The Broken Academy 2 : Power of Magic

by Jade Alters

  We spent our free time this way for the rest of our years together at Clearlake Academy, once my detention for the cube incident was served. I got my first flogging for that one, yet somehow I left feeling like the winner. The Clearlake garden never looked nicer. No one dared to whisper a word about Harry’s makeup so long as I was there, silently toying with puzzles on the bench beside him.

  Orientation

  Emery,

  Big Sur,

  Present Day

  I sit behind Mother and our driver, forehead mashed against the glass of our tinted windows. Therein lies the sole reason I love the car so much - it’s one of the only places I can get away with posture and behavior like this. Mother keeps her face utterly forward even when she addresses me. It’s like someone’s wedged an even bigger stick up her ass than usual, one with spokes that prevent her from turning around. So I slouch. I let my head slide down the window panes. I breathe easy for once. I need it now, too. Not just for the destination on the other end of this ride but the dream I had last night.

  So weird. I haven’t thought too intensely about Harry since he left Clearlake a few years back. His family and mine had no alliances or business arrangements, and Harry and I were a compatible match for an arranged marriage, so we didn’t keep in touch. Then, suddenly, he pops into my dreams. I rarely dream, either, making the experience doubly jarring. Driving across Big Sur, just like I used to, to come to Clearlake every day on Mother and Father’s commute… Yeah, that’s enough to bring Harry to mind. Frightened little Harry. But damn do I miss him - just about the only person who could drag some good out of me, before I even knew what good was. Maybe I still don’t. And maybe I’m a little frightened too, about my drive with Mother today. In spite of what I tell her, of what I have to tell everyone. I try to chase Harry from my mind - I’ll never see him again.

  This is the real Academy, after all. And I’m not just going there for Mystical History. I’m going to do what my parents and the rest of my family can’t anymore. Not since the incident last term. The Council banished every last one of them, including Father - the Magister. Only Serge was allowed to stay. He earned their trust by destroying that part of our family. But all of that is about to change. About fifteen minutes from now, to be precise. When Mother and I arrive at the Big Sur Tether.

  “Emery,” Mother says. She uses my name as a command, like one would a trained animal - a cue to a response. Much as it irks me immediately afterward, my body reacts automatically. I sit up almost as straight as Mother.

  “Mother,” I respond, to let her know I’m attending. She doesn’t look back at me. She doesn’t bother with the glimmering ocean on one side of our zooming car, or the earthy spires on the other. Mother keeps her face forward always. Composed. Prestigious. She trusts the acoustics of the car will carry her message well enough.

  “I spoke with your advisor. The new Magister, Reynold. He shares none of the prejudice of the rest of the Council against our family, but I’m sure he’s been instructed to watch you, carefully,” Mother tells me. How she convinced the Council to allow me admission to the Academy at all, I can only guess. But she wasn’t there, the night of the incident with the Dragon girl, so perhaps she called in a favor of trust for her long tenure as an Academy professor. “Reynold informed me that many of your credits transfer from Clearlake. You will be able to bypass many of the general education courses and jump straight to something more your level.” Typical to Mother, I can hear the I told you so in her voice, regardless of her words. After all, driving me as high up the ladder of advanced courses as possible at Clearlake was her idea.

  “Understood,” I tell her. It’s pointless to impart a positive or negative tone to the information, as I know Mother will breeze right past it. It’s not “good” that my credits transferred, just like she says the classes I’ll take are “more my level”, rather than four years ahead of where most people start.

  “No reconnaissance for the first few weeks. If you can dazzle Reynold with your grades and keep a low profile of good behavior, he’ll sing your praises to the rest of the Council. Only once this has happened do you begin your mission. What we need above all else is access to the Six Tethers. Once you earn the respect of your professors and supervisors, a little tampering shouldn’t be too difficult. So long as you choose your timing right,” Mother yammers on. I don’t know why she bothers. We’ve been over this five times already. Though I can’t deny that the new urgency in her voice as we approach one of those Six Tethers unsettles me.

  “Of course. I can’t break curfew, but I need to analyze hall activity to choose a low-traffic time,” I recite, as rehearsed. “And I’ll need permission to use basic tricks outside of class to conceal myself.”

  “Correct,” Mother chimes. “Your secondary mission is locating a deserter to our cause. A dangerous loose end - the Vampire.”

  “Darius?” I blurt in my surprise. This is the first time Mother has mentioned a secondary objective. Of what happened the night my family fled the Academy, I know only what Mother and Father have told me. That precious little information includes: they were trying to recruit a Dragon to their cause, Serge betrayed us to help the Dragon escape, and Darius helped them. It’s not impossible to believe, what with how long Serge and Darius have known one another… The thing that gets me is, if they were on the same side, why is Serge at the Academy while Darius is missing?

  “Forget the Darius Jecks you knew as your brother’s friend, as your own friend. He became a different man when he betrayed us alongside your brother. He became a traitor. Tell me, Emery. What is the one unforgivable crime, under any circumstances?”

  “Betrayal,” I utter back, just the way Mother taught me. I still remember the day she explained it. Most wrongful acts can be justified in particular scenarios. Even murder, in times when the death of one will prevent the deaths of thousands. But to betray those who trust you…there is nothing more intimate, or more evil, Mother told me, when I was ten years old.

  “Don’t ever let that slip your mind. Remember it when you find Darius, and end him.” Mother’s voice isn’t grim, or even all too heavy when she says it. That makes it much worse. End him, she says, as simple as putting a period in the middle of a run-on sentence. “Remember it when you see your brother, too, as I’m sure you will. He betrayed us. Use him as a source of information if you can, and nothing more. He is in the Council’s good graces, after all.”

  “Yes, Mother,” I assure her. Our driver swings a wide bend in the road, then brakes hard to stop in time for the tiny side road to our destination. My pulse quickens as he spins the wheel and puts the gas back down. Our car rumbles down a dusty path through dense forest. The rocky peaks of the coastal mountains are blotted out by the thickening of the emerald canopy. The inside of the car lights itself dimly by way of Mother’s effortless trick, to compensate for how dark the tinted windows make it.

  “Repeat the details of your mission back to me,” Mother commands. I take a deep breath to start, but hesitate for a second when our car plows through the barrier of an illusory curtain. It makes no physical impact, but to three Dalshak Magicians, the feel of the air around us is completely different. There’s a certain tension in it, like the constant hum of a machine. The residual energy of the trick that keeps this whole area hidden to Normans. I take the quickest glance up through our sunroof to see the stream of blinding light shooting up into the sky above us. The Big Sur Tether. My gateway to the Broken Academy.

  “I’ll blend for several weeks, making positive impressions on my instructors, supervisors and peers. When I’ve gained their trust and permission to use tricks outside the classroom, I’ll secure passage for you and the others through each of the Six Tethers. My second mission is to locate Darius Jecks and…end him,” I choke on the last two words only for a second - just long enough for Mother to catch it. I see one of her fingers twitch in her lap.

  “Eliminate the traitor,” Mother reiterates, “But not at the cost of your first mi
ssion.” Our driver does his best on the dusty old forest road, but he’s forced to slow as we near the base of the Tether. The Dalshak transport cars weren’t meant for offroading, and this place is one twist after another. “Do you have any questions?” I bite my lip in thought of it. Of course I do! I always do, at this point in our little briefings. Whether or not Mother actually wants me to ask them, however, is a test with ever-changing results.

  “Why the Tethers? Are we planning a full-scale invasion?” I decide to let out the question that will haunt my imagination for months if I don’t ask. Mother scoffs, her chin in her tall, ruffled collar. I know immediately that I’ve made a mistake.

  “Unfortunately for one so young, the we involved in planning a full-scale invasion does not include you,” Mother tells me. Never before have I had to chomp down on the inside of my mouth so hard to keep from lashing back. I feel like screaming, no, I’m just the first one in the line of fire, if you decide to attack! The only sound that actually escapes me is a breath in and a breath out. “You will receive further details when your mission is accomplished.” I sit in teeth-gritting, pants-clenching silence until Mother says, “Are we understood?”

  “Yes…Mother,” I force myself to say as the driver rounds the last sharp bend to the base of the Tether. With the beginning of the term only two days off, the place is teeming with the bodies of hopeful Academy enrollees. Some have come alone with backpacks, some are surrounded by loving family come to see them off. They gather at the heart of a small clearing in the woods. All of them share one hope - to better themselves in the mastery of what they are. All of them except me. I was born with the cursed gift of mastering what I am from a young age. A Dalshak Magician. No, my goal here is different and singular. To make the Broken Academy whole. To return it to its proper state.

  Mother and I pop our doors open at once. I step out, hoist my own tiny pack onto my back and stroll towards the crowd at the heart of the clearing. Just on the other side of the gathering, I peer out at the back road to the other, public parking lot full of cars. Only my family is permitted on the private road we used to come directly to the Tether. The slam of our doors sends a ripple of quiet chatter through the crowd. It’s her.

  The Dalshak girl. There’s the Mother too, oh my God! Was she there, the night of the attack? No, but I doubt she’s innocent. That’s about all I can catch before Mother and I are within arm’s reach. At that point, the crowd parts straight down the middle for us to move through. The bodies gravitate away from us like we’re surrounded by a cloud of noxious gas, because we are. It’s called prestige. Mother and I stop an inch away from the edge of a small pond, roughly as wide as I am tall. From it froths an endless spiral of light-made-solid. It twists like strands of DNA, all the way up to the illusory curtain that hides the Academy in the sky just above us. When we reach the pool, Mother and I turn in to one another.

  “I love you, dear,” Mother’s lips crimp up in an eerily genuine imitation of a smile.

  “Love you too, Mo- Mom,” I add for effect on the ogling crowd. I wonder if they can hear how forced it is, even if I do love Mother, in the odd way no child can escape.

  I lean forward for a mechanical peck on the cheek. I’m caught completely off-guard when Mother’s lips press down on my forehead instead. And they press, for more than half a second. It’s the farthest thing from our rehearsed public display. When it’s done, I step back from her to inspect her face. It’s part of the act - it has to be. But Mother just regards me with that same ghost of a real smile. Seeing her look that way makes me wonder if I’ve ever actually known her when she was happy. At my sudden paralysis, Mother puts a gentle hand on my shoulder and walks me into the pond.

  My feet never sink into the water. The soles of my shoes press down on it like it’s solid, then rocket up on the current of light from the Big Sur Tether all the way to the Academy.

  Emery,

  The Broken Academy,

  B-Wing

  It all happens so much faster than I pictured it. I was just at Mother’s side, puzzled by her authenticity. Then she ushered me into the light. Now I’m fighting the wind on a ripping lift through the sky. In thirty seconds, California has shrunken down to a top-down geographic map beneath me, and I fling through the illusory curtain around the Academy. It’s double the size of our family estate, though it shares much of the same dark redwood design. I catapult upwards on a wave of force my brain can’t hope to understand, straight through a set of french doors, into the Adjustment Lounge.

  There’s already a crowd of students in the green-carpeted room when I arrive. Some of them have their heads plunged deep in garbage cans, screaming out chunks of their breakfast. Mother warned me I’d want to do the same, but I know better than to show such weakness. I begin walking right away, to avoid fixating on the knots bubbling around my gut. The doors I came through flap open every second with a new arrival from the base of the Tether thousands of feet below. Only a small handful of them manage to walk off the journey behind me. Most of them sprint straight for the long row of garbage cans. Worse, a good majority of them don’t make it - and will now need new shoes. The sounds of it all alone are enough to make my chest rise in little heaves, no matter how I cork the vomit.

  “Welcome to the Broken Academy, B-Wing residents!” A girl a few years older than me shouts from the far end of the Adjustment Lounge. She has a clipboard to check off our names as we arrive. “This gets easier, I swear! Once you’re adequately adjusted, come see me to sign in and I’ll give you your room assignment! Please do not come to me if you’re not sure if you’re adjusted! I have a date after this, so I need this shirt!” I spare the briefest thought of sympathy for the girl. She’ll do this in endless shifts over the next two days, as the B-Wing Supervisor.

  “Emery Dalshak,” I tell her once I ford the crowd of green-faced wanderers. My Supervisor’s name tag reads “Yuma”.

  “So you are,” the girl says instantly. She doesn’t even look for my name on her chart for a few seconds. She just stares me up and down. She reads me for signs of suspicion, or maybe she just admires the stature of a rare new student from the Academy’s oldest attending family. Honestly, I can’t be sure since I’m too focused on keeping my guts in. Eventually, Yuma looks down, checks my name off and hands me a key with a tag hanging off of it.

  “Thanks,” I grunt and break past her immediately.

  “Hey! Do me a favor and hang out here for just a minute! You might feel fine now, but-”

  “Thank you!” I shout back to shut her up. It’s not like she can leave the Lounge to stop me, anyway. All I need just now is a place to empty my food storage in private. My room.

  The golden-handled door to the Adjustment Lounge slams shut behind me. I lift my room key up above my nose. B-22. Great. I turn right on a guess driven by sickness and shoot down the hall. My eyes surf each plaque as I pass it by. B-12, B11- shit, no good. They’re going down! I turn on my heel and dart back the way I came. I bypass the Adjustment Lounge and make it about halfway down the hall before I have to block my mouth with my hand to keep everything in.

  I turn left at the door labeled B-22 and immediately drop my key. I hit my forehead when I bend over to get it. Fortunately for me, this alerts someone inside the room. The knob turns.

  “Hello?” The second the door cracks open, I shoulder my way through it. A pang of guilt plunks in the bubbling soup of my stomach when I knock over the pleasant-sounding girl who opened the door. I sprint straight past her, hook right into the bathroom and drop my face into the toilet bowl. Everything I’ve eaten since yesterday pours out in a hot, stinging waterfall. “Hey- what the hell!” The girl who opened the door screams over my sickening roars. I give in to it and let every last bit of food and liquid run out of me in one long groan. When it’s all done, I flop back on my proud Dalshak backside and face the doorway.

  There I find not just one, but two bodies waiting to see what in the hell the big idea is. One of them has the mint skin and poin
ted ears of a Fey. She regards me with eyes like precious sapphires. The other is a girl my size, with brown hair pulled back in clips and a sprinkle of innocent freckles across her cheeks and nose.

  “I’m your roommate…Emery Dalshak. Sorry about tha-”

  “Oh my- Emery?” the freckled girl who opened the door cuts in. I stare up at her, searching her face to trigger the same recognition she has for me. I scan her whole body: petite breasts, not muscular, but still healthy, medium brown hair… I can’t place it, but the only thing familiar about her is her face.

  “That’s…me. And you are?” I ask.

  “Fey Deller,” says the Fey behind the girl. Fey Deller has no idea I wasn’t addressing her, which makes me snort. It’s true. They really don’t get it, I realize.

  “I’m…Helena Bartos,” the freckled girl tells me. An odd tinge of rose climbs up into her cheeks, like she’s bashful of the name. I can’t imagine why, though I recognize part of it, at least.

  “You…you’re related to Harry?” I ask.

  “Emery,” the girl says, stomping a foot and raising her eyebrows. I can tell it’s meant to make me realize something, but no dots are connecting. I mean, Harry used to do that too, to get me to realize something obvious. Holy shit.

  “Harry?” I cry out without thinking.

  “Not anymore!” the girl cries back, smiling. I flush my bile down the toilet, wipe my face and leap upwards in one ecstatic motion.

  “Helena!” I laugh as I stumble over, still delirious from losing all my food, “It’s nice to meet you!” Helena catches me when I trip and holds me up in the best hug I’ve ever gotten. “You’re beautiful,” I tell her.

  “You were the first one to think so,” Helena whispers back. “It only came true because of you. Because you helped me.”

  “All I did was do puzzles near you!” I laugh.