Red Jack

by Alex Linwood

  Portia sputtered out, “Now I’m glad you don’t have that ability.”

  Mia’s eyes refocused on Ella and Portia, who were still staring at her. “Oh, I wouldn’t use it on my friends , sillies.”

  Ella nodded slowly. “Okay.”

  Portia turned to Ella. “The worst part of the day was getting hazed by Magisend and her cronies from the cryomancy house. They were in every one of my classes. Why couldn’t I have had you two instead?” She leaned her hand on her chin, depression pulling over her.

  “Oh dear,” Ella said.

  “They even turned the field into a skating rink just to see me fall,” Portia said. “You heard Professor Alaric this morning. They might be able to risk breaking the Academy rules, being nobles and all, but I’m sure that I can’t.”

  “That’s awful!” Ella said. She gathered everyone’s mugs, refilled them at the kettle, then brought them back. “I just can’t stand bullies. There is no reason for it!”

  “If only everyone thought that way,” Portia replied.

  “Well, they should,” Ella said. Mia nodded in agreement. “I agree you can’t directly fight them, but maybe you can give them a taste of their own medicine in a sneakier way… now to think of a way to do that.”

  The three of them sat at the table, silent, sipping their chicken soup. Portia was not versed in the ways of subtle power struggles. Everything in the Black Cat house had been direct—and brutal. Of course, it was possible there were currents of power she was not aware of. Regret gripped her belly when she thought that there might’ve been ways to do things better, to protect Mark better.

  Ella sat up quickly. “I know. I’ll teach you a trick I learned as a kid. It’s perfect. You can set magic to be tripped later when you are nowhere in the vicinity.” Ella gave Portia a conspiratorial smile. “I used to use it on a boy I thought was cute in the village. Thank goodness he never figured it out.”

  “Oh, that’s good!” Mia said.

  “I agree. As long as there’s no way to trace it back to me,” Portia said. “How does it work exactly?”

  “It’s called a node. You make a little pocket, I’ll show you how, and you can set your magic inside of it and seal it back up. Once that’s done, it’s like a little present—perhaps not a pleasant one—for whoever trips it. ”

  “How do you trip it?” Portia asked. “Can you send it for one specific person?”

  “That I don’t know,” Ella said, then paused thoughtfully. “The village wood chopper showed it to me. He set his by location. Anyone who walked through a path would trip the magic. He used it to scare away large animals where he knew he was going to be working the next day. It was only to give them a little fright so he could work without worrying about being surprised. Or worse.”

  Portia considered that. “That might not be specific enough. Though if they follow me around all day like they did today, then I’ll know easily enough where they will be.” She looked at Ella with appreciation on her face. “Thank you. That’s the most helpful thing I’ve learned all day. Even if I probably won’t use it. I don’t dare.”

  “No?” Ella asked, her face falling.

  “It’s too risky,” Portia said, “but I’d like to learn it anyhow, just in case things get really desperate.”

  “Great!” Ella perked up again, pleased and happy. “I agree that you have to be careful. I don’t want to lose my roommate. But you should know this anyway, just to have something to protect yourself.”

  “Okay, that makes sense,” Portia said amiably.

  “Excellent. Let’s practice this after dinner. I’m not sure what of your magic would be the best to put in a node, so we’ll have to experiment.” Ella said. Portia groaned again at the thought of having to concentrate even more that day, but she still nodded her agreement.

  The girls clinked their mugs together to celebrate the plan.

  The rest of the evening passed in a blur. Ella tried to teach Portia the node magic in their room after dinner, but Portia kept nodding off. Mia had already begged off due to exhaustion and retreated to her own room. Portia felt envy at that refuge, but since she didn’t have a room of her own to retreat to, she sat cross-legged on her bed, struggling to pay attention to Ella’s excited chatter. When she could not keep her eyes open any longer, she simply lay down and fell fast asleep. It took several minutes for Ella to notice.

  That night, Portia’s nightmare returned stronger than ever. It was different this time though. Now she could see the land below the cracking sky. It was an island in the middle of a rough and choppy sea. Storms and lightning agitated the water. The sea’s waves tossed a fleet of wooden boats. One of the boats flipped over, its masts disappearing under the waves, only leaving the curve of the hull facing upwards under the flashing night sky. Then the hole appeared overhead, a spot clear of clouds, rain, or stars. The giant eye in the velvet blackness of the hole peered down at the island below. The wretched hands came into view, prying at the breach in the rent sky.

  Portia woke in a cold sweat. Her bedding was soaked. She shivered in the cool night air. The nightmare now had details from her history class. She groaned. The more details the dream took on, the more frightening it was.

  Getting out of bed, she changed into her nightclothes, feeling around in the dark so as to not wake up Ella. She struggled to sleep after that. She lay awake in her bed staring out the window at the full moon and thinking about Mark and Elyas. Her stomach hurt at the thought of the two people she had let close to her suffering like they did. She couldn’t do anything to help Elyas now—she could only work hard to make him proud. But she might be able to do something for Mark, even if he didn’t want her help. She would work hard in the Academy and learn enough skills to defeat Deyelna and protect Mark. She had to. There was no choice.

  Portia got out of bed, careful to not wake Ella. She dug around in her trunk and found Elyas’s bag. Its soft leather was comforting. Opening it, she pulled out the locket she had found of him and his daughter, Chenna. It was the perfect symbol of a loving family—something she wanted more than anything in the world. Crawling back into her bed, she held the locket close and ran her finger over the engraved face over and over again, imagining her face next to Chenna’s and Elyas’s on the inside.

  Eventually, sleep reclaimed her before morning.

  Chapter 13

  The next several months passed in a blur. Mia and Ella tutored Portia most weekends, helping her to catch up to the rest of the students. When they weren’t available, Portia spent most of her time studying on her own in the library. Many of the books there could not be removed, so it was easier for her to study there, where she could read the heavy ancient tomes. Her favorite subject was history. Most of the history books were not even allowed outside of the air-controlled room they were stored in. Studying in that room had become one of Portia’s favorite activities.

  Winter had taken over Coverack. The campus was covered with a thick snow. Icicles hung off the buildings. Valencia had never been this cold—the sea air would never allow it. But Coverack was further north, and colder, even with the moderating effect of the sea. Portia was grateful for the coins from Elyas that allowed her to purchase a thick winter coat, a wool-lined cap, and a pair of sturdy gloves.

  The winter was also excellent cover for the cryomancers to increase their harassment of Portia. She thought it must take less energy from them to create ice when the air was already so cold. It took more of her own energy to make the fire magic in brisk winter air. Portia longed for summer.

  Magisend and her friends’ favorite place to harass Portia was outside the library. Since Portia went there nearly every day, it was easy for them to lie in wait for her to come by. No matter how hard Portia concentrated on being alert for their tricks when she approached the building, they usually—but not always—managed to catch her by surprise with a sheet of ice under her feet. At least her falling technique had improved. She no longer had huge bruises on her backside, or a ringing head from
it hitting the ground. She could now twist in air and fall on her side, her arm safely tucked in and not sticking straight out at risk of breaking. It still hurt to fall, but not as badly.

  One especially cold morning, Portia was hurrying to the library to return one of the few books she had been allowed to take out. She had stayed up late the previous night reading the volume and so overslept that morning. Portia ran along the path running behind the library, the book tucked safely in her bag wrapped in parchment against the cold air. She didn’t want to be late and lose her borrowing privileges.

  Suddenly, the entire path in front of her turned to ice. The ice radiated out in all directions. It continued out and curved up into the air all around her. It formed a huge bowl with her in the center, trapping her. Nowhere was the ice a flat surface. Portia slipped and skidded up the wall of ice that had just risen in front of her, carried by the momentum of her running. She had not encountered this ice formation before. Once her forward motion ran out, she slid back down the wall, falling and landing with a thud on top of her bag. Her practiced falling technique did not keep her from crushing its contents. She yelped when she heard the parchment crumpling as she landed on it. Panicked, Portia pulled out the book and saw that its binding was broken on one edge, the pages hanging loose. Rage filled her. It was one thing to harass her. It was another to cause damage to the book and jeopardize her ability to use the library.

  Portia heard the giggles coming from the other side of the ice wall. Her fists clenched. This was too much. It could not go on like this. She had to do something about their harassment before they decided they could do even worse things.

  The girls from the cryomancy house were getting bolder. Recently, they had not been erasing the evidence of their tricks as quickly as they once did. They had left puddles of ice around Portia far longer than they had dared in the fall. Portia stood in the bowl of ice and waited for them to eventually relent and remove the ice they had put up around her. But the walls stayed up. The giggling voices disappeared. They had left her trapped in the ice bowl.

  Portia growled in anger. She would have to get herself out. She breathed in deeply then created intense light on her gloves and boots and pressed them into the ice, melting it. Water flowed down the ice walls and pooled around her boots, entering through the laces and soaking her feet. The frigid water sent shivers up her body. She swore this would be the last time they did this to her.

  The next morning, Portia created a duplicate of herself and sent it towards the library. She hung back far enough to not be seen but still close enough to observe what happened. She realized, chagrinned, that she should have done this much sooner. At least she could’ve learned the pranksters’ favorite hiding spots.

  When the duplicate Portia—and the real one tagging behind—got close to the library, Portia spotted the cryomancers hiding in the bushes next to the library. An enormous icicle hung down from the library roof, partially shielding them from view. But it glimmered in a funny way, partially invisible, giving away its magical source. It was not a real chunk of ice but the illusion of one. Standing under an icicle that large could be fatal, which is why no one would think to look for a person standing there. Portia admired the genius of this. But she also wondered if the illusion of ice was actually a cryomancer ability.

  When the duplicate Portia got to the corner of the library building, a sloping wedge of ice rose underneath its feet, tilting sharply upwards and sending the duplicate falling and tumbling. Portia appreciated the impossibility of anyone to remain standing in that situation. She would’ve tumbled just as certainly as the duplicate had.

  Portia was grateful that they had not created an icebox or other structure that hid the duplicate from her view. She was able to command her duplicate to rise and run back away from the library. When she and her duplicate were out of view of the hiding cryomancers, she released the duplicate magic, leaving only herself standing.

  She returned to the library and made it inside, this time unmolested. She spent the day studying history, eating the sandwiches she had packed in her bag, and fully enjoying her favorite topic. She missed dinner back at the house because she wanted to stay until after dark. Luckily, the house cook was generous in letting her pack as much food as she wanted for the day.

  Once it was dark, Portia left the library to study the cryomancers’ hiding spot more closely. The fake, magical icicle was gone. The roof at that spot was two stories above the ground level. There was a lot of room below it. There was also an overhang that hung down past the building, leaving three or four feet of open space between the lower edge of the roof and the building.

  Underneath that area, the snow was packed down from the standing cryomancers. This was clearly a favorite hiding spot—the snow was so compacted that it was nearly solid ice.

  Portia had been practicing her own cryomancy skills that winter. She didn’t want anyone to know she had that ability, but the constant snow on the ground and the occasional sleet that came down on warmer days were excellent cover for any ice that she herself created. Portia had taken advantage of this as much as she could whenever she had time between studying and tutoring with Ella and Mia. Now was the perfect time to use her new skills.

  Looking up at the gap between the edge of the roof and the building, she concentrated on creating a solid block of ice. Then carefully, creating a dense grid within that ice, she created small nodes of magic and filled each one with light energy. She wanted each node, when tripped, to release a burst of heat.

  Then she placed a series of nodes, all under where the girls normally stood, but this time containing cryomancy—the magic of freezing. She wanted these nodes, when tripped, to freeze any nearby water.

  When Portia was done placing all the nodes, she felt a bit faint and dizzy. It had been a long time since she had used that much magic. Even though the magic within the nodes would deploy later, she still had to use her energy up front to create it. She headed back to the house to rest.

  The next morning, she headed back to the library. Gritting her teeth, she approached the spot where she knew the girls would play their trick on her. It was never fun, whether she knew it was coming or not. Regardless, she had to continue to implement her own plan. She walked to the spot where she always fell, and without fail, the ice appeared beneath her feet. She slipped and fell, concentrating on triggering the nodes in the ice over the girls on her way down. She wanted all of the magic to release at once.

  Screams of surprise erupted immediately as a shower of water fell from above, soaking Magisend and her friends hiding below. Portia then activated the nodes beneath their feet. The girls’ screams turned into cries of pain as the magic was released up, freezing the water around their feet, the water soaking their clothes, and the water in their hair and on their skin.

  Professors and students walking on the campus grounds reacted to the screams and came running to see the cause. Portia struggled to her feet on the slick ice and saw a crowd gathering around Magisend Lucy and her noble cryomancer friends’ hiding spot. Going closer, she caught a glimpse of the girls at the center of the crowd. Each girl was a nearly frozen lump of ice stuck to the ground, the ice in their hair joining with the ice covering their clothes and shoes, attaching them to the solid ice beneath their feet and surrounding them. Portia couldn’t help herself—she giggled at the ridiculous sight. After months of pain at their hands, it tickled her to see them suffer from their own medicine.

  Magisend’s eyes found Portia. They glared at her from within the ice on her face. One of the surrounding students used fire magic to melt some of the ice on Magisend. Others quickly followed suit, helping to release her noble friends from their ice trap. As soon as Magisend’s mouth was free she screamed, “Portia Harris, you’ll pay for this!”

  The surrounding students and professors turned to see who she was staring at. No one else was close to Portia, so it was immediately clear who Magisend was glaring at. Portia backed away, still unable to stop laughing, and turn
ed to run.

  Unfortunately, she ran right into a professor in blue robes who grabbed her by the wrist and held her fast. “What’s this all about?” the professor asked, looking at Portia closely.

  “I don’t know, but it’s funny,” Portia replied. The look in the professor’s face banished all laughter. A small lump of dread formed in Portia’s stomach.

  “We shall see how funny it is,” the professor responded, a frown etched on her face.

  Another professor grabbed Magisend. “You seem to be the ringleader of this group. We’ll get the rest later if we need them.”

  The professors brought Magisend and Portia to the main building. They asked the receptionist for an emergency disciplinary board. The disciplinary board was how the school investigated any student wrongdoing. It was thought immediate resolution was better than letting things fester, especially in a school full of students with magical ability.

  Portia and Magisend waited in a small room for twenty minutes while the board was gathered. Portia was not happy. She did not expect to get caught. She knew there was no direct proof. It was rather unfair that Magisend and her friends had been harassing her for months without repercussion, yet the first time she fought back she was hauled in front of a board. She could not lose her place in the school.

  Magisend, for her part, simply smirked at Portia. Portia could see that Magisend’s lifetime of being a noble in a high house in the city conditioned her to expect things to go her way. Portia looked away. That smirk enraged Portia. She concentrated on her breathing; she knew she needed to be in control of herself.

  When they were brought into the small room where the disciplinary board was, Magisend and Portia sat in front of a long table that had Professor Aelric, Professor Hilda, and an elderly professor Portia had never seen before. The professors nodded at the students. Hilda gave Portia a look of disappointment. Portia didn’t know if this could get any worse.