Chapter Forty-Two
FORTY-TWO
I’m on my way out of Opal when I hear my name being called from across the Grand Hall. I look up from where I was staring at my feet to find Professor Fern waving me down as she walks past the dining hall doors.
I grimace. No doubt she’s going to scold me for running out of our session earlier and not coming back.
The blonde bun on the top of her head bobs up and down as she quickens her pace to meet me, our paths connecting right outside of Agate.
Instinctively I step away from the gate.
Picturing Headmaster Zain on the other side gives me chills.
‘Miss Nocthare, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’ She huffs like she just ran over here.
‘You have?’
‘Yes, I was hoping I could have a word with you in private.’ Her tone dips low. ‘In my office if that suits?’
‘Am I in trouble?’ I ask cautiously. ‘For leaving class?’
‘Trouble?’ Humour dances in her eyes. ‘Gosh, no. If I had to chase around students for walking out of my class each time their magic didn’t do what they wanted it to do, I’d have no time to teach the students who stay.’
Oh. My confusion must be written on my face clear as day because she gestures to the doors leading outside and asks me to follow her.
For a moment I hesitate, wondering where this is leading and what she could possibly want to speak with me about if it isn’t to do with my sudden departure from her class. I quickly weigh up the pros and cons and decide that my curiosity weighs heavier than my concern.
We walk across the quad together, heading toward the academic building.
There are classes still in session, mainly for second- and third-year students, but we bypass all of them when she darts to the left the second we’re inside the doors.
We don’t head upstairs, to the area I’m most familiar with; instead, she leads me to a door at the end of the corridor and holds it open for me.
With a reassuring smile, she nods for me to go on in and follows directly behind me, closing the door once we are both inside.
Her office is small; it’s around the size of the room I have in Malachite’s tower.
There are filing cabinets shoved to one corner of the room, two creamy wooden bookshelves beside them and a rug beneath our feet that’s like a mosaic of colours.
A neat wooden desk sits in front of a large window, where I imagine her working with the sun warming her back as she sits in her low -back chair.
It smells like roses and fresh oranges. It’s … cozy.
‘Please, take a seat,’ she gestures to a black leather chair stored in the corner. It’s the only thing in here that doesn’t match everything else. Gingerly I walk over and lower myself into the chair. The leather cracks and squeaks as I get comfortable.
Professor Fern takes off her cardigan and props it over the back of chair before sitting down. ‘I want to preface this conversation by saying whatever we say must remain in this room, do you understand that?’
My shoulders stiffen. ‘Sure, yes, of course.’ Please tell me I didn’t just make a huge mistake by coming in here.
‘Good,’ she gives me a tight-lipped smile before leaning back and opening the top drawer of her desk.
My fingers twitch in my lap. I start to wonder how quickly I could unsheathe my dagger and send it flying toward her before she has time to pull whatever it is out of her desk and use it against me.
To my surprise though, she pulls out the three familiar velvet pouches that she brought with her to our Elemental class.
She places each one on her desk then reaches over and grabs a paperweight of a bronze bird mid-flight from the corner of her desk and promptly smashes it down on top of each pouch. One hit for each stone.
I jump in my seat at the crushing sound of crystals shattering into pieces and the thud of the paperweight hitting the desk beneath. What the fuck is she doing?
Gently, she places the paperweight right back where it was and then picks up the first pouch, unties the string and tips the contents out, right on top of the desk.
Red, glass-like fragments scatter into a messy pile.
She does the same to the other two until there is a kaleidoscope of glass -like shards piled in front of her.
‘W-why did you do that?’ I ask in disbelief, looking between her and the desk.
‘I shouldn’t have been able to break them that easily,’ she tells me as if that’s any explanation.
It’s not.
‘These are dead crystals.’ When I look at her like I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, she clarifies. ‘They’re fake. Made from cheap, very brittle glass, which is why they shattered into such tiny pieces.’
My head cocks to one side. ‘I don’t understand. You gave us fake crystals? Why?’
‘It’s a little trick I like to use when I notice my students are struggling. I haven’t done it in quite some time but when Professor Kroff came to tell me that you were requesting some assistance with yours and Mr Davis’s elemental skills, it reminded me of this.’
‘So, you’re saying what happened today with Xavier – that wasn’t the crystal?’
She shakes her head. ‘Xavier Davis has phenomenal potential; I could sense it in him the moment I shook his hand on the first day. He has a well of magic just sitting there, waiting to be tamed. He, like many of my students in the past, just needed something else to believe in in order to believe in himself.’
‘That’s …’ I huff an astounded laugh. ‘Wow, so it’s a belief -driven response of some sort?’
‘Exactly,’ she beams. ‘The belief that the crystal is going to help amplify their magic is often strong enough for them to push aside their doubts of their own capabilities. What could go wrong and what happens if they fail. Nine times out of ten it works, but sometimes …’ she trails off, giving me a pointed look.
‘Sometimes it doesn’t,’ I finish for her, realising that I’m that one out of ten that still manages to fail and that’s why she’s asked me in here.
‘Arianell – may I call you that?’ she asks, sitting back in her chair.
I nod.
‘I had hoped to pull you aside right after class today, but you left so abruptly. I hated knowing you were somewhere out there doubting yourself. It made me feel terrible for doing this, even after Mr Davis’s success.
Though I must say, I had a strong feeling this little gimmick wouldn’t work on you. ’
‘You did? Why?’
Her eyes soften, ‘I could see the doubt in your eyes well before you had given them a try.’ Her gaze drops to the glass on her desk. ‘Tell me, truly, did any part of you believe they would help you today?’
I swallow thickly, because I already know my answer. ‘I wanted them to. But no. I didn’t.’
‘And why is that? This was your idea after all, to get the stones from Professor Kroff. Yet when given the chance to use them, fake or not, you still didn’t think they could help you?’
‘I just … felt nothing from them.’ It’s the only explanation that I have that doesn’t make me sound like I’m fishing for sympathy.
Because it’s true, I didn’t even need to touch them to know I felt zero connection to them, they didn’t call to me like I expected them to.
Like I thought they did to Xavier, but now I realise that was just his own magic radiating out of him.
He likely mistook his magic for the stones, I think we all did.
But when it came to my turn, I just knew there was nothing there for me to latch onto.
Professor Fern makes a curious humming sound. ‘You have great intuition.’
I have to hold back a snort. ‘Some people I know would strongly deny that.’
‘For magic,’ she adds with a smile. ‘Whether you were aware of it or not, you were naturally able to sense that the stones weren’t real. Which can be easily mistaken as a lack of connection when you don’t know what you’re searching for. So don’t beat yourself up about that.
‘Tell me,’ she continues. ‘You said you felt nothing from them. Do you often feel magic? For example, can you feel it coming from me?’
My brows dip. ‘I … don’t know.’
‘All right, how about this. Have you ever come across something, or someone where you thought you could feel their presence? Maybe you felt drawn to them or like you couldn’t look away?’
Her questions are strange but for some reason a face floats into my mind and suddenly I know exactly what she’s asking me.
Hesitantly, I nod. ‘Headmaster Zain.’
As if saying his name will conjure him, my eyes flick to the door, and when he doesn’t come bursting in, I look back at Professor Fern to find a tightness in the lines around her eyes.
‘And what exactly did you feel when you were near him?’
‘Power.’ I bite the inside of my cheek, remembering the oppressive feeling I associate with the headmaster. ‘A lot of it. It was … staggering.’
‘He is a very powerful man, Arianell. But that is your intuition. Or what used to be known as Magnus Intueri. The ability to sense magic or power in another person, or thing. Now, I have overheard you speaking to Xavier Davis in class and I apologise for eavesdropping, but am I right in saying that you cannot feel your own magic?’
‘That’s right.’ I squirm in my seat, wondering what else she might have overheard over the course of our classes.
‘Do you mind if I …?’ She stands and gestures to me as she walks around to my side of the desk. ‘I’d like to try something if it’s all right with you.’
‘Oh, sure,’ I stand up.
She offers me a soft encouraging smile before gesturing for me to hold out my hands. Her fingers are soft and warm when they take hold of mine. She places both of my hands on top of each other, palms facing down, then cups her hands around mine. Her eyes flutter closed.
We stand there for several breaths, encased in silence as I watch her eyes move about behind her closed lids. Her lips purse as she concentrates. It feels like forever before she finally opens her eyes and lets go of my hands.
‘I am very curious about you, Arianell. I have never seen someone with such a powerful block over their magic before.’
‘A block? What is that?’
‘It means you need to dig deeper.’
‘Y-you sensed my magic?’
Her head starts to shake and the hope I didn’t know I was holding onto slips from between my fingers and pools at my feet. ‘I sensed that you have a block, a very strong one at that. If you can break through that and figure out why it’s there, it might be possible there is magic laying beneath.’
Possible.
‘How do I do that? I don’t even know what to look for.’ A block? I’ve never even heard of that before, let alone know how or why I would have one.
‘I’ll have a look in some of the books I have lying around and see what I come up with.
I’m going to be blunt here, Arianell. I’ve never peered inside of someone and felt such pushback.
It was like you were forcing me back out of your head.
It was rather jarring. Not even your brother felt like that, and I find siblings to have rather similar magic signatures. ’
‘My brother? You felt his magic signature? What was it like?’
‘Your brother was much like Mr Davis when I first met him. Full of potential – only he knew it.’
‘That’s because he was good at everything.’
Amusement dances behind her eyes. ‘He was good at a lot of things, Arianell. But not everything.’
‘Sure.’ Maybe she didn’t know him very well.
‘I’m serious. In fact, your brother was failing his Sympathetic Magic class. I caught him and that little menace of a third year, Jed Griffin, cheating one morning when I was relieving Professor Kroff.’
‘No,’ I gasp. ‘That doesn’t sound like Lukas.’ There is no way my brother would cheat or need to.
‘It’s true. He’d been having Jed Griffin help him pass that class since first year. I was about to take it to the board and make him resit every exam since first year but then … well then …’ Her words die off, and a small frown passes over her face.
Though I know what she was going to say.
You can’t exactly punish a student when he’s already dead.