by Chloe Garner
He was a spy, and he always had been.
Who was he even reporting to?
Why would they care how she wore her hair to school in the fourth grade?
She went all the way up and down the hallway, opening the doors, then she went to her own room and closed it, even as Lady Harrington and Mrs. Gold were trying to say something to her.
She didn’t care.
None of it made sense, and everything that had ever made sense was a lie.
She had a bed.
It felt good under a sore back.
Ethan Trent had kissed her, and she’d liked it.
It felt like a lifetime ago.
Too much.
It was all too much.
She lay down in her clothes and went to sleep.
She woke stiff, sore, and very confused.
She knew that she’d been upset when she went to sleep, but it was all a mush of things and she didn’t remember why.
And then she saw Sasha sitting on the side of her bed, watching Valerie, and she remembered.
Valerie groaned.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Almost ten,” Sasha said. “Hanson and Shack went to the weight room first thing this morning, and they’re hanging out in the cafeteria now, waiting for you.”
Valerie rubbed her face.
Hanson was the last person she wanted to see, right now.
“How much do you know?” she asked Sasha.
“I know that the doors stayed shut until almost eight, and everyone is freaking out because they heard that you did it. Was it a prank?”
“Is that seriously all they’ve told you?” Valerie asked, sitting up. “Evil jerks. That’s why there are so many secrets. The good guys shouldn’t keep all of these secrets, Sasha.”
“So you tell me,” Sasha said. “And let’s go from there. What happened last night?”
Valerie threw herself back down onto the bed.
“Ethan kissed me,” she said.
“He what?” Sasha asked. “Oh, my gosh, that’s… I’m so excited for you. I mean, I am, really, but… what has that got to do with you locking everyone in their rooms?”
“Nothing,” Valerie said. “It’s just the only part I feel like talking about.”
“Okay,” Sasha said, with a tone that said she was willing to drop it.
“No,” Valerie said. “It’s that the rest of it sucks.”
“Okay,” Sasha said again, settling onto her bed once more.
“My…” Valerie paused. “How safe are we, in here? Can anyone listen in to what we’re saying?”
“Electronic devices are pretty easy to mask over, if you know what you’re doing,” Sasha said. “And magic doesn’t really work like that. You can’t bug somebody’s room and listen in.”
“So… short answer, no, they can’t?” Valerie asked.
“Short answer, no they can’t,” Sasha affirmed.
“All right,” Valerie said, checking to make sure there weren’t any shadows under the door to give away someone standing there. “So, my mom came last night. She wanted to warn me about something… and that’s a secret I have to keep until I find out a few more things, but she came to warn me about something, and some people who were hunting her or me or both of us… I’m not entirely sure, anyway… they showed up. So we locked the doors so that anyone who was here in the girls’ dorm would be safe, because the people coming only really cared about the two of us. And then we went up to Mr. Tannis’ room and… My mom killed all of them. I was right there, and… I saw them, after. It was… It was awful.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Sasha said. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Valerie said. “I don’t even want to think about it, because if I don’t think about it, then maybe it didn’t happen. I mean, I’m glad we lived and not them, and I even… Sasha, I tried to cast on them, and I think it worked. It wasn’t enough, but I think I actually cast something at a pair of men that might have killed them, if they weren’t ready for it.”
“Wow,” Sasha said. “I would have died.”
“No, Sasha,” Valerie said. “Don’t…”
“I’m serious,” Sasha cut in. “You wouldn’t have cast at someone unless they were actually coming to kill you, and I would have stood there and died. I would be dead. You aren’t. You defended yourself, and I’m amazed at that.”
Valerie paused.
Got up and went to sit down next to Sasha, wrapping her arms around the girl.
“Thank you,” Valerie whispered. “That was exactly what I needed to hear.”
“I’m so sorry it happened,” Sasha said. “But I’m glad you’re alive.”
Valerie nodded.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” she said. She was still covered in spell debris; she could feel it on her skin.
“Will you go see Hanson first?” Sasha asked. “He’s feeling really bad that he hasn’t given you your birthday present yet. We spent your entire party together, and then when he went to look for you, you were gone…”
Valerie clamped her jaw and nodded.
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Valerie said. “I’ll… I’ll go find him first. I really need to talk to him.”
“Okay,” Sasha said. “We both really did feel bad.”
Valerie nodded, numb, changing her clothes and going out into the hallway.
It was the same as it had always been. Mrs. Gold had a door, there was no graffiti anywhere, girls came and went from their rooms, talking to each other and heading for leisure time or the bathroom or a late breakfast…
They went silent when they saw her, but that wasn’t actually new.
Valerie turned her face away from it and headed for the cafeteria.
Hanson was sitting with Ethan and Shack, and both his face and Ethan’s lit up when they saw her.
“Heard about your prank,” Ethan called. “Epic.”
Valerie shook her head, motioning to Hanson.
“Can we talk?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “I’m really sorry I abandoned you all night last night…”
“Outside,” Valerie said. “Please?”
He frowned, but gave a casual farewell wave to Ethan and Shack, then followed her down the hallway, past the offices, and out onto the front steps.
“I left your birthday present in my cottage,” he said as he sat. “I didn’t forget. I just… I really liked talking to Sasha, and then when we turned around, we couldn’t find anyone, and Shack said that you’d left…”
“How long have you known?” Valerie asked, staring out at the tree line.
“That I like Sasha? I mean, maybe since kind of the first time I saw her…”
“About magic?” Valerie asked.
He fell silent.
It was an admission, and they both knew it.
“What do you know?” he asked. She snorted.
“How dare you?” she asked. “Going to cover up the secrets you think I haven’t figured out?”
He sighed, resting his forehead on his palms.
“I told my mom that nothing gets past you,” he said finally. “That you’d figure it out.”
“How long have you been spying on me?” Valerie asked.
“Since we were little,” he said, looking over at her. “I didn’t know that that’s what it was, at the time. I just thought my mom was really interested in you and your mom, because she asked me a lot of questions. But she got straight with me around middle school, I guess.”
“So you’ve known about magic since then,” Valerie said.
“More or less,” he said quietly. “I don’t know how to do magic. I mean, my mom never taught me anything like that. But I knew she used it around the house, and that it was important to her, and that… I knew that it was involved with you and your mom, but she was never really specific how.” He paused for a long time, though Valerie sensed there was more. “Not until the day you left.”
There was a kneejerk reacti
on to apologize, but Valerie mastered it.
“And what were you going to do this weekend?” she asked. “Come up here and spy on me some more?”
“Yes,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t miss you. Everything I’ve ever told you, everything I’ve ever been to you, it’s true. You’re my best friend, and there’s a giant hole at school without you there. But, yeah… I’m supposed to go home and answer all of my mom’s questions tomorrow.”
“Who does she report to?” Valerie asked.
“I don’t know,” Hanson said.
“Not good enough,” Valerie told him, and he put the side of his face down on his knees.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “I don’t know.”
“Then I don’t know if you’re with the good guys or the bad guys,” Valerie said.
“I’m not a bad guy,” Hanson protested. “You know that.”
“No,” Valerie said. “I don’t. I don’t know you, I don’t know your mom, I don’t know my mom… I don’t know anyone. I’m completely alone and orphaned, and I think the only person I trust right now is Sasha Mills.”
“I like her a lot,” Hanson said, and Valerie shook her head.
“I want you to go,” she said. “You aren’t going to lay eyes on her or me again until the war is over. Do you understand? You don’t get to spy on us. I’m going to tell Sasha everything, and I’ll leave it up to her if she wants to wait for you. I don’t think I ever want to see you again.”
There was a very long pause, and she looked over at him, just wanting to know what he would say. Finally he shook his head.
“I don’t believe you,” he said. “I mean… You’ve been my best friend since we were six. And I’ve been yours. I love you and you love me. I get that you’re angry and that… I deserve it. I know I do. But I don’t believe that this is the end of us.”
She felt the stinging behind her eyes that told her if she spoke just that moment, she was going to cry.
Swallowing hard, she looked out again.
More than anything, she wanted to put her head on his shoulder, tell him about the night before, how angry she was at her mom, how much she didn’t want to be good at magic… Tell him that her dad was alive and that there were all of these things happening… How hard her classes were and how bad the kids were to her…
Tell him everything.
The way she always had.
“I need you to go,” she finally said as she mastered all of it.
“It’s not us,” he said, standing. “It’s our parents’ fight. Whatever it is that’s going on, she never told me, and I don’t think your mom ever told you. But it’s their fight. And when it’s over… I hope we can be friends again.”
“I’m not coming home again,” Valerie said. “There’s no home there anymore.”
“You’ll find me. Or I’ll find you,” he said, taking a step down and looking back up at her. “This isn’t the end of us.”
She frowned.
“I don’t know you,” she said, then turned before the tears escaped.
She looked up at the school as she heard his footsteps go down the stairs and then fall silent in the grass.
She couldn’t go home. It was entirely true. There was no home left for her there.
Her mother… No one had any idea where her mother was, least of all Valerie, and her father was even less of an option.
No.
Much as it was impossible for her to have said it out loud, this place was her home now, and this was where she belonged.
She pulled the doors open and went in.
She had work to do.
Epilogue
Susan Blake sat on a worn couch at the back of a coffee shop, knees up, notebook spread across them as she wrote nonsense in it. It was a longstanding affectation, one that tended to keep people from talking to her, and left her with a misdirect should she find anyone significant watching her.
Leave the notebook, they tended to be willing to pounce on it and give her an extra moment to disappear.
Given how long she’d been doing it, it actually freed her mind to think through magic from a more chaotic perspective; this was where her biggest eureka moments had come from, there at the end of the war, and the habit hadn’t left her.
“We need to talk about our daughter,” a man’s voice said.
“I made you fifteen minutes ago,” Susan answered. “The minute you hit the door.”
“Is that all?” he asked. “I thought you’d have felt the soulmerge. You not paying attention to that anymore?”
Susan smiled.
“You quit using it three blocks ago when you figured out where I was going to be,” she said. “And you’ve been standing outside for the last hour trying to figure out if you actually wanted to see me.”
She heard Grant snort softly as he sat down by her feet on the couch.
“Risky, coming back here,” he said.
“Thought it was appropriate, once I knew you were looking for me,” she said. “Besides, I wiped out their attack squad two nights ago. They’ll still be reorganizing.”
“Hadn’t heard,” Grant said, and Susan closed her notebook, tucking it under the couch.
“No, they wouldn’t advertise that they got bested by a single operator and a teenage girl.”
There was a pause, and Susan smiled again.
He hadn’t anticipated she would go see Valerie.
She hadn’t even known she was going to do it, herself, until that day when she’d finally had the good sense to check up on Martha Cox.
Victor had been the giveaway. The man couldn’t hide in a pitch-dark room. He was too big and too notable in every way.
Martha, on the other hand, was only mediocre in any way that mattered to Susan. Most of the spies were. Helped them to blend in.
And it had worked on Susan.
“You took her away from me,” Grant said.
“You were dangerous to everyone, including yourself,” Susan answered, crossing her legs now so that she could actually see Grant.
He’d aged well.
He’d always had a solid nature to him, not heavy, but a fighter’s build.
He’d always been a fighter.
She loved that about him.
“Haven’t gotten any better,” he admitted. “You still had no right.”
“It was that moment,” Susan said. “That moment or never. You would have done the same thing, if you were me and you’d had the opportunity.”
“She’s amazing,” Grant said.
“I’m jealous that you’ve gotten to train her,” Susan said. “It shows, by the way.”
“Can’t believe you brought a fight to her,” Grant said, though he didn’t sound angry. That. Susan smiled. That was jealousy.
“You wish you’d been there to see it,” she said, and he covered a smile with his hand and nodded.
“I do.”
“She did you proud,” Susan said. She licked her lips and watched him. “Are we really going to do this?”
“Do what?” he asked.
That wasn’t ignorance. He just wanted to hear her say it first.
“Sneak around on the wrong side of the line,” she said. “Pretend like the last fifteen years didn’t happen.”
“I never left,” he said. “And as far as I can see, there’s no way we can end this once and for all without the two of us working together the way we did the last time we ended it.”
“They’re going to keep going after her,” Susan said.
“And you’re the one who stole her away so we couldn’t train her.”
“If I’d have stayed, every single person we’d ever known would have been trying to buy influence. She’s my daughter and nobody else’s. You won’t make me apologize for that.”
“I know,” Grant said, surprising Susan. “You haven’t heard about the Council brats.”
Susan could sense what that meant without him even having to explain it.
Sh
e sighed.
“I wish she’d known you,” she said finally. “I genuinely do. There just wasn’t any way.”
“You saved her,” Grant said abruptly. “I may never forgive you for stealing her, but I’ll always know you saved her, too.”
Susan nodded and he looked at his hands.
“You clocked them?”
“Two minutes before you,” Susan said. “Probably don’t even know who you are yet.”
“Kill them?” Grant asked.
“I’ve got my decoy set,” she said. “It’s time for you to be a real player again.”
“If I come out, Gemma dies,” Grant said. She gave him a sideways smile and stood.
“You think I don’t have a plan for that?”
Unveiling Magic
Book 2 of the School of Magic Survival Series
Everybody lies. All the time. About everything.
Her mom lied to her about magic. Her best friend lied to her about not being a spy. Her dad... Well, that's too much lie to put into a single accusation.
And Valerie is about to discover that she hasn't seen anything yet.
Welcome back to second semester at The School of Magic Survival. Valerie survived first semester - barely - and everyone is slowly adapting to who she is and what she's capable of. Understandably, Valerie has trust issues with everyone around her - save loyal roommate Sasha - but she's going to have to figure out who she does trust and who she doesn't trust, and fast, because in a world where nothing is ever what it seems, she's about to discover that she's still wrong about all of it.
Get your gear and get back to class. Click now to buy Unveiling Magic.
Other Work by Chloe Garner
Anadidd’na Universe
-Rangers
-Shaman
-Psychic
-Warrior
-Dragonsword
-Child
-Gorgon
-Gone to Ground
-Civil War
-Book of Carter
-Gypsy Becca: Death of a Gypsy Queen
-Gypsy Dawn: Life of a Gypsy Queen
-Gypsy Bella: Legacy of a Gypsy Queen
