“Maybe,” said Selene, pursing her lips.
Eli looked at me again, his expression apologetic. “And doesn’t she have a reputation for breaking the law? Lance told me she’s able to get around The Will whenever she wants.”
“Sooner or later you’re going to learn not to listen to Lance,” said Selene, huffing. “He’s a big fat liar. This is Dusty’s mother you’re talking about. She doesn’t break laws. She just bends them occasionally.”
“Oh, I understand all about bending rules, but we can’t just dismiss her out of hand.”
Selene scowled at him, her manner as tough as always, but I couldn’t help noticing the way she fidgeted whenever Eli turned that piercing gaze of his on her. At least I wasn’t the only person he could intimidate with just a look.
I knew I should say something, but I didn’t. My mother was a likely candidate for being involved simply based on what she was able to do, but I didn’t want to encourage Eli and Selene in the idea. If it came to investigating my mother for murder, I would do it alone.
“I think the others are our best bet,” Selene said. “They all have F in their names.”
“You’re right,” Eli conceded. “We’ll focus on them.” He examined the list for a couple of seconds. “This is a good start.”
“What next?” I asked.
He smiled, his face beaming with excitement. “We start investigating, check out offices, dorm rooms, houses, everything.”
“You mean we snoop,” I said.
“That’s right.”
Selene frowned. “But what exactly are we looking for?”
“That’s easy,” I said. “Rosemary’s ring.”
* * *
We started with Coach Fritz. My bet was still on Culpepper, but Eli and Selene agreed we needed to proceed with caution concerning him, given what happened last time. They were probably right. Besides, Coach Fritz should be easy.
Monday’s gym class was combative magic training again, which meant Fritz would be completely focused on teaching. The plan was for Eli to sneak into his office during class and take a look. I would’ve liked to have gone, too, but since Eli was already sitting on the bench, he was in the best position for getting in and out unnoticed. Plus, he had experience with this sort of thing.
Selene and I exchanged a grin when we walked into the gymnasium and saw the game field packed full of barricades, climbing towers, and shelters. The sheer amount of structures indicated we were playing elimination today and not capture the flag or king of the hill. That was good. Selene and I could find a place to hole up and keep an eye on the coach, making sure the coast remained clear for Eli. Defending a structure was a common tactic in elimination so none of our classmates would notice our lack of true participation in the game.
Neither of us considered the idea of getting tagged out right away. Our performance was being graded, after all, and it was too close to midterms to purposely earn a low mark.
“All right, grunts,” Coach Fritz said, calling us to attention. He had a narrow, lean face and wavy auburn hair. His large eyes were as green and sparkly as emeralds, and even though he was old, he still looked fit. I supposed Rosemary might’ve been attracted to him in that hot-for-teacher kind of way. Gross.
Fritz pointed to the game field. “You know the drill. Last man standing wins. You’ve got one minute for the starting bell.”
The class rushed en masse onto the field. With everyone in matching black protective gear, we must’ve looked like a swarm of beetles. The suits covered all the vital parts, including head, torso, and legs. Although the strength of the spells was heavily dampened inside the game field, they could still do a lot of damage if not for the protection charms imbedded in the suits. They were made out of some kind of flexible plastic/rubber and fit like wet suits. The suit’s secondary purpose was to let you know when you were out. If an opponent hit you with a critical spell, the kind that would’ve incapacitated you in the real word, it lit up and ordered you off the game field.
“There,” Selene said, pointing at one of the barricades. It was shaped like a triangle, but only one of the three sides was connected, leaving two person-sized holes in the corners. It was perfect for a two-man defense and gave us a clear view of Coach Fritz.
Selene and I dashed inside and took up position at each entrance. My heart began to pound in anticipation, bringing me fully awake for the first time all day. I’d stayed up half the night on the phone with Paul. He thought what we were doing was a good idea, but he’d cautioned me about how nasty Fritz could be when crossed. It made me worried for Eli—he was taking the biggest risk by far.
The buzzer rang, and the game field exploded with the sounds and sights of spells flying out from wands and fingertips, colliding with barricades and people. I watched Lance take someone out with his signature move, a dazing-jab combo. He was a regular fixture in the winner’s circle. For a second I thought he spotted me, but he wheeled around in pursuit of his next victim.
I turned my attention back to Fritz in time to see Eli slip off the bench behind him and head for the coach’s office door. He walked without any particular stealth at all, moving as confidently as if he had every right to do what he was doing. I had to admire his brazenness. He disappeared inside the office a moment later, and I breathed a sigh of relief. First hurdle down.
“Did you set the timer?” I asked Selene over my shoulder.
“Yeah,” she shouted. Then I heard her cast the jab jinx followed by the sound of someone cursing.
“Nice one,” I said.
She didn’t answer, but I didn’t have time to make sure she was okay as an opponent came running toward me, wand up.
“Ceno-crani,” I shouted, arm raised. The befuddlement jinx hit my attacker, and he swerved sideways, crashing headfirst into another barricade. I followed up with a daze that sent the person reeling backward, his suit lighting up. One down. There was no denying I was getting better at using magic. I hadn’t set anybody’s hair on fire in weeks.
Two more kills later, I asked Selene, “How long?”
“Seven minutes.”
Halfway. Eli had sworn he’d be fifteen minutes, no longer. I glanced at Coach Fritz, making sure I could still see him. His gaze was fixed on the game field like always, but I could tell he wasn’t paying nearly the amount of attention to the game he usually did.
And that was odd. Fritz loved fighting in all its forms. Rumor had it he was once an up-and-coming gladiator himself before he got caught taking a payoff to throw a fight and received a lifelong ban. As coach of the Arkwell gladiator team, he was always on the lookout for talent in his classes, kids good enough to turn pro and allow him to live vicariously.
Not today though. He seemed distracted. He kept checking his watch and looking around as if he couldn’t wait for class to end.
A spell struck the barricade beside my head, and I leaped backward, almost falling. I straightened up in time to hear my attacker let off a jab jinx. I blocked it with a shield spell. It was a risky move. Shield spells took a lot of effort to conjure and usually couldn’t withstand more than one or two hits. The jinx struck the shield and rebounded. The girl let out a squeal of surprise as her own spell struck her in the chest. She fell back, suit aglow. I grinned at my luck.
A few minutes later, Selene’s watch started beeping, warning us that fifteen minutes had come and gone. I glanced at Coach Fritz. He was standing in the same place he had been, but one of the assistant coaches was crossing the room toward him.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“Crap,” said Selene.
The assistant coach and Fritz exchanged a couple of words, ones I guessed were along the lines of “You’ve got a phone call,” or “The principal needs to see you,” or a hundred other things that might prompt Fritz to visit his office.
I looked behind them and saw the door opening. Eli peered out.
Selene screamed, making me jump. I turned in time to see her go down, suit lit from a critical hit. Lance
appeared in the entrance. I cast a dazing curse at him but missed.
“Looks like it’s gonna be three to one,” he said.
He raised his wand, but before he could attack, I did the snatch-and-smack. A startled look crossed his face as his wand struck his helmet. I followed up with a jab. This time I didn’t miss.
“Two for two,” I shouted at him, gleeful as the lights on his suit turned on.
Then I remembered Eli, and I turned back to see Coach Fritz striding toward his office. Eli wasn’t in sight, and I knew he was still in there.
Frantic, I burst out from my hiding place, ran toward the perimeter of the game field, and cast the stumbler curse. “Caso.”
The magic flew from my fingers, passed through the safety spell surrounding the game field, and crashed right into Fritz’s back. It hit him hard enough to lift him off his feet and fling him forward. I gaped, honestly surprised it had worked at all. His face smacked against the gym floor with a loud crack like wood breaking.
The alarms began to blare as the game field went into emergency lockdown thanks to my rogue spell. All around me, people were dropping to the floor as safety spells pushed them down. Wands were ripped out of the hands of wizards and witches as the fingers of other kinds were forced into tight fists, arms pinioned to sides. Something tugged at me like an insistent toddler, and I realized I was the only one left standing. I hit the deck, but judging from the murmurs I heard around me I was too late to escape notice.
And judging from the way Coach Fritz was still lying facedown on the gym floor, I was in the worst trouble of my life.
17
Parental Units
“You knocked him unconscious. They’ve taken him to the infirmary. They’re talking about moving him to Vejovis.”
My mother had been doing the low, ominous, not-yelling thing at me for the past five minutes. I’d been doing a good job ignoring most of it, but the mention of the magickind hospital turned my insides into Jell-O.
“That can’t be! There’s no way he’s hurt that bad. It was just a stumbler.” I was horrified by what I’d done. Guilt tightened like an iron clamp around my chest.
Moira stopped her frantic pacing and turned her gaze on me, nostrils flaring. “It wasn’t the spell so much as the nosedive into the floor. What were you thinking?”
“It was an accident?”
Moira stared at me, eyes hard and all-knowing. “I don’t think there’s a single soul alive who’d believe that one. Why don’t you tell me what really happened?”
I resisted the urge to spill my guts. I felt bad about hurting Coach Fritz, but I hadn’t attacked a teacher to save Eli’s neck only to turn around and rat on him. This might be just my mother scolding me, but we were in the principal’s office, which meant Dr. Hendershaw could come in any second—or might be listening through the door.
“Well?” said Moira.
I decided it was time for a subject change. “Please tell me you’re exaggerating about the Vejovis thing.”
Mom folded her arms. “Probably. Not that it matters. This is assault we’re talking about, Destiny. Do you know how serious that is?”
“Expulsion serious?”
“Permanent criminal record serious. This could haunt you forever.”
“Well, you would know,” I said. I hoped I sounded less terrified than I felt.
Mom ignored the comment. “Unless, that is, you have a good reason for what you did. If you say it was because of the dream-seer stuff, they might let you off the hook.”
I shook my head. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t involve telling them what Eli had been doing. As it stood now, he’d gotten out of the office unseen. Hopefully, he’d found something in there that would make this all worthwhile.
“You are so stubborn,” said Moira.
I flashed my most patronizing smile. “Just like you, Mom.”
The glare she fixed on me was so hot I expected flames to shoot from her eyes. At least she didn’t tell me how proud she was this time. Progress.
“I will get to the bottom of this,” she said. “You’re going to be seeing lots of me from here on out.”
I frowned, not liking the surety I detected in her voice. “Why?”
It was Moira’s turn to smile. “I’m your new psionics teacher.”
“What? You’re Mr. Ankil’s replacement?” The idea made my stomach somersault for all kinds of reasons—not the least of which was how utterly uncool it was to have your mom for one of your teachers.
“That’s right.”
“You’re not exactly liked around here, Mom, so why would the administration suddenly want to hire you?” I was worried there might be a pattern here, given the whole chaperoning bit.
Moira hesitated a moment before answering. “They didn’t have a choice. I’m here at the behest of the Magi Senate.”
I laughed out loud.
My mother scowled. “I’m serious.”
“What about your practice?”
She tapped her foot. “I’m going on sabbatical.”
“Typical. Always running out, aren’t you?”
Mom didn’t say anything, just marched to the door without a word. Seemed I’d hit a nerve.
I wondered if she’d been telling the truth. Given my suspicions about her, I decided it wasn’t good either way. Ulterior motive was my mother’s middle name.
Dr. Hendershaw came in a few minutes later and slammed the book she was carrying down on the desk. The computer gave a little frightened squeak. “Two weeks of detention and a month of Saturday school.”
I squeaked, too, sitting up straighter in my chair. I knew my punishment was going to be bad, but how was I ever going to get anything done with that much detention? And Saturday school? Shoot me now, please.
“That’s what I would give you,” said Hendershaw, “if I had my way.”
I blinked, not understanding.
“As it is, the senate has insisted you receive no obvious punishment in order to protect you from repercussions. The official story being spread among the students is that Coach Fritz tripped over his shoelaces and that the emergency lockdown sequence went off due to a coincidental malfunction in the programming.” She paused long enough to take a deep breath. “Consider yourself lucky that you are a dream-seer.”
I knew better than to say anything.
“However. Since I cannot give you a conventional punishment, I have decided on an unconventional one.”
Uh-oh.
Hendershaw pointed a short, pudgy finger at me. “Next Saturday night, while the rest of the student body is asleep or at a minimum confined to their dormitories for curfew, you will report to Ms. Hardwick.”
“Ms. Hardwick the head janitor? Ms. Hardwick the hag?” I fought back the urge to smile. There weren’t many schools where you could say something like that about a staff member and not get in trouble for it. It was true, after all.
An evil grin spread across Dr. Hendershaw’s face, her toady eyes gleeful behind her glasses. “Precisely.”
I shifted in my seat and braced for the worst. “What am I going to be doing?”
“Toilets.”
I groaned, catching her drift at once.
Hendershaw’s grin widened. “Oh, yes, I think that will do perfectly. You will be cleaning all the toilets in this building, the gymnasium, and every other building the students don’t have access to in the middle of the night. That way no one will see you being punished, but you will receive the full benefit nonetheless. Oh, and you will of course be prohibited from using magic to complete the task.”
Shocker.
Hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel, I asked, “Is there some kind of time limit? Because there’s no way I can do that much cleaning in one night by hand.”
“You’ll start at midnight and work until dawn as Ms. Hardwick prefers not to venture out in sunlight. You will continue with this Saturday duty until you have managed to clean all the toilets. So there’ll be no reason to slack o
ff.”
I gritted my teeth. “Isn’t there some kind of child labor law against this sort of thing?”
“Oh, I think not. Not here.”
“Right.” I crossed my arms and leaned back, doing my best not to say anything snotty—well, snottier.
“I think that’s quite enough attitude from you.” Hendershaw pointed a finger at me again. “Consider this your warning, Miss Everhart. You are on permanent academic probation. If you put so much as a toe out of line, if you so much as back talk a single teacher, including your own mother, I will give you all the punishment you so rightly deserve regardless of the senate’s wishes. Are we clear?”
“Oh, yeah. Crystal.”
“Good. Now get out of my office.”
I stood and bolted for the door. It seemed at least half of Hendershaw’s anger wasn’t because of me at all, but rather at my mother. I was just an easier target. I guess this meant my mother hadn’t been lying about being appointed to the teaching post by the senate.
I hurried past the secretary and into the hallway beyond. To my surprise, and unexpected delight, Paul was waiting for me. He greeted me with a quick kiss that left me thinking of blissful possibilities.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded, meaning it. With him here, that was.
“Come on.” Paul took my hand as we started walking. “Tell me what’s going on? I heard you hit Coach Fritz with a stumbler spell.”
So much for the shoelace story.
“How’d you manage it?”
I debated for a moment the wisdom of telling this boy I hardly knew the truth about me and Nightmares. But he was a halfkind, too. If anybody wouldn’t judge me for being different, it was him. Or maybe I was just a sucker for cute boys who liked to hold my hand and kiss me in public places.
So I told him what Marrow had told me. He didn’t say anything when I finished. I held my breath, counting the beat of our footsteps as we walked along. We’d opted to take the tunnels to avoid the crappy November weather outside.
I hadn’t wanted to come down here ever again after what happened to Mr. Ankil, but it wasn’t so bad with Paul beside me. That was until I’d been confronted with his silence. Our footsteps were too loud. The rush of the canal water running parallel to the walking path sounded eerie, like the moan of a tortured ghost.
The Nightmare Affair Page 17