Chapter 3
Benedict sat beside me, his brow furrowed as he studied his tablet while we waited for the last student.
The buzz of the class bell was faint through the cinder-block walls, and I smiled when his breath quickened in anticipation at the rising sound of students.
This was the first time either of us had done scholarship evaluations, and whereas Benedict had earmarked a few good candidates for the mage program, I was beginning to lose hope of finding a talented sweeper, much less a weaver.
On the plus side, the vice principal was a sweeper, which meant we could talk freely in private.
Most public schools had one or two magic users on the payroll, doing both what they were contracted for as well as their second, unpaid job of helping to cover up magical mishaps.
But when had being a teacher ever been a one-task job?
It might have been the noise in the hallway, or the cold tile floor, or possibly the smell of old coffee, but I smiled as the memory of Benedict and me playing paper triangle football surfaced.
It was bittersweet, still tainted with the heartache Benedict had inadvertently heaped on me despite the acres of time between then and now.
Real friends don’t dump on you to impress the in crowd—but real friends also make mistakes.
He had been afraid, I had been naive, and it was scary how fast infatuation could twist to a childish hate—especially in high school.
And back again, I thought, lips quirking.
I understood now where his insecurity had come from, and with understanding came forgiveness.
The real and heartfelt apology had helped, too.
He had stood up for me more times than I could count, and I trusted that.
Not that we always got it right, I thought, starting when a cold tendril wrapped around my ankle and Pluck’s presence blossomed in mine.
If you don’t tell him how you feel, he won’t know, Pluck sizzed in my mind, and I frowned. He was a solid half of our partnership. He shouldn’t be hiding under a couch.
I thought you didn’t like him, I thought.
Pluck’s annoyance frothed against my question. I don’t, he fizzed. But you do. Move forward. Your uncertainty is straining my certainty.
“Sorry,” I whispered, and Benedict looked up from his tablet.
“For what?”
Crap. I had said it aloud, and I flushed in embarrassment even as Pluck’s icy grip tightened until my entire foot went numb with a demanding cold.
“I, ah.” I tried to pull my foot from Pluck, but he only stretched until his energy sparked in the added stress, chilling me.
I took a breath. Held it. Let it out. Pluck…
I’m not going to tell him how I feel in a teachers’ lounge, I practically whined as his cold shot through me.
“Um. Thank you for being there with me last night,” I added, and Benedict smiled.
“It means a lot that you want to help us find weavers.”
Pluck’s dissatisfaction was a quick flash. I’ll tell him later, I thought, and it subsided into a frothing grumble.
Benedict beamed. Tablet in one hand, he pulled me into a sideways half hug with the other. “Petra, I wasn’t there just to help you find weavers. I was there because I care about you.”
Alight, I took a breath to say how important he had become to me—teachers’ lounge or not.
“You do some of the dumbest things sometimes. Honestly, taking on a separatist cell by yourself?”
I hesitated, my emotions a sudden slurry.
The anger was mine; the annoyance was probably Pluck’s.
“I wasn’t alone,” I muttered. “Pluck was bringing you. And how was I supposed to know she was a separatist? You want to call someone dumb, call Lev dumb. It was his intel.” God!
It was like we were in high school, and I slumped in my chair.
Benedict’s brow furrowed as he studied his tablet. “You’re right. Lev is dumb. Mace Handon is the last student. Mage, not mundane. Pluck, you want to come out?”
I leaned to look under the couch, seeing only his glowing eyes.
There were five of them at the moment. We had needed to talk to the mundane kids interested in St. Unoc as a matter of course, but the only way to get into St. Unoc was an invite, and only the magic users made the cut.
“Pluck?” I encouraged, and three of his eyes vanished.
No, I do not, the sullen shadow grumped as his grip frosted my ankle.
Benedict’s lips twisted into an apologetic smile when I shook my head, clearly out of sorts. “Petra, I’m sorry. I know you were hoping to find a weaver,” he said, completely misreading the situation.
I forced myself to smile. You should be out here, Pluck. “We have a few schools yet to visit. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
And it would take luck—good luck. This far from St. Unoc, the ratio of magic users to mundanes was its typical one in a thousand.
Trying to find a weaver in that would tack on another zero.
Perhaps I was doing this wrong. If there was an active separatist cell in Chicago, I might do better investigating unsolved murders and talking to their surviving kids.
We’re never going to find another weaver, I thought, not surprised when a feeling of comfort and support rose through me with an icy clarity.
I found you.
My lips curved up when the cold sensation on my ankle ebbed and his thoughts vanished.
He’d been alone, subsiding on the inert dross given off by a rez, or ghost, as mundanes called them.
He had recognized the inert dross I’d accidentally used to make my long-sticks, tearing one apart to get to it, starving.
I’d captured him, then almost destroyed him in the university’s vault, as was protocol at the time.
It had been my mentor, Darrell, who had stayed his execution. Ryan was the one who had recognized that dross I handled spontaneously cooled to where shadows could absorb it. The ability made me a weaver, not a sweeper. I had been unknowingly attracting shadow like moths to flames.
I’d never been more scared in my life, but Pluck and I figured it out. Well, mostly Pluck. He’d been here before, had watched his partner murdered by jealous mages…had mourned.
But that was thousands of years ago, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was someone out there right now, scared as they realized they were a living, breathing shadow magnet.
Finding them would likely only exchange one fear for another.
Most of my sweeper friends worked hard to avoid me, worried that Pluck might drive them insane.
“Benny, I’m so glad you’re not afraid of me,” I whispered.
Benedict made a soft grunt of surprise, his eyes wide as they lifted from the tablet. He reached out and held my hand. “Where did that come from?”
I shrugged, nervous as the hall noise began to abate. “Just thinking how terrified I was before I knew Pluck wouldn’t hurt me. And then how everyone got scared of me when I stopped being afraid to be who I was.”
His expression shifted, and my heart gave a hard thump. “Petra, I could never be afraid of you.”
I can fix that if you like, Pluck interjected.
Jealous much? I thought, then drew my hand from Benedict’s at the hesitant knock.
Another new mage. How wonderful, Pluck fizzed, vanishing deeper under the couch to leave only the thinnest threads of presence tangling about my ankle so we could talk.
Benedict leaned closer, whispering, “You may wrangle shadows, but the light in you is amazing.” He nodded sagely at my wince, then shouted toward the door, “Come in!”
I sat straighter when the door opened and a young face, brown and innocent, looked in. “Hi,” the kid said, awkward and gangly as he came in at Benedict’s gesture. “Ms. Maple said I should knock.”
“Mace Handon?” Benedict said with a smile. “Right on time. Come on in. Have a seat.”
I stifled a sigh. I was here for the sweeper students. That was it.
Now you know how I feel, Pluck interjected with a wash of cold tingles.
Benedict cleared his throat and set his tablet aside. “I’m Professor Benedict Strom.” Smiling, he extended his hand.
Mace hesitated, his brown eyes widening. “You developed the way to freeze…dross.” He practically whispered the last, which was par for the course. We were in a mixed setting, and breaking the silence took a lot of diligence to clean up.
“It was a team effort.” Benedict knocked my elbow to get me to say something.
“Ah, I’m Ms. Grady.” I extended my hand over the table.
His fingers met mine briefly, not a tingle or wisp of dross to mar them.
Point on his side, I thought. A mage willing to take responsibility for his magical waste would be an asset to the university, but Pluck’s faint grumble told me he wasn’t impressed.
Benedict pulled his tablet closer. “Ms. Grady was highly instrumental in making the process safe.”
“Safe” was a relative term. Benedict’s new spell basically fixed magic waste into an artificially frozen state, its molecular structure as tight as if it were still active.
Living shadows could release the pressure—in essence, explode the waste.
That was how the large auditorium at St. Unoc University and the vault under it had been destroyed.
The only “safe” way to get rid of dross was to encourage it to naturally dissipate as bad luck, or to turn it inert and give it to a shadow—incidentally making the shadow stronger.
Which was probably why several thousand years ago a faction of mages labeled shadows and weavers as evil.
They targeted the weavers first, and when their human voices were gone, they attacked the sentient shadows without mercy, spreading the lie that shadows were malicious and to be destroyed on sight—until the shadows themselves believed it.
Pluck and I were more than ambassadors, we were innovators and reluctant soldiers.
“It’s nice to meet you.” Mace gingerly eased back onto the chair. “Um, I haven’t actually put my app in yet. Guidance won’t let me until next year.”