Chapter 8
Eight
Colson
The staff lounge is empty when I duck in to grab a cup of coffee from the shiny espresso machine. Unfortunately, I don’t make it out before Professor Kosilov comes lumbering by.
“Another long day, Raith?” he says in the booming voice that I think is meant to be jovial. It rattles my eardrums.
I offer a tight smile and raise my mug as if in cheers. “Always more work to be done in the service of education.”
Then I get the hell out of there before he expects an actual conversation.
I’m not sure of Kosilov’s specific background, but it hardly matters.
The Luminary grads who ended up in teaching positions never fail to look down their noses at me, even though they couldn’t hack a more prestigious job.
The few other Beacon grads simply swap disdain for resentment, because they all had to prove themselves with years of outside employment before the academy deigned to hire them.
It's almost always in my best interests to chat as little as possible.
And this evening in particular, I’m not doing any work my colleagues would approve of.
With the door shut firmly on my private office, I sink into my desk chair and sip the bitter liquid. Then I flip open the laptop I’ve set on my desk.
The academy-issue computer connects to the internal database easily enough. It only takes a few clicks and a clatter of the keys to bring up all of Kenneth Hearst’s school records.
I don’t think the younger Mr. Hearst is particularly missed among the staff.
Despite the unexpectedness of his disappearance, I haven’t overheard more than occasional vague murmurs of concern.
He certainly didn’t make much of an impression in my class, so it’s possible they barely remember who he was.
Just one more little rich boy drifting along on the strength of his family’s name.
Until he decided to lash out at a little rich girl for some inexplicable reason.
My jaw clenches at the thought of the girl—the woman—in question, with a corresponding pang in the center of my right palm that shoots unnervingly to my heart.
Maybe the reason isn’t so inexplicable. Maybe Elodie Devine simply isn’t telling even her matches everything we need to know to understand.
Because she knows we wouldn’t like the full story?
Nothing about her behavior this past month quite adds up. Her reactions to me in class… The divinations she’s come up with and her sudden talent for shielding…
Whatever witchery possessed me that one day here in my office when I had her bent over my lap and—
I shake off the memory, not quite fast enough to stop my slacks from tightening at the groin. Gritting my teeth harder, I will down the flash of arousal.
The response is understandable now. She’s my match. We’re bound by fate.
But we weren’t bound yet when I violated every ethical standard of school and society—
Don’t fucking think about it.
I summon my memories from the past few days instead. The way her gaze twitched away from Asher every time she might have looked at him, even when he was speaking to her, trying to help her. The tension in her expression, as if fighting to conceal her horror at the thought of being matched with him.
Why in all the gods’ names did I rally her spirits that afternoon I went to see her after school? We all might have been better off if she’d stayed deflated and despairing in that ostentatious house of hers.
I went because there was something odd about her poisoning too. About the impressions I gleaned from the ephemera she left behind.
Someday soon, there’ll need to be a reckoning.
For the moment, I concentrate on the screen in front of me. Kenneth’s average grades across Primary, Junior, and Senior divisions look predictably mediocre, though a tad higher for his senior years.
I click through to the trimester-by-trimester breakdown. And then I pause, with uneasiness curdling in my gut.
Across his past five years in the Senior division, Kenneth’s marks were generally on par with what he earned in the lower divisions. In fact, in his 13th and 14th years, there was a small but noticeable downward slide.
Then all of a sudden in the first trimester of year 15, they tick a little upward. The second trimester, he’s around a full grade point ahead in nearly all his subjects: 60s transforming into 70s and 70s into low 80s.
Even his Divination marks… I hadn’t paid attention amid the few hundred other students I’m grading, and it wasn’t a huge enough leap all at once that the change stood out on its own, but he had mid 60s last year, 68 first trimester, and 73 second trimester.
I think I graded most of his performances this final trimester in the 70s as well.
They’re still not impressive marks. They simply put him at the upper end of the middle of the pack rather than the lower end. But seeing the change spread across nearly all his subjects at the exact same pace, it’s impossible to dismiss.
There are plenty of perfectly legitimate explanations. Most likely, his parents were troubled by his increased struggle and brought on tutors for extra help. Although why they weren’t having him tutored all those years before, I have no idea.
Unless they were, and it wasn’t enough, and then…
And then what? He stumbled on a massive boost in motivation and focus? How could this have anything to do with him attacking Elodie?
I suck a breath through my teeth and skim through the data some more, but I can’t discern any deeper patterns. None of the sparse notes left on his file indicate any worries or surprise from my fellow teachers.
Hmm. Well, it’s one more piece of data to add to the scraps we have.
I should dismiss the database and head home. It’s past the time I’d normally be sitting down to dinner with Asher. My stomach gives a faint gurgle of agreement.
But I’m in here now. It’d be silly not to check…
I bring up the records on Elodie Devine.
There’s nothing particularly startling about them. 90s and a very occasional high 80 across the board. As much as her snotty attitude has irritated me, she’s always put in enough of an effort that it’s hard to justify marking her down too much even when I’d like to.
I can’t deny that she’s got a sharp enough mind when she chooses to use it.
But until recently, her snottiness didn’t catch my attention more than that of any other pampered princess in my classes. The past month…
I click through subject by subject so I can see the marks that have been uploaded for this trimester so far.
In the first several, nothing jumps out at me. Then I get to Combat Tactics.
Fighting wasn’t Elodie’s forte—or at least, it didn’t use to be. Professor Kwong gave her 80s that I’d imagine were as much about effort as skill, considering no one seems willing to risk grading her any lower than that.
But the two numbers he’s entered for April so far are both high 90s. That’s… interesting.
Extra tutoring could be the answer there too, although Elodie never mentioned it. Why would she suddenly focus more on combat of all things? Simply because it was one of her weakest areas?
She managed to fend off—to kill—Kenneth despite his military-grade weapon and oddly enchanted clothes. Even Cosgrave, star of the Cutting Flame, didn’t manage it.
I frown at the screen. I feel as if I’ve picked up a new piece of a puzzle that’s just doubled in size. Is that actually progress?
The hum of the building’s ephemera resonates around me through the stillness of the early evening. Almost everyone else has gone home by now.
I have another avenue of investigation open to me, if I choose to take it.
I debate with myself for several seconds, braced in my chair, before pushing out of it and heading to the administrative rooms.
Most of the lights in the main office have dimmed. A lone assistant taps away at her computer in a back corner. She doesn’t look up from her screen as she nods at me in acknowledgment.
I’m not sure she even registers what I took from the drawer I opened. It shouldn’t matter anyway—all teaching staff have access to the master locker key.
The student lockers are enchanted to respond to their owner, but of course the staff need a way of opening them if matters of concern come up. The headmaster himself accompanied the police to open up Kenneth’s locker for their search a couple of days ago.
They found nothing of interest and took what was there, but it isn’t his belongings I’m looking to inspect now.
Elodie’s student records included her locker number. It’s halfway down a now-empty hallway where the silence amplifies the rap of my carefully polished Oxfords against the tiled floor.
I stop at her locker and take another glance around. No one’s here to see me. And if someone arrives, I can invent an excuse.
I need to know what we’re really in for with this match who’s invaded both my and my brother’s lives.
A flick of the card disengages the lock. I tug the door open and peer into the narrow space.
Elodie hasn’t left much behind. A few textbooks stand in a stack on the upper shelf next to a pencil case. One of her school sweaters dangles from a hook, but I saw her wearing that just a day ago.
I’m looking for something she wouldn’t have touched in a while.
My height means I don’t have to push up on my toes to see down the top shelf. I ease the books to the side and spot an odd shape at the back.
I dig out a pair of sandals.
They’re white and strappy, some brand that probably costs more than my monthly paycheck. And she would have bought them on a whim, not scrimping and bargain-hunting like I have to do to keep my wardrobe up to Luminary standards.
Were they left behind when some afterschool venture fell through? I can’t imagine her wearing these anywhere in recent weather. They were probably forgotten back in the early fall if not even longer ago.
Perfect for my purposes.
With another cautious glance around me, I ease off my gloves. My bare skin, bond mark and all, settles against the delicate leather straps.
I close my eyes and narrow all my concentration down to the tickle of ephemera contained in the two sandals.
Arch laughter wavers through my senses, followed by a whirl of motion. Did she dance in these?
With whom? My shoulders stiffen at the thought of some boy with his hands on her.
Shoving aside the waft of jealousy, I delve my awareness deeper.
Snippets of chatter, all female voices, pass through my mind. Talk about clothes and family and school, flippantly superficial.
Music tingles through the fragments of conversation. A brief rush of exhilaration sweeps by.
There’s a twinge of satisfaction as hands pick this pair off a shelf amid rows of other shoes. A breeze tangling through her hair as she tosses the dark strands.
And that’s all.
No matter how far I reach, I can’t dredge up one shred of the apprehension and defiance that’s radiated off Elodie during our most recent interactions. But it’s not only that.
There’s a… bubbly quality to all these impressions, with a tang like champagne and a loftiness of spirit, exactly fitting the girl I thought I knew from my classes.
It doesn’t feel at all like the Elodie I’ve clashed with in the past month. Not just a shift in mood, but as if something about her very essence has changed.
I open my eyes and frown at the sandals. I thought there was something off about the energies around her, but I didn’t realize it was so… fundamental.
What am I supposed to make of that observation? I pick up the ephemera around me as automatically as breathing, and I’ve never noticed anyone else’s change so starkly and abruptly.
The puzzle just expanded again, and I’m painfully short on pieces.
I’m still staring at the white straps as if they’ll answer my myriad of questions when a measured thud of footsteps carries from beyond the nearest corner.
My pulse jumps. I could make up an excuse for invading a student’s privacy, but I’d rather not face the scrutiny at all.
I toss the sandals onto the shelf, nudge the books back into place in front of them, and press the door firmly shut. I’ve managed to meander one step away when Professor Kwong strides into view.
Kwong is one of the few colleagues who doesn’t get my back up, mainly because he doesn’t appear to think about me much one way or another. I always get the sense he sizes people up purely based on their potential threat in combat, and I haven’t struck him as a dangerous opponent.
Probably fair.
I expect him to walk on by when our paths cross, but he stops just before he reaches me, his mouth twisting.
“Raith. Just so you know, I’m sorry about your brother getting dragged into this additional intensive program.
I wasn’t consulted on the selections—I can’t say I’m totally convinced about the need in the first place. ”
Asher mentioned to me he’d gotten a request to report to the central field after school tomorrow for the first intensive combat seminar. I’m surprised Kwong bothered to mention it—and that he realized I wouldn’t be pleased.
I suppose my protectiveness hasn’t been entirely subtle.
I offer a shrug. There’s nothing either of us can do about it anyway—and maybe the fact that Captain Ross appreciates Asher’s defensive magic skills means he’ll finally get more of the recognition he needs to rise in the ranks.
“We’ll see how it goes. I can understand why the administration is concerned about security. ”
“Plenty of other ways to show that, though,” Kwong mutters.
How much does he actually think this is a bad idea, and how much is he simply irritated that they set up the program without him?
It occurs to me that there’s a more pressing question I can ask him.
I keep my tone as casual as possible. “Speaking of our students, I was looking through some records today and noticed Elodie Devine has had quite an increase in her combat grades. Have you been doing some new exercises with the seniors?”
Kwong chuckles with a flare of admiration in his eyes that makes my hands ball against another spurt of possessiveness. “Nah, same as usual. But she’s really stepped up this trimester. Never would have thought she had it in her. I guess it’s a good thing, considering…”
He trails off with the mutual understanding of Elodie’s recent troubles.
He doesn’t know half of them.
“It seems that way,” I say, as if it doesn’t matter much to me, and continue down the hall. Uneasiness coils around my gut.
Something major has changed about Elodie—and I’m not the only one who’s seen it.