by Eva Chase
My gaze jerked up with a sudden suspicion. Past the student sitting between us, Malcolm was watching Professor Crowford with apparently rapt attention. But his right hand was resting on his desk with the fingers slightly curved as if cupped around something about the size of a knee.
A person’s hand could have fallen into that position by coincidence, but as I watched, he glided his thumb a few inches through the air. A teasing pressure traced over the outside of my leg.
Fuck. He must have cast some sort of illusion spell to make me feel the movements of his hand as if he were touching me. To pay me back for the kiss? To try to distract me from the lesson? To make some other point about how I’d react?
Probably all three of those at once.
I just had to ignore it. A slight warmth on my knee—no big deal. If I didn’t react, then I’d have won.
I focused my attention back on the professor’s lecture. It should have been easy to tune out Malcolm’s current gambit. The sensation wasn’t that intrusive.
But his fingers moved again, a breath of a caress that grazed my skin through the fabric of my pants, and a quiver of heat shot up my leg. Just for a second, the kiss came back to me—the searing determination with which he’d kissed me back, the jolt of pleasure he’d managed to summon with one skillful shift of his mouth.
I didn’t want him touching me, not even through an illusion. He was the last person in the world I wanted anywhere near me. So why did any part of me recognize that the stroke of his fingertips felt good?
Why the hell was I sitting here and taking this? I’d thrown Victory’s spell back in her face a couple days ago, and I could do the same to Malcolm. It didn’t matter how much he could affect me when I already knew I could affect him more.
I sorted through my thoughts for the right phrase, the right way of shaping my intention from my hand into an illusionary touch only he would notice. “Like a ghost, feel my touch,” I whispered, so quietly the words were barely more than a warble of my breath. I drew my fingertips across the top of my desk, watching Malcolm from the corner of my eye. Imagining those lines traced across his back from shoulder blade to shoulder blade.
His stance twitched. I pretended not to see him glance toward me, but I let a smile curl my lips. He’d figured he was going to be the master of this game, did he? Let’s see how well he could follow Professor Crowford’s lecture now.
I eased my hand toward me as if down his spine. Malcolm was sitting perfectly still now. Fingers stroked over my knee once more, a little more insistently—and then that presence disappeared.
I stilled my hand. If he was giving up, I’d end this now.
But I should have known he wasn’t done. A moment later, those ghostly fingers grazed my cheek. They reached my ear and then glided down along my jawline with such a tender caress my heart thumped.
Fuck, no. I closed my eyes to steady myself, trying to tune back into what Professor Crowford was saying, and skimmed my own hand upward. All the way up Malcolm’s neck to splay over the sensitive scalp at the back of his head.
Malcolm covered the start of a sound with a forced cough. His posture drew straighter. I’d hit a provocative spot, clearly, because his touch faded away again. Before he could resume his attentions, I eased my fingers around in a slow circle, trailing sensation over his skin. I honestly had no idea what Crowford was talking about now, but if I could convince Malcolm there was no way this tactic was playing out in his favor—
“Hello, good people of Persuasion!” a forcefully flat voice said from the doorway. Jude ambled into the classroom, his face flushed and his eyes a little glassy. He took his next step with a wobble. “Sorry I’m late. I hope you all managed that short while without me.”
Professor Crowford stared at the Killbrook scion, and his nose wrinkled slightly. “Mr. Killbrook,” he said, “have you been drinking?”
“Maybe a little. Just a little. I think I’m owed that much.” Jude swung around, swayed, and fixated on the empty seat at the back. “There we go. I’ve found my place.”
Crowford caught the scion’s arm before he could really set off. He leaned close to say something I couldn’t hear, but Jude shoved away from him with a scoffing sound. “Excuse me! I have a right to an education. Every fearmancer has a right to that. Don’t you damn well tell me what classes I can go to.”
The professor’s mouth tightened. “You can come to all the classes you like if you’re in fit condition to participate,” he said. “We can try again next week.”
“Next week?” Jude sputtered. “What the hell kind of—”
“Go back to your dorm room and drink plenty of water,” Crowford said in a slightly singsong tone I recognized as a casting.
Clearly Jude didn’t have much in the way of mental defenses while alcohol was addling his brain. He spat out a few curses, but he also spun toward the door and sashayed back out.
Malcolm sprang to his feet. “Maybe I should make sure he gets to his room okay?”
Crowford shook his head. “Don’t let Mr. Killbrook’s foibles disrupt your own learning, as admirable as your concern for your friend is. I don’t think he’s in any real danger.”
Malcolm lowered himself back into his seat slowly. When I looked at him, I saw the same confusion and worry on his face as were whirling inside me. He didn’t know what to make of this performance any more than Connar had been prepared for Jude’s dark comments on the green the other day.
If even the guys who knew Jude best had no idea what was wrong with him… it had to be pretty fucking wrong, didn’t it?
Chapter Twelve
Rory
I had to give my Nary credit for initiative. Benjamin had done his own research into school policies and figured out almost everything he needed to know to convince the headmistress to let his group go ahead with their construction proposal. I’d contrived for one last bit of obscure school procedure to land in his lap yesterday. Now I just had to make sure he didn’t lose his confidence.
Right now he was standing with a couple of his friends in the main fore-room of Killbrook Hall, five minutes shy of their scheduled meeting with Ms. Grimsworth. Benjamin had already paced across the middle of the room several times, his shoulders up and his eyes a little wide. The scrape of his anxious footsteps echoed against the high ceiling.
None of these students had gotten the best reception from the fearmancer staff in the past. While the teachers might not outright bully them like so many of the mage students did, their disdain couldn’t be hard to pick up on.
“Maybe we should reschedule until we’ve reworked the drawings again,” he said, his voice carrying to me faintly where I was sitting on one of the hard, elaborately carved mahogany benches near the front door. “If they’re going to go for this, everything has to be perfect.”
I flipped a page in the book I was theoretically studying and thought back to my own moments of assurance in the face of uncertainty over the last few months. I’d managed to pick up some strategies from that Persuasion seminar a couple days ago, despite Malcolm’s efforts at distraction. With an exhalation, I cast a stream of bolstering energy his way. “You can do this. You’re ready. Show the headmistress that.”
“If you really think so…” the girl beside Benjamin said with a frown, looking down at the portfolio she was carrying.
Benjamin paused, and his chin came up a smidge. “No. We’ve done a ton of work. It should be enough, right? And if Ms. Grimsworth tells us it’s not, then we’ll have a better idea where the plan isn’t strong enough.”
The other two brightened, and they set off toward the staff wing. I sank back on the bench in relief, hoping my encouragement had been enough to get them through their meeting.
I wasn’t only in the hall to keep an eye on my Nary. Yesterday I’d heard from the assistant of that blacksuit friend of my mother’s, Lillian Ravenguard, asking if there was a good time for her to drop by. Apparently Lillian had found a few things she’d wanted to pass on to me, and sh
e’d prefer the delivery happened in person. Since I’d known I’d be here to see Benjamin off anyway, I’d asked the assistant to meet me here a little after his meeting time.
The young woman who slipped into the hall a few minutes later had a presence about as far from her employer’s as you could get. If Lillian was a tough lioness, then her assistant was a cuddly kitten. Silky waves of chocolate-brown hair framed her rounded face, and a pink summer dress floated around her petite frame. She caught sight of me and headed over with an energy so upbeat I half expected her to start skipping.
“You must be Rory,” she said in an equally sunny voice. “Magnolia Duskland—but everyone calls me Maggie. It’s great to meet you. Lillian would have come herself, but her work keeps her awfully busy.”
“That’s okay,” I said, getting up to receive an enthusiastic shake of my hand. I didn’t meet many fearmancers who were quite this… cheerful. As I sat back down on the bench and she joined me, I found I had no idea what else to say.
Thankfully Maggie had no problem diving right into the matter at hand. She dug a cloth bag out of her expansive purse and handed it to me. “Lillian said you mentioned you were feeling a little disconnected from your parents. She found some old letters and videos and that sort of thing that she thought might help you get to know your mom better. The digital media is all pre-loaded onto a phone in there to make everything easy.”
I hadn’t been expecting anything like this. Cautiously, I peered inside the bag. There was a phone, all right, and sheaf of pages filled with handwriting, and a couple of folders I couldn’t make out the contents of yet. A strange shiver ran through my gut, one that might have been excitement or apprehension or both.
“Thank you,” I said. “And please thank Lillian for me too. I really—I don’t remember anything from the first couple years of my life—it’ll be good to have some more context.”
If Maggie had been waiting for a more effusive response, she didn’t show it. “She wants to help you adjust however she can,” she said. “She also asked me to remind you that you can reach out to her—and me, of course—any time. Oh, there’s a letter from her in there too, explaining why she picked all the different materials, what she thinks is important about them.”
“Perfect.” Did Maggie expect me to start going through this stuff right here in front of her?
Before I had to decide whether I should politely end the visit somehow or try to act like more of a host, the assistant was springing up again. “I’m sure you’re looking forward to checking all of that out. I won’t keep you from that! I hope you find what you’re looking for in there.”
She gave me a quick look up and down as if evaluating me somehow, but her smile never dropped. Then she was vanishing out the front door as quickly as she’d arrived.
When I shuffled the contents of the bag around, I could squeeze it into my own purse. I definitely didn’t want to delve into my family history here where any student or teacher could walk by. Hugging my purse close to my side, my pulse thumping away, I set off for the dorms.
As I crossed the green, my gaze caught on a broad figure beyond Ashgrave Hall. Connar was crossing the field toward the surrounding forest with a purposeful air that seemed odd for someone just planning on taking a stroll through the woods. I hesitated, watching him, my lingering doubts stirring.
It wasn’t so strange that I’d want to know where he was going, was it? He’d messed with me in more ways than I’d even guessed, and breaking from Malcolm’s orders obviously hadn’t been easy for him. I was just making sure his loyalties weren’t leading him in unfriendly directions again.
I came around the building, waited until Connar had stepped between the trees, and then hurried after him. By the time I reached the edge of the forest, I couldn’t make out his brawny form, but here and there the crackle of someone moving through the underbrush reached me. I set off after that sound, placing my feet carefully so I didn’t make much noise of my own.
I’d walked maybe twenty feet into the woods when an overwhelming rush of emotion hit me. What was I doing out here? I had things to take care of back on campus. If I didn’t get on with that—
My feet had already carried me back in sight of the field before my thoughts cleared enough for me to realize what had happened. I didn’t actually have any urgent business to get on with. There must have been a ward in the forest, a spell that had compelled me away. Why the hell would anyone do that unless they were trying to hide questionable activity?
I crept back through the forest even more warily this time. The sounds of Connar’s passage had faded away completely. If I stayed alert for the first jab of the ward’s effect, maybe I could—
Another jolt of emotion hit me, this one more fearful. My legs scrambled back from the unknown threat of their own accord.
I clamped down on the panic racing through me and tried to force myself to walk on through it, but my mind went blank. The next thing I knew, I was standing at the edge of the field again.
Shit. That must be quite the ward. I didn’t think even one of the scions could have cast something like that in the short head start Connar had gotten on me. What was out there? I didn’t remember getting redirected during any ramble through the woods before, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever explored that particular section.
I wavered for a minute, but I hadn’t been prepared to tackle a deflection that strong, and at this point Connar could have gone anywhere in the deeper forest. Even if I managed to break the ward—and that didn’t set off some sort of magical backlash—I’d probably never figure out where he’d been headed. With a grimace, I turned back toward Ashgrave Hall instead.
My dorm’s common room was empty. Some of the tension I carried around in me whenever I was out around campus released, but my hackles rose again at the scrabble of claws on the other side of my bedroom door. A scrabble much heavier than anything Deborah would have produced.
I mumbled a few hasty words to disable my deterrent spells and shoved the door open. A cream-and-chocolate-brown shape was just disappearing around the side of my bed. I dashed around the frame to find a slender, glossy-furred Siamese cat prowling alongside my desk.
Thank goodness, Deborah’s voice reached me, reedy across the distance from wherever she was hiding. That beast got in here ages ago, and it’s been looking to pounce on me ever since.
The door to my wardrobe stood ajar, as if the cat had tugged it open in its search. My teeth gritted. Wary of its claws, I grabbed the spare blanket off the top of the wardrobe and stalked after the cat. It spun on me with a hiss, and I pounced on it with the blanket at the ready.
The cat wriggled and spat as I lugged it out of my bedroom, but it couldn’t fight through the blanket. I’d stopped in the middle of the common room, not sure what to do with the creature next, and Imogen came in. She took in me and the churning blanket I had clutched in my arms, her eyebrows rising.
“I don’t suppose you know who a Siamese cat would belong to?” I said.
She winced. “That would be Victory. He’s her familiar.”
Of course it’d been Victory. Frustration bubbled up inside me. “Well, somehow he ended up in my room hunting my familiar. Unless he’s learned to cast magic on his own, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t an accident.”
I marched over to Victory’s bedroom door and squeezed one arm tighter around the cat while I tested her security spells. Oh, she figured that combination was enough to keep people out, did she? One of the two impressions with its cold sear through my stomach reminded me of a structure in the Bloodstone puzzle garden that I’d worked part of my way through with Jude weeks ago. I had experience my nemesis hadn’t been prepared for.
I drew back a step so the repulsive effects didn’t dig into my mind so deeply and started to talk my way through a counteractive casting under my breath. Imogen watched in silence. The cat kept squirming, but my anger sharpened my concentration. I spoke a little more forcefully with a jerk of my free hand, and the spells on
the door fell away.
Ha. I strode inside, taking in the fluffy lilac-purple duvet and the matching lace curtains over Victory’s much smaller window, the computer and library books positioned neatly on her desk, the tart perfume scent that lingered in the air. That last observation sparked an idea. Victory had wanted to inflict the downsides of a cat on me? I could remind her of another of those.
With a murmur and another twitch of my fingers, I summoned traces of water, ammonia, and other chemicals from my surroundings. Then I propelled the mix onto Victory’s lovely bedspread. The purple darkened with a splotch that spread across most of the bed, and the stench of cat urine choked every other scent in the room. I dropped her familiar out of the blanket and quickly shut the door.
Imogen stared at me. “She’s going to be furious.”
“If she doesn’t want cat piss in her room, maybe she shouldn’t keep a familiar so poorly trained it goes roaming around in other people’s private spaces,” I said. “You don’t have to mention that I did it.”
“I wouldn’t,” Imogen said quickly. “But you know she’s going to figure it out.”
I shrugged. I was so done with caring how Victory felt about anything. She hated me no matter what I did, so why the hell not make it cost her? “I’ll survive. And maybe eventually she’ll figure out she’s better off leaving me alone.”
I went back into my bedroom, shut the door, and flopped down on the bed. It was only mid-afternoon, but I was already ready for this day to be done.
The covers quivered as Deborah scrambled up to join me. She nestled herself next to my hand. Thank you. That horrible thing took me by surprise. It’s a good thing I was close enough to one of my nooks in the wall to escape.
“Be extra careful from now on if I’m not here,” I said. “Who knows what she’s going to try next.”