Firespell

by Chloe Neill

  “I’ll have to keep an eye on you,” she said as we reentered the main building and headed across the labyrinth, “in case anything happens.”

  “In case I get attacked by a Reaper, or in case I suddenly develop the ability to summon unicorns?” My voice was toast-dry.

  “Oh, please,” Scout said. “Don’t take that tone with me. You know you’d love to have a minion. Someone at your beck and call. Someone to do your bidding. How many times have you said to yourself, ‘Self, I need a unicorn to run errands and such’?”

  “Not that often till lately, to be real honest,” I said, but managed a small smile.

  “Yeah, well, welcome to the jungle,” she said again, but this time, darkly.

  It was nearly midnight by the time I was tucked into bed in a tank top and shorts, the St. Sophia’s blanket pulled up to my chin. One hand behind my head, I stared at the stars on the ceiling, sleep elusive, probably because I was already too well-rested. After all, I’d spent half the weekend either hunkered beneath the sheets, an ostrich with its head in cotton, or ignoring my best friend by lollygagging on Michigan Avenue. I’d self- medicated with luxury goods. Well, by watching other girls buy luxury goods, anyway.

  I wasn’t thrilled with what I’d done, with my abandonment. But, whether I was the perfect best friend or not, the sounds of traffic softened, and I finally, oh so slowly, fell asleep.

  15

  I woke to pounding on the door. Suddenly vaulted from sleep, I sat up and pushed tangled hair from my face. “Who’s there?”

  “We’re running late!” came Scout’s frantic voice from the other side.

  I glanced over at the alarm clock. Class started in fifteen minutes.

  “Frick,” I said, adrenaline jolting me to full consciousness. I threw off the blankets and jumped for the door. Unlocking and opening it, I found Scout in the doorway in long-sleeved pajamas and thick blue socks.

  I arched an eyebrow at the ensemble. “It’s still September, right?”

  Scout rolled her eyes. “I’m cold a lot. Sue me.”

  “How about I just take a shower?”

  She nodded and held up two energy bars. “Get in, get out, and when you’re done, art history, here we come.”

  Have you ever had one of those days where you give up on being really clean, and settle for being largely clean? Where you don’t have time for the entire scrubbing and exfoliating regime, so you settle for the basics? Where brushing your teeth becomes the most vigorous part of your cleaning ritual?

  Yeah, welcome to Monday morning at St. Sophia’s School for (Slightly Grimy) Girls.

  When I was (mostly) clean, I met Scout in the common room. She was sporting the preppy look today—Mary Janes, knee-high socks, oxford shirt and tie.

  “You look very—”

  “Nerdy?” she suggested. “I’m trying a new philosophy today.”

  “A new philosophy?” I asked, as we shut the common room door and headed down the hall. She handed over the energy bar she’d shown off earlier. I ripped down the plastic and bit off a chunk.

  “Look the nerd, be the nerd,” she said, with emphasis. “I figure this look could boost my grades by fifteen to twenty percent.”

  “Fifteen to twenty percent? That’s impressive. You think it’ll work?”

  “I’m sure it won’t,” she said. “But I’m giving it a shot. I’m taking positive steps.”

  “Studying would be another positive step,” I pointed out.

  “Studying interferes with my world saving.”

  “It’s unfortunate you can’t get excused absences for that.”

  “I know, right?”

  “And speaking of saving the world,” I said, “did you have a call after we got back last night? Or did you just sleep late?”

  “I sleep with earplugs,” she said, half- answering the question. “The radio alarm came on, but it wasn’t loud enough, so I dreamed about REO Speedwagon and Phil Collins for forty-five minutes. Suffice it to say, I can feel it coming in the air tonight.”

  “Dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum, dum, dum,” I said, repeating the drum lead- in, although without my usual air drumming. My reputation was off to a rocky-enough start as it was.

  We took the stairs to the first floor, then headed through the corridor to the classroom building. The lockers were our next stop. I took the last bite of the energy bar—some kind of chewy fruit, nut, and granola combination—then folded up the wrapper and slipped it into my bag.

  At our lockers, I opened my messenger bag and peeked inside. I already had my art history book, so I kneeled to my lower-level locker, opened it, and grabbed my trig book, my second class of the day. I’d just closed the door, my palm still pressed against slick wood, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  I turned and found M.K. beside me—grinning.

  “Fell down the stairs, did you?”

  Scout slipped books into her locker, then slammed the door shut before giving M.K. a narrow-eyed glare. “Hey, Betty, go find Veronica and leave us in peace.”

  M.K. looked confused by the reference, but she shook it off with a toss of her long dark hair. “How lame are you when you can’t even walk up a flight of stairs without falling down?” Her voice was just a shade too loud, obviously intended to get the other girls’ attention, to make them stare and whisper and, presumably, embarrass me.

  Fortunately, I didn’t embarrass that easily. On the other hand, I couldn’t exactly correct her. If I threw “secret basement room” at these girls, there’d be a mad rush to find out what lurked downstairs. That wasn’t going to help the Adepts, so I opted to deflect.

  “How lame do you have to be to push a girl down the stairs?”

  “I didn’t push anyone down the stairs,” she clipped out.

  “So you had nothing to do with my hospital visit?”

  Crimson rose on her cheeks.

  It was mean, I know, but I had Adepts to protect. Well, one nose-ringed Adept to protect, anyway. Besides, I didn’t actually make an accusation. I just asked the right question.

  As school bells began to peal, she nailed us both with a glare, then turned on a heel and stalked away, a monogrammed leather backpack between her shoulder blades.

  I’m not sure what, or how much, the brat pack had spilled around school about my “fall” and my clinic visit, but I felt the looks and heard the whispers. They lasted through the morning’s art history, trig, and civics classes, girls in identical plaid lowering their heads together—or passing tiny, folded notes—to share what they’d heard about my weekend.

  Luckily, the rumors were pretty tame. I hadn’t heard anything about bizarre rooms beneath the building, evil teenagers roaming the hallways, or Scout’s involvement—other than the fact that people “wouldn’t be surprised” if she’d had something to do with it. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one at St. Sophia’s who thought she was a little odd.

  I glanced over at her during civics—punky blond and brown hair in tiny ponytails, fingernails painted glossy black, a tiny hoop in her nose. I was kind of surprised Foley let her get away with all that, but I thanked God Scout stood out in this bastion of über-normalcy.

  After civics, we headed back to our lockers.

  “Let’s go run an errand,” she said, opening her locker and transferring her books.

  I arched a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Perfectly mundane mission,” she said, closing the door again. She adjusted her skull-and-crossbones messenger bag and gave me a wink.

  I followed as she weaved through girls in the locker hall, then through the Great Hall and main building to the school’s front door. This one was an off-campus mission, apparently.

  Outside, we found the sky a muted steel gray, the city all but windless. The weather was moody—as if we were on the cusp of something nasty. As if the sky was preparing to open on us all.

  “Let’s go,” Scout said, and we took the steps and headed down the sidewalk. We made a left, walking down Erie and away from Michig
an Avenue and the garden of stone thorns.

  “Here’s the thing about Chicago,” she began.

  “Speak it, sister.”

  “The brat pack gave you the Sex and the Windy City tour. The shopping on Michigan is nice, but it’s not all there is. There’s an entire city out there—folks who’ve lived here all their lives, folks who’ve worked here all their lives, blue-collar jobs, dirt under their fingernails, without shopping for thousand-dollar handbags.” She looked up at a high-rise as we passed. “Nearly three million people in a city that’s been here for a hundred and seventy years. The architecture, the art, the history, the politics. I know you’re not from here, and you’ve only been here a week, and your heart is probably back in Sagamore, but this is an amazing place, Lil.”

  I watched as she gazed at the buildings and architecture around her, love in her eyes.

  “I want to run for city council,” she suddenly said, as we crossed the street and passed facing Italian restaurants. Tourists formed a line outside each, menus in hand, excitement in their eyes as they prepared to sample Chicago’s finest.

  “City council?” I asked her. “Like, Chicago’s city council? You want to run for office?”

  She nodded her head decisively. “I love this city. I want to serve it someday. I mean, it depends on where I live and who’s in the ward and whether the seat is open or not, but I want to give something back, you know?”

  I had no idea Scout had political ambitions, much less that she’d given the logistics that much thought. She was only sixteen, and I was impressed. I also wasn’t sure if I should feel pity for her parents, who were missing out on her general awesomeness, or if I should thank them—was Scout who she was because her parents had freaked about her magic, and deposited her in a boarding school?

  She bobbed her head at a bodega that sat kitty-corner on the next block. “In there,” she said, and we crossed the street. She opened the door, a bell on the handle jingling as we moved inside.

  “Yo,” she said, a hand in the air to wave at the clerk as she walked straight to the fountain drink machine.

  “Scout,” said the guy at the counter, whom I pegged at nineteenish or twenty, and whose dark eyes were on the comic book spread on the counter in front of him, a spill of short dreadlocks around his face. “Refill time?”

  “Refill time,” Scout agreed. I stayed at the counter while she attacked the fountain machine, yanking a gigantic plastic cup from a dispenser. With mechanical precision, she pushed the cup under the ice dispenser, peeked over the rim as ice spilled into it, then released the cup, emptied out a few, and repeated the whole process again until she was satisfied she’d gotten exactly the right amount. When she was done with the ice, she went straight for the strawberry soda, and the process started again.

  “She’s particular, isn’t she?” I wondered aloud.

  The clerk snorted, then glanced up at me, chocolate brown eyes alight with amusement. “Particular hardly covers it. She’s an addict when it comes to the sugar water.” His brow furrowed. “I don’t know you.”

  “Lily Parker,” I said. “First year at St. Sophia’s.”

  “You one of the brat pack?”

  “She is mos’ def’ not one of the brat pack,” Scout said, joining us at the counter, as she poked a straw into the top of her soda. She took a sip, eyes closed in ecstasy. I had to bite back a laugh.

  Lips still wrapped around the straw, Scout opened one eye and squinted evilly at me. “Don’t mock the berry,” she said when she paused to take a breath, then turned back to the kid behind the counter. “She tried, unsuccessfully, to join the brat pack, at least until she realized how completely lame they are. Oh, and Derek, this is Lily. You two are buds now.”

  I grinned at Derek. “Glad to meet you.”

  “Ditto.”

  “Derek is a Montclare grad who’s moved into the wonderful world of temping at his dad’s store while working on his degree in underwater basketweaving at U of C.” She batted catty eyes at Derek. “I got that right, didn’t I, D?”

  “Nuclear physics,” he corrected.

  “Close enough,” Scout said with a wink, then stepped back to trail the tips of her fingers across the boxes of candy in front of the counter. “Are we thinking Choco-Loco or Caramel Buddy? Am I in the mood for crunchy or chewy today?” She held up two red and orange candy bars, then waggled them at us. “Thoughts? I’m polling, checking the pulse of the nation. Well, of our little corner of River North, anyway.”

  “Choco-Loco.”

  “Caramel Buddy.”

  We said the names simultaneously, which resulted in our grinning at each other while Scout continued the not-so-silent debate over her candy choices. Crispy rice was apparently a crucial component. Nuts were a downgrade.

  “So,” Derek asked, “are you from Chicago?”

  “Sagamore,” I said. “New York state.”

  “You’re a long way from home, Sagamore.”

  I glanced through the windows toward St. Sophia’s towers, the prickly spires visible even though we were a couple of blocks away. “Tell me about it,” I said, then looked back at Derek. “You did your time at MA?”

  “I was MA born and bred. My dad owns a chain of bodegas”—he bobbed his head toward the shelves in the store—“and he wanted more for me. I got four years of ties and uniforms and one hell of an SAT score to show for it.”

  “Derek’s kind of a genius,” Scout said, placing the Choco-Loco on the counter. “Biggest decision I’ll make all day, probably.”

  Derek chuckled. “Now, I know that’s a lie.” He held up the front of the comic book, which featured a busty, curvy superheroine in a skintight latex uniform. “Your decision making is a little more akin to this, wouldn’t you say?”

  My eyes wide, I glanced from the comic book to Scout, who snorted gleefully at Derek’s comparison, then leaned in toward her. “He knows?” I whispered.

  She didn’t answer, which I took as an indication that she didn’t want to have that conversation now, at least not in front of company. She pulled a patent leather wallet from her bag, then pulled a crisp twenty-dollar bill from the wallet.

  I arched an eyebrow at gleaming patent leather—and the designer logo that was stamped across it.

  “What?” she asked, sliding the wallet back into her bag. “It’s not real; just a good fake I picked up in Wicker Park. There’s no need to look like a peasant.”

  “Even the humblest of girls can have a thing for the good stuff,” Derek said, a grin quirking one corner of his mouth, then lowered his gaze to the comic book again. I sensed that we’d lost his attention.

  “Later, D,” Scout said, and headed for the quick shop’s door.

  Without lifting his gaze, Derek gave us a wave. We walked outside, the sky still gray and moody, the city eerily quiet, and toward St. Sophia’s.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me get this straight. You wouldn’t tell me—your roommate—about what you were involved in, but the guy who runs the quick shop down the street gets to know?”

  Scout nibbled on the end of one of the sticks of chocolate in her Choco-Loco wrapper, and slid me a sideways glance as she munched. “He’s cute, right?”

  “Oh, my God, totally. But not the point.”

  “He has a girlfriend, Sam. They’ve been together for years.”

  “Bummer, but let’s keep our eyes on the ball.” We separated as we walked around a clutch of tourists, then came back together when we’d passed the knot of them. “Why does he get to know?”

  “You’re assuming I told him,” Scout said as we paused at the corner, waiting for a crossing signal in heavy lunchtime traffic. “And while I’m glad he’s supportive—seriously, he’s so pretty.”

  “It’s the hair,” I suggested.

  “And the eyes. Totally chocolatey.”

  “Agreed. You were saying?”

  “I didn’t tell him,” Scout said, leading us across the street when the light changed. “Remember what I told you ab
out kids who seemed off? Depressed?”

  “Humans targeted by Reapers?”

  “Exactly,” she said with a nod. “Derek was a near victim. He and his mom were superclose, but she died a couple of years ago—when he was a freshman. Unfortunately, he rushed the wrong house at U of C; two of his fraternity brothers were Reapers. They took advantage of the grief, made friends with him, dragged him down even further.”

  “They”—how was I supposed to phrase this?—“took his energy, or whatever?”

  Scout nodded gravely as we moved through lunch-minded Chicagoans. “There wasn’t much left of him. A shell, nearly, by the time we got there. He was barely going to class, barely getting out of bed. Depressed.”

  “Jeez,” I quietly said.

  “I know. Luckily, he wasn’t too far gone, but it was close. We identified him and had to clear away some nasty siphoning spells—that’s what the younger Reapers used to drain him, to send the energy to the elders who needed it. We got him out and away from the Reapers. We gave him space, got him rested and fed, put him back in touch with his family and real friends. The rest—the healing—was all him.” She scowled, and her voice went tight. “Then we gave his Reaper ‘friends’ a good talking-to about self-sacrifice.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Well, we managed to bring one of them back. The other’s still a frat boy in the worst connotation of the phrase. Anyway, Derek’s one of a handful of people who know about us, about Adepts. We call them the community.” I remembered the term from the conversation with Smith and Katie. “People without magic who know about our existence, usually because they were caught in the crossfire. Sometimes, they’re grateful and they provide a service later. Information. Or maybe just a few minutes of normalcy.”

  “Strawberry soda,” I added.

  “That is the most important thing,” she agreed. She pulled me from the flow of pedestrian traffic to the curb at the edge of the street. “Look around you, Lil. Most people are oblivious to the currents around them, to the hum and flow of the city. We’re part of that hum and flow. The magic is part of that hum and flow. Sometimes people say they love living in Chicago—the energy, the earthiness, the sense of being part of something bigger than you are.”