by Jade Alters
“Is that…” he mumbles.
“Yes,” I answer for him. I join him in his shameless upwards gaze at the underside of the Broken Academy. The massive stony platform of its foundation hangs over our heads, through the veil of the Prismatic Ballroom’s ceiling. It’s formed from several massive, solid pieces, welded together by the Witches, Warlocks and Magicians of old. Hunks of rock excavated from mountains and bound eternally in the sky. Massive spotlights of golden light descend from pockets bored deep in it. They bleed through the glassy shell of the Ballroom where it floats just feet beneath.
“Is this place down here all year round?” Hoster marvels. He spins around like a child in his perfect suit, completely unaware of the dangerous game he’s in the middle of.
“No,” I chuckle. “The staff puts it together once, sometimes twice a year. You can imagine the effort it takes to create.” Hoster nods while he wanders ahead. He, Helena and I move through a wave of our fellow students on our way to the tables in the back left corner. There waits a collection of crystalline chairs with numbers floating over them, which correspond to numbered cards we received when we RSVP’d for the Ball.
“You know what I’ve always wondered,” Helena says, as the crowds thicken around us. We sidestep Demons in ties and Fey in long, flower-adorned dresses. I’d have loved to see what Fey Deller came up with, after her quick work on our tiaras. “Is if the Ballroom changes from year to year. It’s staff-made, and I’m sure most of them remember how it looked the year before, but…staff changes every year.”
“Yeah,” I realize she’s probably right. Suddenly, Helena and I can’t keep our hands off the prismatic sculptures of historical Academy figures and accents. “Even then, I’m sure they do it a little differently each time. If not from boredom, because they remember differently.” My hands slip between the knife-like petals of a narrow flower-shaped decoration. I wrap my fingers around it to see them distorted by multicolor gemstone magic.
We continue in a loose, sight-seeing trend, to the fringe of the dancefloor, where several students have locked arms in traditional dance to the ambient Ballroom music. Some of them float in an invisible orbit of grace. Some of them look as uncomfortable as I feel, in waves between forgetting where and who I am. The three of us skirt around their bobbing patterns, but a slew of bodies slam into Helena anyway.
“So-sorry!” she sputters as the gaggle ricochets her from one to the next like a pinball. Neither she nor I recognize them until Helena emerges on the other side, dress ruffled like a nesting bird. I don’t know first names, but their faces ring vague bells in memories of other Founding Family events. Those same bells toll a sharp and shrill note in Helena’s mind. Haruman. Dymmer. Gorshen. They’re students of the other Core Lines of Witches and Warlocks.
“I assumed you were,” says a long-nosed boy with side-slicked black hair. He sends an unspoken message loud and clear: what he’s referencing has nothing to do with bumping into them. The other students scoff their way around us. Helena snares my wrist before I can snap them through the floor of the Ballroom.
“Emery. They’re not worth it,” she says. Her voice is a comforting hum, like I’m the one who needs it. Like she isn’t being torn apart inside.
“But you are,” I answer, and pull my wrist away. It’s caught again, only this time, by Hoster.
“Hey, I’m with you. Those guys are dicks,” Hoster prefaces, a hand up to pledge his loyalty, “But maybe not here? You’ve got to hit them when they’re not expecting it, or this will come right back to Helena. Not you.” My fingers twitch in the air a second longer. Maybe Hoster does know a thing or two about this game. I let my arm fall back down. He guides me back to our original course, for our table.
I watch my hovering number, fifty-two, dissolve into the air as soon as my hand touches the chair beneath it. Emery Dalshak, engraves itself in the hollow crystal of the back of the seat. Hoster and Helena do the same. However, when I go to pull the chair out, something stops me. It takes a few glances for me to pinpoint Hoster’s shoe propped up against its back legs. I look up at him, to find a smile that the word charming does no justice.
“I assume you’re supposed to make some sort of impression here, right?” he asks me. I squint at him to determine just what kind of game he’s playing.
“I thought you didn’t care about…things like that. Reputations. Impressions?” I counter. He snaps a hand over his heart, as if run through by my merciless arrow. I snicker until he drops the act.
“I don’t. I just want to dance with you,” Hoster says. The announcement comes with the glide of a hand, right to my side.
“Will you be al-”
“Get out of here, crazy! The man asked you to dance!” Helena booms over me. I lay my hand in Hoster’s, as dainty as I’ve seen ladies do in movies. The Emery who started the Academy this term would have said it was a move of strategy, letting him take the lead in an unfamiliar territory. Now, with a little quiet in my own skull to think, I’m not to blind to admit it also feels nice. Being treated with respect. Being cared for. Admired. I let Hoster lead me out on the dancefloor.
For the next five minutes, the only thing I feel is his hands burning through my dress, onto my hips. The only thing I hear is the sweet mystical key stroke of an invisible piano. The song it sings is something with notes both whimsical and somber. The only thing I see is Hoster’s clear-blue eyes looking at me like I’ve never seen someone look at someone else before. His feet and arms seem to know what to do without them. It’s almost like he’s staring into a solar eclipse. He knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t look away.
I lace my fingers loosely behind his neck. Towards the end of the song, I let my arms hang heavy on him. Heavy enough that he can’t hold me up for too long without leaning in. Our noses cross beside one another like the blades of two swordsmen about to duel. They come together, then slide past one another in the fatal thrust. We both lose. We both win. At the conclusion of our duel, our lips find one another. I forget about the other couples spinning around us. I forget about the hundreds of expectant eyes, faculty and students alike. When I close my eyes, I still see Hoster, outlined as a shimmering blue specter. He holds me in his arms, both on the dance floor and in the Blue Plane, while we retreat to breathe, only to crash together again.
Lips, tongues, hands. It all becomes a blur across Realms. Our bodies press together in a union of passion, under the golden lights that slice down around us. The only thing that re-rails the runaway train of the kiss is Hoster, asking:
“Isn’t that…your Sealbreaker trainer?” I pull my lips back from him. The sudden chill of not being pressed against him jostles me. The rest of the world re-materializes around us. The other couples, silently bobbing. The buffet line. The whole Prismatic Ballroom full of people who just saw me mash lips with Hoster. I can’t believe I let myself do that. No more than I can believe what I see on the other side of the Ballroom, when I follow Hoster’s gaze.
“That it is,” I confirm his suspicions. Rock, in his odd, tribal version of a tuxedo, has crossed the dance floor to our table. Its high collar is adorned with fur from something huge - maybe a wolf. The outer jacket is sleeker than the Chief’s traditional hide, like it’s been coated in a kind of gloss. The vest beneath is adorned with tiny bones and cross-laces of jute that let Rock’s impressive abs peek through. He appears to be asking Helena something. Then he offers her his hand and I know exactly what he’s asking. Or at least, I think I do.
Helena takes Rock’s hand and before I know it, mine loosen around Hoster’s neck. He looks over at Rock, just as surprised, but his hands never leave my hips. It’s all that keeps me grounded in the infuriating situation. How could he use her like that? Just to get to me? Helena takes the bait all too willingly. I catch the flash of a girlish grin on her lips as she flickers back and forth behind him, led by the arm. But then I see Rock’s face. All of the devious, jealous tactics I envisioned are absent from him. He wears a content little smile and doesn�
��t so much as glance my way before he takes Helena to the dance floor. It’s innocent, courteous even. Two students from two prestigious families putting on a show for the Ballroom.
“Hey, you okay?” Hoster calls me out of my trance. I tie my fingers back together behind his neck. It feels like I almost just lost grip on my lifeline in the middle of a raging ocean. To have it back in my hands paints relief across my face. “I think he asked her to dance, not jump out the nearest window.”
“I…” I start out ready to rip him a new one, but hearing my concerns from his lips makes them sound just as ridiculous as they really are. Rock has never shown me an ounce of the cruelty I just suspected him of. To think he would do that is just Mother’s training. “I see that now.” I chuckle to Hoster. I can almost feel a curtain lifting over my mind, a draped cloth of deceit. Behind it is the essence of a truth I should have learned long ago. It’s okay to trust people. I feel like I’ve broken a rule just thinking it.
I sway with the music, but moreso the rhythm of Hoster’s feet and hands. He’s practiced enough for the both of us. I chance the occasional look over his shoulder at my best friend and my almost-lover, spinning the night away. It puts an odd sort of smirk on my face, wider even than if he had asked me to dance, himself. I lay my head on Hoster’s shoulder for the remainder of the song, as well as the next three. I’ve never cared so much about music in my life. Suddenly, the final cord of every song freezes my heart between beats. It kicks back in at the first key blend of the next song. I smile, and even hum along with the few melodies I recognize from Father’s record player, right up until one of the staff supervisors announces:
“Buffet line is now open to tables one through five.” I draw my face back from Hoster so we can lock eyes.
“Want to get some food?” I ask at the same time Hoster groans.
“I’m starving!” He freezes up, like he’s let slip some deep-seated slur. “Ah- yes,” he amends. I let the magic of the moment take me over, and giggle. I watch the tension drain from Hoster’s tense upper body as he offers his arm to walk me to the buffet.
The food before me is an expression of culinary art from every culture that first built the Broken Academy. There are salt-crusted bison steaks. There’s pickled onion and carrot slaw on toasted cuts of handmade bread. Then a whiff of nostalgically fragrant steam spirals up my nose. I’d recognize the scent of that curried tofu with carrots and potatoes anywhere. I offer my plate for the server, and also the chef.
“Sister,” Serge nods to me, in formality. Then a smirk cracks his stoic mask. “I thought you’d be stupid sick of this stuff by now.”
“You’re the one cooking it,” I tease him back. Serge tilts his head sideways in consideration. He arrives at a silent expression of fair enough, and slaps a heap of it on top of my seasoned rice and peas. He remembers. I like mine mixed. The guilt that pokes through the outer layer of my usually shielded soul reminds me of everything that’s fallen into the background of the Heritage Ball. The espionage. The plotting. The encroaching betrayal. All of that belonged to a different Emery. The one I left behind the second I broke my connection with Mother.
“Hey sis, you’re starving your date.” Serge’s voice snaps me out of my self-induced hypnosis. I’ve become a dam on the river of people coursing down the buffet line. Hoster’s plate is as full as mine as he stands patiently behind me, but he is about twice as thin as I am.
“He looks like that all the time,” I wave Serge off, and move down the line to the chive-topped mashed potatoes. Hoster takes a scoop of curry from Serge, then completely astonishes me with the stretch of a hand over the buffet tables.
“Hoster Rowsen. Nice to meet you,” he offers, along with his sweaty palm. Serge stares down at it with a raised eyebrow. His eyes shoot to me as if to ask is he serious? When he sees that, in fact, Hoster is, Serge slaps a dirty gloved hand in his for a hard shake. “You’re mistaking me for the rest of our family. It’s not so strict, between Emery and I.” Then Serge pulls Hoster in, over the curry, to whisper something I can’t hear. His lips spell out but if you hurt my sister, I’ll trap you in a funhouse mirror. I hide a snort in my shoulder when Hoster follows me down the rest of the line to our table, paler than his Astral form.
“What did he say to you?” I tease Hoster when we plop down in our seats.
“To enjoy the food,” Hoster gulps. He jabs a fork through the side of a crisp tofu chunk. I take a glance around for Helena while I toss back a mouthful of seasoned rice. I don’t see her right away, but I do see her dancing partner as he strolls past our table. I catch his wrist in passing. Rock turns back, eyes bright with surprise to see me at the other end of his arm.
“Emery! Would it be an insult to say I hardly recognized you?” Rock laughs.
“It’d be a lie to say otherwise,” I laugh. “I just wanted to say thank you.”
“For what?” Rock counters.
“That was sweet, asking Helena to dance,” I smile, “It’s about time people start treating her the way she deserves.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Rock grins. “She’s by far the most tolerable student from a Founding Family.” I smile another second it takes my brain to digest what he’s implying.
“Hey!” I laugh. Rock’s cavernous chuckles rumble down until he’s left with just the charming vestige of a smirk. “But we both know she’s not the one I want to dance with most.” With that, Rock slips his hand free of mine, and heads for the buffet line. My mouth hangs open right alongside Hoster’s. It’s audibly painful when he swallows the knot in his throat.
“So…that’s my competition, huh?” Hoster laughs uncomfortably. I get whiplash from the lightning-fast spin of my body to face him.
“There is no competition,” I assure him. I can hardly be sure of that right now, with butterflies for both Hoster and Rock colliding in my chest. But maybe, if I follow Fey Deller’s advice…I bury my worries in the mound of food on my plate for about five seconds.
Then my eyes catch something that flushes all of those worries from my head. A circle of bodies converge around Helena, who I’ve finally spotted on her way back from the buffet line. Every conflicting thought, every pulse of emotion is pushed out in favor of one, single instinct. She’s in trouble. My chair scrapes out. I march off without so much as a word to Hoster, though I hear his shoe-clack behind me.
“This isn’t your fight,” I turn to ward him off as we near the shell of Line Witches and Warlocks.
“It shouldn’t be anyone’s,” Hoster concedes, though he walks just as close behind me. “You’re damn good, Emery. But if you take on that many magical bastards without backup, you might get your ass beat.” Much as I’d like to tell him he’s wrong, I know he’s not. I count six students, each one from a Core Line just as powerful and prestigious as the Bartoses, as the Dalshaks. Even with Hoster and Helena, its two-to-one.
“Look at her! So proud. It’s actually kind of sad. She actually thinks he wanted to dance with her. It was pity,” the Haruman boy hisses. I grab him first. I yank him halfway around by his shoulders before one of the others pipes up:
“I hope it was worth it. He cut ties with the other Core Lines for you.” By the end of the Gorshen girl’s acidic sentence, she doesn’t realize I’ve broken Haruman’s long nose on my knuckles. Then she makes the mistake of adding, “Harry.” She’s next. Hoster parts the crowd with a push from each arm. I step through the opening to drive a kick up into the Gorshen girl’s crotch. It lifts her an inch off the ground. She’ll be lucky if I didn’t just seal her vagina like an envelope for the next month. She’s on the floor before a squeak of pain can even escape her.
That’s when the rest of the crowd turns on me and Hoster. Thrash and kick as we might, there are more of them than we can hope to control. Hoster manages to dislodge one of their jaws with a surprisingly well-placed uppercut before we’re in Core Line custody. Three others come in from the fringes, having seen us lash out at their nefarious companions. The rest of th
e Ballroom is just starting to stir with commotion around us when I poise my fingers over my head, in the snare of a huge man’s wrist. One snap is all it would take.
“Emery, no!” Helena screams. The plight in her voice is all that stops me. It reminds me that, if I use a trick here, it will trip every alarm in the Academy. The Prismatic Ballroom is considered a high-security zone, and I already feel the eyes of staff prodding around the brawl for the source. Still, my fingers hang ready to imprison them or so, so much worse, at the tick of a second.
“Helpless without your bodyguard and her man-servant, aren’t you, Harry?” asks one of the others, a Dymmer boy with striking eyebrows he probably spent hours gardening. Every utterance of the name scrunches Helena’s face into a tighter, more agonized ball. It makes me want to combust. More than that, it makes me want to hurl them all into a temporal underworld of mirrors. “How you managed to enlist Emery Dalshak is beyond me.”
“Helena’s worth ten of you, each! That’s how!” I scream, for the whole Ballroom to hear. They should all know what the other Core Lines are really like.
“You’re even denser than the rest of your family, if you believe that. Harry’s-”
“My name is HELENA!” my best friend unleashes rage from the darkest depths I never knew she housed. The hate in her eyes is as both parts of a solar eclipse, bright as the ring outside and deeply black as the hole within. All the concern she had for me is gone from her, for herself. She flings both arms out in front of her. The shift in energy sends a pulse of distortion through the Prismatic Ballroom, moving out from her feet. Anyone who was somehow unaware of the conflict before now turns in to stare at Helena, and the most frightening spell any of them have ever seen.
Flame dances up the outside of Helena’s legs in spirals that scorch everything they touch, besides her. As they circle her waist and shoulders, they flare out into a vortex. My captors and Hoster’s are forced to let us go to step back, lest they be incinerated. The hardly existent floor of the Prismatic Ballroom is turned black around her. Parts of it even begin to crack and splinter. Between the heat and smog, I can hardly make out her silhouette anymore. I’m not even sure it’s Helena inside the flaming twister anymore - only the shadow of a Witch with more destructive power than I’ve ever seen before.