Arcane Dropout 3

by Edmund Hughes

  “Hornbell’s Report: Oral Traditions of the Moche People,” she whispered, reading the title of the first page. “To be read by only those of sufficient moral character.”

  Tess raised an eyebrow at Instructor Lewis.

  “It’s hexed, you see,” he said. “The rest of the pages are blank. You’d think that a researcher who’d spent their life studying one of the tribal peoples would want to share their work far and wide. Hornbell did the opposite, which as you can imagine, left me with a fair number of questions.”

  Tess frowned. The open page of the book tingled underneath her fingertips, like one of the dancing ribbons she’d recently learned to make in her enchanting class. There were a few words written on the first page of the book, the only writing on the otherwise-blank pages.

  PROPERTY OF: RICHARD HORNBELL

  She ran her finger over the words, pulling her hand back at a sudden, sharp pain, as though a needle or spark had been hidden under the page.

  PROPERTY OF: RICHARD HORNBELL THERESA HOLLOWAY

  “Tess?” asked Instructor Lewis. “Jesus, what is it? Did something—”

  The question died on his lips as he turned the book around and noticed the change. He flipped the book open, shaking his head at the still-blank pages.

  “This is… unexpected,” he said. “Here. Go ahead. Try flipping through it.”

  He passed the book back to her. Tess opened to a random page and watched in fascination as the writing appeared for her, ink blotting into characters underneath wherever she placed her gaze. Lewis watched, open-mouthed and fascinated.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know what I did.”

  “You unlocked it,” said Lewis. “This is marvelous! Tess, you must read it for me! This is Richard’s life’s work. I… I thought it might be lost forever. Tess… this is incredible!”

  She blinked, feeling a sudden rush of confusion as she flipped back to the first page. Another sentence had been written underneath the line denoting the tome’s owner.

  May God forgive me.

  CHAPTER 13

  Lee blinked, coming back to reality as the vision, or memory, or whatever it had been released its hold on him. He sat up, only then noticing the copious amount of drool that had leaked onto his chin. He expected Tess to tease him as he wiped it away with his sleeve, but she was uncharacteristically distant.

  “That can’t be all,” he said. “There must have been more than just that.”

  “I’m sure there was, but it hasn’t come back to me yet,” she said. “I’m not really sure if I want it to come back. It’s kind of scary for me, Lee.”

  She was still in his mystic stream, and Lee quickly pulled her into a hug.

  “You don’t have to face it alone,” he said. “You can share it with me, if you want to. Or not. I’ll support you however I can, Tess.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “For what?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel so disappointed.”

  “Why?”

  “I genuinely forgot how much of a loser I was back in my time at Primhaven,” she said, with a sigh. “It’s kind of depressing to think about how unhappy I was there and the fact that I never got a chance to leave and go anywhere else.”

  “I should have tortured Robert’s ghost when I had the chance,” said Lee.

  “That wouldn’t have helped.”

  “Maybe not, but it would have taught him a valuable lesson,” he said. “Nobody gets to call you ‘Tasty Theresa’ but me.”

  “Lee! Don’t you dare start calling me that.”

  ***

  The kitchen was serving waffles with real maple syrup and apple smoked sausages the next morning, which meant that the dining hall was more crowded than usual. Lee filled his tray up and went to find a seat next to Toma and Eliza. Jenna was suspiciously absent, and Toma seemed to pick up on Lee’s unasked question as he joined them.

  “We had a fight,” muttered Toma.

  “Really?” Lee let out a heavily exaggerated gasp. “That’s unbelievable.”

  “Shut up,” said Toma. “You don’t get it. It’s not my fault, it’s hers. She just doesn’t understand how things are between me and Kei.”

  “What does Kei have to do with anything?” asked Eliza.

  “It’s complicated,” said Toma.

  Kei was present at the instructor’s table across the dining hall. He was sitting separate from the other instructors, eating his food with careful, purposeful bites. Lee wasn’t the only one paying attention to him. It seemed as though a significant percentage of the college’s female population was watching his every move.

  “Do the two of you just not get along, or something?” asked Lee.

  Toma sighed. “We never have. We used to fight all the time, but after Kei joined the Order it was more like he just ignored me. It was the same for my other brothers, so it’s not like it’s just the relationship between me and him is cracked. He’s just a really distant, private person, on top of the normal stuff.”

  “How does this explain why him being here leads to you and Jenna fighting?” asked Eliza.

  “Just look at him!” said Toma. “He’s a lot like me, even in the way he used to struggle with magic, except…”

  Lee looked back and forth from Kei, with his sleeve tattoos and the obvious contour of his gun holster under his jacket, to Toma, with his unfortunate haircut and ruddy cheeks.

  “Except cool?” asked Lee. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” said Toma. “Yeah. Like me, except better with girls, more popular at school, and just… more fun to be around. I can’t even count the number of friends I had back home that only hung around with me when Kei wasn’t around. Hell, my teenage crush lost her virginity to him.”

  “Jesus,” muttered Lee.

  “That isn’t his fault, strictly speaking,” said Eliza. “People make choices, Toma. If I were you, I’d worry more about pushing Jenna away with your insecurity than having her make the very unlikely choice to ditch you for your brother.”

  “Eliza,” said Toma. “Look over your shoulder.”

  She did, and Lee followed Toma’s gaze to a group of girls in the corner of the chamber, Jenna among them. They were whispering to each other and slowly making their way over to stand by the instructor’s table, near Kei. It seemed as though they were trying to summon the courage to approach the new elemental magic teacher and catch his fancy, which would have been hilarious to Lee if not for the way it clearly wrinkled Toma.

  “This should give you more reason to go talk to your brother, not less,” said Lee. “Learn from him. Absorb his coolness. Maybe ask him where he got his tattoos done.”

  “He’s your brother, Toma,” said Eliza. “I’m sure if you explained the situation to him, he’d be more than willing to do something to present you in a good light.”

  “I guess.” Toma scowled and let out a small groan. “No, you guys are right. I have to face this head on.”

  He stood up, and almost on cue, Kei cleared his own tray from the instructor’s table. Toma hurried to cross the chamber, but Kei’s legs were longer, and he was out the door while his brother was still working through the crowd.

  “I didn’t want to bring this up with Toma around, but how does Kei even manage to be that cool?” asked Lee.

  “Some people are just born with it,” said Eliza.

  “I notice that you haven’t joined any of the groups fawning over him.”

  Eliza shrugged. “He’s cool, but not my kind of cool, you know?”

  Lee wasn’t sure that he did, but Tess made a tsking noise as she slid her ethereal face in close to his ear.

  “Smile and nod,” she whispered. “She just gave you a hint. At least pretend like you picked up on it.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The initiates had Alteration first that morning, which sent them deep into one of the lesser-used empty lecture halls within the Seruna Center. Instructor Daniels was on his feet
when they arrived, standing in the corner of the room, staring at the wall in the silence.

  “How long has he been like this?” Lee asked a student who arrived earlier.

  The girl shrugged. “Since before I got here.”

  Lee, Eliza, and Toma found their seats and waited while the rest of the class filled in. It wasn’t until nearly every seat was full that Instructor Daniels finally turned around and seemed to take notice of the class.

  “Oh,” he said. “Hello there. You’re here… for class?”

  None of the students answered, probably because the answer was self-evident, but also out of basic politeness. Instructor Daniels was one of Primhaven’s more eccentric faculty members, tall with a strong jaw, black hair, and the most unfocused personality of anyone Lee had ever met.

  According to Harper, Daniels’s personality quirks were due to his time as a member of the Order. He’d once been known as the Shield Warden, a powerful altmancer who’d used his magic to defend entire cities against threat.

  “Hmmm…” said Daniels. “Is the wall crooked, or is it the floor? Crookeding… past tense, criked? Crooked, crooking, cricked… no, that’s… not right.”

  “I think it’s both, Instructor,” said Eliza. “The building is still damaged from the geomancy Head Wizard Odarin used against the House of Shadows.”

  “Foundation,” muttered Instructor Daniels. “Yes… What better way to build your foundation than to build a foundation? Today, all of you will be finding your… dation? Damn it, that’s also… incorrect.”

  However scattered they may have been, Instructor Daniels’s tangents were centered around a practical idea for the day’s class. He led them outside the Seruna Center, which was yet to be fully repaired after the events of the previous month beyond having its windows replaced and the glass swept up.

  They started just outside the Seruna Center’s main entrance. Instructor Daniels opened a notebook and began taking notes at a furious pace. He’d pass each page off to a student at random who would attempt to ask questions or double-check the instructions before, in most cases, giving up and passing their task on to a worthier student, mainly Eliza.

  “Mmmm, yes,” said Daniels. “Excellent. Each of you will measure the variation at points scattered around the… structure… and calculate the shift. Wait for me where I assign you.”

  He worked furiously, writing out more pages with more numbers and jogging around the edge of the school with the entire class following in his wake. Toma was one of the first few to be set into position, and Daniels pointed to several angles along the building for him to measure.

  Most of the students were dropped off near the event hall, where the damage was most severe. Lee was left on the north side of the building, which suited him fine for what he had in mind. He waited until Instructor Daniels and the rest of his class were out of sight before quickly eyeballing his notes, scribbling down the needed info on the sheet of paper, and weighing it down where it needed to be with a rock.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I would guess that you’re about to skip class,” said Tess.

  She’d done her hair in pigtails for whatever reason, and they bounced across her shoulders as she skipped circles around him, excited at the prospect of mischief.

  “It’s not really skipping class,” he said. “Just taking a quick walk.”

  He headed around Primhaven’s inner wall, following it through the orchard, around the First Tower, and all the way to the secret, illusion-veiled jail hidden in the north section of campus. Tess quirked an eyebrow at him as he did a sly circuit of the area, making sure he was still unnoticed, before pulling open the hatch.

  “I haven’t ever dealt with a lich before, but I’ve heard about them in passing,” he said. “One of the constants that always gets brought up is how they have a natural attraction toward the places where people recently died.”

  Tess’s previously cheery expression sobered, her mouth pulling down into a worried frown.

  “You think it might be down there?” she asked, nodding to the hatch.

  “I doubt it. That would be way too easy. Besides, Mattis already removed and buried Gabby’s body. I do think there’s a chance that it might have sent one of its servants down here, though, or there might potentially be some other clue.”

  He headed down the stairs, taking care to close the hatch behind him. There was a light switch to the left of the doorway at the start of the hallway, and memories came rushing back as he flicked it and took in the scene of Gabby’s imprisonment and death.

  He’d known so little about her, though that was due mostly to how little she’d spoken. She’d been a rogue sorceress, free from the Order’s supervision, the architect of her own morality.

  Lee had always found it weird that the only difference between a mage and a sorceress seemed to be whether they were willing to play nice with the proverbial ‘wizarding police.’ Other words worked like that too, he supposed. Ghost and specter. Murderer and executioner.

  Gabby had been strangled to death, which meant that there was no iconic blood stain marking her place of death. Even still, Lee would never be able to forget where her body had been, how it had looked. She’d had the most intricate tattoos he’d ever seen spanning most of her neck, and the ugly bruises of her death had made them look sinister and demonic.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Tess, in a small voice.

  “That it would have been so much goddamn simpler if she’d just left a ghost.”

  Gabby’s death still posed a threat to the school in itself, on top of whatever attraction the lich might have to it. Zoe had claimed that her master, the Dealmaker, would have had no reason to go through the trouble of infiltrating Primhaven for the petty purpose of ending her life.

  It made sense, given that any information Gabby had would have normally been extracted by the time the House of Shadows had made their move. Killing her wouldn’t have protected them from anything.

  The fact that Gabby hadn’t opened up to Lee and Harper only made her death that much more unfortunate. There was logic in what Zoe had suggested. Someone at Primhaven might have killed her solely to keep her from falling back into the hands of the Dealmaker. It was an immense price to pay for a small victory, but at least it was one that seemed to make logical sense.

  Lee hated where that particular conclusion led, most of all. Who at the college would be capable of such an act? One of the faculty members? A student with an agenda of their own? Someone who was a member of the servant staff, completely under the radar?

  Where had Harper been at the time of Gabby’s death?

  Lee ran a hand through his hair, exhaling in frustration. He was mulling over whether it might make sense to stake out the jail again later that night when a noise came from the hatch behind him.

  It creaked once, catching in the familiar spot that always annoyed him when he opened it himself. Lee silently moved diagonal to the doorway, pressing his back against the wall and flicking off the light switch. The only people who knew about the hidden jail were members of Primhaven’s faculty. Why would one of them come down here during the middle of the day, when it was completely empty?

  Or maybe it was someone—or something—else. A creature drawn to the smell of fresh death.

  CHAPTER 15

  Lee waited patiently, holding his breath. Someone made their way downstairs with slow, tentative footsteps. He pulled out his kris dagger, letting the new arrival pass beyond the doorway before making his move.

  He lunged forward, looping an arm around their shoulder and bringing his dagger to the skin of their neck. The body he pulled tight against his was surprisingly soft and… familiar.

  “What the—?” cried Eliza. “Lee, what are you doing?”

  “Oh.” Lee pulled back as quickly as he could, sheathing his kris dagger as though he could undo what had just happened if he put it away with enough haste. “Sorry, Eliza. I, uh, didn’t know it was you.”

  He turned the lig
ht on. Eliza folded her arms and narrowed her eyes at him, her face flushed with emotion.

  “What the hell were you even doing down here?” she asked. “How did you even know about this place?”

  “Harper and I had some… business here. Were you following me?”

  “Obviously!” she snapped. “You took off from class without saying anything. I saw you disappear behind the First Tower. It took me a few minutes, but I’m good with illusion magic and eventually managed to see through the veil hiding the hatch.”

  “Ah,” said Lee.

  “You just put a knife to my neck,” said Eliza. “I need an explanation. What the hell is going on with you?”

  “It’s complicated,” said Lee. “Look, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that. I was just—”

  Eliza shook her head and held her hands out to the side. She walked by him, letting her shoulder dramatically bump against his as she hurried to the stairs.

  “Eliza, hold on.”

  “Are you going to give me a real explanation if I do?”

  Lee hesitated for an unfortunate, crucial second. Eliza pushed her way out of the hatch and back onto campus. Lee groaned and shoved his hands into his pockets, noticing Tess as she looked at him expectantly.

  “You could have handled that better,” she said.

  “What was I supposed to tell her? The situation with Gabby isn’t something I can just go blabbing about. The lich, too.”

  “I’m just saying you could have handled it better,” said Tess. “Maybe, oh, skipped the part where you held a knife to her neck?”

  Lee pulled Tess into his mystic stream and then yanked one of her pigtails.

  “Ow! Hey, don’t come after me next. All I did was point out the obvious.”

  When Lee arrived back at the Seruna Center, Instructor Daniels was already in the process of applying the work he’d enlisted the class into, and it was a sight to behold. He watched as Daniels created a massive horizontal plane of bright-green alteration barrier magic, and then gingerly slid it underneath the building, like a workman angling a shovel beneath a rock.