Chapter 2 Cendi #2
For a hot second, the room forgot about keys and ghosts and let itself be delighted.
Jessie’s hands flew to her mouth. The cheers were loud, even from some students who usually preferred to sneer at me from behind their chalices of gossip, and from others who probably had never even met Jessie due to their programs. From two rows up Robbie whooped, from amongst a group of children, and turned to grin at us.
I grabbed Jessie's arm. “You did it! You did it. Oh my gosh.”
Her eyes shone. “I didn’t know they were—” She laughed, breathless.
“I mean, I hoped, but I hadn’t gotten the official word.
” She shook her head, then composed herself and marched up the aisle to the dais, cheeks bright.
When she turned to face us, she had that particular Jessie mix of chaos and competence that said, yes, I can absolutely stack chairs one-handed and teach you a protection charm with the other.
“Thank you,” she said into the charm-amplified air. “I promise to do my best and, uh, teach my small, but wonderful, group of students how to be the best godmothers and sugar daddies you can be.”
The rest of the assembly breezed by. Schedules. Some reminders about hall curfew, which everyone took as a challenge, and a stern “no independent portal experimentation” from Headmistress Beth that cut a look straight at me and Jessie, which seemed unfair but also… fair.
We spilled back into the corridors in a confetti-spray of conversation. Students I barely knew thumped Jessie on the shoulder. Robbie caught up to us in the flow.
“Teacher Crayne,” he said, mock-solemn.
“Don’t you start,” she warned, but the corners of her mouth wouldn’t obey.
“Party,” Robbie announced. “Small congratulations thing. After dinner. Common room in the Godmother wing. We’ll keep it quiet.” He winked. “Which means it will be less quiet than we intend.”
“Jaylyn?” I asked.
“I already invited her,” Robbie said. “She said she’ll come. She deserves something nice after everything.”
“Agreed.” I gave my friend one more hug.
After dinner, we detoured back to my room first. Tilly and Simon were waiting, doing that cat thing where they behave as if they’re starving orphans five minutes after a meal. We bribed them with treats and told them we’d be right back.
Robbie had gotten a head start. He’d commandeered a corner of the common room and transformed it with blankets and cushions dragged from everywhere.
There were string lights and a plate of cookies that kept replenishing itself with suspiciously perfect timing.
Someone had smuggled in a bottle of sparkling apple cider and something stronger that declared itself by smell alone.
People filtered in. Some I knew well, some who usually gave me a sideways glance in the cafeteria, now drawn by the promise of cake and curiosity.
Jaylyn arrived with her hair down and a tentative smile that tugged at my heart.
She slipped into the pillow nest between Jessie and me like she’d been doing it forever.
“To Jessie,” Robbie said, raising a glass. “To the teacher we all want and the chaos we all need.”
“To Jessie!” the room chorused. She blushed crimson and downed her drink like a champion.
For a long, gentle while, we let ourselves exist as students at a party, nothing more.
The talk skittered from classes to who’d accidentally turned their teacup into a hedgehog, to the scandal of someone seeing Mr. Bently buy scented candles in town.
“No one tell him we know,” I said. “He’s terrifying enough without imagining him with a lavender obsession.
” Laughter loosened the tight band that had gripped the day.
Every now and then, someone drifted by to offer Jessie advice about teaching. Most were sweet. One older trainee murmured, “Don’t screw this up,” and Jessie made a horrified face behind her back until I snorted into my cup.
At some point, because I am not above using a party for investigative purposes, I cleared my throat and pitched my voice just enough to carry to the next cluster of cushions.
“Okay, everyone. Quick question among the cheese cubes: has anyone seen anything last night that looked like, well, like me? But, you know, transparent? Drippy? Haunting chic?”
A few chuckles. Heads shook. Mostly people looked curious.
“We’re serious,” Jessie added, softer. “If you saw a glow in the halls, anything weird at all, speak up. Even anonymously.”
Silence, then murmurs. No one volunteered a thing.
Boo. Disappointing.
Robbie leaned in until his shoulder warmed mine. “It was worth trying.”
“I know.” I looked around the room, at people who had hated me last term because of whispers, at people who now smiled without flinching. The ease of it was new, like stepping into a pair of shoes and realizing they didn’t pinch. “Tonight was good.”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling fondly down at me.
Music drifted up from someone’s enchanted music box. Not loud, just enough to nudge the air into a sway. Someone produced a deck of cards and started a game of “Tell the Truth Or Your Tea Turns To Vinegar.” I declined on principle.
Even Ms. Maple made a guest appearance—accidental, I think—poking her head in and then freezing like a deer when thirty eyes landed on her.
She made an apologetic squeak and pulled back, then rushed forward again to thrust a tray at us.
“I brought… lemon bars,” she said, earnestly panicked.
“Library bake—no, not bake, that’s not a…
I just… here.” Then she vanished as fast as her feet could take her out of the room.
We demolished the lemon bars. “She’s sweet,” Jaylyn said. “Skittish though.”
An hour stretched into two. The bottle found the bottom of itself and refilled. The room grew a little looser, conversations splintering, people sprawled across the blankets in lazy heaps. The lights dimmed themselves, which felt a bit spicy, but whatever.
Eventually, Jaylyn stood to go. Robbie offered to walk her back, but she shook her head. “I’m okay,” she said, and I believed her. Confidence looked good on her.
When the crowd thinned, Jessie flopped back on the cushions and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m supposed to design a curriculum,” she said, somewhere between giddy and terrified. “Me.”
“You were born for it,” I told her.
We stayed like that a long time, talking about everything and nothing, until the embers of the night softened to a glow.
No ghostly look-alike crashed our celebration.
No blue light knifed under the door. Just our breathing, the whisper of string lights, and the distant hush of the castle pretending it was asleep.