by Jade Alters
“Do you go to everything early?” Cece asks as she arrives, arms cradling a gigantic clump of books. Her voice breaks up into little bursts of laughter - a chuckle she calls it. I’ve noticed Cece chuckle quite a bit during our research sessions, though I can never pinpoint exactly what it is she finds so funny. Still, the sound makes my dark, rocky face curl up in an oddly similar expression.
“Yes. It’s a good habit, or so I was told by Fey Rorelia, when I first came here,” I tell her.
“And you never stray from it?” Cece shakes her head as she unleashes the flood of tomes across our long library table.
“I don’t do well with ambiguous decisions. So, when someone tells me something is good, I do it and stick by it,” I do my best to explain to someone with a completely functional moral compass. Cece frowns and nods, which she’s explained to me before is not always an expression of disapproval. It can be used, like now, to show that she is impressed, even if I don’t know why.
“I admire that about a man,” Cece commends.
“I’m not a man,” I remind her, a mistake she makes often.
“Right,” Cece chuckles again. She separates her books from a mound into several organized piles. “Well, I brought all of the records I could carry on draconic history, around the time they entered the Academy.”
“I’ve done the same with my kind. It should be sufficient for you to form your flowchart,” I tell her. I slide the first of my own chronologically organized book piles towards her. Cece reaches out to take it, but overshoots her aim and touches the tips of her fingers to mine. It’s too careless a mistake for so observant a girl.
“Did you know my touch is poisonous to humans?” I warn her, by way of asking. This indirect method of communication is difficult for me, but it’s all I can do not to embarrass her. Cece, however, shows no flushed cheeks or any of the telltale signs of bashfulness.
“I think you might fail this assignment if you’ve already forgotten I’m not human,” she smiles. Cece pulls my books to herself, then pushes her own Dragon records towards me. When I take them, she grazes her fingers on mine again. I stare up at her smiling face. Is this her way of hands-on research? Using herself as a subject in the test of a Demon’s toxic touch against a Dragon?
“I haven’t forgotten,” I assure her as I pull her traded stack of books to myself. I flip open the cover of the first one and begin reading. It takes a few idle seconds of watching me for Cece to follow suit with her own book. She reads for all of two minutes before she lets out:
“Hey, Bryant?”
“Yes?”
“You know what worked really well for me? The other day, when you told me about Demon history yourself. Hearing a narrative account.” Cece tries rewording when she sees the lack of understanding plastered on my stony face. “It helps to hear it out loud. It’s more…personable than words on a page.”
“I can’t imagine why. Words are words, on a page or lips,” I try to explain to her the fallacy of the thought.
“Yeah, I know… Just, please?” Cece asks. There it is, her secret weapon. There must be some kind of draconic enchantment in that tone of voice. Every time she uses it, I think - no…maybe I feel - that I should do whatever she’s asking. Even if it makes no sense whatsoever.
“Alright,” I say, folding my cracked, dark fingers over my book. “Demons don’t keep detailed records in our home Realm of Hell. Our history starts when we first set foot into this Realm. That was almost a hundred years ago, now. The surge of electric power throughout the Norman world inspired some experiments at the Broken Academy Research Facility under Point Arena. The workers there thought to fuse Magic with modern technology to open gates to the Realms of Power.”
“That’s where I get a little foggy,” Cece cuts in. I cock my head for lack of understanding until she explains, “sorry - confused. I get confused. Like fog makes it hard to see outside? We say foggy to show it’s hard to see what’s in our minds.” I give Cece a slow nod as the knowledge inscribes itself on my brain. Will these metaphors ever cease? What amazes me even more is Cece’s endless patience in explaining them. “What exactly are the Realms of Power?”
“Part of the search for them was to find the answer to that very question,” I tell Cece, “As best Academy research understands, the Realms of Power are dimensions layered on top of this one. For generations, the Council has suspected that their abilities, the things that set them apart from other natives of this Realm, come from Realms beyond it. They thought of their powers as a leak from another reality. The temptation of even more allured the Council to source the suspected leak. They believed if they found their corresponding Realm of Power, they could become Magicians, Witches, Shifters and Dragons like the world had never seen.”
“But instead of their own Realms of Power, they found Hell. I mean - your home,” Cece fills in.
“Yes. I take no offense to the name, I just find it highly inaccurate. My home Realm has nothing to do with the Christian concept of an underworld. It’s simply…different from this one,” I tell her.
“How so?” Cece can’t stop herself from asking.
“This is unrelated to the project,” I remind her.
“Dammit, Bryant. Just when I thought you were growing a funnybone,” Cece laughs.
“I do have a humerus, which is the only bone I could understand that expression referring to,” I tell her, which only makes Cece laugh harder. Before long, she’s got me smiling again. It hardly matters that I don’t quite understand why, when she’s having such a grand time. “How about…I tell you what Hell is like, after you tell me something about the Dragon’s inclusion in the Academy for my flowchart.”
“Look at you, bargaining. Looks like you did learn something from me!” Cece chimes. She sits back in her chair, arms folded. She clears her throat with overly pronounced volume that pulls in the attention of a few other students from our class around us. They’ve all been assigned their own partners to develop a flowchart of another race’s Academy history.
“Well, we didn’t get pulled out of a Realm of Power, like Demons. It’s still up for debate if Dragons are a mutated branch of humanity, or something else altogether. The earliest records of us are true to the old legends everyone knows: we lived high in the mountains of the Far East,” Cece tells me.
“Far East?” I echo.
“China and the surrounding region, “Cece explains. The longer she goes on, the more closely I listen. Her voice slips through my mind like the notes of a song, one of few human conventions of entertainment I do understand. “Dragons were reported as highland tribes who conjured fire from nothing to hunt. After some time, people in the lower villages saw them transform a time or two, and the scaly legend was born.”
“Once an entire culture started to develop around them, and their way of life was jeopardized by revelation to the world, Dragons started to emigrate. This was a couple hundred years ago, so that’s why not all Dragons are oriental anymore…”
Cece and I trade stories for the rest of the afternoon. We pause for the occasional graze through a book, but mostly we just listen. Suddenly, I understand. When I think back on the stories Cece told me that day, I don’t think of words. I think of the mighty ancient Dragon warriors she illustrated for me, on the mountaintops of China. I think of Cece’s animation increasing with each new twist in the tale. More than anything, when I leave the Grand Library, I think of her.
I know she’ll go and find Lee, once we part ways. I see the way she stares at Serge in Mystical History, too. Still, some small part of me thinks - feels - there’s a reason for hope. I hope she’ll come back to me, even after she doesn’t have to. I don’t want these conversations to end. I want to learn more, and not just about Dragons. About expressions and chuckling, and everything that comes with humanity.
What I feel…almost sounds like it could be construed as what Cece calls love. I can’t be sure of that, as I’ve never experienced it before. Just so, I can’t be sure that it isn’
t.
A Call from The Council
Cece, The Broken Academy, D Wing
“Hey Steph, what are your classes like?” I ask one evening, while she, River and I each float about the room in our own way. River sits at her desk, flipping through notes. I lay on my back on my bed, contemplating my upcoming Transformation exam. Stephanie floats quite literally, like a blue cloud rolling across the ceiling. It’s as good a reason as any to procrastinate; I can only roll around and mull over my test so much.
“How do you mean?” Stephanie answers. I trace her wandering, bodiless form in an idle figure-eight pattern over my head.
“Like, is your roster full of basics like Mystical History? Or is it more like Haunting, 306?” I tease her. River snorts while she jots an addendum to whatever it is she’s studying.
“Hey! I consider that a racial slur!” Stephanie barks, with more ferocity than I think I’ve ever heard in her voice. That, coupled with the way her sapphire smog unfurls into an angry stormcloud, shoots me straight up in my bed.
“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t know.” I raise both hands in surrender. Stephanie’s frame condenses back into her calm, blue wisp form in an instant.
“Man, you’re easy sometimes,” Stephanie chuckles.
“You sonofabitch,” I laugh along with her when I realize it’s all a joke. Stephanie flits down beside my bed for a moment, taking the loose shape of a woman for the briefest of seconds.
“No, I took Mystical History last year. Most of my classes are specialized to help with my condition,” Stephanie explains. “I’ve got one about the nuances of possession, for both living and non-living things. One that helps me stay in this Realm or the Blue Plane as I please. There’s even one that’s supposed to help me work my way backward through my death, to reconnect with who I was before I died.” There it is again - that morbidly whimsical tone in discussing her own death.
“Have you…discovered anything yet?” I ask to be sure.
“Not much. I know I died in a car accident, but that’s about it,” Stephanie tells me. “Not if anyone was with me. Not where I was going. Nothing.” River puts her notes down to look back at Stephanie over her shoulder. She knows what to say about as much as I do. We look to one another in our loss, until the moment of unsurety passes with a pulse of shock.
It comes from the corner of the room, and touches all three of us like an invisible nudge. I follow the feeling with my eyes to its source, a liquidy oval hanging in the air like a mirror without a frame. Only, instead of a reflection bouncing off of it, there’s a room I recognize inside. The Council Chamber. It takes a second for me to put it all together - it’s not a mirror at all, but a window to somewhere else. A portal. Long before I’ve gotten over that, a body steps through.
“Cece. The Council of Six calls for you,” Serge announces in a dry, harsh voice. I spring up from my bed. My eyes shoot instinctively for the door. River turns around in her chair, like she might actually get between us if Serge makes a move. Stephanie unfurls to her stormcloud form again.
“If they were going to send you anyway, why not use the door?” I demand. Nothing puts you on edge quite like another room full of people suddenly poking into your own. When Serge’s lips opens to speak again, the words that leave them in no way match the regret screaming through his eyes.
“Because you’re a flight risk, and it’s urgent. One door is easier to get you through than many. I’m to bring you straight to the Council,” he tells me. It sounds even more formal than when we first met. This is no visit from Wing Supervisor to resident - it’s more like jailer to criminal. I roll over and slide off the edge of my bed without a word. I cross the room in my baggy pajama pants and tank top to the portal. They would probably give me time to change first, but I want them to see just what they’re doing - plucking a student from her room without warning.
I take a high step through the portal into the far colder, glowering Council Chamber. I plant my bare feet on the shimmering sapphire panel in the center of the Council’s round, stony table. Serge comes through right behind me. The window back to my room swirls down to the size of a pea, then blips out of existence. All trace of help vanishes with the disappearance of Stephanie and River. Despite the seven people around me, I feel completely alone.
“I’ll lead this as quickly and fairly as I can, being that it concerns one of my students,” rasps VampKing Lucidous. I know what comes next. I turn Serge the dirtiest glare I can muster on short notice. Whether or not he wants to do this has no bearing on the fact that it’s unfolding right in front of me. “You made an attempt on the life of the Vampire Darius Jecks. Attempted murder is forgivable only in cases of self-defense. The only reason you’re here and not imprisoned already is because Serge insisted that, given the chance, you could argue this case.” I feel the slightest bit of guilt about the look I just gave my Wing Supervisor, but I manage to clear my throat to answer.
“You could say I was defending myself,” I tell the gray, slender VampKing. It takes every ounce of my focus to look him in his ruby eyes and keep a straight face. “I don’t exactly feel safe around the man who killed my brother right in front of me.” At this, the rest of the council turns to one another to debate the truth in murmurs. Only Lucidous and Thise keep their faces pointed right at me.
“The Vampire that attacked your brother in the San Francisco Training Ground… You say this is Darius?” Lucidous asks.
“Yes,” I tell him, two fists clenched beside me.
“What proof of this do you have?”
“His voice. He spoke to me that night… You don’t forget the voice of someone who just murdered your family,” I assure him. The VampKing’s fangs pop open to retort instantly,
“I’m afraid voice recognition by someone who was traumatized and drunk on the night in question isn’t evidence enough.” While the rest of the Council looks down with a certain degree of empathy, they also look as though they couldn’t agree more with the VampKing. “Besides, even if it was Darius you saw - which we can’t confirm - your brother’s body is lost. We cannot analyze the scene. Operating solely on faith in a new student… It won’t stand here. Darius Jecks is a well-respected graduate of the Controlled Feeding Program. With this remarkable lack of evidence, he is guilty only of serving his own needs. Your brother’s death was not related.”
“You’re saying…that I killed my brother?” I ask the VampKing. It comes out a little too much like a snarl for the Council’s liking. They like the wave of heat that slaps them all in the face even less. Each of them straightens up in their chair, and Serge moves a step closer to me. I catch his hand moving close to mine from the corner of my eye.
“Let me remind the Council, we are not here to rule in the death of Jason Ford. We are here to discuss the altercation between Cece and Darius,” Thise pipes up. My knuckle joints pop back into their rightful place one at a time as I force my hands to unclench.
“You mean the attack on Darius,” Lucidous reminds the Council.
“VampKing Lucidous,” Thise interrupts, her hands folded tight, eyes on me. “Your language is remarkably biased. You assured us you could remain objective during this ruling. Does the Council need to reconvene?”
“No,” the VampKing mutters after a few tense seconds.
“Then allow me to point out that Darius Jecks killed five people before he graduated from the Controlled Feeding Program,” Thise continues, in such a matter-of-fact way, I have to fight not to smirk. “Admirable though it may be that you were able to rehabilitate such a man, he made fatal mistakes and remained here at the Broken Academy. Fey Rorelia. A similar case could have been made against the Demon, Bryant. Yet he remains, and has even become a model student.”
“This is true,” Fey Rorelia chimes in when the Dragonlord gives her a nod.
“Magister Horace. This attack happened weeks ago, yet we just hear of it now from your own son? Why is that?” Thise unseats the Magister from his dignified high horse in the corner. The look o
f sheer panic in his wide eyes shaves away a whole layer of tension from the room.
“I wi-wi-will question him myself. The Council will have its answer,” Horace manages to reply.
“My point is that every student at the Academy makes these kinds of mistakes,” Thise announces over the room, “It’s why they’re here in the first place. It doesn’t change overnight, either. We bring these young men and women under our roof knowing full well the mess they’ll make. We wait and, in time, we trust that they will clean it up themselves.”
“So what do you propose? That we grant Cece amnesty for her actions?” asks Sorceress Lily.
“Not at all. I’ll keep her for detention after my own Basic Transformation class for three weeks. During this probationary period, she will also be assigned a watch. Someone the council already trusts in my jurisdiction. Lee Kaiba,” Thise answers. One by one, heads surrender to the lack of a better idea and lower into a slow bob. Even VampKing Lucidous. It takes all my restraint not to thank her on the spot.
“Very good. The Council agrees?” Magister Horace presents for the official motion. Each of the Six takes their shift confirming it aloud before Horace says, “Serge. Take Cecelia back to her room. Then report directly to my office.” The way he uses my full name about grinds my teeth down to stumps. That’s a price I’m lucky to pay though, considering the charges I came here on.
At the twiddle of his fingers, Serge reopens the window to my room. The very second I step through, the Council Chamber vanishes behind me again. The sun hasn’t even completely set through the window when Stephanie and River rise to greet me. It’s like it didn’t even happen. Like a bad dream.
Serge,
The Broken Academy, Magister’s Office
I stand at attention before his desk, like I’m actually in trouble. It’s always the way I stand when we meet here, whether it’s an act or not. It’s the way I feel, too. Magister Horace leaves me idle while he turns the pages of a file we’ve both reviewed closely, and many times. The story of Cece Ford’s life is splayed out across the crystalline tabletop that reflects white torchlight from around the blue-glass walled office. Despite the Dragonlord’s best efforts to keep it out of the hands of the other Councilmembers, Magister Horace has it all right here. He leaves me there with nothing to do but cringe until even I can’t take it.