Shadow Grail #2: Conspiracies

by Mercedes Lackey; Rosemary Edghill

  Suddenly the lights went out. Completely out.

  The “Happy New Year!” shouts died, abruptly. It was very dark, and unexpectedly quiet. A couple people laughed nervously. Even the emergency exit lights were out. It was like being in a cave.

  Spirit wondered if this was supposed to be part of the evening, even as Burke held her hand even tighter. But nothing happened, and even the nervous laughter died out.

  She got a strange, horrible, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, and a cold chill went down her back that had nothing to do with the cooling air of the room.

  Something was wrong. And something very bad was about to happen.…

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tor Teen Books by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill

  Praise for Shadow Grail #1: Legacies

  Copyright

  ONE

  It was Christmas morning, and as she woke in a bed that still seemed strange, Spirit White had never in her life felt less festive.

  It didn’t help, of course, that this was her first Christmas since … The Accident. Her first Christmas without Mom and Dad and her baby sister, Phoenix. As she lay there half asleep, Spirit expected to feel the thump of Fee bouncing down on her bed and demanding she get up right now, it was Christmas, come on. And that would never happen again, because on a summer night less than a year ago, her sister and her parents had died in an accident that never should have happened. That alone was enough to make Spirit want to burrow into the covers of this bed and sleep until New Year’s Day. At least. But adding to her sense of dislocation was where she was. If someone had told her this was where she’d be twelve months ago, Spirit would have laughed in their face.

  The middle of Montana was a place so unlike her Indiana home that she could have been on another planet. And she was living at Oakhurst Academy: a luxurious boarding school—an orphanage—that invested more money just in sports equipment than most people made in a year. But the most unbelievable thing of all was what Oakhurst taught, and who the school taught, and why she was here.

  Oakhurst taught Grammery—magic. And the only people who were allowed to attend Oakhurst were future magicians. Orphaned future magicians.

  But Oakhurst was no happy, cozy place that nurtured young wizards and witches with feasts and magical competitions and quirky living quarters. Oh no. Being at Oakhurst was like being in one of those teen slasher movies where only the most competitive survived. And she meant that literally—because some of her classmates hadn’t survived.

  Only three days ago, she and the few friends she’d managed to make here—Oakhurst didn’t want its students to make friends or keep them—had managed to defeat the evil force that had been killing Oakhurst students for almost forty years. And no one had realized this was going on, because everyone—well, all the students anyway—had just assumed that the missing kids ran away, or got too sick for the Oakhurst medical facilities to treat, or were sent away for some other reason. Until Spirit arrived at Oakhurst, no one had counted up the missing and come up with the truly scary total that she and her friends had.

  The five of them shouldn’t even have realized anything was wrong. Everything about Oakhurst, Spirit had realized, was designed to distract you, to make you come up with some sort of plausible explanation instead of looking for the real truth. Spirit wasn’t really sure what had made them look past the convenient smoke screen. Was it because she and Loch were new here? Was it because one of the kids who vanished had been a friend of Muirin’s?

  Was it because she, Spirit White, didn’t have the magic powers every other kid here had? The teachers—and Doctor Ambrosius—told her she did. They’d told her that her magic was why she was here.

  At least Burke had said that everybody’s magic didn’t show up at the same time. He was being kind—Spirit knew that—but at least not having magic had one advantage. Everybody who did have magic could sense each others’ presence. It had been Loch who, knowing she didn’t have magic, had used that to defeat the thing that had been killing Oakhurst students.…

  * * *

  As the sounds got closer, Spirit could see Jeeps, SUVs. The vehicles were rusted and burned out, as if they’d come from some supernatural junkyard. Lashed to every grille or hood was a set of antlers: deer, elk, even moose, and each vehicle held passengers. Some leaned out the sides of doorless, roofless SUVs. Some stood in the beds of pickup trucks, whooping and hollering and urging the drivers onward. They were dressed in the ragged remains of hunting clothes—hunter’s orange and red-and-black buffalo plaids and woodland camo. Skeletal hands gripped roll bars and steering wheels and door frames. Eyeless skulls covered in tatters of rotting flesh gazed avidly toward their prey. Every single one of them was dead.…

  * * *

  The Wild Hunt was supposed to be a myth, a folktale, a legend: a ghostly troop of riders—a hunt—that galloped across the sky, capturing or killing anyone it met. It hadn’t been supposed to be real. Spirit wanted to think she and her friends—Loch, Addie, Muirin, and Burke—had actually managed to destroy the Wild Hunt, but she was pretty sure they hadn’t. They couldn’t possibly be that lucky.

  At least they’d made it go away. Spirit burrowed deeper under the covers, shivering at the memory. They’d been crazy to try taking on the Hunt by themselves. It was a miracle they’d won. And their reward for doing the impossible had been a pat on the head from Doctor Ambrosius, Oakhurst’s headmaster.

  And that was an odd thing that stood out even in the middle of the general weirdness that was Oakhurst. On the day she and Loch had arrived, Doctor Ambrosius had told them that they—everyone here at Oakhurst—had enemies, and that a final showdown was coming. That was why he brought all of them here after their parents died. That was why he was training them in magic.

  So if that’s true, wouldn’t he be a little more interested in the fact that there is a band of ghosts or demons or elves running around outside his magical shields?

  They’d already figured out that the Hunt had been raiding on the campus as well as off it. Oakhurst was surrounded by an invisible magical barrier—its wards—that wouldn’t allow anything that didn’t “belong” at Oakhurst to come in. For the Hunt to be able to raid on campus …

  There had to be someone at Oakhurst—one of the teachers or one of the staff—letting them in.

  And they had no idea who that might be.

  At least we’re still alive to try to figure it out, Spirit thought glumly. That beats the alternative. I guess.

  Then again, the alternative was Christmas at Oakhurst.

  There were no real “holidays” here, only a few days in which they didn’t have classes, and despite the fact that there was a town only a few miles away, the students here were as isolated as if they were in prison: no television, no Internet—no junk food!—and the only movies they could watch were on the “approved” list. The rules were relaxed—just a little—at the school dances. That seemed to satisfy most of the kids. It only made Spirit think of how much she’d lost.

  I hate this place, she thought numbly. And not because Doctor Ambrosius turned me into a mouse during my “Welcome to Oakhurst” interview, and not because I’m the only one in the
entire school who can’t cast spells, and not just because even the teachers here are trying to kill all of us, and not even because I’m pretty sure this whole place wants us to all hate each other. I hate it because they even turn the holidays into work.

  The month of December had been packed not only with classes—and everybody’s course-load was brutal—but with preparations for their so-called week of vacation. It wasn’t really. There were a lot of requirements, like snow and ice sculptures, including a snow castle and a snow maze. You’d think stuff like that would be just for fun, but it wasn’t. It was a course requirement for the Water Witches, who were graded on Grammery, art, and architectural design.

  Way to suck the fun out of playing in the snow, thankyew, thankyew very much, Spirit thought mockingly.

  The Water Witches weren’t the only ones with “vacation” homework. The music classes rehearsed for a Christmas concert. The English classes rehearsed a play for New Year’s Eve. The athletic teams practiced for yet another series of demonstrations and contests. And everybody rehearsed for Christmas Day, which included another of Oakhurst’s hideous “formal dinners.” Even the carol-singing was mandatory.

  Even if no one else is as depressed as I am, by the time today comes, everyone should be so sick of getting ready for it, all they’ll want is for it to be over.

  Suddenly Spirit’s pillow was snatched off her head. She made a grab for it, but Muirin held it out of reach.

  “Up!” the redhead commanded. “You’re going to miss breakfast!”

  Spirit responded by pulling her blanket over her head. “Wake me when it’s New Year’s,” she muttered. “And you aren’t supposed to go into somebody’s room without permission,” she added sulkily.

  In reply, Muirin pulled the blanket off the end of the bed. Spirit yelped at the blast of cold air. Oakhurst believed that sleeping in cold bedrooms was good for you. Now she was completely awake, and there was no point in trying to out-stubborn Muirin. With a growl, she tossed back the covers, grabbed her robe, and stalked into her bathroom, shutting the door on Muirin’s smug look of triumph.

  She stalked out again a few minutes later, damp from her shower, and stomped into her closet. It was big enough to dress in—her whole bedroom here had luxuries she’d never imagined owning, like a flat-screen TV and her very own microwave—and it was the same as every other student’s. They all had private rooms, and their own computers, and …

  Pretty much everything they wanted, except privacy, freedom, and their families back.

  A few minutes later, she came out of the closet, dressed—in an Oakhurst uniform, of course—for another wonderful day on Planet Oakhurst. Almost everything she owned—after The Accident, and its aftermath—was an Oakhurst uniform. She was really tired of brown and gold. Since the fancy formal dinner was going to be fancy and formal, she couldn’t even wear pants (even though you usually could during vacation), but she could still make her feelings known. She chose a brown skirt that went down to mid-calf, brown tights, brown shoes, brown sweater, and brown blouse. There. She looked like a Mennonite. A dowdy Mennonite. All she needed was the little white hat.

  Muirin rolled her eyes at the sight of her outfit. “You don’t really want Burke and Loch to see you in that, do you?”

  Argh. No, she didn’t. Burke was sweet, and Loch was really cute, and—unlike most of the other kids, like Kylee and Dylan—neither of them had tried to kill her in the four months she’d been here. But she’d be damned if she was going to look “cheerful” when she felt so depressed. She set her jaw. Muirin gave a pained sigh. Muirin had fire red hair and vivid green eyes and was fashion-model skinny and the closest thing to an outlaw rebel that could survive here, since even if you didn’t just “disappear,” collecting enough demerits could make your life a living hell. Muirin despised Oakhurst’s Dress Code, and had somehow managed to alter every bit of her own clothing so that it was just barely within school guidelines. How she got away with it, Spirit still didn’t know. Maybe she cast an illusion over herself every time there was a teacher in sight.

  Only that wouldn’t work, Spirit thought in irritation. Because if you have magic, you can tell when somebody’s using it around you. The only one Muirin could really fool here … is me.

  “Come on, come on—they’re having French toast and pancakes even though it isn’t Sunday!” Muirin said, bouncing up and down at her. Muirin was a sugar addict, and one of her many grievances with Oakhurst was the lack of junk food on the school menus. Spirit really didn’t miss anything but soda, but Muirin and Seth—he’d been one of the Wild Hunt’s last victims—had set up their own smuggling operation to get contraband into Oakhurst from nearby Radial.

  * * *

  The dining room was nearly empty. A lot of the school rules were relaxed a little over the Christmas holiday, so you didn’t have to show up for breakfast if you didn’t want to, though if you missed it, you had to starve until lunch. Today, missing breakfast meant you’d be stuck until about two-thirty, because the formal meals were always later than regular lunch. But even so, it looked as if at least half of the other kids had decided to skip breakfast in favor of more sleep. Not that it would be much more sleep, because there was a mandatory “spiritual education” service at ten. Any place else, it would be a church service, but Oakhurst was special. In the not-good way.

  Addie, Burke, and Loch were already in the Refectory, sharing their usual table. Burke, as usual, was working his way through an enormous “healthy” breakfast: eggs and toast and sausage and potatoes and orange juice. Addie was crunching delicately away on a slice of toast, with a mug of tea at her elbow. Loch had a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him, but he was pretty much ignoring it to talk to the others. The moment Spirit slipped into her seat, one of the servers came around to ask her what she wanted for breakfast. (That was another creepy thing about Oakhurst. It was like living in a combination of Motel Hell and a fancy restaurant, because they had waiters and waitresses serving them at every meal.)

  “Waffles!” Muirin said eagerly. “And cocoa, and orange juice, and bacon, and—”

  “Just cornflakes, thanks,” Spirit said, cutting Muirin off. At least during “vacations” you didn’t have to eat a whole Healthy Breakfast if you didn’t want to. The server nodded and walked away.

  “Boy, somebody woke up in a bad mood this morning!” Muirin mocked.

  Spirit glared at her, her blue eyes crackling with anger. “My parents are dead,” she said, biting off each word. “My sister is dead. I don’t even have any pictures of them because our house burned down while I was in the hospital having my third—or maybe it was my fourth—surgery after the crash. And now I’m here. And it’s Christmas. So why don’t you tell me what I’ve got to be perky about?”

  “Well,” Loch said, after a moment, “you don’t have to go out and fight the Demon King of Hell today.”

  Addie gave a startled snort of laughter. It always seemed so odd when Addie made a rude noise. She was a plump girl with brown eyes and long, smooth, jet-black hair, and she looked a little like Snow White and a little like Alice in Wonderland, and a lot like somebody very prim and proper and maybe even stuck-up. And nothing could be farther from the truth, even though she was—Spirit had been stunned to discover—the sole heir to Prester-Lake BioCo., a pharmaceutical company worth literally millions.

  “True,” Addie said. “Unfortunately, you do have to attend the concert. Sorry,” she added. Addie was in the Choral Society, so she’d be performing. Spirit was starting to suspect Addie’d joined the choir so she wouldn’t have to attend the concerts. They were deadly dull.

  The server returned with the plate of waffles and the bowl of cornflakes. Of course, since this was Oakhurst, they couldn’t just be regular normal cornflakes. No, they were topped with slices of banana that had been dusted with brown sugar. Spirit picked up the milk pitcher and poured milk into her bowl.

  “I know today’s gotta be pretty awful for you—both of you,” Burke said, n
odding to include Loch in the statement. “It’ll get, I don’t want to say ‘better,’ but you’ll get used to it.”

  “Used to it hurting,” Spirit said. She inhaled deeply, blinking against tears.

  “Yeah,” Burke said, and Addie nodded in sympathy. Addie had been orphaned three years ago, and Burke had been an orphan all his life—he had a set of foster parents in the Outside World that he talked about going back to once he graduated.

  “I kind of wish it did hurt,” Loch said quietly. Loch was the only other one of the five of them who’d lost his family recently, and all Loch had lost—as he’d be the first to say—was a father he hadn’t been close to. Benjamin Spears had left his only son to be raised by a series of exclusive private schools. Oakhurst wasn’t much of a change for Loch. Aside from the magic, of course.

  At least Loch has his magic. I’m the only person at a whole school for magicians who can’t cast a single spell.

  It was true. The first thing that happened to you once you reached Oakhurst was getting tested to find out which School you had an “affinity” for. There were four of them: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The School you belonged to determined what kind of magic you had: Addie was School of Water, a Water Witch, while Muirin’s ability to cast perfect illusions meant her powers belonged to the School of Air, and Burke’s Combat Magery put him in the School of Earth.

  Even Loch had passed his tests with flying colors. He had what they called minor Gifts from two Schools: Shadewalking, and Kenning, from the School of Air, and Pathfinding from the School of Earth.

  Spirit hadn’t had an affinity for any School at all.

  “So … before the concert we’ve got that religious service, right?” Spirit said, just to change the subject.

  “Not really religious, but yeah,” Burke replied. “That’s ten to eleven-thirty, then the concert’s from twelve to two, then dinner at two-thirty. Fifty different spoons, the whole formal thing.”

  “It’ll be fun,” Muirin said, looking up from drowning her waffles in syrup to make a disgusted face.