Chapter 12
Twelve
Asher
Six years since I transferred to Luminary Academy, it still feels strange walking over to the sister school where I spent nine years before that.
The Beacon Preparatory campus is only a block south, but the difference couldn’t be starker.
Rather than stately brick buildings, structures of dull gray concrete rise from the ground around the central field, where the paint is flaking off the goal posts at either end.
Half of the grass has given way to muddy patches, because no one with the money to re-seed the space thinks it’s worth the expense.
Crossing the street, I veer toward the cracked pavement of the parking lot that leads to the senior building’s front steps. Several Beacon students are hanging around the edges of the lot in tight clusters. Their skeptical gazes take in my Luminary uniform, eyes narrowing.
My skin prickles. I resist the urge to tug at my sweater’s sleeves, to protest that it doesn’t make me any different from them.
No matter how often Cole encouraged me to dream bigger when I was a kid, I couldn’t imagine going to school someplace else. And years after he made good on his promises, the other students at Luminary haven’t gotten any more welcoming.
All that’s really changed is I don’t fit in anywhere now.
Not all of my former classmates see me as an intruder. I spot Jesse trotting down the steps and raise my hand to catch his attention. His answering smile settles my nerves.
I do still belong somewhere, even if it’s not where my brother wanted me to be.
Jesse says something to the girl he emerged with and heads over to join me. He’s wound his usual afro into thick twists that sway with his energetic strides.
“Nice style,” I tell him.
He grins and pats his head. “It’d better be. Took way too fucking long. My mom’s been badgering me to give it a try, though, so at least this gets her off my back.”
The casual way he talks about his mom sends a twinge through my chest. I haven’t quite gotten over that either, even though it’s been twelve years since my parents died.
Other people have moms and dads. I have an older brother who keeps track of every breath I breathe.
But I can’t complain, because where would I be without him?
A couple more students walk by, shooting hostile glances my way. I roll my shoulders inside my crested sweater as if I could shed it like a snake does its skin.
“Are you up for training today?” I ask Jesse. “A few rounds and then grab a coffee or something?”
Sometimes I worry he’ll think the only reason I stay in touch is to keep up on the stuff they teach at Beacon but not at Luminary, but I look forward to shooting the breeze with him just as much. Even if there’s a whole lot I don’t feel comfortable talking about anymore.
Jesse shakes his head with an apologetic grimace. “Sorry, man. My little bro has this project due tomorrow that he’s stressing his ass off about. I told him the teachers don’t even care that much, but you know what he’s like. I promised I’d help him finish it up.”
My spirits deflate, but I don’t let my disappointment seep into my smile. I should know as well as anyone how important family is. “No problem. Maybe we can get together on the weekend?”
He laughs. “Got a need to do some slaying, huh? I’ll shoot you a text. My schedule’s not that busy.”
“Sounds good.”
“And hey, sometime you’ve gotta pass on some tips from your brother. He knows all the fancy-ass shit, right?”
The trace of awe in his voice when he mentions Cole niggles at my gut.
Why wouldn’t he talk about him that way? It was at Beacon that my brother made himself a legend, before his skills landed him the spot at Luminary—which only added to the mythos.
Not even my closest friend expects that I’d be able to come up with anything equally “fancy-ass” myself.
I spread my hands awkwardly. “He’s not really into combat.”
And he’d blow the roof if he found out how much I am.
Jesse rolls with my answer with his usual ease. “No worries. Can’t help shooting my shot.”
I open my mouth to say my goodbyes and get out of his hair, but my attention snags on a trio of students ambling across the parking lot. My voice halts in my throat.
It’s a girl and two guys a few years younger than us. The guys flank her, each holding one of her hands.
Bare hands, no gloves in sight. The air of rebellious bravado to their smirks confirms what I’d already guessed.
Jesse follows my gaze, and he adjusts his own creased leather gloves instinctively.
“A bunch of the younger seniors decided to have a gloves-off party last weekend. Those three sparked their matches. One of the guys has a knack for fire—I hear the whole party had to flee the building while it was burning down. Not that they seem to care now. Idiots.”
The first spark of a glim can cause a disaster even when you’ve had the full training. I curl my fingers within my own knit gloves.
The teachers at Beacon Prep deliver all the same warnings the professors at Luminary Academy do…
but when you don’t have a family legacy and huge bank accounts behind you, taking a gamble on coming into your deeper innate power early can seem like a reasonable risk.
A better chance at getting a good placement or more authority once you’re sent into action.
When I was still at Beacon, a story went around about one of those gloves-off parties—and how a few kids died because someone’s newly activated glim went haywire. Their match was left in a coma for a week.
Even if Cole wouldn’t kill me for messing around with fate, I’ll be waiting until the graduation ball to start looking to spark, thank you very much.
A preteen with anxiety written all over his brown face comes jogging from the junior building, aiming a pointed look at Jesse. Jesse sighs with affectionate resignation. “All right, kiddo. Let’s get on with it.”
He tips his head to me. “Weekend hunting. We’ll make it happen.”
As they head off, I turn away from the school.
A fall of glossy dark brown waves newly streaked with purple draws my gaze and makes me pause. Elodie Devine is striding along the opposite sidewalk—on the Luminary side, alone.
Her expression looks unusually intent. Maybe that’s why I keep watching her, even though I’ve never paid her much more attention than I have any of the other rich girls who buzz around in their circles of friends and wrinkle their noses at me.
The only expressions I can remember seeing on her face in the past are bored disdain and conspiratorial chumminess with her friends.
That is, other than a couple of days ago when she was staring at me on the green. At least, it seemed like it was me she was staring at. I have no idea why she would have been—I checked my uniform for horrific stains or a gaping fly afterward, and I was fine.
I brushed the incident off as a weird happenstance… but something has definitely been a little weird about Elodie all week. Where would she be going on her own, on foot, with all that determination?
I also never let myself think about her looks before, because what’s the point? It’s useless enough crushing on anyone when you have no idea who your match—or matches—will turn out to be. Even worse to end up appreciating someone who sees you as dirt.
But right now, with that bold hair and the purposefulness of her stride, I can’t help noticing she’s really incredibly pretty.
Of course, right as I’m thinking that she glances over and catches me doing the staring this time.
I wince inwardly, expecting a sneer, but Elodie simply blinks. I’d swear a flicker of something painful crosses her face, as if I’ve accidentally prodded a bruise.
A second later, she jerks her gaze away and marches onward at an even faster clip than before.
A weird impulse tugs at me to follow her, to find out where she’s going. To help her. As if there’s any chance I could offer the heir to one of lucent society’s top families something she doesn’t already have.
Because I’m not an idiot, I walk in the other direction toward the bus stop instead. When the grumbling vehicle finally shows up, it’s a twenty-minute ride and then a ten-minute walk home.
As I come up on the house Cole rents the first floor and basement of, I can’t help noticing it’s almost as scruffy-looking as Beacon Prep.
How long has the paint on the porch railing been peeling?
When did anyone last pull the weeds out from between the concrete tiles that lead past the short, dandelion-dotted lawn?
I can’t imagine Elodie Devine seeing this house and doing anything other than grimacing.
Elodie is never going to see it, though, is she? Why am I even thinking about her?
I shake off the lingering memory of her stalking away from school and head inside. My brother stays later at the academy to finish up paperwork and all the other things on a professor’s plate. I don’t want him worrying about anything else after he gets home.
I dig through the fridge’s sparse offerings, making a mental note that I should stop at the grocery store tomorrow. We do have thirty dollars left in this week’s grocery budget.
Finally, I grab the last chunk of cheese, a couple of sweet potatoes, and an onion.
There’s a can of black beans in the cabinet and a few tortillas left in the bag on the counter. Sweet potato and black bean wraps—that’ll be a filling enough dinner, and I can make it taste pretty good too.
I go through the motions of nuking the sweet potatoes to soften them up and then chop them into chunks, speeding the process along with a few spurts of collected ephemera.
While the diced onion sizzles on the frying pan, I set aside a small portion of sweet potato and rinsed beans, mashing them up a bit.
Cooking always makes me restless, like there’s something more important I should be doing. But if I don’t handle meals, Cole has to. It’s only us. And he already works way too hard for both of us.
Even when I’m gone, I don’t want him to ever believe I didn’t appreciate all the opportunities he made for me. They will make a difference, even if it’s not in the ways he was hoping.
Once the sweet potatoes are frying, I duck out the back door to the alley that cuts past the small parking pad for the car we can’t afford. At the sound of my footsteps, an eager woof carries from farther down the lane.
The shaggy mutt who’s been hanging around this neighborhood for over a year now comes loping over. When I set out the dish, he wolfs down his part of our dinner in a matter of seconds. Then he offers up his chin for scratches until I have to go in to make sure the rest of the food isn’t burning.
Cole would be pissed if he knew I was giving away food to a stray. “You can’t adopt every animal that widens its eyes at you,” he told me once when I was eleven. “If I let you, you’d stuff the whole house full of them. Pets are expensive.”
I take the extra portion out of my dinner, not his. I figure I can spend at least that much wherever I want it. Better that my stomach occasionally gurgles than having to watch the mutt’s ribs stick out as it wastes away.
I’m just folding the potato and beans into the tortillas with a sprinkling of cheese when Cole comes in. He drops his briefcase by the door and runs his hand through his hair with a sigh.
Because he can’t help analyzing everything I do, he frowns when I set our plates on the old formica table. “Are you sure you’re eating enough?”
I waggle my glass at him. “I stopped growing four years ago. I’m good.”
“You’re skinny.”
I roll my eyes. “It runs in the family, in case you didn’t notice.”
He huffs, but we’ve had this argument before. We both know that we can’t afford a ton more food anyway.
The Luminary administration might have been obligated to take me on as a student when they hired my guardian to teach there, but they only gave a discount on the tuition, not a free ride. Cole hands more than half his paycheck right back to those dicks.
It was worse in my mid-teens. I’d grab snacks in the cafeteria between classes and heap my plate at lunch, and still have my stomach gnawing on itself by midnight.
I’d have eaten two lunches if I hadn’t noticed the other students eyeing the size of my plate as it was, probably speculating about the starving scholarship student.
At least these days, any lingering hunger is never more than a dull pang.
When we’re done, I wash the dishes and Cole dries. As he’s putting the plates away, he glances over at me. “You’ve got that demonstration coming up for transmutation class, don’t you? Do you want—”
I hold up my hands. “If I need help, I know who to ask. It’s coming along fine. I’m going to go practice right now.”
I say that because I know he won’t follow me into my basement bedroom if he thinks I need to concentrate on schoolwork. And I do need to concentrate.
But after I close the door behind me, I don’t reach for the wooden figurine I’m using for the demonstration. I open my closet and dig out the thin silver sword I keep tucked in a bag in the back.
Positioning myself at one end of the room, I focus on the forms I learned long ago and the new ones Jesse’s taught me.
I am going to make a difference to the world someday, every bit as much as Cole made a difference to my life. He just can’t know about it until I’m already on my way.