to steady him but Alex held him back.
They waited.
When Candlin’s eyes re-opened, they were unseeing. He spoke, as if reciting:
And the one will have the power of the word
and the other the power of the touch
But though one speak and the other move
Until they meet neither will know their true strength
There is one moon and one sun, and the sky holds both
In the palm of God’s hand, one diamond, one pearl
Though one eclipse the other, each shines with inner beauty
The sky is not whole without both
The lovers run as the open sky boils with thunder
In the cities they dash between buildings and in
the country flee the pastures for the safety of the woods
Into the darkness they must go to escape the scouring
Take shelter in the trees, run the narrow channel,
A storm is coming.
Kyle’s blood had run cold at first. The words weren’t exactly the same as what he knew, but they were close enough to the Avestan First Cycle. Then he stared in plain shock as Candlin disappeared.
“What happened?”
Alex let out a breath. “He wasn’t really here, I think. He had all the sirenic powers, after all, including mind reading, projecting visions...”
“So he was just in our heads? But you saw him, too.“
Alex nodded. “So you recognized what he was saying?”
Kyle pulled open the door to the stairs. “Yeah, except for that bit at the end. That was new.”
“It’s not...normal, for one oracle to quote from another.” Alex followed him into the stairwell. “You know that, right? If that was a real prophecy, though, it could mean that the events prophesied in the original one might be coming to pass finally. Which prophecy was that from?”
Kyle stopped and looked back up at him. “You mean you don’t know?”
“What, is it the Avestan Cycle or something?”
“Yes, you nut! It’s only the most famous prophecy in magical history.” Kyle laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Alex held out his hands.
“Just, I finally knew something you didn’t! It’s a banner day!” Kyle jumped down the last few steps to the landing, gleeful.
“Okay, okay! I never got around to reading it. Big deal, I know the gist...”
Kyle was still laughing when they got downstairs and parted ways. He walked back to Gladius House feeling mellow and content. He was glad Michael was doing okay, and Randall’s concoctions were still soothing him from the inside. He sat by his open window, writing down what Michael’s apparition had said, but not feeling particularly worried by it. Prophecies always had multiple interpretations, after all.
He looked up at the sudden spatter of raindrops on the window. New England weather, as everyone kept telling him over and over, was more unpredictable and full of sudden changes than anywhere in the world. Maybe that’s what Michael meant when he said “A storm is coming”—Get off the roof, you dummies?
Kyle laughed. A literal interpretation! How novel! He would have to tell Master Lester about it in class tomorrow. For now, he just shut the window and lay back on his bed, lulled to sleep by the sound of the rain on the roof.
THE END
TO BE CONTINUED…
in Magic University: Book Two
Afterword
Every romance is a “labor of love” of sorts, but it’s no secret here that in Magic University I am riffing on some of the books I have loved most, particularly J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Potter fans will have noticed many references, and sharp-eyed readers will find bits of homage buried in here to many of my other favorite fantasy writers, like Steven Brust, Roger Zelazny, Anne Bishop, Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Jacqueline Carey to name just a few. These writers are the poets of my soul.
My goal here was to write something that would satisfy all the cravings, though, that the Harry Potter books brought out in me. Although I love them dearly, the books do have certain deficiencies. By necessity, books written for a young audience will be lacking in sex, for example. Grown-up readers wanted more exploration of questions of good and evil. I would have loved to have known there were gay characters in the Potterverse without having to either read between the lines to figure it out, or to read the author’s interviews post-publication.
Fortunately for me, J. K. Rowling didn’t invent magic or spells or wands, or even the concept of a magical school (check out Wizard’s Hall by Jane Yolen for one notable example that predates Harry by several years). So this is my magical world for grown-ups, where the magic doesn’t come quite as easily as it does in the Potterverse. Harry Potter is hardly the first protagonist whose mastery of magic was a metaphor for his coming of age (think A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin), nor is he the first main character to suddenly discover his magical heritage or connection to the magical world after growing up an orphan--Cinderella comes to mind, among other fairy tale protagonists, and so does Frodo Baggins, along with many modern incarnations of the orphan hero or heroine in modern fantasy. (Even Shakespeare used the archetype in A Winter’s Tale, in which the princess Perdita is raised by shepherds after her mother--named Hermione--is imprisoned by the king.) Indeed, one of the reasons the Harry Potter books resonate so strongly is that they utilize many of the archetypes and ideas embodied in the ancient stories and recent fantasy antecedents, and I’ve done the same.
The Potter books also sometimes make up their magic from whole cloth, and sometimes draw on real “magical” history. For example, Nicholas Flamel, who Rowling uses as a background character, was an actual historical figure purported to have been the alchemist who created the Philosopher’s Stone. I do the same, sometimes inventing and sometimes supposing that before magical scholarship and mundane scholarship were separated, mundane historians knew just as much about famous wizards and witches as they did about kings and politicians. (Check my blog at Ravenous Romance’s web site for some fascinating info on what I dug up about Jess’s ancestor, Harvard history, Tarot symbolism, and more. Harvard really does divide its students into different Houses!)
There, I think, the resemblance ends. If Rowling’s work ultimately was about the redemptive power of a mother’s love for her children (Harry’s mother saves him as an infant, Draco’s mother’s concern over her son causes her to aid Harry’s cause, etc...), mine here is about the power of romantic love and the magic of love and sex entwined. My characters are entirely my own (thank goodness Kyle doesn’t have the anger management problems or the jealousy that Harry does), and my overarching plot is less about Good versus Evil than about... well, actually, I can’t tell you that without potentially ruining the surprises yet to come. So I’ll stay mum. I do hope you had a wonderful time visiting my hidden magical garden here, and that you’ll come visit again for books two, three, and four! Kyle still has a lot to learn about magic, and about love, and I hope you’ll enjoy each step on his journey.
Cecilia Tan
Cambridge, Mass.
