“What’s going through that head of yours, Mara?” Xander leaned forward, his careful gaze focused on her face.
She was truly beautiful. He’d believed it before and he still did. Dark magic had robbed him of something far too precious in the past—something irreplaceable—and he wondered if he’d ever be able to recover it.
Sometimes, he thought the possibility was there as if it hung right in front of him and waited for him to snatch it. But at other times, it felt like it’d vanish if he even dared to look at her too much.
Mara shook her head. “I’m hardly Leo, who’s been alone for as long as I’ve known him, but I might as well be when it comes to these kids.”
“What do you mean?” He gave her a confused look.
“Don’t you feel it around any of these dances?” She smiled. “They start pairing up. Love spreads, or at least what teenagers think is love.” She found she couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eyes, not with what they now discussed. “To be young and in love without a true care. I’m almost jealous of the students that they can experience something like that. It’s been so long for me that—”
“Some things don’t simply go away, Mara.”
The headmistress leaned back in her chair and frowned slightly. “Meaning what?”
Xander snorted. “You’re too intelligent for me to have to explain it to you.”
“What do you want me to say, Xander?”
He rose suddenly. “The truth, Mara. Only that.”
Her gaze followed him. “The truth? Do you even know what the truth is anymore?”
“I know what my truth is.” He took a few deep breaths and sank back into his chair. “You know I don’t deny the mistakes I’ve made. I won’t even to try to claim that our sins are equal, but you made mistakes, too.”
“Because I didn’t tell you about her?” Mara narrowed her eyes and hoped some of her anger would push her away from what she didn’t want to have to face.
“No. Not at all.” Xander ran his hands through his gray hair. “This isn’t about her anymore. I wish you could have trusted me more, but I can understand why you did what you did and why you kept the information from me. But she’s gone from here now. Leira and Correk will look after her, and someday, they’ll be able to stop running.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“It’d be easier if you hated me, you know. Easier for me to convince myself I should leave this place and never come back.”
“You know I don’t hate you.” Mara stared at him, her lips slightly parted. “I thought you would die last year. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to stop it. I still worry because we don’t know who poisoned you.”
“It’s not like there isn’t a long list of suspects. You saved me, though, Mara, and I’m tired of pretending that I don’t feel what I feel.” Xander shrugged. “And I think you feel the same way. I’m also tired of worrying about our mutual mistakes and what they might mean. People can change. I’m living proof of that, for both good and bad.”
“I saved you because I didn’t want to lose you. I still don’t think I can bear to lose you again.”
“You don’t have to. Don’t you see that?”
She shook her head. “You say that, but you can’t be sure.”
“You trust me enough to let me teach about dark magic here,” he pointed out, a hint of fire in his voice. “That means you trust me enough to think I won’t lose myself again. And I won’t, especially if I have a light to always guide me out of the darkness.”
“You’re right. People can change, but that doesn’t mean they all do.”
“Then why not give it another chance?”
Mara released a harsh laugh. “Do you think I haven’t thought about it? Not only when you came back to this school, but before?”
Xander flung a hand up. “Then why keep thinking? Why not try?”
“Because I need to be careful—for the both of us.” Mara drew in a breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry, Xander. I’m not ready. Not yet. Give me more time.”
He stood and shook his head. “It’s not like you to run away.”
“I’m not running away. I have more important things than my happiness. Things like this school.”
“I’m not asking you to choose me over the school. I’m merely asking you to admit that you still love me like I love you.” He spun on his heel and marched toward the door, threw her office door open, and headed out.
“Do you really think it’s so simple?” Mara whispered.
Chapter Twenty-One
Professor Powell marched back and forth in front of the class, his wand in hand. “I’ve taught you how to deal with restraining spells, shields, and a variety of other techniques for handling dark magic practitioners. The spells are good, but more than anything, I want to encourage flexibility in your thinking.”
Raine scribbled a few notes and underlined the word “flexibility.”
She’d waited for this class ever since she saw a student literally fly through the air near the edge of the forest a few months earlier. For a moment, she’d thought they were being attacked, but it turned out they were only upperclassmen playing around with a burst spell.
Unlike many of the students, she and her friends had faced actual trouble and dark magic, so the classes weren’t simply an exercise in theory. Like her, Adrien watched the professor with almost rapt attention. He valued any skill that would serve him as a future Guardian.
Professor Powell stopped and pointed his wand at a student in the front, a Wood Elf. “What’s the best way to survive a dark wizard attack?”
“Attack him before he can attack you?”
“The best defense is a good offense?” The professor nodded. “That’s not bad thinking, but that presupposes a lot of things.” He pointed his wand at Adrien. “What do you think?”
“Powerful shields are helpful,” the elf replied. He looked to the side for a second as he thought his answer through. “But shields don’t always help.”
The corner of Professor Powell’s mouth turned up. “They don’t?”
“Attacks aren’t always about restraint or damage spells.” Adrien pointed at the ground. “In our quarter-final qualifier match, most of the people who were eliminated were victims of a pit trap. A shield wouldn’t have helped with that.”
“Then what’s the implication? If bigger, better shields won’t help you survive a dark wizard attack, and you can’t always eliminate, what do you do?”
“You make sure you’re not there to be hit at all.”
Professor Powell nodded, a huge grin on his face as he stepped back. “Exactly. Defense isn’t about always taking the hit. Dodging is a big portion. Magical movement can help you avoid getting injured, or even help you out of a pit during a Louper match if you can move before it seals.” He winked at Adrien.
A quick spell moved his desk and the front table to the side of the room, and the furniture screeched across the floor.
“When you try this, we’ll be outside, but for now, we’ll start by exploring a quick burst spell. This is hardly the only type of mobility spell available, but it’s one that’s easy to learn and generally achievable for students of your skill level. There’s nothing deep or complicated about the idea. It’s merely a concentrated burst of magic to move you somewhere. The only thing is, you have to be careful. Physics is still a problem.”
He pointed to his chair and spoke an incantation under his breath. A loud pop sounded, and the chair flew across the room to crash hard into the wall and leave a dent. The chair fell to the ground.
The students gasped.
“Don’t worry. I’ll fix that later.” He nodded to the chair. “But it’s a good example of what uncontrolled bursting can do.”
William looked from the chair to the professor. “Couldn’t we use that spell to shove someone into a wall?”
“There are spells like that, but in this particular case, no.” Professor Powell pointed his wand at the chair and
cast another spell to roll it back toward his desk. “I cheated a little. I used a different spell for my demonstration. The spell I’m about to use on myself won’t do much for anyone more than a few inches away due to the way magical energy is concentrated.”
The students all nodded. Some, like Raine, took careful notes but others were totally disinterested because they didn’t believe that they would have to face a dark wizard. And even if they did, the professors or other authorities would be there to save them.
“Are you ready to see the real thing with me?” the professor asked.
Everyone set their pencils down and fixed their attention on their instructor. Raine wanted to pay careful attention to the incantation, whereas others, like Evie, were worried he would hurt himself. She even tried to estimate how much time it’d take for her to run to the nurse to get help.
Professor Powell marched toward the wall and turned, stepped a yard away, and pointed his wand behind him. Slowly, he enunciated an incantation.
With a loud pop, the professor flew up and forward and almost struck the roof, but another quick cast twisted him. He landed on the ground in a crouch, his breathing ragged.
Claps and cheers erupted from the students over the flashy display. Evie exhaled a sigh of relief.
He stood and fluffed his lapels. “It’s like Adrien said. Shields enable you to take a hit, but if you’re not there to begin with, that helps, too.” He marched toward the door. “Follow me. We’ll practice outside.”
After they gathered their wands and headed to a side lawn, Professor Powell conjured a glowing, curved net of light that extended yards across.
“This will catch you,” he announced. “Today, we’ll concentrate only on the simple burst spell. Be aware that it involves a large amount of magical energy, and it will tire you out after a few attempts at your current skill level. As we work to perfect the spell in the coming days, we’ll move from the safety net to you using shields to protect yourself.” Professor Powell burst away with a loud pop and into the net, where he stuck for a few seconds before he slid down gently. “This is good for running from dark wizards, but it can be fun, too. Get permission first, though—or don’t get caught.” He looked at Sara and a couple of other students. “For those who still have some magical control issues, I’ll simulate the burst so you can experience the sensation, and I still want you to memorize the incantation.”
Adrien was the first volunteer. After Professor Powell pronounced the incantation again, the elf pointed his hands behind him and repeated it. Nothing happened. He tried again but with no response.
“Try to emphasize the second syllable more,” the professor suggested.
“Okay.” The elf took a few deep breaths and tried the incantation again, careful to emphasize the second syllable this time.
He jerked forward as if pulled by an invisible giant. Adrien concentrated hard to avoid flailing his arms. There was no reason to look undignified in front of his class. He struck the net but felt no impact.
“Good job, Adrien!” William shouted. He raised his hand. “I’d like to go next, Professor.”
Professor Powell smiled. “You’ll all have at least two chances.”
Mara stood in the distance, her arms folded, as students flew through the air and landed in Xander’s net. Most of the young people laughed.
Leo walked up beside her and his poppy growled at each use of the burst spell. The gnome removed his hat and spoke quietly to the flower before he looked at the headmistress. “It looks like they’re having fun.”
“He’s changed this semester. He has a lot more emphasis on…fun, I guess. Not that he never used that kind of technique, but still.” Mara pursed her lips.
“There’s nothing wrong with a little fun.” Leo’s gaze followed Raine as she sailed through the air with a merry laugh. “Sometimes, the best way to face evil is to laugh in its face.”
“Do you think that’s what this about?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Mara looked sharply at him. “Meaning what?”
Leo clutched the edge of his bowler and nodded. “Sometimes, the best way to convince someone of something is to show it to them rather than tell them.”
The gnome gave her a slight smile and turned to leave.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Raine knocked lightly on the door to Agent Connor’s cottage and her heart beat faster than she’d expected. He’d left her a message in the dorm to stop by after class to discuss their new FBI training. There was still the possibility that he’d tell her he’d reconsidered. Given all the incidents she’d been involved in, maybe he’d decided she was more trouble than she was worth.
The door opened, and he gestured inside and toward a nearby dining table. “Come on in, Raine. I’m glad you’re so punctual. That’s always a good sign for a future agent.”
She stepped into the cottage and took a seat at the table. Piles of printed documents and photographs already awaited her, along with a few manila folders filled with more documents and pictures.
The FBI agent joined her. “One big thing I should point out right away is that we don’t tend to use this much paper anymore in most modern investigations. Unfortunately, the limitations of computer technology on school grounds means that I had to print everything out, but it doesn’t matter. The information is the same, and that’s what is important.”
The young witch picked a document up and skimmed the first few lines. Despite the bureaucratic tone and acronyms, she thought she understood what she had read.
“This is about illegal smuggling, right?”
“Exactly. That particular case has already been solved and involved a smuggling operation that brought low-level magical artifacts into the United States illegally.”
He drew two photos from the bottom of a stack and turned them to face her. They were mug shots of a tired-looking elf woman and a grinning human. “This case was about ten years back. Both of them are out of prison and actually run a legitimate import-export business now, surprisingly enough, but this is a good case for you to examine the kind of evidence the agency gathered and the methods used.”
Raine stared at the elf’s photo. Sometimes, she let herself think that Oricerans born to natural magic wouldn’t fall into the kind of crime so many humans committed, but everything she’d learned in Professor Hudson’s class and her experiences at the School of Necessary Magic had taught her that Oricerans were exactly like humans—some good, some bad.
Agent Connor tapped a stack of documents. “Most of these are official summaries of requests for assistance from the PDA. They are fairly tedious and boring, but they are important. If you read through them, you’ll realize how this investigation took a lot longer than it should have because the FBI constantly had to wait on the PDA. They didn’t feel the investigation was worth a dedicated support agent, and this is where having actual magicals in the FBI will help things along.” He drew his hand back. “A lot of important work done by the FBI isn’t about flashy investigations into terrorists or magical murderers. The more magicals who join organizations like ours, the more everyone involved in law enforcement can do their jobs more efficiently.”
The sheer amount of information was daunting. Raine moved from stack to stack and examined the different pieces of information, evidence reports, interview statements, and agency memos. The same sets of names appeared repeatedly on most of the documents. Despite the volume of evidence collected, there were only a small number of agents assigned to the case.
“Do you have any questions, Raine?” The agent stood. “Or did you want something to drink?”
“No, I’m okay. Thanks for asking. Is there an order I should read these in?”
He made his way into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Maybe work closest to farthest. I won’t ask you to reconstruct the entire case file from memory or anything like that. This one was simply a good example of the scope of FBI work along with the kind of resources that can be marshaled in
a full investigation. As you become more familiar with the jargon and that kind of thing, I’ll put together some mock investigations for you. I’ll create some packets with partial evidence and ask you to figure out the kind of evidence you would need to collect to solve the case.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Then I can do things like give you simulated witness interviews and ask you to look for clues and inconsistencies or think about the kinds of avenues of investigation you should pursue.”
Raine set a document back in a pile as a sudden thought occurred to her. “Since the case is still unsolved, would the FBI let me investigate what happened to my Dad?”
The FBI agent’s mouth tightened. He wasn’t prepared for that question. “Is that something you think about a lot, Raine?”
“Not really. But maybe I should.” Raine sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t like the idea that the guys who killed my dad got away. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“You’re right. It isn’t fair.” He studied her with a thoughtful expression. “That’s part of what it means to be in the FBI. We can help make sure that unfair situations don’t continue—that criminals are brought to justice—but I’ll be honest with you, Raine. When you start out as an agent, you’ll have to work your way up, and I can’t guarantee they’ll ever let you investigate that murder. Given that the case involves dark wizards, you might have a better shot if you joined the PDA. Does that change your thoughts on anything? On your future?”
The girl didn’t respond for a long while and instead, stared at a few photos Agent Connor had set up on a stand in the living room. She recognized some people in the pictures, including her father and Uncle Jerry, but there were many she didn’t. There was still a lot she didn’t know about her local FBI guardian.
“No,” Raine responded quietly. “It doesn’t change anything. I’m not interested in the FBI because I think I can get revenge for my dad. I’m interested because he would have wanted me to join the agency. I want to help take down bad guys—to deliver justice. Maybe that sounds corny.”
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