She wasn’t wearing the Oakhurst uniform, and today she wasn’t even in Oakhurst brown or gold. She wore a slim skirt and bulky sweater in shades of dark emerald, a carved jade pendant, and jade bangles. Spirit got the feeling Madison Lane-Rider was deliberately showing that she wasn’t to be slotted into some preset place on the “team.” And Spirit also got the feeling that between the outfit and the jewelry, what Ms. Lane-Rider was wearing could probably have paid for the White’s old house.
Evidently, Spirit had ticked off “Nordic folklore,” because that was what Ms. Lane-Rider began to lecture on.
“Death,” she said, when everyone had settled. “Death is omnipresent in Nordic lore. There is probably not a single culture that celebrates death or elevates it to such a level of importance as the Norse. Other cultures have the cult of heroic self-sacrifice to save others, to be sure, and the Japanese have, or had, the Kamikaze of sorts, but only the Norse placed so much emphasis on ‘dying well’ regardless of what was won or lost—”
Dylan raised his hand. She acknowledged him with a raised eyebrow.
“What about Klingons?” he asked, eliciting a laugh.
“Very good. Writers have to start with something, and it is quite clear that the Klingon attitude is Nordic, though their catchphrase of ‘It is a good day to die’ is Native American. Now, the question we must answer as magicians, is: ‘What does this mean to us, and how can we use it?’”
Spirit listened, and took copious notes, even though she didn’t agree morally with an awful lot of what Ms. Lane-Rider had to say. Or maybe more to the point, Ms. Lane-Rider lectured from a completely amoral point of view, and Spirit could not have been more opposed. She could tell that Muirin was just drinking all of this in, though, and that worried her. When the class was over, Ms. Lane-Rider even stopped by Muirin’s desk to talk to her about something, which worried Spirit even more. She couldn’t wait, though; her next class was that Systema thing, and she was pretty sure Anastus Ovcharenko was not going to cut anyone any slack.
He didn’t. And Systema proved to be a martial art, but it wasn’t like anything that had been taught at Oakhurst before this. As Mr. Ovcharenko explained it, it was all about controlling the joints of the opponent, since this was where you got the most gain for the least force. He talked for about ten minutes, then said abruptly: “Bah! Enough of talking. Now we spar.”
And instead of exercises or kata, that was exactly what they did. He broke them into teams of two—and he seemed to have a pretty good idea of who the bullies in the class were, because he paired them off against each other and the glint in his eye said that this wasn’t an accident. After he’d let the pairs match off against each other for a while, he stopped them, and demonstrated some moves, drilled them, then set them to sparring again. But he wasn’t looking for “the right counter.” In fact, when Dylan repeated the same strike three times, he interrupted, shouting “Nyet! Svinya! This is not tournament! Systema is to be flexible, reactive, and never, never to set up pattern! Now, again! This time being to think!”
Up close, he was a surprise. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty; very blond with brilliant blue eyes, almost too handsome to be real. But he had very cold eyes, and Spirit got the feeling that almost everything he did was a carefully calculated act—a Systema of behavior, designed to fool everyone around him until he decided to take out a weak spot.
* * *
All through dinner, all that Muirin could talk about was Madison Lane-Rider, and it was driving Spirit crazy. It was as if Muirin had discovered a long-lost older sister. Not that Spirit was jealous—but because her instincts were screaming at her not to trust the woman.
“Muirin,” she finally snapped, “you’re acting like you and this woman you didn’t even know existed two days ago are BFFs! I mean, we don’t know anything about these people, and she could be one of the Shadow Knights for all we know!”
Muirin looked offended. “I’m not stupid! All I’m trying to do is get information out of her! Can I help it if she’s the first person I’ve ever met here who knows the difference between Donatella Versace and her brother? It’s the first time in months that I’ve had an intelligent conversation that wasn’t about conspiracies, disappearances, or people trying to kill us!” Her voice took on the tiniest edge of something like hysteria. “I just want to have a normal conversation like a normal person and enjoy some normal things in this lunatic farm!”
“Whoa, Murr-cat,” Burke said soothingly. “Spirit didn’t mean you were being stupid. Did you, Spirit?”
Spirit shook her head, although she was pretty sure that Muirin was lying. These people were exactly the sort that Muirin wanted to be around and be like—rich, connected, and fashionable. Muirin might not betray their secrets consciously, but subconsciously she was likely to give a lot more away than she realized.
“Anyway, I did find out something and I was getting to that,” Muirin continued resentfully. “You know how I said there’s some kind of Skull and Bones thing going on here? Well, I got Madison to admit to being one!” She tossed her head with a look of triumph. “She told me that the strength of your magic isn’t the only way you can stand out here. She said there’s what she called an ‘inner circle’ of exceptional students. She said the Gatekeepers pick these people because they’ve ‘embraced their potential to accomplish great things.’”
“And I’m the Keymaster,” Addie drawled, which made Loch crack up while Spirit and Burke were completely lost. “Never mind. So, what else did she tell you? Secret handshake? Password? Do they all have little tramp-stamp tattoos? This isn’t quite on the same level as Elizabeth’s Sekrit K-niggits of Arthur, but she could just be feeding you a line, Murr-cat.”
“Ha! That’s where you’re wrong, and I can prove it!” Muirin retorted triumphantly. “They all wear badges. It’s the Oakhurst coat of arms, and they do it as a pin or a tie tack or cuff links—”
“Muirin, we all get those pins in the second year,” Burke interrupted.
“We get a pin; it’s not the same,” she replied. “The regular pins, the snake is gold. The Gatekeepers, the snake is black.” She settled back to finish off the last bites of her dessert with a satisfied air.
“Huh…,” Loch said thoughtfully. “Madison Lane-Rider was wearing one of those and I thought it was kind of strange because, well, think about it, I’ve never seen anything other than gold and brown on anything from Oakhurst.”
Right, so everyone wears a little name tag that says HELLO, MY NAME IS EVIL? Spirit thought. It can’t be that easy. And you don’t have a shred of proof that these Gatekeepers are the same as the Shadow Knights, either!
“You don’t … could they be the Shadow Knights?” she asked tentatively.
“Oh, get real, Spirit! They’re the ones that came pounding up like the cavalry,” Muirin snapped. “They’re just as likely to be the Grail Knights, if you’re going to buy into Elizabeth’s fantasy. Which I don’t. Just because the snake on their badge is black, that doesn’t mean a thing; and since when would bad guys advertise who they were with a nice handy sign?”
Since that pretty much echoed Spirit’s own thoughts on the matter, she looked down at her plate.
“No, if this is like Skull and Bones, then that means whoever is in it is going to be really influential,” Muirin continued, a bit of gloating in her tone. “Once they get the Shadow Knights or whatever you want to call them taken care of, that’s where I want to be. I mean, have you seen what Madison wears? Not to mention the kinds of people Mark Rider gets to party with—”
Muirin went on and on in the same vein; Spirit stopped paying attention. This was making no sense at all. Granted, Muirin had been the last one to believe her about the continuing threat, and was still the most shrill skeptic among them, but within hours she seemed to have cast aside all thought of the very real danger they were in because Madison Lane-Rider had spent time talking to her. Now Muirin was acting like the most important thing was the kinds of social co
ntacts she could make with the Breakthrough people, and completely ignoring the fact that the Breakthrough people were training them as if they were going to be on the front lines any second now. And they had been openly attacked.
What was wrong with Muirin? First being completely cold about Elizabeth, and now this?
She glanced over at Addie. Addie could usually be counted on to rein Muirin in, but Addie was just sitting there with a little frown on her face, twisting her ring on her finger.
Burke—
For the first time since they’d sat down, she really looked at him. Burke looked completely exhausted. There were more bruises on him, and now that she was really paying attention, he had the expression of someone who was on his last legs, but couldn’t see an end to the tunnel. Despair, that was it. And as Muirin chattered on, he finally held up a hand and stopped her.
“I just spent the entire day either getting beat up, or trying to wrap my brain around stuff I am never in a million years going to get,” he said, his voice a little rough, like he was holding back his emotions. “Mostly beat up. Almost all my classes now are actually martial arts, and the ones that aren’t are things I am not good at. And you know what? I’m going to admit it. I’m beat. We got lucky before, when we didn’t know any better, and the people who called the Hunt thought there was no possible opposition. Now we know better, and they do, too, whoever they are, and I think I just realized I’ve hit the end and there’s no more rope.” He sighed—it was almost a moan—and rubbed his eyes. “I can’t do this anymore. I keep thinking about you guys getting hurt—or worse than that. I can’t. I’m not a superhero. There’s going to be trouble here, and I think we need to leave it to the people who are already trained to handle it.”
Spirit sat up in alarm. “You’re not going to tell Rider about the Wild Hunt!” she exclaimed. “You’re not going to tell him it was us who stopped them!”
“No. I’m just going to go to Doctor Ambrosius and tell him I want to leave Oakhurst. If he wants, he can send me wherever they sent the others. But I just can’t take any more of this.” He looked as if he was about to cry for a minute. “I’m—just a guy. Just a dumb jock with a little magic.…”
“I think we need to tell Doctor Ambrosius that it wasn’t just an accident that we stopped the Hunt,” Addie said firmly. “I think we should tell him about the files marked Tithed, about what we’ve seen written on the Oak, about what Elizabeth told Spirit. All of it. We’re just kids, this isn’t what we should be doing.”
“But Addie—” Spirit began.
“Enough, Spirit.” Addie’s expression hardened. “Look, I understand that figuring all this out is partly your way of handling that your family is gone. I get that. I get that since your magic hasn’t bubbled up yet, this is your way of feeling effective. But it’s gone way beyond what we can do now. We need to stop, let someone else take over, and do what they tell us to do.”
She looked around at the others; all of them were nodding, even Loch. Her heart sank. Could they be right? Could she be trying to keep them involved in solving the problem, rather than turning it over to more competent people, just because she couldn’t bear to come to terms with her family’s death?
I need to talk to Doc Mac, she thought—but then she’d have to tell him everything. Could she trust him? She tried to remember. Did he wear one of the pins with the black snake on it?
And did that black snake even mean anything? Was Muirin right about that, too?
“Look,” she said desperately. “There is something we need to keep looking at! They keep telling us we’re all Legacies here, right? No one just pulled in off the street to go to Oakhurst. One or both of our parents had to be Oakhurst grads, even though they never told us about it. Which could make sense since Oakhurst is kind of secret, and for all we know, the other kids’ parents told them, and ours were just keeping things back.”
Addie nodded, but there was a look of faint impatience on her face. “Yes. So?”
“And have you seen anyone around here who didn’t have magic?” Other than me.
They all shook their heads.
“I know for a fact my parents didn’t have a smidge of magic. And they weren’t hooked up like the Riders are.” She ran her hands through her hair nervously. “OK, maybe they chose to give up the magic and the perks, like being in a witness protection program so they could just bail.” Like Burke wants to, she thought, and a shadow of guilt passed over Burke’s face, confirming her thought. “And maybe the kids that didn’t get Tithed to the Hunt but actually do leave are doing that. But we’re orphans, and underage, and we can’t just leave and get jobs or inherit anything without a guardian and not everybody has Trust Funds to do that. So our parents being Oakhurst grads and us not knowing that, and—well, everything—it only makes sense if there’s another Oakhurst somewhere. One where no one has magic, or at least, no one uses it, ever.” She turned to Muirin. “Remember what Madison Lane-Rider told you about magic not being the only way you get noticed? So if you wanted, you could get all hooked up and get rich and all that without having and using magic at this other place. But unless it exists none of this makes sense—”
“Spirit, you’re starting to sound like Elizabeth,” Burke said, quietly. “Come to the point, will you?”
Now even Burke …
“We need to find out if there are any kids here who aren’t Legacies. We need to find out if there’s anyone here who is not an orphan—”
Muirin raised her hand. “Duh. Me.”
“Your stepmother doesn’t count,” Addie and Loch chorused. They looked at each other. Loch shrugged. “She doesn’t,” Addie continued. “She doesn’t want you, she’s been trying to dump you anywhere but with her, and besides, she doesn’t control your money, your Trust does.”
“And the third thing is—” Spirit rubbed her aching temples. “We need to find out if any of the Alumns have kids, if the kids are magicians, and if so, why they aren’t here.”
“And what will all this prove?” Muirin demanded.
“If we find out that we’ve been lied to about any of that, which is, like, pretty basic and important—what else did they lie to us about?” Spirit replied, feeling a horrible headache coming on. “I mean look, maybe it means what happened to our parents wasn’t—”
“What? You’re trying to say that what happened to our parents was murder, is that it?” Addie said, her tone icy. “And then what? If we’ve been lied to, maybe it was Oakhurst that killed them, or someone inside Oakhurst? More Shadow Knights? More conspiracy?”
“And how would a few people do all that anyway?” Loch added. “Because it couldn’t be more than a few, or someone would talk. Cops were investigating the hotel fire—don’t you think they’d have noticed arson? And how would you control a fire so it didn’t kill me, too?” Now he was twisting his ring, and shrugged. “Spirit, you have got to get a grip. If all our parents were killed by magic, there would be some trace of it. Face it, what we do isn’t exactly subtle, people would see things. If it was done by some other means, there would be evidence.”
But you didn’t see what I saw, she thought, starting to shiver.
“You’re confusing cause and effect,” Burke said, wearily, but in a tone that still sounded patronizing. “Or something like that. Most people our age have parents that are alive. People our parents’ ages generally don’t die, and when they do, it’s going to be something unusual. We’re just the ones in the minority who lost our parents, so of course how we lost them is unusual. So we’re orphans and we have magic, and our parents went to school here, so this is where we got sent by their wills. It’s no different than if we were all Native American and we got sent back to the rez when we were orphaned, even though we didn’t know we were Native American because our folks kept it secret from us.”
“Parents do that, Spirit, keep secrets from you,” Loch told her. “I don’t care how wonderful you thought they were, or how open, I know for a fact they were keeping secrets f
rom you. The proof is that they never told you about Oakhurst. They might have been doing so because they were trying to protect you, or because they were ashamed of not having magic or ashamed that they did, or a million other reasons.”
“I’ll say it again, Spirit. Get a grip. It’s all coincidence.” Burke rubbed his head. “Seriously. Keep this up—”
“And they’re going to send you to the Shadow Oakhurst Loony Bin and you and Lizzie can trade hallucinations and be BFFs,” Muirin said, with a nasty glint in her eye. “Maybe she’ll decide you were her mother, the Queen of Ireland. Or her rival, Isolde of the Fair Hands, would that be nice to be confined with?”
“Muirin, chill,” Addie said warningly.
Spirit felt her eyes starting to burn as she held back tears. She didn’t get it. Was it just that they really were all burned out and wanted someone else to take over? Was she really the paranoid one? Was she delusional?
She got up and left them abruptly, scrubbing her sleeve across her eyes as soon as she was out of sight. The tears came anyway, and she had to grope her way the last few steps to her room. Once inside she leaned against the door, feeling physically sick from her emotions. Anger, betrayal, despair … mostly despair. And abandonment. Maybe that was the worst. She sat on the edge of the bed and cried for a while. And that made her feel even more abandoned. Part of her had thought—hoped—that Addie or Muirin at least would come after her. That Burke or Loch would try. Hoped for a knock on the locked door. But nothing came. Not even the sound of a whisper or footsteps in the hall outside.
So maybe you’re the one who’s crazy, here, a little voice whispered in her mind.
If only she could talk to someone outside this place … one of her Mom or Dad’s friends, or something … but there was no getting past that firewall.
Was there?
The thumb drive!
She went to the desk and dug it out, and this time she went ahead and followed the instructions.
Shadow Grail #2: Conspiracies Page 20