FOUR
Spirit was jolted awake by loud unfamiliar music—something bouncy and upbeat that sounded like the soundtrack of a movie she didn’t ever want to see. She thrashed upright in her bed and forced her eyes open, and the shock of seeing an unfamiliar room made her realize where she was. Oakhurst. Montana.
It took Spirit almost two minutes to discover where the music was coming from. Her laptop. By the time she managed to make it shut up (in the process discovering that the horrible movie music was the Oakhurst School Song) she was thoroughly awake. It was a few minutes after six. Spirit shuddered. She wondered what the penalties for missing breakfast were. She’d give anything for another hour of sleep in her nice warm bed. . . .
Suddenly she remembered that today wouldn’t be an introduction to her classes here at the Orphan Asylum, but some kind of mysterious “testing.” After her extremely unpleasant interview with Doctor Ambrosius yesterday, just the thought of that made her stomach knot. In just twenty-four hours, everything she knew about the world had been turned inside-out.
And worse than that.
When she’d walked out of Doctor Ambrosius’s office yesterday, she would have happily run away from Oakhurst. But there wasn’t anywhere for her to run to. She was fifteen years old, she was completely alone in the world, and she had nothing except what Oakhurst Academy was willing to give her: no money, no home, nobody willing to take her in.
Dad had always told her that it was smart to keep your options open and to know where your escape routes were. Mom had said a Smith & Wesson beat five aces. Phoenix had said she planned to grow up to be an Evil Overlord. Spirit took a deep breath. Right now she was out of options and escape routes, and Oakhurst was holding all the cards. All she could do was hang in there until she grew up. Or maybe until some other option presented itself. Maybe something would turn up.
She grabbed her robe off the back of the closet door (plaid, flannel, quilted, in the school colors) and went into the bathroom to shower.
At least she didn’t need to guess what to wear to find out if you were a wizard. She remembered she had to wear a skirt, and by investigating her dresser drawers, she discovered she had a choice of nylons, tights in any of the three school colors, knee socks, or ankle socks. She decided on brown tights (since she couldn’t wear jeans) and another sweater and turtleneck combo. By the time she got out of here, Spirit thought darkly, she was going to be desperate to wear something in some other color. Bright green, or fire-engine red, or pink with purple polka-dots and orange stripes . . .
Despite the fact that getting ready was so easy, she was almost late for breakfast—she got lost on the way from her room to the Refectory—and the room was full by the time she got there. The servers were already going around to the tables, and Spirit hesitated in the doorway. Maybe she should just leave . . .
But Burke saw her and stood up, and Muirin waved enthusiastically, so Spirit hurried across the room toward them and slid into the empty seat between Loch and Burke. There was already a glass of orange juice by her plate.
“You get a choice of juice in the morning,” Loch said quietly, “but you weren’t here, and almost everybody likes orange juice, so—”
“It’s fine,” Spirit said quickly. She was relieved to see that Loch looked just as nervous as she felt.
“You don’t get a choice of breakfast,” Muirin said darkly. “It’s all healthy. Ugh. Unless you can prove you have a horrible allergy.”
“To bacon and eggs?” Burke asked, sounding amused. “I suppose it’s possible.”
“Well, what if you’re Jewish?” Addie said. “You couldn’t eat bacon then.”
“I guess you’d eat eggs and . . . eggs,” Burke said. “I know Troy’s allergic to peanuts, and the kitchen’s careful not to poison him. That doesn’t mean you’re going to talk them into letting you have your Froot Loops, Muir.”
“Though God knows I try.” Muirin sighed theatrically.
The good-natured bickering among the others was actually soothing, and when one of the servers placed a bowl of oatmeal in front of her, Spirit realized she actually had a little appetite. There were bowls of fruit and brown sugar on the table, and pitchers of honey and maple syrup and milk and cream. She put a little brown sugar and milk on her cereal, while Muirin poured so much sugar and syrup onto hers that Spirit wondered if she could even taste the oatmeal.
Burke plucked the pitcher out of Muirin’s hand. “Leave some for the rest of us, greediguts.”
Muirin squealed in outrage. Addie sighed. “Every morning,” she said to Spirit, in an aside.
Spirit tried to smile back, but it was hard. “What do you think’s going to happen today?” she asked Loch in a low voice.
“I don’t know,” he answered. He was stirring his oatmeal around but not eating much of it. “When I checked my e-mail this morning, all it said was to report to the Front Desk after breakfast. You?”
“I forgot to check mine,” Spirit admitted. “My computer woke me up at six this morning with some horrible song.”
“ ‘Oakhurst We Shall Not Forget Thee,’ ” Loch said, his mouth twisting wryly. “It was composed by one of the first students here,” he added, and Spirit made a rude noise. That just figured. “You can actually set your computer to wake you up with any song in the library. Or just a .wav file if you prefer. I can walk you through that later, or I think there’s a tutorial somewhere in the library files,” he added, as if it was an afterthought.
“If I can’t find it, I’ll ping you,” Spirit said. If we’re both still alive later, she thought, and grimaced, reminding herself that, as weird and awful as the interview had been, the worst she had gotten was a scratch. What could be so hard about a few tests? If Dr. Ambrosius didn’t want them here, he wouldn’t have worked so hard to get them here.
Oatmeal was followed by bacon and eggs and toast. Apparently it was okay to ask for seconds, because Burke did. Spirit couldn’t even finish her first helping. She noticed that a lot of kids were leaving as soon as they finished eating, and Camilla said that you didn’t have to stay in the Refectory after you’d finished breakfast if you wanted to get a head start on studying.
“Me, I’d rather put it off as long as possible,” she said, grinning.
There wasn’t any coffee, but there was tea if you wanted it, even if it was herbal, and despite Muirin’s constant complaints about the lack of “junk food,” there was cocoa if you asked for it, and you could even get marshmallows in it. Of course Muirin did, and tried to get Spirit to order some, too, but Spirit refused. Her stomach was already rebelling.
“On Sundays there’s pancakes,” Muirin said longingly, licking marshmallow off her upper lip. “I guess it’s supposed to make up for having to go to church.”
“Church?” Spirit said, alarmed. There hadn’t been anything in the brochure about church.
“Mandatory spiritual education,” Muirin sighed. “It’s kind of Unitarian, I guess. Dr. Ambrosius gives a sermon, and then reads a passage out of the Bible and then out of another holy book so we can see how they’re all actually alike. So it’s more like a class. But there’s a choir.”
From Muirin’s tone, Spirit couldn’t tell whether she thought the choir was a good thing or a bad thing, and she was about to ask if there was any way to get out of it—because her parents hadn’t exactly been religious, at least not in that way—when she was distracted by someone sitting down in the empty seat on the other side of Loch.
“Hi,” the new girl said, leaning forward and making it clear she was talking more to Spirit than to Loch. “I didn’t get to introduce myself last night. I’m Kelly Langley. I’m one of the ‘Young Ladies’ ’ proctors, so if you need anything and you don’t want to ask one of the teachers, I can help you out.”
Kelly looked as if she was maybe three years older than Spirit. She had hazel eyes and dark brown hair cut even shorter than Muirin’s, and she looked frankly amused at the idea of having to refer to them as “Young Ladies.”
“Do you know who the, uh, ‘Young Gentlemen’s’ proctor is?” Loch asked. “We saw him last night, but . . .”
“Actually, there are five of them right now,” Kelly said briskly. “And we’re hoping to get a waiver to grab Burke next year when he’s seventeen because Gareth graduates then, damn him. What a slacker. But there’s one proctor for each ten students, so right now there are ten of us. I’ll tell Gareth to find you after you’ve finished your tests and make sure you know who the proctors are for your side.”
“Thanks,” Loch said.
“I know the first few months here can be rough,” Kelly said, and now she was talking to both of them, “but there isn’t anybody here who hasn’t been through at least some of what you have. If you don’t want to talk to the teachers, talk to somebody, m’m kay? Okay, end of lecture.” She got to her feet.
“Wait,” Spirit said. “Are you—? I mean—”
Kelly smiled at her. “One of those wizard guys?” She snapped her fingers, and suddenly a flame was burning on the end of her thumb. She folded her thumb into her fist, and the flame was gone. “Fire Witch. It’s the commonest Gift; nobody really knows why. Gotta go. I’ll see you later.”
Spirit watched her as she strode—she already had the idea that Kelly strode everywhere—from the Refectory. Loch’s touch on her arm made her jump.
“I think we’d better go,” he said when she looked at him.
It was strange how the Entry Room already seemed like a familiar place. There was still a fire burning in the fireplace—or maybe that was “again”—and Spirit wondered if they kept a fire burning there 24/7. Then another thought struck her. Maybe there isn’t any fire there at all. Maybe it’s just an illusion. The thought was so sudden and so disturbing—this time yesterday she hadn’t even known that real magic existed—that she tripped on the perfectly smooth tile floor.
“Steady,” Loch said. “How bad can it be?”
“I don’t know,” Spirit said, keeping her voice level with an effort. “What if we flunk?”
From the look on Loch’s face, the thought hadn’t even occurred to him.
There was a different blonde woman behind the Front Desk this morning. She was just as glossy and groomed as Ms. Corby had been, and wearing a Bluetooth headset; when Spirit peered over the edge of the vintage-looking counter, everything behind it was twenty-first-century modern, with enough keyboards, touchpads, and display screens that she ought to be able to launch the whole school into space.
“Ms. Smith will be with you in just a few moments,” the blonde woman said. She regarded them with the same distant haughtiness that Ms. Corby had yesterday, as if she couldn’t imagine why they were here at Oakhurst at all. Spirit was tempted to offer to leave, but fortunately Ms. Smith arrived before she could.
“Hi. I hope you weren’t waiting long,” she said, glancing at her watch. “I’m Jane Smith. Come on, I’ll take you to the testing rooms.”
In contrast to the blonde receptionist, Ms. Smith looked friendly and like an actual human being. She was wearing the school uniform, but with pants, not a skirt, and her long brown hair was pulled back into a casual ponytail. She was holding a clipboard cradled in one arm, and she had a pen tucked behind her ear.
Spirit and Loch followed her through a doorway and along a corridor. The corridor was carpeted, and the framed pictures on the walls were all old-time photographs of railroad things that had probably belonged to the house’s original owner. Spirit hadn’t been here long enough to get a real sense of the layout of the main house, so she was lost very quickly. Ms. Smith stopped in front of a door and opened it.
“Go right in and take a seat, Mr. Spears. Doctor Ambrosius will be right with you,” Ms. Smith said with an encouraging smile. “Relax. This isn’t the kind of test anybody flunks.”
Loch gave her an unconvinced smile in return and walked into the room. Spirit wanted to see what was in there, but Ms. Smith was already moving down the corridor. They passed a few more closed doors, then she stopped and opened another one. “And here we are,” she said brightly.
Spirit walked in hesitantly. The room was surprisingly small—a little smaller than Spirit’s new bedroom—and gave her the feeling of an old-time schoolroom. The ceiling was high for the room’s size, at least twenty feet. There were windows, but they were completely covered by blackout shades made of black fabric, and the light came from lights in the ceiling.
There was nothing in the room but a large heavy wooden table and two heavy wooden chairs. Spirit walked over to the table and looked down at it. Arranged on the surface were a stone, some kind of plant in an ordinary red clay pot full of dirt, a clear glass bowl filled with water, a copper bowl filled with charcoal briquettes, a tall white pillar candle, and several feathers. The surface of the table had several burn scars on it.
“Sit down and make yourself comfortable,” Ms. Smith said. “I’ll explain what you’re going to do here today.” She settled herself into one of the chairs and set her clipboard on the table. Spirit sat warily in the seat on the other side.
“I know that all of this has to seem very strange to you,” Ms. Smith said. “But we won’t ask you to take any of it on faith. What today’s test is for is to determine which elements you have a particular affinity for, in order for us to determine what your Mage Gift is.”
“Kelly said Fire was the most common one,” Spirit said hesitantly.
“Right,” Ms. Smith said, nodding. “Now, scientifically, there are one hundred seventeen elements, but the ancient world believed there were only four: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, which aren’t really elements at all. But for the purposes of magic, we treat them as if they are, and your Mage Gift will probably fall into one of what we call these ‘Elemental Schools.’ ”
“Probably?” Spirit asked.
“It’s possible that you might have Gifts from two different Schools,” Ms. Smith said, “though in that case, they’re less likely to be strong Gifts. While a Mage can have an entirely elemental Gift—such as being a Fire Witch—they can also have a power that belongs to an Elemental School without controlling its underlying element. For example, I know you’ve met Burke Hallows. His Mage Gift is Combat Magic, which has an affinity with the School of Earth. Knowing the supporting School to which your Mage Gift belongs will be important when you go on to study magical theory. And you’re wishing I’d stop nattering on at you and get to the testing part of things, aren’t you?”
Spirit glanced up, guilty and a little alarmed.
“Oh, I’m no mind reader,” Ms. Smith said gently. “But I’ve administered a great number of these tests. This is how it works: the items here on the table symbolize the Four Elements. You should feel a resonance—an affinity—with one more than another. Take your time. And remember, there aren’t any wrong answers here. This isn’t a test you can fail. We already know you’re a magician, or you wouldn’t be here.”
Two hours later, Spirit wanted to be anywhere but there. She didn’t have the least “affinity” for any of the objects on the table: not the stone or the potted plant that symbolized Earth, nor the bowl of water that symbolized (of course) Water, nor the candle and the bowl of charcoal that symbolized Fire, nor the feathers that were the symbol for Air. Despite the fact that Ms. Smith said Spirit had magic, nothing she could do seemed to be able to get its attention. While Ms. Smith hadn’t stopped being kind and supportive—something Spirit instinctively mistrusted after all those weeks of social workers and nurses at the hospital and in rehab—Spirit could tell she’d been getting more and more frustrated.
But as far as Spirit could tell, the stuff on the table was just a bunch of tacky New Age decorations. She couldn’t set the candle on fire with the power of her mind. She didn’t even want to. Ditto for making the water swirl around in the bowl, or suddenly wanting to cuddle up to the rock, and she wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to do with the feathers.
“What’s the problem here?”
Spirit was sitting with her back to the door; she jumped as it flew open and hit the wall with a bang. Doctor Ambrosius came storming into the room.
“I’m sorry, Doctor Ambrosius,” Ms. Smith said, getting to her feet. “Miss White hasn’t been able to manifest an Affinity yet.”
“Not able? Not willing, you mean,” Doctor Ambrosius said contemptuously. “The child is a natural magician! This is no time for tantrums or games, my young woman,” he added, glaring at Spirit sternly. “Hiding what you are will gain you nothing.”
Up until that moment, Spirit had been frustrated and even a little intimidated by what was happening, but now she was just angry.
“In the first place, how am I supposed to hide something I barely believe in?” she demanded hotly. “In the second place, why would I do something like that?”
Doctor Ambrosius’s frown became even more thunderous, if that was possible. “Ms. Smith, go and finish up with young Master Spears. I shall get to the bottom of the situation here.”
Ms. Smith didn’t glance at Spirit as she walked quickly from the room. When the door closed behind her, Spirit swallowed hard, trying not to feel as if she’d just been trapped.
Doctor Ambrosius began to pace. “I am certain Ms. Smith explained to you that magicians’ powers are linked to the elements. It is from these we draw our power. It is these that shape our essential natures. Denying what you are will accomplish nothing. It will only leave you defenseless—helpless—in the battles to come. Dark times are coming, Spirit White. Do not doubt that for an instant. Do not allow fear—or anger—or weakness to stand in the way of embracing what you were meant to be.”
Listening to him talk was like listening to a Shakespeare play. Only creepier. She wished he’d stop pacing around. It was making her nervous.
Suddenly he turned back to the table and slapped both hands down on it. “Here are your choices! One of them is your chosen path!” he all-but-shouted at her. “You must try again! Now!”
Spirit reached out and grabbed the first thing her hands touched, mostly because she was afraid not to. She was trying, but this wasn’t like her math homework or learning to sew or climbing trees or anything else she’d ever done in her life. It wasn’t even like choosing which flavor of ice cream you wanted. What was she supposed to do with a candle? Maybe it was the wrong candle.
Her hands shook as she set it back on the table and reached for the stone. She’d done this over and over in the last two hours. Ms. Smith had said she’d know when she reached the right one, that these were just symbols but that was okay, that magic worked in symbols and this was just the first step to discovering what her Gift was.
But the stone was just an ordinary stone in her hands, and now her head was starting to hurt, and the room seemed hot and airless. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest; she had the panicky throat-closed feeling of being about to cry, and the thought of crying in front of Doctor Ambrosius simply made her angrier.
“Try harder,” he barked at her.
Spirit’s hands curled into fists, and she glared at the objects on the table, feeling a combination of anger and frustration and panic. The lights in the room seemed too bright. What should she try next? What would make him stop glaring at her? All she really wanted to do was pick up the little potted plant and hurl it to the floor. The glass bowl of water, too. She wrapped her arms around herself and gritted her teeth, squinting her eyes against the glare. There was no point in handling any of the things again—nothing would be any different than it had been the last dozen times—
“How dare you defy me?” Doctor Ambrosius shouted.
The sudden sound of his voice made Spirit jump, but it also cleared her head a little. Enough to let her know how horribly sick she felt. Enough is enough. This place had to have a school nurse somewhere.
Anything to get out of this room.
She pushed herself to her feet. The room seemed to spin crazily around her, and she felt a drop of moisture spatter onto the back of her hand. Her first thought was that—somehow—she’d started crying without having noticed, but when she looked down—forcing her eyes open, because they were almost completely closed now—it wasn’t water on the back of her hand.
It was blood.
What a strange dream. Spirit was so convinced that she was still in the hospital back in Indiana—the drugs they gave her made her have really weird vivid dreams sometimes—that it was a horrible wrenching shock to open her eyes and see Loch sitting beside her bed.
“Oh, you’re awake!” he said, sounding relieved. “Are you okay?”
Spirit stared at him, breathless, knowing she must look more than a little wild-eyed, still trying to get over the shock of all this being real. As she did, a woman in a white nurse uniform with a cardigan over it folded back the privacy screen around her bed. Once it was gone, Spirit could see she was in a large, airy, open room. There were two beds along one wall and three on the other, with a desk in the corner.
“How are you feeling?” the nurse asked, sitting down on the opposite side of the bed. Of course the next thing she did was stick a thermometer into Spirit’s mouth so she couldn’t answer the question. That was strangely reassuring—at least some things were normal here! She took Spirit’s wrist in her hand, counting her pulse, and then took her blood pressure before removing the thermometer. “Well, everything seems to be in order,” she said cheerfully. “I’m Ms. Bradford, the school nurse. You’re in the Infirmary. Apparently you fainted during Testing.”
Spirit could hear the capital letter in Ms. Bradford’s voice when she said “Testing.” Ms. Smith had said it wasn’t possible to flunk. Apparently she had.
“I want you to stay here and rest for another half hour, then you can dress and get up. You’ve missed lunch, but I can call the kitchen and get a sandwich sent over,” Ms. Bradford said.
“I’m not hungry,” Spirit said hastily. How long had she been passed out for? There wasn’t a clock anywhere she could see.
“Skipping meals never did anybody any good,” Ms. Bradford said darkly. She got to her feet. “Just yell if you need something. I’ll let your friends come in now. Is that all right?”
“Yeah. Sure.” She looked at Loch, frowning a little.
“It’s after three,” he said, glancing at his watch. “When I didn’t see you at lunch, I started asking around, and found out you were here. But they wouldn’t let me come and see you until after I was finished with Orientation.”
“I guess you—” Spirit began.
“I thought you promised no emo suicide attempts!” Muirin said, bouncing in through the open doorway. Addie and Burke followed. Both of them looked worried about her.
“I didn’t—” Spirit protested, struggling to sit up.
“Ignore the cat; she’s just trying to make trouble,” Burke said.
Loch got to his feet politely, and Muirin promptly sat down in the chair he’d vacated. Addie tsked and went to get her own chair. Loch came around the bed and sat down on the other side.
“Everybody knows you didn’t do anything stupid,” Burke went on. “You just ran into some problems during Testing.”
“She fell on her face,” Muirin said flatly. “I’ve never heard of that happening to anyone before—and before anyone says anything, no, I have not been here since Oakhurst was founded in 1973. But people talk. Trust me. Nobody’s ever fainted during Testing.”
“That makes me feel great,” Spirit muttered, sitting back against the headboard. She felt better than she thought she should: everyone kept saying she’d fainted, but she didn’t know of any “faints” that lasted four or five hours. She glanced at Loch. “I guess yours went okay?”
Loch shrugged. “Pretty much. I’ve got minor Gifts from two Schools—you got that far, right?” he asked, and, when Spirit nodded, “—Kenning and Shadewalking—that’s School of Air—and Pathfinding—that’s School of Earth. It’s supposed to be kind of rare to get Earth and Air gifts together, even when you do get Gifts from two Schools. Ms. Smith says they really all kind of go together, though.” He shrugged. “I guess I’ll find out more about them later.”
“Well, Pathfinding’s a good one to have,” Burke said, smiling at Loch. “A Pathfinder always knows exactly where they are and can find their way from place to place without a map, whether they’ve been to where they want to go before or not. When you get really good with it, you’ll even be able to describe the place you want to go before you’ve seen it.”
“Cool,” Loch said, looking impressed.
“Shadewalking’s better,” Muirin said. “I wish I’d gotten that. You can make yourself just about invisible—and move silently, too.” She frowned. “I’m not sure what Kenning is, though. Nobody I know has it, even if it is an Air Gift.”
“Well, in Old English, ‘to ken’ something was to know it,” Addie said. “Maybe it has something to do with that.”
“Maybe,” Loch said, looking excited. “It was so strange—I was nervous about the whole thing, and at first I couldn’t decide which of the things on the table to pick. But I kept going back to the feathers, and I picked them, but it didn’t seem as if I was done, and Doctor Ambrosius said I should see if one of the other elements resonated with me, too, and, so, well, there was a cachepot of begonias on the table, and I sort of liked that.” He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “Then all there was to do was figure out exactly what my Gifts in those Schools were. I guess that must have been when you, uh, ran into trouble, because he left and Ms. Smith came in and finished up with me. I didn’t even know you’d had a problem until later.”
Spirit opened her mouth to tell him—all of them—that she hadn’t had a problem until after Doctor Ambrosius came in to see what was going wrong with her Testing, and stopped. Sure, he’d been pretty out of control. But Loch obviously didn’t have any complaints about him. And Mom had yelled at her plenty of times when Spirit did things that she later realized had been stupid dangerous. If what Doctor Ambrosius had said yesterday about the world being a dangerous place for untrained magicians was true, maybe he’d just been angry at her for refusing to protect herself. She was already pretty clear on the fact that he didn’t have the hottest people skills on the block.
It didn’t change the fact that, despite the fact that both Doctor Ambrosius and Ms. Smith had said she was a magician, she hadn’t been able to do what Loch had done so easily.
Maybe they were wrong. Maybe she didn’t have any magic at all.
“Hey, if you guys don’t mind clearing out of here, I could get dressed,” she said.
She had to admit that a lot of things about this place didn’t completely suck, Spirit decided. Of course, a lot of them did. Every time she thought of something she wanted to share with Mom and Dad—and especially Phoenix—she had to remember they were dead all over again. And then she’d feel uneasily guilty about having all this because they were dead.
But if a week’s time wasn’t long enough to make deep friendships, she’d certainly started to make friends. And Kelly had been right when she said that Spirit’s situation wasn’t unique. There was Camilla, who’d lost her whole family down to her youngest nieces and nephews. And Addie, who’d been at summer camp when her parents died in a light plane crash. Burke had managed to lose three families: He’d been left as a month-old foundling in a church with nothing but his birth certificate tucked into his blanket with him. Three months later they’d traced his parents—to the city morgue—and he’d been put up for adoption, since they’d never found any other relatives. When he was eight, his house caught on fire. He managed to get to the baby’s room and get out with her, but their parents died in the fire. She’d gone to relatives, but they hadn’t wanted a boy who was “no relation to them.” He’d been quickly taken in by a nice couple, the Martins—though as a foster child this time—and been happy enough for the next few years, until Oakhurst came forward and offered him a place.
“It only made sense to come,” he’d told Spirit quietly. “Ma—Mrs. Martin—wasn’t getting any younger, and her health wasn’t so good, and I already knew there wouldn’t be any money for college or anything. Couldn’t ask it of them. Oakhurst was offering me everything. And maybe—when I get out—I can look them up again and see about paying back some of their kindness.”
No, she didn’t have it as bad as she possibly could.
But Oakhurst was still . . . frustrating. Weird, in a way Spirit couldn’t quite put her finger on. As if she was always trying to put her foot on a step that wasn’t there, or banging her nose against invisible walls.
Maybe it was the whole magic thing.
In all the days that followed, nobody had even so much as suggested that she do the test over. Because she’d spent most of the day in the infirmary, she’d missed her orientation tour, which would have been a walk-through of her classrooms, meeting her teachers, and getting signed up for her “extracurricular” activities, so she’d had to make do with a “virtual” tour online and the slightly scattershot rundown she got from the others. So Spirit had been more than a little surprised to walk into her Science class to find that Ms. Smith was the teacher.
She hadn’t had the nerve to bring up being retested, though—either there or in her magic classes.
Because this was a school for magicians. Of course they got lessons in magic.
Spirit stared down at her notebook and pretended she was taking notes. She was doing her best not to fidget, but it was hard, and they had that harpy Ms. Groves today, and if Ms. Groves thought you weren’t paying attention to her lecture she’d bring everything to a screeching halt, bring up the room lights, and make you stand beside your desk and explain just what it was she was doing that was so terribly boring. From the way the others teased her, Spirit got the impression that Muirin got to do a lot of explaining in class whenever Ms. Groves lectured.
The trouble with going to a small exclusive private school was that the classes were small and exclusive, too. There were only four other kids in the room with Spirit: Loch; a boy named Taylor Parker who’d gotten here about four months ago; and two girls, Zoey Young and Jillian Marshall, who’d both arrived about a week before Taylor did.
There were two periods slotted in for Magic Theory. One was right before lunch, and the other was the last class of the day. All the before-lunch periods were for Advanced students, and two of the end-of-day periods were, too, so they only had M-Theory three times a week, which was more than enough. It generated more homework than the rest of her courses put together: history and theory and what went with which. It was like a whacko mix of The X-Files and cooking school.
Maybe it would have made more sense if she was actually using all of this stuff for something. Why did she need to memorize the subcategories of magician in each of the four Schools—and what the powers and weaknesses of each were—if she didn’t even know which Elemental School she belonged to and probably never would? Why did anybody need to know about the entire history of magic dating back to the Year Zero, when Ms. Groves (and Ms. Smith, and Mr. Bowman, and Ms. Holland) said most of it was wrong? What was the point in learning the details of the spells all the old-time magicians cast, when Muirin said that you either had the Mage Gift or you didn’t, and if you didn’t you could boil up bat’s blood and snake fins for ever and ever and not get any results? At least the others got to go off after their classroom hours and practice actual magic, though Spirit felt really sorry for whoever had Ms. Groves as a coach.
Ms. Groves clicked a button and another slide appeared on the screen behind her. “If we aren’t boring her too much, perhaps Ms. White can tell me what this symbol is on the screen behind me.”
“It’s the Greater Seal of Solomon, Ms. Groves,” Spirit said, making very sure she didn’t sigh aloud—much as she wished to.
Spirit was lucky enough to escape having to explain to Ms. Groves why M-Theory wasn’t boring (a good thing, because with the mood she was in today, she might have snapped and told Ms. Groves that no, it really was boring), but not lucky enough to escape another brutal homework assignment: showing the correlation between the Greater Key of Solomon and the Lesser Key of Solomon, and indicating where the so-called “powers conferred by demons” matched up with the Mage Gifts of the Elemental Schools. Spirit did sigh then; it was a good thing that Oakhurst had such a good library, both on-and off-line, or she wouldn’t have a prayer. She got to her feet gratefully when the bell rang. She’d have the library practically to herself until dinner. Everybody would either be in their M-labs or off doing their extracurricular stuff.
But when she walked out of the classroom, Muirin was leaning against the wall waiting for her.
Spirit had been at Oakhurst two weeks now. She knew that you weren’t allowed to shop online (even if you had any money), that incoming mail was searched by the school before you got it (even if you had someone to send things to you), and that violations of the Dress Code were practically punishable by death. Since all these things were true, she had no idea of where Muirin managed to find the stuff she kept showing up in.
Granted, it was after class. But Spirit thought it would probably have to be after the Apocalypse before the length of Muirin’s skirt wouldn’t give some of the more conservative teachers chest pains. The fact that it was one of their regular plaid pleated ones just added insult to injury—as did the fact that she was wearing brown cabled socks that would have fit the dress-code perfectly—if they didn’t come up to mid-thigh.
“You look like an escapee from an animé,” Spirit told her, “one that ends up with things with tentacles in it.”
Muirin dropped into a mocking curtsy.
“What are you doing here?” Spirit added. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“I lead such a busy social life,” Muirin said ironically. “Come on. I decided to take a mental health day.”
“Yours or your teacher’s?” Spirit asked. Muirin only snorted.
Aren’t you blowing off your practice hours?” Spirit asked as they walked down the hall. Everybody was leaving their classrooms at the same time, but the halls weren’t crowded; there were only about a hundred students at Oakhurst right now, though the school was obviously built to accommodate at least twice that many.
“You’re obviously forgetting I’m precocious,” Muirin said pertly. “Besides, it’s not like I’m ever going to blow something up with an illusion. I can practice anywhere.” She glanced at Spirit speculatively. “So I usually like to hit the gym right after class.”
“Oh my God, don’t start,” Spirit groaned. Muirin was on the fencing team, and she’d been bugging Spirit since Day One to pick a sport—or several—to get involved with.
“Why not?” Muirin asked. “We start the first round of competitions in October. If you don’t want to join the fencing team, there’s lacrosse, basketball, swimming, track, gymnastics, boxing—”
“Oh, like I want someone to punch me in the head!” Spirit replied.
“I’ve heard the idea is to not get punched in the head,” Muirin said drily. “Camilla’s pretty good at it—but I think I’d rather leave boxing and football to the guys.”
“I have a sport. I ride,” Spirit said. She’d signed up for the stables within a few days of arriving and was taking lessons three times a week.
“Doesn’t count. Isn’t competitive,” Muirin answered. “At least come over to the gym with me and watch Burke hit things. It’ll be fun.”
Spirit wasn’t sure about how much fun it would be, but she was already sure that when Muirin got an idea in her head, it was less trouble to go along with it than to try to talk her out of it.
Spirit had actually been in the Oakhurst Gymnasium several times already: sports might be optional, but calisthenics weren’t, and Addie had insisted they all come to a basketball game last week because a friend of hers, Cadence Morgan—Spirit had winced in sympathy, knowing what it was like to grow up with an “exotic” name—was playing, and Addie had wanted to go and cheer her on. The gym was huge; Muirin said it was tournament-sized. And today one end of the enormous gym was set up as a dojo with heavy padded mats on the floor, and about a dozen kids in karate gi and different-colored belts were practicing.
Burke was easy to spot; he was about twice the size of the other boys here. He was facing off against a blond man in a black gi who almost made him look small. They circled each other for a moment, watching intently, then there was a flurry of blows—all blocked—then they stepped back and bowed. But to Spirit’s shock, even as Burke bowed, the instructor aimed another blow at him. Burke straightened up—not seeming to hurry—and blocked it easily.
“That’s cheating!” Spirit said, outraged. The noise of the basketball players masked the sound of her voice.
“That’s Brett Wallis,” Muirin replied, as if that was any kind of explanation. “He coaches karate and kendo. Mr. Gail coaches everything else but the fencing; and that’s Ms. Groves, so trust me: Mr. Wallis is the nicest, the youngest, and the cutest of the sports coaches. I’m thinking about taking kendo in the spring, because you actually get to hit something sometimes.”
Now Mr. Wallis was moving around the other students, correcting a stance here, offering encouragement there, demonstrating a move in the third place. Burke had picked up a long wooden rod and begun performing a slow precise series of movements with it. He saw them and smiled, but didn’t stop what he was doing.
Even in those few moments with Mr. Wallis, Spirit had been able to see how good Burke was, and it was obvious, when she looked at the other kids, that he was much better at this than they were. Combat magic, she thought. “Can’t he ever just turn it off?” she asked Muirin. She didn’t have to say who she meant; they were both watching Burke.
Muirin snorted. “It’s painfully obvious you haven’t figured out your magic yet or you wouldn’t ask such a dumb question. But I’m magnanimous, so I’ll take pity on you and explain. No.”
“That’s your explanation?” Spirit asked, trying not to feel hurt.
Muirin shook her head in wordless annoyance. “Look. I make illusions, and I can choose to make them or not. But because I’m an Illusion Mage, I can never choose to be fooled by an illusion, because I’ll always see the spell. With Combat Magic, Burke doesn’t even cast a spell. It’s what he is.”
Suddenly Spirit was very grateful that her magic hadn’t been awakened. She’d been thinking of it as a kind of add-on, something she might like or hate, but an extra. What Muirin was describing was something that might change what she was completely, whether she wanted it to or not.
After a few more minutes—a couple more sets of kids sparred, but Mr. Wallis was always right there watching—he called for a five-minute break. Some of the students knelt down on the mats, others began doing stretches. Mr. Wallis walked over to them.
“You must be Spirit White,” he said, holding out his hand. “Brett Wallis. Have you studied any of the martial arts before?”
Spirit was in the middle of shaking his hand politely (and wondering why he was introducing himself) when she realized what he must be thinking. “Oh I, uh—”
“No, she really hasn’t yet,” Muirin interrupted brightly.
Spirit flashed Muirin a suspicious glance. Muirin was looking much too innocent. Spirit was pretty sure that Muirin had told Mr. Wallis that Spirit was interested in signing up for his class. She was about to protest more firmly, when she gave a mental shrug. Why not? It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do with her afternoons. “I’m looking forward to it,” she said. “If you still have room.”
He smiled at her. “Sure. Just get a uniform and be here for class on Friday. I’ll make sure it’s added to your schedule.”
“Actually . . . she’s already got a uniform,” Muirin said. “It’s in her locker.”
“Well, go get changed, then,” Mr. Wallis said. “You’ll be in time for the second half of the class.”
I do not,” Spirit said, as she and Muirin headed for the Girl’s Locker Room.
“Do, too,” Muirin said. “I’ve spent enough time in your closet to know your sizes. I picked one up from Housekeeping yesterday and stashed it in the locker room this morning.”
“I hope it’s still there, in that case,” Spirit muttered, because nobody had a permanent locker in the Gymnasium. They were just there for whichever class was using the gym to leave their school clothes while they worked out.
“You have to learn to trust me,” Muirin said irrepressibly. “And I bet you’re gonna like hitting things, too. I’m never wrong about stuff like that, you know.”
Actually, after the last two weeks, Spirit thought Muirin might be right.