Even Drakewell and Delair joined the teachers for the occasion, so the teachers’ table looked far more crowded than usual. For once, Drakewell’s sunken eyes were fixed on his meal rather than scanning the room for students to punish.
“It’s just like Christmas always was,” Rusty said, beaming around the circle. “I’m an only child, but I’ve got tons and tons of cousins. We’d all get together for Christmas at my grandma’s place, and all the kids would eat around one big table like this.”
“My parents are Jewish,” Trey said, “so I’ve never celebrated Christmas before.”
Eli snorted. “I’d forgotten about that,” he said. “Why didn’t you mention it? The teachers would’ve done something different for you, I bet.”
Trey shook his head. “I don’t care. Either way, it’s just pretending. We haven’t got much use for prayers here, have we?”
They returned to the Subroom after dinner, cheerful and drowsy, and Tristan and Rusty helped Leila carry down two heaping plates of cookies and eggnog. Everyone brought their blankets and pillows over to the floor by the fire, where they sat close together with their backs against the couch and chairs.
“We should’ve gotten stockings,” Hayley said, her wide eyes reflecting the firelight.
Rusty snorted. “You think Santa’s gonna dig through a hundred feet of rock to get to our fireplace?”
It was Leila’s turn to laugh. “How old are you, again, Rusty?” She reached for a gingerbread snowman and bit off its head.
Turning, she lifted her chipped glass of eggnog and said, “Let’s have a toast to Evvie.”
Surprised, Tristan licked fudge from his thumb and reached for his own glass.
Leila continued, “Whatever your motives for showing us this room, we’ll always be grateful for it. This is more of a home than most of us have known in a long time.”
“Hear, hear,” Rusty said, clinking his glass with Leila’s.
Evvie buried her face in her knees—her cheeks had gone bright red.
At last, when the cookies had been reduced to crumbs, everyone began stumbling to bed. Tristan drew the covers over his head and mumbled, “Merry Christmas, guys.” He wasn’t sure anyone heard.
In the morning, Tristan woke to excited voices.
“C’mon, guys, we’ve got presents!” Rusty called across the room. He, Eli, Trey, and Hayley were clustered around the stout Christmas tree, digging through a pile of boxes.
“Did you have to wake us up?” Leila grumbled, rolling out of bed and hugging her blanket to her shoulders.
Tristan rubbed his eyes and smoothed his hair into place. “Is there anything from our families?”
“Nah, it’s just from teachers and kids,” Rusty said. “They’d never let people send stuff here.”
“I thought the teachers couldn’t get down here,” Eli said furiously. “What happened to the Prasidimum keeping people out?”
“Are they going to kill us?” Hayley asked shrilly.
“Calm down,” Leila snapped. “Quinsley had me drag most of this stuff down here. We’re still perfectly safe.”
Once everyone had gathered around the tree, Rusty passed out presents. Everyone got a tin filled with chocolates and cookies from Leila, though Tristan’s and Rusty’s were rather larger than the others. From Rusty, Tristan got an odd lamp that looked somewhat like a flashlight; Amber gave him a glowing cube of Delairium that she’d probably shaped with magic. Cailyn had given each of them a decoration for the room, made from bits of nature—wreaths of braided branches, bouquets and framed pictures made from dried flowers, and polished wood bowls.
“Did you make all of these?” Evvie asked, holding up her new vase.
Cailyn nodded happily. “Gracewright helped, though.”
“Damn,” Eli said, impressed.
As he unwrapped present after present, Tristan began wishing he’d given something in return; he hadn’t even wrapped gifts for Leila and Rusty. There were even a few nice gifts from the teachers mixed in with the rest: knitted scarves and hats from Gracewright, a set of plates and silverware from Quinsley, and new textbooks from Alldusk.
“This is dumb,” Eli said, dropping his book by the fire. “If Alldusk wanted to give us more homework, he could’ve waited another bloody week.”
“They don’t look like textbooks,” Leila said, opening her book to the title page. Most of the books were bound in ancient black leather; hers was larger than the others, and blue rather than black. “Hey, this is neat!” she said. “Listen—‘Simple Spells, Delicious Dishes—A Magical Cookbook’!” She laughed and began flipping through the pages. “Now I just need to learn how to use magic.”
“Nothing like a good cookbook for motivation,” Tristan said, grinning. He looked down at his own book, which was titled A Beginner’s Guide to Magical Theory: The Complete Compendium.
“Now we really do have a library,” Leila said happily. “This is excellent!”
When Rusty tossed the final present to Leila, she pried open the lid and made a noise of disgust.
“What’s wrong?” Tristan asked.
Wordlessly she held up the contents of the small box. It was the long chunk of her black hair that Zeke had cut off, knotted around one of Amber’s star-spangled pinecones.
“Who’s it from?” Rusty asked, picking up the lid.
“Zeke, obviously,” Leila snapped, “unless someone stole this back.” She glared at Tristan. When no one said anything, she flung the pinecone and the hair into the fire, where they sparked and vanished from sight.
Glowering, Leila followed Tristan and the others up to breakfast, all of them still in their pajamas. In the ballroom, they found another pile of gifts under the enormous tree. Each student received a bundle of new clothes from Merridy and Brikkens, all varied and fitted correctly, unlike their plain uniforms. The students from the Subroom also received a great assortment of furnishings—rugs and quilts, giant pillows and cushions, and a pair of little tables.
At last everything had been opened and Quinsley came around with breakfast.
“Thanks for the dishes,” Rusty told Quinsley. “They’re great!”
Quinsley winked at him.
Leila kept glancing over at Zeke’s table as she ate. “I just want to hit Zeke,” she said, cutting into her pancake so furiously that the table shook.
“Aw, where’s your Christmas spirit?” Rusty teased.
Tristan leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “I think Zeke’s gang should be included when we decide what to do about the teachers,” he said in a low voice. “So don’t pick a fight with Zeke, at least until break is over, okay?”
Leila rolled her eyes. “Good luck getting the others to agree to that.”
It wasn’t long before Leila got a chance to take her anger out on Zeke. After the students from the Subroom carried down their new clothes and furnishings, they pulled on their new hats and mittens, intending to enjoy the fresh layer of snow. Someone must have told Zeke’s gang what they were planning, because as soon as Tristan and Leila reached the doorway leading out of the Lair, they were bombarded with snowballs.
“Ha!” Leila yelled. She ducked sideways and scooped up a fistful of snow. Tristan threw his arms up over his face and ran for cover, dodging behind a tree.
The new snow was wet and heavy, and Tristan’s boots sank knee-deep in the drifts as he packed snowballs. Once his arms were full of snow, he dashed away from the tree and began hurling snowballs at Zeke’s friends. He aimed at grim, hulking Ryan Riggs but missed; his next snowball walloped Damian on the back of the head.
“Damn you!” Damian shouted. Dropping the snowball he’d been shaping, Damian threw a long, crooked icicle at Tristan, who ran for cover.
From the shelter of the forest, Tristan noticed Amber watching him from a distance, hovering like a shadow between two dark pines.
“Come join us,” Tristan called, though he knew Amber would do nothing of the sort.
To his surprise, Amber call
ed back, “You and the others are always fighting. You should come for a walk with me instead.”
Shrugging, Tristan brushed snow from his gloves and tramped through the snow to where she stood. “It’s probably a good thing you dragged me away from that,” he said. “Leila and Zeke are going to murder each other.”
Amber blinked at him. Then she turned and began walking away from the school, stepping carefully so that her feet didn’t break though the surface of the snow. Tristan tried to do the same, but his feet kept sinking in—the snow’s crust was brittle and thin.
Finally he gave up and asked, “Is that a spell, what you’re doing?”
Slowing, Amber let her feet sink through the snow. “Not a spell, precisely,” she said. “I am using magic, though.”
“But you’re not using a marble, are you?” Tristan said, more urgent now. “Delair said that skilled magicians can use magic straight from their own body’s energy. Is that what you’re doing?”
Amber shook her head. “You can only draw a small portion of energy from yourself without becoming exhausted,” she said. “All things have an aura, though. With enough awareness and deliberate control, you can channel magic directly from your surroundings.”
This surprised Tristan. “Why haven’t the teachers told us that? The marbles take so much time to collect.”
“I think they’ve forgotten how.” Amber turned and studied Tristan, head cocked sideways. “Or perhaps they haven’t yet discovered it.”
Tristan was taken aback. “Who are you?” he asked.
This time Amber did not respond. He was afraid he’d upset her.
Hurriedly Tristan said, “Why are we the only ones who can use magic? I mean, the others can barely see auras.”
“We know how to control our thoughts,” Amber said. “I told you before that your aura is brighter than most people’s.” She reached out a hand to touch Tristan’s cheek and stopped short. “It’s because you have closer contact with magic.”
“Yes, but why?”
Biting her lip, Amber ran her hand along the drooping needles of a pine bough. “We know how to shut out what we don’t want to think about,” she said. “We have learned to create barriers around our minds.” She plucked a needle and twisted it between her fingers, no longer meeting Tristan’s eyes. “You want to forget something. Your thoughts are controlled because of what you fear.”
She had to be right. “Magic itself isn’t evil, is it?” Tristan said. “It’s just whatever the teachers are using it for that’s wrong.”
Amber was silent. She knelt in the snow and scooped up a handful of powder in her pale fingers. For a moment she let the snow rest there—then, in a heartbeat, it all melted and ran through her fingers. More magic, beautiful and utterly confusing.
Chapter 16: Intralocation
Back in the Subroom, Leila was nursing a bruised cheek and Rusty held a handkerchief to a cut on his forehead.
“Where did you go?” Leila demanded when she saw Tristan. “We didn’t stand a chance without you!”
“Good to know I’m valued around here,” he said with a wry grin. Moving closer to Leila and Rusty, he muttered, “I was talking to Amber. She really understands magic—when we decide what to do about the teachers, we should listen to her.”
Rusty folded his bloodied handkerchief in half and pressed it back to his forehead. “We should do that soon, shouldn’t we?”
Pursing her lips, Leila nodded. “I really don’t want to bring it up again, but I think we should decide what to do before classes start.”
They got their chance to talk with Zeke’s gang on New Year’s Eve. It had snowed again overnight, but Gracewright had trampled down a large circle in the meadow and built a roaring bonfire in the center.
“I have marshmallows and chocolate, if you kids want to make s’mores,” she said as the students traipsed up from the Lair. “Happy New Year!” She dropped a huge box beside the fire and trudged back to her greenhouse.
“This is dumb,” Damian said brusquely. “It’s too cold to stay out here.” He turned back toward the stairs.
“Roast us some marshmallows, Cookie,” Zeke taunted Leila, who was already on her knees beside the box of ingredients.
Leila jumped to her feet. “Wait. We need to talk to you guys.” Her eyes narrowed. “All of you.”
Zeke stopped. Damian put a hand on Cassidy’s shoulder and stomped back to the fire. “What the hell are you on about?”
Gloved hands on her hips, Leila stalked to the edge of the trampled circle. “Evvie has something she wants to tell you.”
When Evvie backed away, her nostrils flaring, Leila sighed.
“Actually, we all have something to tell you. But first, you have to swear you won’t say anything to the teachers.
Rusty knelt by the open box and began shoving marshmallows onto skewers. Hayley and Cailyn took the rods when he passed them around, though they didn’t seem interested in the marshmallows.
“Why would we promise anything stupid like that?” Zeke asked. His eyes glittered with interest, though, and his friends were following him back to the fire. “Drakewell’s my good buddy—I tell him everything.” He smirked.
Damian grabbed a skewer from Trey and thrust the end into the flames. “All right, Evangeline, let’s hear it.”
Evvie flinched and dropped her scarf. Bending down to retrieve it, she said, “I can’t—I mean, I don’t know—”
With a sigh, Tristan stepped forward and took over. “The teachers are doing something we don’t know about, right?” he said. “They brought us to this place because they want to use us for something special; we’re all criminals with nowhere else to go, and they chose us because of that.”
When Zeke opened his mouth to interrupt, Leila threw a snowball at his shoulder.
“Last week, just before Christmas, Evvie found out something about what the teachers are doing. Apparently their work is getting people killed.” He swallowed and lowered his voice. “We don’t know whether the teachers are going out and—and murdering people, or if it’s sort of a side-effect of their magic. But either way, we thought you guys should know.”
“Why couldn’t Evangeline have told us herself?” Cassidy asked haughtily.
Tristan glared at her until she turned away. Even Zeke stopped smirking as he bent his head to confer with Damian and Cassidy.
“If you’re right,” Zeke said at last, “we should get the hell out of here.” There was no trace of a smile on his handsome face; the absence was startling.
“We can’t,” Leila said seriously. “We’ve already tried that.”
Slipping his still-frozen hands into his pockets, Tristan stepped forward again. “What we need to decide first is whether we’re going to do anything,” he said. “Whatever we try to do, it will be really difficult, seeing as we’re completely isolated here.”
At that, several people started talking simultaneously—when Eli said loudly that Tristan was an idiot to suggest that they even had a choice, Leila and Zeke protested. Damian started shouting over Eli, until Tristan couldn’t make out what any of them were actually saying.
Eventually the yelling subsided, and they spent most of the next hour in a heated conversation. Amber, Trey, and Finley moved over towards the fire, looking as though they wanted to stay out of the argument, while Rusty kept roasting marshmallows and passing them around. The others accepted them gladly.
“Okay,” Tristan said finally, loud enough that everyone turned. “The most important thing now is making sure we’re not completely helpless. We all saw how upset the teachers got when the vandal attacked the school, so we know they’re already worried. If we did the same sort of thing—if we started sabotaging a bit of whatever big-scale magic they’re doing—we’d be the ones controlling them.”
Leila was nodding, though Rusty looked a bit scared.
“Also, we should start collecting our own marbles,” Tristan said. “I know most of us can’t use them, but someday they might
be useful. If we get enough magic of our own, the teachers will have to listen to us.”
“So,” Damian said forcefully, “you’re still pretending you didn’t actually wreck Alldusk’s classroom?”
Tristan sighed. “I was the one who burned the Lair’s entrance,” he said reluctantly, “but it was an accident. I honestly had nothing to do with the other attack.”
Damian spat onto the snow. “Sure.”
By that point, Cailyn’s hands had turned bright purple, so they broke their uneasy truce and went inside to warm up.
Classes resumed on the first Tuesday after the New Year. Before they’d gotten so much as a day to readjust to the schedule, Merridy announced that she would be giving them another practical exam that Friday.
“If we get the test out of the way immediately, it won’t disrupt your other classes,” she said sharply, speaking over the unhappy grumbling.
Tristan groaned. This was the last thing he wanted now, with so much on his mind already.
“Are you serious?” Damian said. “There’s so much snow we can hardly get outside! We’ll freeze to death.”
Merridy rapped her desk and waited for the disgruntled chatter to subside. “Not if you pay close attention this week,” she said. “By Friday, you should be more than adequately prepared for the weather.”
Bending over, Merridy lifted something from her chair—it was a stack of new textbooks, each one older and heavier than the Earth Science and Environmental Studies volumes she’d handed out at the beginning of the year. The room was filled with renewed grumbling.
As she walked around the room handing out books, Merridy continued. “Due to your general lack of success with the test last semester, I’ve decided to shorten the required distance to three miles. Also—over the break, my fellow teachers and I realized that you have not been adequately exposed to magic, and have therefore learned very little about its practical use. As such, we have decided to restructure each of our courses to include the use of magic, which, I have been told, most of you have not yet attempted.”
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