A Spell for Death: Rosewilde Academy of Magical Arts
Page 13
“Please,” Isaac said, desperate. “Please, can we not?”
He answered my question more directly when Lucas retreated to the other side of the room from Hunter. They both were glaring at each other, but at least neither had thrown punches. “Nathan devised a ritual. We don’t know where he got it, or what it was really for. He didn’t explain, and frankly, even if he’d tried, there’s a good chance we wouldn’t have been able to understand. He kept talking about a scar that had to be fixed, something that was done here that caused irreparable damage, about… about something in the world that shouldn’t be. But even he didn’t know what the damage was. He confessed that what he wanted to do would be terribly dangerous. Perhaps deadly. He asked us to help him.”
“Hunter refused,” Lucas muttered. “If he hadn’t—”
“Lucas,” Isaac warned.
Hunter said nothing, glowering into some invisible distance.
“But you two did,” I guessed. It had started to make sense, at least some of it. “And Nathan died, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Lucas said softly.
Hunter, though, disagreed. “Possibly.”
The two of them shared a look that should have set the air between them on fire from the friction of their eyes.
“Lucas and I saw Nathan…” Isaac had to pause, and swallow loudly. “He was taken through a breach. The old scar he was talking about, perhaps. From the structure of the spells he used, it leads to some other place. Another dimension. Which one, though, we don’t know. Almost all of them are hostile to human life.”
“But not all of them,” Hunter said. “Not all of them are deadly and the ones that are, there are ways to survive. Nathan could have protected himself, could have pulled something at the last minute, or found an ally, or jumped to some other, safer place. You both saw the things he could do, and you were always envious of his power, and skill and you—”
Isaac turned and slapped Hunter, open-palmed, right across the face. The sound startled me. “Don’t,” he snapped. Brittle anger made the man’s voice shake. “Don’t you dare, you son of a bitch. We weren’t jealous of him; we loved him. And when we saw that he wasn’t going to back down, we chose to try and help him do it safely, to support him so that he wouldn’t die pointlessly from his own insatiable curiosity. And if you hadn’t abandoned us, maybe he wouldn’t have!”
I thought the tension in the room might strangle me and had to force myself to exhale when Hunter only turned his face from Isaac and clammed up. So. This was the entire grudge between them. I had clearly stumbled into it all and worried what it would mean to be tangled up in it. My heart ached for them, even if they’d used me. Who wouldn’t have? If they lost a loved one? If I knew, or even thought, I could get answers to my own past or even bring my parents back by doing something similar to the three of them, I couldn’t lie to myself about what choice I would make. Maybe I would have gone about it differently, been more careful—but maybe not.
“All right,” I said, “everyone just… this all seems really fresh, but you haven’t answered all my questions. What did you think you could get from me? Can’t you just pick his spell apart?”
“No,” Hunter said in a giant sigh. “It’s not that simple. There are over twenty-eight spells involved in Nathan’s ritual. Something from almost every path of magic, and about a dozen spells that aren’t recorded anywhere that I can find.”
“Or us,” Lucas added. “Hunter isn’t the only one searching for answers; he just thinks the answer is in unlocking Nathan’s ritual to try it again. To bring him back. Or bring back whatever’s left of him.”
Hunter didn’t dispute that.
“It’s suicide,” Lucas went on, turning the full heat of his eyes on me. “If Nathan Crowley couldn’t do it successfully, there’s not a fucking magician alive that could do it. He wanted our help and we refused because we already lost Nathan.”
“You refused because you’re a coward—”
“Boys,” I barked. “Tell me what you thought you could get from me. Right now.”
Hunter shot Lucas a last angry look, but that anger melted when he turned his attention to me. “Since that year,” he said, “all seven survivors are either missing or dead. Based on the timeline Nathan put together, your parents were the last of them. We hoped that if you were able to remember your brief time with them, they might have said something that would explain what they were doing that year. What kind of magic it was, some clue that would point us to the right resources. Some of these spells may well be Nathan’s invention, but others he might have found during the course of his research. The Academy covered up the whole event, and the governors placed the investigation under seal. Even the yearbooks were redacted.”
“Without knowing what the spells are meant to do,” Isaac explained, “attempting them could be catastrophic. Ritual magic requires several spells all working in conjunction with one another. Some of them, on their own, do nothing. Others set up critical forces and contain or direct them. And without the proper context…”
“We could just end up killing ourselves or everyone in the school,” Lucas finished.
I let that sink in, and it seemed they did the same. Hunter was the only one watching me. “We should have asked you,” he said. “We decided that we couldn’t risk you saying no. It’s unconscionable, and you have every right to hate us for it. But… it seems now like there may have been consequences we didn’t foresee. If you can tell us what you remembered, though—perhaps we can solve both problems. Yours, and ours.”
“I will,” I said as I stood. “And I get it. You all lost someone close to you, and you want to know why, or fix it.”
Lucas and Isaac seemed to relax. But prematurely.
“But,” I said, holding up a hand, “right now I just need time to… process. It’s hard to look at the three of you.”
I went to the door and pulled it open but paused in the doorway without looking back. “I need some time. And some space. And I think I need to apologize to Serena. When I’m ready, I’ll come and find you.”
And I left them, their fallen faces twisting at my heart. I hugged myself, keeping my eyes down to avoid any eye contact with the occasional students I passed.
I only hoped that, at some point, I would be ready to find them again.
Amelia
The churn of emotions in my head and heart followed me away from the dorms and down into the dining room, to the courtyard, and when I focused on my need to find Serena and let the compass guide me to her, it followed me there as well. I saw her with a book, tucked away in one corner of the courtyard. From some distance away, I watched her.
Serena always seemed to be ‘on’. This image of her, leaning against one of the corners of the stone tiers that gave the courtyard its various levels, reading a book with a look of pinched concentration on her face, almost didn’t seem real. Where were the throngs of adoring men and women that I always assumed she was surrounded by when I wasn’t looking at her?
She didn’t know exactly what I’d thought of her before, but that didn’t make me feel less guilty for it. I approached cautiously, and when I was a few yards away she looked up. “All done? How’d your secret meeting go? You don’t look well-fucked.”
“It’s all on the inside,” I sighed. “And… not in a good way. Can I sit?”
“I can understand why you’d think it,” she said, turning the page, “but I don’t actually own this place. I just play top-bitch on TV.”
I took that as a yes, smiling as I sat down next to her. “What are you reading?”
“I’m behind in Sigils and Seals,” she said. “Studying on the weekends is not a regular thing for me, lest you get ideas. So… things didn’t go great?”
“Serena, I—”
She held up a hand. “You don’t have to tell me anything or apologize. Secrets are part of being a magician; we all have them. I don’t tell you everything and probably never will. What’s going on between you and the guys is yo
ur business and theirs, and if I really wanted to know I would astral project or scry or send one of the local ghosts to spy on you for me. I do it all the time—Belinda Grace and Micky Bale are, like, better than reality TV; you should see the hexes they put on each other over the stupidest shit. I wish I could record it. Micky ate out this other girl over the summer and Belinda almost made his dick fall off. It was glorious.”
I laughed, horrified but somehow unable to resist. Serena joined in, quieter, and for a moment we just had that. “I’m not sure the stuff between the guys is my business to spread,” I said when we were quiet again. “But it’s not because I don’t trust you, or don’t want you to know. I can tell you my part, though, and I’m sorry it seemed like I didn’t want you to know before.”
Serena shook her head. “You don’t have to do that, Amelia,” she muttered. “It probably seems like we’re friends or something, but honestly it’s none of my business and I’m just your first-term guide.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I said, and shifted to face her. “You could have left me in that room, let me clean myself up, and gone off to gossip about it.”
“You don’t know I didn’t do that the minute I got out here,” she pointed out.
“You took me where I needed to go instead,” I went on. “Got me dressed, asked if I was okay before asking what happened. That’s friend level stuff.”
She groaned and set the book aside. “All right. If you feel you have to unburden yourself, I’m listening.”
And she did listen as I told her about my memories, about my parents—even about the Abyss and the scary shit that went down, apparently, before I was born. Her face was impassive through most of it. Until I told her how it happened.
“Those assholes,” she breathed. “Mithra’s golden taint, I can’t believe they did that.”
I shrugged. “Not to let them off the hook—I’m still pissed—but… I kind of get it, I guess. They lost their friend.”
“Nathan?” she asked. “Is that what this is about?”
“Did you know him?”
Serena blew out a long breath. “Sure, everyone did. He was star everything. Amazing magician, hot as fuck, popular with all the students and most of the staff. Nice guy, a little withdrawn. When he died, it hit a lot of people hard. We all expected him to, I don’t know, single-handedly fix the climate and take us to Mars and shit. Big, world-changing stuff. This was all about him?”
I propped my elbow on the retaining wall. “I guess so. You know Hunter doesn’t think he’s dead, though?”
She pulled a grimace. “That’s so sad. Poor guy. No wonder he barely leaves his room. Those four were close, always together. Lucas and Isaac seemed to move on. Maybe they’re just better at hiding it. So, did your parents have something to do with it all? Back in 1999?”
“It seems like it,” I said. “I want to find out. I really want to trust the guys, too. It’s hard, though.”
“Must be,” she agreed. “What are you going to do?”
“I wish I knew,” I said, my eyes falling on her book. “At the least… keep going to class, try to get caught up. Decide whether I want to keep going or not. It’s amazing, all of this—magic, the guys, you—but it’s scary, too. I guess I worry… the way I got here; it’s like it was always meant to happen.”
Serena frowned. “Like…”
“I can’t shake this feeling there’s some plan in store for me,” I said, “and if I walk away now, while there’s a chance, it never comes to pass.”
“Heavy stuff.” She put a hand on mine. “If you wanna talk about it, I’m here. But I think that choice probably has to be yours.”
I understood what she was saying. No one could make that choice for me. Which was usually true. The problem was, I’d begun to worry that it really wasn’t.
As awful as the experience had been, at the very least I did retain the languages I’d learned that night and over the following weeks they more than justified the cost. Finally, I was able to keep pace and even start catching up in my classes. Professor Wardwell stopped giving me that exasperated look every time I asked a question and instead started answering them. He didn’t offer any praise for having caught up to the point that I knew what questions to ask, but then he pretty much never praised a student for anything at all, as far as I could tell.
Consequently, now that I understood my homework, I had to start doing it consistently. As the days ticked by, I spent more time with Serena, either in the courtyard, the library, or in her room. I wanted to rely on the guys less, and the soreness from what they’d done did wane but didn’t go away entirely. Every time I did see them, there were apologies and promises but I just wasn’t ready. For one thing, I hadn’t decided if I would stay. Hunter was the only one who’d stay silent, having said his piece already. But each time I went back to our room, I could feel his eyes lingering on me. I didn’t know if that was better or worse than when he’d ignored me completely before.
Yes. Being a magician seemed amazing. Who would turn down magic under normal circumstances? Except, these weren’t normal circumstances. The more time I spent dwelling on what I remembered, the more I began to worry that I was meant for something… not good. While I didn’t encounter another horrifying rape-demon vision in the showers again, I did have terrible dreams.
Sometimes, I would be back in that black liquid void, running away from something I couldn’t see. Others, I would hear my parents talking about getting rid of me, and then see their faces twisted like monsters as they tried to kill me. They chased me through the woods, through the hallways of the Academy, and through the house they’d owned when I was born. Every night I had these dreams and they were tack-sharp, rock solid, and impossible to wake up from. Mara suggested a book on lucid dreaming when I asked about magic to make nightmares stop, but it was a skill that could take months to learn.
I had been avoiding Lucas and Isaac for two weeks just to keep from having the same apologetic conversation again, when Lucas finally found me in the courtyard after classes on a Friday. His shadow blocked the sun, and I looked up and there he was. I closed the lucid dreaming book and sighed. “Lucas.”
“I’m not here to rehash it all,” he said, “I promise. I come bearing a gift.”
“Oh?” I asked, my lips twisting into a slight sneer. “Will it turn my brain inside out?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “That… is a fair question. No, it will not. It’s a bus pass.”
“Huh?” I asked as he held out a slip of paper, which I took from him to look it over. It was embossed with the school’s crest and signed. By the headmaster.
“You asked that I get you a spot on the first bus back to town,” he explained. “I promised I would. If you still want to go—this is your official opportunity. Of course, one will arrive approximately every month but I don’t know that I can convince the headmaster to sign a pass every four weeks.”
It was an out. I could go home. I technically owned my godmother’s house now. It would be empty, but it would be mine, and I could probably reapply to MIT. I knew a little magic, practical stuff that would make life a bit easier. Maybe if I left the Academy, got some distance, the dreams would even stop. I looked up at Lucas. “Thank you. I had almost forgotten; I figured you did, too.”
“Never,” he said. “I can be a bastard. And despite what Isaac claims, I do keep my promises, Amelia. We all do, the three of us.”
All of them had promised honesty since that night, and never to pull anything like that again. Maybe that’s what he was talking about.
“The bus arrives in about an hour,” he said. “If you like, and it’s what you decide, we’d want to see you off.”
I tucked the bus pass into my book and stood up, hugging the book to my stomach. “I had a suitcase when I arrived.”
Lucas bobbed his head and glanced at the south wing. “The Academy would see it delivered to your home. It’s tagged somewhere, and they’ll know if you decide to leave.”
He took a step back. “All right. Then we’ll see you there.”
His sad smile lingered for a moment longer before he finally turned away. As he left, I looked down to examine the bit of the pass still sticking out of the book. For the next hour I wandered the halls of the Academy. I dropped by the library to return the book, tucking the pass into my blazer pocket. Mara was surprised. “Did it help? Usually lucid dreaming takes a long time to master.”
“Not sure yet,” I said. “If I need it again, I’ll come check it back out. Thanks, Mara.”
“Anytime,” she said, frowning a little. “Are you okay?”
My indecision must have been painted on my face. It was all I’d been able to think about. “Just have a big decision to make.”
“I see,” she said as she plucked the record card from the inside cover to slot it back into the box with the others.
“You’ve been a magician a long time,” I said, “haven’t you?”
She shrugged. “Longer than some, not as long as others. Why?”
I leaned on the counter, but only until she eyed my elbows disapprovingly. “Has it been worth it? I mean, if you had it to do over again… would you make the same choice?”
“Worth, that is hard to quantify,” she said. “If I had it to do over again? Yes—I would.”
“Why?” I pressed. “I mean, why did you keep going?”
Mara pursed her lips and steepled her fingers. “Some will tell you,” she said, “that being a magician is about freedom—about slipping loose the shackles of life’s rules. To know, to dare, to will, after all. To me, however, magic is more than freedom to do as I wish. It is about the freedom to be who I wish. If you are not sure whether you will continue, Amelia—try to decide for yourself what magic is to you. If you do not know, then you cannot make such a decision.”