Chapter Twenty-Two
Honestly, I couldn’t comprehend why I’d held onto something so small and petulant, but every time I dwelled on how Chanelle disregarded the unique factors of my homeroom coven, from Tara’s branch overlap to Caleb’s branchless nature, it filled me with anger that easily linked my mind to Kenzo’s.
He astutely surmised the upcoming match, developing plans based on their magics and predicting outcomes. It went as he expected, verbatim.
The next round was called, involving Katherine and Carter.
I needed to return. I had no idea who they’d been pitted against, but the furious Kenzo bustled with boredom at their battle, more concerned with berating Gael for holding back his spikes.
Delight peaked high above the arena, slicing through Kenzo’s fuming crimson aura before the two radiating emotions vanished.
I had no clue what Gael had said or thought, but Kenzo became temporarily flustered before storming away to watch the match elsewhere in peace.
My magic was all kinds of fucked. How was I still seeing emotional auras?
That was more empathy than telepathy and should have required extreme effort on my part to even glimpse.
I couldn’t breathe without being drawn into a mind, easily perching over folks’ minds without the slightest exertion of my branch.
I sat in the parking lot, sprawled on the ground and chain-smoking a second cigarette by lighting the butt of the first, hoping it’d quell my breaths and magic. It didn’t.
Lingering in Kenzo’s furious complaints as he dictated everything Katherine and Carter should’ve done was surprisingly soothing.
His internal screams silenced everyone else in the world, and his strategic mind zipped through countless scenarios.
Katherine and Carter had, unfortunately, ended the round in a stalemate against the other team, much to Kenzo’s prediction, since Carter prioritized his teammate during the last minute instead of detaining the final opponent.
I cracked my neck, simmering his thoughts and my disappointment. Not that I could’ve helped Katherine and Carter, but as their homeroom instructor, as a proctor, I should’ve been there. They stirred in the back of my mind momentarily.
Match after match I didn’t care to watch mixed in a blur with Mrs. Whitehurst’s obnoxious announcements—half the irritation spiked from Kenzo, the other half from me—while I took sharp drags off a cigarette, ignoring Milo’s faint mind reaching out to me.
He continued delving deep into his magics, obscuring his surface thoughts.
I sat up, digging my nails into the concrete.
My telepathy wasn’t behaving like any telepathy I’d researched for my licenses, for my education, for my sanity.
Telepathy allowed me to listen to thoughts, delve deep into minds, link to consciousnesses nearby, but somehow, I’d superseded the limitations of my branch .
In all the time I’d had it, I’d assumed the manifestations I created were a simple quirk, unique to my uncharming personality, not that they worked anymore.
Since the growth in my branch, I couldn’t conjure one, and I needed a manifestation to settle my broken mind.
I released a heavy sigh, filling the air with smoke.
I’d much rather have a manifestation serving as a buffer for this evolving telepathy, yet here I was, exceeding my manifestations’ capabilities.
I had so many questions, concerns, worries, yet Milo had none.
Did he know what it meant? Did he predict this outcome?
Did he plan for this? Dropping my smoke, I grabbed my face, hoping to drown out all the light and thoughts of the world with a firm grip.
“ Branchless Blunder better not fuck this up. ” Kenzo’s thoughts cast a thunderstorm in the sky, his rage and sorrow bellowing in equal measure, consuming the entire academy.
Perhaps I’d linked too closely to him, manifesting this facade…
or he cared that deeply about Caleb, amplifying the emotional triggers he continuously severed.
“ When you get knocked out of this showcase, it’ll be by me. ”
I cracked my knuckles against the pavement, quelling rage belonging in equal parts to me and Kenzo.
Our fury each for people in our lives who strayed from what we believed best for them and everyone else around.
Though, Kenzo’s rage never stemmed into the curious confusion my teenage years were filled with.
Nope. He assuredly understood himself and his crush for Gael—despite willfully ignoring it because of his goals—which apparently came quite earlier than myself.
What he didn’t understand was why he still gave a damn about Caleb Huxley or his future.
It infuriated him. Exhausted him. Motivated him.
The gray clouds didn’t fade, and a part of me wondered back to youthful curiosity, amusement at the magic in the world…
How much did we comprehend? Had I or Kenzo called forth these storm cl ouds, channeling nature through enraged emotion?
Or was this merely a whim of the world no one, magic and science included, was meant to know?
None of the curiousness mattered. Magic was as predictable as the dust in the ether and as useless.
Another boring facet of a tiny world where nothing mattered.
Not what I did here. Not what I heard there.
Not what I wanted then. Or what I hoped for later.
I walked back into the auxiliary gym; the screens displayed the final semi-final round teams.
TEAM 1 TEAM 2 Caleb Huxley Tara Whitlock Jamie Novak Chase Fields Roberta Locks Ramsey Miller Ashlyn Ramirez Devon White
Biting my lip, I quelled the minds of every person here, including the angry little bastard that synced so naturally to my fury. What I needed was silence, not similarity.
Tara and Caleb were pitted against each other.
One would lose. Ignoring that, I quickly walked back to my designated proctoring spot for the last semi-final match.
This was my job. Nothing more. Nothing extra.
These were just two random kids assigned to my roster out of hundreds, potentially thousands.
“Begin,” Chanelle announced alongside the buzzers.
I ignored everything. Why was I so furious? Was it my growing branch? Was it Milo working nonstop on this dangerous demon case? Was it Chanelle? It didn’t matter what shook my magic; it happened, making it too difficult to concentrate on the battle .
I couldn’t cheer for either side anyway, not between Caleb and Tara. I didn’t want either side to win. Lose. Win? Winning meant so much to each of them, for different reasons, layered in histories of confusion wrapped within each strike they unleashed during the match.
The match escalated quickly. Two members on Tara’s team were detained and expelled from the arena in the first minute, thanks to Jamie’s whirlpool magic, but now he’d fixated on Tara.
“ Let’s see that Whitlock power dodge this . ” Jamie’s erratic rage spiked in the most disruptive sense. I grabbed my chest; the odd spikes of calm anger cast false palpitations.
Jamie created seven tiny whirlpools around himself, each barely bigger than his hands, and he conjured matching outputs surrounding Tara.
She eyed the larger watery portals closing in on her, contemplating an escape.
None of her root magics were suited to evade this type of attack, and with only one remaining member on her team, she didn’t want to waste her energy casting an onslaught of chaotic branches.
“ There’s still Caleb and the other two to contend with.
I need my strength. ” She could only maintain a safe output of her three wild branches for a limited amount of time.
According to her circulating thoughts, it wasn’t very long.
Carefully, she avoided jabs Jamie made, punching his hands through portals from a safe distance.
Tara channeled her telekinesis, creating a massive ripple across her fist from all the telekinetic energy bound in one tiny space.
Milo had done the very same thing, concentrating a huge amount of magic into a condensed form, which would release a massive output if it was half as powerful as his.
Jamie nicked Tara’s chin, but it didn’t slow her and instead led the trajectory of her strike.
Unleashing the massive telekinetic burst, it traveled through a watery portal, but Jamie sent his tiny whirlpool off in another direction.
Tara’s strike bounced between portals, and every ounce of the telekinesis struck Caleb in the back, slamming him against the stone arena.
The ground cracked louder than his pained gasp.
I levitated closer than my designated post at the outer edge.
“Whoops, guess I hit your branchless pal.” Jamie smirked. “ Not enough to knock the dud out. Won’t give up a perfect win just to put you in your place . ”
I clenched my jaw, channeling telekinesis and ready to end this.
“ Wow. Defensive much? ”“ Every round has been intense. ”
“ Not that he’d know. ”“ Lazy asshole. ”
“ He wouldn’t be here if he weren’t screwing— ”
“ When it’s one of his kids, suddenly— ”
“ Now, he manages to show up after shirking his duties. Must be nice. ”
I untensed and then severed my telepathy.
Maybe the other staff members monitoring this match were right.
There was a lot they had wrong, whether because I kept my efforts to myself or they envied me for things I didn’t care about exploring.
The venom oozing in their thoughts settled my trembling.
I was too close to my students in this situation and needed to remember we’d all reviewed the ridiculously long protocols on when intervention was necessary.
This was simply another battle in the Warlock Wars semi-finals.
Tara winced when Jamie punched her in the kidney, reeling his hand back into the portal. I closed my eyes, unable to escape the reminder this held for me.