Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
B riony
Today, we’re having our lessons in the main part of the academy – a collection of connected buildings that crouch in the center of the ring of towers. They’ve split us into eight groups and by some kind of miracle I’m with Fly.
I wasn’t expecting to make any friends here in the academy – I haven’t had any friends for years. But now I have one, I find I’d rather be in his company than without it. Especially as I haven’t forgotten his comment about having each other’s backs. Fly may not be some kind of muscle man and I am definitely not terrifying enough to deter anyone from murder (as demonstrated yesterday) but there is safety in numbers.
Our very first lesson turns out to be in a room down in the cellars. We follow the other students down a dark set of steps, the air becoming gradually cooler and danker, and into a room I’m convinced used to be a torture chamber, chains still hanging from the stone walls, no natural light at all and rickety wooden benches lined up in rows.
“Well, this isn’t creepy,” I mutter to Fly.
“Do you think our next lesson involves thumbscrews and the rack?” he whispers.
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” I laugh, a noise that is cut off at once by a booming voice.
That same booming voice from yesterday.
“Sit down and shut your mouths.”
I swing my head in the direction of the voice and find, once again, the owner lurking in the shadows at the front of the room. It’s impossible to make out his form or his face and it seems he has no intention of making himself seen.
I take a seat on one of the middle benches, shuffling along as others join us. Unlike the canteen, it seems the shadow weavers will be slumming it down here with us. Five enter the room after the rest of us and send a few kids sitting on the front bench, scurrying away.
I scan my eye along them. The Princes aren’t with them and my shoulders relax in relief. The feeling lasts less than one minute because three of the shadow weavers are glaring my way. A set of twins, pale with long red hair and another girl too – this one darker skinned, with spiky hair dyed a myriad of colors.
I flick my gaze away from them and towards the mysterious man at the front of the classroom.
“We want all of you to have a fair chance at the academy,” he begins, I repress the urge to snort. “Some of you have not had the same advantages that others have benefited from. In order for us to spot true talents and true abilities, not only will you be tested here at the academy, but you will also be taught.”
There’s some dramatic sighing from the front row as if this is extremely tedious to the shadow weavers.
“You never know,” the voice says dripping with sarcasm, “you may be surprised. You may actually learn something new.” The man’s feet scuff on the stone floor. “Who among you can weave magic from the shadows?”
Unsurprisingly, the arms of those in the front row shoot up, everybody else’s remain lowered. The shadow weavers glance over their shoulders at the rest of us, smirking, scoffing and generally being obnoxious. Fly mutters something rude under his breath beside me.
“Well, I am here to determine whether others among you may possess the gift but are unaware,” the man says.
Several of the shadow weavers laugh out loud at this.
“Did I say something amusing?” the voice asks quietly but with a venom that makes my blood run cold.
One of the twins lifts her nose into the air. “Everyone knows that’s impossible.”
“Do they?”
“Yes,” her sister says with confidence. “The ability of shadow weaving is passed down from generation to generation. It’s inherited. You have to possess the power and the ability in your blood. Ordinaries like them,” she says with a sneer, “could never possess such a power.”
“That’s what is believed.”
“That’s the facts,” the spiky-haired girl says.
“Nonetheless,” the voice says, “we must ensure there are no others who possess such a talent.”
“Right,” a shadow weaver boy who is so stacked with muscle, he looks more troll than human, says, “can you losers do this then?”
He flings back his arm and launches a ball of fire right at the rest of us. Several kids scream, ducking down low, as it skims over our heads and hits the far wall, bursting into a thousand sparks.
“Or this,” one of the twins says, lightning streaking between her palms before she hurtles it our way. There’s more screaming, more students diving out the way in front of me and then the lightning is streaking right towards my face. I’ve no time to move and if it wasn’t for Fly, knocking me off the bench and onto the floor, it would have hit me right on the nose and scorched a hole in my face.
I groan, sprawled out on my stomach, my legs akimbo.
There is laughing from the front of the room and when I lift my head, I see the twin smirking right at me and I know right then and there.
It was deliberate.
That strike was meant for me.
So much for fading back into the background.
“Enough!” the voice roars, the walls shaking and the benches rattling. Then the shadow weavers are forced down into their seats by an unseen force. They struggle against it, but they are unable to fight it.
“I didn’t ask for practical demonstrations. You are here to learn. And the first thing you will learn is how to feel the magic in your blood.”
“This is a waste of time,” Fly moans, suppressing a yawn, as the voice delivers an explanation on how to determine if magic resides in your veins, how best to coax it out, how to feel for it when needed. But I’m all ears, taking it all in. It’s fascinating. I know so little about magic and shadow weavers and I realize now that that is a mistake. I need to learn everything I can.
After all, if I hope to find answers, I need to pay attention.
Two hours later, we’re dismissed out into the freezing cold corridor and making our way up the stairs. I’m halfway up those steps when I pat my pocket and realize I have lost my pen.
“I forgot my pen,” I say, stopping in my tracks and causing those behind me to bump into me. Several swear at me and push past, knocking against my shoulder as they do. Fly plasters himself flat against the wall and lets them pass. “It must have fallen out of my pocket when I fell off the bench.”
“You want to go get it?” Fly asks, peering back down towards the classroom.
“Yes,” I say, “it belonged to …” I trail off.
“I’ll wait here,” Fly says, obviously not keen to enter that classroom again until we have to. “That room gives me the creeps. Just be quick, okay? We don’t want to miss out on all the good lunch choices.”
The classroom gives me the creeps too and I’d prefer it if Fly came with me, but it’s a new friendship and I don’t want to seem needy or pathetic.
I trot back down the empty staircase and push against the heavy door with my shoulder, stepping inside.
“Knock before you enter!” a voice roars in anger – that same mysterious voice from before – and I freeze to the spot. Only one candle remains flickering in the room and it takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the gloom. Then I make out a man standing in the middle of the benches, my pen in his hands.
He’s huge, although his well-built frame is contained within a well-cut suit, a dark cloak hanging from his shoulders. His face is chiseled, his nose aquiline and his thick dark hair swept back from his face.
I stand there in shock, my mouth hanging open, my mind whirring. Because I know this man and yet I don’t. He is like an image of a man I once knew – but the details are slightly different – his figure more muscular, his cheeks no longer hollow, his brow heavier, his clothes more refined and his eyes – the eyes are completely different … and yet he looks so much like him.
He stares back at me and for a moment I think he is as shocked as I am. Then the shock fades away, more anger erupting over his features.
“You do not enter a classroom – any room in the academy – without knocking first. Without seeking permission to enter.”
“I-I-I’m sorry,” I stutter, unable to drag my eyes from his familiar face.
His skin is different too. The man I knew had sun-kissed skin. This man is pale as marble.
“What do you want?” he says, with obvious annoyance.
“M-m-my pen,” I say, gesturing to the one in his hand. “I dropped it.”
He turns it over in his fingers, then holds it out to me.
Like the other shadow weavers, there is an aura of magic about him, crackling in the air. But it’s different from theirs, cold where theirs is hot.
With a little reluctance – because the dude is hugely intimidating – I step forward. I reach out my hand to take the pen and in that moment an expression flickers over his face – one of amusement. It’s so similar, so unique, I know it is him.
“Fox Tudor!” I blurt out.
He jolts and the pen falls from his hand and clatters to the floor, rolling across the stone towards me.
I reach down and scoop it up from the floor and when I stand to face him again, his brow is furrowed.
“Professor Tudor,” he corrects.
Now my mouth really does fall open, so wide he probably sees right back to my tonsils.
Fox Tudor was a golden boy back in Slate Quarter – the golden boy. Good looking, clever, athletic and charming. The full works. Everyone said he was destined for great things, so when he didn’t return home from the academy, nobody was surprised. I always assumed he’d ended up in Iron Quarter, or perhaps Granite. I never for one second considered he’d be here – at the academy, teaching. Teaching magic!
How? How could that be possible?
“They’re wrong,” he says, as if reading the thoughts in my head. “There are other ways to acquire magic in your blood.” There’s a bitterness in his tone. One I can’t understand. He can wield magic – strong magic – I saw him force those shadow weavers down into their seats. He escaped Slate Quarter. He has a position at the academy itself. What could he possibly be bitter about? The crooked odds have somehow worked in his favor.
“You’re Amelia’s kid sister,” he says, observing me with as much interest as I am observing him.
“You knew her?” I say, way too eagerly.
He shakes his head. “No, not really, she was a few years younger than me.”
My own brow furrows, trying to do the math. I was just a kid – a young one when Fox Tudor set off to the academy. How old would Amelia have been? Fifteen, sixteen? Did he really not know her?
“How … how are you here?” I blurt out, unable to help myself.
“Is it so hard to believe,” he says, “Miss … Miss …?”
He doesn’t know my name, and yet something about the way his eyes flick away from mine, tells me he does, that he’s pretending he doesn’t.
“Storm.”
An expression flickers across his face. One I hate. “Furgus’s daughter.”
“I’d better go,” I say, scurrying backwards. “I’m sorry for barging in like that.”
“You need to be careful,” he says slowly, watching me as I back out of the room.
“Wh-what?” I say, my blood running cold. Why do I feel like that’s a warning?
He points to his own left eye and then his ankle, mirroring my collection of injuries. “You need to be more careful. Watch your back.”