by Keary Taylor
“Arthur,” Nathaniel acknowledged back.
“Dad, this is Borden Stewart, who I was telling you about,” I explained. Borden gave a nod.
“And Mary-Beth Foster,” Dad said, recalling her name easily, even though he’d had thousands of students over his career. “It was a pleasant surprise to hear you were one of the select few.”
Mary-Beth just blushed and smiled, and for the first time, didn’t seem to know what to say.
“So, we’ve been working on something, and we need to test it,” I said, looking at Dad again. And my appreciation for him grew tenfold. I knew he’d do it, even though all we had to do was touch him. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate, and I knew how excited he was going to be. “Will you be our guinea pig?”
He looked nervous, because we hadn’t explained anything. But he shrugged. “Of course.”
Nathaniel handed me the pencil and I took it with my sleeve pulled down over my hand so I wouldn’t touch it with my skin. It looked like any ordinary pencil.
I extended it and touched the eraser to the back of my dad’s hand.
It stayed a pencil.
I then withdrew it and grabbed it with my other hand.
It glowed brilliant blue and crystal.
Dad jumped back just a little, his eyes wide as he looked at the glowing wand.
“It works,” I said in a breath, a wild smile spreading on my face as I looked back at the others. “We did it!”
Not a single one of them contained their excitement. There were whoops and cheers and smiles.
“We need to make more,” Nathaniel said, beaming down at me with excitement. “We need three others. And then we need to go browsing at Alderidge.”
Chapter Eight
We created more wands, and the very next day, we all met in the library after our classes.
“I work till nine,” Nathaniel said, looking around at the others. “I’ll be testing all afternoon with the books that come in. You all hit the ones that are on the shelves. You find anything, you take it to the McCallum Room, and we’ll all go over everything tonight.”
That sounded perhaps a little too hopeful to me. I wasn’t sure we’d find anything at all. But still, I gave a nod, and broke off with Mary-Beth and Borden.
“I’ll take the fiction on this side,” Borden said, nodding his head in one direction.
“I’ve got the non-fiction on the shelves,” Mary-Beth said, nodding to the shelves on the other side.
“I’ll make my way through the rooms,” I said.
We disbursed.
There were six rooms, all named after families that donated money or other significant things to the University. I made my way to the far room first, the Eidem room.
There weren’t very many books in here, even though it was a large room. Two large couches faced each other with a big coffee table in the center. A big fireplace sat at the opposite wall from the door, an ugly painting of a boat at sea hanging above it.
My hands were gloved as I pulled my wand from my pocket and went to the first shelf. I looked around to be sure no one was looking. They weren’t—rarely did anyone ever use this room.
With nervous anticipation, I tapped the eraser of the pencil to the spine of the first book. Nothing happened, so I slid over to the next book.
On and on, I lightly dragged the eraser over the spines of books. I went through an entire bookshelf of them, and my wand remained looking like a pencil. I moved on to the next shelf, and then the next. One by one, I watched my wand intently, waiting for it to glow a faint blue and turn crystalline.
I didn’t expect it. Really, I didn’t. I knew the odds were nearly zero, but still, I felt my stomach sink in disappointment when I came to the end of the last shelf in that room, and not a single book had revealed itself to me.
But I pushed it aside and moved on to the Clark room.
Book after book, and no glowing wand.
I shifted over to the Weir room. Nothing.
I felt like I was starting to go a little cross-eyed by the time I got to the Gavin room. All of the spines were starting to blur together, looking exactly the same. I told myself to pay close attention. I might just zone out and move on too quickly, not realizing when the wand began to glow blue.
I stepped into the Foster room and started running my wand along the spines.
My back was starting to protest a little with all of the up and down and bending over. I was getting frustrated. My hope fizzled out.
But as I got toward the last shelf in the room, my heart instantly leapt into my throat.
My wand was glowing faint blue.
My heart hammered, thundering in my chest. I slid my wand into my pocket, and carefully pulled the book from that bottom shelf.
Almost all the books in the Foster room were Latin. But Latin was my major and what I’d been working on since I was twelve.
There was no title on the cover, but I still ran my hand over it anyway, feeling a shiver working its way up and down my spine.
Gently, I pulled the cover open, and my eyes scanned the page.
It talked about weapons. As I flipped through the pages, I found illustrations to go with the words. Swords and whips and knives and arrows.
It talked about how to enchant them with magic to make them even more powerful than their natural selves. It talked about how to hide them in everyday objects, like rings or cloaks.
My eyes lifted from the book and drifted around the room.
This was great. Any discovery was priceless.
But this wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind. I wasn’t planning on getting into any battles any time soon. I was sure hoping to not have to defend my life or anyone else’s.
Maybe that would come in handy at some point. Maybe if the other mages in the past had known how to enchant weapons, they wouldn’t have been hunted to extinction.
But maybe they did. Maybe taking up arms put bigger targets on their backs.
I told myself to just be grateful, and I slid the book into my bag. I grabbed the wand again, and I continued scanning along the shelves.
I finished in the Foster room and moved on to the Weir room before making my way to the last room, the McCallum.
Such a strange room. It was tiny, barely even a room. But it was packed, stuffed to the brim with such an odd assortment of books. I wondered what its history was and vowed to ask Nathaniel later. Surely he would know, and if he didn’t, he could find out.
Book after book, I scanned, running the eraser along the spines. And I was just finishing when Borden stepped inside, and I looked at the time.
9:02.
“Anything?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing. And I got through the entire fiction section, both downstairs and up.”
Disappointment filled my chest, but I didn’t get a chance to respond, because Mary-Beth walked in just then, and my heart flew when she was wearing a brilliant smile.
“You found something?” the words breathed out of me.
She nodded her head, hardly able to contain her excitement.
Nathaniel walked in just then, and from the look on his face, I knew he hadn’t found anything.
“Come on,” I said, withdrawing the key from my bag. “We need to get out of earshot.”
I unlocked the bookshelf, and we swung it open, revealing the spiral staircase. “We need to check these books as well,” I said as Borden pulled the bookcase closed after us.
I’d thought about these books before, and we’d even looked through some of them. None had seemed promising.
But as we trailed our wands along the spines, I really, actually paid attention to them.
These were rare books. Valuable. They were first editions and lost books.
This was a treasure trove.
“These books…” Nathaniel said, letting out a breath. “I can’t believe I never bothered to go through them more, but…”
“Some of these are probably worth thousands of dollars,” Mary-Bet
h said. “And none of them are catalogued into the school’s system.”
“Dad said Mom was bringing home a lot of books,” I said as I ran my fingers down the spine of a book I knew had to be worth at least ten thousand dollars. “She was looking for magical books, but she must have come upon a lot of other valuable ones. This…” I looked around, wondering in awe that I hadn’t really paid attention before. “This was her retirement. This…this is a fortune in here.”
“Yet it feels like a sin to sell any one of these,” Nathaniel said. “These are the kinds of books people pay professionals to track down. They pay hundreds, thousands for these titles. This…Margot, your mother collected treasure here.”
I shook my head in wonder.
I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know what to do with them.
But this felt like as much of a legacy as what we were doing up in her office. This felt like an echo of my mother’s voice, almost as if it were whispered directly in my ear.
“Anyone finding anything?” I asked, moving on.
“Nothing,” Borden said.
“Nope,” Mary-Beth reported.
“Let’s head upstairs then,” Nathaniel said.
My mother’s office was fairly large, thankfully, so it didn’t feel exceptionally crowded, even with all four of us in it. Borden took a seat on the couch, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee. Mary-Beth sat in the macramé swing and pulled a book out with hands that were shaking, she was so excited.
“It was in the fiction section, with a bunch of medical thrillers,” she said. “It looks like it was damaged by water, so some of it isn’t legible anymore. But it looks to me like a book about healing.”
Nathaniel looked over at me, which drew Borden and Mary-Beth’s attention.
“What?” Mary-Beth asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s just that we knew it was possible.”
“You’re saying you’ve done it before?” Borden asked.
My gaze darkened a bit at his words. “The night the Boys attacked Nathaniel.” I tried to block out the image of Borden holding Nathaniel while David punched him, of him just standing there while David tried to drown the love of my life, but it was nearly impossible. “His ribs were broken, they split his cheek, which needed stitches, and his lip was cracked. They gave him a black eye. He wasn’t in good shape. So, I…put my hands on him and I…willed his body to heal.”
Mary-Beth looked from me to Borden, her eyes narrowing a bit. She didn’t really know what had happened in our past. How Nathaniel and I had to forgive Borden, just how far things had gone that night.
My stomach was a tight ball, hard and queasy.
“I’m sorry,” Borden said, and in his eyes, I knew that he meant it. It didn’t erase it though. “I never should have gotten involved that night. It’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life and I’m going to apologize every chance I get.”
“It’s fine,” Nathaniel said, stepping between my heated gaze and Borden. His eyes slid from Borden to me, and in them, I saw him begging me to let it go, to not let it eat me up.
I looked away, but there was still a bad taste in my mouth.
“Whoa,” Mary-Beth said, trying to break the tension in the air. “Sounds like there’s a little more history between the three of you than I realized.”
“It’s in the past,” Nathaniel said, his tone hard but even. “We’re all letting it die.”
I took one deep breath through my nose, telling myself to believe what Nathaniel said. “So, I know it works. I think this is important for us all to learn, because who knows what we’re going to have to deal with in the future.”
Mary-Beth cleared her throat awkwardly and fidgeted with the book in her lap. “Roger that, Commander.”
Another heavy moment pressed down on all of us, and I knew I was the one causing it. So, I chose to move on, because there was nothing else I could do. I pulled the black book out of my bag, and I laid it on the desk.
“It’s in Latin,” I said. “There’s no copyright date, but I’d guess it’s old. Like, really, really old. But it’s about weapons. How to enchant them.”
That brought on a whole new kind of weighted silence.
“It talks about swords and arrows and shields,” I continued. “It’s got some kind of gruesome pictures.”
“So, if we ever need to go to war, we’re prepared,” Mary-Beth said, trying to lighten the mood.
“Not the most helpful discovery,” I said, feeling my mood continuing to darken and sour.
“Anything counts,” Nathaniel said. “I think that’s all we can do for tonight, you guys. Thank you all for your hard work. This was huge. Two more books found in Alderidge. We’ll make a plan for more in the coming days. I think we should all get some sleep.”
They must have understood there was nothing more I wanted to talk about, that we were all too tired to do anything helpful tonight, because without another word, Borden and Mary-Beth stood and made their way to the door.
“Night,” Mary-Beth called as she disappeared down the stairs.
Borden left without another word.
I stayed there, my eyes fixed on one certain point on the floor. I could feel my mood darkening with each passing moment.
I was feeling the sand under my feet as I sprinted across it. I was seeing Nathaniel being pushed under the waves, the dark water turning red with his blood. I was hearing the way he wheezed as I held him in my arms on the beach, and then the way he collapsed into unconsciousness.
“Hey,” Nathaniel said. He stepped in front of me and hooked a finger under my chin, making me look up at him. “Come back from the dark.”
“It’s not as easy as saying the words,” I said. My voice was hoarse and tight.
“Borden has done things he’s not proud of,” Nathaniel said. “He’s apologized, and I’ve accepted it. I’m fine.”
But my eyes fixed on the scar on his cheek, where one of the Society Boys had hit him, splitting his skin and spilling his blood.
My hand reached up and my thumb brushed over it. Nathaniel just raised a hand up to cover mine.
“Scars remind us of the trials, of where we’ve come from, and how much stronger we’ve grown,” he said wisely. “But I don’t let any of mine define me, Margot. Please don’t let my scars trap you in the past.”
His words reached down into my heart, wrapping them around that fragile organ in my chest. I felt my eyes pool with moisture. My lower lip trembled.
“I just can’t stand that anyone has hurt you,” I said, the words cracking. “I’m wary to let anyone who’s done it in the past into our circle. You might have this innate ability to forgive, but it’s not so easy for me.”
Nathaniel wrapped his hands around my waist, pulling himself closer into me. “Then just trust me,” he said. “And know that if it comes down to it, I will let go of that self-control, if it means protecting you, Margot.”
“How selfish am I, then?” I asked, my voice cracking further.
“That’s what love is all about, isn’t it?” Nathaniel asked, his words quiet and soft as he lowered his forehead to touch mine.
“Maybe the selfish version of it,” I said, feeling worse.
“I think love is selfish sometimes,” Nathaniel said, brushing his lips over my forehead. “We let ourselves sink so deep, we don’t know which way is up.”
I closed my eyes, pushing out two tears. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself, to get a grip on my emotions again.
When I felt like I had control once more, I looked up at Nathaniel again. “I love you. Maybe too much sometimes. But that’s not going to change. So I’m just going to work on myself, and try to become a bigger person.”
Nathaniel brought his lips to mine, and in them, I felt peace. I felt strength I didn’t always have. But I felt promises, that together, we’d get through whatever challenges came our way.
“I love you too, Margot,” Nathaniel said as he looked into my eyes. “And that�
�s what love is, too. Borrowing one another’s strength, whenever it’s needed.”
Chapter Nine
My mood wasn’t much better the next day.
I knew I was being immature and that I needed to let things go. But it wasn’t so easy for me.
So, when I sat down at my desk on Friday, Mary-Beth turned around and studied me.
“I’m taking you out for ice cream after class,” she said. “No arguments.”
And I couldn’t help but smile at that.
The class was long and boring. Professor Doom and Gloom was really on a roll that day, talking about all the woe is me and life is terrible stuff of our latest dark and depressing read.
I was ready to crawl in a hole and die by the time he was finished and dismissed us all.
“Is he trying to drive us all to take our lives?” Mary-Beth asked as we gathered our things and walked out into the hall.
“Seriously. I think I need to go talk to Dean Lowell,” I said as we weaved our way through the bodies. “Yes, there are some great things to be learned from the tragedies, but, come on. Hope and light are pretty great, too.”
Mary-Beth nodded in agreement and we pushed through the last of the throng to the front doors of the school.
It was still cold out, but the temperatures were above freezing. Most of the snow had melted, leaving everything soggy.
But I didn’t complain as we made our way across campus and down the road to the shop.
I ordered pistachio and Mary-Beth got cherry.
“So,” she said as we settled into a booth at the far back of the shop. It was nearly empty save for an older couple at the very front, debating on what kind to share. “Borden did something bad to Nathaniel. He used to run with the Society Boys, and therefore you hate him. Now he’s different, but hard things don’t just disappear.”
I blinked at her, my tongue halted on my ice cream. “Didn’t realize you were a psychic mage.”
She just smirked and took a big bite out of the top of her cone. Who does that?
“You’re just really, really bad at masking your emotions,” she said as she swallowed all that ice cream. “But I’m not here to try and tell you to get over it. Borden did something he shouldn’t have. You’re allowed to be ticked for a while.”