Hawthorn Academy: Year Three

by D. R. Perry

  As I dressed, the scent of wet tile and mist-blunted light ambushed me, like a thief in the dark. For a moment, memory transported me back in time.

  While still bent over my shoelaces, I returned to that night. I heard Temperance's voice in the echo of dripping water. My heart pounded like it'd burst my chest and the air in my lungs burned as though underwater. I froze like a rabbit in front of a speeding car, unable to move another inch. Thanks to all those sessions with Ms. Khan, I knew what to do.

  Despite the chest pain, I tried measuring my breath. That proved impossible, so I focused on forcing my fingertips to recognize the flat, rough weave of my shoelace. Something unrelated, native to the present, to ground me. In the end, none of that saved me.

  Coach Pickman did.

  She squatted in front of the bench I sat on and peered up at me. Speaking softly wasn't her way, but she lowered her typical volume, offering familiar words of encouragement.

  "Come on, Morgenstern. You've got this."

  I nodded, senses finally returning fully to the present. My fingers fumbled, and I hadn't taken so long to tie my shoes since grade school. However, I managed. Afterward, I sat up. She got on the bench with me and sat for a spell.

  "I don't know what got into me, Coach."

  "This isn't a big day. It's colossal. The last test before you're done here, yeah, but you feel like the field's got some unexpected terrain. Pay attention to everything you see today, Morgenstern. Like you're playing Gallows Hill, and they finagled that crazy cloaking psychic onto the court."

  "What do you mean?" I blinked. "Why?"

  "People overlook me sometimes, so I hear things. Can't say much. Movers and shakers around here are, well, moving and shaking. Stay alert."

  The bell rang.

  "Better move along." She nodded at the clock above the doorway. "Don't want to be late."

  "Thanks, Coach."

  Chapter Thirty-One

  After the final bell, both classes waited in turns outside the lab. My detour to the gym meant I arrived at the end of the line. Professor Hawkins stood at the door, letting the third-years in two at a time. He made pairs with each student from a different class.

  "Don't blame Professor DeBeer or me for the order or the pairs." He held up a document on school letterhead. "Trustee designation." I saw Andre Gauthier's signature alone at the bottom.

  You're nervous. And you don't want to wear those magical monstrosities.

  I sighed along with the inside voice and put the ear cuffs on. There was no way around it, even with Leo Pierce off the Board of Trustees for now. Maybe future students wouldn't get stuck under such draconian measures. I'd met plenty of folks who figured they'd gotten theirs, so improving the world for the ones walking after them wasn't important.

  I grinned, sure I wasn't one of them. If I'd learned anything at all over the last few years, it was that kindness matters. Everyone's fighting a secret battle, and nobody wins alone.

  Hal was the first one out of the lab, with Lee exiting practically on his heels. As he passed me in the hall, Hal held his hand up and gave me a fist bump.

  Our hands made contact for too brief a time for him to convey much, but hope, fear, and exhaustion flooded his mind in equal measure. I got the impression that he hurtled toward a yawning chasm, unable to stop before the edge. After that came a bizarre representation of the lab's wall, covered with carvings of Abe Fairbanks's face. Words scrawled across the whiteboard. He's watching.

  He must have used space magic to get that information. No wonder he looked exhausted.

  "Head to the library, gym, or Creatives," Professor Hawkins instructed. "Or the infirmary, as needed."

  Hal and Lee headed down the hall, but I didn't see where they ultimately went.

  Logan went in with Bailey Overton next. She must have studied because it was only five minutes before she headed to the library. Logan nodded at me and Grace, who pressed her lips into a thin line. I wondered why.

  Faith and Eston went after that, and they took half the allotted time. Kitty and Dorian stepped through the door, but not before he glanced over his shoulder and gave the rest of us waiting two thumbs up.

  Hailey went in with Dylan. It felt like an eternity, waiting outside with Grace. After thirty minutes, it was finally our turn.

  "After you," I said.

  Inside, the benches were arranged in two rows. Professor DeBeer started Grace up front on the left and me in the back on the right. We moved along at a similar pace, looking at pictures and replicas of a range of magical items, from ancient curiosities to mergers with modern technology.

  I felt confident marking down most of the answers. The only blank I drew was over the replica amulet with a moon on one side and a wolf on the other. After picking it up and turning it over in my hands a few times, I got it. An alliance amulet used to forge pacts between werewolf packs and vampires.

  Grace and I reached our last stations simultaneously, which meant she stopped where I'd started, and I ended where she'd begun. I wondered how she managed to navigate that entire ordeal so calmly once I saw the item on the bench.

  An old brass lamp. Familiar, too.

  I blinked, hoping my hands would stop shaking as I reached for it. Director-General Rockport had assigned me the ear cuffs, which dampened ranged mind magic but intensified it through touch. Miss Dunstable had given me exactly the information I needed so I wouldn't jot the answer down without checking. Plus, there was no way Hector Hawkins hadn't recognized his mother's lamp when he added it to the practical. Had they planned this all along? Or was this another replica, fashioned in a fit of nostalgia and wishful thinking?

  The only way to find out was by touching it. I was afraid. Professor DeBeer had apologized for her bias against extramagi, but she was watching. I swallowed, unsure of what to do next.

  Another student must have already touched it. Rubbed it, even and become its master. Hal had been in here first, but Gamila couldn't have shown herself. If she had, the headmaster would have postponed the exam, the room overrun by staff and faculty. He probably thought it wasn't the real thing.

  Maybe she was canny enough to hold back. I couldn't resist hesitating. Too much was at stake.

  On the other side of the room, Grace cleared her throat and raised her hand. Professor DeBeer turned her back to help. I knew it was a cue; the only chance I was likely to get. I took it.

  The moment my fingers made contact, I felt the hum of consciousness encased by magic and metal. I tucked it under my arm, then jotted the answer "djinn lamp" in the space for station number one.

  Grace leaned over her paper but tilted her head up a little, brow furrowing as she stared at my arm. Then, she jerked her chin at the door. She'd cloaked it, of course.

  With the lamp still tucked under my arm, I set my answer sheet on the teacher's bench and strode out the door.

  Professor Hawkins nodded as I walked by but said nothing. Nearly breathless, I kept my pace steady and pedestrian down the hall. Why hadn't I turned to see where Hal had gone?

  I poked my head into the library first, then the gym, and finally Creatives. He wasn't among the students I saw in any of those places. I didn't see Faith, either. With one hand, I removed my ear cuffs, trying to home in on them. After a moment, I was aware of Grace, keeping pace a few yards behind me on the opposite side of the hall. For a moment, I thought I sensed someone else too.

  As if an exam wasn't stressful enough, it had to go and transform into a heist.

  Hal could have been in the café, the cafeteria, or even his room. I let my feet go where they would, trusting mind magic to lead them in the right direction. That turned out to be down the ramp to the infirmary.

  The desk in the waiting room was unoccupied. Muffled voices, raised more than normal, called out at regular intervals from one of the treatment rooms. I broke into a run, bursting through the door. A moment later, I stopped.

  Nurse Smith and Ian were working as hard as they could. Not to save Hal, who was where
I expected him to be. Andre Gauthier lay on a wheeled stretcher. He wasn't responding, not to chest compressions or rescue breaths. Nurse Smith looked up when I walked in.

  "Thank the gods, someone from a medical family." He jerked his chin at the phone on the wall. "Call rescue. Magifinil overdose, adult male, Hawthorn Academy."

  Magifinil blocks mind magic. That's why any attempt to read him bounced off.

  It all made sense now. Andre had found the lamp and swapped it for the replica in the exam. He knew about Noah's gloves and signed our practical schedule.

  Maybe Abe Fairbanks would kill to get the lamp. Andre Gauthier was prepared to die making sure he didn't.

  "Not on my watch."

  I called 911 and repeated the information Nurse Smith had given so he could keep working.

  "Ian, keep compressions while we wheel. I'll give them the other emergency outside. Once he's in transport, we come back for our next patient."

  They ushered the stretcher out, the door swinging shut behind them.

  I glanced over to see Hal hooked up to tubing, like any other infusion. But something was different this time.

  He sat propped up on the bed, his face an almost claylike shade of ashy brown. His eyes were open but dull somehow, like scuffed marbles.

  At first, I thought the worst. But he blinked. From the bedside, Faith looked at my hands, eyes rimmed with red.

  "Fumbled the play, huh?"

  "No, Faith." I walked right up beside her. "I didn't, thanks to Grace."

  "I don't see it." Hal breathed. "Don't see much of anything now."

  "Look again." I set the lamp in Hal's lap, breaking the veil of umbral magic Grace had cast over it.

  He blinked once more, squinting like he couldn't see clearly. But Faith recognized it immediately. She took his hands and placed them on the lamp.

  "I need time," he said. "We don't have it."

  "Why not?"

  "Grandpa's off-campus, visiting Bubbe," Faith answered. "Nurse Smith went to get the man in charge. My tyrant of a father."

  "Well, he's not here yet. If he wants to come in, he'll have to get through me."

  I strode toward the door. Hal spoke as I pulled it open.

  "He's got help. And a shield. You'll need an army."

  "Dunno what for, but we've got one." Grace stood outside, but her statement confused me because she seemed to be alone.

  I filled her in as I stepped out and closed the door. Behind me, Faith locked it.

  "Figured he'd pull shenanigans." Grace sighed. "Thanks for coming, folks."

  Grace waved a hand, and her umbral magic faded, coloring me impressed. She'd cloaked all the third-years, probably fetched them from the rooms I checked as she followed me out of the academic wing. Everyone but Dylan and Logan had their familiars with them. Arick, Lena, and Xan were there, too.

  "You're skipping class?" I blinked.

  Lena nodded.

  "Worth it." Arick grinned.

  "What can they do, hold me back another year?" Xan snorted.

  "We can do far worse than that, my dear boy."

  Lavinia Onassis stood at the bottom of the ramp to the infirmary. Her basilisk hissed as venom dripped from her fangs. The smile on the woman’s face was pure poison.

  "I've got her." I cracked my knuckles. "Burning off poison's a piece of cake."

  "No." Lena pointed. "Get him."

  "None of you stand a chance." He chuckled, low and intense. It'd been him then, on the cruise. "I'll block everything you throw at us until you surrender or die. Either way, I'm getting that lamp. Don't expect any help, either."

  Mr. Fairbanks stepped out of the shadows. The first thing he did was set up a barrier behind us. I recognized it because I made one like it the night of the masquerade ball to hide Dorian and Xan from Lavinia. Mrs. Pierce leaned on one of his arms. On the other, he held the shield Hal had mentioned.

  It wasn't shaped like any sort of conventional weapon, either. It was magical, a device that produced wards. I knew because he put an umbral one up right after the mind, so nobody would hear or see whatever they meant to do to us.

  "You could be good little children and let us in." Mr. Fairbanks chuckled again. "We've already won."

  "Huddle up, team."

  Everyone did, not only my Bishop's Row folks.

  "He's not bluffing," I said. "We need to get that device from him and have someone positioned to get around his home-grown mind barrier once the other wards go down."

  "I'm not MVP for nothing," Dylan said. "I'll dodge my way past the baddies and get help."

  "BS." Grace rolled her eyes. "It's me, and you know it. Umbral's the ticket out. I just need cover."

  "Got that." Lee put his hand out. Lena, Xan, and Dylan stacked theirs up. I put mine on top and nodded.

  "If you need a hand up, I'm here," Eston said.

  "Air support," the twins said.

  "Distraction detail." Kitty joined them in a three-way fist bump.

  "I'm with them." Arick jerked a thumb at his squadmates. "How will Grace remember us once she's through?"

  "Ear cuffs." Logan pointed at me. "They dampen mind energy. Put them on her."

  We broke the huddle. I took them off and passed them to Grace. Mr. Fairbanks frowned as she put them on.

  "Tiffany, keep them on their toes."

  Mrs. Pierce waved a hand, looking like the magic she conjured took barely any effort. I knew from long experience that she was afflicted by resting boredom face. So maybe calling forth an ice storm out of thin air wasn't as easy as she made it look.

  "Dracula's balls!" Dorian's look of horror confirmed my suspicions. "Dylan, a little help here."

  They began banishing and good thing too. We might have all ended up sliding around on the tile defenseless if it iced over.

  "Rush play, cover mid, go!" I called to my team.

  Lena jumped out in front, hurling a poison orb at Tiffany Pierce. Lavinia raised a hand to banish it from across the room.

  Xan tossed another orb right through Lavinia's line of sight and she ended up banishing that instead. Lena's orb continued on its path.

  Tiffany waved her free hand and a wall of ice formed. Lena's orb bounced off. I sent a fireball streaking toward it. Abe knocked it aside with a mind blast. I had to banish it myself before it hit the nurse's desk and did more than smolder. The Overton's pigeons dove at his head but they turned aside at the last moment to avoid a poison orb from Lavinia. Julia took wing and banished it before it could land and do any more damage.

  Somewhere in all that confusion, Grace must have cloaked herself. I couldn't see her or sense her presence, which meant the ear cuffs were doing their job. Despite all the banishing Dylan and Dorian did, some of Tiffany's storm hit the floor. My fireball had melted it, which meant Grace left visible footprints.

  "Logan, Eston!" I pointed at the still smoldering desk, close enough to Grace's position to indicate without giving her away.

  They doused it. Water flowed with enough depth and splashing to cover Grace's tracks. Eston's Labrador familiar cavorted in the puddles with Lune, further obfuscating Grace's path.

  "Cut off the head," Abe said.

  "Down!" Lee knocked me aside right before a purple-tinted icicle speared me in the chest. He winced in pain as it grazed his left arm. The wood orb he'd been conjuring fizzled out like Arick's on the boat. He tried conjuring again but couldn't because Lavinia was still standing. Lune dashed to his side and helped Scratch defend him from stray orbs and icicles.

  "Ladies!" Logan called out. "Thread the needle. Go!"

  Kitty held her hands up, fire blazing around them. The twins stood on either side, conjuring air that fed the flames. Her sphinx twined his tail around her ankle, and the fire blasted between Tiffany and Lavinia, a move I instantly felt slice through their dual conjuring. Our opponents immediately began rebuilding their link again, but it'd take time.

  I had to get to Abe. If I didn't do it now, his allies would wear us out while he erecte
d wards behind him with the shield. Grace must have been at the exit by then, or close enough that she'd arrive once I made my play.

  This wasn't Bishop's Row. We had no protective ballistae, ankyr, or cestus. Coach Pickman's whistle wouldn't blow for time out. Scores were counted by incapacitation, and Lee had been lucky.

  "Cover barrage!"

  Xan, Lena, and Hailey conjured orbs and hurled them at Abe. He ducked them effortlessly of course. That was fine by me. I needed a distraction while moving safely between the ice and poison magi defending him. Abe wasn't in any danger at all. I knew exactly how much of an advantage mind magic gave. Lavinia didn't. Or maybe Xan's defiance was finally too much for her.

  She snarled, conjuring and throwing faster than even Lee on his best day. Lena's size gave her a small target advantage plus the ability to hide behind the desk's wreckage. Hailey stopped conjuring orbs and channeled a whirlwind around herself to deflect the poison.

  I pressed my advantage and took two steps toward Mr. Fairbanks, a tightly concentrated fire orb in one of my hands. He glanced at Tiffany.

  She threw ice, but I melted it. She threw another, and the ice storm lost steam. She shook her head at Abe and continued with her storm-bringing. Lavinia hadn't paused her barrage, her son the focus of all her attacks now.

  Xan faced them all head-on. When he had no orb to block with, he swatted her attacks back at her with empty hands. She didn't seem to run out of steam. Poison magi were immune to their toxin, but even a parent's was different enough to be dangerous.

  "Stop this, Mom." If he'd been fatally dosed, Xan gave no outward indication. Still, I heard fear singing all around him. "Before someone gets hurt."

  "You'll hurt before I'm through," she shrilled. "Pharmaka, don't hold back!"

  Lavinia's familiar slithered and became a purple blur on the floor. Kitty saw and aimed a jet of flame, but too late. Arick tried lifting a floorboard in her way, but the basilisk scaled it like lightning. She struck at Xan's leg quicker than I thought possible.

  Asceco was faster. The smaller green basilisk struck back. Fangs slashed and clashed, venom flying every which way.

  "Move it, Morgenstern!" Xan called.