The Broken Academy 2 : Power of Magic

by Jade Alters

  “That’s it, folks!” the announcer’s burst does the exact opposite of its intention to neutralize the adrenaline pumping around the field. It calls every eye on the field to the scoreboard. It’s been such a close game, even those playing have lost track of who had the advantage. For the first time in years, my own eyes shoot to the floating scorekeeper without a clue as to who is on top. Who continues in the league. “In the narrowest victory of the season, Cypher Stream comes out on top! By a single point!” the announcer screams.

  I glide down around the perimeter of the field, still half-expecting a trick to fling at me. The crowd’s bellow is like a micro-massage between each of my feathers. It vibrates my hollow bones. My talons turn back to feet, complete with shift-enabled shoes. I breathe easy as I clap a hand to Bryant’s back, where he leans exhausted on the Goalstone.

  “Saved my ass out there,” I tell him.

  “Seems to be my second job, after tallying up goals,” Bryant grumbles back. In the middle of all the heart-pumping action, it blindsides me so hard I crack up. A joke! He must have grown a sense of humor sometime between our first practice and the biggest game of the season.

  “Damn straight,” I laugh. I twitch a little at the slap of someone else’s sweaty hand on my back. I turn expecting to find one of my own, but my surprise only doubles at the sight of Emery Dalshak with her hand outstretched. “Today is just full of surprises. Emery Dalshak. A good sport?”

  “Shake my damn hand before I take advantage of unlimited access to my tricks,” Emery says through a tooth-gritting smile. It only makes me laugh harder. I slap my hand into hers for a hardy shake. We hold onto one another long after the formalities of sportsmanship are fulfilled.

  “You know…I’d say you almost don’t need a Sealbreaker teacher anymore,” I admit. Emery’s fingers relax in mine, but she doesn’t pull away. Our arms relax between us, which pulls us a few inches closer to hold on. With the other members of my team making nice with hers, we’ve got another few seconds of cover at most. “But I hope you still come practice with me. We might be able to teach each other a thing or two.” The word practice hangs on my tongue with all the devious implications I want her to know. Emery’s eyes narrow on me with something dangerously close to desire. Then they shift to something very different.

  “I…I’m going to the Heritage Ball with Hoster Rowsen,” Emery struggles to spit out.

  “Interesting response,” I muse. Emery gives me an uncomfortable little chuckle.

  “I just…thought you should know. In case it changes how you feel,” she tells me, “Or if you need time to think about it.”

  “About our morning practices? No,” I tell her. I hardly know who Hoster Rowsen is. I’ve seen him maybe twice throughout the term, in passing. He comes off, to me, like a shadow for Emery, complete with all the ridiculous whimsy she doesn’t have. “I’m playing better than I ever have before, so I’ll be here bright and early. It’s up to you, if you want to join me.” Emery looks at her shoes with inexplicable guilt. So she’s going to the Heritage Ball with Hoster Rowsen. I’m not worried about him. She brings her face up to mine.

  “Alright,” Emery forces a smile. I don’t think I’ve seen one of those on her face more often, or more naturally, than I did today. Something’s changed for her, or it’s just beginning to. I haven’t the foggiest what it is, but I hope I’m a part of it. Our fingers slip away from one another.

  “I’ll see you at the Ball,” I grin to her. I turn away, to force myself to shake hands with her brother.

  Spellbound

  Emery,

  The Broken Academy, Room B-22

  Thank God for Helena. I’ve got no idea what to do with my hair. This collection of makeup might as well be the controls of a nuclear reactor. I don’t even recognize half the tools in the case Mother sent me last month, in anticipation for the Ball. There’s no chance I can get into the dress draped across my bed alone, either. It’s a good thing I have the best help a girl could ask for. Helena was done with her own wardrobe a full hour ago. She had no objection to dedicating the remaining hour before the Heritage Ball to sorting through my disaster. She even seemed oddly excited about it.

  “Are you…sure about this hair?” I ask her. I fight with the yank of her fingers to keep my face from tilting back, as per her instruction. She works on the left side of my head now. If it comes out looking anything like the right side she’s already done, it’ll be a masterpiece. Helena works with the hands of a genius. Every touch of her fingers is just as magical as one of her spells. It transforms me just the same way.

  “Emery. Which of us would you say has more of a flair for strategy?” Helena asks. I watch her through the mirror in front of us. Her eyes cross on the braid of hair she’s lacing together from my uncooperative bangs. If she’s actually paying any mind to what comes from my mouth, she doesn’t show it. Her brain seems solely dedicated to the perfection of the braid she’s building.

  “Me,” I answer, much as I hate loaded questions. I get enough of that from Mother. Well, until I snapped our connection. Since I still haven’t constructed a feasible reason for that to give her, it remains broken.

  “And which of us has more of a flair for style?” Helena asks. With the way she flips cords of hair between her fingers, coiling them with such uniform tautness, there’s no question.

  “You,” I admit.

  “So, if we ever need to plan a military siege, you’re in charge. When we need our hair done, I’m in charge,” Helena tells me. “You’ve got such nice skin, Emery. Your pores are so clean and smooth. Trust me, you want to pull the hair back from that. Show them both off separately in a way that doesn’t make them compete.”

  “Alright, alright, I trust you,” I tell her. I watch her work for a few seconds more. Helena builds the braid around the side of my head. She runs out of strands to work with at a spot on the back of my head that perfectly mirrors the braid on the other side. She fixes the two braids together, as well as to the back of my hair. It gives off the effect of a silky black crown. “Perfect. Now let’s get you into that dress.” I sigh. She makes it sound so easy.

  I step into the unzipped frame of it, prepared for a wrestling match with all the hanging hoops of fabric on the front. I’m astonished when Helena’s hands carry the sides of the dress right up my sides, over my breasts. At her bidding, I hold the tasteful-yet-teasing neckline while she fixes the fabric. In seconds. Helena has me zipped inside the form-fitting body-sleeve. It’s mostly black, with a single strip of red and purple sewn in to match its accents. I look up at the mirror, unsure of the girl I see before me. The dress seems both to hug me and hang on me, which is the intention of its design. The innermost part of it hugs my hips and the curve of my breasts. At a turn, I see the intimacies of my shape peek out from beneath cascades of crimson and violet fabric.

  “How do I…”

  “Hang on,” Helena stops me. She swoops in with two beautification tools. One of them I recognize as a mascara brush. The other looks more like it belongs in a sadistic doctor’s torture chamber. Before I can object, she clamps the latter down just in front of my eyes. “Don’t jerk away like that!”

  “What, are you going to scoop my eyeballs out?” I struggle. Helena laughs while she pulls the steely little clamp away from me.

  “If you don’t stop wiggling so much,” Helena warns me. She repeats the process on my other eye, or rather, my eyelashes. She follows with a swipe of the mascara brush through both. She grabs my arm when I try to move again, to come at me with an eyelid pencil. That, at least, my rudimentary education in appearances has covered. It doesn’t make it any easier for me to hold still while Helena glides it across my skin.

  “Helena…did your mom teach you all this?” I ask.

  “Not all of it,” Helena tells me. In a flash, she exchanges the eye equipment for a waxy spearhead of lipstick. “But she let me practice the stuff it was really hard to do on myself on her.” Helena slides the flattened face of t
he lipstick across my lower lip, then the upper. It leaves a perfect ruby gloss over them. She demonstrates the kiss-like movement I should do with my mouth to make sure everything is even.

  “There. Perfect.” Helena’s smile fills what room is left in the mirror around my done-up face. I hardly believe it’s me. It looks like a girl from a lingerie commercial stumbled into our room and got trapped in the mirror. Beside me, Helena looks like the shy backup cover girl, with her hair crimped to one side, her silver dress and eyelids sparkling with spelled stardust.“And Emery.” Helena’s hand rests on my shoulder. “If your mom could see you right now, even she would say so.” I let out a sharp cough of laughter.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” I tell her. Before Helena can think of a way to correct me, a third body appears in the mirror. Fey Deller glides over from the door to our room.

  “Emery. I believe your date is here,” she informs me.

  “I didn’t hear a knock,” I reply.

  “He didn’t knock. He’s standing outside, adjusting his tie. Hesitating, I believe,” Fey Deller tells me. I snort into my fist so Hoster won’t hear. I can picture it so clearly. I stand and turn with Helena to head for the door. “Wait just a second.” We’re both surprised by the grasp of Fey Deller’s hands on our collars. Her skin has a chill to it. It’s not so sharp as ice, no…more like a cool breeze through a forest.

  “What is it?” Helena beats me to the punch. Fey Deller’s lips blossom into the sweetest attempt at a real, human smile.

  “I won’t be attending the Ball, but…I wanted to give you both a gift,” Fey Deller tells us. She lifts her hands to our foreheads before either of us think to ask why. Then her fingers explain for us. They twirl with a fraction of the power spilled over from her home, Realm of Thornegarde. “For helping me better understand.” A tiny crackling sound signals the growth of twigs from the tips of her mint-colored skin. They split into thin strings of growth and wrap around one another, forming a braid, not unlike the one Helena has made for our hair.

  “Help you understand what?” I ask, eyes crossing at the feat of nature happening just above my head.

  “Everything,” Fey Deller tells me. Once they’ve fully encircled the tops of our heads, the twirled twig tiaras depart from the tips of her fingers. Fey Deller takes a step back from us, then folds her hands over her waist. She lowers her head, almost as if in prayer. This is because, I see, she is praying - in her ancestral church of nature. A bright crimson blossom unfurls from the center of my tiara, almost like a rose, but much smaller. A cup-shaped flower blooms on Helena’s, the perfect complementary shade of blue.

  “Thank you.” Helena gives Fey Deller a genuine grin and bow I can only hope to emulate. I try to copy her low sweep and smile.

  “Tha-tha-thank you,” I offer to Fey Deller. I hope she can hear in my perplexed voice how much I mean it. When Helena and I rise upright again, I wonder just how long Hoster plans on standing outside our room deep-breathing. My hand grips the handle the same second his first knock thuds. I’m chuckling before I even swing the door in.

  “Ah- Emery!” Hoster flinches away from the door, fist still half up to knock again. Then his eyes bleed of surprise and fill with wonder. “Whoa,” he lets out without an ounce of shame. Damn my face is hot, all of a sudden. It seems Hoster has strategically avoided mirrors on his entire way here because all of his awe is from me. He looks just as different from his normal self in that three-piece suit. He’s even standing straighter, and he doesn’t realize it.

  “Back at you,” Helena says for me when I stare at him blankly like an idiot for ten seconds. It’s a struggle for Hoster to pry his eyes off of me, to look at Helena. Once he does, a different kind of surprise comes over him. Helena’s gorgeous, there’s no denying it. But her beauty makes him smile. When he looked at me, he couldn’t smile or do anything. He was stricken.

  “Helena, is that you?” Hoster feigns disbelief.

  “Under all this, somewhere, yes. Believe it or not,” Helena tells him. The two of them giggle like children. The whole experience makes me stiff. Is that what I should be doing, too? Laughing? Smiling? I always saw the Heritage Ball as another opportunity for powerful families to flex their magical muscle and reputation. But this…this I don’t recognize. I draw in a breath deep enough to catch my date’s attention again. He gulps the second his eyes meet mine. I let my lips peel apart, entirely unsure of what’s about to come out of them.

  “Whoa,” I say. I mirror him, in the sentiment that yes, I am just as blown away. Every time I look at him, it’s like a malfunction in my bronchial lines. Shallow breaths replace my usual ones in an effort to fill the space that’s suddenly empty. His pinstripe gray suit pants and jacket. The darker gray vest underneath, embroidered with a design of dancing flame. The ruby tie that jumps out from his sharp-collared shirt. It’s all perfect. Then a little hint of Hoster’s old smirk creeps across the corner of his lips. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing, but it looks like I’m doing it right.

  “You really think so?” Hoster asks. His face wrinkles with the last lingering twitch of doubt from day-to-day Hoster. But today isn’t any old day. I put a hand on the side of his face and his shoulder to stop him from slouching.

  “It hardly matters what I or anyone else thinks, if you don’t believe it yourself,” I tell him. It’s Father’s lesson, but it sounds oddly different coming from my lips at just that moment - like a song transcribed into a new, brighter key. “But for the record…yes, I do think you said it perfectly. I opened this door and I thought… whoa.” I let my hands slide down his shoulders to his chest before they return to my sides. Hoster’s smirk turns into a huge grin. He offers me the crook of his arm. Now, this one I know. I slip my hand through and link us together at the side.

  “Helena, where’s your date?” Hoster asks. He knows well from the number of glances he took at his watch to stall just how late it is. If we leave now, we’ll just make it.

  “Going stag,” Helena smirks. The slightest hint of bitterness in her voice gives her away. I know that even though she’s twice as equipped for the trials of the Ball, she wants to go to it even less than I do. But as the only Bartos Witch in the Academy this year, she hardly has a choice.

  “You know what?” I say, as soon as it strikes me. I can’t believe it didn’t, earlier. “Why don’t you come with us?” I shoot Hoster a questioning glance.

  “Su-su-sure, of course!” Hoster agrees, once his spinning wheels catch traction again.

  “Are you…sure?” Helena asks. Her brows curve up with such authentic thankfulness, I couldn’t change course now if I wanted to. She really thinks I’m capable of leaving her out to dry? God, what else does Helena think of me?

  “Of course I’m sure,” I say.

  “Yes, come on!” Hoster smiles at the same time. Our synchronicity is a welcome relief to the encroaching tension of the Ball. If we can just stay on the same page, maybe this will turn out to be a good thing, somehow. “We’ll be late if we wait any longer,” Hoster says and offers his other arm to Helena. A flush sweeps across her cheeks, but she takes it. The three of us head down the hall for the Ballroom.

  Emery.

  The Broken Academy, Prismatic Ballroom

  The Academy opens the Prismatic Ballroom maybe twice a year. That we, three students in our first term, are able to see it at all should be considered a monumental privilege. I know this as we walk down the unsealed lower staircases that reach even below the floating foundation of the massive building. Still, as we stand outside the door, I tighten up around Hoster’s arm. Any students from the Academy are welcome at the Heritage Ball, but it’s a celebration of the founding families. The Dalshaks. The Bartoses. The Ahwahneechee Clan. There’s a certain expectation of students and faculty from these families. For the first time, I’m walking into a trial of reputation and presentation without Mother or Father. There’s no voice in my head but my own, and it can’t quite decide what to say.

  “Hey, you rea
dy?” Hoster’s voice shakes me back to reality. Suddenly, he, Helena and I stand before the high-topped translucent door to the Ballroom. It shimmers with a million different shades of light. It has the hue of both a mirror and glass, reflecting our own beautified appearances, as well as offering a vague glance inside the chambers beyond. I take my preparatory breath as quietly as I can, to keep from alerting Hoster and Helena. They seem to be having such a good time - if I could only meld into their mood.

  “Of course I’m ready.” My red lips curl up at Hoster with confidence that feels like it belongs to someone else. Helena and I unhook our arms from his. All three of us flatten our palms on the mystical doors. At the very second of contact, a surge of mystical energy jumps through me - an aftershock of all the tricks and spells coordinating to hold the Ballroom together. The only one unaware of the pressure waiting within the room, Hoster leads Helena and me in.

  I do my best not to ogle, but that seems to set me apart, rather than help me blend. Every student at every see-through diamond table, dance floor and buffet line walks with their head cocked back, turning over the splendor of the place. I spot students of my academic and familial caliber, as well as those few above and many below. They’re all guilty. They all stare, complete with slack-jawed murmurs. I make it about five seconds before I join them. Helena shows no such restraint, and Hoster even blurts out:

  “This…this is something.” Part of me wants to tell him of course it is, but the part I give into wants to laugh. I put a hand on his shoulder and point up, feeding into his amazed trance.

  “Look up,” I whisper in his ear. He does as I say, and immediately lets out a little bark of laughter. It spreads a smile instantly across my lips.