by Sadie Moss
I find myself gripping Asher’s and Cam’s hands too, as I feel all of us collectively thinking, what the hell is happening to our school?
Chapter 10
There’s almost a perverse humor to it.
I actually remember reading an article once that talked about how thin the line between horror and comedy is. I think it was about some assignment where film editors were asked to take footage of a horror film or a comedy film and then re-edit it to switch it to the other genre.
That’s exactly what this feels like—a comedy that got turned into a scary movie.
They’re just stone circles. That’s it. They don’t even have ominous messages, runes, or images on them. They’re just… rocks. It’s kind of hilarious how nervous everyone is over a bunch of carved rocks in a circle.
And yet, we are.
They appeared out of nowhere. They look like they could be the bases of round towers—or, as Asher points out, perhaps some kind of summoning circles. Nobody knows how they got here, who put them here, or why.
And that’s what changes it from funny to scary.
The school administration is nervous. They have to admit to us that they don’t know what the stones are doing—in fact, the gray rocks seem to be doing nothing other than sitting there, like most stones do—but after the last few semesters, nobody can afford to let their guard down.
Maybe if the last three semesters hadn’t happened, we’d all be a lot calmer. We would see this as something weird and mildly concerning instead of letting it incite a near-panic in everyone. But this is our fourth semester in a row of something odd or mysterious happening, and the last three times this kind of shit went down, students lost—or nearly lost—their lives. We can’t afford to take chances.
The nervous feeling hovering like a cloud over campus only gets worse over the next few weeks.
Because the towers start growing.
Nobody knows how more stones are added. But you can mark time by them appearing. Every few days, there’s another layer of stones on each circle, until by the time we’re a few weeks further into the semester, the walls are over our heads, about ten feet tall.
“How is this even possible?” I ask Roman one night as I lounge on the bed in his room. Now that we’re open about our relationship, I spend some of my nights over at his place, sleeping over properly and waking up in the morning instead of sneaking back to the room I share with the guys late at night.
Roman sighs, finishing organizing the tests on his desk. “The growth, so to speak, is slow but steady, and we can’t see stones being transported to or from anywhere, which suggests that the stones are somehow being duplicated or grown. That’s a kind of earth magic, and an incredibly powerful kind too.”
“So it’s someone with earth magic?”
“My theory is that it’s more than one person.”
“How so? Why?”
“Mainly because of how much magic is involved.” He walks over and sits down on the bed next to me, his cobalt eyes glinting as he catches my gaze. “You’d need a lot of strength to transport a heavy object like a slab of stone from place to place across a great distance. It would take either an incredibly strong earth elementalist or someone using multiple charmed objects to accomplish it. But to actually make a stone appear out of thin air? That’s even more difficult. Most earth elementalists can’t generate the raw materials of earth and rock—they can only manipulate what already exists.”
“So a second person is making potions or creating enchantment to help the earth magic user?”
Roman nods. “That’s my line of thinking, anyway. But hopefully by tomorrow, it’ll be a moot point.”
“Why’s that?”
He smiles at me, moving closer on the bed to pull me in for a kiss. “You’ll see.”
The next morning, I’m summoned to Hardwick’s office.
Super.
What did I do this time?
I wrack my brain as I walk over to the admin building, trying to think of what he could want to see me for. But when I arrive, I find I’m not the only person who’s been summoned. Hardwick’s office is stuffed to bursting, with about half the school staff, Cristina, Megan, and a few other students present.
I work my way through the crowd, blinking at the faces around me. What are we all doing here? We have nothing in common.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Hardwick announces. The professors look like they’re more aware of what’s going on than the students are. They all look grim and determined, while the younger people in the room just look nervous and confused. “After some deliberation, we’ve decided that even though we don’t yet know the purpose of the stones, the best thing to do would be to try to destroy them.”
He steps out from behind his desk, glancing around at all of us.
“We simply can’t afford to take any risks. You all have powerful and destructive magical powers. Since we don’t know exactly what’s bringing these stones here or how to deal with them, or what magic is being used on them, we can’t be as methodical as we might like with our destruction of them. So we’re just going to throw whatever we can at them and see what works.”
Sounds fair enough to me. And now it makes sense why we’re all here.
My sonic boom is powerful enough that it’s sent people flying into buildings—and cracked the buildings’ cement walls. Megan has telekinesis, a very common Unpredictable power, as do some of the other students I see gathered here. Cristina’s power is disintegration, which should be extremely useful in destroying the stones.
“Of course, if anyone doesn’t want to participate in this endeavor, that’s entirely within your rights,” the dean adds, his voice serious. “We’re not going to make you do anything, and I understand if not all of you are comfortable trying to help. We don’t know what dangers might be involved in this, frankly, so there might be some risk. You’re welcome to leave if you’re not comfortable being part of this.”
A couple first-year students scurry out, looking ashamed, their faces red and gazes fixed to the floor. I don’t know if they think we’re judging them, or if they’re just judging themselves, but I honestly can’t blame them too much. They’re new to the school, still coming to grips with the fact that they have Unpredictable magic, and they’ve had less than half a semester to hone their abilities.
Mostly, I blame whoever keeps trying to fuck with our school. If I ever get my hands on that guy…
Dean Hardwick nods stoically and waits another minute to give anyone else a chance to slip out. But no one does. A few minutes later, our magic repressing cuffs are taken off and we’re brought out onto the quad and separated into three groups. I’m in the same group as Tamlin, Megan, and Cristina, as well as a few others. Tamlin gives me a small, encouraging smile as we walk out to the stone tower in the woods. Cristina and Megan ignore me, but that’s fine by me. I’m perfectly happy to ignore them as well. We’re not out here to be friendly, we’re out here to get a job done.
My imagination could be running away with me, but the air feels extra cold and eerily still around the stones. Like the forest itself is watching and waiting to see what happens.
“All right,” Tamlin says, summoning her magical ropes. They remind me a bit of Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth. Whatever else she’s learned as far as using runes and enchanted objects, this is her innate Unpredictable power. She can even make the glowing ropes into a net if she wants to. It’s pretty fucking cool.
The power of her magic crackles in the air as she turns back to us. “Have at it.”
And we do.
We really, really do. We throw everything we’ve got at these stones. Megan works with others who have telekinesis to try and move a single stone together at the same time. Cristina is flinging literal bombs of disintegration at the stones. I’m letting loose with my sonic boom in a way I never have before. Usually, I’m worried about hurting someone or causing lasting damage to something, but not right now. These rocks are getting the full brunt o
f my force.
And yet, it does nothing.
I think the stones might be absorbing our powers or nullifying them, because if there was a shield of some kind to deflect our attacks, all of us would’ve ended up flat on our backs from my sonic boom.
Tamlin’s growing increasingly frustrated, her usually calm facade cracking a little. The other students just look scared. Cristina lets out a ferocious roar that I wouldn’t have expected from her and flings what looks like every ounce of her strength into her next burst of disintegration at the stones—and still nothing.
At last, the petite professor stops us. There’s really nothing more we can do, and at this point we’re just tiring ourselves out.
And if the stones really are absorbing our magic, there’s no telling how and when that magic might be released. None of us should be nearby when that happens.
“Let’s see if the others have had better luck,” Tamlin says.
“Better luck than a literal bomb of sound or disintegration?” I hear one student mutter.
We meet back up with the other two groups in the quad, only to find out they’ve all had similarly disappointing results. Nothing seems to be able to affect the stones, which is terrifying in more ways than one. What kind of protection spells could this person—or team of people—have possibly placed on these damn rocks to keep them this well protected from a barrage of crazy Unpredictable magic?
It’s clear we’re not dealing with amateurs here. Not that I ever thought we were, but this really drives the point home.
Whoever’s out to get us, and whatever they’re planning… so far, they seem to be winning.
Chapter 11
A few more days pass without incident. I suppose I should be grateful for that, but we’re all so on edge that nobody can really take advantage of it. We’re all just waiting for the next attack to come.
What happens though, feels worse than if we were attacked directly.
On Friday evening, most of the students are gathered for dinner in the dining hall. I’m with the guys, minus Roman, and a few others like Tandy and Erin. We’re all subdued, but Cam’s cracking jokes and trying to get everyone to laugh when suddenly, a multitude of buzzing, ringing sounds fill the large hall.
My stomach heaves, and I grab at my wrist cuff, waiting for the pain—only to realize that’s not what’s happening.
The last time everyone was at a meal and something freaky happened, Raul cast a powerful spell that ripped our magic repressing braces off of us. More specifically, he melted them off. It hurt like hell and scared the shit out of people, so everyone basically went into a panic attack or rage from pain, and a bunch of magic was unleashed instinctively. I hit Asher with my sonic boom by accident, landing him in the infirmary.
I like to think I’ve got enough control by now to keep something like that from happening again, but the memory still scares the shit out of me.
This time, it’s not our cuffs though. It’s… our phones.
Nearly everyone in the dining hall seems to have gotten a call or text at the exact same time. Dozens of phones around us are buzzing with alerts, calls, and messages.
I grab mine out of my pocket and see that I’m getting frantic texts from Maddy.
Maddy: Are you okay?!
Maddy: Elliot, I know it’s not true.
Maddy: You have to call me!!!
What’s not true? What’s going on? Is someone saying I’ve been hurt?
Dmitri frowns at his phone with a mixture of anger, fear, and confusion. “I’ll be back,” he says, pushing away from the table and hitting a button to call someone, walking away with the phone to his ear.
Asher’s muttering, “shut up, shut up, oh my God, shut up,” at his cell as every single one of his brothers, sisters-in-law, and both his parents text him all at the same time.
Cam just stares at his phone. I look over at him, my stomach twisting at the expression on his face. “What is it?”
My blond-haired boyfriend has subscriptions for several news apps—like CNN and stuff, except for magical news outlets. One of them has just sent him an alert for a breaking story.
He shows it to me, and now I understand, in a rush of cold fear, why Maddy was texting me.
Unpredictables Building Weapon of Mass Destruction at Griffin Academy!
Griffin Academy: Ground Zero
Magical Training Academy or Weapons Factory?
I can feel my jaw dropping open as my head juts forward, my eyes scanning the text again.
“What the actual fuck?” I blurt out in a whisper.
Everyone’s yelling at each other, talking frantically into phones, texting as fast as their fingers will let them—in fact, some people are doing all three at the same time.
I hit the call button on my cell, and Maddy answers immediately. “Ellie!” Her voice is high and panicky, and it sounds like she’s been crying. “Are you okay?!”
“I should be asking you that, Mads. People at your school know you’ve got an Unpredictable sister. Has anyone given you shit?”
“N-no, no, I’m fine. I mean, there’s lots of arguing going on, but I’m okay—but what about you?!”
“I’m okay. I don’t know what’s going on though.” Even as I speak to my sister, my gaze keeps sweeping over the room, trying to process the chaos that just exploded around me.
“What are those things?” she whispers.
“What things?”
“I can forward you some news stories…”
Cam holds up his phone, and I see he’s opened one of the articles. There’s aerial video footage—who the fuck got aerial footage, and how?—of the three groups of students and professors trying to destroy the growing stone structures. Except the news outlets seem to think we’re responsible for these towers and are building them ourselves, fueling them with our magic.
What the fuck?
“Who the hell shot this footage?”
“I don’t know,” Maddy says. “Nobody knows anything, really. Everyone’s just assuming and taking sides.”
“We’re safe here on campus,” I promise her. And it’s true, I think. For now. “I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
Like if a bunch of Circuit representatives come to arrest us.
Fuck. I’m in that video, of all goddamn people. Without even planning on it, I’m in the middle of this once again. If the Circuit does come, they probably won’t arrest the entire school. Just Hardwick, some other key staff members… and anyone who was in that video, including me.
Like I said: fuck.
Once Maddy’s calmed down a bit, I remind her that I love her and to stay safe before I hang up.
Asher’s on the phone with his mom, clearly trying to calm her down too. Dmitri’s back at the table, sitting beside Cam, who’s got an arm draped around the dark-haired man’s shoulders and is talking quietly with him. Shit, whatever Dmitri’s parents said, it can’t be good.
“Mom, I promise, we’re fine—and no, we’re not cooking up any evil scheme.” Asher rolls his eyes. “No, I’m pretty sure if there was an evil scheme being cooked up, I’d know about it. Yes, Elliot’s fine. She was trying to destroy the towers, not create them. They just sprang up out of nowhere and keep growing. Yes, I know that doesn’t make sense. Trust me.” It seems even the usually calm man’s patience is being worn thin. “All right. Yes. I love you too. Okay.”
He hangs up and looks at me. “I’ll call her again later and try to talk her down some more. She has nothing against Unpredictables, but she also says she ‘doesn’t know what to think’.”
Yeah, that makes two of us.
The dining room remains in chaos as people demand answers, call relatives, and come up with theories. We were just about done eating, thank God, so we just get up and grab some snacks for the road before heading to Roman’s apartment in the dorms.
I want to check on him. I don’t think he should be alone—that any of us should be alone—right now. And I want all of my guys with me, for wh
atever it’s worth.
The ebony-haired professor opens the door the moment I raise my fist to knock—clearly he’s been waiting for us.
“Come in.”
He opens the door wider, stepping back to give us room to enter. As we all file in, he tugs me toward him and wraps his arms around me briefly, pressing a kiss to my hair.
I hug him back hard, then we all find places to plop down. I end up sharing a chair with Cam, curled up on his lap, while Asher’s hand lightly strokes through my hair. I can’t tell who he’s trying to comfort—himself, or me. Maybe both.
This happens a lot now that we’re all together properly. Asher and Cam are touchy-feely kind of people so there’s no shortage of cuddles for me to enjoy. And right now, I need them. The contact soothes and grounds me, making it easier to keep my heart rate from speeding out of control.
Dmitri sprawls out on the bed, looking like if he could somehow pull a Rip Van Winkle and sleep for a thousand years, he wouldn’t mind in the slightest. Roman sits backward on a chair, straddling it and resting his forearms on the back.
Everyone’s anxious. Even Roman, although he’s doing his best to hide it. He’s older than the rest of us, so I think in a way, he feels protective of us, but he can’t shield us from the uncomfortable truth.
The tide of public opinion is against us.
“If a single damn news article—if footage like that with no actual evidence or proper goddamn reporting—if that can convince everyone we’re evil,” Cam says, “then what the fuck are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to keep ourselves safe or even argue that we’re not actually monsters when everyone out there is so ready to believe the worst in us?”
“There are also plenty of people who think this is ludicrous and are speaking up in defense of us,” Asher replies, ever the hopeful one.
“But it’s never those people that get listened to,” Dmitri argues with a growl. “Because they’re always taking the high road and trying to be good and logical. It’s the fanatics who hate us who will have the power, because they don’t care about being respectful, and they’re happy to take the low road. They’re counting on us to play fair because they sure as hell won’t.”