Shadow Grail #2: Conspiracies

by Mercedes Lackey; Rosemary Edghill

  “Burke, that can’t have been a coincidence!” Spirit exclaimed before she could stop herself.

  He turned on her with a face like a mask. “I’m sick of all this conspiracy crap!” he said, his voice cracking. “For God’s sake!” He shoved out a hand at her. “You can just leave me the hell alone while you’re all involved in that. And—just leave me alone!”

  He pushed his way through them and ran toward the dorm rooms. “Go after him!” Spirit said, shoving Loch a little. “Go! Go talk to him!”

  Loch shook his head. “Leave him alone, Spirit. He’s hurting. Let it go.”

  “But he trusts you, and besides, you’re another guy, he’ll listen to you!” she exclaimed. Addie nodded, backing her up. But Loch shook his head stubbornly.

  “You don’t understand. Just leave him alone,” he repeated, and walked off in the direction of the classrooms.

  “I thought ‘you don’t understand’ was supposed to be the girl’s line,” Muirin said, but even the gibe didn’t have her usual force behind it.

  * * *

  “I still think we should take all this to Doctor Ambrosius,” Addie said stubbornly. “I think we should ask him about our parents, and find out about this other Oakhurst. He has to know where it is. Maybe he could send Burke there…” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t know … maybe he’d start to feel better there and want to come back.”

  Burke hadn’t been at dinner last night, and he hadn’t shown up at breakfast or lunch. Loch wasn’t talking much. Muirin said if Loch wasn’t going to talk to Burke, she would—since she had a break after lunch—and headed resolutely toward the boys’ side. Spirit still felt his rejection like a blow to the gut. She felt muddled, and was having a hard time thinking.

  “I don’t—” she began, then gave up under Addie’s gaze. “Oh, all right. I sure don’t want to ask the Riders…”

  Addie got up and gestured to Spirit imperiously. “He has open office hours today. We’ll never have a better chance. Come on.”

  For the second time in two days, Spirit found herself right outside Doctor Ambrosius’s door. They could hear him in there.

  “… and sign here,” Ms. Corby was saying.

  “Indeed. Jam tarts. We must start serving more jam tarts, Ms. Corby. The children will love them. Little rewards for good behavior. Like pretzels.”

  “… and here.”

  “Pity about the cricket pitch. But the lawn was just too torn up.”

  “We’ve ordered the special equipment. It should be arriving in two weeks.”

  “Lovely. And don’t forget the Dance.”

  Addie and Spirit exchanged startled glances, but neither spoke. It wasn’t just that Doctor Ambrosius was rambling, it was that his voice even sounded vague. Addie gestured to Spirit, and the two of them slipped away, pausing in the door of the lounge. “What was that all about?” Spirit asked, wide-eyed.

  Addie looked back in the direction of the headmaster’s office. “He’s always had times of being a little … you know … absentminded. But I’ve never heard him like that before.” She sucked on her lower lip. “I think he’s had a stroke or something. He’s losing it, or maybe already lost it. I bet that’s why he called the Riders—he must have realized he was in trouble, and called them while he still could.”

  Spirit felt that all-too-familiar sinking feeling of despair. She hadn’t really trusted Dr. Ambrosius, but now she realized she’d counted on him more than she’d known. “Now what?” she asked, helplessly.

  “I don’t know,” Addie replied. “Just … let’s keep this between us and Loch for now. Okay?”

  “Because Burke doesn’t want to hear about it—” Spirit said tentatively.

  “And because Muirin’s too close to the Riders, and…” Addie bit her lip apprehensively, “And if Elizabeth’s story was even partly right … some of the Breakthrough people are Shadow Knights. Whether or not there’s mythical King Arthur stuff mixed up in there, the fact is, we do have enemies, we know some of them are from here, and infiltration is always the best way to get things done. Doctor Ambrosius seemed perfectly all right until the Breakthrough people got here. So … maybe it isn’t a stroke or something. Maybe they did it to him. If that’s true, the last thing we want Muirin to know is that we know Dr. Ambrosius has gone senile.”

  * * *

  Burke wasn’t at dinner—again. “He wouldn’t even come to the door of his room,” Muirin said, nodding her head at the empty chair. “He just said none of us understood and to leave him alone.” She looked for a moment as if she was going to make one of her catty remarks, then shrugged. “He’s probably right. If Step died in a fire, I’d throw a party.”

  “He needs—I don’t know, something I guess he figures he can’t get from any of us.” Loch sighed.

  “Well I need some fun. Getting all emo isn’t going to help Burke. I’ve got a date,” Muirin announced.

  “A date? You call watching a movie in the lounge with a guy a date?” Addie asked, amused.

  “Au contraire, ma fond, this is a real date. Going out to a movie in Radial.” Muirin rolled her eyes a bit. “Okay, so it’s not bright lights, big city. But it’s off the campus. Madison’s dropping us off and picking us up. This was her idea.”

  So now she’s aiding and abetting dates? Spirit thought. This was getting stranger all the time. Tell me it’s not Ovcharenko … because I think that might be illegal.

  “Who with?” Addie asked, eyes narrowed, probably echoing Spirit’s last thought.

  “Dylan Williams.” She made a face as all three of them stared at her as if she was crazy. “What? He’s okay. Besides, I think he’s on the short list for the Gatekeepers, and I know I am.”

  Spirit felt completely appalled. Muirin wasn’t even considering that these Gatekeepers—or some of them anyway—might just be the Shadow Knights who had tried to kill them. Okay, maybe not them, specifically, but they’d certainly been trying to kill other students. And succeeding!

  “Anyway, I have to get ready. Let me know if Captain Emo comes out of his room, maybe he’ll listen to one of us. If nothing else, I’m going to tell him he needs to see Doc Mac. That’s just sense.” Muirin got up, gave them all a twiddle of her fingers, and bounced out of the room.

  “Lounge,” Addie said. Spirit and Loch nodded.

  When they got there, the first thing that Loch asked was: “Did you talk to Doctor A.?” The looks on their faces must have given everything away, because his own face fell and he said, “Oh hell. That bad?”

  “Worse,” Addie replied. “We eavesdropped. Ms. Corby was in there with him, getting him to sign papers, and he was talking about jam tarts and cricket pitches. As in, senile, demented, Alzheimer’s, or a stroke.”

  “He was just rambling about absolutely nothing,” Spirit added. “It sounded like Ms. Corby was just in there to get his signature and wasn’t even bothering to listen to him.”

  “Great. Just great.” Loch rubbed his forehead. “So effectively Rider and Company are in charge?”

  “That would be our guess,” Addie told him. “We need to talk to someone. Right now, the only ones I can think of would be Doc Mac and Lily Groves.”

  “Ugh,” Loch replied. “Both bad choices. Groves … she’s got a poker face I can’t read, and she’s been here since the beginning and she’s more than good enough a magician to have been the one to call the Wild Hunt. I can’t tell if she’s in favor of Breakthrough or against them. Doc Mac—I don’t trust shrinks. And since Muirin thinks Burke ought to be talking to him, I’m not sure where that places him. Maybe he’s another recruiter for the Breakthrough people and their Gatekeepers.”

  All Spirit could think of was QUERCUS telling her to trust her instincts. It wasn’t as if they had anything else to go on right now.

  “Doc Mac,” she said, finally. “I’ll go—he already said to come talk to him whenever I needed to.”

  The other two nodded; Loch reluctantly, Addie with reserve.

  “Good
thing I have that free period every day,” she said with a grimace. “I’ll set it up for that. And don’t tell Muirin.”

  “Not a chance,” Loch replied quickly. He shook his head. “Muirin and Dylan. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was mind controlled.”

  Maybe she is, Spirit thought as they broke up. I can’t think of any other reason.

  * * *

  “Spirit,” Doc Mac greeted her, gesturing at the chair as she hesitated in the doorway. “Still having nightmares? Or do you want to know how you can talk Burke into coming here? Don’t worry about that, he already is.”

  Spirit took the chair. “Actually … I guess I’ll come straight to the point. Doctor Ambrosius told me that the reason we’re all here is because we’re Legacies—that our parents graduated from Oakhurst, so when our parents died, part of the deal was that we got to come to Oakhurst until we were eighteen. That’s because we have magic. Nobody comes here who doesn’t, and if I hadn’t had magic, I wouldn’t be here.”

  Doc Mac nodded.

  What Doc Mac didn’t know (she hoped) was that Spirit had a wireless microphone in her pocket, courtesy of Loch, who’d bought it from a spy store in Billings, slipping away by cab and returning before anyone got suspicious. Muirin, it seemed, wasn’t the only one with a charge card that Oakhurst didn’t know about. Loch’s purchases at that store had been tiny things, all easily concealed; his shopping bag of books and magazines had been nothing more than the cover for what he had really been after.

  “That’s what I’ve been told myself,” Doc Mac said. “I’ve only been here for about five years, and of course, I’m not a Legacy.”

  “Well … see, that’s kind of the logic hole I’ve run up against,” Spirit told him. “If I’m a Legacy, then my parents had to go to Oakhurst. Same for Loch, we were both told that when we got here. The problem is, my parents didn’t have magic. Believe me, they were not the types to keep that sort of thing secret. Dad especially.” She rolled her eyes a little, even though the memory made her tear up. “If there was any way to pull a prank on us, he’d do it, and if he’d had magic he would have used it. Mom … she would have, too. The same way she showed us she had a gun just in case, and showed us she knew how to use it.…”

  Doc Mac looked at her warily. “So—you’re saying?”

  “That either they didn’t go to Oakhurst, and Doctor Ambrosius was lying, or they did, but it wasn’t this Oakhurst—that there’s another Oakhurst for the people that don’t have magic.” She didn’t add that this would be really strange if it was so. “In fact, there has to be, doesn’t there? Not every kid that’s a Legacy has magic. My sister didn’t— So Burke really needs to be allowed to go there before he snaps. And—I’d like to go there, too. I’m not cut out for this and even though you keep saying I have magic, if I do, it’s obviously completely useless for what’s coming.”

  Doc Mac cleared his throat, and when he spoke, he sounded troubled. “Spirit, if there is another Oakhurst, I’ve never heard about it. Never. I’m sorry, but that’s all I can tell you. If that was what you were counting on to help you and Burke, well…” He stopped and shook his head. “This is all there is, Spirit. I can’t account for the fact that your parents never showed any signs of magic, but sometimes the very people you think would have no secrets at all are the ones that harbor the most.”

  “But—do you think the people from Breakthrough might know about it?” she asked, feeling desperation clutching at her throat. “I mean, they’d have to, they’d have to protect both schools, right?”

  “I’m not part of the Inner Circle, or whatever they call themselves, probably because I didn’t go to Oakhurst myself,” Doc Mac replied with a wry twist to his mouth. “But trust me, they’ve dropped everything to come here, and they aren’t dividing their time and attention three ways. Only two. Mark Rider has already effectively moved his part of the Breakthrough headquarters here; they’re only waiting on building construction. There is no second Oakhurst, I’m sorry. You and Burke are going to have to cope with the fact that you are here to stay—or at least, until you graduate.”

  Spirit somehow managed to make coherent conversation until her hour was up. He let her out, and let another student in. She headed for the lounge, where Addie and Loch had been listening to her session.

  “I recorded this,” Loch said. “I want Burke to hear it.”

  Spirit nodded, and combed her fingers through her hair distractedly. “I’m not sure what this means.”

  “If our parents went to Oakhurst, they had to be magicians. But if they were magicians, there is no damn reason why they should be dead,” Addie said angrily. “Yours—car wreck—every School teaches ways you could keep yourself and your family safe in a situation like that. Mine, plane crash. Same thing there. Loch—”

  “My mother died in a riding accident when I was a kid. Maybe she was the Legacy and not Father. But if she wasn’t, I can’t think of any School that wouldn’t have some way to get out of a fire,” Loch said bluntly. “I mean, I got out, and I didn’t even know I had magic! Now I do, and I know it wasn’t just dumb luck and parkour, but parkour and magic that did it.”

  “So we have three sets of supposed Legacy parents who could not possibly be dead if they really were magicians,” said Addie, and Spirit realized Addie—calm, quiet, gentle Addie—was more furious than Spirit had ever imagined she could be. “And there’s no mirror-Oakhurst for ordinary people to go to. Which means—”

  “We were lied to. We aren’t Legacies at all.” Spirit bit her lip. “So … how did we end up here?”

  “We’re here because Oakhurst is looking for kids with magic, and is somehow diddling with records to get themselves named our wards,” Loch said immediately. “In a lot of states that wouldn’t even be a problem. They’re an institution with no black marks against them, orphans are a drain on the state. Most states would be happy to turn us over, no questions asked.”

  “Even those of us with money,” Addie said, her eyes flashing dangerously. “Because our Trusts have to put us somewhere. Why not here?”

  “Please don’t call me a ‘conspiracy theory nut’ again,” Spirit begged. “But … is it possible that because we have magic, that’s why our families … died? Like … whatever sent the Hunt is trying to kill us off, and got our families, but not us?” That horrifying figure on the road loomed up again in her memory.

  “Or maybe it’s our magic that saves us. I know it was in my case,” Loch said thoughtfully. “Given what we know now … that’s not all that crazy, Spirit.”

  “My turn to sound like a nut bar,” Addie said, slowly. “We know there’s someone here trying to kill off the students. What if that same person is the one that found us in the first place, tried to kill us then, and got our families instead? Because our families didn’t have magic to protect them?”

  Vindication should have been sweet. Spirit realized vindication meant having to tell her only friends their families had been murdered because of what they were. Vindication wasn’t sweet. It hurt.

  “That’s not nutty, Addie,” Spirit replied, wrapping a twist of her hair around and around her finger nervously. “Take that a step further. What if that person already knew, because they’ve done it so many times already, that they couldn’t kill us at a distance, so they killed our families, knowing we’d be brought here, where it would be easy to get us?”

  “Argh,” Addie replied, knuckling her temples. “I wish that didn’t sound so logical! It fits what we know too well!”

  “And why didn’t Doctor Ambrosius tell us the truth about our families in the first place?” Loch frowned. “Because he had to know it. And I don’t think he’s the type to spare our feelings, either. Hell, if anything, he’d use the guilt. You know: ‘Your families died because Dark Powers were trying to get to you, now you have to train to become the Great and Powerful Oz and avenge them!’”

  Both Addie and Spirit nodded. “That does sound more like his speed,” Addie agreed.
<
br />   Then they all looked at each other. “He might not know…,” Spirit said, slowly.

  It was Loch who addressed the elephant in the room. “Or he might be the one behind it.”

  If that was true, Spirit thought they’d better be praying Doctor Ambrosius really had gone senile.

  FOURTEEN

  One of the mandatory new classes was horseback riding. But not just any old trail riding, the way the old class had been—this was endurance riding. It was something like a human marathon—assuming the humans were running, not on streets and roads, but on unimproved land, through any kind of weather, and over marked obstacles known as hazards that were parts of a course as extreme as the terrain allowed. In Montana, even this flatter part of it, that could be very extreme indeed. It even required a special lightweight saddle with a breastplate that kept the saddle from sliding backward when the horse was scrambling up steep inclines. In competition—because to Spirit’s astonishment, this was actually a sport—the races were fifty and one hundred miles long. They weren’t doing that—yet. They were doing shorter distances, the kind of riding called “competitive trail riding,” which sounded so … well, nice. “Oh, let’s get on the horse and ride a trail and see who gets there first!”

  Wrong.

  These were ten-mile rides. They all started together. Beforehand, they had to kit up the horse as if they were going to end up making camp at the other end, which meant everything for the camp and the horse had to be on the horse. The more stuff you thought you needed, the more the horse had to carry … and so on. And what the horse had to go over, under, and through meant that at any moment you might be trotting, off the horse and walking, or helping the horse to get over something. Or swimming—though this was winter, so the water they’d had to cross was all frozen right now. What the point of this was (aside from, to make you feel as if you had been beaten from head to toe at the end of the ride) Spirit didn’t know.