by Olivie Blake
Nico’s change in conversation seemed to be more in the interest of sparking conversation with Parisa than it had been defending Reina. “Yours, for example,” he suggested to Parisa, prompting her expression to stiffen.
“What’s yours?”
“Rhodes and I are both physicists. Well, physics of force, molecular structures, that sort of thing,” Nico said. “I’m better, of course—”
“Shut up,” muttered Libby.
“—and we have our respective preferred materials, but we can both manipulate physicalities. Motion, waves, elements,” he summarized, glancing expectantly at Parisa. “And you?”
“What about me?” Parisa retorted flippantly.
Nico faltered. “Well, I just thought—”
“I don’t see why it’s necessary that we share the details of our specialties,” Tristan cut in sourly. “We’re competing against each other, aren’t we?”
“But we still have to work together,” Libby argued, looking moderately aghast. “Do you really intend to keep your magic a secret for the next year?”
“Why not?” said Parisa, shrugging. “Anyone clever enough to figure it out probably deserves to, and as far as the intricacies—”
“But it’s not like we can perform as a group while knowing nothing about each other,” Nico attempted, looking as if his intent was to put the others at ease. Reina had a feeling he considered himself likeable enough to manage it, and it was possible he wasn’t wrong.
“Even if one of us is going to be eliminated eventually,” Nico said, “I don’t see how it helps to cripple all of us as a group.”
“You only say that because you already told us your specialty,” Callum murmured, half-smirking, which made Reina like him less.
“Well, I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” Nico said, flaring a little with irritation, which made her like him more. “So unless the rest of you have some sort of insecurity about whatever it is you can do—”
“Insecurity?” Tristan scoffed. “So you’re just assuming you’re the best in the room, then?”
“I didn’t say that,” Nico insisted. “I just—”
“He does think he’s the best in the room,” said Parisa, “but then again, who doesn’t? Except maybe you,” she determined, giving Reina an unfriendly glance.
She, Reina thought, was safely at the bottom of the list of people she intended to be friends with.
“I just think there’s some way we can compromise, at least,” said Nico. “Shouldn’t we have some idea who can do what?”
“I agree,” said Reina, mostly because she could see that Parisa and Tristan were resistant. It made no difference to her; everyone already knew her specialty, so she, like Nico and the thankfully now-silent Libby, had no reason not to bolster his argument and pressure the others into confessing. “Otherwise the physical specialties are going to take on the majority of the work, and if I have to waste all my energy on security—”
“Not everything has to be brute force,” said Tristan, irritably. “Just because you have physical specialties doesn’t mean you’ll be doing all the magic.”
“Well, you certainly aren’t giving me a reason t-”
“Stop,” said Nico, and because it was startling, conversation halted. “Who’s doing that?”
Reina detested the interruption, but better Nico than Tristan. “Doing what?”
“Rhodes should have spoken by now,” Nico said, sliding Libby a glance. She blinked, surprised, and then Nico turned his attention back to the others, peering suspiciously at Tristan, Parisa, and Callum. “Someone convinced her not to. Who was it?”
Tristan glanced at Parisa.
“Wow, thanks,” she said drily. “That’s not obvious.”
“Well, you can hardly blame me for—”
“It’s not me,” Parisa snapped, irritated now, and Reina fought a smile. Not only was the Tristan-Parisa alliance cracking early, but now it was obvious what Parisa’s specialty was: she could either read minds or emotions.
“One of you can influence behavior,” Nico accused, adding blisteringly, “Don’t.”
There was only one option left.
One by one, they gradually turned their attention to Callum, who sighed.
“Relax,” he said, crossing one leg listlessly over the other. “She was anxious. I turned it down.”
Libby blinked, suddenly furious. “How dare you—”
“Rhodes,” Nico said. “The air’s too dry for this kind of volatility.”
“Shut up, Varona—”
“So you’re an empath,” said Reina, glancing at Callum, “and that means…” A glance at Parisa. “You can read minds,” she guessed, determining it unlikely that a society claiming to be the most advanced of its kind would invite two pairs of identical specialties.
“Not anymore,” Parisa said with a glare at Tristan. “They’ve all got shields up now.”
“No one can hold that for long,” Tristan said, looking suspiciously at Callum. “Especially if we’re going to have to guard our emotions, too.”
“This is ridiculous,” Libby said, having successfully forced out Callum’s influence by then. “Listen, I’m the last person to ever say Varona’s doing anything reasonable—”
“Who?” said Callum, who was probably being difficult on purpose.
“I… Nico, then, whatever—the point is,” Libby exhaled impatiently, “we’ll never get anything done if we’re all trying to protect ourselves from each other. I came here to learn, for fuck’s sake!” she snapped, which Reina was exceedingly relieved to hear. Libby may have been annoying, but at least she wasn’t afraid to insist on something genuinely important. Her priorities, unlike everyone else’s, were in the right place.
“I absolutely refuse,” Libby huffed, “to exhaust my magic just to keep you lot out of my head!”
“Fine,” said Callum lazily. “I promise not to put any of you at ease, then.”
“Hey,” Nico snapped. “She’s not wrong. I’d like to have some autonomy to my sentience too, thanks.”
Tristan and Parisa seemed to agree, though they weren’t ready to say so.
“Surely we shouldn’t have to explain to an empath why none of us want our emotions toyed with,” Libby insisted.
Callum waved an indolent hand. “Just because I happen to know what your feelings are doesn’t mean I waste time trying to understand them, but fine. I’ll behave if she will,” he added with a sly glance at Parisa, who glared back.
“I don’t influence anyone,” she said, irritated. “Not magically, anyway. Because I’m not an asshole.”
Sure you’re not, thought Reina loudly, prompting Parisa to yet another scowl.
In the absence of any further discussion, the three remaining members had turned to Tristan, whom Reina realized belatedly was the last to reveal his specialty.
“I—” He stiffened, unhappily cornered. “I’m a type of illusionist.”
“Yeah, so am I,” replied Callum, a doubtful drawl. “A bit of a blanket term, isn’t it?”
“Wait a minute,” Parisa said, suddenly recalling something. “Your name is Callum Nova, isn’t it? Of the illusionist Novas?”
The others in the room sat up slightly, expressing interest that even Reina couldn’t prevent. The Nova Corporation was a global media conglomerate who secretly or not-so-secretly specialized in illusions; they were dominant in both the mortal and medeian industries, most adept within the industry of cosmetics and beauty. They were fascinating not only for their products, but for their cutthroat business practices. They had put several smaller companies out of business by repeatedly undermining medeian statutes about how much magic could be used in mortal products.
Not that that was the reason Reina was interested at that particular moment. Rather, she had realized that Parisa was probably piecing together the fact that she’d overlooked the person in the room with the most money, and that brought Reina so much satisfaction the weeping fig in the corner joyfully sprouted
fruit.
“Yes, I’m a Nova,” Callum said, not taking his eyes from Tristan, who had still not confessed to anything. “Though, as you’ve clearly pieced together, illusions aren’t particularly my life’s work.”
“Fine,” growled Tristan. “I can see through illusions.”
Immediately, Libby’s hand rose somewhere to her cheek, and Tristan sighed.
“Yes, I can see it,” he said. “It’s just a zit. Relax.”
Then Tristan’s attention traveled slowly back to Callum, who stiffened in apprehension. Delightful, Reina thought. The only thing better would be if Tristan informed them that wasn’t Parisa’s real nose.
“I won’t tell them if you won’t,” Tristan said to Callum.
For a moment, the air in the room was so tense that even the plants grew wary.
Then, abruptly, Callum laughed.
“Let’s keep it between us, then,” he agreed, reaching out to clap a hand around Tristan’s shoulder. “Better to let them wonder.”
So there was an us and them now. That was considerably less delightful.
MotherMotherMother, the ivy in the corner whispered with a shudder of consternation, joined by the hissing sound from the nearby fig plant.
Mother is angry, whimpered the philodendron. She is angry, OhnoOhnoOhno—
“—’s no point fighting about this,” Libby was saying, as Reina quietly engaged a deep inhale, hoping not to spur any nearby greenery to mutiny. “Regardless of what we think about each other, we still have to formulate some sort of security plan, so—”
But before Libby Rhodes could come to any sort of bossy conclusion, there was a low, loud, percussive gong, and the door to the painted room flew open, the house itself seeming to beckon them down the hall.
“Guess we’ll have to formulate later,” said Callum, rising to his feet and striding forward before waiting to hear what the end of Libby’s sentence would have been.
Behind him, Tristan and Parisa exchanged a glance and followed; Nico rose to his feet, beckoning Libby with a grimace. She, however, hesitated in frustration, then turned her attention to Reina instead.
“So, listen,” Libby began, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I know I must have sounded rude before, what with that thing I said about you being a naturalist, but I was only—”
“We don’t have to be friends,” Reina said bluntly, cutting her off. Obviously Libby was about to extend some sort of olive branch, but Reina had enough actual branches to contend with without dragging any metaphorical ones into the picture. She certainly had no interest in making friends; all she wanted from this experience was to gain as much access to the Society’s archives as she could.
Though she didn’t want to close any doors, either.
“We just have to be better than them,” Reina pointed out gruffly, gesturing with her chin to the other three, and that, at least, Libby seemed to grasp.
“Understood,” she said, and then, gratifyingly, she followed Nico out the door without waiting, leaving Reina to trail behind alone while the painted room’s plants mourned her loss.
NICO
Much as Nico resented every syllable of what was about to come out of his mouth, he doubted there was any alternative.
“Listen,” he said to Libby, dropping his voice. “I need this to work.”
Naturally she was defensive before anything else. “Varona,” she began, “might I remind you that you’re not the only one here who has something to prove—”
“Rhodes, spare me the lecture. I need access,” he told her. “Specific access, though I don’t know what specifically yet. I just need to make sure I can get into as many of the Society’s archives as possible.”
“Why?”
She had such a tireless capacity for suspicion when it came to him. Sure, he could tell her that most research existing about the offspring of creatures was either ancient and lost or illegal and not particularly in-depth, but he didn’t really want to get into it. Those were Gideon’s secrets, not his.
“I just do,” he said, and before Libby could open her mouth again, he hastily interrupted. “I’m just trying to tell you that I’m willing to do whatever it takes to move on.”
“Nico, if you’re trying to intimidate me—”
“I’m not—” He broke off, frustrated. “Rhodes. For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to work with you.”
“Since when?”
For such a smart girl, she could be really stupid.
“Since I noticed the older three are already picking teams,” he hissed, gesturing ahead to where Tristan and Parisa had caught up with Callum.
Gradually, understanding began to dawn on Libby’s face.
“You want to be some sort of alliance, you mean?”
“You heard what Atlas said. We’re doing physical magics first,” Nico reminded her. “You and I are going to be better at that than everyone else.”
“Except maybe Reina,” Libby said, glancing apprehensively over her shoulder. “I can’t quite get a read on her, though.”
“Whether she is or she isn’t, it doesn’t matter. Rhodes, we’re already at a disadvantage,” he pointed out. “There’s two of us and one each of them. If anyone’s going to get eliminated, one of us is the natural choice.”
She chewed her lip. “So what are you suggesting?”
“That we work together.” Unheard of for them, considering their mutual enmity, but he hoped she wouldn’t take too firm a hand with that particularly dead horse. “We can do more that way, anyway.” Astounding that it had taken graduating from NYUMA for them to believe their professors, who had insisted as much for years. “We just can’t give the others a reason to think either of us is expendable, that’s all.”
“If anyone’s going to try and make me look expendable, it’s you,” she pointed out, and Nico sighed.
“Don’t be petulant. I’m trying to be mature.” Or something. “At the very least, I’m being pragmatic.”
She considered it. “But what if an alliance with you isn’t in my best interest? I mean, if you do prove to be useless—”
“I am not and have never been useless,” Nico sniffed, “but fine. We’ll be a team so long as it’s in both our best interests, how’s that?”
“And what will we do when it isn’t?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Libby hummed in thought again, half-sighing.
“I suppose they are a bunch of snobs,” she muttered, and added, “And I do sort of already hate Callum.”
“Try not to,” Nico advised. “Empaths can do a lot with strong emotions.”
“Don’t mansplain empaths to me.” A predictable response, but he could see her starting to concede. “It just seems so ridiculous that we can’t all work together,” Libby muttered, half to herself. “I mean, what is the point of having so much talent in the room if nobody’s willing to see where that takes us?”
Nico shrugged. “Maybe they’ll get over it.”
“Ah yes, because that so frequently happens,” Libby grumbled, toying in agitation with her bangs.
She was definitely on the edge of agreement. Nico waited, prompting her to get on with her internal calculations, and she rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she conceded grumpily—which Nico reminded himself was not annoying, because it was what he’d wanted and, furthermore, it proved him right. “We’re allies until we’re not, then. Which I assume will be any moment.”
“Love the enthusiasm, Rhodes,” said Nico, and she grunted something derogatory in response, the two of them finally arriving in the dining room.
Alliances aside, Nico was feeling quite confident, though he could see Libby was having the opposite reaction. Yes, she had been targeted outright by Callum (a predictable breed of asshole if Nico had ever seen one) and she was much too fragile to contend with Reina’s lofty disinterest in her, but that was only because it was in Libby’s personal moral code to fret pointlessly about things she couldn�
��t control.
Once she had the opportunity to prove herself, she wouldn’t be nearly so mouseish; that much Nico knew from experience. Elizabeth Rhodes was a lot of things, most of them unhelpful, but restrained when it came to her abilities was not even remotely one of them. For once, the chip on Libby’s shoulder would probably serve him well.
The sooner she had a chance to be tested, the better, Nico thought grimly, observing over dinner that Callum, Tristan, and Parisa were obviously deluding themselves into thinking that being secretive and more experienced made them into some sort of exclusive club. He almost regretted finding Parisa so attractive, though it was hardly the first time he’d taken a liking to a girl whose primary quality was her inability to be impressed.
Thankfully, dinner was brief. Tomorrow, Dalton informed them at the end of their meal, would be their first full day. Tonight, they would merely be taken to their rooms to get some rest.
Dalton led them back to the long corridor past the gallery, where each of their names were carved into small placards beside the doors.
“It’s like boarding school all over again,” murmured Callum to Parisa, though of course none of the others could relate. Nico could, given that he’d been sent to New England from Havana the moment his medeian status had been cemented, but he, at least, was conscious enough of his wealth not to point to it. NYUMA had been populated with plenty of students like Libby or Gideon who had gone through mortal schooling most of their lives; coming from magical money, as both Nico and Max had done, wasn’t something to boast about unless one wanted to be immediately mistrusted and disliked. For someone who could apparently feel the emotions of others, Callum seemed dreadfully out of touch.
“Speak for yourself,” muttered Parisa back to Callum, proving Nico correct, though Callum merely smirked at her.
“You’re all adults,” Dalton said, catching wind of their muted conversation, “so there are no rules. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
“No rules?” Tristan echoed, glancing at Libby as if he expected her to faint at the news, which was certainly an accurate assessment of her character. She had always had a bit of a look to her as if she might immediately report any wrongdoing; that she was currently dressed like a page from the spring catalogue for school prefects (square-neck cardigan, pleated skirt, ballet flats) certainly didn’t help.