As Atherton spoke, his jet black hair turned white, then light brown, then red and finally back to black again, all without him so much as pausing in his speech.
“That’s so cool,” I whispered to Kelsey.
“Glamour is just the best skill,” she whispered back.
“You’re such a pair of girls,” Sam said with a groan. “Who cares about changing your hair colour?”
“Ah, Mr Devlin. Since I know you wouldn’t be talking during my lecture, I can only presume you were volunteering to go first. Stand up, please.”
Sam groaned again as the rest of the class laughed, then got to his feet with a lopsided grin and a slight flush to his cheeks beneath his blond hair.
“The glamour relies purely on visualisation and intention. Remember, you are not changing the colour of your hair, you are merely projecting an illusion. The most common technique is to imagine the illusion you wish to project on top of your own image, and then imbue that image with your magic. You may begin, Mr Devlin.”
Sam squeezed his eyes shut and his forehead furrowed with the intensity of his concentration. After a moment, he opened his eyes and looked around at us.
“Well?”
“Not completely terrible, Mr Devlin,” Atherton conceded. And, looking closer, I could see that Sam’s short blond hair was indeed a couple of shades darker. It wasn’t as dramatic as what the professor had done to his own hair, but it was still bound to be better than anything I could manage.
“Sit down. Perhaps next time you’d like to attempt something a little more challenging – as Ms Hutton has done.”
I threw a look in Felicity’s direction and sure enough, there she was, preening under her long locks, which were now a coloured flaming red that made Kelsey’s look dull.
“Very good, Ms Hutton. Five points for air.”
“I was trying for black,” said Sam from the corner of his mouth. I chuckled under my breath.
“Is something amusing you, Ms Eldridge?”
Uh-oh. This was only my second class with Atherton so far, but he’d taken a disliking to me. Actually, he seemed to dislike anyone outside of his own elemental house – air – but in my case it was particularly severe.
“No, Profes–” I started, but he slammed his hand down on his desk.
“I will not have your insolence in my class. If you cannot apply yourself, then you will leave. Immediately.”
“But I–”
“Out! Now.”
Unbelievable. I gaped at him for a long moment before pushing myself to my feet. I stuffed my books and water into my bag under the glaring eyes of Atherton and swung it onto my shoulder, then stalked from the room. It was times like this I despised the enchanted doors – I really wanted to slam it shut behind me. Instead, as it swung serenely closed, I heard Felicity’s icy laughter. The noise grated on my nerves like nails down a chalkboard. Gritting my teeth, I stomped down the hallway… then I realised I was acting like a child and stopped, taking a moment to draw in a long, steady breath, then blow it back out again. Atherton wanted to play favourites. So what? Sure, glamour was a really cool trick that I wanted to learn, but who cared? It wasn’t like his class was the only way I could learn it. And it wasn’t like I didn’t have better things to do than learn dumb tricks, anyway. In fact, Alden had given me the name of a book about the care of hippogryffs I could check out of the library, but I hadn’t had a chance to get there yet. Might as well head straight there since I had an hour until everyone else finished for lunch.
I hurried along the deserted corridors, trying to recall the way to the library, which was much harder without Kelsey to help me. It wasn’t exactly a favourite hangout of mine. I didn’t think books were going to be much use when it came to my nebulous control of my newfound powers. And whilst the history of magic was a whole lot more interesting than the industrial revolution, it still didn’t feature high up on the list of things I spent my time doing.
I’d walked the length of six completely unfamiliar corridors before I was forced to admit it. I was lost. Totally, irredeemably, hopelessly lost. I’d never seen this part of the academy before, and judging by the cobwebs hanging in every corner, it wasn’t well frequented. The fireballs hanging near the ceiling were dim, like the magic holding them there had been long neglected. It was so quiet down here that I could hear the rustle of my clothing as I moved. And there was a really odd smell – not a pleasant one. Kind of like something had crawled down here and died. About ten years ago.
The further I went, the worse the smell got, until I could practically taste the cloying odour in the back of my throat. I took another step, and gagged, covering my mouth. That did it. There was absolutely no way the library was anywhere near here. I was turning back.
Something brushed against my leg.
I screamed and leapt so far sideways that I collided with the dusty stone wall, immediately tangling myself in cobwebs. I pushed away and spun round, backing away from…
Toby. It was Toby. The wampus. A nervous laugh slipped from lips as my pounding heart started to steady itself. At least he was in his cat form – if I’d stumbled across the massive, heavily muscled creature with six legs and two tails, I reckon I’d have about had a heart attack.
“What are you doing down here?” I asked him, then immediately regretted opening my mouth as I breathed in another lungful of the toxic odour. There was, of course, no reply, just the echo of my words bouncing off the walls.
“We should get out of here.”
The wampus meowed and then started trotting off in front of me, back the way I’d come. I shrugged. I’d done crazier things than follow a shapeshifting cat along a deserted corridor recently.
His four legs were faster than my two, and each time we rounded a corner I fell further behind him. Soon I was jogging to keep up, and a half-dozen turns later I lost sight of him completely. I skidded to a stop, listening for any sound of the supernatural beast. Nothing. Except for… I cocked my head. Yes. There were voices. That way.
I headed towards them, relief making me giddy.
“What are you doing here, Charity?” a voice sneered. Felicity. Great. I guess that relief had been a little premature. “And what on earth happened to your robes? Have you been rolling around in the gutter again?”
Paisley and Cecelia burst into laughter like it was the best joke they’d heard all semester. They had low standards. I fixed her with my most cutting stare.
“As opposed to rolling around with every guy who looks at you twice?”
Felicity’s cheeks turned red and she narrowed her eyes at me.
“What are you doing skulking around outside the Air common room, anyway?” she demanded. “I’m going to report you to Professor Atherton.”
“For what? Walking down a corridor?”
“You’ve obviously been up to no good. Although apparently that’s all you’re capable of.” She sniffed. “Come on, girls, there’s a funny smell around here.”
She gave me a pointed look and then flounced past me, taking care not to get too close – presumably in case being working class was contagious. Paisley and Cecelia gave me looks that were almost as dirty as my clothes, and hurried off in her wake.
I waited until they were gone before I lifted my cloak and took a tentative sniff. Ew. Oh yeah, that was rank. I smelled of the dead thing in the basement. A trip to my dorm was definitely needed before I caught up with Kelsey and Sam in the main hall. On the plus side, at least now I knew where I was.
With a sigh, I hoisted my bag further onto my shoulder, and took the second corridor on the right.
*
By the time I was cleaned up and no longer smelled like something had crawled inside my skin and died, lunch was pretty much over. I caught up with Kelsey and Sam on their way out of the main hall.
“Lyssa, there you are! We were worried about you, are you okay? What Professor Atherton did was totally unfair, I think you should complain to Professor Talendale about it. He’s always so
much harder on us than on the Air students, and everyone can see he’s picking on you… What’s that smell?”
When Kelsey paused to take a breath, I waved hi to them both and answered her question.
“I’m fine. It’s fine. I don’t care what Atherton thinks about me.”
They both stared at me like I was crazy – which, truth be told, was a fairly common expression Kelsey took on when talking to me, although Sam not so much.
“What?”
“Lyssa,” said Sam, “You do realise that you’re going to have to get through his exam to pass this year, right?”
I shrugged with more nonchalance than I felt.
“That’s ages away. And you guys can help me practice, right?”
“Of course we will,” Sam said, shooting daggers at Kelsey who’d raised a finger and opened her mouth like she was about to remind us all that performing magic out of class was strictly forbidden for first years. She raised both her hands in surrender.
“Fine. But if I get expelled, I’m blaming both of you.”
“We won’t get expelled,” I tell her. “We won’t even get caught. There’s a decent-size copse of trees out on the grounds, just past the dark lake. I saw the gryffs circling it a couple of days ago. What’s wrong?”
I added that last because they were both staring at me with their mouths open, horror-struck.
“That’s the Unhallowed Grove.”
“Oh, I’m sorry for not knowing the difference between a copse and a grove.” I rolled my eyes. “Someone expel me.”
“They will if you go there,” Kelsey said, placing her hands on her hips. “No-one’s allowed out there, not even the third years and the prefects.”
“Oh. Well, we’ll go somewhere else then.”
“Not outside, though,” Sam said. “You remember what Talendale said at the start of the year – first years aren’t allowed to leave the academy after dark.”
Dammit. He was right. As much as I didn’t want to fall hopelessly behind on my classes and get held back a year, I couldn’t risk my friends getting into serious trouble helping me. But there was one place we could go where we wouldn’t be caught.
“I think I might know somewhere. If I can find it again. And if you don’t mind bad smells.”
Chapter Ten
Despite my best efforts, I never managed to find my way back into the hallways I’d ended up in the day I was looking for the library, and not even Kelsey had any idea where they might be. What we did manage to find, though, was an old storeroom that looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. It wasn’t big, but it was far enough away from the four common rooms and the classrooms that we weren’t likely to be disturbed.
Between classes, homework, and working with Alden, it was hard to find time to practice, but I was determined to prove Felicity and Atherton wrong: I was a good druid, and I deserved to be here.
Of course, that was easier said than done. It was a few weeks before we managed to slip away from the common room without anyone noticing. We put as much purpose in our step as we could, but when we rounded a corner and tried to walk straight past Professor Underwood, his stern gaze brought us to a halt. Underwood was one of those people whose ages are impossible to guess. He could have been thirty, he could have been fifty. His short, dark hair was just starting to earn a few grey strands, and his face a few frown lines. And his eyes… well, I couldn’t have said. I’d never quite managed to meet them. Everything about the man reeked of inherent authority. He’d have made a good lawyer. Or a cop.
“Where are you three hurrying off to?” he asked, looking between us and then singling out Kelsey. “I’d have thought you in particular had better things to be doing on a day like this than lurking in corridors.”
I stared at my feet and tried frantically to come up with something convincing, but Kelsey beat me to it.
“We were just heading to the library, Professor. We wanted to get some studying done.”
He eyed us all for a long moment while I steadfastly avoided his gaze. It would probably have made me look guilty as all hell if every other student in the academy didn’t routinely do the same thing.
“Very well,” he said after a long pause. “Hurry along, then. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your studies.”
We scampered out from beneath his attention, and I could feel his eyes on our backs the whole way down the corridor.
“Do you think he’s rumbled us?” Sam asked, as we rounded the corner.
“I don’t think so,” I said, counting five doors along until I found the one we wanted. I glanced around just to be sure, and slipped inside. “He seemed pretty interested in you, though, Kels,” I added, clicking the door shut behind us.
She just shrugged and helped Sam drag a cabinet in front of the door, blocking anyone from opening it.
“I have some extra study sessions with him.”
“Really?” I shuddered. “Rather you than me.”
“Well luckily for you, you’ve just got us,” Sam said, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Right, where do you want to start?”
“How about energy pulses? It’d be really nice if I didn’t need help to get into the common room. I’m the laughing stock of the whole academy.”
“You’re not the laughing stock of–” Kelsey caught my look and cut off mid-way through her outrageous lie. “Okay. We’ll start with that.”
“It’s as good a place as any,” Sam nodded. He dragged a couple of chairs over and brushed the worst of the dust and grime from them, making them marginally cleaner than the floor. Whenever this room had last been used – by anyone other than us – it was obviously long enough ago that it had been taken off the cleaning schedule. Dust webs hung from the ceiling and the cobbled floor was covered in layers of yellowish grime, and a damp, musty scent hung in the air. There were no windows to open so we’d just have to live with that. It was crammed with old boxes, some stacked on shelving units that reached almost to the ceiling, others just dumped on the floor and pushed up against the walls. I flipped one open and found a pile of aging textbooks. Another held what might have been some sort of dried plant matter… or it might not. In one corner there was a stainless-steel sink with a leaking pipe dripping water onto a box beneath it – probably where the damp smell was coming from.
I wrinkled my nose but took my seat and flipped my hand over, so it was palm up. I tried to focus on the faint tingling sensation that ran over the skin of my hand on the couple of times I’d had any success with this exercise. As usual, my palm stayed almost completely skin coloured, with the faintest splotch of pink – less than what you’d get for high-fiving someone.
“Try harder,” Kelsey urged, staring at my hand.
“What do you think I’m doing?” I snapped, as my palm flared the tiniest bit redder, and then faded back to skin colour.
“Felicity’s right,” Sam said, crossing his arms across his chest. “You’re never going to get this.”
“What?” I tried to keep the hurt from my voice, and failed. I thought he was supposed to be my friend.
“How could you say that?” Kelsey chastised him. “It’s just taking her a little longer. It’s not her fault that magic doesn’t come naturally to her.”
“Uh… thanks?”
“Oh, come on,” Sam said, staring at me. “I’m just saying what we’re all thinking.”
I gritted my teeth as he continued.
“You know what Felicity’s telling everyone now, right? She’s saying if your dad did come here, it must’ve been as the caretaker, because you’ve got less magic than a goblin – and that’s the only reason Alden took pity on you and gave you that job.”
How dare she? How dare he? I got up from my chair and stalked towards him.
“I thought you were my friend! Why are you even wasting your time with me, if I’m such a failure? Maybe you should go and ask Felicity if you can join her little fan club.”
“Uh, Lyssa?” He backed away, but I kept closing the gap
between us.
“You can all have a good laugh at my expense.”
“Lyssa.”
“I mean, you’re all so superior to me, right?”
“Lyssa!” Kelsey shouted. I snapped my head round to her. “Your hand!”
I looked down at my hand and saw the bright red mark pulsing on my skin. I lifted it up, turning it this way and that. I could actually feel the heat projecting out of it. Sam laughed at the look of amazement on my face.
“When you get angry, you stop doubting yourself.”
“So… you didn’t mean any of that stuff you said?”
“Of course not. Who the hell knows what Felicity goes round saying? Everyone outside of her own house has stopped listening to her, anyway.”
The mark on my palm faded. At least I knew I could summon my magic now – I just had to get so angry that I stopped feeling like a total fraud. Easy. But you’re not a fraud, a small voice in my head said. Don’t you get it? You really do belong here.
A slow smile spread across my face. Yeah, I did. I didn’t need to convince myself, or anyone else. I’d proved it. And I would prove it again, and again, until everyone stopped questioning me.
“Ahh!”
Kelsey jumped and spun around with a loud squeal. Before I could ask her what was wrong, I saw the huge wet patch on the back of her shirt. Behind her, water was gushing down the aging wall stones, cutting a trail through the grime, spraying out of the aging tap. As I watched, the deluge slowed back to the drip it had been before.
“Too bad there’s not a water element around here to pull that out of your clothes,” Sam said between laughs.
“Well, how about one of the fire elements in this room evaporates it?”
“Oh. Right.”
Sam raised his hands and started projecting heat from them. He was so far ahead of me it was crazy. There I’d been, celebrating managing to make a weak pulse, and he was projecting enough heat to evaporate water – without burning up Kelsey and her clothes, mind – and all without looking like it took any sort of effort. So much for belonging here. I might be a druid, but I had to be the worst druid Dragondale had ever seen.
Druid Magic (Druid Academy Book 1) Page 7