“How much farther?” I asked, leaning over the center console to peer through the windshield. Ezra was in the passenger seat, head bowed forward as he napped.
“Almost there,” Aaron replied, watching the road as flakes twirled down and melted on the wet pavement. “We entered the academy grounds at the last turn.”
“When was that?” I muttered, trying to remember a turn.
“Ten minutes ago,” Kai told me. “The academy owns, what, twelve hundred acres of forest?”
“About that,” Aaron answered as he slowed the car. “The academy buildings are that way.”
He slowed further as we passed a left turn, and I glimpsed a white building through the brush. My stomach did a nervous dance on top of my kidneys. Or liver. Or whatever organ my stomach was on top of. The narrow road continued and the forest gave way to manicured trees and smooth lawns, still green despite the frosting of fresh snow.
Directly ahead, an old-fashioned stone wall peeked through the thick branches of the mature trees lining the road.
Aaron took a hand off the wheel and tapped Ezra’s shoulder. “Wake up, buddy. We’re almost at the house.”
Ezra inhaled sleepily and sat up straighter. “Already?”
We zoomed toward the stone wall, which was growing larger, then the road curved. I craned my neck, my eyes going wider and wider. The car rolled alongside the building, then pulled underneath a covered carriage porch that stretched across the road—no, not the road. The driveway.
The moment the car stopped, Sin threw her door open and leaped from the vehicle. I was right behind her. We scrambled into the cold air, strode out from under the stone roof that arched over the car, and looked up. Way up.
Car doors banged shut as the guys got out. I didn’t even care that my mouth was hanging open as I backed up to bring more of the structure into view.
Aaron gave his home a passing glance. “Surprised?”
“But that’s … that’s a castle.”
Ezra appeared on my other side. “I tried to convince Tobias to add a moat, but no dice.”
I pointed like they hadn’t noticed the building towering over us. “A castle? You live in a castle?”
“Well … not anymore.” Aaron shrugged. “Shall we—oh, hey Dominic.”
A man wearing a crisp white dress shirt, gray vest, and black tie had walked out the castle’s front door. “Good afternoon, Mr. Sinclair. Would you like me to take care of your vehicle and luggage?”
“That’d be great, thanks.”
Aaron lifted his keys. They zoomed out of his hand as though tied to an invisible string and flew toward the other man.
“Welcome home,” Dominic added as the keys landed neatly on his waiting palm. “Your mother is in the living room.”
My attention wandered from the telekinetic butler back to the Sinclair family home. The castle stretched a hundred feet to the east and to the west, the walls interspersed with huge Tudor windows, the ancient masonry clad in tangled ivy. The gable roof featured peaked dormers above the fourth-story windows, and in the center, a blocky tower rose eighty feet. An actual tower, with battlements and everything. Rapunzel could’ve thrown her damn hair off the top.
“Let’s go!” Aaron called, standing on the steps in front of the entrance, Kai beside him. I hastened to join them, and Ezra followed behind me. Sin, yet to rehinge her jaw, trailed after us.
Inside was a reasonably small vestibule, and I almost relaxed—until I saw the man in a uniform identical to Dominic’s waiting for us.
“May I take your coat, Mr. Sinclair?”
“Thanks, Brett.” Aaron handed over his jacket, and Kai shrugged his off and passed it over.
Ezra was unzipping his too, so I nervously followed suit. Sin and I gave the butler—footman? I didn’t even know—our coats, then followed Aaron into the … entrance hall. What else could I call it?
The vaulted ceiling arched two stories overhead and was crisscrossed with dark timber trusses. Antique chandeliers hung on long chains, softly illuminating the glossy, elaborate wainscoting. Twin staircases stood on either side of us, leading to a second-floor balcony, and directly ahead was the biggest sandstone fireplace I’d ever seen, flanked by two twelve-foot Christmas trees with ornaments and flickering gold lights sparkling on their boughs.
Aaron and Kai breezed past the fireplace and Christmas trees, heading right down a wide corridor. Ezra followed, and I crowded behind him. Sin bumped my side, hovering just as close. The blue carpet, which ran down the center of the corridor, absorbed our footsteps. Aaron and Kai disappeared through the first door on their left.
“Aaron, darling!”
The female voice floated out of the room, and I gave up all pretense of composure and grabbed the back of Ezra’s shirt. Sin clutched my shirt, and we cowered behind him in a conga line of wimpiness as he walked in.
The room wasn’t as imposing as I’d expected. I was still intimidated as hell, but at least I could breathe. Elegant furniture formed a cozy sitting area around another, more modest, fireplace. A bar ran along the opposite side of the room, and a huge window filled the back wall, letting in streams of hazy sunlight. Another gargantuan Christmas tree, this one decorated in shades of blue and teal instead of white and gold, filled one corner, so perfect it could’ve been photographed for a home décor magazine.
“It’s so wonderful to have you back!” A slim older woman kissed Aaron’s cheeks, then peered into his face. “You must visit more often. I tell you this every year.”
“I know, Mom.”
She swept to Kai, her hands went on his shoulders, and she kissed his cheeks like a proper French lady. “Kai, how are you more handsome every time I see you! Have you kept my Aaron out of trouble this year?”
“As best I could, Valerie.”
She turned and spotted the rest of us. Her smile widened, perfect white teeth flashing and delicate wrinkles gracing her features, the only sign that she was a youthful fifty and not thirty. Her raven hair was twisted in an elegant bun and she wore an outfit I could only describe as “expensive”—pale peach slacks that looked impossibly soft, a chic ivory blouse, and a matching blazer with three-quarter-length sleeves. A bracelet bursting with diamonds sparkled on her wrist.
“Darling Ezra!” She swooped down on him, caught his shoulders, and stretched up to kiss his cheeks too. Sin and I ducked behind him. Dignity? Who needed that?
“You look pale, honey.” She frowned at him. “Are you feeling under the weather? Should I call the healer?”
“I’m fine. Thank you, Valerie,” he said. “Just tired.”
“Well, you can sleep all you like while you’re here. Is that guild working you boys too hard?” She tsked—then suddenly she was sweeping around Ezra. Her cool hands caught mine. “You must be Tori! Aaron has told me so much about you. Welcome to our home.”
I gaped, then dusted off my manners. “Thank you for having us, Mrs. Sinclair.”
“Oh, call me Valerie.” Next thing I knew, her lips tapped my cheek on one side, then the other. “And this must be Sin. Hello, my dear. Your sister is such a delight.”
“Y-you know Lily?” Sin stammered.
Valerie laughed throatily, then captured Sin for cheek kisses. “Of course, of course. I know all our students.”
“Mom is the Administration Director but also the school’s unofficial guidance counselor,” Aaron said, already slouched in one of the sofas, his shoes propped on an antique coffee table that probably cost more than all the furniture in my apartment put together. “She’s always checking up on everyone, making sure they have everything they need or want.”
“Our students’ comfort is a top priority. They can’t learn if they’re distracted by inconsequentialities.” She brought her hands together in a businesslike clap. “Now, Aaron, did you review the itinerary I emailed you last week?”
He pulled a disgruntled face.
She withdrew a folded paper from her pocket and offered it to him. “I made a copy
for you. Most important, here”—she prodded the page—“is a visit from the Olympus guild master on Friday morning. He’s making a special trip from Greece to see you.”
Aaron sank deeper into the sofa, pointedly not looking at the paper his mom was holding under his nose.
“The Olympus guild?” Sin mouthed silently from behind Valerie’s back, her round eyes revealing her amazement. I was going to go out on a limb and guess it was a famous guild.
“Did you leave me any free time?” Aaron asked, sarcasm leaking into his voice.
Since he wasn’t taking the page, Valerie dropped it on his lap. “If you want to cancel the Ursa Major interview, I can arrange that. They’re making an excellent offer, but even a famous Arcana guild is still …” She shrugged delicately.
“I’m not looking for a new guild.” He tossed the paper on the coffee table and rose to his feet. “I want to give Tori and Sin a tour of the academy.”
“Of course.” Her bright smile returned, a sharp contrast to Aaron’s scowl. “Dinner is at seven, and I also had the chef prepare a light snack.”
She waved to the bar—or maybe it was a sideboard?—where dainty sandwiches, cut into quarters, were heaped on silver platters. I also spotted fruit, little dessert squares, and a covered dish I assumed contained soup, based on the bowls stacked beside it and the steam escaping from beneath the lid.
“I should get back to work myself,” she added. “Ladies, please make yourselves at home. Anything you need, ask Aaron, myself, or any of the house staff.”
As Valerie swept from the room in a swirl of peach fabric and vanilla-rose perfume, Aaron and Kai approached the sideboard thing with a predatory gleam in their eyes. They didn’t seem to notice or care that those little sandwiches were the fanciest things I’d ever seen as they started eating.
Curious, I picked up Aaron’s itinerary and scanned it. Whoa. He hadn’t been kidding about the lack of free time. Interviews, meetings, lunches …
Sin peered over my shoulder. “Aaron, are you teaching this week?”
“Does it say I am?” he asked grumpily as he shoved a sandwich triangle in his mouth. “Then yeah.”
“You’re giving a lecture on”—she squinted—“advanced cognitive visualization on Wednesday afternoon.”
He took the bowl of soup Kai offered him. “I tell them every year I just want to visit and relax.”
Sin and I stared at him, and I figured she was stuck on the same idea as I was: that of rambunctious, troublemaking Aaron as a teacher. I tried to imagine him wearing glasses, which seemed like a prerequisite for anyone giving a lecture with “advanced” in the title.
“What’s cognitive visualization?” I asked.
“It’s an important part of switch training,” he answered, referring to the tools mages used to refine their magic. He blew on a spoonful of soup. “You visualize what you want to do with your magic while making a specific gesture with your switch. It’s about training your brain to associate the simple motion with a complex actualization of your magic.”
My jaw hung open. Maybe it was unfair of me to be so surprised, but “complex actualization” wasn’t part of his everyday vocabulary.
“It’s like muscle memory, but trickier.” He gulped down his soup. “We’ll go to the arenas first so you can see for yourself. At least one class will be working with switches, guaranteed.”
Oozing impatience, he set his bowl on the sideboard and waved at us to follow him. As he vanished through the door, Kai snorted wordlessly and continued eating.
Noticing my worried look, he added, “He’ll wait for us. Come eat.”
I handed the itinerary to Sin and selected a mini sandwich. The white bread was so fluffy it might’ve been a bread-shaped cloud.
“Jeez,” Sin muttered, reading the schedule more carefully. “Olympus, Ursa Major, Tales of Aether, Azalea Inc., MerlinQuest … these are all really famous guilds. Is Aaron interviewing with all of them?”
“Most of them,” Kai said with a shrug. “They’ll make an offer, he’ll politely turn it down, and he’ll disappear into obscurity for another year.”
“Look.” She pointed at the page. “On Boxing Day, he’s supposed to fly to Los Angeles to meet with Maximus Productions about a—”
“I’m not going.” Aaron stuck his head back into the room. “I told Mom I wasn’t leaving the grounds this time. The whole point is to visit with my family, not fly all over the damn planet. Are you slowpokes ready?”
We each stuffed our faces with one more sandwich triangle, then filed after him. As he led the way through the grand castle, I had to admit his childhood home didn’t intimidate me as much as the realization he was being headhunted by famous guilds from across the worldwide mythic community. With so many one-in-a-million opportunities, why had he chosen a small, unknown band of misfits to call his guild?
Chapter Five
The Sinclair Academy split its students’ time across three areas of study—training their magic, training their bodies, and training their minds. The first one was obvious—of course they learned how to wield their elemental powers—but they spent an equal amount of time learning how to weaponize their bodies.
Magery was the most physically demanding class of magic. Intense magic use rapidly exhausted mages, and the only counter was boosting their physical endurance. That’s why Aaron, Kai, and Ezra trained so hard and were so ridiculously fit. And had insane stamina. And were all deliciously hard muscle literally everywhere.
From daily workouts to classes dedicated to fitness and proper diet, the school hammered the lessons in. Other classroom time was devoted to Elementaria theory, technique, and history, as well as a basic but thorough understanding of the other magical classes.
And last but not least: practicing their magic.
I sat against a hard concrete wall, my butt planted on an equally hard concrete floor. Sin and Ezra sat on either side of me. Across the barren arena, ten fifteen-year-old mages waited in a quiet line, watching the small group of adults in the center.
Aaron and Kai stood with a tall older man, his copper hair streaked with silver and his eyes electric blue behind stately wire-rimmed glasses. Tobias Sinclair. Aaron’s father, the headmaster of the academy, and instructor of this class.
As Tobias described something to his students, an assistant passed two simple steel swords to Aaron and Kai. Looked like they’d be giving another demonstration.
“I don’t get it,” I whispered to Ezra. “Why does every class want Aaron and Kai to help with the lesson?”
I could get why Tobias would invite his son to participate, but this was the third time since we’d begun our tour of the academy. At least it would be the last of the day—the small windows, set high up on the walls, glowed orange as the sun sank below the tree line.
“They’re academy legends,” Ezra murmured. “Best of their year, and among the most talented alumni to ever graduate.”
I scrunched my nose. “Are they really that good?”
“They were the first mages you saw in combat, so your perspective is skewed. Yes, they’re that good. Watch this.”
Tobias finished his explanation and gestured to his assistant, a middle-aged woman with her brown hair pulled into a sleek ponytail. She gathered five plain ceramic discs from a bin beside her. As Aaron and Kai moved to opposite ends of the room, the assistant tossed the first disc into the open space between them. As it fell, she flicked the narrow silver stick she held in her other hand.
The disc stopped mid-fall, hovering three feet above the floor.
Ezra sighed. “I’ve never been able to do that. I can’t make the air dense enough.”
Oh, so the assistant was an aeromage? Interesting. She threw the next four discs and, with the same flick of her wand-like switch, caught each one in the air until all five floated motionlessly above the floor between Aaron and Kai.
“Now,” Tobias said to his students in a clear, deep voice, his laser-like stare all too reminiscent of Aar
on’s. “Any of you could destroy those discs, one by one, without a switch, but that’s a first-year skill. This month, we’ve been practicing using a switch to achieve discorporate ignition. Now Aaron and Kai will demonstrate why we’re learning it—and what a mastery of discorporate ignition can accomplish.”
“Discorporate what?” I muttered.
“Ignition,” Ezra whispered. “It means creating magic away from your body instead of starting with your hands or switch.”
“Aaron, Kai,” Tobias called. “Please turn around.”
As Aaron and Kai turned their backs on the floating discs, whispers of disbelief ran through the observing students.
“Aaron and Kai are employing spatial imaging to target the discs, even though they can no longer see them,” Tobias explained, emphasizing what I assumed was a term on the kids’ next exam. “Now they’ll use cognitive visualization as they engage their switches.”
Aaron and Kai lifted the plain swords. Aaron held his sideways, the blade’s edge parallel to the floor and one hand pressed against the flat steel. Kai aimed the point of his sword at the ceiling, the blunt edge aligned with his nose.
“Three,” Tobias called, “two, one, now.”
Aaron swept his hand down his blade. Kai twisted his sword sharply.
Five fireballs burst over the hovering discs. At the exact same moment, electricity erupted over the centermost disc, then bolts speared the remaining four. Broken ceramic rained down on the concrete.
The students whooped and clapped appreciatively.
Ezra nodded at his friends’ display of skill. “Discorporate ignition on five small targets would challenge most mages, let alone doing it blind.”
“Can you do it?” I asked.
He smiled ruefully. “I can only manage discorporate ignition on a single target.”
A vision flashed through my mind: an ice-cold and dark loading bay. As I’d plunged off a steel mezzanine, wind had whooshed beneath me, the dense air cushioning my fall.
Discorporate ignition. Ezra had created a dense pocket of air underneath me a split second before I’d hit the ground, while in the middle of a deadly battle against two demons. I might not be an Elementaria expert, but I suspected Ezra wasn’t giving his skills enough credit.
The Alchemist and an Amaretto: The Guild Codex: Spellbound / Five Page 4