5
I woke up grouchy after dreaming that I’d been trying to run but couldn’t get my feet to move. It was like I was swimming in slow motion and couldn’t get up to speed. I’d needed to escape from something, but my legs had been virtually useless, which pretty much described how I felt about magic right now.
And it was a Monday! Woot.
I pushed the hair from my face and checked the clock. It was after seven, but my small room was still dark and the suite outside my door was quiet. It didn’t sound like anyone else was awake. Outside, I could hear the buzz of cars downtown. The rest of my suite might have been asleep, but Chicago was awake.
My stomach growled, and I wished I had a stash of snacks in my room. By the time I was showered and dressed, I wouldn’t have much time for breakfast. That was St. Sophia’s—you better be an early riser or you weren’t getting fed.
Thinking Scout might have a snack in hand, assuming she was even awake, I hopped out of bed and scuffed across the common room in my pajamas—a tank top, fuzzy plaid bottoms, and thick socks. The stone floors were always cold.
I knocked on her door, and as soon as she muttered, “Come in,” pushed it open.
Scout was already awake, wearing her uniform skirt and a long-sleeved shirt against the early-morning chill. Today she’d pulled her short hair into tiny ponytails that stuck out on each side of her head. She sat on her bed, her Grimoire—her book of magic spells—on the bed in front of her. To me and everyone else, it looked like a comic book. To Scout, it held the mysteries of magic. She was a spellbinder, which meant that not only could she cast spells, she could make them. Figure out the recipe and the words that would bring the spell to life. Her Grimoire held them all, which was why Reapers were always eager to get their hands on it.
I made a growly noise and sat down cross-legged on the floor.
“Good morning, sunshine.”
I growled again. “I still don’t have magic. I can feel it in my bones.” I looked up at her. “What about you?”
“No, and if I spend too much time thinking about not having it, I’m going to lose it. So I’m going to pretend it’s just a blip on the screen. Just a temporary hiatus.”
Somehow, I didn’t think that attitude was going to last long. “Why are you already up?”
She waved a hand over her book. “I’m looking for answers,” she said, rolling the “r” at the end of “answers” like a bad fortune-teller.
“Any luck?”
“About the magical blackout, not even a little. But if you have smelly ankle warts, I am your woman.”
I wrinkled my nose. It was way too early to talk about smelly ankle warts. Not that there was ever a good time to talk about smelly ankle warts. While I was on the subject . . . Who even got smelly ankle warts?
“I’m going to need a lot of coffee before I’m going to be ready for smelly ankle warts.”
Scout leaned over the side of her bed. When she sat up again, she held a paper cup of coffee in her hands. I snatched it immediately and took a sip. I was only fifteen, but I’d grown up at the college in New York state where my parents had been professors. I was brought up around school supplies, backpacks, and coffee, which explained why I loved fancy Japanese notebooks, cool messenger bags, and lattes.
I was a girl before my time.
I took a sip and closed my eyes. It was some kind of caramely goodness with whipped cream and just enough sugar. Maybe not diet food, but a really good waker-upper. “Oh, my God, I love you. Seriously. Marry me and business.”
“That is probably the best offer I’ll get today, but I must decline. Since I’m looking for answers today, I already called that Detroit. Girl wakes up at five o’clock every day. It’s ridiculous.”
“That is ridiculous. What did she say?”
“She used a bunch of technical words, but I think the gist was that they’re working on finding the cause of the blackout. They’re monitoring e-mail traffic and they have ‘eyes and ears’ on the sanctuaries, with cameras and video feed blah blah nonsense blah blah. Do you know what an aperture is? She kept throwing that around a lot.”
“I think it’s part of a camera. Is she going to call you back if she finds something?”
“Technically, she’s supposed to go through her Varsity Adepts, but yeah, she said she would.” She frowned. “Hey, you don’t think Michael has a thing for her, do you?”
“For Detroit? Are you serious? Scout, if he was any more into you, he’d quit school and start following you around like a groupie. I mean, that’s really the only other move he could make at this point.”
“Fine,” she said. “I get it.”
“I mean, he could propose, I guess, unless he already has?”
“Are you done?”
“Oh, my God, you two could totally have a winter wedding. That would be sweet.”
She lifted her eyebrows.
I put my hand over my heart. “Now I’m done. Swearsies.” And while we were on the subject of boys . . . “Hey, is it wrong that I’m feeling less motivated about going to the dance with Jason if he’s skipping out this week to maybe—possibly—go meet the girl his family’s picked for him?”
“Did he say that’s what was going to happen?”
“Well, not in so many words, but it’s on the list of things he has to do at some point.”
“Then keep the faith, Parker. I’m not denying he’s got issues about being a wolf, but he’s good people. He wouldn’t string you along. He’s not that kind of guy.”
“I just don’t want my heart to get broken, you know?”
“You’d rather bail out now than risk it, you mean? That’s not exactly the brave Adept I know and love.”
“Maybe my courage is in the same place as my magic.” I flicked my fingers into the air. “Poofed right into the ether.”
“I’ll poof you right into the ether. Now, go take a shower. You’re kind of stinking up my room with Adept funk.”
“I do not have any Adept funk.” I delicately sniffed my tank top. It smelled like laundry detergent, but I wouldn’t mind brushing my teeth. “Fine,” I said, turning my back on her and heading for the door. “I’m going. But I’m not happy about it.”
“By the time you come back,” she said, “you better have a fantastic smile on your face.”
I hoped I would.
After a trip down the hall to the shower, I climbed into my St. Sophia’s uniform. The plaid skirt was mandatory. We had some choices for shirts—button-down, hoodie, long-sleeved T-shirt, cardigan. It was chilly in my room, so I assumed it would be even colder outside. I opted for the button-down and a cardigan on top. It wasn’t exactly high fashion, but it would keep me warm in the usually freezing-cold halls of St. Sophia’s.
Thankfully, the shoes were entirely up to us. I loved shoes—especially if they came from vintage stores or thrift shops. The hunt was really the best part. The floor of my small closet was full of them—the ones I’d hauled to Chicago from New York and a few I’d found with Scout in stores in the Loop.
When my messenger bag was packed with books and my key was around my neck, I met Scout in the hallway, and we joined the horde of girls in plaid headed down to the classroom building.
The caffeine had definitely helped, but I couldn’t stifle a yawn. It should be mandatory, some kind of national health rule, that teenagers didn’t have to go to class until noon. We needed our rest—especially after spending our nights saving lives!
Unfortunately, the junior class at St. Sophia’s was small, so we had every class with the brat pack, including art history. Over the past couple of months, I’d realized that each class had a different brat pack theme:
1. Art history: Art history was brat pack wake-up time. It usually involved putting on whatever expensive makeup they hadn’t had time to apply in their rooms and drinking coffee from the expensive Italian machine in M.K.’s room. Sometimes they also made snarky remarks about naked male statues.
2. Trigonometry: The brat packers were usually awake by now, so this was when the text messaging began. We weren’t supposed to have phones in class, but everyone did. The brat packers usually kept theirs hidden in pencil bags they kept on their desks. Dorsey, our trig teacher, probably just thought they were really picky about their pencils.
3. Civics: The brat pack decided Mr. Forrest, our civics teacher, was a catch—probably because he was the son of a senator from Vermont. He’d come to St. Sophia’s after working on an unsuccessful election campaign, and the brat packers seemed to think he was their ticket to a fancy life as a senator’s wife. Even Amie was totally smitten, and she was usually the rational one. Forrest wasn’t bad to look at, but he was a believer. He worked on political stuff because he had real conviction, and there was just no way he was falling for brat pack flirting, no matter how much M.K. batted her eyelashes at him. (Seriously. He was, like, forty. It was gross.)
4. British literature: Brit lit was our first class after lunch, so the brat packers were finally wide-awake. Amie and Veronica actually seemed to like reading Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. I guess the romance got to them. Mary Katherine just whined that “nobody actually did anything” in the books. There was really no hope for her.
5. Chemistry: This was brat pack sleepy time. I don’t know if they had an official rotation, but it seemed like they took turns taking naps in class. One day M.K. got a snooze while Amie kept watch, and then it was Veronica’s turn, et cetera. If they were in danger of getting caught, the lookout would cough really loudly. Our chem teacher probably thought we were the least healthy group of St. Sophia’s girls he’d ever seen.
6. European history: This class was boring for everyone, but the brat pack made the best of it. This was when they started prepping for another fun-filled day at the convent. Nails were buffed. Jewelry and shoe combinations for the next day’s uniform were arranged. On more exciting days, M.K. would arrange an evening meet-up with a boy who was probably too old for her.
Somehow, even though they rarely paid attention in class, they still managed to get pretty good grades. Either they were crazy smart—and hiding it really well—or they’d made some kind of deal with the teachers. Or maybe they just all copied off one another.
Probably it was that.
Today’s art history was pretty typical.
M.K. sat with her chin in her hand, looking bored and half-asleep. Amie scribbled notes furiously while Mr. Hollis, our teacher, talked about the Renaissance. Every few seconds, she’d take a sip from a paper cup that I assume held really strong coffee, because with every drink her handwriting got a little bit faster.
Veronica, the girl who had entranced a vampire so much he’d broken into St. Sophia’s just for the chance to get a look at her, stared off into space. To each her own, I guess.
When the convent bells sounded after class, we all grabbed our books and headed to our lockers. Since St. Sophia’s was a fancy-pants private school, juniors and seniors had glossy wooden lockers in a separate bay outside the classrooms. Mine was right below Scout’s, my name engraved on a small metal plate on the outside.
Veronica and M.K. stood a few lockers down. Both of them had decided on lots of jewelry today. Yellow necklaces were loaded around their necks in gleaming tangles. If that was high fashion, I wanted no part of it.
M.K. had her back to a locker while Veronica pulled books from hers.
My mind on Nicu, I eavesdropped while I exchanged my books.
“I thought you wanted to go to Sneak with Creed,” M.K. was telling her. “You talked about him for, like, two weeks.”
John Creed was a friend of Jason’s, and the guy Veronica had crushed—at least before she ran into Nicu.
“I did,” Veronica said with a shrug. She paused, hand in her locker, and looked over at Mary Katherine. “I’m just not feeling him right now.”
“Um, why? He’s rich, hot, and rich. And he’s a fantastic kisser.”
Ick. Turned out that when Veronica had been crushing on Creed, M.K. had been hitting on him. (I know. She was totally a class act.) Veronica looked as disgusted—and betrayed—as I felt.
“He isn’t my type,” Veronica said dryly. I had to agree with her. Anyone who would make out with Mary Katherine wasn’t my type, either.
“He was your type two weeks ago,” M.K. persisted. “You were totally crazy about him.”
My stomach turned nervously as I waited for her answer—and silently bet that I knew what had changed. Yes, I’d kind-of-sort-of agreed to let Nicu meet Veronica. But if she was already so smitten that she didn’t care about Creed, there was going to be fireworks. And fireworks probably meant drama for me.
“I don’t know,” Veronica repeated, her voice testier this time. Books in hand, she slammed her locker shut. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
She started walking my way, and I turned my gaze back to my own locker, but not fast enough. She caught me staring and gave me a look. “You totally interrupted Lisbeth and Charlie last night. I hear you’re the one who called Foley, and you practically assaulted Charlie. What are you, some kind of freak?”
“And you were with that freak Barnaby,” M.K. threw in, like that was a crime.
Was Lisbeth’s story that we interrupted a make-out session on purpose? So much for gratitude.
“I didn’t interrupt anyone,” I said, “and I didn’t tell Foley. Lisbeth can do whatever she wants. We were just walking back to my room.”
“Liar,” M.K. maliciously said.
I glanced over and gave them a dubious look. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? You look like a jewelry store threw up on your uniform. Now, that’s freaky. Go to class.”
They threw out some snarky comments, but left us at our lockers. When I looked back at Scout, her eyes were wide.
“That totally just happened.”
It had happened, and I felt immediately guilty. My parents had taught me better than to be obnoxious just because someone had been obnoxious to me. But I’d saved Lisbeth, and I’d ended up with no firespell. Was it a coincidence? Maybe. But a thank-you would have nice.
“It totally did,” I grumbled. “And not that she’s my favorite person right now, but I think Nicu’s in luck.”
Scout frowned, and glanced back to watch Veronica walk the hallway. “Why?”
“Because she doesn’t like Creed anymore.”
“How is that news? I don’t like Creed, either.”
“I think she doesn’t like Creed because she hasn’t totally forgotten about Nicu.”
“At least he’s having a good day. Let’s see how else this day can go down the tubes.”
As it turned out, our trig teacher rescheduled our midterm exam.
To tomorrow.
I loved it when teachers were understanding.