Reawakening

by CM Raymond

  He searched her face for any hint of recognition. She was middle aged, but younger than Girard, so she likely hadn’t met the nobleman before. But Ezekiel had to be careful in his guise—he was no Julianne. If the Dean had never met Lord Girard, the whole thing might be easier to pull off.

  Taking her hand in his, he said, “Quite right. It’s nice to meet you, Dean.”

  The woman laughed. “I’m still not used to that. Please, call me Amelia.”

  “As you wish,” Ezekiel said, still holding onto her hand. “But when I went to the Academy, people referred to one another by their stations.”

  The academic grinned. “That could be the case. But you’re not nineteen anymore. And Arcadia has come a long way over the past three decades. I like to think of this as the new Arcadia.”

  “Well, then,” Ezekiel said. “To the new Arcadia.” He took a seat across from her without being invited to, and she followed suit. “I am here today dropping off my daughter for the examination.”

  “Yes. Deborah, is that correct? I’ve already looked at her papers. Seems she has a gift.”

  Ezekiel grinned. “I wouldn’t be a father if I didn’t think of my girl as gifted, but growing up in the country provided plenty of time and space for developing in the ways of the arts—away from all the distractions of the city. But I couldn’t keep her locked away forever. I do hope—or should I say expect—her to be able to find a place here at Arcadia just like her mother and father had.”

  The Dean flipped open a folder from the tall pile on her desk. “I assure you we will give her a fair shake. But I will tell you, noble or not, rich or poor, should she not make it, we expect her to adhere to the rules of the city. The restriction against unlicensed magic is for the good of Arcadia.”

  “Yes,” Ezekiel said, “or at least that’s what you tell the locals, isn’t it?” Ezekiel winked at the Dean. “But to tell you the truth Amelia, I am here for more than just my daughter. I was hoping that the Academy might have a place for me. I’ve recently retired from my business up north, and with my daughter in school, I will have a fair amount of free time on my hands. I’m thinking it’s time to give back to the place that gave me so much.”

  “Well, that is certainly a noble gesture.” The woman took off her bifocals and placed them on her desk. “But I’m sorry, Lord Girard, there are no positions open at the Academy right now. I’m sure a man of your stature can find other ways to occupy his time.”

  Ezekiel stood, turned, and walked over to the window. He looked down at the students crossing the quad. “That’s too bad,” he said. “I truly had my heart set on working here—teaching was always a dream of mine.”

  Amelia kept her eyes trained on Ezekiel, who looked majestic disguised as the noble from the north in his purple robe. “I can certainly keep you in mind for an opening.”

  Ezekiel remained facing away from her, which is why the Dean never saw his eyes flash red. “Actually,” he said while reaching into her mind. “I imagine you could open up an extra section in one of your core classes, perhaps the History of Magic. I’m sure your students would love to hear the experience of a devoted alumni.”

  As the man spoke, Amelia found herself slowly persuaded—more by his mental magic than by his rhetoric, but she would never know that. “Hmm, an extra section of the History of Magic? Why yes, that is not a bad idea at all. But do you know enough about the subject?”

  Ezekiel turned from the window and back to the Dean—a shit eating grin on his face. “History of Magic? Oh, I know a thing or two.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The examination room where Ezekiel dropped Hannah off was the biggest room she had ever been in—bigger even than the entrance to the abandoned tower where Ezekiel first trained her. Its enormity was accentuated by the fact that the place was nearly empty.

  She sat at a long wooden table. Across the room, nearly thirty feet away, sat three people she had never laid eyes on before in their relatively small town. It wasn’t a surprise. They were faculty members of the Academy, which made them nobles. Nearly all the nobles worked in the Academy or the Capitol, if they worked at all.

  August, the chief examiner, was a portly man around fifty. His face was friendly, and he hadn’t stopped smiling since she had walked into the room. Physical magic was his specialty—and while the others would teach basics of the art from time to time, his job was to help third and fourth years master the craft. Next to him was Charlotte. She looked Hannah’s age, but was nearly twice that. Compared to August, Charlotte was cold and withdrawn. As she introduced herself in monotone, a mole on her cheek danced around. Hannah had to stifle a smile. Her area was mostly in theoretical studies. She taught the History of Magic, the Proper Use of Magic, and Magical Questions—some sort of magic-based philosophy course that sounded boring as hell to Hannah.

  Charlotte had written the book on the History of Magic—literally. Her revisionist history texts were part of Adrien’s propaganda—like stories the Prophet told in the Boulevard. This false history paired well with her Proper Use of Magic course, something Ezekiel had once dreamed of as a way to teach the ethical use of the arts. Instead, Charlotte had massaged the curriculum into a brainwashing event set to restrict magicians in Arcadia.

  Finally, there was Nikola on the end. Legend around the Academy said that he was the one who actually discovered how to imbue inanimate objects with magic—making the tools the Arcadians termed magitech. This story was told in hushed whispers around the quad because, in the historical account written by Charlotte, Adrien had been the one to power devices with magic. If the official account was a lie, Nikola was not the man to set the record straight. He was a beanpole—his face always a sickly white. While most of the men in Arcadia chose to go bearded or shaven, Nikola had a perfectly manicured handlebar mustache.

  “Welcome, Ms…” August paused, a smile still hanging on his lips.

  “Deborah. I am Deborah, daughter of Lord Girard.”

  “I heard that Girard had returned,” Charlotte said, her voice lacking any affect whatsoever. Hannah couldn’t be sure if she were thrilled, or if she wanted to murder the man.

  The teachers all looked at each other, eyebrows raised. Hannah knew full well that the real Girard had been a real bastard, and his death at Ezekiel’s hands had made Irth a better place for the rest of its residents. But who knew, maybe the fact that Girard was a douche gave him respect in the eyes of these nobles.

  Nikola put a finger in the air as if he were testing the wind. “So, our hope is to test your aptitude for magic. As you might not know, since you’ve grown up away from here, magic is well-regulated within Arcadia. No one may use it unless they have studied within the Academy. But before we can let you in, we need to know if you have any potential. Now, of course, you should be able to do something.” The pasty-faced man’s mustache twitched as he spoke.

  Hannah bit her lip to keep from laughing. If they only knew, she thought.

  Instead, she played their game. Clearing her throat, she said, “Naturally, my father has taught me some of the tricks—”

  “Magic,” Charlotte interjected.

  Hannah purposefully squirmed in her chair, feigning nervousness. “Of course, sorry. My father has taught me some magic. Nothing much, but a few tricks, I guess.”

  Charlotte’s eyebrows raised. “Kids do tricks, Deborah. We cast magic. It is a serious business, and you must consider it so to even be considered for the Academy.”

  Hannah wanted to blast the smirk off her face, but she tucked her hands under her legs. So far, the steps she was supposed to accomplish were done. She had established herself as a noblewoman, admitted to some magic use, and convinced them that she was completely ignorant about Arcadia, its magic, culture, and traditions.

  August stepped in, trying to make peace in the room. “OK. Shall we begin?” Without waiting for an answer, he pulled a coin from his purse, flipped it into the air, and with a quick turn of the hand, the coin levitated before his nose.<
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  “Cool,” Hannah cooed, trying to act as naive as possible.

  August’s smile spread wider, which Hannah thought was impossible. He was clearly pleased that his magic had impressed the girl. Scissoring his first two fingers back and forth, the coin danced around in front of him. Hannah squealed in delight for him. Finally, August did a move that she herself had mastered within her first week of practicing. He cupped his hands and pulled them apart. The coin became a perfectly round metal sphere and grew until it was the size of his happy, round head. Flicking his wrists, he tossed the ball. Hitting the ground, the sound of metal on stone echoed around the big, empty room.

  “Can you lift it?” He said.

  Can a rearick shit in the woods? she thought. But Ezekiel had warned her to hold back. Not to do anything impressive, but to still show them that she had potential.

  “That?” she asked, pointing at the ball. “Looks heavy.”

  Nikola leaned in. “It’s OK. We all start somewhere. Give it a try.” He smiled, but all Hannah could do was watch his perfect mustache.

  “OK. Let me try. You guys all use your hands, right?”

  The faculty passed looks back and forth. She had them right where she wanted them.

  Hannah contorted her hands in awkward jutting movements. At one point, she squeezed her eyes shut. At another, she pulled her brow down hard. After several minutes, she collapsed back in her chair. “Come on!” she yelled with her eyes on the ball. She looked back up at the panel of judges. Each of them had a familiar look of disappointment. The smile that she believed was forever engraved on August’s face had vanished.

  “Can… Can… You give me one more try.? Maybe something else?”

  The three faculty scribbled on the parchment sitting in front of them. Hannah wondered how far she could take the ruse and what she had to give them to make sure that she got into the school. She knew that admission was not easy, but Hannah also knew that, despite what they said, it was more based on who you were than what you could do. Magic was in all humans, after all—Ezekiel had taught her that. As long as someone could control it without exploding into a million pieces, they could learn. But unless that person was a noble, they couldn’t get into the school.

  Luckily for Hannah, Girard’s name carried some weight.

  “How about I just roll it?” Hannah asked.

  August nodded, the smile came back onto his face. “That would be a good start. Don’t worry, we all start somewhere. Don’t be nervous. Try to shut all that out.”

  Hannah pushed the back of her hand across her forehead and wiped away imaginary perspiration. She constructed a nervous laugh and turned back toward the ball. This time she stood and pulled her hand as if she were trying to loosen up her wrist. They could barely see it from across the room, but the faculty members were pretty sure that the ball was starting to move ever so slightly. Finally, she rolled it over one full rotation. Hannah dropped back into her chair and sighed in fake exhaustion.

  “I did it! See?”

  The faculty leaned back and forth whispering into each other’s ears. August was talking quickly with his hands and Charlotte just kept shaking her head. Hannah wondered if maybe she had taken her act a little too far.

  “We will have to talk,” Charlotte said. “But I’ll tell you right now, young lady, I’m not exactly sure if you are cut out for the Academy. We might have some disagreements among us, but I think it’s good that you know where I stand before you leave today.”

  Hannah put her hand over her mouth. “But this is all I ever wanted. And now you’re taking that away from me? I tried so hard.”

  “It’s not just about trying,” Charlotte said. “Our job is to make sure that the right people are using magic. I’m not convinced that you’re the right person to even start to study magic. I’ve seen dirty kids from the Boulevard do better work than that, and you spent all of your life having nothing to do but play in the woods and practice your little ‘tricks.’” Charlotte made error quotes overhead, and her eyes were daggers.

  Up until that point, Hannah had only been playing, enjoying the game. But when Charlotte decided to bring up her people in Queens Blvd., Hannah got pissed.

  “Is that right? I’m just as bad as the scum?” Hannah said, her eyes narrowed.

  Charlotte stood, her chair squeaked out behind her echoing through the empty room. “No. If you listen closely, you would’ve realized that I said that you are worse than the scum from the Bitch’s Boulevard.” The cold woman pursed her lips and waited to see if she had broken the girl of privilege sitting before her.

  Hannah rose in response. Her eyes locked on the teacher. “I thought the women of the noble quarter were a bit more refined.”

  She closed her eyes so that the faculty couldn’t see them flash red. Emotions had taken over, and Hannah decided it was time for her to guarantee herself access to the Academy. She had tried it Ezekiel’s way; now it was her turn. With hardly a flick of her wrist, the ball shot to the ceiling and came back to the center of the room. It spun fast enough to make a humming sound.

  Hannah clasped her hands together, arms extended. Without warning, she pulled her fingers apart, and as she did the ball broke into a hundred pieces—each piece spinning in thin air. The instructor all ducked or raised their hands in defense, afraid they were about to be struck by the spinning projectiles.

  But before they could do any damage, Hannah took it a step further. With several twists of her hands, each little metal ball was transformed into a butterfly and flew around the room.

  She opened her eyes to the applause of August and Nikola.

  “Splendid,” the faculty of physical magic said with his hands pressed against his cheeks. “I don’t know the last time I saw anything like that.”

  “That,” Charlotte said, her voice still cold, “is because we don’t use magic in such frivolous ways here, no matter how impressive the feat was.”

  The man continued to clap, despite Charlotte’s disapproval, and Hannah took a bow. “Sorry. Guess I should’ve done that in the first place. I just didn’t want to show off. My father said that the people of Arcadia don’t like someone who gloats.”

  Charlotte spun and walked out of the room, her hard shoes clip-clopping as she went.

  “Don’t worry about her. It’s safe to say that you are Arcadia’s newest student,” Nikola said. “If you have your things, we will find a student to escort you to the residence hall.”

  “Yes,” Hannah said beaming. “My father was pretty confident that I would be able to pass the test, so he had me pack my things. They’re just outside the room.”

  “Very good,” August said, sifting through some papers. You'll be staying in Memorial Hall. Do you know where it is?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No. But I can find it. Maybe I’ll follow my butterflies.”

  Both men laughed again shaking their heads. Hannah took a deep breath and wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into.

  It wouldn’t be the last time.

  ****

  Walking across the quad toward the residence halls, Hannah spotted a group of boys sitting cross-legged in the grass. It was an unusually warm day for this time of year, and the young men were taking full advantage of it. She sized them up like a warrior surveying an opposing army. Getting into the Academy was only half of their battle.

  She needed information, and to get information, she would need to make friends. The hell of it was, Hannah had no idea how to make new friends. All of Hannah’s friends she had known since birth. There was Sal of course, but she assumed rich guys might be a little harder to talk to than dragons.

  As she approached, Hannah could feel all of their eyes on her. Fixing her gaze on the perfect green grass, she pushed on, hoping to skip any conversation. She wasn’t ready to wage war just yet.

  “Hey, Red,” one of the men called out. It took Hannah a second to remember she was no longer a brunette.