People came to her office looking for gossip? Braver people than me. Even with my noble purpose, it was hard to say out loud. “I … I’ve been thinking about it. Becoming one.”
She didn’t have to say anything, or even raise her eyebrows. I grimaced. “I know. I’m not nearly good enough at CM. Yan lessons kind of backfired on me, I think, but I’m trying to work through that. And if I succeed….” Her level stare wasn’t helping. “Things go wrong. Someone has to deal with them. I’d rather be the person dealing, rather than the one standing uselessly on the sidelines.”
And that was why divination, despite my knack for it, wasn’t enough. After Noah died of psi-sickness, my mother went through a period of rabid overprotectiveness. She later went to therapy and got over it, but it left me with a profound dislike of being wrapped in cotton wool. I wanted to do more than just sit in a room and forecast possible futures. I wanted to be the sort of person who could do more.
Grayson’s steepled fingers folded gracefully. “I trust you know it isn’t as exciting as it looks in the movies. The reality isn’t half so attractive—an unpleasant truth many would-be Guardians discover when they start the training. It’s long and difficult, and many give up along the way.”
“What about wilders?”
Her eyes narrowed. Okay, that wasn’t my most subtle conversational gambit ever. “Their situation is different. You’re friends with Julian Fiain?” I nodded. “He’s an interesting young man.”
Then a long pause. I tried not to squirm—easier said than done.
Finally she said, “They follow their own path to that end. Other Guardians must have a Ps.D., but wilders’ education produces the same effect, so that requirement is waived for them. Their natural strength also helps. A wilder, even a young one, is often a match for a Ps.D.”
Again the question of why Julian was at Welton, getting a substandard education. I doubted that making him more well-rounded as a human being was a worthwhile reason, in the government’s eyes. “But they aren’t required to become Guardians, as far as I know. So why do most of them do it?” They couldn’t all be crazy.
“That, Kimberly, is a question you’d do better to ask a wilder,” Grayson said softly. “The government encourages them in that direction, but has no legal right to demand it. In truth, the idea for Guardians came from wilders. After First Manifestation, they automatically assumed that role, and since they make up such a tiny percentage of the population, their numbers were augmented with other highly trained bloods. But if you want to know why wilders acted as Guardians in the first place, or why they go on doing so of their own free will, I’m not the one to ask.”
Julian was. If I could get an answer out of him.
Then Grayson straightened in her chair and put me back under the microscope. “As far as your own work is concerned, Kimberly, overcoming the negative conditioning the Yan method can produce is difficult—but not impossible. I recommend you stop thinking about it.”
“What?” That made no sense at all.
“Stop trying to work past it with logic. You’ll have your best success if you attempt something without thinking, and let your gift respond naturally. It usually only takes one or two experiences to break the pattern.”
Don’t think about a purple elephant. It was already almost impossible not to think about my doubts; how was I supposed to manage this when logic was one of my best defenses against them? Yet she was probably right. I already knew I did my best work when I got away from anything Yan-related, and listened to my instincts rather than my head. Somehow I had to stretch that to cover everything.
A timid knock at the door interrupted us. “Come in,” Grayson called out.
A guy I recognized from class stuck his head in diffidently. Grayson looked at her watch in surprise. “Hiroshi, my apologies. I lost track of the time. Kimberly, I’m sorry to have to cut this off so abruptly—but do come by again if you have any further questions.”
How do I get myself to stop thinking? Should I really become a Guardian? Why is my friend crazy?
She couldn’t answer those questions for me. And I doubted she’d take it well if I asked how badly she was going to hurt Julian in the exam. I thanked her and made my escape.
Exams. They were barely a week away. My safety might not be at risk, but my grades were. I needed to start studying.
~
According to the course site’s calculator, if I did how I expected to on the exam, I’d walk out of Grayson’s class with a B. If I had a particularly good day on the practical, I might get a B-plus.
Not good enough for Guardian training. But I had no intention of stopping there.
Rodriguez barely even bothered arguing with me when I went in for my advisory meeting, course schedule for the next quarter in hand. Not only was it going to be a six-credit term, four of those six were CM. Three were lecture courses without lab components—including one on Ring Structure, which would make my mother’s head explode—but the fourth, Lesser Banishing Rituals, had plenty of hands-on work. I was going to break this block, or die trying.
Assuming exams didn’t kill me first, along with all my fellow students. The thrice-yearly madness had descended, dragging us all down with it. Every ritual workroom and Arboretum glade was booked; even the dismal reading rooms of Talman filled up. Extracurricular groups were forbidden to schedule meetings. Campus felt dead, even at mealtimes, with people darting down to the dining hall only long enough to grab food, then hauling it back to their rooms like squirrels storing nuts for winter.
By virtue of sheer paper, I’d managed to lay claim to an entire small table in the café on the top floor of Gardner, covering the surface with printouts of my CM notes. I wasn’t looking at them, though; I was staring out the window at the Arboretum. No snow softened its stark edges yet. The forest was all grey and dull brown, broken only by the darkness of evergreens. Not very comforting.
“I see I am not the only one brooding.”
I glanced up from my reverie to find Robert looming over my table. His face, guarded as it was, looked like I felt. Somewhere in Adler, in one of the shielded chambers, Grayson was testing Julian. “Have a seat. We can brood together.”
Robert stole a chair from a nearby table. The guy there didn’t even glance up from his index cards. “She’ll not kill him, obviously. But he was unable to change his exam schedule, and so he will walk into his conjuration exam tomorrow having just survived a one-sided magical duel.”
“That hardly seems fair.”
“Indeed it is not. But so it shall be.”
“And what did Julian think of it?”
A bitter snort. “What do you think? He shrugged and said that if that was how things must be, then he had no choice but to accept it.”
Typical. I sighed. “When is he supposed to be done?”
“I have no idea.” Robert gave me a slantwise look. “I’d advise not looking for him. I gather that he’d prefer not to be civil this evening. And he has that exam tomorrow.”
Did he think I was going to hunt Julian down? “I have an exam, too—Historical Tarot. Don’t worry, Robert. I’ll leave him be.”
Robert nodded. “I myself am imposing on Geoff, as we both have the shamanism exam on the morrow. Julian may have the room to himself, if he comes home.”
“Where else would he go?” I asked. “It’s not as though he can sleep in the Arboretum. What’s he going to do, hole up in the basement of Morrison?”
“Damned if I know. Sometimes he just vanishes. For all I know, he does sleep in the forest. Or perhaps he doesn’t sleep at all. I don’t know what goes on in his head anymore.” Robert’s tone was strained. I put one hand out to touch his and he grimaced. “My apologies. This term has been a hard one for all. And I’ve been reminded of late how little I understand him.”
An echo of my own thoughts. “It isn’t our fault,” I said, trying to make myself believe it. “In the end, it’s up to Julian to decide how much he wants to let other people in.
”
“He does, you know,” Robert said. “On occasion. In tiny increments. But it seems to take some crisis to break through, to push him past his self-control, and not always then.”
“Rarely, I would say. Stress makes him lock down more.” Witness his desire for solitude tonight.
We sat for a moment in silence. If I’d gone prying in Robert’s mind, no doubt I would have seen the mirror to my own worries. Finally he rose, saying, “Well, I must be on my way to Geoff’s, and you, my lady, must study.” For the first time, he noticed my CM notes papering the table. “I thought it was tarot you had tomorrow?”
“I’m ready for it. CM’s the one that worries me.” After a month and a half of me in the Palladian Circle, he knew why.
Robert gave me a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “I’m sure you will do well—but I wish you luck anyway. Shall we meet for dinner tomorrow, to celebrate our wretched, exam-ridden state? Liesel as well, and Julian, if he wishes.”
“Sure. But not a dining hall; I need a real break. Pho Pasteur?”
“Vietnamese would be delightful. I will see you at seven.”
I watched him depart and stared at the door for a while, thinking on what he’d said, thinking on Julian, before applying myself to my studies once more.
~
Liesel wasn’t home that evening; she’d ensconced herself in Barnet to read until her eyes fell out. I had the room to myself as I prepared for my tarot exam.
Looking at old decks wasn’t reassuring. I idly shuffled and cut one, then dealt a card. The Magician. My attempts to get further information on either the Moon or the Tower had turned up nothing; I wasn’t even positive the two were connected. It just seemed impossible that the cards could warn me of hidden danger, and then shove the Tower up my nose, without them being related. But how?
I pulled out the runes Julian had given me and picked one blindly. Thurisaz. Nothing there either.
The door to my room opened.
I thought it was Liesel. Then all the hairs on the back of my neck rose straight up as a chill wave of strangeness washed over me. I yelped and spun my chair, and found Julian standing in the doorway.
“Am I interrupting you?” he asked.
Technically I was studying, but even if I’d wanted to keep working, the look on his face would have stopped me. Julian looked dead. There were no physical marks on him, but Grayson’s attacks wouldn’t have left any.
I realized I hadn’t said anything yet. “No, no, of course not. Come in. Sit down. Let me get you something to drink.” He didn’t seem to mind my babbling. I pulled a power drink from the fridge; as much as I loathed them, I’d started drinking them this term. Their only redeeming quality was their ability to restore energy and nutrients. Julian looked like he needed a six-pack, at least.
He drank it down in one unbroken gulp, too tired to even grimace at the taste. I sank back into my chair and thought about what Robert had said. Well, I hadn’t gone looking for Julian; he’d come to me.
Julian leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. He wasn’t asleep, though. I watched his shirt rise and fall, telegraphing the movement of his ribs beneath. The stairs had probably taken more out of him then he could afford at the moment.
“How bad was it?” I said, once his breathing slowed.
“Bad,” he whispered. “But not unbearable.”
“Did you at least pass?” I asked, more acidly than I meant to.
“Yes.” He took the second drink I passed him without opening his eyes and drank that one down, too. “I lost my shields to one hit, and that got partly through, but she only got one more off before I managed to restore them. More than half the class never got their shields back up after they dropped. Then I took one more hit when they fell again, but she stopped after that.”
I wrapped my arms around my stomach, feeling sick. Grayson hadn’t done any permanent damage; he’d just have a headache tomorrow. But this wasn’t an exam as I was used to thinking of it. School might not be like real Guardianship, but I suspected Grayson brought it as close as she could.
Julian sipped at a third drink while I wrestled with an idea. His headache had no doubt started already. Aspirin wouldn’t be enough, and he’d categorically refuse anything stronger. Health Services could help—Grayson had probably told her students to go there—but he wouldn’t agree to that, either. Not from strangers. But he might accept it from a friend.
“Would you let me try to help?” I asked softly.
He paused. Then he took another long sip, without answering. I crossed my fingers and hoped. If his pride made him refuse, I was going to throttle him.
“Thank you,” he said at last.
It took a moment for me to realize that meant yes. When it finally sank home, I rose and perched awkwardly on the arm of the chair. He leaned his head back again and closed his eyes as I laid my fingertips lightly on his temples, shivering at the contact.
Then he dropped a few of his shields.
I clenched my teeth. I’d known, by the simple fact that he let me in, that it was bad. But the backlash-headache was worse than I’d expected, far worse. It couldn’t have helped that Julian was tired even before the test began. He should have gone to Health Services.
But he wasn’t there; he was here, and I had to do something. I couldn’t fix his enervation without a circle to raise power, but I could block some of his headache. He needed a good night’s sleep to have a fighting chance at concentrating on his exam tomorrow.
I laid the blocks quickly, trying to be delicate, even though I usually only did this on myself. I felt an overwhelming urge to peek at a few other things while I was there. This was a splendid opportunity to judge his real emotional state, behind the facade he projected, and he was glowing with all manner of shields I wanted to inspect, too. But that would violate his trust. I stomped firmly on such ideas and restrained myself to only what I’d offered.
“Thank you,” he said again when I took my fingers away. Some of the lines on his face had smoothed out, and there was less tension in his shoulders, beneath the thin fabric of his long-sleeved shirt. I stood as he sat forward and stretched his back, cat-like. “That helped.”
“I’m glad,” I said, throat tight. “I only wish I could do more.”
“I’ll be fine,” he replied, rising to his feet. My hands curled in frustration. I wanted him to stay. We so rarely got these moments, quiet and open, with his usual defenses and self-control relaxed for once; I prized them, and now this one was ending.
But he needed sleep. I couldn’t argue against that.
“Good luck tomorrow,” Julian said as he headed for the door.
“You too,” I returned automatically. Then he was gone, and I sat back down and put my head in my hands. He was okay. More or less.
It was enough.
~
Robert could rant at length with little or no encouragement, and at the restaurant the next night I was happy to let him. He described in vivid detail the incomprehensibility of the questions on his shamanism exam, quoting from memory to illustrate the impenetrability of his Israeli-born professor’s grammar, while I picked at my food and tried to find an appetite.
My tarot exam didn’t go badly, I thought, even though I’d woken up with a headache—probably a side effect of touching Julian’s own. Or maybe it was a product of my dream.
I could hardly even call it a dream. Nothing had happened, unless I’d forgotten it so thoroughly I didn’t even remember the forgetting. Just a single image, that I still saw whenever I closed my eyes.
A gauntlet, lying before me on the ground.
An honest-to-god piece of armor, such as the medieval student group might make, formed of overlapping pieces of metal and articulated through the fingers. A gauntlet, lying on featureless dirt.
The image awoke in me such a tangle of feelings that I’d barely been able to put them aside for the exam. Apprehension was the strongest; I didn’t know whether people in th
e Middle Ages had really thrown down gauntlets to announce a challenge, but that was sure as hell the impression I got from this one. But there had been nothing to indicate what the challenge was, or who had issued it.
Maybe no one had issued it. Maybe it was just the hurdles I’d set myself to clear.
So there was curiosity as well as apprehension. I didn’t know what the gauntlet signified, and I wanted to: that made sense. How could I explain, though, the sensation I could only describe as joy? Why had the challenge pleased me so much? I had no rationale for it, but every time I thought of the dream, I felt that same fierce gladness. Side-by-side with gut-twisting fear, and that made no sense at all. The fear wasn’t that I’d fail the challenge—or not only that. More like I was afraid I wouldn’t even try.
Yes. That was it. I was afraid I wouldn’t pick up the gauntlet.
But wasn’t that what I’d been doing this whole term?
I became aware of eyes on me, and looked up. Both Liesel and Robert were staring at me. Julian was passed out in Kinfield; we’d decided it was better to leave him that way. “Sorry. My mind’s elsewhere. Which doesn’t bode well, seeing as how I’ve still got three exams left. Two tomorrow, and one Saturday.”
Robert winced. “My sympathies. Such a schedule should be illegal.”
I shrugged. Right now my exams were the least of my worries. At least, I hoped they were. CM was tomorrow, and although Grayson hadn’t killed Julian, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t kill me.
I wondered if Robert knew his roommate had visited me last night.
“But you will be free Sunday night, and that is a mercy,” Robert pointed out. “You may enjoy the festivities with a clear mind.”
“Assuming I still have one left,” I said, then paused in confusion. “Festivities?”
He smiled wryly. “The Samhain ritual, and Geoff’s party.”
I stared at him. I’d completely forgotten that the end of the month was so close. “I don’t have a costume.”
“Borrow something from Ceridwen,” Liesel suggested. “She’s always up for dressing you like Christine Rendal’s latest role.”
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