‘A woman?’ Charlotte asked.
‘A royal,’ Jesse said. ‘I c-couldn’t see her p-properly. She was t-taller than you, and she had l-long hair and rainbow scales.’
‘Never mind that,’ Trudy snapped. ‘We need to go. We need to get back to the school before those boys get their courage back.’ And she started for the exit, Krystal right at her heels.
~~~
‘Shouldn’t we have reported them to the city guardians?’ Krystal asked. She said it in as soft a voice as she could manage because both Trudy and Jesse were still in a somewhat fragile state. Jesse was just sitting on the floor of Krystal and Trudy’s room with her arms wrapped around her knees. Trudy was fuming.
‘The word of a grey and a green who’s scared out of her wits against four boys?’ Trudy said. ‘Not a chance the guards would do anything.’
‘She’s probably right,’ Charlotte said, sounding resigned. ‘Four against two and, I’m sorry to say it, but they’d be less inclined to take a city grey’s word than they would mine, for example. Especially since one of the boys was a red.’
‘What difference does that make?’ Krystal asked.
‘Most of the guards are reds.’
Krystal glowered at the floor. ‘It’s… wrong.’
‘Maybe, but if that royal hadn’t stepped in… What was a royal doing at that place anyway?’
‘Huh,’ Trudy grunted. ‘Slumming with the peasants. I’ve no idea why she did that, but she had some motive other than helping us.’
Charlotte opened her mouth to say something, but Krystal cut her off with a shake of the head: it was not worth arguing with Trudy about royals. ‘Maybe we should all get some sleep. Are you going to be okay, Jesse?’
Jesse looked up: apparently she had not descended entirely into catatonia. ‘As long as I don’t have to go outside again.’
‘I’ll stay with you tonight, Jesse,’ Xanthe said. ‘We can talk a bit. Whatever you like.’
Jesse seemed about to reject that, but paused and then nodded. ‘Trudy said you might be able to tell me whether there are any animals in the city aside from rats.’
Xanthe grinned. ‘There are. We can talk about them if you want.’
‘I’d like that.’ Jesse uncurled herself and got to her feet.
‘I guess I should go too,’ Charlotte said. ‘Maybe Glinda’s back from her date.’
‘Maybe,’ Krystal said. She walked the others to the door and then turned back into the room to find Trudy pacing in what space there was between the beds.
‘Why would a royal help us like that?’ Trudy grumbled. ‘What was her motive?’
Krystal sighed and stepped over to sit on her bed. ‘You sound like you’re more annoyed at being rescued by a royal than you are at being attacked by four thugs.’
‘I can understand the four morons. I don’t understand that royal. I don’t like being indebted to a royal I don’t even know!’
‘Trudy… Look, I don’t know why you hate royals, but have you ever considered the possibility that some of them might not be as bad as others? I know they’re mostly pretty selfish, but not all of them are and–’
‘Don’t kid yourself, Krys,’ Trudy snapped. ‘The ones who act like they give even the smallest thought to any of the lower dragons, they’re the ones you have to be most careful of. There’s not one royal without some ulterior motive for anything they do. And now I seem to owe a favour to one.’
Krystal sagged a little. ‘Well, you don’t know who she was, and I doubt she knows who you are either, so you’re not in debt. You can’t be in debt to someone you don’t even know.’
‘Oh, she’ll find a way to–’
‘Could we just… stop talking about her now. I owe her a debt and I’m kind of sick of you going on about her.’
Trudy stopped her pacing and glared at Krystal. ‘You? You owe her a debt?’
‘Yes. I do. Me. Because she stopped you being dragged off and… And they might have killed you, Trudy! I–’ Krystal cut herself off and composed herself before continuing. ‘I just got you trained as a roommate and it would’ve been a terrible inconvenience to have to start again with someone new.’
A range of emotions flashed across Trudy’s face: anger, outrage, confusion, and then the tightly pressed lips of someone trying not to laugh. ‘No one likes a smart tail,’ she said.
Krystal looked up at her, face serious. ‘I was terrified, Trudy. When I think what could’ve happened to you, my stomach ties up in knots. When you said what happened, about all I could think about this mysterious royal was that I was grateful to her. I guess you don’t have to be, and you can go on thinking that she had some weird motive for doing it, but I like to think that you can’t just push people into neat little pigeonholes and say they all behave the same. I like to think there are good dragons, and bad ones, of every colour. And I’d like to think you came across a good royal tonight.’
Another emotional dance crossed Trudy’s face, but she said, ‘Okay. Okay, I’ll keep my speculations to myself. You’re too cute to disillusion.’
‘Thank you. I think. To be honest, I wanted to come back here and try that feather-munching thing, but now I just want to cuddle.’
‘Feather… I don’t have any feathers unless I change.’
‘Uh-huh. I’ve never seen your dracoform and I wanted to. Tonight, so I can munch it. I want to see you in silver.’
Trudy gave a self-deprecating little grin. ‘Grey. I’m a grey, Krys.’
Krystal shook her head. ‘Silver. Long ago, greys were known as silver dragons. That’s why we have Silverday and not Greyday. And I bet your scales shine just as brightly as any indigo, or royal for that matter.’
‘Now you’re being silly,’ Trudy said, but her skin was starting to sparkle with tiny, silvery lights. ‘I don’t like royals at all, but even I have to admit that their scales look fantastic. This woman… I saw the light move over her skin and it was like there was a rainbow moving over her scales. Royals look way better than the lesser dragons. It’s just a shame that they– Uh, it’s just a shame that my experience of them is that they have far less attractive souls.’
Krystal stood up and stepped closer to the transformed Trudy. Trudy’s legs were a little longer in this form: she had put on maybe half an inch, but the most obvious changes were her skin and eyes. Her eyes shone silver in the light from the candles, and the same candlelight danced from the silver scales which covered Trudy from head to toe, making her look paler than usual. Her lips were now a faded purple under her lipstick and her fingernails were silver claws.
‘You look fantastic,’ Krystal said.
‘I bet you’ll look better when you can change,’ Trudy replied.
Krystal slid her hand under Trudy’s dress and Trudy let out a little gasp. ‘No,’ Krystal said. ‘I won’t look better. Just different. Oh, I found feathers.’
11th Day of Autumngate.
Jesse was sticking as close to Krystal as she could whenever they went to classes. The incident at the club had put the timid green back several steps, but she was coping. Maybe she was coping better than Trudy, who was still muttering dark things about mysterious royals every so often.
Every Blueday afternoon was the big lab session. The whole afternoon they would be in one of the student laboratories working on practical magical problems. Today they were making charms designed to provide protection against attacks on the mind. Theodore Marin had provided the parameters of the spell, but not the spell itself, and they had the resources of the laboratory to use to make the charms. All they had to do was formulate the spell and endow it into a suitable object.
‘Does this look right?’ Jesse asked, bringing over her notebook for Krystal to look at.
Krystal read the notes Jesse had made and then examined the series of glyphs she had marked down as the final spell. She grinned and showed Jesse her own workings. ‘If you’re wrong, so am I.’
‘Let me be the judge of that.’ Both girls turned to fi
nd Marin standing behind them. Jesse shrank a little, but Marin ignored her and stepped forward to examine the two notebooks. After a few seconds, he nodded. ‘Very good. Proceed to the next stage. Of course, the formulation of the spell is simple enough. The execution will be another matter.’
‘It is going to t-take a lot of p-power to make this work,’ Jesse said when Marin had walked off toward another pair of unsuspecting students.
‘I’m glad we’re doing it in here,’ Krystal said, nodding. ‘Three hundred years of students working magic in here has made it a lot easier to access the astral plane and shape magic through it.’
Jesse gave a timid grin. ‘As a result of sympathetic resonance. B-but it’s easier. I wouldn’t say it was a l-lot easier.’
Krystal frowned at her notebook. Then she picked up her pen and began to jot down figures, and then she frowned at the numbers. ‘Would you check my maths?’ she said after a few seconds. So, Jesse began to work through the same figures in her own notebook, checking them against Krystal’s as she went.
‘There does not appear to be a lot of charm-making going on here,’ Marin’s voice said, once again from behind them.
‘No, Theodore Marin,’ Krystal said, waving at Jesse to keep her working. ‘I went through the figures for the amount of energy we’d need to shape, and, well, I estimate the chances of getting it all together without injury are virtually nil.’
‘K-Krys?’ Jesse almost whispered. ‘The only th-thing I’d s-say is that I d-don’t believe I can m-match your p-practical skill. I’d f-fail, worse.’
‘I see,’ Marin said coldly. ‘You’re both unwilling to complete the practical?’
Krystal set her jaw and pulled herself up straight. ‘We are. I… We believe it would be too dangerous for a student magus.’
‘I wonder how many of your fellow students will come to the same conclusion before they hurt themselves?’
Letting out the breath she had not realised she was holding, Krystal said, ‘You gave us this to see whether we’d try?’ Marin nodded. ‘I wish to point out, then, that I might have attempted it if Jesse Oakleaf hadn’t expressed concern about the difficulty.’
Marin’s gaze shifted to the brown-haired girl who was doing her absolute best to vanish into a singularity in front of him. ‘Jesse Oakleaf, you most certainly need to gain some self-confidence, but you should attempt to retain your cautious attitude to magic. Overconfident magi are frequently the ones who end their careers in short-lived, but very considerable, pain while maiming those unfortunate enough to be near them. I suggest the two of you make use of your remaining lab time by formulating a charm you do believe you can safely make and continuing from there. Please try to make it a little challenging.’
‘Of course, Theodore Marin,’ Krystal replied, letting herself grin a little. ‘Uh, but what about the others?’
‘Some will come to the same conclusion as you. Some will make the attempt. Don’t worry about them too much, however. Most will pass out before they manage to really hurt themselves, and Martine Bluedrake and I have medical charms at the ready.’ Marin turned and walked off, his hands clasped behind his back under his cloak.
‘Kind of a hard lesson,’ Krystal said to Jesse. ‘On the other hand, we passed and you got noticed by the lecturer.’
‘I d-don’t think I w-want to be n-noticed by him,’ Jesse replied.
‘Too late now. And thanks.’
Jesse blinked in surprise. ‘What for?’
‘If you hadn’t pulled me up, I might have gone ahead with it. And I might have been able to get far enough to do myself some serious injury when I lost control of it.’
‘Oh, well, you’re welcome.’
Krystal flashed her friend a grin. ‘Now, what can we come up with that’s a bit challenging but won’t kill us?’
~~~
Something drew Krystal’s attention to the spot, several tables away, where Felicia and one of her friends were working. The indigo had more than just her lab partner with her. A cluster of girls were standing around, muttering and acting like something exciting was going on.
‘Ancestors! I think she’s actually going to try it,’ Krystal said, frowning.
‘Who’s going to try what?’ Jesse asked.
‘Felicia. She’s going to try to cast the charm.’
‘O-oh. W-well…’ Jesse frowned as Krystal started off around the tables toward the knot of girls. Following was not something Jesse wanted to do, but she did not really want to stay where she was alone either. She ran a few paces to catch up.
‘Felicia Goldring,’ Krystal said from the back of the throng and, amazingly, a gap opened so that Felicia could turn and look over her shoulder to see who was calling her name.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ Felicia said. ‘Krystal Ward, was it? What do you want? I’m busy.’
‘You’re going to try to cast the charm? The one Theodore Marin set for us?’
‘Of course.’
‘You can’t. It’s too much energy to draw together and shape. None of us are skilled enough to–’
‘You may not be willing to complete the task as set, but I am both willing and able. Now, quiet all of you. I need to concentrate.’ Felicia turned back to the prepared clay tablet she had on her bench and raised her hands, the fingers splayed and curled as though trying to hold onto the energy she was to summon. It was an entirely overdramatic gesture designed to impress rather than do anything useful.
Krystal pushed forward into the gaggle of fawning girls, receiving several sharp looks as she did so. She ignored them and waited.
For a brief period, a second or two, everything seemed to be going fine. Felicia was murmuring some sort of mantra which someone had to have taught her as she focused on the symbology of the spell and committed herself to the casting. Krystal knew the signs, however: it took a second to fully commit to the spell, and then the only thing that would save you was blind luck or unconsciousness. The mantra stuttered and a shudder went through Felicia’s body, and Krystal looked back over her shoulder to where Jesse was standing. The green dragon took the hint and turned away, heading for the spot at one end of the room where Martine Bluedrake, the lab supervisor, was watching her charges. Felicia tried to push on with her chant, but her body was having none of it. Her eyes rolled back and her legs went from under her. She did not fall, because Krystal was standing right there, ready to catch her.
‘Clear the way,’ Bluedrake’s firm voice called out as Krystal was settling onto her knees on the floor, still cradling the fallen indigo. Bluedrake was, unsurprisingly, a blue dragon, but a rather heavily built one, more muscular than the trim forms many blues favoured. Her hair was pale blue, a little like Charlotte’s, but Bluedrake cut hers into a tight, unfashionable bob. ‘What’ve we got?’ the supervisor asked, pulling a collection of clay-tablet charms from a bag secured at her hip.
‘She can’t have got a huge backlash,’ Krystal said. ‘She wasn’t working for long enough. I think she just exhausted herself.’
‘There’s always one,’ Bluedrake muttered, invoking one of her charms. The sigil cut into the tablet shone briefly as Bluedrake scanned her eyes over Felicia’s body. There was blood running from Felicia’s nose; Krystal was entirely unsure why the diagnostic charm was needed. A second charm was produced and invoked, producing a warm glow across Felicia’s skin. Then Bluedrake nodded. ‘She just needs rest. Someone should take her back to her hall of residence.’
Krystal grimaced. ‘Jesse and I have finished, and Felicia lives in the same hall as us.’
Bluedrake straightened herself up and looked around, apparently for Marin because she stopped looking when she found him. ‘Acceptable, Theodore Marin?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ Marin replied. ‘I’ll speak to Felicia Goldring tomorrow, when she’s recovered.’
~~~
With Krystal doing most of the carrying, and Jesse opening doors, carrying all the bags, and taking some of the weight at other times, they managed to get Felicia
’s deadweight out of the lab and the building. They were just considering the best way to get her across the campus to the halls when Trudy, Charlotte, and Xanthe emerged from behind them.
‘What are you two doing with her?’ Trudy asked. ‘And why is she hanging there like a dishrag?’
‘She tried to do what was asked of her in the practical lab,’ Krystal replied. ‘We were finished, so we’re the lucky folks who get to take her back to her room.’
‘Very compassionate of you.’ Trudy walked around to look at the limp indigo hanging from Krystal’s shoulder. ‘She’s really out, isn’t she?’
‘She’s lucky she didn’t hurt herself badly.’
‘Well, I can tell you’ve never had to lift anything heavy,’ Trudy said, her skin sparkling silver as she shifted form.
‘I can take her,’ Charlotte suggested.
‘Once I’m in scales,’ Trudy replied, ‘all of you helping would just be in my way. I’m not exactly the strongest of greys, but I’m still a grey.’ Fully transformed, she took Felicia from Krystal and then, without any apparent effort, hefted the indigo up onto her shoulder to hang indecorously down her back. Trudy did clamp an arm down over Felicia’s skirt, which more or less protected her charge’s dignity as well as holding her in place.
‘If she wakes up before we get back,’ Krystal said, ‘she is going to hate you with a vengeance.’
‘All the more reason to get her back before she does.’ Trudy set off at a walk, if a fairly brisk one, toward the gateway that would take them through the lecture theatre block to the halls.
‘You really okay like that?’ Charlotte asked.
‘I don’t think I could run very fast carrying her, but I’m fine.’
‘You really are stronger than you should be. Uh, if you know what I mean.’
Trudy grinned. ‘Greys have to be useful for something, right? For a given build, a grey is stronger than any of the other colours. In dracoform, we’re even stronger. Most reds don’t like to admit it, but we’re stronger. They’re faster, but we’re stronger.’
‘And they have better publicity,’ Charlotte added.
Misfit Magic (Misfits Book 1) Page 8