by D. R. Perry
“Okay. All right. I’m going.” I shuffled into my slippers and then to the door.
My bathroom basket sat where I always left it. The halls were empty, which made sense. Only Lynn, Olivia and I were on this floor over the break. So much hot water came from the pipes, it was almost a shame I had to shower so fast. After dressing, I slipped the amulet over my head, tucking it inside my shirt. It felt slightly cool and tingly against my skin, reminding me of Henry’s lips on mine the night before. If I kept that line of thought up, I’d be too distracted to focus in class. I shook off the tactile memory, twisted my hair at the back of my head and clamped it down with a clip.
I headed to the dining hall, where Lynn was present as usual. There was just enough time to wave at her, grab coffee in a paper cup and buy a granola bar. I also snagged the holy trinity of dining hall fruit, tucking them away in my bag. The apple, banana, and orange would get me through as long as I could manage to eat them during whatever lunch break Professor Brodsky decided to give us.
The lab building was out by the gym over on Blackstone Valley Parkway. It was a way to go, but I liked walking. Watching people swerve out of my way and then scratch their bewildered heads afterward never got old. My feet crunching against the icy sidewalk ground out a counterpoint with the crispy breakfast bar between my teeth.
By the time I reached the PPC Magical Laboratory building, my coffee had cooled enough to chug. I gulped half down, then checked the room directory and my watch. My class was on the second floor, and I had five minutes. I took the stairs slowly, finishing my coffee at the top and tossing the cup in a bin. No one watched as I put my hand down my shirt and fingertips against the smooth bronze surface of the memory amulet.
“Ex umbra in solem,” I murmured. Then, I opened the door to the lab and stepped inside.
Long, white tables met my eyes. They appeared to hover over the black and gray speckled terrazzo floors, but upon closer inspection, they sat on thick Plexiglas bases. The air in the lab had circulation, but the room was windowless. I looked all around for a fan and finally found one in each corner. They were half-circles on sticks, made of wood, glue, and white peacock feathers, swirling lazily on filaments so thin I could barely see them from the floor. Magical fans for a magical lab.
I took a seat at the front table closest to the door. Only the one in the back corner was occupied already. I never sat in the back because, usually, it helped the Professor to remember I’d just asked a question. Also, sitting closer helped me focus and keep my mind on the subject instead of whoever sat in front of me. I also liked being by the door, but that had nothing to do with study habits. I wasn’t exactly sure where that habit came from, actually. Doorways are just so interesting. You never knew what might come through them.
A couple of guys showed up arm-in-arm, laughing together. They plunked their bags on the table front and center. One of them noticed me and smiled.
“Look at that. We won’t be all alone up here.” The one who’d spoken had olive skin, brown curly hair and horn-rimmed glasses over hazel eyes. He leaned toward me and stuck out his right hand. “I’m Ian, and this is my boyfriend, Charles.”
“Maddie,” I smiled and shook his hand. Once we let go, I waved at the purple-haired guy with the nose ring and blue eyes. “Hi, Charles.”
“Hi.” He pulled a workbook and some pencils out of his bag. Then, he blinked a few times and glanced back at me. “Have we met before?”
“Yup. Magus History with Feldercarb last semester.” I smiled, relieved that this would be the last time I’d have to do a rerun with Charles for the entire inter-session.
“Huh. That was a big class. Sorry, I don’t remember meeting you.” He shrugged.
“Don’t be. I’m Umbral.”
“Oh, wow.” Charles deliberately looked away and then turned back. “Woah. And you’re Maddie from Magus History. Making me remember you is way advanced for this level of Magic Theory. Is it going to be a cakewalk or what?”
“Nope. I have a little help from a psychic, um, friend. An amulet. If I shut it off, you’ll forget all about me.”
“Hey, thanks for not saying ‘again,’ okay?” Charles chuckled. “Ian, can you believe this? We get to be in a class with an actual Umbral magus and remember her the whole time.”
“That’s awesome!” Ian smiled even more brightly. He opened his workbook. “Brodsky is fifty times tougher than Feldercarb. He gives quizzes before every class, and if you don’t pass, you have to leave. They say he’s harder on the students than the creatures he summons. Did you get to look over the material for the first class last night, Maddie?”
“Yes and no.” I got my already marked up workbook out. “I read over it back at home. Spent most of yesterday on the bus and then did some other stuff with friends.”
“You don’t make friends with Umbral magi.” I absolutely did not like the tone and timbre of the throaty voice coming from the back of the room. Still, I turned around before Charles or Ian did.
The person sitting in the back was rail thin and lanky, with glossy though unkempt black hair that looked surlier than what I could see of his or her face. I had no idea whether the owner of the voice was male or female, or what kind of magic they had either.
“And you are?” I wasn’t scared of a surly classmate. Maybe I should be, but whatever.
“That’s enough, Miss May, Miss Phillips.” The voice came from the doorway. I glanced over my shoulder to see a woman with silver streaks in her chestnut hair adjusting bottle-green cat’s-eye glasses over her gray eyes.
“Yes, ma’am.” “Miss Phillips” sat up straight, her voice taking on a decidedly more feminine pitch and timbre. She sounded less antagonistic by leaps and bounds, too. I almost forgave her for being so blatantly insulting. Almost.
“Let’s refrain from judging each other before we get acquainted.” The woman paused on her way toward the front of the room, raising one ruddy eyebrow at the girl in the back of the room.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. Name’s Nox.” Nox ran one hand over her head, shuffling thick hair out of her eyes. “I was born without a wall between my inside and outside voices. It gets passed down in my family.”
“Apology accepted.” Almost doesn’t count, but witty apologies do. “I know someone with a couple of sandbags where that wall should be.” I shrugged. “I can handle knowing one more, I guess. Why not come and sit with me? The workbook says practically every project needs a partner.”
“’Kay.” Nox collected her workbook and backpack, then got up and sauntered over to the empty seat at my bench.
When I turned to face the front of the room, the middle-aged woman stood behind the high, white Professor’s bench. She put down a clipboard and made four marks on whatever document graced its top. She glanced around again, then shrugged and smiled. Her teeth were just a tiny bit crooked and whiter than I expected for a woman going gray. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen her before. This was definitely not Pavlo Brodsky, the Professor who was supposed to be teaching Magic Theory Lab.
“Some of you may already know me, but I should introduce myself formally.” She turned her back on us, uncapping a smelly dry-erase marker. The name she wrote on the whiteboard made Ian and Charles gasp almost in unison. I would have laughed at them, but was struck speechless by the three nouns: Henrietta Thurston, Headmistress.
“I’ll be replacing Professor Brodsky for the duration of this course.” Her grin was guarded but gentle. “He’s gone on emergency leave, but don’t think you’re off the hook. Although I’ll be running this lab more hands-on than he does, your workload will be every bit as intensive and hectic as you’d expect from him.”
I raised my hand as she took four sheets of paper from the bottom of the clipboard. She nodded at me but didn’t speak until she’d passed all the papers out face-down.
“Yes, Miss May?”
“Should we refer to you as Headmistress or Professor, Ma’am?”
“Professor wi
ll do for the duration of this course.” She turned the corner to get back behind her bench and sat down. Then, she pulled a deck of large cards out of her bag and shuffled them three times. “You have five minutes to complete the quiz. Go.”
I bent my head over my paper, pencil flying. Lynn took all her tests in ink, but I wasn’t that confident. Served me right for not being such a genius. Still, the three questions were easy. Most of it was common magical knowledge as well as common sense. I mean, if there was anyone in the class who didn’t know psychics couldn’t see magic, they probably shouldn’t have gotten into PPC in the first place.
I was about to turn my quiz face down when I noticed my mistake. There was less than a minute on the clock, barely enough time to erase everything I’d written besides my name and the date. I blew wormy, pink eraser crumbs off the paper, so they marred the shiny white surface of the lab bench instead. Then, I flipped the page over and took a deep breath, trying to relax. I wondered whether anyone else had made the same initial mistake I did.
Professor Thurston’s heels clicked solidly against the floor as she went around collecting everything. She spread the quizzes face-down, then turned one of her cards over in front of each finished test. They were Tarot cards. Mom had those, used them to see whether I was a magus or a psychic back when I was little. I recognized the Ace of Cups, the King of Pentacles, and the Page of Swords. The last card she turned over was The Tower reversed. Bad news, that one.
“One of these grades is not like the others.” Professor Thurston tapped The Tower. “The quiz that got this card is the only one that either passed or failed.” She turned over each of the quizzes after that. A series of blinking and brow furrowing got replaced by what I guessed was only a veneer of calm.
“Miss May, you passed. Everyone else did not. Don’t worry, it’s only worth two extra credit points.” I heard the sound of one round-toed shoe tapping against the tile. “This will be the only quiz you get until next week, but its purpose was to make you remember the most important thing about magic. Follow the instructions.”
“But how did we all fail? Those were such easy questions.” Nox hadn’t even raised her hand before speaking.
“Miss May, answer that please.” Professor Thurston busied herself with corralling her cards.
“Right under where we put our names, there were two sentences. Instructions. Do you remember them?”
“Yeah. Something like that’s on every test. ‘Answer these questions in the time allowed’ or whatever.”
“Right.” I cleared my throat. “But on this test, it said ‘don’t answer any of these questions in the time allowed’ so we weren’t supposed to write down anything besides our names and the date.”
“Great Goblin’s Garters.” The way Nox said that was almost like how Blaine said Tiamat’s Scales. I wondered what kind of magic Nox was packing and whether she’d been raised by Changelings, Faeries, or both.
“Magic Theory is all about the rules of magic, regardless of the course’s unfortunate name.” Professor Thurston shuffled her cards again. “You’re not here to learn which theories are contested, have wiggle room, or memorize exceptions. You need to pay attention to the rules, how they affect spell instructions, learn them as though they’re completely immutable. After that, you can start thinking about how all of them might still be up for debate.”
“Is that why you flipped over Psychic cards even though you’re a magus?” Ian lifted his chin off his folded hands.
“Yes and no.” Professor Thurston stepped out from behind the bench, fanning the cards as she went. She held them out to me, and I took one. Then, she did the same for the other four students. “Psychics with Precognition use cards like these to predict things. Humans use them for the same purpose. They get oddly accurate results, coincidentally, according to most Extrahumans. But coincidence isn’t just a fancy word for an accident. Each of you sees and manipulates magic, limited by your schools, just like the Psychics. Nox, put these on and tell me something about the energy on these cards.”
“You didn’t use any Psychic energy at all.” She held the Professor’s glasses up to her eyes, squinting through the lenses. “It’s all magic around those cards. The only Psychic thing in this room is on Maddie.” Nox pointed at me like the tallest toddler in the known universe.
“Yes. So, how did the cards predict that one test wasn’t like the others if I’m not using a Psychic power?”
“That’s easy.” Charles leaned back in his chair. “Coincidence and magic are related. We’re all magical, and that rubbed off on our papers with the graphite and ink. You tapped into magic, allowing coincidence to act like Psychic ability when you used the cards.”
“Interesting idea, but that’s not what the rules say. Hold on to that line of thinking for when you take Advanced Magic Theory, though, Charles.” Professor Thurston nodded at Nox’s raised hand.
“According to the reading from Chapter Two, you didn’t use magic at all. You used the cards like a human would. Magic’s everywhere, just like coincidences. The cards worked because they’re around both those forces. The coincidence in Maddie’s quiz pulled that reversed card to it like the moon pulls tides.”
“Exactly.” Professor Thurston got up, holding her tarot deck. “Now, look at your cards.”
I blinked, bewildered to see The Tower again in front of me. This time, it wasn’t reversed. I knew from Mom it was worse right-side up. I glanced over at my classmates. None of their cards were the same as earlier. Nox had The Fool. Charles had the Nine of Pentacles. Ian had the Nine of Cups. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement from Professor Thurston’s direction. I looked up.
She held one hand over her mouth with the other on her breastbone. I caught a glimpse of the upturned card just before she swept it back into the deck. Ten of Swords. Another bad-news card. Actually the worst ever, according to Dad. Something horrible was in store for Headmistress Thurston, and if her readings used coincidence, it had something to do with this class. Then again, maybe it had already happened. With the Nocturnal Lounge trashed, she shouldn’t be this surprised. But then, maybe she thought whatever was going on had passed by now.
I ran my fingertip down one side of the card. Not even a sting. These were some well-used cards. If the Professor did readings with them in the right place at the right times, she’d have a much better idea of the situation than a non-trad freshman like me. Unless someone was blocking her. That’d have to be someone who knew her well, practically intimately. I remembered Blaine’s theory about the snowstorms and Lynn’s icy adventure by the library last semester.
Professor Thurston collected the cards to begin her magical forces demonstration. I took one last look at The Tower before handing it back. The image of the two people falling from its parapet haunted me for the rest of the day. If Blaine was right about someone attacking the school, whoever helped Bobby and Lynn was next. Henry had given Bobby the amulet that let him save Lynn. I’d convinced Lynn to take a chance on making friends. The Grim attacked the Nocturnal Lounge. Blaine’s next theoretical victim had to be Henry.
Maybe it was time to start taking Blaine’s fears a bit more seriously. After all, it wasn’t really paranoia if someone was actually out to get you. But the only person who believed the whole thing was Blaine. Lynn, Bobby, and Olivia had insane cramming to do, plus more research on the Grim and the Umbral book. Tony was on the crew fixing the Lounge. And Henry didn’t answer my texts until Friday.
Chapter Seven
Henry
I sat in the PPC library boiler room the Friday after inter-session started, waiting to meet Tony’s werewolf contact. It was dingy and dark, but at least dry and safe from the sun. I’d have preferred the Nocturnal Lounge, but it was still a wreck. They’d probably warded it, but with holes in the walls and ceiling, I couldn’t go in until after sunset.
My building had a door in the basement leading into the watery tunnels under Providence. The only tunnel exits on campus were the from the L
ounge and the Library. I heard the shouts and strikes of a construction crew from the former. It was Fred Redford and another gruff voice that had to be his dad.
The boiler room was all concrete walls and copper pipes. And the eponymous boiler, of course. It blasted out heat that made me feel like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. At least if it malfunctioned leaking water would put me out if I caught fire. Still, boiling water was no fun even as a vampire.
I’d spent much of the day failing to sleep. I kept waking from a daymare I couldn’t remember, which almost never happened. Most of my day terrors came from psychic impressions. There’d been plenty for my subconscious to choose from. The Big Reveal’s survivors had all kinds of issues, from physical injuries to mental scars like General Anxiety Disorder, my own personal demon. And before you go asking, the existence of literal demons hasn’t been proven by either the human or the Extrahuman community.
Finally, I got up mid-afternoon and pulled an all-dayer. I didn’t bother feeding. We don’t need blood unless we do something strenuous and specifically vampiric. I hadn’t, and probably wouldn’t need to do much more than amp up my hearing. That kind of thing barely made a dent in my reserves. Instead, I brewed up the last of my coffee.
I can always tell a vampire-friendly house by its aromatic potential. That and the fact that there’s always at least one decently furnished sun-proof room. Nothing tastes good to a vampire except blood. Everything else tastes like paper. We have complex senses of smell, though, and coffee is one of the most calming scents to pick up. Another one is Earl Grey tea, which led to geeks everywhere wondering whether Captain Picard might have been a closeted vampire. I cleaned up, dressed, and gathered my things, sloshing some coffee into a travel mug to take with me.