by Eva Chase
He spun back around and stalked out the door without another word. I stayed where I was for a moment, still processing the sudden turn that conversation had taken.
Whatever was going on between the baron and his son, it might be a hell of a lot more complicated than even Jude knew.
Chapter Twenty
Rory
The first time I had class with Connar after our encounter in Malcolm’s bedroom, I couldn’t stop my cheeks from flaming at the sight of him. His gaze caught on mine and jerked away so quickly it felt as if he’d slapped me. I hesitated for a second in the doorway to the Persuasion classroom and then hurried to a seat that was thankfully open at the opposite end of the room from him. This obviously wasn’t a good time to try to hash anything out.
I’d had other plans for today anyway. As my other classmates trickled in, I studied each of them, watching for a face I recognized. Not him… not her… That guy. I didn’t remember the messy-haired, long-faced boy’s name off the top of my head, but I’d definitely seen him amid the bunch that’d been heading off campus with Professor Crowford and the group of Naries the other day. He was in on the plot the staff still hadn’t revealed to the campus at large.
Declan had told me in the past that there were plenty of fearmancer families who didn’t share the barons’ cutthroat attitudes. That the community in general had once been much less antagonistic toward the Naries we had to live among, and the current disdain for them had grown with encouragement over recent years.
No doubt Crowford and whichever other professors were involved had been instructed to pick their initial participants from the families the barons knew were on their side. There had to be other students here who’d be horrified, and whose parents would be as well. If I could expose the situation early enough and incite them to protest, we might be able to end this experiment before it went any farther.
I’d learned enough about fearmancer politics to realize that blurting out the story myself wasn’t a wise idea. Someone on the inside could spread the word for me. Knowing what that guy had willingly done to Nary students like Shelby left me with no qualms at all about using him as a tool. A taste of his own medicine.
Jude would have been proud of me for taking such a fearmancer view of the situation.
Crowford was standing behind his desk, looking through the notes on his papers, not paying much attention to us yet. I considered the exact phrasing I wanted to use. It’d be easier to cast when my classmate was using his own persuasive magic, since then his guard would be down, but I also faced a higher chance of getting caught.
The decision was made for me with the snap of Crowford’s papers against the desk. He peered through the classroom with his slick smile. Too late to try to slip anything in before class started.
“I’d like us to continue working on the same concept we started discussing a few days ago,” he said. “Persuading ideas and beliefs. This area of study requires particular care because it’s difficult to judge the results of your spell immediately. There generally won’t be concrete indicators of success.”
A hand shot up at the back of the room, and he nodded to the girl there.
“I’ve been wondering since last class,” she said, “how long would something you persuaded a person into thinking or believing actually stick before the spell started to fade? Most of the behavioral persuasive spells we cast, we don’t expect to continue for all that long.”
“Excellent question,” Crowford said. “Internal persuasive spells often last longer than ones modifying external behavior because adjusting thoughts generally requires less energy than adjusting outright actions. That’s one of the reasons this area is worth studying—because it gives you a way to drive a pattern of behavior without the power necessary to compel all of those specific behaviors themselves. But yes, an internal spell has its limitations too. Even a powerful mage is unlikely to see it maintain for more than a couple of days. I’d imagine all of you have shaken the ideas your partners implanted in you last time.”
Yes, because none of them had constructs on their body continuing to feed those spells. I resisted the impulse to glance at Connar, even though I knew now that the magic gripping his mind was mostly illusionary.
Professor Crowford rubbed his hands as he went on. “One interesting factor is that once you’ve trained a mind to think in a certain way, it’s easier to nudge it in that same direction again. Future persuasive spells along the same line will catch hold faster and linger longer than the first time. Those of you who were successful last time, find your partner, and why don’t you see how you experience a repeated attempt?”
Well, that left me and Connar out of the game, since neither of us had even tried to cast on each other. I still needed a way to cover my casting now.
My intended target swiveled in his seat to face the guy behind him, who I guessed had been his partner before. He grinned and started to speak his casting. I braced myself, and a spark of inspiration flashed through my head. All I needed was a brief distraction to ensure no one was paying any attention to me.
I swiped my hand over my mouth and murmured a physicality spell under my breath, picturing the door for the classroom next to ours and propelling a surge of magical energy toward it.
A bang sounded from outside. Then the squeal of hinges, and a thud. Again: bang, squeal, and thud, as the door slammed open into the wall beside its frame and then closed again.
It was a simple trick and probably way more startling to whatever class was in that other room, but all the heads around me whipped in the direction of the sound, even Crowford’s. With the second iteration, I murmured the longer casting I’d been waiting to use, fixing my gaze on my target’s head.
“In five minutes, talk about revealing magic to the Naries and relate it to this lesson. Make sure everyone understands what you’ve been doing to the Nary students.”
Leaving it vague gave him room to approach the subject in the way that felt most natural to him, so it wouldn’t be obvious he’d been compelled. Professor Crowford had taught me that technique too, sometime in the last few months. I guessed I should be a little grateful for his expertise even if I didn’t like his other uses for it.
The door fell silent again. Crowford peeked out into the hall and exchanged a few words with someone outside. He came back in with a shake of his head. “Someone got bored, apparently. All right, back to our practice. Then I’ll mix up your pairs. Those of you who didn’t manage to make your casting work last time, start planning a new strategy for today.”
Ugh. I didn’t really want to be messing with anyone’s thoughts just for the hell of it. What was the most innocuous thing I could think of? Maybe shift someone’s favorite color for a little while? That shouldn’t hurt anything, right?
After a few minutes, Crowford clapped his hands for attention and asked the students who’d been practicing to share their observations comparing today’s class to the previous one. Before he’d even called on the guy I’d worked my magic on, my target raised his voice, interrupting someone else’s answer.
“This technique would be even easier and stick even longer on feebs, wouldn’t it?” he said.
Crowford gave him a wary look. “Generally speaking, yes, most spells are more effective on those with no magical defenses.”
“That could be an amazing way to terrify them in the new sessions,” the guy rambled on, his voice rising with his apparent excitement. “Show them how we can warp their minds right in front of them. They might freak out even more than over illusions and conjurings.”
“Mr. Groving,” Crowford said in an unusually firm voice. “I don’t think—”
“We really should get everyone in on it already, shouldn’t we?” the guy barreled on thanks to my magical encouragement. “Why shouldn’t we all get that extra magical boost?” He gazed avidly around at his classmates. “It’s amazing!”
The guy he’d been partnered with was frowning. “What are you talking about, man?”
“Yeah,” a girl piped up. “What sessions? What are you doing with the Naries?”
Crowford motioned to us all with a wave of his hand, his mouth tightening. “This isn’t the time for a discussion on this matter. Mr. Groving, if you’d please—”
“We’ve been getting small groups of the feebs and showing them enough magic to terrify them,” the guy announced to the rest of the class. “It doesn’t take much. The rush you get—”
Crowford’s voice crackled through the room with a smack of persuasive power. “Stop talking now.”
The guy’s mouth snapped shut. If he’d had any defenses up, the Persuasion professor would have been experienced enough to crack them. And he’d already fulfilled all of my orders, so there wasn’t even my spell to clash with it.
That was fine. He’d done exactly what I needed.
“People have been showing the Naries their magic?” one of the other students said. “Isn’t that, like, breaking the biggest rule here?”
Professor Crowford could obviously tell there was no making this out to be a misunderstanding. His smile came back, smoothly reassuring. “There’s been an adjustment in policy that’s slowly being rolled out while a few select groups evaluate the impact. It’s nothing for the rest of you to be concerned about.”
Fuck that. The barons had said they didn’t want their heirs to know because we might sway the other students’ opinions? I was going to make use of whatever sway I had right now.
“I think we have a lot of reason to be concerned,” I said, letting conviction carry through my voice. “If the Naries are finding out about magic, that affects all of us. And does it really help us learn how to use our power effectively if we’re taking an easy route we could never use on Naries in the real world?”
To my relief, some of the murmurs around me sounded like agreement. Another girl raised her voice, though.
“Why shouldn’t we use the Naries while we’re here, if it works that well? It sounds pretty amazing to me.”
A couple of the other students nodded. I reached for the arguments that seemed most likely to get through to people who didn’t necessarily care about the Naries’ wellbeing. One thing most fearmancers I’d met had in common was a strong sense of pride.
“Shouldn’t we be better than taking a route with so many risks for the entire community, just because it’s easier in the moment? I think we all have the skills to manage our power without going around flaunting our magic at people who don’t have any. We’re not any weaker than all the generations of fearmancers before us, are we?”
A deep, forceful voice broke through the conflicted muttering. “What the fuck do you care about the community?” Connar glared straight at me. “You’ve hardly been in it for half a year. You care more about the Naries you were basically living with than you do about any fearmancer. You want to help them, not us.”
A chill shot through me. I hadn’t expected him to lash out at me in the classroom, on this subject or any other. Apparently my arguments had provoked something in the spell he was carrying that overrode the need to keep the peace in class.
“It’s true,” someone said, just loud enough for me to hear.
I swallowed hard. Connar had clout too—more than I did, probably, because everyone here had known him for years longer than they had me.
“This is my home now,” I said as firmly as I could manage. “I don’t want to lose it, and I don’t want to see us go down a path that’ll hurt us in the long run.”
Connar snorted with so much disgust I had to restrain a wince. “Sure. You haven’t even been part of these sessions, have you? You’re just assuming there are problems with them. It figures.” He looked around at everyone else in the room. “Don’t pay attention to her. She wants to rile you all up. We know what’s good for us better than she does.”
What could I say to that? I hadn’t actually witnessed the sessions with the Naries. I had wanted to rile the class up against them. And I didn’t have any proof of my claims, just my own standards of wrong and right.
Relief had crossed the faces of the other students as they watched Connar. They didn’t want to feel uncomfortable about what their professors or fellow students were doing. An established scion had just given the new policy his seal of approval. That was all they needed.
I opened my mouth and caught myself. Anything I said would just give him another excuse to insult me. Until I found the right argument…
“How do we get in on these sessions?” one of the guys was asking Crowford.
“Yeah,” the girl who’d first disagreed with me said. “I want to try it out.”
My hands clenched under my desk. Instead of encouraging opposition to the new policy, I’d ended up setting the stage for a bunch of new supporters. More people eager to torment the Naries.
God, maybe it’d have been better if Shelby had stayed dismissed from school. I might have done more damage to her by influencing Jude into arranging for her return than losing her place had hurt her career. How much more agony were my fellow fearmancers going to put her through before she was done here?
And Connar was now not just taking jabs at me but egging on that agony. An ache spread through my gut. We couldn’t let him go on like this any longer, not unless we were prepared to see him ruin more than we could fix.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rory
Whatever worries dogged Jude these days, they followed him into sleep. I woke up to him rolling over on the bed with a yank of the covers and a wordless muttering. The bedroom of his Manhattan apartment was still and dark around us, only a hint of city noise penetrating the walls.
Jude’s shoulders twitched, a shudder running down his back. He said something else, still in the jumbled language of sleep-talk, but more urgent sounding, as if he were giving a warning. I eased upright on the firm mattress to squint at him through the darkness. His eyes were definitely closed, his brow knit beneath the mussed fall of his floppy hair.
He flinched and rolled onto his back again with another frantic mumbling, and I couldn’t stand to keep watching. “Jude,” I said gently, touching the side of his head.
He snapped awake, a shout escaping his lips, his arm flailing out and smacking me across the stomach. I couldn’t contain a startled gasp, although the impact had barely stung. Jude stared at me, blinking blearily as he woke the rest of the way up, and then shoved himself into a sitting position.
“Fuck. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—it was automatic. I don’t know what the hell was going on in my head.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine.” I slipped my arm around him, leaning closer when he tensed. “Really. You didn’t hurt me. And it’s my fault for waking you up out of the blue. You just—you looked like you were having a pretty bad dream.”
“Yeah.” He returned the embrace, starting to relax into me but still partly on edge.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He let out a hoarse chuckle. “Not really. It’s all kind of a blur now anyway. And you already know about everything in my life that’s likely to give me nightmares. I was hoping it wouldn’t happen with you here.”
So, he’d been having those kinds of dreams a lot. My heart squeezed, and I hugged him tighter. He’d put on a believable carefree front during the drive out here and our late-night dinner, but glossing over his more fraught emotions was what Jude did best.
He’d seemed to sleep all right the first time I’d stayed the night here, but that’d been weeks ago. The looming threat of his supposed father must be weighing on him even more. It couldn’t help that with my mother back, there was one more authority figure who’d want to punish Baron Killbrook’s crime.
There were other people who’d help defend Jude if he’d give them the chance. I dipped my head to press a kiss to his shoulder. “Declan and Malcolm know you’ve moved out now. Are you going to tell them why? They can help keep an eye out for any interference from your family.”
Jude grimaced. “Or they could
toss me out of the pentacle so fast my head’ll spin. Arguing with my dad is a lot more acceptable than not even being his son.”
“Do you really think they’d shun you like that? Look at how hard they’re working to help Connar.”
“That’s different. Connar’s still a scion; spells can be broken. There’s nothing that’d make me a real Killbrook.”
“I don’t think the name is going to matter that much. Do you really think that’s what’s most important to them?”
Jude hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But if it is, it won’t be much fun finding out.” He pulled me closer, tucking my legs over his lap, and nuzzled my cheek. “I have you. You know how much that matters to me, don’t you, Rory? As long as I’m all right in your eyes, who the hell cares what anyone else thinks?”
“You’re a lot more than all right,” I had to say.
He kissed me, and I melted into him at the passionate tenderness of his mouth against mine. But a kiss wasn’t enough to completely distract me. When our lips parted, I nestled my head against the crook of his neck and rested my hand on his bare chest.
“You know,” I said carefully, “even if we got married when we’re old enough to, and the other guys go on to have their own lives, and I’m just with you… I don’t think it’d be a good thing for me to be the only person you can turn to. I want to be here for you as much as I can, but I am just one person—and what if something happens to me, or—”
Jude’s arms tensed around me. “Nothing is going to happen to you,” he insisted with so much vehemence it was like he was trying to turn the statement into a spell to ensure that.
My throat constricted. “You can’t know that for sure. And even if nothing does, you deserve to have more people in your life you can open up to. There’s nothing wrong with you, no matter what some fearmancer snobs might think about it.”