Chapter 10
Claw Marks
W e assemble in the courtyard as instructed, the only well-rested hopefuls in a pack to one side.
The botanists. Alden is the only one among them not smiling, hands thrust in his pockets, eyes narrowed on the ground as he shuffles a small stone with the toe of his shoe.
He looks up, eyes meeting mine, and a shiver runs down my spine that isn’t wholly terrible.
‘Hopefuls,’ Professor Grant’s voice rings out, instantly killing the undercurrent of murmurs and whispers.
She clasps her hands in her lap, eyeing us all in turn.
‘This Ordeal will test more than your magic. It will test your courage, your resolve, your willingness to work in a team. As with every year, you’ll find a few alterations.
Last year, we led the hopefuls to a laboratory in Fetlock at this point, but with Hess joining the faculty this year, we’ve been presented with an extraordinary opportunity. ’
The man with slicked-back red hair steps forward, clapping his hands before rubbing them together.
‘Professor Grant is quite right. Innovation is the catalyst for improvement and Killmarth likes to level the playing field between those that are first, second and third generation. And to the botanists here, I say, maybe you shouldn’t have come along today expecting an easy ride.
We test attributes beyond wielding in this Ordeal, with an emphasis on confidence, cunning and resourcefulness.
A weak-minded magic wielder is an unsafe magic wielder and we have no wish to strengthen magic in the wrong hands. ’
I peer under my lashes at the botanists, who are looking decidedly less certain now. My eyes meet Alden’s and he raises his eyebrows imperceptibly. My mouth curves into a small smile. Perhaps he’ll need his wild card after all.
‘Now, Bess, Phillips …’ he pauses as two scholars appear in the courtyard ‘… the mirrors, if you please.’
The full-length mirrors each scholar is hefting with them are brought forward and placed against the wall.
At first sight, they appear unremarkable, cheap even, with gaudy gilt frames and silvered edges.
And they’re baffling because Hess called them mirrors but they don’t reflect the other side of the courtyard at all.
‘Professor Hess is a jewel among magic wielders, an alchemist with the power to create portals out of inanimate objects,’ Professor Grant says.
‘His portals can lead to other points across the territory, allowing you to travel vast distances, bending the properties of the mirror entirely. Quite the talent. You will work with your partner, and any pair that successfully makes it back through these mirrors alive and whole, together , will pass the Ordeal.’
‘You will each walk through a mirror. One we will poison; the other will carry the antidote,’ Professor Hess says.
‘If those carrying the antidote do not find the other person in time to save them, you will fail and be asked to leave Killmarth. This presents a ticking clock to this Ordeal, so the pressure is on.’
‘And the other hopeful?’ a slight voice scrapes out and I see it’s Greg, seeming a little green.
‘The other may die,’ Professor Grant says quietly. ‘More likely, they will fall into a stupor that will take some time to lift, and they will fail.’
A chill silence stretches around us. I have three vials of the alphemera flower in my coat pocket, along with my switchblade.
But will it even help? The information we found may help Tessa and I, but it may not save us.
I glance at her and see the same realisation reflected back.
We can counteract the poison if that’s what we’re given, but with these new rules, we’ll still have to find our partners and make it back alive.
And I made a promise to her. If I find her or Greg, I’ll help them, because something tells me those portals won’t take us somewhere soft and safe.
‘To sweeten the incentive of making it back swiftly …’ another voice says and we all turn, seeing the representative of the Crown, Caroline Ivey, stepping towards us all, ‘the first ten pairs to return will be given a junior common room to make use of in Gantry. There will be sofas, a well-stocked fireplace, books and afternoon tea and treats laid out each day. Compliments of the Crown to celebrate the front runners of your cohort.’
A murmur ripples through the courtyard, despair making way for determination. I even find myself straightening and squaring my shoulders, wanting to win this privilege.
‘Now for the pairings. Are we an even number now, professor?’ Professor Hess asks.
‘Yes, two scarpered in the night. Change of heart. Forty-eight left.’
‘Twenty-four pairings. Marvellous,’ Professor Hess says, rubbing his hands together again.
‘Best to give you botanists the antidote as well I should think. Otherwise, it’ll give you an advantage over the others.
Can’t have you all curing yourselves within moments.
Song, Berryman …’ he says, pointing to two women, a botanist and a masquier.
‘The first to walk through with your partners. You’ll carry the antidote. ’
He moves through the courtyard, sizing us up and pointing one from each pair towards a line on the left or right, leading to a mirror respectively. We all shuffle around and I bite my lip as Tessa pats Greg on the arm, who I’m fairly sure is about to puke again.
‘Locke, DeWinter, you’re the last.’
I look up sharply, finding Alden’s eyes fixed on mine. He drops his gaze to the ground, frowning down at the cobblestones as he stalks to my side. ‘Perhaps I should have explained the properties of particular poisonous plants—’
‘No need to fret, I found the information I needed. Even kept it all in my pretty head too.’
Alden searches my face and I wink at him, waving him away.
Hess then strides to the mirrors, and begins handing concoctions to each line before we step through the mirrors.
I shuffle forward towards the left mirror, and I realise Hess is making our line drink a concoction before crossing through the portal.
I shrug deeper into my dark blue jacket, knowing what this means.
As a botanist, Alden will pocket the antidote and I will be the one to take the poison.
‘If I had known they’d bloody poison you … It’s not what I was expecting—’
‘You just leave staying alive to me and look after yourself until I can find you.’
He laughs under his breath. ‘Either you have a death wish, or you truly are a risk worth taking.’
‘In more ways than one,’ I whisper and chuckle as he grins.
There’s now just one pair in front of us, one person in front of me.
Hess hands the tube of pale, creamy liquid to the young man in front of me with curly black hair and a silver scar cutting across his pale left cheekbone.
He downs it in one, wiping his mouth and grins to the other young man he’s paired with, a masquier with light brown skin and blue eyes.
But as the masquier steps through his own mirror on the right, the young man in front of me convulses.
‘Kipling, my boy, what on earth?’ Hess begins as the young man convulses again, the poison spraying from his mouth.
Hess’s eyes fly wide as Kipling kneels on the cobbles, clawing at his throat with his fingers, black curls sticking to his forehead as he gasps and gasps for breath.
Hess grabs for an antidote, swiftly uncorking it and prising open his jaw, pouring it in.
But it’s too late. Kipling convulses a final time, blood dripping down his chin before collapsing on his side, eyes turned skyward.
Fear presses against my chest as Professor Hess kneels beside him, checking his pulse, before shaking his head. He catches Professor Grant’s eye. ‘Poison must have accelerated in his system. Shouldn’t have happened so quickly.’
Professor Grant nods, opening her hands before folding them into her lap, her features grim and pinched. ‘These things happen, sadly.’
I eye the dead young man at my feet, then the mirror before me. All I can see is a dense fog, a smoky hue of utter nothing that I’m supposed to walk into. I brace myself, ignoring the thrum of my heart, the tremors fluttering in my limbs and hold my hand out to Hess. ‘The poison?’
Hess’s eyes widen as he hurriedly hands me the final tube.
‘ Salutar ,’ I say then throw it back, tasting chalk and milk and violets.
Hess nods to Alden to pass through the mirror on the right and I realise he hesitated, waiting to make sure I didn’t drop down dead like Kipling. Before he steps through, he turns back to look at me, gaze stapled to mine, suddenly serious and utters the words, ‘Don’t die. I will find you.’
Then he’s gone and I’m left holding the empty tube. I pass it to Hess, then stride through the mirror on the left without a backwards glance.
The world through the mirror is mist at first. Pale grey and drift ing, gossamer webs of cold draping over me, collecting like dew on my skin and coat.
The scent though, the air smells like loam.
Like pine and cedar and ancient oak. Under my boots the ground gives with every tread, soft and yielding.
I bend low, touching my fingertips to it, and feel moss.
A forest, I realise. But which one?