by Sarina Dorie
“Define ‘uh-oh,’” Derrick whispered.
We rounded the corner. A group of students sat on the ground in the middle of the hallway. The bluish glow of cell phone screens lit six faces and the dank stones around them. They sat around eating potato chips and candy. Beyoncé blared out from one of the phones. It looked like a party.
Among the group were Hailey Achilles and Maddy Jennings, two of my students. Hailey was athletic, with pointed elf ears poking from her long dark hair. Even when her Elementia magic was at rest, a faint orange light glowed in her eyes. Maddy was a beautiful blonde siren. The girls’ smiles slid off their faces as they saw me.
Why did I have to be a teacher? Couldn’t I just have a covert mission with my boyfriend without running into students? Sheesh.
“Shit! Teachers!” one of the boys said. Two young men ran the opposite direction.
“Freeze,” I said.
Naturally, they kept running. I remembered how well chasing students had gone the last time I’d tried to apprehend them in one of the school’s secret hallways. Another boy held up his wand. A red-headed boy that might have been Ben O’Sullivan hid his phone. It was hard to see now that they’d put away their cell phones and the only light came from wands, but the squashed goblin features of one of the boys looked like Balthasar Llewelyn.
When trouble was at hand, Hailey, Ben, and Balthasar always seemed to be near.
Balthasar muttered under his breath, his wand glowing brighter.
“Don’t!” Hailey said, tackling Balthasar to the ground. “I don’t want to get suspended from another game!”
“Get off me!” He raised his fist and punched her in the shoulder.
Maddy remained seated, watching them with wide eyes.
“No fighting,” I said.
Hailey raised her wand. It glowed with hot red sparks.
“No!” I said.
Before I could do anything, wind whistled down the passage, pushing so hard my feet skidded against the floor. I fought against the current. Students fell into each other. The pushing of the wind shifted to a sucking sensation. The wands whipped out of their hands and scattered to the floor. The cell phones flew into the air and clattered onto the stones next to me. Balthasar lay flat on his face. The students who had run off yelled from up ahead. They tumbled back, somersaulting through the air as if carried on the breeze. They collided into Balthasar. Another phone tumbled forth and fell at my feet.
“Whoa! She can do magic,” someone said. It sounded like Ben.
“That wasn’t Miss Lawrence’s magic,” someone else said. He was right. It was Derrick’s. I glanced behind me. I couldn’t see him in the shadows.
Balthasar crawled forward, stretching his fingers out for his phone.
I kicked it behind me. “Why are electronics not permitted on campus?”
No one answered. Someone’s labored breathing came from behind me. Presumably Derrick.
“Why are students not allowed to use cell phones?” I asked in my sternest teacher tone.
Maddy hung her head in shame. “It depletes our powers and makes us too weak to learn.”
“We need to be strong to protect ourselves from Fae,” Hailey said.
“And why does the principal expect students to stay away from the secret passages in the school?”
“Because he doesn’t want us to get hurt,” one of the boys said. “Plus, he doesn’t want us to steal the answer keys to the spring exams … again.”
“I will be confiscating your phones and wands and turning them in to Mr. Khaba,” I said.
“Ugh! No fucking way!” Balthasar said.
I was about to correct his language, but it turned out I didn’t need to.
Hailey kicked him. “Shut up, before you get us in more trouble.”
“I want all of you to go to your rooms.” Everyone started forward. I put up a hand. “Except you two, Maddy and Hailey. Stay for a moment.”
Hailey and Maddy exchanged glum looks. The young men glanced over their shoulders at Maddy with longing as they departed. Possibly this was because Maddy was a tall blonde, looking more mature and voluptuous than any freshman needed to look, thanks to her siren ancestry. The boys’ feet crunched over empty wrappers and potato chips as they departed.
I looked to Hailey. “I am very disappointed in you. I thought you were going to follow school rules and try harder not to get in trouble.”
“We weren’t the ones using the phones,” Hailey said. “And we weren’t going to go any farther into the secret passages.”
“What were you doing down here?” I leaned against the wall.
“We just wanted to celebrate.” Hailey kicked at a plastic wrapper on the floor. “Balthasar broke into the counseling office and took pictures of our report cards. I passed first semester with Ds in Morty Studies, Latin, and Beginning Alchemy and a C in your class. Ben and Balthasar both got D minuses in alchemy because they’ve been studying.”
I patted her on the shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with being proud of your achievements. You just need to do it somewhere more appropriate. And without electronics.” Preferably after report cards came out. Though I couldn’t completely blame them for that; they’d been waiting an entire month for their grades.
“What are you doing down here?” Maddy asked.
“Catching delinquent students.” I wagged a finger at Maddy. “You are supposed to be staying away from boys. You haven’t learned how to control your siren magic.”
She stared out into the darkness past me. “It’s okay. Miss Periwinkle helped me tone it down with glamour. Today when I was in the library with her, and she was training me to be her assistant, hardly any boys talked to me or drooled all over themselves as I checked out their books.”
I doubted that. Then again, now that I wasn’t Maddy’s mentor, I wouldn’t be drawing out her powers. Gertrude Periwinkle might be able to teach her how to channel her powers.
“In any case, I would feel better if I knew you were safe in the girls’ dorm,” I said.
“We’re really sorry. It won’t happen again,” Hailey said, edging closer to the direction her friends had gone. “Can we go now?”
I pointed to the litter. “After you clean up your mess.”
They groaned in unison. Derrick snickered somewhere in the darkness behind me.
“Can I have my wand back so I can see at least?” Hailey asked.
I kicked a stick of wood at my feet toward her. She snatched up a different wand and used a flashlight spell. The two girls crouched and picked up the garbage.
“I think Study Club really helped,” Hailey said as she pushed potato chips into a pile. “I might even pass some classes this semester too.” She smiled, excitement in her voice. Most students would rather be passing all classes. Considering Hailey’s record, this was still an improvement.
“Me too,” Maddy said. “Except for Miss Bloodmire’s class. Wards are difficult.”
“They are,” I agreed. I pocketed two phones and three wands.
“This is the first time I’ve ever passed more than the coach’s classes.” Hailey jumped up and down in excitement.
I smiled along with her. Maddy stared into the shadows past me. I turned, catching a black silhouette shifting in the darkness.
Male pheromones never escaped Maddy’s notice.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“No one,” I said quickly. “Who was what?”
“Who?” Hailey looked around.
“I see.” Maddy smiled. “Miss Lawrence was down here because she has a secret boyfriend.”
“No.”
She walked confidently into the gloom. She didn’t need a wand. Her skin glowed with pearlescence, and she reminded me of moonlight as she stepped into the shadows. She turned back to me, hands placed on her hips. “You had someone with you when you first found us. He had blue hair, and he wasn’t a student.”
Curse Derri
ck and his blue hair! The last thing I needed was for Maddy and Hailey to tell Thatch they’d seen me hanging out with a tall man with blue hair. We were going to have to get him a hat.
I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I’ll buy you each a candy bar if you promise not to tell anyone you saw him.”
Hailey rolled her eyes. “It’s going to take more than that to buy my silence. I know teachers aren’t supposed to bring boyfriends to their rooms.”
“I’m not in my room.” A smile stretched tight across my lips.
“No. You’re just alone with him in a secret passage.”
Maddy nudged Hailey. “Shush.” She looked to me. “We aren’t going to tell on you, Miss Lawrence. You don’t need to buy us candy.” She whispered to Hailey. “Miss Lawrence let us stay with her at Christmas. Do you really think she’s going to do that again if you blackmail her with candy?”
“I wasn’t blackmailing. She offered!” Hailey turned to me. “Just so you know, I wasn’t going to narc on you.” Hailey shoved her wand up the sleeve of her sweater. It looked like the black cardigan my mom had bought her at Christmas. “I’m keeping my wand.”
The two girls left with armfuls of garbage. I took out one of the cell phones and used the flashlight feature. They’d missed a box of Red Hots. I didn’t even know how they got Morty junk food in this realm. There had to be a black market for this stuff.
I dropped the scattered candies into the box and straightened. I turned and collided with Derrick. He caught me and held me against his chest. I leaned my head against him, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
“Tell the truth.” Derrick whispered into my ear. “You’re going to keep those phones, aren’t you?”
“Are you going to tell Khaba if I keep one of them?” Whichever one had better music, a flashlight app, and other desirable features.
“It depends. Do you intend to bribe me with candy like you do with your students?” He squeezed me tighter.
“No. I have other bribery in mind for you.”
He tickled my ribs. “I like the sound of that.”
I squirmed out of his arms before I burst out laughing and drew anyone’s attention from outside the hallway.
Derrick laced his fingers through mine. He walked alongside me, his eyes growing thoughtful. “Maddy Jennings. She’s the one you have to watch out for.”
“Why do you say that?”
“With Hailey, you know where she stands and what she wants. She’s bribable. Sirens aren’t as easy to figure out. They want attention, and they don’t want attention. They want a man and at the same time, they resent him and want to kill him.”
“That’s a stereotype. Maddy isn’t like that.” Neither was Miss Periwinkle. She’d renounced her siren ways to derive her magic from the stars and celestial bodies like Celestors.
We whispered as we traversed the secret passage to the suit of armor, around the corner and under the next tapestry. In the hallway of mirrors we saw that Khaba wasn’t in any of the rooms. Thatch’s mirror was covered with a blanket again. I tried not to think about what was going on beyond that curtain.
Josie was sprawled across her bed in her purple Eeyore pajamas, reading a book. She wore her long hair in two ponytails, looking far younger than someone in her twenties.
I stuck my head through the surface of the mirror. “Hey, Jo! Can we come in?”
She shrieked and dropped the book she was reading.
“Sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you.” A disembodied head probably looked freaky coming out of a mirror.
The time I’d walked through her mirror to get her help with Julian, she’d been asleep and hadn’t seen me exit the mirror. Afterward she’d come with me to the hallway of mirrors, but she hadn’t seen herself emerge from the mirror.
“Clarissa?” Josie asked. She shoved the book under her covers and approached the mirror on the wall. “What’s going on?”
I pushed against the taffy-like surface of the mirror. The glass was cold and slithered against my skin as I forced my way through. It resisted me at first, then sucked at me like it wanted to pull me in.
“I wanted to talk to you,” I said.
Josie had a desk and wardrobe like my room, but that was where the resemblance ended. Rather than a homicidal Downton Abby vibe, it was cozy and cheerful with a plump easy chair in the corner made of bright yellow fabric. Two chairs were pushed in at table decorated with a lace cloth. The walls were adorned with weavings, and doilies covered every surface that could be covered. Her bed was bigger than mine and covered in a multicolored quilt.
I had been in her room a couple times before, but I had never seen the bags filled with balls of yarn or the knitting needles out until now.
Derrick came through next. As his head and shoulder emerged, he looked like he was made of silvery glass. The shape of his face and arms reflected the colors of the room, shifting as he moved in a dizzying kaleidoscope until he parted from the surface and looked like himself again.
He shivered and shook himself. “That felt like icicles melting under my skin.”
Josie looked him up and down. “Wow. You’re Clarissa’s boyfriend? Invismo?”
“You can call me Derrick.” He smiled at me shyly and blushed. “But, yeah. I’m the long-lost boyfriend.”
Josie shook his hand and introduced herself. He already knew who she was—he knew who everyone at the school was—but he didn’t interrupt. Graciously he smiled and nodded.
Josie invited us to sit down.
Derrick leaned against the bedpost. “Thanks. I’ll stand.” He tugged at the slacks self-consciously. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said they were too small for him. The way they hugged his butt was adorable. He hadn’t buttoned the shirt all the way up since it was so tight across his shoulder blades.
I sat down next to Josie on the bed. “Do you know where Khaba is? We need him to help Derrick remember his past.”
“Oh boy, I’ve got the perfect spell for finding him. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to use it!” She dug through a ball of yarn next to the bed, finding a bundle of herbs in the bottom. She approached the mirror on the wall and threw a pinch into the air, then waved her wand at the glass. A ray of green light, followed by the aroma of mint and lavender, wafted from her wand.
She closed her eyes and said, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, show me the hottest hottie of them all.”
Our reflections clouded over. Khaba appeared in the mirror. He wore the same pink leopard-print shirt as earlier. The image was clearer than a video call on Skype.
“Cool,” I said. This was like a fairy tale.
Behind him was a cobblestone interior. From the fiddling and dancing going on in the background, it looked like he was in Lachlan Falls at the pub. He sat at a table with a model-worthy red-haired man in a kilt.
Khaba leaned forward, touching the man’s arm flirtatiously. “Does anyone care about who wears the pants in a relationship anymore?” His eyes raked over the other man’s tartan kilt.
Josie snorted out a laugh. “Isn’t he hilarious?”
I gave Josie a sidelong glance. She would say that, the girl with no gaydar. We were so lucky this is where we had caught Khaba, not somewhere more private.
I shifted on the bed. Her hardback book poked me in the thigh.
Khaba’s date downed his ale. Both of them stood.
“Um, Josie, how do we get ahold of him?” I asked. I didn’t want a peepshow of what came next.
She strode forward and banged on the mirror. “Hey! Khaba! Can you hear me?”
I folded my legs underneath me, accidentally kicking her book out from under the covers. The title sounded like something Japanese: The Fine Art of Shibari and Kinbaku. I didn’t know what that meant. It wasn’t a term that had ever come up in the limited amount of anime I had watched. Knowing Josie, it probably had something to do with weaving or textiles. I shoved the book back under her blankets.
Kh
aba blinked. His eyes shifted across the mirror. “Josie? I told you not to use this spell unless it’s an emergency.” The man in the kilt gave him a puzzled look.
“It is an emergency,” Josie tugged me closer to the mirror. “Sort of. Clarissa found you-know-who, and they want you to come here to do you-know-what.”
“That isn’t an emergency.” Khaba glanced at his date. “I have a true emergency right now off campus, and it involves me and my kilty pleasures.”
“First of all, I know you’re not shopping for kilts. I can see you at the Devil’s Pint.” Josie clucked her tongue.
I cringed at her cluelessness. Derrick snickered. I shushed him. I didn’t want to hurt Josie’s feelings.
“Second of all, alcohol is not an emergency,” Josie said. “We need you here for a school-related matter.”
“The nature of my emergency has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with a ride on a kilt-a-whirl.” He eyed the man who was impatiently waiting near him.
Josie crossed her arms. “You have a duty to serve this school as our dean.”
“Slave to the lamp or slave to the school, it makes no difference. I still don’t have a social life,” Khaba said with a sigh. “I’ll be back at Womby’s . . . soon.”
The mirror fogged up before clearing and returning to normal.
“How about some tea?” Josie asked.
Half an hour later, a cloud of smoke materialized in the corner of her room. Khaba’s silhouette appeared through the haze.
“It’s what I’ve always wished for! Khaba in my room!” Josie jumped up from the table and ran to the bed, seductively striking a pose.
Khaba grew more solid through the cloud, though the smoke only increased in the room. He no longer wore hot pink. His pants were white, but just as snug. I’d never seen him in a magenta sweater vest with nothing underneath, but he managed to make it work. He strode toward Derrick. He didn’t appear to notice Josie trying to catch his eye from where she lay across her bed.
“Invismo! Nice to see you!” He looked Derrick up and down. “My, aren’t you . . . yummy?”
“Heh, thanks. That’s what the ladies tell me.” Derrick shook Khaba’s hand. “Please, call me Derrick. There’s not much use in a cool nickname now that I’m not invisible.”