Hawthorn Academy: Year Three

by D. R. Perry

  "You didn't need that Magifinil when you were my student." She raised an eyebrow. "And you don't now."

  "I do." I sighed. "I've never gotten one over on Abe without it."

  "You never faced him sober before."

  "I did. Once." I closed my eyes and behind them, Petra stared at me through a van window. The kind with a wire mesh between two panes of glass.

  "I wish you'd stop." She gazed down at where my fingertips met the bottle. "They're killing you."

  "My work's too important to drop this crutch just yet. Sorry, Professor." I winced at the slip.

  Mistakes like that could doom me and by extension the only person I ever loved in the very near future. So I pressed down and turned, shook two out, thought better of it, and added a third. The bitterness as they funneled down my gullet with water matched the vast portion of my life. Dramatic? No. More of an understatement. The pills were sweeter. So why did my hand shake as I returned the bottle to its hiding place?

  I swept the documents into a folder emblazoned with the school's seal, then headed to the mirror to adjust my tie so it felt less like a noose. My old teacher had a point. I had no way of directing where her lamp went once my turn as its master ended. At least my enemies didn't know I had it.

  For now. Because if the Morgenstern girl figured it out, Fairbanks might extract that information from her brain during those mandatory "training" sessions. I'd thought Logan less of a risk, which was why I'd sent Gamila to him in the library. With Hal Hawkins in the hospital, my only hope now was that shady Abe would underestimate him like he'd done with Petra ages ago.

  "Shady Abe." I chuckled. "There I go, an old pot name-calling a kettle."

  Silence stretched like the horizon at sea. Gamila Haddad-Hawkins was many things, but dishonest wasn't one of them. It must have galled her to her core, working for Richard Hopewell. I wasn't much of a step up in the honesty department, although she'd told me my motives were worlds above his.

  As I left my quarters for the meeting that would decide Noah's educational fate for the second time, I prayed that Gamila's third and final master would be a better man than I.

  I approached with caution, as one should when preparing to enter a pit of vipers. That wasn't fair to Hank Thurston and Justin Glen. Yes, I handled Georgina Dunstable with care. No ordinary Sidhe is granted an honorable discharge and return to mundanity from the Faerie Queen. Circumspection notwithstanding, standing still or even moving slowly grants advantages most overlook.

  So, I found myself around the corner, eavesdropping on my enemies. Unsurprisingly, they discussed the recent nuptials of Harold Hawkins and Faith Hawkins, née Fairbanks.

  "Doctor Morgenstern is a Justice of the Peace," Abe said. "She had them do all the paperwork at visits for their familiars. The ceremony, too."

  "The nerve!" I could practically hear Lavinia press a hand to her breastbone.

  "He must already be lawyering up to have it annulled." Leo snorted. "That's what I'd do with one of mine."

  "You'll have to fight Hiram and Hector both over that." Lavinia clicked her tongue. "Because he married up."

  "You're wrong as usual." Abe chuckled. "He's dying, so their future's over before it begins. If she stands to inherit this school, I'll tear the papers up. Otherwise, she's a pen stroke away from being disowned."

  A scent of freshly crushed apple blossoms wafted past me in Georgina Dunstable’s wake. She noticed me but said nothing as she sailed past like a float at a homecoming parade.

  "Honestly, Abraham." She stood at the corner, her back to me, fully obscuring the shadows where I stood. "They're adults. Talking annulment is rich, coming from you. Her mother hadn't even started her last year here before you had that ring on her finger, and pregnant with your eldest as she graduated besides."

  "I don't recall it quite as you describe," he countered in a monotone. His attempt at denial might have worked if only Justin Glen hadn't strode right past and stepped through the opening Georgina gave him.

  "I remember well enough. Let's get into the meeting and on to business that pertains to this school." He sighed. "Gossiping as though we're students is the opposite of setting a good example."

  "We're still missing two," Leo protested.

  "Let's wait in chambers," Georgina said. "This hallway's grown crowded, and my poor old feet can't take any more abuse."

  Their grumbles receded as they shuffled away. Hank Thurston stepped out from behind the column across the hall from me. He paused before following the others through the now-closed door.

  "Isn't it better to change with the times than be stuck in the past?" He didn't turn his head or give any other indication he knew I was there, although his words to an otherwise empty room told another story. Mr. Thurston might have arrived and hidden before I did. Then again, he might simply have had a senior moment.

  I didn't speak until I'd counted a full minute after he'd gone in. That was no issue. The answer wasn't for him.

  "Because no matter how I adapt, part of me always will be."

  Abe Fairbanks rose as I entered the room, a move so out of character that I almost turned around and left. If he was on to me, all was lost. But his motivation was as mundane as the man himself. Almost.

  "Finally, Gauthier's arrived. Now, who moves to adjourn?"

  "Not so fast." I crossed to the empty podium and set my folder on it. "I've got business to bring before you all."

  "I move to dismiss." Leo Pierce yawned.

  "I move we hear it." Hank Thurston leaned forward in his seat.

  "Oh, come on." Lavinia Onassis rolled her eyes. "You might not have a life outside this boardroom, but I do."

  "I'm intrigued." Hank's fox familiar yipped in agreement. My interpretation, at least.

  "All in favor of hearing Mr. Gauthier?" Fairbanks drawled.

  Three hands rose, including mine. Justin Glen gave me a lopsided grin.

  "Speak then. But keep it concise. That's a good lad." Fairbanks waved his gavel as I wished I could whack him in the teeth with it. I had four years on him, Leo two, and the other trustees even more. Abe was the most junior unless you counted Lavinia, which I tried never to do. But his family traced its association with the school back farthest. Barring a Hawkins or a Morgenstern joining the board, he’d hold that gavel.

  "I address the matter of nonmagi on campus. Specifically, ones who attended in good faith while they were magi, but are no longer designated as such, for whatever reason."

  "You ruled against the Morgenstern boy last year." Georgina Dunstable raised an eyebrow.

  "Certain details have come to light. I think I might have made a mistake." I opened my folder. "The court ruled in Salem v. Arnold that both the defendant Jonah and his associate Noah Morgenstern acted under duress. It's neither young man's fault the latter got turned. Messing Academy didn't penalize Mr. Arnold, which casts Hawthorn Academy in a negative light."

  "Messing Academy has no clause in their bylaws banning individuals on threat registries from the student body." Fairbanks shook his head. "You cited it last time in your statement."

  "It's come to my attention, however, that both Dylan Khan and Aliyah Morgenstern are now on a similar registry. The one for extramagi. Mr. Khan's been on it for over a year. They both attend with no issue."

  "I beg to differ." Lavinia Onassis snorted. "She's all but poisoned my son's mind with the wrong sort of values. If he doesn’t come around, I’ll have to write him out of my will."

  Hank Thurston let out a papery chuckle, displaying the expression that gave him his laugh lines.

  "What's so funny?" Lavinia's nostrils flared.

  Fairbanks tapped his gavel. "More importantly, how is it relevant?"

  "Well, the idea of a poison magus getting himself poisoned for one. And someone your age with a will, but I suppose that comes with ‘old name, new money’ territory." Her face went an alarming shade of crimson, but he only smiled and continued as mildly as the north wind. "As to relevance, any student will tell
you she's spent most of the last two years keeping her distance from him when she wasn't busy being spirit week monarch and helping us win a championship title. So, I beg to differ."

  "Where was he all winter then?" Two bright red spots bloomed high on her cheeks. The force of her words filled the air between her and me with the tang of wine. So I wasn't the only one hitting a bottle, even if mine rattled instead of sloshing.

  "Your son's an adult, Lavinia. His moral choices are his own now." Georgina Dunstable shook her head. "Territory every parent must navigate someday, myself included."

  "This isn't a discussion of individual character, but one of risk to the student body." I cleared my throat. "I think they, along with Noah, don't pose any. They want to get through school. Mr. Morgenstern only wants to be allowed on campus so he can study for and take final exams. Provided blood is in stock and he's verified well-fed, I believe it's in the school's best interests to make accommodations. As we do for any other student with different abilities."

  Leo Pierce opened his mouth, then shut it again. He wasn't a genius like my Petra or his son. But he had half a brain under that professionally styled hair.

  I outlined the logistics of blood storage and gave a list of potential testing locations, including the library as Logan had suggested, plus the auditorium and Creatives room, which could be easily isolated during exam week. I even gave them a list of accommodations used at other schools for former vampire staff, part of the selection of documents in my folder.

  The last of those was the true pièce de résistance—a written agreement with my argument, penned by none other than Director-General Rockport. No sane person would expect teenagers to petition their bogeyman, so I'd done it for them. A stroke of brilliance on my part, judging by the silence in the room. Not even a paper rustled.

  For one brief shining moment, I dared to believe in Camelot. Or the closest one could get to it in a boardroom full of privileged, scheming well-to-do ne'er-do-wells.

  Chaos usurped, but Abe Fairbanks and his gavel guillotined its reign.

  "So, what's your motion then, Gauthier?" His lip curled up in a sneer, a tell as familiar as my owl, Serapis. He'd read my intent already.

  "I move we allow nonmagi, enrolled in good faith as magi before a change in registered status, to complete their educations."

  "All in favor?" Abe Fairbanks gestured with the gavel. Four hands rose, and I won. But he thrust his implement forward and insisted, "All opposed?"

  Lavinia, Leo, and Abe raised their hands, scowling in tandem like a series of sour freight cars. I watched Abe’s knuckles whiten around the gavel and just barely refrained from blurting out everything I hated about him. Beginning with all of the literal and figurative headaches his mind magic had caused me through the years. But I rose above petty and premature stone throwing. My mission didn’t end here, not by a long shot.

  Justin Glen applauded like he'd seen a Broadway finale on closing night. Georgina Dunstable clapped like this was the golf course. Hank Thurston added whistles and a few hoots and hollers for good measure. Leave it to a swamp Yankee to raise a little hell. If I were his age and could have gotten away with it, I might have joined.

  Thurston was life goals. If I ever made it that far.

  After the door to my quarters closed, my knees buckled. Serapis hooted while flapping madly to keep me off the floor.

  "Let go, old friend." I waved him away, but he didn't heed me. We'd end up on the floor together. Wiry brown arms caught me under the shoulders, carrying with them the aroma of oranges. It was Gamila lowering me to the floor safely.

  "Bucket," I managed. Serapis dropped it in front of me.

  The next thing out of my mouth was far more colorful but less eloquent. A side-effect I'd dealt with for the past four years as I'd homed in on my chance to rescue Petra. After I’d done that, I could quit. Once this nausea passed, I'd finish the remnants of my promise to the children and sleep the rest of Magifinil's nasty aftermath off.

  Our quarters had a sitting room with a water closet off one corner. The moment my legs cooperated, I headed there, wastebasket under my arm. After washing it and myself up, I went back to the desk and jotted a note off to Noah Morgenstern, care of his sister here on campus. A formal address, a brief statement of the new policy, and a cool but firm closing.

  As a Gauthier, duty required my adherence to our traditional manners. On paper, at least. If someone intercepted it, the note was unimpeachably bland.

  "Now I can drop dead." I pushed the envelope through the slot leading to the pneumatic system. All my strength left with it, dropping off my body like a cast-off dressing gown.

  "What about Petra?" Gamila tapped her foot against the hardwood.

  I rose. Too quickly. "Sarcasm—" My knees buckled, and I swallowed the start of her name. "'Mila."

  "Don't call me that." She caught me again.

  "Thought I knew 'bout lamps." My face felt like rubber. "How djinn work."

  "You know well enough now we're not as advertised." She got under my arm somehow.

  "Hope a kid gets your lamp even if it's that Alexanax. Xandralexa." I sobbed. "You know."

  "I do." A twist of her hair brushed against my cheek.

  The void behind the drug yawned beneath me. I dangled from Gamila's shoulder like an empty rucksack. Before finding her lamp, I used to tumble into bed after the Magifinil wore off. Sometimes I'd miss and wake on the floor, face imprinted with the grain of whatever cheap carpet the current motel employed.

  After "acquiring" the lamp via unwitting vampiric help from a certain high-security magical evidence locker, my awakenings, however rude, always occurred in a bed. Djinn had their own will to an extent. As still as I'd stood since age eighteen, as underhanded as I'd become when I overheard Hiram Hawkins mention his better half's lamp being in Rhode Island, as shipwrecked as I was in the storm of addiction and this quest, my old teacher was there.

  Maybe she missed her son. Or being in the lamp, in service to a fallible queen and the man who desired her throne, had tempered her. Perhaps she was simply, at the core, kinder than I'd remembered her to be. Whatever the reason, gratitude leaked from my eyes, dropping ahead of me into the darkness of sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I tucked the envelope from my mail slot into my blazer pocket, totally preoccupied.

  Faith and Hal hadn't been at breakfast Sunday morning after the dance or anywhere on campus the rest of that day. I'd expected them back on Monday morning, which was the usual course of events whenever Hal went to the hospital on the weekend in non-emergency situations.

  However, the booth I usually shared with them and Logan stood empty. Before I could figure out whether to sit in it alone or join one of the other tables, a throat cleared behind me. I turned to see Professor Susan DeBeer. Dylan stood at her elbow, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  "Miss Morgenstern, a moment of your time, please?"

  "Uh, sure." I gestured at the booth. I'd made loads of good memories there since first year, despite all the chaos and pain. It couldn't hurt to have what might be an uncomfortable conversation someplace familiar. "Works for Bubbe anyway."

  If Professor DeBeer noticed I'd made a disconnected comment, she took it in stride as she sat on one side of the booth. Dylan and I got on the bench across from her. I looked up, hoping to see Ember, but she hadn't come out of the nest since she'd laid her eggs. I'd have worried, but I sensed her contentedness through our bond. Gale always managed to get food for them both.

  "Mr. Khan. Miss Morgenstern. I wanted to set things right between us. Until Hal's back, all of you from Professor Hawkins' class are with me for the morning lecture. Last year, I said some awful things about extramagi. I was wrong, and I'm sorry."

  If I'd been alone, I'd have told her it wasn't a big deal. That was true for me, but not Dylan. I sensed something from him, a note of discord.

  "You've had, hm." Dylan thrummed his fingers against the table. "Just over a year to speak up
about it. And yeah, I get why now. It's an emergency. There's one thing important to me. How do you feel about what you said?"

  She hung her head. "Like a total piece of shite." She looked up. "So where do we go from here? You're welcome in my classroom with the rest of the students in your section, but I understand if you're worried about unfair treatment. So, I've spoken to the headmaster and the Ashfords. They've agreed to let you have study hall at the library instead."

  Dylan blinked. "No." He shook his head, then glanced at me. "Not for me, at least. I want to be with my classmates."

  "Me too." I fought the impulse to reach across the table and take her hand, as Bubbe did for anyone sitting opposite her. "The third-years are a team. We've been through a lot and mostly made it by sticking together."

  Professor DeBeer's nose reddened, along with her eyes. She sniffled, then nodded. Somehow, I understood she was thinking about her old frenemy, Professor Luciano.

  Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's mind magic.

  "I'll see you both in class by the bell, then." She slid across the bench on her side of the booth, rose, and walked away more stiffly than I'd ever seen her move.

  "Well, that was awkward." I sighed.

  "But it had to happen." Dylan shook his head, got up, then gestured at the food line. "Wish it'd been sooner, but better late than never."

  "You sound like Noah." I got up and followed him.

  "Thanks."

  "Wow." I chuckled. "You two spending a lot of time together?" It was the closest I'd gotten to asking whether he'd said anything about his feelings.

  "Our practice and your practice, but it's all business." He paused at the hot bar to load scrambled eggs and sausages on his plate. "Or I should say, he's all business."

  "Sounds about right for him." Cereal clinked into my bowl from the dispenser. "You, not so much."