Royals of Villain Academy 8: Vicious Arts

by Eva Chase

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jude

  “Mr. Killbrook!”

  Professor Viceport’s cool voice rang out in the high-ceilinged entrance hall. I stopped on my way to the cafeteria, tensing automatically.

  The Physicality professor had never been anything but even-tempered with me, but I’d always spent her classes sharply aware of how much I was faking my supposed third magical strength. Now I not only lacked any magical strengths at all, but she might also have guessed from the family secrets revealed that I’d never had all three to begin with.

  I swiveled with an automatic smile. There was no point in drawing attention to my insecurities. Given everything that had gone on today, I doubted she was approaching me to criticize my past classroom performance.

  “Professor,” I said glibly. “Have I forgotten to turn in some assignment?”

  She gave me a sardonic look as if to say she recognized my attempt at humor but wasn’t going to reward it. She’d always tolerated my attitude more than encouraged it.

  “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” she said. “Unrelated to your schooling—except, I suppose, indirectly. Do you have a few minutes?”

  I’d told Mom I’d meet her in the cafeteria to grab dinner, but I’d been restless enough that I’d shown up early. I really didn’t have any excuse to decline. And even if I could have made up one, I couldn’t help being curious about why Viceport would have approached me of all people for this talk.

  “I can find a few,” I said. “What’s the topic?”

  She glanced around, noting the juniors ambling down from their dorms upstairs, and motioned for me to follow her. “Why don’t you come to my office?”

  Walking down the hall in the staff area reminded me of the last time I’d ventured this way to speak to a professor—when I’d gone to my mentor, Professor Burnbuck, to get contact information for the fearmancers horning in on the film industry. For a little while, I’d had a real plan for what to do with myself when I left this school—something I could accomplish even if I wasn’t actually a scion or an especially stellar talent at anything other than illusions.

  So much for that. Thank you so much, dear departed ‘Dad,’ for not just screwing me over from the moment of my conception but all the way into my future too.

  The thought sent an unsettling ripple of anger and satisfaction through me. I was glad he was out of the picture, glad I didn’t have to worry about any more assassins lurking in the forest, but at the same time his death felt almost too easy. Why should he have gotten off with a short scuffle turned deadly when I’d had to live with the horror of his actions for years?

  It was done, though. It was all done. I had to focus on what I had and kick the resentment and fractured dreams to the curb.

  The staff wing was even quieter than usual now that several of the professors had vacated the building. Our shoes hissed audibly over the carpet. Viceport unlocked and opened a door to a tidy room full of clean-edged furniture that fit her demeanor perfectly. An astringent herbal scent lingered in the air.

  She didn’t bother with the chair behind the glass-topped desk but rather leaned against the desktop. I considered and decided there was no reason for me not to rest my feet. I flopped into the leather chair opposite and stretched out my legs, waiting for her to get on with things.

  “I understand the doctors haven’t been able to make much progress in repairing your condition,” she said. “And that you’ve recovered relatively little of your capacity to contain magic.”

  My hand rose to my chest instinctively. The thin tickle of energy there served mainly as a reminder of how little magic I could hold onto after it passed into me. “That’s correct,” I said, my voice coming out tighter than I’d have preferred.

  “I’m not sure if the doctors were unaware or they simply felt it was too early to mention it, but I thought—presuming you’d like to regain a decent amount of your abilities—you should know that there is an adaptation you could make that I think would help quite a bit.”

  I perked up inside while keeping my pose languid. “An ‘adaptation’?”

  “Yes.” She went around her desk and opened one of the lower drawers. “A fearmancer losing their ability to hold onto magic is relatively rare, so it’s not surprising the doctors might not know of the more external strategies for coping, which don’t involve actual healing. But there have been a few cases in the past where healing alone didn’t accomplish a great deal. I took the liberty of studying those accounts and fashioned what I think is an appropriate tool. It wasn’t so different from conducting pieces I’ve worked on in the past.”

  She straightened up with an object in her hand: ivory-pale, egg-shaped, and about the size of her palm. A few ridges and dimples marked the upper half. She’d fixed a silver chain to a notch carved into the stone-like surface. Even if she hadn’t said anything, I’d have identified it as a conducting piece of some sort.

  My spirits deflated. “I’m not sure a conducting piece will be of use when I can’t summon much magic to conduct through it in the first place.”

  Viceport’s lips curved upward. “That’s exactly what this is meant to help you with. As you should know from your studies, many conducting pieces function not just to direct and amplify magic, but also to store it until the function is activated. Imagine you once had a literal container inside you that held magic for your use, which is now broken. This piece will act as a replacement.”

  I stared at the thing for a long moment. “If I provoke fear in someone, the energy will go in there instead?”

  “If you direct it there. And while it’s not a perfect substitute and the magic will seep away over time, it’ll hold the energy for quite a while, ready for you to draw on.”

  A flicker of relief shot through me—and faded. Could the answer really be that simple? What, I was going to walk around for the rest of my life with that obvious crutch hanging around my neck, signaling to every mage who saw me that I couldn’t handle my own magic? How much better could one conjured chunk of stone make things anyway—enough to offset the embarrassment? I found that hard to believe.

  “The transfer will go more smoothly, almost automatically once you get used to the process, if I attune the piece specifically to you,” Viceport went on. “The spell will only take a minute or two, and then—”

  “No,” I said, getting up.

  She blinked at me. “Mr. Killbrook—”

  “I don’t need it. I’m not much of a mage now—that’s going to be a fact either way. Better that I get used to it than play around with toys designed to trick me into thinking it’s not all that bad.”

  The professor’s mouth twisted. “I don’t think that’s the most accurate way of looking at the situation. It isn’t a trick—it is, as I said, a tool. We all make use of them in various ways. There are brilliant mages who do great work with relatively little power and mages who can gather immense reserves but whose spellwork is nothing but clumsy. How much you can wield has nothing to do with your skill.”

  “Well, you should know by now that my skills weren’t quite on the level the former Baron Killbrook let everyone assume either,” I tossed out.

  Viceport folded her arms over her chest. “You may not have been the most impressive Physicality technician I’ve ever encountered, but I’ve seen your Illusion work too. More importantly, I saw you at the edge of the battle this morning. You can’t convince me that you don’t want to be able to put the skills you do have to use again, in whatever way you can. This is your best opportunity to recover them.”

  Her insistence only made me bristle. “You don’t know me, not really. You don’t know what matters to me.”

  “Perhaps not.” She sighed and held out the conducting piece to me by its chain. “Please at least take it. I won’t insist on the attuning spell. I made it for you, and it won’t be of use to anyone else I’m aware of. Hold on to it, and then you’ll have it if you decide to see what it can do for you later on.
”

  I didn’t want to give in even that much, but it was clearly the fastest way to get her off my back. “Fine,” I said. I took the thing and shoved it into the pocket of my blazer. “I should get going now anyway.”

  “If you change your mind…” she said, but at least she had the courtesy not to look as if she assumed I would.

  When I got to the cafeteria, my mother was already there, just sitting down with her plate. I waved to her in acknowledgment and hurried to get my own meal.

  “Sorry,” I said when I joined her. “I got sidetracked—one of the professors called me over to talk about something—it didn’t end up being important.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “If you’ve got other business you need to see to, I’ll be fine on my own.”

  Anyone else in the fearmancer world might have said that in a passive-aggressive way, intending it as a dig that I didn’t seem devoted enough. But Mom… She didn’t have an aggressive bone in her body, passive or otherwise. She looked genuinely pained at the thought that I might be missing out on something to be here with her.

  It was those sorts of little things that made it hard for me to stay mad at her now that she wasn’t scurrying around after Baron Killbrook trying to make him happy. That was all she’d ever wanted, really—for everyone around her to be happy. And there hadn’t been any way she could manage that for both him and me. So she’d chosen the baron over the bastard.

  I couldn’t imagine what her lot would have been like if she’d run off with me to escape him. It probably hadn’t seemed like much of a choice at all. He might have decided to end us both and simply start over with the whole raising a family thing rather than risk her giving away what she knew.

  Now that he was gone, she’d come to me, not to the families of pricks who’d curried his favor or his baron colleagues. That was going to have to be enough.

  I waved dismissively. “It’s all dealt with now anyway. How are you doing?”

  “Worried, but all right.” She touched her belly. “The baby’s moving around a lot these days. Maybe she can pick up on all the tension in the air. Not the most stable events for her to be emerging into.”

  Comments like that brought up the jab of jealousy that I hadn’t completely conquered. There had never been a good time for me to “emerge” into the world.

  I bit back the rancor and managed a crooked smile. “Who knows? We might have it all fixed up for you before she arrives.”

  I made another flick of a gesture, this one a touch too jerky. My fingers brushed my fork and sent it skittering off the table. Mom reached out with a hasty word. Her casting caught it in the air before it hit the floor.

  A month ago, I could have done that myself. I’d already gotten out of the habit of even trying. The back of my neck heated as I snatched the fork from its magical hold. “Thanks.”

  Mom gave me a considering look as I busied myself with the stuffed chicken breast the school chefs had provided me with. She wet her lips and then ventured, “Is there nothing else the doctors can do?”

  I didn’t need to ask what condition she thought they might help with. “No. They said if it’s going to improve, at this point it will on its own. And it hasn’t, so… This is me now.”

  Her gaze slid away from me and then back, her eyes going watery. “I didn’t—I had no idea he was taking things so far. If I had, I would have said something, to try to stop him, to warn you…”

  Maybe she should have been able to guess. She’d known what her husband was like. But she’d pulled the wool over her own eyes for so long, deceiving herself must have become second nature.

  “He wanted to kill me,” I said, stabbing a piece of chicken. “He didn’t get that. So, that’s something.”

  “I just wish… I wish I’d known what else to do. You deserved so much better, Jude.”

  She’d already apologized for my childhood and for the secrets she’d kept more than once since she’d arrived. Still, something about the words made my throat close up. I forced down the morsel of chicken and considered chucking the rest of my meal in the trash.

  Before I could make up my mind, another member of our bizarre family made an approach. The new Baron Killbrook stopped a few feet from us and stood there awkwardly and not at all baron-ly, clutching his plate. When Mom looked at him, he dipped his head.

  “I hope you don’t mind the intrusion,” he said, with more grace than showed in his stance. “I’ve been meaning to find a chance to talk to you for a while.”

  I couldn’t read the emotions that crossed my mother’s face, other than that there were a lot of them. But as always, she was accommodating. “Of course,” she said. “Sit down.”

  He left a careful space between him and her as he took his seat, setting down his plate as if he wasn’t sure why he’d gotten it in the first place. He swiveled toward Mom with his head still bowed.

  “What happened with Edmund—I’m sorry. It’s not how I ever wanted things to end. I stayed out of politics for so long to make sure— But excuses don’t justify anything. If there’s anything I can do to make your situation easier from here on, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”

  Mom smiled at him, tight but soft around the edges. I could see the forgiveness in it already. Abruptly, I felt like an intruder at the table. She and I had already talked through so much. I wasn’t going to force him to have an audience while he made his amends.

  I gulped down one last piece of chicken and got up. “Lots to do. I should check in with the scions.”

  Mom glanced at me with wide eyes, but I gazed back firmly to say she didn’t need to worry about me. As she turned back to her brother-in-law, I scraped the rest of my dinner into the trash as I’d imagined doing earlier. Then I stopped, watching them from the edge of my vision, as he spoke more and she nodded, and something like a sense of peace settled over the table I’d left.

  My supposed father had been the storm cloud that had darkened both of their lives—making Hector feel he had to back away from the whole family to prove he wasn’t a threat, making my mother desperate to find some way to finally please him. All because he held the goddamn title that made him one of the five most powerful fearmancers around.

  I never wanted to end up under someone’s thumb like that. No way in hell.

  How exactly was I going to make sure that didn’t happen when at this point I was relying on Rory and the other scions to protect me? The memory of the battle and my ineffectual part in it made me grimace. I headed out of the cafeteria, but my hand slipped into my pocket to close around the conducting piece.

  It couldn’t hurt to see exactly what it could do, just once, could it? I should gather all the available information. No doubt that’s what Declan would have said.

  In the hall, I pulled out the carved stone and slung the chain around my neck. The piece settled against my sternum as if it’d always been meant to rest there. I swallowed thickly and looked around.

  A few juniors were meandering toward the cafeteria. Normally I’d have taken a subtle approach to teasing a little fear out of them, but that was beyond me at the moment. Instead, I’d have to bulldoze it.

  I strode toward them with my mouth dropping into a scowl. One of them noticed me, and a quiver of nervousness reached me just from that. When I was just a few feet away from them, I snapped out a casting word and slashed my hand through the air as if I meant to sever them in two.

  It was a meaningless word, and I didn’t have the power to sever much more than a spaghetti noodle anyway. They obviously weren’t sure of that, though. A rush of terror hit me from all three as they dashed around me for the shelter of the cafeteria.

  Normally, these days, the sensation would have washed through me and right back out again. This time, working on instinct, I caught it with a real casting word that pushed it toward the conducting piece against my chest.

  The energy flowed through me and into the piece like water sucked through a straw. I expected to feel nothing afterward, but
instead, the impression of power lingered. More distant than if I’d held it inside me, but still there, like a tingling aura with its most condensed point just below my collarbone.

  It’d been weeks since I’d felt that much magic within my grasp for more than a second or two. I stood there, soaking it in, torn between a laugh and a sob.

  Fucking hell, I’d missed this.

  Before I’d even thought about it, my feet were turning me around. I marched through the halls to the staff wing. Even after I recognized where I was going, I didn’t stop myself.

  Fuck embarrassment. Fuck maintaining some stupid image of imperviousness. Baron Killbrook had spent his whole life trying to convince everyone around him what a hot shot he was, and where had that landed him in the end?

  To my relief, Professor Viceport opened her office door shortly after my knock. She nudged her glasses up her nose with a puzzled look. “Mr. Killbrook?”

  “I changed my mind,” I said. “Let’s get this thing tuned up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Rory

  Jude swiveled on his heel to take in the green, his face lit up despite the cloudy dreariness of the autumn day. The ivory conducting piece that hung from his neck swung lightly with the movement. “Hmm,” he said in a playful tone. “Who shall I terrify next?”

  Even if I hadn’t known he wasn’t out to cause anyone that much distress, it would’ve been hard for me to ask him to back down. I hadn’t seen him in spirits this high in ages. I’d almost forgotten how much buoyant energy he could exude when he was in his element.

  “How much do you figure that thing can hold?” I asked with a smile.

  He rubbed his hands together. “That’s what I’m aiming to find out.”

  Once he’d replenished his store of energy a little, he’d been able to put that magic toward stirring up even more fear for fuel. Considering the tense state we were all in after recent events, he’d been careful not to go overboard with his illusions and steered clear of the Naries, but he’d gotten some yelps out of our fearmancer classmates over the last hour with little pranks here and there. So far he hadn’t seemed to top out the piece’s capacity.