“You set him on fire, witch!” Curtis yelled, and retreated, scooping up handfuls of water, which he threw at Sam in a desperate attempt to extinguish the flames.
“Stop,” Lilah said, smiling. “It isn’t hurting him.”
Curtis didn’t stop. He scrambled frantically to throw the water on Sam, cursing under his breath that he didn’t have something better to use than his hands. “He’s screaming for gosh sake!”
“Is he really?”
Curtis paused. “Wha?”
Sam wasn’t screaming – he was laughing. Even as the flames enveloped his body, consuming it, he let out large gales of laughter; and he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“I-It…t-tickles!” Sam said, laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face. His face went deep red, and his mouth seemed to be stuck in a perpetual ear-to-ear smile.
“Laughing? What have you done? He’s gone crazy,” Curtis said, staring in disbelief. How could his friend be burning to death before his very eyes, but also be laughing hysterically at the same time?
“Just wait,” Lilah said. “It’ll wear off in a few seconds.”
Slowly, the flames covering Sam dissipated. His laughter died off. He was soaked head to toe thanks to the many handfuls of water that Curtis had splashed on him. He took a moment to catch his breath before saying, “I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard in my life.”
“What was that?” Curtis asked.
“It’s called Ticklefire. Instead of burning you, the flames tickle you. I told you, cutesy magic stuff. It couldn’t possibly harm someone unless it went unchecked and the person laughed themselves to death. It’s pretty effective for cheering someone up. Unless they aren’t ticklish, that is.”
“You should have warned me,” Curtis said. “I thought he was really on fire.”
“That was fun,” Sam said. “Can you show us anything else?”
“I better not. Your friend’s liable to suffer a heart attack.”
Curtis eyed her sternly, his fingers wrapped around the top of his slingshot, which still jutted from his waistband.
Sam said, “I’d still like to learn something. Maybe Volatine would teach me something?”
“You’ve already chosen your path.”
“But you said there was a way. All I have to do is get permission from Alsted and the King.”
“Which is easier said than done,” Lilah said. “I also said that it has only happened a couple of times. And there are…consequences.”
“Consequences?”
“Of a student becoming too powerful. Too much power often results in ill effects.”
“I’m going to apply for permission anyway.”
“You can’t. Not yet. You’re not even eligible to apply until the start of your second year.”
“And you really can’t teach me anything? Even the cutesy stuff?”
“Well…”
“No one would know. I can keep a secret.”
Lilah glanced at Curtis and then back to Sam. “What about your friend? How do you know he’d keep his mouth shut?”
Curtis said, “Stop talking about me like I’m not here. I know perfectly well how to keep my mouth shut.” And to Sam he said, “But I still don’t think you should do it, Sam. If you got caught…they’d probably kick you out of school, no two ways about it. Probably me, too, just for being an accomplice.”
“Even if I was willing to do something like that, where would we practice?”
Sam thought about it. “Right here. It’s secluded enough, isn’t it? We could meet up right after dinner.”
“There wouldn’t be much time.”
“It’s almost fall already,” Curtis said. “It’ll be getting dark earlier. We couldn’t be roaming after dark.”
“So the lessons will be short. Who would even notice? Everyone already avoids us as it is.”
“Only because you’ve been talking to that girl,” Curtis said.
“Her name is Sarah. And you know that isn’t the only reason. They think we’re built of weaker stock since we don’t have muscles popping out of our eyeballs.”
“Sarah Gemstead?” Lilah asked, sneering.
“Yeah, she’s the only girl in the academy. A special case.”
“Not as special as you might think.”
“Don’t tell me you’re against it, too?” Sam said.
“I don’t have a problem with it. She’s not in my school. And I hear she’s as good with a sword as any of the boys, which goes to show you that she has a right to be there as much as anyone. At least based on skill, that is. It’s about time they changed that rule anyway – it’s absolutely ancient.”
“So what about it? Is it a deal?”
Reluctantly, Lilah rolled her eyes and said, “I suppose so. But if either of you blab, or if anyone finds out, it will be something worse than Ticklefire I cast on you next time.”
“Don’t worry,” Sam said.
“We should be getting back soon,” Curtis said.
And then, from behind them, a voice said, “Well, well, what do we have here?”
Cully Duke, Braxton O’Connell, and Dartis Malavant stood at the top of the hill, staring down at them. “Is this your other girlfriend?” Cully asked, and the three boys burst into laughter.
“Bug off, Cully,” Sam said.
“Your mouth is bigger than your sword, turd,” Cully said. “Big words for a coward.”
“Why don’t you come down here and find out!” Sam yelled.
Curtis looked at him as though he were insane. “What are you doing?”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. It sounded good?”
“We didn’t even bring our swords.”
Cully, O’Connell, and Malavant descended the hill with evil determination.
Sam turned to Lilah and whispered, “Can you cast a spell or something? Coldsnap them?”
“I already told you, I can’t use a harmful spell against another student.”
“Not even cutesy magic?”
Lilah shook her head. “It’s still a violation.”
Sam looked around. There was a fallen tree branch several feet away. He stepped over to it and picked it up.
Cully and his friends reached the bottom of the hill. “What you going to do with that, Finch?”
“Nothing,” Sam said, “if you and your cronies turn around and leave us alone now, then nothing. Otherwise we’ll see how you like the taste of tree bark.”
With his clothes soaked, Sam felt ten pounds heavier. If I have to run, he thought, that’s going to slow me down.
Sam held the branch in both hands, raising it as though it were a sword.
O’Connell and Malavant looked to Cully for guidance.
He won’t back down, Sam thought. He won’t dare lose face in front of his friends.
Sam wasn’t sure how he knew this, but he was certain that it was true. He tightened his grip on the branch.
“He’s not going to do anything,” Cully snorted. “He hasn’t got the guts.”
“You don’t have any weapons,” Sam pointed out.
“Don’t need any. I’ll beat you to a pulp with my bare hands.”
“What’s it going to be?” Sam forced himself to stare Cully straight in the eyes. “Turn around now, and we won’t hurt you.”
“You’re bluffing, Finch. And your friends won’t help you either.” His gaze shifted to Curtis when he said, “Isn’t that right Curty-Wurt –”
But Cully didn’t get the chance to finish his insult. In an instant, Sam heard a strange snap, and the next thing he knew, blood was gushing from a wound at the center of Cully’s forehead. Cully screamed, falling to his knees as he clutched his face.
Sam glanced to his right. Curtis had his slingshot out, lowering it now as he loaded another rock into the sling.
“Told you it hurts,” Curtis said.
Cully was still on his knees, moaning in pain, but O’Connell and Malavant were already advancing on them. Sam threw the b
ranch, catching Malavant in the stomach. With lightning quickness, Curtis took aim and shot another rock. Sam watched it whizz through the air and catch O’Connell on the cheek. The hulking boy howled in agony.
“Run!” Sam shouted.
They ran past the injured boys and up the hill, moving as fast as they could without thinking about staying on the path.
They ran for their lives without knowing whether they were being chased or not. And although Sam could feel his lungs burn as he gulped for air, he started to laugh. Curtis laughed, too, and by the time they burst through the trees back onto the dirt road leading to the castle, their joyous laughter had spread to Lilah.
They slowed to a walk once they were on the outskirts of the village.
“You are a great shot!” Sam said, clutching his stomach, which now hurt after laughing so hard for so long. “I didn’t believe you at first, but you were telling the truth.”
“I can’t seem to miss,” Curtis said. “I’m not even sure how I do it. I just seem to hit whatever I’m aiming for. Didn’t I tell you it could do some damage?”
“That you did. Did you see the blood?”
“I hope he’s okay,” Curtis said, feeling guilty.
“You hope he’s okay? Who cares? Serves him right for picking on us all the time. Maybe he’ll think twice next time.”
“Doubtful,” Lilah said. “He’s not the type. Boys like him never stop.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience,” Sam said.
“When I was younger – before I ever came to Dashelmore – well, I was something of an odd child, I guess. And the other kids would pick on me because of it. I don’t miss being there one little bit.”
Sam said, “I’m sure if you went back now, things would be different. With you knowing magic and all.”
“Maybe.”
“You think he’ll tattle on us?” Curtis asked. “Tell Alsted what we did? I’d hate to get in trouble.”
“How can we? He started it. We were just defending ourselves.”
“He won’t tell,” Lilah said. “You can be sure of that. He won’t want anyone finding out that they took a whipping from someone – especially you two.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? ‘You two?’”
Lilah seemed to search for a way to phrase her next words delicately. “You’ve said yourself you aren’t well liked. It would be almost as bad as if that girl in your class, Sarah, had given him a beating. Boys like him hate weaker boys, and despise the fact that they would allow a female in warrior school, which is supposed to be exclusively for boys, but it’s more because they’re afraid than anything else. They fear change. Maybe it’s how they were raised, but they can’t handle it and they certainly don’t like it.”
“I guess I never thought that the reason they pick on us is because they’re afraid of us.”
“They aren’t afraid of you. It’s what you stand for.”
As they walked through the village, they passed the Surly Dragon Arms, which made Sam remember what Lilah had said about his sword: that Rusty was enchanted. He had a hard time believing it, but had they had more time, he would have liked to stop in and speak with Jiao-long and see what the stoic shop owner had to say about it.
When they reached the castle entrance the guards parted, and once they were through the tall iron gate, Lilah headed left while they continued to go straight.
“Thanks, Lilah,” Sam said.
“For what?”
Sam shrugged. “Giving us the time of day, I guess. Not many other people do.”
“Anytime, Sam.”
“Bye,” Curtis said.
“Goodbye, Curtis. And Sam’s right, you’re good with that thing,” she said, pointing at the slingshot which jutted out of the top of his waistband.
Curtis blushed. “Thanks!”
Sam and Curtis were almost to their living quarters when Curtis said, “Are you really going to go through with it? Have her teach you magic?”
“Sure. Maybe I won’t be the greatest warrior of all time, but at least I’ll have something to fall back on.”
“I still think it’s a bad idea.”
“Live a little, would you?”
Later that evening, after the sun had gone down and night descended, Cully, O’Connell, and Malavant entered the living quarters. Sam and Curtis were in their beds, quietly recounting the day’s events. Sam had just done a passable impression of Cully moaning in pain after the rock had struck him in the head, when the three older boys returned.
Cully’s forehead was bandaged, and there was a large purple welt on Braxton O’Connell’s left cheek. Dartis Malavant didn’t show any outward sign of injury, but Sam thought if the boy took off his shirt, the branch that he had hit him in the chest with would surely have left a mark.
Sam and Curtis’s subdued laughter trailed off when they sighted the three boys. Cully glowered at Sam with a hatred so intense that Sam nearly recoiled.
One of the other boys in the room (Sam thought his name was Victor – or maybe it was Videl) had also noticed Cully’s entrance and said, “Oi, what happened tah yer ‘ed?”
This is it, Sam thought. Now we’ll find out if Lilah was right about him or not.
Cully ran his fingers over the bandage on his forehead. “Goblins,” he said.
Victor or Videl said, “Goblins? C’mon, you’re puttin’ me on?”
Now the rest of the boys in the room were staring at Cully. It wasn’t everyday that they received news of goblins about, let alone of other boys being attacked by them.
“In the forest. Four of them. They surprised us, but we managed to fight them off.”
“Four of ‘em? And we’re supposed to believe that you three fended ‘em off all by your lonesomes?” Victor or Videl crossed his arms over his chest. “Rubbish.”
“You’d do best to watch your tongue, Victor,” Cully spat. His hands curled up into fists.
So his name is Victor, Sam thought.
A lengthy silence settled over the room as the other boys waited to see what would happen. It wasn’t any secret that Cully was hot tempered and always eager for a fight, but Victor was no slouch either; he was short and stocky, but he had a reputation for being adept at hand-to-hand combat. Even Cully wasn’t foolish enough to draw his sword on another student, but Sam (and probably every other boy in the room) would have paid to see that fight.
But, as it turned out, it never came to that.
“Fine,” Victor said. “I don’t believe you, but whatever.”
Cully was still fuming. His eyes found Sam again.
He’ll kill me next time, Sam thought. Or if not that, then he’ll beat me to within an inch of my life.
The tension in the room dissipated when Cully plopped down onto his bed. He and Malavant began whispering surreptitiously to each other.
Planning my murder, no doubt, Sam thought.
In the next bed over from Malavant, back resting against his pillow and a thick tome open in his lap, a boy named Trevor stared at them, listening intently. Trevor was also a small boy, although slightly larger than both Sam and Curtis, but stayed to himself, which so far seemed to have kept him out of the line of fire. Cully caught Trevor watching and he and Malavant fell silent, sneering at the smaller boy. “What are you looking at, turd?” Cully spat. Trevor hurriedly looked away, stuffing his face in his book.
Soon after, the candlelight was extinguished, plunging them into darkness. On the bed next to him, Sam could hear Curtis snoring lightly.
He stared at the ceiling for a long time, thinking about Lilah and wondering what magic she might teach him. Then his thoughts turned to Sarah, and he again wondered why she hadn’t been at dinner the previous night. What had she spent the day doing? Was she okay? These things nagged at his mind as the wind picked up, howling outside the windows.
Finally, weariness got the better of him; he closed his eyes. He didn’t think Cully would dare touch him with all the other boys around for fear of
being caught. But that night, Sam slept with one eye open.
CHAPTER NINE
SARAH’S INVITATION
Sam saw Sarah at breakfast the next morning. He and Curtis sat down across from her, and he immediately noticed that her hair was messier than usual and there were dark patches under her eyes as if she had gone the night without sleep.
“Where have you been?” Sam asked. “When you weren’t at dinner the other night I got worried.”
Sarah gave him a tired smile. “Keeping tabs on me already?”
“No, not at all,” Sam said, flustered. “It was just…unusual.”
Curtis took a bite of a stale wheat roll. “I don’t think it’s so unusual,” he said, his words almost unintelligible as he spoke through a mouthful of food. “You’re just a worry wart.”
“Oh, that’s funny. Look who’s talking.”
Sarah said, “Are you two married yet?”
“Shut up,” Sam said.
“You’re already joined at the hip.”
“You really should tell one of us if you aren’t going to be at meals.”
Despite her apparent exhaustion, Sarah managed a giggle that sounded genuine enough. “Who are you? My father?”
“Well, no, but it’s common courtesy.”
“Careful,” Sarah said, “if you keep getting so bent out of shape over the little things, a girl might think you have a crush on her.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Sam said, but his face flushed a deep scarlet, and felt as hot as when he stood too close to his father’s forge. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Now I’m stupid?”
Curtis laughed, almost choking on a chunk of his wheat roll.
“What you said was stupid,” Sam said.
“If you must know, I took dinner in the castle. That’s also where I spent the day yesterday. Most of it in my room, reading. Is that enough to satisfy your curiosity?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Since you obviously think you have the right to know my business, what did you do yesterday?”
Sam and Curtis exchanged glances. He tried to communicate telepathically to his friend that he shouldn’t mention them meeting Lilah in the forest. It wasn’t that he wanted to keep this bit of information from Sarah – in fact, he was dying to tell someone so he and Curtis weren’t the only ones that knew about it – but he had promised Lilah that he would keep it a secret. No one was to know that she would be teaching him magic.
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