Chapter 32 #2
I shrugged. “Possibly,” I admitted. “But any shadow that is in a rez is looking for interaction.” Pluck bobbed his head, and a sensation of desperation—my desperation—flooded us both.
“Benny, I want this new Spinner track to go through. That means I have to fill a classroom. I will never have more than five or six students if I can’t convince my own friends to take it.
Besides, I’d rather my friends become Spinners than someone I have known only for taking a class or two. ”
Damn it, my fingers were phasing again, and I took a breath to steady my thoughts. Head down, I pulled my long-stick from the stage and tapped it on the floor until everything felt like it should.
Pluck’s eyebrows rose as he stared at me. Tell him, the shadow encouraged. Skills are not shameful.
How you use them might be. My lip twitched. Seeing it, Benedict put a hand on my shoulder, his eyes searching mine. “Maybe it’s your choice of classroom,” he said softly.
“The thought had occurred to me,” I admitted, my gaze lifting to the last row of chairs by the ceiling. “I wanted to be somewhere that the shadows would feel comfortable joining us, and if someone can’t handle the dark, they probably can’t handle the shadows.”
Benedict chuckled, his hand finding mine and giving it a quick squeeze before he pulled me a step toward the door. “Hey, the repaired vault is ready for your inspection. You want to stop for some lunch before we go out? Taco Train okay? I love street tacos.”
Pluck perked up, his skin hazing a faint green. “It’s done?”
Benedict beamed as if he’d finished it himself. “Glass is applied. Shadow valve installed. We just need your stamp of approval to open it.”
The shadow hazed to nothing, reappearing to stand before us both. “I will do so. Immediately.”
I patted my pocket again, reassuring myself I had my phone.
The one time I had left it down here, I’d found it drained of power and possessing an entirely new ad bank.
“Well, that’s got to please the university.
” I hooked my arm around Benedict’s waist, and we started for the stairs. “Three vaults done.”
Benedict nodded. “All of which were completed without incident, all of which contain the new shadow escape valve engineered by Pluck and Aasta.”
My reputation had been cleared. Even better, both the city and the campus were again clean of dross, leaving only the usual friction between sweeper and mage.
Old patterns of dross creation and removal were reasserting themselves, and the sweepers’ guild was content they weren’t going to lose their jobs.
The few mages who had liked working with dross to fix it inert had been encouraged by peer pressure from both sides to resume their regular duties.
Life was returning to normal, with the radical changes happening “under the fold,” so to speak.
The stairs were brightly lit, and I almost missed the dross waiting there to trip me. I gathered it with the tip of my long-stick, expertly flipping it over my head and back downstairs to deal with later.
Tell him you can phase through glass, Pluck fizzed as he skated up the stairs like a black snake.
And if someone tries to seal us in an old vault again? I thought dryly. I’d rather they not know we can get out.
Pluck coalesced into a dog at the top of the stairs, looking like his namesake as he waited for us. There is that. Okay. Don’t tell him.
We were almost to the top, and my steps slowed. “Benny, I’m fine,” I grumped. “I’m okay with where I am and what I can do.”
His smile held a hint of pity, and I could have smacked him for it. “I know you miss not being out there.”
“Miss being looked down on?” I said. “Being treated like a trashman?”
“It’s not like that anymore,” he said, and I nodded. Things had gotten a lot more respectful after the mages had to deal with their own waste for a while. The better treatment might also be why I couldn’t get my friends to leave the sweepers’ guild for the new Spinner track I was trying to develop.
Yes, it had been a bribe to forget and forgive Dana for accusing me and Pluck of blowing up the vaults.
But I wasn’t going to give out a moldavite stone unless I was sure the person holding it wouldn’t freak out over a shadow.
Right now, my class was the best option for sweepers looking for a better skill set.
Until they found more weavers, I’d have the chance to work with every potential Spinner this side of the Mississippi.
And that, Pluck fizzed, is how change happens.
I hid a private smile when we reached the top and Benedict held the door for me. The bright light spilled over me, banishing the chill of the grotto as I waited for Benedict to move so I could lock up.
Clearly winded, Benedict stood before the drink machine, pretending to look over the selections as I keyed in my code to the door and Petra Grady, weaver first-class popped up. Again, the rating felt honorary, not earned. But without it, I couldn’t teach.
Not that anyone was really learning two credits’ worth of anything…
The clink of money sounded, and then Benedict punched a button. “All Taco Train has is sugar drinks,” he said as the machine whirred and I watched a bottle of water drop to the bin. “You want one?”
“Thanks. Yes, please.”
I didn’t see Pluck, but I could feel him lurking around. It was hot, and I moved to the shade as Benedict fed the machine more money.
“Hey, I have a lead on some new apartments.” Benny hit the button again. “You want me to mention it to Marty?” He shrugged as the machine whirred. “Unless you want her and Aasta living in your building.”
“I do,” I said. “But ask her. She might appreciate the distance. I have no idea when she will be back, seeing as she’s out with Lev again and I was told it was a need-to-know situation.
” The university wasn’t happy that Marty had turned down their free ride scholarship, instead choosing to find more weavers with Lev.
But in all honesty, both she and Aasta were far better suited for the field.
Benedict frowned as he punched the button again. The mechanism had jammed, and the bottle of water was just hanging there.
“Leave it,” I said, looping my arm in his and pulling him away. “We can share yours until we find another machine.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
My ankle went cold as Pluck wrapped a tendril of thought around it. It’s only stuck because it’s behind glass, he mused, and I glanced over my shoulder at it.
“Um…” I slowed, and Benedict looked at me when I pulled away from his arm around my waist. “I want to check on that lock. Meet you out front with the car?”
He blinked, then glanced at Pluck beside me, the shadow being very careful to stay within the footprint of the cactus’s shade. “Oh, gosh. Yes.” He jiggled. “I’ll go bring the car around. It’s a scorcher.”
I leaned in and gave him a kiss. “You’re so sweet. Thank you.”
His eyes darted to Pluck, and then back to me. “See you there,” he said, then spun and walked quickly down the path.
I waited until I heard his shoes on the tile. Exhaling, I gave in and let my hand phase through the vending machine’s front. Pluck’s pleased fizz held pride and astonishment as I did what no shadow could do. With a nudge, I freed the bottle. It hit the bottom of the bin with a clunk, and I beamed.
“Hey, I forgot. I got a spot under the solar panels,” Benedict said, and I spun, my hand twinging as it pulled through the glass.
Benedict froze, his eyes going from the machine to me, my hand now hidden behind my back. “Y-You…” he stammered, and I took the water from the bin. Pluck evaporated, his chuckle warming me even though his touch in my mind was blissfully chill. “Ah, did you just…”
“No.” I cracked the lid and took a sip. “No, I did not.” Grinning, I looped my arm in his, pulling us into motion to find his car, a gleeful shadow in tow.
Pluck was right. It did feel better with Benny knowing I could phase.
I wasn’t a weaver, but Marty was, and though I had a suspicion Lev had been assigned to keep the new weaver from finding her old boyfriend, Marty and Lev would find what weavers existed, bringing them out of the light and into the shadows where they could thrive.
Me being able to communicate with any shadow would give them all a voice until they found their weavers to stand with them again, a good thing when change was often feared.
Balance, Pluck had wanted, and though I had once thought he had meant only a way to eliminate dross, I knew now it was far more than that.
Balance also meant a way to find peace through the flood of fear.
It would be generations before a true balance of mage, Spinner, and weaver, of light and dark, of fear and understanding, would be found—but being here at the beginning of it, it felt good.
And from the beginning, we could go anywhere.