by Chloe Garner
He shook his head.
“Only that my dad and Mrs. MacMillan are probably tired.”
Valerie nodded, licking her lips and looking at Tabby.
“Can you tell me about the clothes I’m going to have to change into?”
He grinned.
“Yeah. It’s robes. There are a lot of layers and pieces to it, but a lot of it is traditional magic-user tools. If you need help, there will be an attendant who can help you with it. Fortunately for you, you aren’t going to have to stock all of the pieces for going out and using magic, because it’s ceremonial.”
“Do you have a guess what this is about?” Valerie asked. He pressed his lips and shook his head.
“I have guesses,” he said. “But it depends on the topics the Council has been discussing, and they don’t make their agenda public. There are a lot of things it could be.”
Valerie nodded, and he wound his fingers through her hair, squeezing it in a reassuring sort of way, then let his hand drop to take hers, weaving his fingers between hers and nodding at her.
He was here.
“Have you been summoned before?” Valerie asked.
“No,” he told her. “But I acted as aide for my father a few times, during lower-priority sessions, so I have seen them before. Most of the children of Council members will rotate through as an aide at some point, to help familiarize us with the process.”
“Nepotism at its finest,” Tabby said, and Ethan turned a pleasant expression to her.
“Did you apply to be an aide?” he asked. “It’s an open process.”
“One they make sure all of you know,” Tabby said. “Make sure you can reach all the little levers.”
“Yes, they do a very good job of instructing us,” Ethan said. “The Council members are all very good parents.”
Tabby gave him a dark look, then turned her face to the window.
Valerie turned her attention back to Ethan and he gave her a bolstering smile, then settled back against his seat, the conversation seemingly over.
Valerie wanted him to tell her what was actually going on, but it seemed like he couldn’t.
She kept her mouth shut.
It might not have been a skill she used a lot, but she did have it, at need, and they spent the rest of the trip in silence.
The council building was a black stone building with slick-sided walls and distinctive architecture on a large hedged lot in the middle of a middling-sized town. There were paved drive ways going this way and that through the grounds, and sculpted trees that kept her from being able to see very far in any given direction. She hadn’t even seen the building until they were almost upon it.
“That’s pretty,” Valerie had to admit as Ethan got out of the car. She waited for him to come around and get her door, then they followed Tabby in through a double-glass-door entrance that was half a level down from the main building. The glass was almost completely blacked out, and they found themselves in a dark-carpeted hallway that was very dim, where two women stood with literally platters of clothing.
“You’re that way,” Tabby said, pointing as Ethan took his clothes platter and turned the opposite way.
Valerie went through a narrow hallway that turned at ninety degrees twice, but did not have a door. Her dressing room was the size of a very large closet - or her dorm room - and was lit marginally better than outside. She set the clothes down on a bench and went to turn on the strip lights along the mirror, then picked up the brush there and brushed her hair for something to do while she thought for a moment.
She’d been prepared for a corset and some huge dress that took four people to put on, but robes and magic? Unless it was a bathrobe and a hood, she was completely at a loss.
Finally, she turned to face the pile of rich fabric, finding under a thick, almost canvas outer covering layer, there was piece after piece after piece of what could only be described as pocket strips.
They grew smaller and smaller and lighter and lighter as she got closer to the bottom of the pile, and each layer had a different family of pockets, designed for vials and bottles and bags and things that Valerie couldn’t even imagine, based on the shapes involved.
She lay them all out across the bench, returning to the robe and putting that on over her clothes, just to feel the way it lay across her shoulders. The inside was lined with something akin to silk, but it buzzed against her skin with a magic energy that made her think of what Shack had told her.
This wasn’t just tradition, and it wasn’t just politics. It was magic.
She went to get her backpack from where she’d left it on the floor and opened it, getting out everything that Sasha had put in there. The paper bag had slid to the side and down to the bottom, when Valerie got to it, but she took that out and opened it immediately when her fingers found it.
Inside, there was a braid. Brass-capped at one end and tied with a simple ribbon on the other, it was three long locks of hair braided together, and for a moment Valerie thought that it was just someone’s braid, cut off of their head, but that thought only lasted for a very brief moment.
The three lengths of hair were each different. One was silvered and the second was darker than the other two. The third, Valerie’s fingers recognized as her own.
Where had Lady Harrington gotten a lock of her hair?
She stood again, carrying it to the mirror and lifting her hair, looking for anything shorter than the rest, but if it was there, it was hiding. Holding up the braid again, Valerie put together that it was definitely her hair, very likely her mother’s hair, and that would be Lady Harrington’s hair.
Woven together in a braid.
Well.
If there was a more potent form of magic than that, Valerie didn’t know it.
She had long hair - not long enough that it needed to be braided to hold it where she wanted it, but long enough that her friends had often braided it for entertainment’s sake as late as her freshman year of civilian high school. She’d braided it, herself, in class when she got bored even at Survival School.
Her fingers knew how to braid.
Going back to her backpack and getting out the selection of tools Sasha had packed for her, Valerie found a threading needle - a nylon thing that she’d used to braid fibers for several of Mrs. Reynolds’ classes, and she went back to the mirror, re-parting her hair and tying the braid up into the underlying layer of her own hair, then carefully weaving a braid through it of her own mane, one plait at a time, until she got to the end of the braid that Lady Harrington had given her, then finishing the remaining braid of her own hair down to its end, tying it with a thread of tell-weed.
Sasha’s signature plant.
It suited her.
Letting her part fall back where it preferred to be, Valerie shook her head back and forth, seeing the glint of brass and the rustle of braid poking through the top layer of hair, but nothing so obvious as what it actually was visible through. She nodded, feeling as though she’d somehow armored herself, and she went back to the bench, looking at the rest of the stuff.
She could work this out.
It was just a puzzle, not entirely unlike the ones Dr. Finn had given her. Each piece had a purpose, and it likely had a magical casting significance as well that would be amplified by doing it right. She would trust her hands, she would trust her roommate, and she would trust her instincts.
And it would be right, when it was done, regardless if it was how everyone else wore it.
Simple as that.
She got to work.
It really did take thirty minutes to put all of the pieces together. Unfortunately, Valerie had spent five minutes braiding, so she was rushing at the end to get the final robe up and over her shoulders, tying and buckling it as she walked out of the far side of the dressing room and into a much, much darker anteroom of some kind with a small, dark-wooden desk. The walls were real wood paneling, and the carpet was just one shade away from black.
Ethan was waiting for her
.
“Sorry I’m late,” Valerie said as Tabby walked forward with an envelope.
“I trust you,” Ethan answered with a smile, pulling out the chair for her to sit. Tabby lay the envelope on the table and walked away.
“You have eight minutes before you appear,” the woman said, then went to stand against the wall.
Ethan gave Valerie another nod, standing next to her, and she handed him the pen from the desk, sliding the paper over in front of him.
“Shack told me to let you write,” she said.
“Okay,” he answered, not questioning at all as he took the pen. She opened the envelope and unfolded the paper, flatting it on the desk for Ethan to read.
Summoned:
Valerie Blake, daughter of Grant and Susan Blake,
Magic user of middling darkness, residing at The School of Magic Survival
Terms:
Summoned will be questioned regarding location of Susan Blake, Grant Blake, and Gemma Alexander. Will be questioned as to relationship with Gemma Alexander and Von Lauv Academy. Will be questioned as to relationship with Martha Cox and Hanson Cox. Will be advised of Council’s requirements regarding future interactions with all of the above. Will be advised of Council’s requirements regarding participation in conflict with Superior magic users.
Signed,
Merck Trent
Officer:
Tabitha White
Valerie had her hands pressed to her mouth.
“Who is Gemma Alexander?” Ethan asked. She shook her head.
“I won’t say,” she said.
He swallowed, looking over at Tabby.
“The Council,” he said slowly, “does not accept refusal to answer.”
“If I tell them, she could die,” Valerie said. “That they know her name means that she might already be dead.”
He licked his lips, dropping one knee to the floor.
He was breathing slowly, the pen held over the paper, unmoving.
Think hard about what everything might mean, Shack had told her.
The worst place to find yourself is in front of an animal you’ve cornered, but not put down, because that animal is going to kill you, Susan Blake had told her.
They were going to try to corner her.
The number of names on that paper, the order of it, the way they were just spilling her secrets… It was all a threat. Trying to box her in.
“Okay,” Ethan said. “What is Von Lauv Academy?”
“It’s a school,” Valerie said. “A magic school that isn’t associated with the Council.”
He nodded.
“What is your relationship with it?”
They knew. They had to know.
Right?
“I went there once.”
He blinked at the paper.
“You went to another magic school?” he asked, and she nodded.
No point in bringing up Ground School, right that moment.
He looked up at her.
“I believe that they may consider… asking you some challenging questions about… your loyalty to the Council.”
Those would be challenging, considering she had none.
They were going to accuse her of being a spy.
For the Pure.
Only they wouldn’t use that word.
They were going to accuse her parents of being traitors.
That much was easy to predict.
They were going to tell her that if her parents made contact again, she had to turn them in, or else.
Or else they would treat her like a spy.
Gemma and Von Lauv were just proof she was a spy.
She couldn’t work out what the Coxes had to do with it. Maybe just a threat. That if she didn’t behave, Martha and Hanson would pay the price.
Hanson wasn’t a Council brat, after all.
She wanted Ethan to tell her that it was going to be all right. That there was a grown-up somewhere who was going to come sweeping in at the last minute and tell them all that they couldn’t treat her like this. That she was just a kid.
She was a student. They’d all made such a big deal about it, how students weren’t allowed to get tied up in all of this, and yet, even as she used it as a shield to keep her denial intact, Ethan and Shack had been talking for months about the ways the Council got around that rule.
She looked at the summons again.
Middling darkness.
That was a threat, wasn’t it? It was telling her that she wasn’t good enough for Light school, according to their system.
“I’m not middling dark,” Valerie said.
“That’s what your testing at school indicates,” he said. “Or else it wouldn’t say that.”
He glanced at her, his pen still suspended over a blank page, his eyes apologetic.
“This is so stupid,” Valerie whispered. She knew Tabby could hear; the room was too small for them to have secrets right now, but she just couldn’t contain it.
What was happening?
“This is the system of the community of magic users to which you belong,” Ethan answered. “We are governed by a Council who has the authority to require us to appear when they need us, and we are willing because the magic community requires leadership, particularly in these difficult times.”
“These difficult times,” Valerie echoed sullenly, and Ethan gave her a look that was all the way to sharp.
“Those are my friends’ names on there,” Valerie said. “People I care about. My parents.”
“I know who they are,” he said. “Except Gemma. Was she from magic school?”
“No,” Valerie said. He didn’t recognize her last name.
That surprised Valerie.
Maybe Alexander was just a more common surname in the magic community? Or maybe he would have been shocked to hear that she’d been involved with one of the key players up high in the Pure ranks.
“Do you know of an action that you’ve taken that they might use as an accusation against you?” he asked, and she shrugged, then shook her head.
“I don’t know the rules well enough to tell you which ones I might have broken,” she admitted. He sighed and put down the pen.
“Then we’re just going to adapt. These terms aren’t specific enough for me to connect the dots.”
He looked at them for another moment, his jaw rolled to the side, then he shook his head and stood.
“Your time is up,” Tabby said a moment later. Ethan picked up the summons paper and handed it to Valerie, then indicated the door that Tabby was about to open. Valerie stood and Ethan followed her through from the dim vestibule into a hallway that was all the way to dark.
The hallway was narrow. Narrow enough that Hanson or Shack might have had to turn sideways to make it through. The ceiling dropped to within fingertip’s distance overhead, and the floor was deep with a plush carpet that made the entire space completely mute.
The door behind them closed and Ethan put his hands on her shoulders.
“Keep your wits,” he murmured. “We haven’t lost, okay? Doesn’t matter how it looks, we haven’t lost.”
She nodded and kissed his fingers, then pushed through a heavy curtain into…
What? What was it?
A boxing pit?
They stood on tan carpet in the middle of a space by themselves. There was no place to sit, no place to put anything. Around them, there were ornate wooden walls perhaps eight feet high, and above those, stadium-style seating for dozens and dozens of robed figures. The light here was stronger - a lot stronger - but still not bright, so while Valerie could see the faces of the people in the seats above her, she wouldn’t have recognized any of them again, if she’d seen them in another context.
Though.
Shack had been right about the Council members.
Valerie and Ethan wore robes that were dark blue to the point of black under the yellow lights overhead. The majority of people up in the seats were in dark gray, dark brown, or dark red.
Blinding white that glowed…
… magically.
Of course it did.
Everything here was magic.
She had to keep reminding herself of that.
She’d done her best to ward herself from whatever they might be using to try to make her more susceptible or weak - she’d read somewhere that needing to pee made you decisive, so she’d warded against things that messed with her water. Like that. Sasha said that water was important.
She wore all of the magic ingredients and tools Sasha had packed for her - the ones she hadn’t used - and she wondered if she’d be doing any spontaneous casting even as she stood here, trying to do… whatever it was she was going to have to do.
Ethan positioned her in the middle of the space, then dropped his arms and came to stand beside her, facing a pair of white-robed figures who might have been central to the room.
“Lord Trent, head of the Council, I present Valerie Blake, daughter of Grant Blake and Susan Blake, as summoned. I present myself as advocate, Ethan Trent, son of Merck Trent and Ava Trent.”
“The Council accepts your advocation of the summoned,” Merck answered.
Valerie finished her count.
Thirty-seven.
That was the number Shack had said, right? The closer she got to thirty-seven, the more important this shin-dig was?
She clenched her teeth, refusing to look afraid in her silly robes down on the silly floor of a silly inquisition.
“Valerie Blake,” Merck said, standing. The room - which had been hushed - fell to complete silence. “You stand before us with information of a profoundly critical nature to the welfare of the magic community. We appreciate the delicacy of your situation, and how foreign much of the circumstances of that situation must be to you, and we offer you a hand of friendship, this day, and a formal welcome into the magic community as a powerful and a crucial member.”
“Valerie welcomes your hand of friendship and offers her well-wishes to the community at large and the Council specifically,” Ethan answered before Valerie could speak. “But she understands well enough the nature of a summons to know that this is no simple gesture. You send an attack dog to bring her here, and it does not take a depth of experience to recognize that the threat of force is accompanied by a willingness to use force.”