“Yes, sir,” Burke said proudly. “You can count on us, sir. We won’t fail you.”
“I know you won’t, Mr. Hallows,” Doctor Ambrosius said. “I know some day you—all of you—will make me proud. But today, please enjoy yourselves. You’ve earned your rest.”
Ms. Corby gestured them toward the door once more.
The interview was over.
Ms. Corby was her regular self: cold, formal, and pissy. Spirit thought it was really hard to cast her in the mental role of Secret Mastermind of the Evil Plot Behind The Wild Hunt.
“Do any of you need to visit the Infirmary?” she asked, gazing at all of them clinically. “No? Then I suggest that you go back to your rooms and change into clothing that looks less as if you’ve been rolling around on the ground in it all night, and present yourselves in the Refectory in thirty minutes.”
It was only when the door to her room closed behind her that Spirit could feel as if it were all—finally—really truly over. Her dorm room looked strange, at the same time unfamiliar and exactly as she’d left it. But I never expected to see it again, she thought. Not really.
She would have liked to linger in a long hot shower, but now that the danger was over, her stomach was telling her forcefully that nerves had kept her from eating much yesterday and—according to the clock on her desktop—it was nearly three hours past her normal breakfast time, and on top of everything else, she’d been up all night. That shower would have to wait.
She pulled off her coat and tossed it on the love seat, then sat down in the chair to drag off her heavy snow boots. Doing that made her aware of aches and bruises she hadn’t noticed until now—and Ms. Corby had been right; her clothes really did look as if she’d been rolling around in the dirt all night. She pulled out a set of clean ones and struggled quickly into them, only then noticing the state of her hair. She’d started the night with it in a long braid down her back under her coat, but somewhere along the way it had come undone, and now it was a mass of tangles.
As she stood beside her bed, muttering crossly as she dragged her hairbrush hastily through her hair, Spirit suddenly remembered what Kristi had said before they’d all come inside.
“The dance is tonight! You can’t just go running off like that the night before the Winter Dance!”
“The dance is tonight—and I don’t have a single thing to wear!” Spirit announced to the empty room. She sat down on the edge of her bed and laughed until her ribs hurt.
EPILOGUE
I just hope this dance goes better than the last one,” Loch said wryly.
“Well it couldn’t go much worse,” Muirin shot back, cutting in front of him deftly and snagging a Coke from the snacks table.
“Oh, hush, Murr-cat.” Addie said. She glanced back at Spirit and Burke. “You’ll jinx things.”
“Never borrow trouble,” Spirit said. “The world gives enough of it away free.”
Burke chuckled ruefully in agreement. “That’s the honest truth.”
The gym had been decorated for the dance, not with a Christmas theme—as Spirit had half expected—but with an entirely nondenominational “winter” theme in silver, white, and blue. That meant giant glittering snowflakes hung from the rafters, streamers of white and blue crepe, and a lot of helium-filled balloons in the dance’s signature colors clustering up near the ceiling. This time, the theatrical backdrops were painted with scenes of fantastic winter landscapes—some containing unicorns and fairy-tale castles—and all (as far as Spirit could tell) serving as an excuse for glitter. A lot of glitter. Of course, if the decorations made no concession to the holiday, the playlist certainly did. Practically every third song was an updated techno rap trance rock version of a familiar Christmas carol.
It was hard to believe that the five of them had stood in this very place just about six weeks ago, Spirit mused, and—and the most important thing on her mind was whether Loch or Burke would ask her to dance with them, and what she’d say if they did. So much had changed.
She’d changed.
It wasn’t knowing about magic, because she’d known about that the day she came to Oakhurst. It wasn’t just knowing that the safety she’d been promised here at the school didn’t really exist, either, because since the night her parents had been killed, Spirit hadn’t really believed in safety.
No.
Part of it was knowing that when danger came, she wasn’t helpless. She could fight back. It might not look as if she could win, but she could still fight.
But the other part was knowing that the danger was much bigger than anything she could ever have imagined.
“You want some, uh, some punch or anything, Spirit?” Burke asked her.
“No, moron,” Muirin said. “She wants to dance with you. You’re supposed to be her date, remember?”
“Smooth, Muirin,” Loch murmured. “Real smooth.”
“Why yes, Muirin, I’d love to dance with Burke,” Spirit said, her voice dripping with irony as she turned to face him. Burke was actually blushing. “I really would,” she added more quietly, taking pity on him.
“Good,” he said, gulping. “That’s . . . good.” Belatedly remembering his manners, he held out his arm to her. “Shall we dance?”
Spirit took his arm. She was so glad that—for reasons known only to Muirin—she’d all but pounced on Spirit as Spirit was dressing for the dance this evening and demanded that Spirit take—and open—her Christmas gift early. It had been one of those rayon “broomstick” skirts in a gorgeous sky blue, and while Spirit was stammering out her embarrassed thanks, because a handmade book cover really didn’t seem to be in the same league, Muirin relented and said it wasn’t just from her, but from her and Addie. The skirt went beautifully with the remade top that Spirit never really had the chance to show off at Halloween, and was a lot “dressier” than her blue jeans.
A slow dance was playing as they moved out onto the dance floor. Burke put his arms around her as if Spirit were made out of spun glass—red-hot spun glass. “This time last night I would have laid long odds against . . .” Burke’s voice trailed off.
“I know,” Spirit said, moving easily with him in time to the beat of the music. May your days be merry and bright, the singer crooned, but theirs weren’t going to be, would they? This was Oakhurst.
“We still don’t know who summoned up the Wild Hunt in the first place, do we?” she asked. “Or what they really wanted to use it for. I know Doctor Ambrosius says we—magicians—have enemies, but . . .”
“But if they know where we are, why haven’t they done something about us—about him—a long time ago?” Burke wondered.
“Maybe they are,” Spirit said. “And I think . . . that’s what we’re going to have to find out.” But not tonight, she told herself. Not tonight.
Tonight she could dance with Burke and pretend that her life was still ordinary.
TURN THE PAGE
FOR A SNEAK PEEK
AT THE NEXT BOOK IN
THE SHADOW GRAIL SERIES.
Excerpt copyright © 2010 by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill
There were about a hundred kids here at Oakhurst. It seemed like a lot when you thought about the fact that they were going to be your nearest and dearest until you left Oakhurst at twenty-one. Or got sacrificed to demons, hey, anything to get out of SATs, right? Spirit thought. It didn’t seem like many when they were all gathered in the Main Hall and the place still echoed.
They’d all filed into the Main Hall by alphabetical order, but once they were there, Burke beckoned to Spirit, and she saw Loch and Addie were standing with him. Muirin joined them a few minutes later, looking—as usual—as if she were getting away with something. Conversation was kept to a subdued murmur.
That conversation died out completely with the entrance of Doctor Ambrosius. He was flanked by his assistants, Ms. Corby and Mr. Devon. Doctor Ambrosius looked like a venerable, old college professor, white beard, flowing white hair, tweed jacket with leather elbow patche
s, and all. Ms. Corby and Mr. Devon looked—well, like bodyguards. Bored bodyguards. Doctor Ambrosius gazed out at them for a moment, then cleared his throat meaningfully. Absolute silence descended.
“We are here to celebrate the end of another calendar year here at Oakhurst,” he said, in a voice as smooth and reassuring as some documentary narrator on Discovery Channel. “Some of you haven’t been with us long and some are extended residents, but all of you are part of the Oakhurst family. Indeed, following the deaths of your parents, Oakhurst is your family now.”
He beamed at all of them, but the moment his gaze had gone to another part of the room, Loch leaned over to whisper in Spirit’s ear. “Does he practice being that tactless, or does it come naturally?”
“So, as the old year ends and the new one begins, we pause for a time of remembrance. Remember—always—that it is your responsibility to live up to the high standards that other members of your Oakhurst family have set. An Oakhurst graduate who is merely average is one who has failed. An Oakhurst graduate soars where others plod. And an Oakhurst student can never rest on his accomplishments, for while he is resting, others are overtaking him.”
He paused, and Ms. Corby signaled what was expected of them by initiating a patter of light applause.
“Now, in the generous spirit of the season and your family,” Doctor Ambrosius concluded, beaming on them all again, “let us commence the distribution of gifts.”
While Ms. Corby and Mr. Devon handed out gifts, Spirit stood there feeling a kind of bemused horror. When the kids had disappeared, Oakhurst had covered things up with lies that were meant to be reassuring. And maybe they’d had a good reason at the time, but now that she and the others had defeated the Wild Hunt, Spirit had expected some kind of announcement. Wasn’t the Wild Hunt a part of what they were being trained to defend themselves against? Didn’t its appearance mean they should all be warned to be extra careful? Oakhurst wasn’t safe. The enemies Doctor Ambrosius had talked about the day she’d arrived weren’t out there. They were in here. They had to start figuring out what was going on. Now, before whoever it was that had been behind the Wild Hunt came up with a new way to kill them.
She was so lost in her thoughts that it wasn’t until Loch nudged her sharply in the ribs that Spirit noticed Ms. Corby standing in front of her with a look of impatience on her face. She was holding two small boxes wrapped in gold paper with a cream and brown design on it. Spirit reached for the gifts. Ms. Corby held onto them, staring at her meaningfully.
“Thank you, Ms. Corby,” Spirit said, flushing angrily. Ms. Corby smiled in triumph and handed Spirit the boxes. Spirit looked around at the others. Addie had a long flat box about the size and shape of a board game under one arm. Burke was holding a large square box about twelve inches on a side. Muirin had a small box about three by three by ten.
And Loch had two boxes identical to Spirit’s in every way. He brandished the larger of the two boxes.
“iPod?” Spirit mouthed.
Loch was about to answer, but Mr. Devon had stepped in front of the fireplace.
“Every winner—and you’re all winners here at Oakhurst—knows that one of the sweetest fruits of victory is the chance to kick back and enjoy what they’ve won. All of you have worked hard this year. Now is the time to enjoy yourselves. A dessert buffet is set up in the Refectory. Enjoy!” he added, clapping his hands together and smiling brightly. Spirit thought it was the creepiest thing she’d ever seen—at least in the last few days.
When Doctor Ambrosius and his two assistants had gone, everyone began to head in the direction of the Refectory. Muirin was off like a flash, of course. Unlimited sugar.
“Yup. iPod,” Loch said aloud, unwrapping the larger of the two boxes. “It’s the Gift du Jour.”
The “Gift du Jour” was brown, with the Oakhurst crest engraved on the back, and his name: Lachlan Galen Spears. Loch made a face and Spirit winced back in sympathy. It was awful to have a dorky name.
“They come in gold and cream, too, of course,” Addie said kindly. “If you don’t have one when you get here, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get one for your first Christmas.”
“Huh,” Loch said, sounding surprised. “It’s charged. And preloaded.”
There was no real point in trying to push through the mob of students heading for the Refectory, and one thing Spirit could say for Oakhurst was that when it decided to let them fall off the healthy diet bandwagon, it didn’t stint on the junk food. There was no need to hurry, there’d be more sugar and chocolate than all of them could eat in a week.
Bread and circuses. For a moment she could hear her Mom’s voice in her head. Mom had—used to have—a saying for every occasion. In Ancient Rome, the emperors used to keep the people from making trouble by giving them free food and free entertainment. Bread and circuses.
That’s what we get, Spirit thought. Every few weeks there’s another school dance, and a lot of candy, and most of the kids don’t look past that, to all the things that are wrong with this place. . . .
“What color is yours?” Loch asked. With a feeling of resignation, Spirit unwrapped the larger of the two boxes. Her iPod was cream-colored. Same crest cut into the back, and her name: Spirit Victory White. She didn’t bother to complain, even mentally, that now everyone at Oakhurst would know her middle name. She woke her iPod and looked at the preloaded playlist.
“Ah, I recognize this,” she said mockingly, scanning the start of the list of titles. “This is next semester’s Music History stuff.”
“Heaven forbid we should actually use these for recreation,” Addie said, her voice dripping with irony. “That would be frivolous. How ever could we expect to excel?”
“Ah, but you forget. We’re all already winners here at Oakhurst,” Loch replied, deadpan.
“Come on,” Burke said. “It’s cleared out a little, and we should go find the Murr-cat and stop her from eating herself into sugar shock.”
“Fat chance of that,” Addie answered.
The Refectory was full, but not crowded. Most of the crowd was around the dessert buffet, and Spirit had to admit it looked pretty. There were cakes on stands, plates of brownies, pyramids of perfectly round scoops of ice cream frozen so hard that it would take them at least half an hour to melt, and—because this was a school full of teenagers—stacked cases of soda.
The four of them, by mutual consent, took one of the empty tables at the opposite end of the room from the buffet table. Muirin saw them, waved, and came over carrying two plates heaped high with desserts—obviously one for herself, and one for all of them.
“I don’t see how you can eat all that,” Addie said as Muirin plopped down at the table opposite her.
“Practice,” Muirin answered. She pushed the second plate toward them. It was stacked with brownies of various kinds.
Spirit picked up the top one and bit into it. She didn’t have much of an appetite, but hey: chocolate. Bread and circuses, her mother’s voice whispered in her mind.
“So, come on, open your other one!” Muirin urged around a mouthful of fudge and ice cream.
Spirit had almost forgotten about the second box. Why had she and Loch both gotten two when no one else had? She tore the paper off quickly. Inside it was a pasteboard box, and inside that was a tiny wooden jewelry box—a ring box—with the Oakhurst crest (what a shock) laser-cut into the top.
She opened it.
Inside, on a bed of black velvet, was what looked like . . . a class ring. She lifted it out of its box and inspected it curiously. It was gold—when she looked inside the band, she saw it was stamped 24K—and felt heavy, very heavy. On the sides of the band were the broken sword and the inverted cup from the Oakhurst coat of arms. The bezel of the ring said: absolutum dominium.
“Absolute dominion,” Loch translated. He’d opened his own box and was looking at his ring curiously.
With everything else about the ring being so lavish, Spirit would have expected the stone to be something
she recognized. But to her surprise, it looked like something “lab created.” It was opaque like an opal; a strange glittery sort of opalescent blue, the kind of thing that made you think there were other colors in it, only no matter how hard you looked, you couldn’t see them. . . .
Spirit tore her eyes away with an effort and stuffed the ring back into the box. It made her uneasy for reasons she couldn’t quite understand. She saw Loch slip his on—of course it fit perfectly—and bit back the impulse to cry a warning. Against what?
“Oh, they gave you your rings,” Muirin said offhandedly.
“Our rings?” Loch repeated, staring at his hand as if he were fascinated.
“Class rings. We all get them at some point in our first year at Oakhurst,” Burke said.
“Why don’t you wear them, then?” Loch wanted to know.
“Because they’re dorky,” Muirin said with contempt. “I mean, come on. Class rings? That’s so fifties!”
“But—”
“Come on, Murr-cat,” Addie said decisively. “You guys guard Murr’s sugar-horde. We’ll be right back.”
Muirin rolled her eyes but followed Addie out of the room, while Burke continued. “You don’t have to wear them, except for a couple of times a year—like Alumni Days, when we’re doing the full School Uniform thing, with the blazer and scarf and everything, like we were—”
“—on the playing fields of Eton,” Loch finished for him, in a broad fake English accent. Burke grinned at him.
“Some people wear them all the time, some don’t,” Burke continued. “The point about them is that they’re . . . kind of magic. The stone changes color until it matches your school of magic.”
Great. A wizardly mood ring, Spirit thought.
“It does?” Loch stared at his hand again. “Try yours, Spirit,” he urged.
Reluctantly, she reopened the box and slipped it on. It felt cold and heavy against her hand—much colder and heavier than she thought it should.
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