by Anne Zoelle
That meant, if I could study the vault magics, I could recreate them somewhere else. My first library search had yielded the knowledge that preventive spells could be obscured under a chaos field. I took a deep breath.
“Is the vault made of chaos magic, Professor?”
She had been examining my completed mixtures, but now looked sharply at me. “Yes. Are you finished with that mixture then?”
I hurriedly picked up my tools, trying to keep my mind on the task while I also mentally starred the engineering class I had previously added to my uncategorized mental paint bucket. I created a new bucket—a nice turquoise—and populated it with Professor Mbozi's Engineering 101.
“These are all adequate as base materials, Miss Crown, but I thought you wanted to make extraordinary paint.” Her voice touched the edge of derisive as she examined me.
“Yes.”
She stared at me hard. “Then do each step as if it is the one that matters most.”
I nodded and started again. It was a good thing I had crammed before entering. Magic materials worked differently. I took a deep breath and thought of magic filtering through the paint, making it flow in my mind.
Mixing pigments, binders, fillers, and solvents wasn't hard. Mixing them while adding magic at each step was. Making each step a magic-filled process.
Pigment dust poofed everywhere. Linseed oil sprayed every surface. Flour, milk, chalk, and clay mixed together, making the whole place look like some mad bakery. And I was going to need to look into an anti-turpentine hair cleanse.
It was nothing like mixing for Mr. Verisetti. But then, there had been those toffees...and the heavy, zoned atmosphere...and my suppressed awakening magic...and, hilariously enough, emotional support. Also, I was quite sure he had magicked each mix after he'd collected them from me. Added the “extra shine.”
I was adding magic in each step. But unfortunately I blew the magical brains out of each substance every time.
“You have to put just the right amount of magic in or you will fail every time.” Stevens didn’t yell, but there was a very disdainful, sharp edge to her words. “Twenty milliliters into the ochre pigment.”
“How—”
“Twenty milliliters. Now.”
I thought hard about what twenty milliliters looked like in a beaker, shot that vision at the mixture in front of me, and promptly blew the whole thing skyward, splattering it over the ceiling like some alien goo that had dripped through the tiles.
Stevens, I learned quickly, was fabulous at shields, and my shield didn't give a hoot about messes. So, whereas I was covered in drippings along with the once pristine floor, she just stood there, completely untouched, tapping her stiletto-clad foot.
I had always prided myself on being competent. But when I needed to measure twenty milliliters of a substance, there were tools that could be used, like “spoons” and “beakers” and “scales” and the oh so obvious “measuring cup.”
“Is there a measuring device for magic?”
“Yes,” she said icily. “There are many. But they are for those who seek no skill at the craft.”
Maybe that was my problem. I had always thought of chemistry as a science, not a craft. Or maybe my problem was that this wasn't chemistry.
“Twenty milliliters.”
“Can—”
“Now.”
I shot my magic out and was dripping dark yellow sludge two seconds later.
“Again. The calcite this time.”
Frustration created a discordant harmony between stiletto heels tapping and my ears buzzing.
Twenty milliliters, eh? I'd create twenty milliliters of—
Boom.
I blew a hole through a giant kiln and a table, white powder puffing the air.
I stared, horrified—she was going to kill me—and quickly reached out and pushed all of my focus into making the objects whole, just like Draeger did in our pseudo room. Knit, knit, knit.
The kiln snapped back together, as did the table.
I didn't risk a look at her, I just concentrated that same focused energy—rotating a picture of a beaker filled with twenty milliliters around in my mind. I shot the image of the measurement at the umber pile and felt my magic crisply respond and follow.
The brown flakes sparkled briefly, then the odd light rested. The pile of pigment was now vital.
I backed away, afraid my heaving breaths would scatter my hard work. I chanced a look at Stevens, who was watching me.
Her eyes were unreadable. “Adequate,” she said, then looked down at the materials. “Which pigment speaks to you the most?”
My eyes slid to the pile of beautiful blue. “The lapis-lazuli,” I reluctantly said.
“Why?” She surveyed me.
“Crushed lapis-lazuli makes ultramarine pigment.” My voice lost volume at the end of the sentence. I cleared my throat. “The old masters used it for portrayals of power and importance, literal and figurative.”
“Do you crave power?”
I started to answer in the negative, but stopped myself. “I suppose, a bit, yes. I crave knowledge. I crave the ability to put forth every vision I create. But leading people, no. Not that kind of power.”
“What do you see when you focus your magic?”
“Paint flowing. A beaker appropriately leveled with magic.”
“Do it again.”
Keeping track of the feeling of how my magic had crisply responded and modifying the image depth according to her instructions, I was able to inject the right amount into each subsequent pile. Mostly. I made a mental note to buy a set of measuring tools so I could memorize the image of each level.
The more I exercised those images, the easier they would attach to my magic. I could feel it. And used with my paint drop image, I might be able to make a real go of this magic control thing.
I wiped at the dried and drying pigments painting me. I feared what was going to happen when I stepped out of this room. Thirty campus police officers might be standing on the other side.
I rubbed my painted hand. “Professor, why did you care about my shields?” They hadn't much saved me here.
She looked at me as if I'd said something inordinately stupid. “You should have been able to throw off my probes yesterday, with that kind of shielding.” She motioned sharply to my head. “Yet you let them sit, useless. What use is having a physical shield at all, if you let it dangle from your fingers, useless?”
I needed to power them constantly? I made a note to look it up. “Can everyone see the shield—shields?”
“No.” The skin at the sides of her eyes tightened, as if she hadn't meant to say that. “You can't even see them,” she said condescendingly.
I looked down at my hands. They were covered in streaks of umber, sienna, ochre, cobalt, and white. I tried to separate the colors from my hand. A thin, very thin, hue of gold outlined my hand for a moment, before disappearing from sight again.
A bolt of something shot toward me and I reacted, calling and shooting twenty milliliters of magic into the gold layer over my hand, lifting it in front of me.
The bolt bounced off. I blinked and watched Stevens easily wave away the reverberated magic.
She crossed her arms and sighed. “You have the stupid combination of attributes I seem destined to attract. Intuitive, determined, chaotic, and reckless. But denying talent is stupid, which I'm not. Meet me here at the same time tomorrow.”
She waved her hand and the pigments, binders, fillers, and solvents encasing me whooshed into the grate in the floor.
I blinked at her, shocked at both my squeaky clean state and that she was allowing me another session. “Tomorrow is Saturday.”
She gave me a hard stare.
“Thank you,” I said quickly, still in shock. “I'll be here tomorrow.”
She opened the door and motioned me out. The sun was directly overhead, which meant I had extended my time with her by at least an hour and a half.
I turned to her. “I
'm sorry, I—”
“Tomorrow.” She strode away.
No officers were waiting for me. I had just made paint. Stevens was going to teach me. I had just touched paint. I had passed her tests. I had just found a place I could paint.
Maybe...
I dug out my supplies and drew a quick sketch, then bypassing the lavender tube, I pressed a fingertip of store-bought paint to the page. An officer appeared two minutes later, tablet out, shaking his head at me. Another firesnake skin was added to my tally. I now had to collect nine.
But amazingly I hadn't been penalized for my actions inside the vault. The officer could have added a hundred skins and I'd still be flying high.
Nothing was going to stop me now.
Chapter Seventeen: Thieves, Pyramids, and Firesnakes
I checked to make sure my headless rock was still holding his pencil and pacing in my backpack, protecting the lavender paint tube I had tasked him to guard, then set off for the fourth circle.
Fortuitously, I ran into Will—who was surrounded by an increased golden glow, making him easy for me to pick out of the crowd. He cast a quick look around us. “I'm on my way to class, but I have something for you. The substance is exactly as described. I tested it against the dust, then converted it to liquid form. I tried it last night.” He grinned, then handed me a capped glass. “And I'm still alive. If you want to risk it, drink it all in one go. It tastes pretty gross.”
I downed it before I could second guess the decision, then shuddered. “I think the word you are looking for is vile.” I could feel the mixture spreading inside of me. I really hoped I wasn't swiping one horrible predicament for another. I used my tongue to swipe all lingering traces past my taste buds as quickly as possible.
He snickered at my facial expression and waved as he jogged off to class.
A student officer popped up minutes later, intercepting my route to the fourth circle. For once, I had actually earned a substance abuse infraction. I wondered if Will had gotten one.
“You have nine firesnake skins to collect?” The officer shook her head, aghast. “I'm not adding more. But there is a note in here that you've racked up too many of the same offense. I am required to take the substance.”
“What?”
The empty glass container flew out of my bag, into the air, and off down the mountain. I lost sight of it when it zipped between buildings one circle down.
“It was sent to the Midlands processing factory for recycling.”
Speechless, I clutched my bag, checking to make sure my rock and paint were still inside. I shakily zipped it. I don't know what I would have done if my paint tube had been taken. I held my bag against my chest, as if she might take it from me too.
Blood would be shed.
“Just so you know, that's going to happen from now on. Please get some help. But more firesnakes?” She grimaced and shook her head. “I'm not adding more. Here, do some cleaning.”
I quickly cleaned the building indicated, bag straps uncomfortably tight on my shoulders, still unnerved by my near miss. I was going to have to be absolutely sure of my warding from now on before using the lavender paint.
Something in me was illogically relieved by this.
I trudged off to my next punishment. The girl's reaction to the firesnake collection made me nervous. It was weird enough that I was going to collect snake skins, I hadn't thought of why I had been assigned such a punishment for an upper level offense.
Touching Will's bracelet and thinking about firesnakes produced an image of beautiful opalescent serpents breathing fire.
I mentally scrolled the stats. High level of camouflage ability. Favorite food source—mice turtles. Level Three Danger. Human death occurs twenty minutes after an untreated bite. Non-magicked exposure to freezing temperatures causes skins to shed spontaneously. Unnatural shedding makes them angry.
With great reluctance, I picked up a large bag of ice from Magi Mart.
Dragging the bag of ice behind me, I approached an unfamiliar section of the fourth circle. A patch of trees with red and gold leaves lit with an internal fire that was a little too beautiful and singular in the otherwise green landscape surrounding it. I slowed my steps, the feel of an invisible net tightening around me.
The “pavers” a few yards in front of me rattled and stilled. A vague outline of a thin tail curled into the grass. Then another nearly invisible snake weaved slowly over the blades of grass near the walk, hissing. Only the odd reflection of its scales was detectable, as it successfully camouflaged itself as it moved. It would be a lovely challenge to paint such a beautiful creature changing color in such a rippling, seamless fashion.
Fire streamed out from its tongue in a thin line as it hissed again.
A tree to my left was surrounded by sharp and exotically beautiful flowers and plants. Now that my eyes were growing accustomed to the sight, I could see a serpent lazily draped from the branches and another slithering through the rose vines webbing around the trunk, only careful observation and the fluttering outline as it stretched itself gave away its position. A strange mountainside garden of Eden with venomous guests.
And there wasn't a single shed snake skin anywhere that I could see. I checked the walking paths in the distance. Students were strolling a few hundred yards to the east. I could see a group of combat mages, and a familiar head of black hair. I could only hope that someone else would assist me when I died from a snake bite. If I woke up staring into ultramarine eyes, I was going to start thinking fate was seriously against me.
I paused on the thought, then dug out my campus map and queried the location of the nearest “clinic.” During the last few days, I had observed too many mages deliberately trip their fellows into the path of danger to trust the goodwill of strangers.
Sighing, I popped open the bag of ice at the perimeter of the red and gold trees. The firesnake area was abnormally warm. Thankfully, the weather mages had placed a chill on this circle today, so just outside of the firesnake area it was at least thirty degrees cooler. If it had been balmy like the sixth circle currently, my ice plan would be in deep trouble.
Bouncing an ice projectile in my hand, I gauged its weight, took careful aim and threw. Whack. The snake turned red, hissed a stream of fire in my direction, and spontaneously expelled its skin. The skin curled over the branch, then dropped softly to the ground. Unlike the other snakes, this one stayed a pinkish red, no longer blending into its environment.
Ok, that hadn't been so hard. Though, all of the other serpents were now staring at me, eyes red and enraged. They all started slithering toward me.
Ok, ok. Calm. Calm. One skin down, eight to—
A tall boy with brown hair that was slightly too long strolled by and lifted the fallen skin from the area that was now clear of snakes, since they were all writhing toward me. The boy continued strolling.
“Hey. Hey! That's my skin!” I yelled, but the firesnakes were moving toward me faster now.
He threw an obscene salute over his shoulder and kept walking.
“Constantine! Leandred, wait up,” a short blond boy called, huffing as he ran toward the thief, giving the red and gold trees a wide berth. “I want to talk to you about procuring a—hey, is that a firesnake skin?”
I could see them conducting a transaction—selling my firesnake skin—but I couldn't see the thief's face, his hair blocking my view. And the firesnakes were fast gaining on my position. I grabbed a handful of ice and darted to the left.
I powered my shield as much as I could, then prepared my black mental paint bucket to gather data on what death felt like. I prepared my ecru bucket to search for information on Christian while I was dead.
Two hours later, I was still miraculously alive, but my throwing shoulder was sore. I had discovered that firesnakes could air glide, and I had a dozen bruises and a grand total of four shed skins—not counting the one the thief had taken.
But I was getting a good workout evading “tackles” and my adrenaline was
fiercely flowing as Christian alternately crowed at my hits and cursed my misses. It felt like we were in the backyard throwing, catching, and evading invisible opponents again. If I missed a few of the easier shots because I wanted to clasp the feeling of this to me, no one would know of my weakness.
The sudden reverie was a weakness, however, and my inattention allowed a firesnake within striking range. Its jaws opened.
A pencil jabbed past my cheek and into the snake's mouth. The snake snapped through the pencil, but the moment gave me time to evade the second strike. My shield repelled its fire spit. The animated rock in my bag leaned over my shoulder, his rock legs hooked into my bag strap, his rock hands brandishing and shaking the remaining half-pencil at the snake hissing from the branch.
I blinked at the dangling rock, patted him on the top of his...rock...and set him upright.
I made quicker work collecting the other skins, though it still took me four hours to secure the full amount. I deposited nine in a mailbox at the address specified and tucked an extra into a plastic bag in my backpack. As irritating as the theft of the first skin had been, it had taught me a valuable lesson about what things might be worth.
I proceeded directly to the battle building and activated Draeger.
He crossed his arms. “What's wrong, Cadet?” he barked.
“I need to learn everything,” I said, shucking off my backpack. “I want to know how to—”
A square opened in the wall and my backpack zoomed inside. I lunged after it, but the wall closed, and my hands smacked solid marble. “No, no!” My paint, my rock, my snakeskin—my paint.
“Ease up, Cadet. You have high level prohibitory items in your bag that aren't permitted in here while the wards are running. Your bag will be returned when you deactivate me. Now, let's—”
I yanked his cartridge from the slot. The wall square opened and I grabbed my pack, breathing heavily until I sorted through the contents and was satisfied that everything was still there. It took a solid minute before I was able to reactivate the cartridge. Draeger appeared, and my bag zoomed back into the holding cell.