by D. R. Perry
"What about this?" I held up a wrought iron stand. "The engraving is worn, but it looks like number four there."
"Oh, yeah, that's right. Would you mind?" He handed me the tubing, swapping it for the notebook. "I'm feeling a little out of it, so if you carry stuff, I'll identify it, okay?"
"That's fine."
"Hey, Aliyah?" Logan asked. "Are there more of those tubes in that cabinet?" He pointed at the still-open door behind me.
"Yeah." I stepped aside. "The iron stand's also in there, so grab one, too. Hey, where's your list?"
"Faith has it, but she's over there." Logan jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Her pup's being weird."
I saw Faith standing by the familiar area. She cooed at Seth the Sha, squatting beside what looked like a carpet-covered doghouse. I heard him in there, whining inconsolably and refusing to come out.
"Why don't you come with us? You need the same stuff Hal and I do, after all."
"Okay, thanks."
We continued looking through the different cabinets and occasionally passing other students. Alex and Bailey managed to collect everything and headed back to their bench first. It was almost like they were racing me in a non-athletic way.
I recognized the true purpose of this first lab. It was in part to help us get acquainted with the room, supplies, and where all the safety equipment was, including stuff like the sink and the eyewash and the fire blanket, typical parts of mundane laboratory classrooms as well.
Hal explained the eyewash to Logan after I excused myself. Carrying the armload of supplies back to the bench was easy. Once finished, I headed over to where Faith was still trying to coax Seth out of the weird doghouse.
"It's okay, I won't let you get hurt. Come on out, now." Her voice was thin, quavery, and anxious.
"Do you need any help?"
"Not from you." Faith had her back turned so I couldn't see her face, but it sounded to me like she was on the verge of tears.
Whatever had happened on the way from the library to the lab had upset Faith. Since bonds are a two-way street, maybe it was the other way around. She needed help, and I couldn’t give it to her, but there was another option. I marched to the front of the room.
Luciano glanced swiftly down at his notebook, but I noticed. He’d been staring at me before I headed over there. I had no idea why, but clearly, he wasn’t looking at Faith or any of the critters.
"Professor, we have a very frightened familiar. Can you help?"
"But of course." His brows drew down. "No one should do this experiment in such a volatile familiar-induced state. And you are helping other students follow the safety rules by bringing this to my attention." The wide grin returned. "Kudos."
While his words were benign enough, something in Professor Luciano's tone bothered me. It had since the first time I’d met him. Why? So far, I only had the vaguest suspicion that he might be studying me. That in and of itself shouldn't have been too upsetting, however.
I wasn’t the only one who found him intimidating, so being cautiously formal wasn't unreasonable. Inconvenient, though. Having to question his motives while he provided my education was less than ideal, and maybe worse than that.
Was assuming he had ulterior motives cruel? And why? Because he watched us like teachers are supposed to?
That was what the mean girls did to me—make assumptions based on rumor and first impressions. I hadn’t thought high school was this complicated or difficult back on the mundane campus I’d shared with Cadence and Izzy. The difference was how needlessly complex magus society is.
We held on to procedures and traditions that had served us when we had to keep magic secret, but things were different now. They had been for decades, so I wasn’t sure why magi took so much time to adjust. Even vampires adapted faster, and they were the most legally restricted.
At the bench, I went through the motions and put on my personal protective equipment. Hal copied me. From the bench behind us, Logan did the same. At least I knew they'd be safe during the planned experiment, although I still doubted we’d do one at that point.
Faith's issue with Seth might prevent the professor from sticking to his plan. Even with his help, she was unable to convince her familiar to come out or calm down. She started hugging herself like she was outside in below-freezing weather.
"There's one way to soothe him and let him stay put." The professor headed to the front of the room, Faith following him like a tail on a kite.
Professor Luciano pulled open a drawer under the board on the wall. Inside the contents rustled, releasing an herbal scent. I recognized it instantly since Bubbe used supplies like these. Maybe she even ordered them for the school.
I'm talking about sachets used in extraveterinary medicine. Different varieties helped magical creatures in pain, shock, or distress. He pulled a pair of them from the drawer, then closed it and headed back toward where Seth was hiding.
"I'm sorry about this, Professor." Faith apologizing to anyone wasn't something I would have imagined, but there it was. She must have loved her little Sha.
"At times, the lab environment makes familiars nervous, some more than others. Sha do have the best sense of smell, after all. Certain ingredients can stress them, so I always keep my supply of sachets well-stocked."
He leaned down, dropping the little bundles of fabric at the entrance to the small enclosure. A few moments later, I saw a slightly curved muzzle with a wet nose emerge from the darkness. Seth opened his mouth, revealing a blue tongue. Almost everyone else in the class gasped at this detail, but I’d expected it.
"It's okay, boy," Faith cajoled. "You can take them in there with you."
He responded, snatching both sachets with an alacrity even I couldn't have anticipated. Seth was extremely swift for a Sha. They were mostly known for stamina. The whining ceased, replaced by a series of doggy snores as Seth's nervousness succumbed to exhaustion.
"I wish I could take a nap." Hal leaned his cheek on his hand, eyelids droopy.
He yawned. It was contagious. I added a stretch to mine, leaning back so I didn't knock any of our equipment over or bump Hal's head.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of gold. I turned my head to see Ember fluttering down from the highest perch to the roof of the doghouse. She stretched out along the top, draping her wings on either side of the peaked roof in a protective gesture. My thwarted desire to help must have transferred to her.
Back at the front of the class, Professor Luciano instructed us to turn to the next page and read the experiment’s instructions. He went on to explain them, which was nice because they weren’t clear. The only obvious part was that the antler had to break down at the end. The description included archaic symbols straight out of an old English apothecary manual.
Calling it a difficult read was a gross understatement.
"What's wrong?" Hal peered at the text, jotting something down on his notepaper.
"I can't make heads or tails of this."
"Don't worry, I'm translating."
"How?"
"My mom taught me." He continued scribbling, glancing between the lab’s instructions and his notes frequently enough for me to understand he welcomed the distraction.
He’d barely mentioned his mother, but he’d hinted he was only with his dad here. Probably Hal missed her, but I let it drop because I figured he wasn't ready to talk about it. I stayed on the subject of the lab.
"Am I the only one here who doesn't know how to read these symbols?"
"Probably not." Hal tapped his eraser on the paper for a moment as he mulled over a shape I could only describe as a fish hugging a hamburger.
"It's all surf and turf to me." Faith snorted, pointing at the symbol.
"You took the words right out of my brain."
"That's enough out of you, flame-broil." She flipped a lock of hair over her shoulder. "I was talking to Hal."
"It's the symbol for lime." Hal gestured with his pencil at the glass beaker with the antle
r inside. "Which makes sense if we want to dissolve that. That's going to be tricky because we need magic to combine it, but it says here that we can't use fire."
"’Can't use fire’ is probably the best phrase in the universe." Faith turned her back on me, stalking toward Logan.
"I wish you were nicer." Logan bent his head over the instructions. "We'd have more help if you were."
"I wish you were smarter." Faith rolled her eyes. "We wouldn't need help if you were."
"I bet you think that’s a real zinger, but I hear that line all the time, so whatever." Logan reached for the jars of ingredients he’d gathered on our journey around the room.
That silenced Faith. She was either stumped for a response or wouldn’t bring something worse than what Logan had already heard. I hoped it was the latter.
Watching him, I realized Logan just had a different learning style. He lined up all the ingredients, matching the symbols on their labels to the ones on the paper. It wouldn't matter if he couldn't read them because he'd still get the combination right this way. Good sense, that.
"Now that you've all gathered the materials and equipment and have read through the instructions at least once, put on your protective devices. We’re ready to begin the simple introductory experiment." Professor Luciano rubbed his hands together like he had applied lotion or contemplated taking over the world. "As you can see, we are dissolving a section of antler in a basic solution catalyzed by magical energy. We have twenty minutes to give it a try. I can't wait to see what you come up with."
The instructions told us how to set up the stand, tubing, and containers. Hal did all that without magic. I appreciated having a lab partner who actually helped. While he worked, I checked the ingredients and set them in order of use like Logan had, except using Hal's translations. That helped me learn the unfamiliar symbols and copy the notes at the same time. In fact, I did it twice, so Logan could have one later.
When Hal finished, it was time to make the formula, which was my job. I handed the beaker and antler to my lab partner, and he placed it on the stand with the tubing pointed down over it. It was easy to measure each powder and even easier to mix them with the yew spoon, but the rest, not so much.
All the ingredients had to be activated with magical energy after that. That was what Professor Luciano meant by a magical energy catalyst. It’d be a delicate process because my element is fire, and we couldn’t use any in this experiment. I couldn't conjure it, but there was another way.
I thought back to the first night my magic declared itself. When I was almost fourteen, it came in a nightmare, one where I somehow got stuck in the Under, right in front of the Sidhe Queen. She dragged me away to her dungeon, a place of intense heat and constant solar glare.
Of course, I woke up from that screaming. I'd set my quilt on fire in my sleep. Mom came in and shut it down. Later, I’d asked her how because she's not a null magus, the sort who can drain the energy from any enchantment.
She'd done it by reversing her energy, the same way she'd have banished her own fire. One of the most important things she’d ever taught me was that a magus could banish their own element even if it came from another source, but only if it was weaker than whatever they could conjure.
So, the way forward for me in this experiment was to make a cute little mundane fire and banish it. Luckily, I had a plan.
I took out a box of matches, the wood kind, from the Hawthorne Hotel. I pulled one out, struck it, then placed it on a glass dish. I attached the round-bottom flask to the other end of the tubing, steadying it in the upper part of the iron stand. Afterward, I gathered magic energy into the hand still around the flask's neck.
The glass chilled in my grasp as I focused on the mundane fire. The lit match continued to burn, but how? My magic should have snuffed it. I looked at my hand on the flask.
I almost knocked the entire stand over and ruined the experiment. My magic had never been this color before.
Gold is a solar magic color, like Dad or Bubbe or Noah had. That was what glowed around the hand holding the flask—pure gold.
My eyes widened as I noticed my lab partner, my friend, and my frenemy watching. Maybe the lit match had attracted their attention, or perhaps they wanted to see how I'd get around not using my element.
"Queen's Glory, she is an extramagus," Hal breathed. The faerie oath stunned me, coming just after I’d recalled that awful nightmare.
"No shit, Sherlock." Faith rolled her eyes. "Told you."
Inside the flask, my impossible solar magic had turned the other ingredients to liquid, which reacted with the lime. The glass heated, contents rising up to the neck on its way to the tubing.
I was frozen in place. Who wouldn't have been?
"Miss Morgenstern," Professor Luciano's eyes widened. He noticed too. "Remove your hand. Quickly!"
The fact that he stared at the flask and not me helped me move, finally. He was concerned about my immediate safety, not that I was just like Uncle Richard after all. I managed to save myself from a third-degree burn.
The result was fast, though not immediate. Smoke, foam, and heat appeared in the beaker as the solution dripped down. We'd done it correctly and watched it dissolve, so at least I didn't flub things and give us a failing grade.
A shattering sound followed by a flashpoint of heat behind me signaled that someone else hadn’t been so lucky. I turned on my heel, seeing Logan through a veil of rising smoke. His eyes rolled wildly as he tried to step away from the fiery disaster on the bench between him and the rest of the classroom. His arms extended in a posture that meant he was about to instinctively shoot water to extinguish the flames.
It's a chemical fire so that won't work. He’s doomed.
DANGER: FIRE: LOCATION: LAB B
If the announce system cut on, emergency response would be too slow. So would Alex, running toward the closet with the fire blanket. I knew that after racing him that morning. The fire spread, raging toward the boy who had set it loose, and his back was against the door to a cabinet containing more flammable ingredients. I was Logan's only hope.
But only if my magic was stronger than this conflagration.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I said nothing, just held my palms out at the growing fire like a traffic cop ordering it to stop. The gesture didn't matter much; it was the thought that really counted. I imposed my will on the fire, not the flames at its edges, but at its heart. There was no point in trying to reduce the leading edge of something moving this fast. I needed focus to banish fire, and the situation worked against me.
Everything was too distracting, from the gasps and horrified cries of my classmates to footsteps pounding in from the hall, to smoke working its way toward my nose and mouth, threatening to choke me. And that wasn’t all—the fire had grown from conflagration to inferno.
It was impossible. I couldn’t possibly have been strong enough.
Ember landed on my shoulders, one hind foot on each side of my neck. She couldn’t banish fire, but her wings wreathed the sides of my head like blinders on a spooked horse, damping all that noise, letting me be in the moment, letting me focus on the signal. That made all the difference.
I called for intervention from the heavens and was answered immediately.
My magic crushed the chemical fire. It guttered and sputtered, then caved in on itself and died. From under a layer of soot, Logan's expression eased out of primal terror and into an exhausted sort of awe.
My victory was sudden, total, and completely unexpected since I didn't know my own strength. Turned out, it was more than enough—and more than I should have used.
I dropped my hands and sagged sideways. There was nothing to hold on to or break my fall. I was going down and couldn't even swing.
"Gotcha." Dylan stood over me. I blinked up at him.
"You're not in my class." He got me halfway standing, supporting me under one arm. Someone else came in from the other side.
Grace snorted. "It's a fire. Eve
ryone's in your class now."
"It wasn't my fault." I let them usher me away from the scene of all that glory and shame.
"It really wasn't." Logan came out from behind the lab bench, grimy but seemingly unscathed. "I did it. Used too much. Blew up the lab."
"Accidents happen, my dude." Dylan shrugged the whole thing off.
"Where's Hal?"
I tried looking over my shoulder but sneezed and didn't quite manage. A glance around told me everybody had evacuated, but I still didn't see Hal’s short, stocky physique anywhere in the throng as we passed through the door.
In the hall, I caught sight of Faith and tried to flag her down because no matter how much we sniped at each other, she clearly cared about Hal. But she turned her back, ignoring me. I couldn't blame her, either. She'd been vindicated, right about me all along.
Tell your friends before she does.
"I'm an extramagus."
"What was that?" Grace tapped her earlobe. "Hard to hear in this din."
I waited until they brought me to a bench between classroom doors. Once seated, they fussed over me, doing a hack job of taking my pulse and peering at my eyes. Grace and Dylan talked over each other, arguing about whether to send me to the infirmary, but I cut them off.
"I said, I'm an extramagus."
They stopped and stared, not even blinking. Must have been totally shocked.
"Okay," said Grace.
"Yeah," said Dylan.
"You don't believe me?"
"We do." She nodded. "But I can't say we're surprised. Sorry."
"So why are you still here?"
Before they answered, a series of hissed and emphatic syllables from our right interrupted. Professor DeBeer and Professor Luciano argued while a tall dun-complected man with straight black hair and brown eyes stood by. He wore the awful Gym uniform and a whistle like Coach Pickman. I guessed he was Coach Chen.
"—can't believe you'd have them run one on the first day like that, Lucy." Professor DeBeer's nostrils flared.
Professor Luciano smirked. “They’re quite advanced, Miss Susan."