Into the Gray

by Geanna Culbertson

  This had been a weird week for me. I couldn’t believe it was my mid-afternoon free period and instead of going straight to the practice fields to meet Blue as usual, I was on my way to the headmistress’s office. Willingly. I’d only ever really been summoned to Lady Agnue’s lair for being in trouble. As I passed through the hall that featured portraits of all the former Lady Agnue’s (predecessors in name and position), their glares caused me to second-guess what I was doing.

  I entered the office, glad to find Ms. Mammers, Lady Agnue’s assistant, away from her desk. I balled up my courage and knocked on my headmistress’s door.

  “Lady Agnue? It’s Crisanta Knight.”

  Silence for a beat before, “Come in, Miss Knight.”

  I gingerly opened the door and stepped inside. Lady Agnue sat in her velvet magenta chair organizing papers at her desk. The big window behind her framed a view of the school’s entrance, but only had one of its crème-colored curtains drawn. The angle of light left a luminous streak against my headmistress’s brown hair. I raised an eyebrow in surprise to see that it wasn’t in a bun like normal, but rather half down, half up. It made her look like a woman, not the caricature of an authority figure I’d come to know her as.

  She didn’t look up as I entered and shut the door. I awkwardly hovered next to the vanilla-colored chair that faced her.

  “I will be with you in a minute,” Lady Agnue said, not glancing up from her papers.

  After a moment I sat down. I eyeballed the decorations in her office. Most of the stuff was pretty generic. There were books on glass shelves with golden bookends in the shape of Pegasi. Different painted renderings of the school and surrounding landscape hung on the walls. Everything looked like it belonged there except for one small picture frame on her desk. I’d always thought it peculiar in this place of perfect sense and structure. The picture had been taken through a window and showed the inside of an ice cream shop. A boy dressed in white was behind the counter, angled away from the photo so you couldn’t see his face. The wall behind him bore the initials DZ written in bright blue.

  “So what can I do for you, Miss Knight?”

  I straightened my back, more alert. It was such a simple, politely spoken question that it caught me off guard. I still wasn’t used to whatever new thing was happening between us.

  For more than six years, since I’d started at school, the headmistress and I had clashed. She was the embodiment of rules, tradition, and rigidity while I was a study in boldness, uniqueness, and change. We’d been at odds many times as she sought to keep me stifled in the conventional protagonist mold, which to her was the best thing anyone could aspire to achieve.

  However, our dynamic had shifted when Madame Alexanders tried to do away with me. Afterward, Lady Agnue had come to visit me in the infirmary and apologized. She had opened up, sharing that the reason she never liked me was because she’d been trained to educate protagonists in a certain manner to prepare them for their main character roles, and I was a threat to the ways she knew how to do her job. I broke the mold, and she was afraid that if other girls followed my lead she would not be able to guide them, as was her purpose. But, while she and Lena Lenore both valued order, Lady Agnue’s main priority was the well-being of her protagonist students, which was now endangered by the antagonists and the commons rebellion. This had inspired her to change our relationship.

  After a commons rebellion attack in the kingdom of Gallant that claimed the lives of several of her relatives, Lady Agnue had finally accepted the truth about Lenore’s error in conduct. While the Godmother Supreme was busy trying to persecute me and protect the realm from my power and unpredictability, there were much bigger threats afoot. Those threats were coming for our schools’ protagonists and Lady Agnue had to protect them. That night in the infirmary, she claimed she was sorry she hadn’t stood up to Lenore sooner and was going to speak on my behalf at my trial during the Century City Summit.

  Lenore didn’t know that Lady Agnue was going to testify in my defense. I was both intrigued and a little nervous about how it would play out. This new state between the headmistress and me was a venture into the unknown. I wasn’t sure if I trusted her, but at least for now I trusted her motives.

  “I wanted to tell you that Blue and I will be leaving campus on Friday afternoon after classes,” I said. “We’re needed in another realm. We shouldn’t be gone long—hopefully just the weekend.”

  Lady Agnue folded her manicured hands. Her orangeybronze, long-sleeved dress offset her copper eyes. “I shall have Ms. Mammers mark today in my calendar. I believe this is the first time that you are giving me a warning prior to undertaking one of your adventures.”

  “I’m trying something new,” I replied. “We haven’t really spoken since the Madame Alexanders thing, and I thought I’d give showing you more courtesy a shot.”

  “That is appreciated, Miss Knight.”

  An awkward lull passed.

  “So, yeah,” I said. “That’s it. Unless you had anything else you wanted to tell me?”

  Like what you’re planning on saying at my trial next week, for example?

  “Not that I can think of,” Lady Agnue said. “Oh, just be back by eleven o’clock from your meeting with Chance Darling tomorrow night.”

  I felt my face heat up from the embarrassment. I was barely able to wrap my head around my first date; discussing it in front of my headmistress and new frenemy added a much higher level of discomfort.

  But since it was already out there . . .

  “Why did you agree to let me go?” I asked. “Usually Lord Channing’s and Lady Agnue’s students are only supposed to fraternize through school-approved activities like monthly balls.”

  Lady Agnue sighed. “Perhaps my judgment as an educator is waning under so much stress. Or perhaps I still feel guilt over failing to uncover Madame Alexanders’s unsavory plot. Or perhaps the fact that Chance Darling’s family offered safe housing to my remaining family in Gallant has made me want to do the young man a favor. Take your pick.”

  I blinked. “Your family is in Clevaunt?”

  “I have been friends with the Darling royal family for a long time. While I was born in Gallant, I spent many summers in Clevaunt. I knew Chance’s father when he was young, and I oversaw his eldest daughters Daphne and Ivy Lynn when they attended school here. Daphne graduated top of her class, as did her twin brother from Lord Channing’s. A fine and intelligent princess, even if a little fiery for my taste. You could learn a few things from her, Miss Knight. She was strong-willed like you but knew how to adapt to any room or congregation of people. She was a chameleon, tactful. She understood when to hide her hotheaded nature and could play off those around her. It was why she was so well-liked by everyone.”

  “I don’t want to be liked by everyone; it would mean I’m not doing my job right.”

  “Then congratulations are in order on a job well done,” Lady Agnue replied. “I have been watching the student body, Crisanta. Despite the disclaimers I made upon your return, it seems that the majority of students are still wary of you and your magic.”

  “That’s old news,” I said, unaffected. “You didn’t finish explaining the Chance Darling thing.”

  Lady Agnue’s face sagged like she was sorry I’d directed the conversation back here. “Yes, well, after three of my cousins were killed when the commons rebellion took control of Gallant Castle, the Darlings offered the rest of my family somewhere safe to stay in Clevaunt. It is one of the few kingdoms that has not suffered any attacks. The Darling’s armies and the mountainous nature of the kingdom’s terrain make it very secure.”

  I nodded. “My parents stayed there while our castle in Midveil was being rebuilt after the attack on our grounds. They only just moved back in last week.”

  “That is good to hear,” Lady Agnue said. Another pause. “In any case, I feel like I owe a debt to the Darlings. So when young Chance sent me a request via carrier falcon, I thought it was the least I could do. He
is a good protagonist. Maybe he will rub off on you.”

  I gave Lady Agnue a look, and she bowed her head slightly toward me.

  “Sorry,” she corrected. “I realize that was a snipe at you. I am not used to us being on good terms.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “But I still want to try. My trial is coming soon and beyond that, I think with everything looming with the antagonists and the commons rebellion, it would be best if we are on the same side.”

  “For once, we are in agreement, Crisanta. Now, if that is everything, I must get back to work. All the schedule changes since Madame Alexanders’s dismissal have left things terribly out of order.”

  Dismissal? That’s a polite way to phrase it.

  I almost huffed with amusement. I stood and made for the door at that, but turned before leaving. “Lady Agnue?”

  She glanced up.

  “In case I never said it, I am sorry about your family. For the people you’ve lost.”

  My headmistress’s eyes were emotionless and steely, but a couple of lines in her forehead creased. It was like her true self was fighting against the straight face, the wall of detachment she tried to put up. I’d never noticed that wall before; I always assumed Lady Cornwallace Agnue was cold and all-business through and through. Maybe she was a real person behind all that.

  “Thank you, Crisanta,” Lady Agnue said. “I hope that as things unfold, neither of us has to lose anyone else.”

  The way she said it struck me. I nodded and exited, then leaned against the other side of the door for a moment as her words sunk in. Paige Tomkins had been killed because of me. My brother was lost—existing somewhere out there as a twisted version of his former self. While I had been able to bring Jason back with my powers, he had died in Camelot quite brutally in front of me. This had all happened in a matter of weeks.

  We had about six months in Book until Natalie Poole would turn twenty-one on Earth and the antagonists’ plans intended to come to a climax. That meant six months when literally anything could happen to anyone. I had the power of life but I couldn’t be with everyone I cared about all the time. What if a day arrived when I was in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone needed me?

  I took a deep breath.

  Six months.

  I would do everything I could to keep everyone alive for six months. Maybe that’s why I was given this gift in the first place. Pure Magic could develop into any ability, but mine had morphed into a power that not even Fairy Godmothers or genies possessed. There had to be a reason for that. I reasoned that my reason was to protect and serve. So protect and serve I would. To the best of my ability and with every part of my being.

  This wasn’t a grand revelation or anything; it was my mantra. From the moment I’d first learned of my powers, I hadn’t thought of using them for my benefit. It had always been about using them to safeguard my friends, defend the innocent, and shield the land from those who would do it harm. I may not have believed in destiny anymore, but I believed in purpose. In having a purpose.

  This was most surely mine.

  y friends were being insufferable.

  It was Thursday, though to them it was Crisa-has-a-date-with-Chance-day. I was so distracted by their bird-like chatter at breakfast that I actually rammed a forkful of pancake into my hair. I smelled like syrup for the rest of the day. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was the principal of the matter.

  Their questions were incessant.

  “What are you going to wear?”

  “Do you know what he has planned?”

  “How are you fixing your hair?”

  “Can I do your makeup?

  Not sure.

  Also not sure.

  Like this.

  Absolutely not.

  By the time Twenty-Three Skidd practice came along, I was utterly relieved. I assumed word had gotten around Lord Channing’s about my plans with Chance, but at least boys didn’t ask so many personal questions. One guy on my team asked me if it was true, I said yes, and that was the end of it.

  Practice was a welcome distraction, though as the minutes passed and the time of my date drew closer, I started to feel a knot tightening in my stomach.

  Fighting giants doesn’t make me break a sweat. What is wrong with me?

  When practice ended, I changed out of my armor as quickly as possible.

  “What’s the hurry?” Daniel asked.

  “I don’t want to run into Chance,” I replied.

  “Then you’re not the best planner. Don’t you have a date with him later?”

  I ground my teeth. “I just don’t want to talk to him now. It would be awkward.”

  “It’s too late for that. The Lyons are coming into the stadium.” He gestured at the entry tunnel where kids were starting to walk in.

  Crud.

  “Hold on, I have an idea,” Daniel said, pointing to the corridor that led to the captains’ lounge. “Have you ever seen the net storage?”

  I shook my head.

  “Come on then,” he said. “It’s a good escape route, and it’s pretty cool too.”

  I pursued him down the long corridor past the captains’ lounge. We made a couple of turns, passed a door labeled “CUSTODIAN,” then at the end of the hall Daniel pulled a latch and a trapdoor in the floor opened, revealing a seemingly infinite number of steps sinking into darkness.

  “This looks sketchy,” I commented.

  “The best adventures always are.”

  He started to descend and I followed, closing the trapdoor behind me per Daniel’s instruction. Tiny phosphorescent lights rimmed the stairs, allowing me to see the edge of every step; however, the room beyond was black. Based on how our footsteps echoed though, I garnered it was big.

  Eventually we made it to the bottom of the stairs. Glimpsing back at the army of steps, I guessed we were a good hundred feet below the arena. Daniel strode to a dimly glowing light switch sticking out from the wall and flicked it on. The grand boom of lights flooded the space, illuminating the grandeur before me.

  I’d never put much thought into where the ginormous safety net went when the field opened up after our matches and consumed it. Now I’d discovered its home in this giant chamber beneath the stadium. The net that saved our lives on a regular basis was now draped over our heads like the world’s most intricate canopy. I walked out into the grand chamber, which had the same circumference as the arena above.

  “There’s another exit on the other side,” Daniel said, walking ahead of me.

  I trotted to catch up. “How’d you find this place?” I asked.

  “Same way you find things,” he said. “Snooping where I shouldn’t.”

  “I don’t snoop, Daniel. I explore. There’s a difference.”

  “They both usually end in chase scenes or combat, so I don’t see a difference.”

  I laughed.

  In the center of the ceiling, a large crease indicated where the field above pulled apart like two halves of a cookie to make way for the net as it lifted. From there it got reeled up by focal mechanisms across the stadium’s stairways that pulled on the net’s attachment points and raised it.

  Daniel gestured to the opposite wall of the chamber. “The lever that sets it all in motion is right there. I made friends with the maintenance guy at the beginning of the semester and he showed me.”

  I nodded, taking it all in. I was liking these little adventures with Daniel—him showing me new things and places. We’d seen many parts of Book in recent months, and plenty of fantastical other realms too; however, discovering new things in our own backyard was something special.

  We arrived at the other end of the room where a second staircase rounded upward. On the wall another light switch resided next to the long lever Daniel had been alluding to. He flipped the switch, and the phosphorescence of the stairs became noticeable as the lights of the chamber powered down. Blackness again.

  The two of us twisted up the stairs until we came to a regular door,
not a trapdoor. Daniel opened it, releasing a stream of blinding sunshine right in our faces. When I could see, I found we were on the other side of the Twenty-Three Skidd arena, and on the outside. I stepped forward and gazed up at the big concrete wall. Way up top, something shimmered like glass.

  “We’re under the VIP box where the school’s senior staff and any visiting special guests sit,” Daniel explained. “Its walls are made of glass, and they have a full-service bar and kitchen. It’s pretty awesome.”

  “Don’t tell me. You’ve snooped there too?”

  “Sometimes I finish homework early and don’t feel like doing more than a few hours of training. I get bored.”

  “We should get you some corruptible magical powers and a few more archenemies. Trust me, you’ll get over that boredom real quick.”

  Daniel gave me an odd, considerate look. “I can never tell if you make jokes about these things because you are looking to make yourself believe they’re not a big deal, or convince other people.”

  “Maybe it’s neither. Maybe I’m just funny.”

  His expression was empathetic and made me feel safe, not judged. After a moment I sighed and shook my head. “Let’s say it’s a little of both . . . and because I’m funny.”

  Daniel accepted this admission and gestured for us to continue. “You are funny,” he said. “Whenever you bite off more than you can chew in combat, it’s a riot.” He was baiting me for fun and I was totally okay with it.

  “Speaking of which,” he continued, “you want to hit the tree trap gym again?”

  I thought about it but shook my head. “I have a better idea.”

  Daniel selected a random sword from the weapons rack on the left wall of the room.

  We were in one of Lord Channing’s smaller indoor training arenas. There was nothing fancy about it—navy blue mat on the floor, chrome walls, no obstacles. It was as straightforward a combat setting as you could ask for. Which is why I’d picked it.

  As Daniel plucked his chosen weapon, I drew mine. My reliable wandpin.

  I always kept it clipped to my bra strap, hidden beneath my shirt and ready to go. It was as easy to carry as it was invaluable to use in battle. I held the sparkling silver accessory in my hand and concentrated.