“I’m not hungry,” Spirit said hastily. How long had she been passed out for? There wasn’t a clock anywhere she could see.
“Skipping meals never did anybody any good,” Ms. Bradford said darkly. She got to her feet. “Just yell if you need something. I’ll let your friends come in now. Is that all right?”
“Yeah. Sure.” She looked at Loch, frowning a little.
“It’s after three,” he said, glancing at his watch. “When I didn’t see you at lunch, I started asking around, and found out you were here. But they wouldn’t let me come and see you until after I was finished with Orientation.”
“I guess you—” Spirit began.
“I thought you promised no emo suicide attempts!” Muirin said, bouncing in through the open doorway. Addie and Burke followed. Both of them looked worried about her.
“I didn’t—” Spirit protested, struggling to sit up.
“Ignore the cat; she’s just trying to make trouble,” Burke said.
Loch got to his feet politely, and Muirin promptly sat down in the chair he’d vacated. Addie tsked and went to get her own chair. Loch came around the bed and sat down on the other side.
“Everybody knows you didn’t do anything stupid,” Burke went on. “You just ran into some problems during Testing.”
“She fell on her face,” Muirin said flatly. “I’ve never heard of that happening to anyone before—and before anyone says anything, no, I have not been here since Oakhurst was founded in 1973. But people talk. Trust me. Nobody’s ever fainted during Testing.”
“That makes me feel great,” Spirit muttered, sitting back against the headboard. She felt better than she thought she should: everyone kept saying she’d fainted, but she didn’t know of any “faints” that lasted four or five hours. She glanced at Loch. “I guess yours went okay?”
Loch shrugged. “Pretty much. I’ve got minor Gifts from two Schools—you got that far, right?” he asked, and, when Spirit nodded, “—Kenning and Shadewalking—that’s School of Air—and Pathfinding—that’s School of Earth. It’s supposed to be kind of rare to get Earth and Air gifts together, even when you do get Gifts from two Schools. Ms. Smith says they really all kind of go together, though.” He shrugged. “I guess I’ll find out more about them later.”
“Well, Pathfinding’s a good one to have,” Burke said, smiling at Loch. “A Pathfinder always knows exactly where they are and can find their way from place to place without a map, whether they’ve been to where they want to go before or not. When you get really good with it, you’ll even be able to describe the place you want to go before you’ve seen it.”
“Cool,” Loch said, looking impressed.
“Shadewalking’s better,” Muirin said. “I wish I’d gotten that. You can make yourself just about invisible—and move silently, too.” She frowned. “I’m not sure what Kenning is, though. Nobody I know has it, even if it is an Air Gift.”
“Well, in Old English, ‘to ken’ something was to know it,” Addie said. “Maybe it has something to do with that.”
“Maybe,” Loch said, looking excited. “It was so strange—I was nervous about the whole thing, and at first I couldn’t decide which of the things on the table to pick. But I kept going back to the feathers, and I picked them, but it didn’t seem as if I was done, and Doctor Ambrosius said I should see if one of the other elements resonated with me, too, and, so, well, there was a cachepot of begonias on the table, and I sort of liked that.” He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “Then all there was to do was figure out exactly what my Gifts in those Schools were. I guess that must have been when you, uh, ran into trouble, because he left and Ms. Smith came in and finished up with me. I didn’t even know you’d had a problem until later.”
Spirit opened her mouth to tell him—all of them—that she hadn’t had a problem until after Doctor Ambrosius came in to see what was going wrong with her Testing, and stopped. Sure, he’d been pretty out of control. But Loch obviously didn’t have any complaints about him. And Mom had yelled at her plenty of times when Spirit did things that she later realized had been stupid dangerous. If what Doctor Ambrosius had said yesterday about the world being a dangerous place for untrained magicians was true, maybe he’d just been angry at her for refusing to protect herself. She was already pretty clear on the fact that he didn’t have the hottest people skills on the block.
It didn’t change the fact that, despite the fact that both Doctor Ambrosius and Ms. Smith had said she was a magician, she hadn’t been able to do what Loch had done so easily.
Maybe they were wrong. Maybe she didn’t have any magic at all.
“Hey, if you guys don’t mind clearing out of here, I could get dressed,” she said.
She had to admit that a lot of things about this place didn’t completely suck, Spirit decided. Of course, a lot of them did. Every time she thought of something she wanted to share with Mom and Dad—and especially Phoenix—she had to remember they were dead all over again. And then she’d feel uneasily guilty about having all this because they were dead.
But if a week’s time wasn’t long enough to make deep friendships, she’d certainly started to make friends. And Kelly had been right when she said that Spirit’s situation wasn’t unique. There was Camilla, who’d lost her whole family down to her youngest nieces and nephews. And Addie, who’d been at summer camp when her parents died in a light plane crash. Burke had managed to lose three families: He’d been left as a month-old foundling in a church with nothing but his birth certificate tucked into his blanket with him. Three months later they’d traced his parents—to the city morgue—and he’d been put up for adoption, since they’d never found any other relatives. When he was eight, his house caught on fire. He managed to get to the baby’s room and get out with her, but their parents died in the fire. She’d gone to relatives, but they hadn’t wanted a boy who was “no relation to them.” He’d been quickly taken in by a nice couple, the Martins—though as a foster child this time—and been happy enough for the next few years, until Oakhurst came forward and offered him a place.
“It only made sense to come,” he’d told Spirit quietly. “Ma—Mrs. Martin—wasn’t getting any younger, and her health wasn’t so good, and I already knew there wouldn’t be any money for college or anything. Couldn’t ask it of them. Oakhurst was offering me everything. And maybe—when I get out—I can look them up again and see about paying back some of their kindness.”
No, she didn’t have it as bad as she possibly could.
But Oakhurst was still . . . frustrating. Weird, in a way Spirit couldn’t quite put her finger on. As if she was always trying to put her foot on a step that wasn’t there, or banging her nose against invisible walls.
Maybe it was the whole magic thing.
In all the days that followed, nobody had even so much as suggested that she do the test over. Because she’d spent most of the day in the infirmary, she’d missed her orientation tour, which would have been a walk-through of her classrooms, meeting her teachers, and getting signed up for her “extracurricular” activities, so she’d had to make do with a “virtual” tour online and the slightly scattershot rundown she got from the others. So Spirit had been more than a little surprised to walk into her Science class to find that Ms. Smith was the teacher.
She hadn’t had the nerve to bring up being retested, though—either there or in her magic classes.
Because this was a school for magicians. Of course they got lessons in magic.
Spirit stared down at her notebook and pretended she was taking notes. She was doing her best not to fidget, but it was hard, and they had that harpy Ms. Groves today, and if Ms. Groves thought you weren’t paying attention to her lecture she’d bring everything to a screeching halt, bring up the room lights, and make you stand beside your desk and explain just what it was she was doing that was so terribly boring. From the way the others teased her, Spirit got the impression that Muirin got to do a lot of explaining in class whenever Ms. Grove
s lectured.
The trouble with going to a small exclusive private school was that the classes were small and exclusive, too. There were only four other kids in the room with Spirit: Loch; a boy named Taylor Parker who’d gotten here about four months ago; and two girls, Zoey Young and Jillian Marshall, who’d both arrived about a week before Taylor did.
There were two periods slotted in for Magic Theory. One was right before lunch, and the other was the last class of the day. All the before-lunch periods were for Advanced students, and two of the end-of-day periods were, too, so they only had M-Theory three times a week, which was more than enough. It generated more homework than the rest of her courses put together: history and theory and what went with which. It was like a whacko mix of The X-Files and cooking school.
Maybe it would have made more sense if she was actually using all of this stuff for something. Why did she need to memorize the subcategories of magician in each of the four Schools—and what the powers and weaknesses of each were—if she didn’t even know which Elemental School she belonged to and probably never would? Why did anybody need to know about the entire history of magic dating back to the Year Zero, when Ms. Groves (and Ms. Smith, and Mr. Bowman, and Ms. Holland) said most of it was wrong? What was the point in learning the details of the spells all the old-time magicians cast, when Muirin said that you either had the Mage Gift or you didn’t, and if you didn’t you could boil up bat’s blood and snake fins for ever and ever and not get any results? At least the others got to go off after their classroom hours and practice actual magic, though Spirit felt really sorry for whoever had Ms. Groves as a coach.
Ms. Groves clicked a button and another slide appeared on the screen behind her. “If we aren’t boring her too much, perhaps Ms. White can tell me what this symbol is on the screen behind me.”
“It’s the Greater Seal of Solomon, Ms. Groves,” Spirit said, making very sure she didn’t sigh aloud—much as she wished to.
Spirit was lucky enough to escape having to explain to Ms. Groves why M-Theory wasn’t boring (a good thing, because with the mood she was in today, she might have snapped and told Ms. Groves that no, it really was boring), but not lucky enough to escape another brutal homework assignment: showing the correlation between the Greater Key of Solomon and the Lesser Key of Solomon, and indicating where the so-called “powers conferred by demons” matched up with the Mage Gifts of the Elemental Schools. Spirit did sigh then; it was a good thing that Oakhurst had such a good library, both on-and off-line, or she wouldn’t have a prayer. She got to her feet gratefully when the bell rang. She’d have the library practically to herself until dinner. Everybody would either be in their M-labs or off doing their extracurricular stuff.
But when she walked out of the classroom, Muirin was leaning against the wall waiting for her.
Spirit had been at Oakhurst two weeks now. She knew that you weren’t allowed to shop online (even if you had any money), that incoming mail was searched by the school before you got it (even if you had someone to send things to you), and that violations of the Dress Code were practically punishable by death. Since all these things were true, she had no idea of where Muirin managed to find the stuff she kept showing up in.
Granted, it was after class. But Spirit thought it would probably have to be after the Apocalypse before the length of Muirin’s skirt wouldn’t give some of the more conservative teachers chest pains. The fact that it was one of their regular plaid pleated ones just added insult to injury—as did the fact that she was wearing brown cabled socks that would have fit the dress-code perfectly—if they didn’t come up to mid-thigh.
“You look like an escapee from an animé,” Spirit told her, “one that ends up with things with tentacles in it.”
Muirin dropped into a mocking curtsy.
“What are you doing here?” Spirit added. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“I lead such a busy social life,” Muirin said ironically. “Come on. I decided to take a mental health day.”
“Yours or your teacher’s?” Spirit asked. Muirin only snorted.
Aren’t you blowing off your practice hours?” Spirit asked as they walked down the hall. Everybody was leaving their classrooms at the same time, but the halls weren’t crowded; there were only about a hundred students at Oakhurst right now, though the school was obviously built to accommodate at least twice that many.
“You’re obviously forgetting I’m precocious,” Muirin said pertly. “Besides, it’s not like I’m ever going to blow something up with an illusion. I can practice anywhere.” She glanced at Spirit speculatively. “So I usually like to hit the gym right after class.”
“Oh my God, don’t start,” Spirit groaned. Muirin was on the fencing team, and she’d been bugging Spirit since Day One to pick a sport—or several—to get involved with.
“Why not?” Muirin asked. “We start the first round of competitions in October. If you don’t want to join the fencing team, there’s lacrosse, basketball, swimming, track, gymnastics, boxing—”
“Oh, like I want someone to punch me in the head!” Spirit replied.
“I’ve heard the idea is to not get punched in the head,” Muirin said drily. “Camilla’s pretty good at it—but I think I’d rather leave boxing and football to the guys.”
“I have a sport. I ride,” Spirit said. She’d signed up for the stables within a few days of arriving and was taking lessons three times a week.
“Doesn’t count. Isn’t competitive,” Muirin answered. “At least come over to the gym with me and watch Burke hit things. It’ll be fun.”
Spirit wasn’t sure about how much fun it would be, but she was already sure that when Muirin got an idea in her head, it was less trouble to go along with it than to try to talk her out of it.
Spirit had actually been in the Oakhurst Gymnasium several times already: sports might be optional, but calisthenics weren’t, and Addie had insisted they all come to a basketball game last week because a friend of hers, Cadence Morgan—Spirit had winced in sympathy, knowing what it was like to grow up with an “exotic” name—was playing, and Addie had wanted to go and cheer her on. The gym was huge; Muirin said it was tournament-sized. And today one end of the enormous gym was set up as a dojo with heavy padded mats on the floor, and about a dozen kids in karate gi and different-colored belts were practicing.
Burke was easy to spot; he was about twice the size of the other boys here. He was facing off against a blond man in a black gi who almost made him look small. They circled each other for a moment, watching intently, then there was a flurry of blows—all blocked—then they stepped back and bowed. But to Spirit’s shock, even as Burke bowed, the instructor aimed another blow at him. Burke straightened up—not seeming to hurry—and blocked it easily.
“That’s cheating!” Spirit said, outraged. The noise of the basketball players masked the sound of her voice.
“That’s Brett Wallis,” Muirin replied, as if that was any kind of explanation. “He coaches karate and kendo. Mr. Gail coaches everything else but the fencing; and that’s Ms. Groves, so trust me: Mr. Wallis is the nicest, the youngest, and the cutest of the sports coaches. I’m thinking about taking kendo in the spring, because you actually get to hit something sometimes.”
Now Mr. Wallis was moving around the other students, correcting a stance here, offering encouragement there, demonstrating a move in the third place. Burke had picked up a long wooden rod and begun performing a slow precise series of movements with it. He saw them and smiled, but didn’t stop what he was doing.
Even in those few moments with Mr. Wallis, Spirit had been able to see how good Burke was, and it was obvious, when she looked at the other kids, that he was much better at this than they were. Combat magic, she thought. “Can’t he ever just turn it off?” she asked Muirin. She didn’t have to say who she meant; they were both watching Burke.
Muirin snorted. “It’s painfully obvious you haven’t figured out your magic yet or you wouldn’t ask such a
dumb question. But I’m magnanimous, so I’ll take pity on you and explain. No.”
“That’s your explanation?” Spirit asked, trying not to feel hurt.
Muirin shook her head in wordless annoyance. “Look. I make illusions, and I can choose to make them or not. But because I’m an Illusion Mage, I can never choose to be fooled by an illusion, because I’ll always see the spell. With Combat Magic, Burke doesn’t even cast a spell. It’s what he is.”
Suddenly Spirit was very grateful that her magic hadn’t been awakened. She’d been thinking of it as a kind of add-on, something she might like or hate, but an extra. What Muirin was describing was something that might change what she was completely, whether she wanted it to or not.
After a few more minutes—a couple more sets of kids sparred, but Mr. Wallis was always right there watching—he called for a five-minute break. Some of the students knelt down on the mats, others began doing stretches. Mr. Wallis walked over to them.
“You must be Spirit White,” he said, holding out his hand. “Brett Wallis. Have you studied any of the martial arts before?”
Spirit was in the middle of shaking his hand politely (and wondering why he was introducing himself) when she realized what he must be thinking. “Oh I, uh—”
“No, she really hasn’t yet,” Muirin interrupted brightly.
Spirit flashed Muirin a suspicious glance. Muirin was looking much too innocent. Spirit was pretty sure that Muirin had told Mr. Wallis that Spirit was interested in signing up for his class. She was about to protest more firmly, when she gave a mental shrug. Why not? It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do with her afternoons. “I’m looking forward to it,” she said. “If you still have room.”
He smiled at her. “Sure. Just get a uniform and be here for class on Friday. I’ll make sure it’s added to your schedule.”
“Actually . . . she’s already got a uniform,” Muirin said. “It’s in her locker.”
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