‘We can head back,’ Trudy said. ‘I want to reread my notes on last term’s theory lectures anyway.’
‘Did you decide on your elective?’ Krystal asked.
‘Uh-huh. I’m taking the extra theory class.’
‘Oh. You’re doing pure theory all term again? Not that having a really solid knowledge of basic theory is a bad thing.’
Trudy nodded. ‘I am. Because I couldn’t decide on a corpus I wanted to study, and because it should mean I’ve caught up with the advanced theory syllabus. That means, next year when we come back after the summer, I’ll be taking the same theory classes as you.’
‘That’s so romantic!’ Ramona enthused.
‘It’s a solid basis in magical theory and I approve,’ Krystal said, blushing.
‘Oh. Yes. But it’s still romantic.’
~~~
Krystal was on the way out of the shop at the end of the day when Cragscales waved her over to the till where he was reckoning up. ‘Anything up, Cragscales? You, uh, don’t want me to learn the tills, do you?’
‘No,’ Cragscales said, flashing her a smile. ‘No, you’re more valuable up on the top floor dealing with lost customers. I wanted to talk to you about your friend. Ramona, was it?’
‘Ramona, yes. Ramona Rose.’
‘Interesting girl.’
Krystal raised an eyebrow. ‘She’s… Well, there’s something a little odd about her. She came up from Scarlin Cantervale, mid-winter, to join the school here in the middle of the year. As far as I can tell, she’s up to it. She had a tutor at home, a pretty good one as far as I can tell.’
‘And she moved here, suddenly. A little strange, it would seem, but it’s the fact that she’s… afraid of men which I wanted to mention.’
‘Afraid of men? That might explain a few things.’
Cragscales gave a small shrug. ‘Afraid may be too strong a word. Wary. Perhaps a little paranoid.’
‘That’s… interesting.’
‘I said she was.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Krystal said. ‘Well, we’ll be keeping an eye on her anyway, so that’s something to watch for, I guess.’
13th Day of Snowfall.
There was no real opportunity to look into Ramona’s various problems before classes started on Indigoday, but she was sitting beside Krystal, along with Jesse and Felicia, in the first lecture of the semester. That meant that Krystal got the opportunity to watch when Ramona saw the lecturer.
Theodore Marin stalked into the theatre in his usual dark robes, thick books under one arm and a long staff in his other hand. He was a handsome man, saturnine and somewhat severe with a lot of angles to his features. Most of the student body had a mild crush on the man, some more than others. Down at the front, Charity Darkmoon and her cohorts were almost swooning. Though, now Krystal was paying attention, she noticed that Charity seemed less enamoured than she had at the start of the year. And beside her, Krystal saw Ramona shrink a little, cringing. It was barely noticeable, unless you were watching for something, but it was there. Cragscales was right about Ramona: she was a little freaked by men.
‘Good morning, ladies,’ Marin said, peering around at his audience. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, I am Theodore Marin. This is General Magical Theory one four. Anyone who should not be taking that class should leave now.’ He paused, but no one got up to leave. ‘Very well. We will be continuing on from last term’s lectures, so…’ Picking up chalk from the lectern, he turned to the board behind him. ‘Let us begin as we have a lot to get through.’
Ramona glanced to either side of her as Krystal and Felicia both muttered ‘we have a lot to get through’ in time with the lecturer.
‘He says it every time,’ Felicia said quietly.
‘And he’s always right,’ Krystal added.
~~~
There was another slightly odd factor at play on campus this term, and the subject came up at lunch.
‘Have you noticed people acting kind of different around us?’ Charlotte asked. She was looking around at the other students in the refectory and frowning a little.
‘They… seem to be sitting closer than usual,’ Trudy said.
‘They s-sat closer to us in the lecture theatre too,’ Jesse added.
‘And, thinking about it,’ Felicia said, ‘the other girls on our floor have been saying hello to me the last few days.’
‘Uh, is that odd?’ Ramona asked, frowning.
‘We’re the misfits, darling. Last term, even the other girls on our corridor tended to steer clear when they could.’
‘Well, someone did suggest we were necromancers,’ Charlotte said, smirking.
‘I said I was sorry,’ Felicia moaned.
‘You never actually did,’ Trudy corrected.
‘I didn’t? Oh. Well, I am. So there. Anyway, Charity kept it going and spread Mama’s indiscretions around to anyone who would listen. We were all outcasts last term and now…’
‘I guess they may not actually remember us saving their tails,’ Xanthe said, ‘but they all know we did. Maybe they don’t like us, but they don’t dislike us either.’
‘It sounds like a win to me,’ Krystal said. ‘I’ll take it. Charity doesn’t seem to have suffered social death for her part in things.’
‘Well, she wasn’t actually responsible for what happened,’ Jesse said. ‘Not d-directly responsible.’
Krystal gave a shrug. ‘Not for what happened at the ball, but she couldn’t have got that corrupted without willingly accepting the spirit of Lorenzo Darkmoon so she could do better in class. It wasn’t forced on her and her shortcut almost cost the lives of every dragon in the school. I think she deserves a little worse than she’s getting. I’m amazed her cronies are still following her.’
‘Some people need a leader, darling,’ Felicia replied. ‘The ancestors know I did my best to find the girls who did. I just made the mistake of picking one who was a worse bitch than I was. Well, that’ll teach me about getting into politics.’
15th Day of Snowfall.
There was no sign of Charity in the afternoon lab session on Blueday. Felicia allowed herself a small gloat about that. Charity was busy in one of the smaller labs somewhere, working the only ritual she was allowed to undertake at the moment, one which would attempt to cleanse her spirit of the corruption caused by using a spirit to assist her the term before.
‘The spell isn’t that difficult,’ Krystal said as they got to work on their assignments. ‘Of course, even if she still had the spirit, it wouldn’t help her to get rid of the distortion, and the distortion makes it hard to cast spells without the spirit…’
‘She could be weeks trying to get it right,’ Felicia said, smirking a little maliciously.
‘Basically, yes.’
‘Well, she brought it upon herself, whatever else may have happened.’
‘I’m more concerned about these fire conjurations,’ Jesse said, examining the list of spells the practical called for. ‘I don’t know the fire corpus.’
Now that Ramona had joined them, she was partnering with Krystal rather than there being an informal trio of Krystal, Jesse, and Felicia. ‘None of these should be too hard,’ Ramona said, looking down the same list.
‘You’ve studied the fire corpus,’ Krystal pointed out. She peered at the list for a second and then shrugged. ‘But there’s nothing here that’s really difficult, I don’t think.’
‘You threw a fireball at a z-zombie,’ Jesse said.
‘Yes, but I was shown that pattern by a magus. I’ll have to work these ones out from first principles, just like you.’
‘Wait,’ Ramona said. ‘You threw a fireball at a zombie?’
‘Um, yes. Charley’s friend Glinda went missing one weekend and we tracked her down in this old house in Eastlook.’
‘And she’d been killed and turned into a z-zombie,’ Jesse said. ‘And Krys burned it before it could eat us.’
‘It needed to be done,’ Krystal said flatly. ‘I suggest we get on
with these exercises. I’m sure you can work this out, Jesse, but you can always ask one of us to check your patterns.’
‘We will,’ Felicia replied, smiling. ‘I’m stubborn, not stupid.’
~~~
Krystal stood by with a fire extinguisher while Ramona twisted a column of flame into a helix, grinning as she did so. The control spell had been fairly easy to formulate, for both of them, and the pair were working steadily through the exercises. There were a few more students who seemed to be keeping up with their pace, but the majority were plodding along. Jesse and Felicia were not close to doing the control spell yet.
‘Silly things like this are what I like doing with fire magic,’ Ramona said. Turning her hand in a largely unnecessary gesture, she split the column in two and formed a double helix. ‘Tricks to entertain. I’d rather I never had to throw a weaponised spell.’ The twin helices began to spin slowly.
‘I hadn’t actually expected to need to use one,’ Krystal replied. ‘Sometimes things happen.’
‘That is excellent, Ramona Rose.’ The voice was male and it came from behind them, and it caused Ramona to cringe and almost drop the flame columns. As it was, the spinning stopped and the flames seemed to shrink in, cringing with their mistress. Marin, the owner of the voice, seemed not to notice. ‘Have you attempted this part yet, Krystal Ward?’
Krystal lifted her extinguisher. ‘I’m spotting for Ramona, Theodore Marin. We’ll swap shortly. Uh, my notes on the pattern are on the bench there if you want to check them.’
Marin nodded but did not approach Krystal’s notebook. ‘Considering your prior experience with fire magic and your exam results, I did not expect you to have difficulty with these exercises. Continue.’ And he stalked off to terrorise Felicia and Jesse.
‘Does he sneak up like that a lot?’ Ramona asked.
‘He does tend to, yes. Are you okay?’
‘Fine. Just a shock. I’ll put this out and you can go. I want to see whether you can make cooler patterns than me.’
Krystal shook her head. ‘Unlikely. That double helix was probably about as complex as you can get with this pattern. You’d need to add–’
‘Another element to allow for discontinuities, yeah.’ Ramona glanced at the list of exercises. ‘Well, maybe if we have time at the end…’
Krystal grinned at the rather eager expression on the red dragon’s face, but then she was surprised by another voice from behind her. ‘Uh, Krystal Ward?’ This one was far more hesitant than Marin and female. Krystal turned to find a pair of girls standing there, each clutching a notebook over their chest as though for protection. ‘Um, could you possibly check our symbology?’ The speaker was a yellow dragon, judging from the dark-blonde hair and the amber eyes. Her friend was a red. ‘We’ve both tried it and we’ve got different patterns…’
Marin had moved on from Jesse and Felicia now, and both of them were looking toward Krystal and the two newcomers with raised eyebrows. Krystal glanced their way, trying to keep her own surprise off her face. ‘Uh, sure. You know, just because they’re different, doesn’t mean one or both are wrong. There’s often more than one way to write a spell.’
~~~
‘They weren’t the only ones,’ Krystal said over dinner. ‘We had…’ She glanced at Ramona.
‘Six pairs, I think,’ Ramona supplied.
‘Yes, six of them came over to ask me to check something. They’ve definitely changed their tune since last term.’
‘Just so long as they don’t find out about the misfits club,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s hard enough fitting us all into your room as it is.’
‘I think we have space for Mona though,’ Xanthe said. ‘One more should be fine.’
‘Yeah. I’ll give you that, but another couple and we’re going to have to look into getting a classroom or something.’
‘We would have to become official,’ Felicia put in. ‘And I think we’d have to change the name because we wouldn’t all be misfits.’
‘Right, so no more members. We’ – Charlotte raised her head, pointing her nose upward – ‘are an elite group.’
‘You just don’t want to share our principal resource,’ Trudy said. ‘Who is mine, by the way, so don’t go getting any ideas.’
‘Possessive much, darling?’ Felicia asked, smiling.
‘Just reminding certain parties,’ Trudy replied, waving the comment away.
‘Oh, Mistress Trudy Black, she be right possessive,’ Krystal said, assuming the docks accent that invariably resulted in Trudy blushing. ‘Why she does chain me up in the coal cellar every night an’ she does beat me with the switch if I so much as looks at another girl!’
Ramona let out a snort of laughter and almost spat her food over the table. Trudy did, indeed, blush, but she still managed to pull her back straight and respond. ‘And what have I told you about that accent, young lady?’
Krystal affected a contrite expression. ‘Good girls talk proper, Mistress Trudy Black.’
‘Ahem?’
Switching to a higher-pitched, more eloquent tone with a terrible nasal whine, Krystal said, ‘Young ladies of proper breeding speak correctly at all times.’
Ramona was, by now, bent over the table in fairly quiet but enthusiastic laughter. ‘Do you two practise that double act or is it just natural talent?’
‘I’ve had practice,’ Trudy told her. ‘With Krys, it’s all natural talent. That and a nun that used to be on the stage. But Krys has embarrassed me enough doing that that I can actually respond with more than “stop that” and “so help me, I will spank you.” Uh, and that last one just makes it all more embarrassing.’
‘I know we think it’s hilarious,’ Charlotte said.
Ramona shook her head, still grinning. ‘You knew a nun who used to be an actress, Krys?’
‘Nuns come from all walks of life,’ Krystal replied. ‘There were a couple from Greystone and Downtown here in Concord City. Some very posh indigos.’
‘One more of those now,’ Felicia commented.
‘Farmers, miners, or from families that did that. Sister Gloriosa Gleaming was a prostitute in one of the Scarlin port cities. Though she used to call herself an ex-doxy. There were all sorts and I’m not bad at mimicking accents.’
‘And mannerisms,’ Trudy said.
‘You should take that double act on the stage,’ Ramona said.
‘Oh, sure. I know exactly the sort of stages that’d take that kind of act, and I’m not appearing on one of them unless I end up really down on my luck.’
There were grins and giggles, and then eating for a second. ‘So, you’re not saying you wouldn’t go on stage with that act then?’ Ramona asked, putting on an innocent smile.
‘Someone give me something I can throw at her,’ Trudy said over the sound of giggles.
17th Day of Snowfall.
It was getting a little crowded in Krystal and Trudy’s room with seven girls in it, but Jesse had brought through some of the cushions she kept for sitting on and, with those to add comfort, it was not too bad.
‘So, what happens next?’ Ramona asked. ‘Xan said I should get some snacks in, so I did.’ She indicated the pile of packets and paper bags in the middle of the floor.
‘That should be enough for me,’ Charlotte said. ‘What are the rest of you eating?’
‘Share,’ Xanthe said flatly. ‘Uh, now we get on with whatever assignments we have. The theory should be okay. I think Sareena Slate is just checking that we remember what she told us last term. I’ve got this body corpus problem to work through, but I think I can manage.’
‘And I’ve got an air problem,’ Charlotte said, waving her notebook. ‘It’s a sound amplification thing, but I think I can work it out okay.’
Trudy had positioned herself on the floor rather than her bed. She lifted her notebook and tapped the cover. ‘I might need a little help from the smart girls. I’ve got Theodore Marin in my Further Magical Theory class and he set something about thaumolytic energy convers
ion that I’m sure you three did last term.’
‘You know the rules,’ Krystal said. ‘You try yourself before you come to us.’
‘I know. Just saying.’ Trudy grimaced. ‘You’re right about Theodore Marin. He isn’t as good a teacher as Sareena Slate. He may know more about the subject, but she’s better at getting it across.’
Krystal nodded. ‘I’m hoping he doesn’t teach the senior classes, because he’s going to start having trouble if he does.’ She flicked open her notebook and looked at what she had written down to work on. ‘He says to read through the chapter on spatial displacement, “paying particular attention to the dissipation of potential energy which must be considered on large geographical movements.” I’m sure Thoughts on the Nature of Magic has a better treatment of that kind of thing. I’ll take a quick look while you guys get started.’
‘What dissipation of potential energy?’ Ramona asked, frowning and reaching for her copy of Elements of Magical Theory.
‘Oh!’ Charlotte exclaimed. ‘I know this one. It’s basically a difference in potential energy thing. If you start high and go low, for example, you take an object with high potential energy and turn it instantly into something with low potential energy. If you don’t remember to do something about the difference, you end up with a hotter something. In extreme cases, you get an exploding something. If you go up instead of down, you end up with an ice block. And you can end up with similar problems if you move long distances latitudinally, uh, but I’m not quite so sure why.’
‘The equator spins faster than the poles,’ Krystal said. ‘It’s kinetic energy more than potential, but it’s the same sort of thing. Except that if you’re in, say, Concord City, and you change it to being in, say, Umbral Crown and you forget the change in kinetic energy, when it gets there it’ll still be moving with the same velocity, which probably means it’s going to slam into the nearest wall at several hundred miles an hour.’
‘No more thing,’ Ramona said.
‘No more wall either, in all probability, but there’s a really good treatment of the thaumolytic requirements in here, if I can find it. I swear, if Mallory Nightsky was giving us lectures, we’d be begging to have Theodore Marin take over. Mallory Nightsky was a genius, but he reads like he had a mind like a labyrinth. It’s as if he doesn’t really want anyone to figure out what he’s saying.’
Misfit Witchcraft (Misfits Book 2) Page 3