Chapter 11
Eleven
Elodie
“Okay, you all go have fun without me.” Mia fakes a pout as she waggles her fingers at the rest of us, but a second later the pixie-haired twin looks only relieved. I don’t think she wanted to be part of the intensive combat seminars in the first place.
Cadance snorts, and Madison smacks her fist into the opposite hand as if gearing up for a sparring match. I’m assuming pretty much everyone from the Cutting Flame was tapped for their fighting abilities, to be skilled partners to those of us the staff decided need extra help.
I’m not sure what Captain Ross and Professor Jovak based their decisions on.
With me, Stella, and Cadance being chosen but not Mia, family prestige must be a larger factor than our own theoretically shaky skills.
Mia’s the weakest fighter out of all of us, but we three are in the top ten ranks for our year and all at least a little higher up the social ladder than the Somersets.
More valuable property that lucent society would hate to lose.
The thought makes my skin creep as we head to the changing room.
Stella is already tightening the band holding her auburn hair in its previously loose ponytail. “I wonder why they want us outside today.”
“I wonder what the point of the extra training is at all,” Cadance mutters, squishing her blond ringlets into a bun. “Elodie was poisoned—punching someone wouldn’t have gotten it out of her food. Who knows what even happened to Kenneth?”
I happen to know that being a little better at beating people up probably would have saved Kenneth’s life—and ended mine—but I’m not going to mention that.
I tug my training shirt on, careful not to displace my undershirt that covers the scars on my back and chest. “It’s for show.
The headmaster probably agreed because he wants to make out like he’s doing whatever possible to prepare his top students for anything.
Whether the training actually works matters less than people seeing him trying. ”
Cadance laughs. “Someone’s in a cynical mood today.”
“I don’t think she’s wrong, though,” Madison mutters. “Hopefully it doesn’t take him too long to make a point. I like sparring with the experts, not you wimps.” She gives Stella a playful tap of her knuckles to show she’s teasing.
As we head out to the central field that’s sheltered from public view by school buildings on all sides, Stella’s expression stays pensive.
“It’s weird that they still haven’t found Kenneth, isn’t it?
Or who tried to hurt Elodie either. We’ve got cops with magic on their side. You’d think it wouldn’t take so long.”
Cadance shakes her head. “I guess if the criminals have magic too, it all balances out. That’s why I don’t get why they let people like the Cosgraves and the Morellis into Luminary. So what if they can pay for it? We all know where the money came from.”
My body tenses in anticipation of seeing one particular Cosgrave. If Madison was asked to come, the school’s top combat student won’t have been left out, regardless of questionable family ties.
But as we come up on the field that’s most often used for bloomblight games, I don’t spot Salvatore’s dark hair with its characteristic reddish undertone in the small swarm of other senior students who’ve gotten here first.
Maybe he’s just taking his time. That would be a Salvatore thing to do—prove he’s not bound by the school’s schedule.
Byron is already standing in the crowd, of course, arms folded over his chest and face set with typical cool confidence. My gaze snags on another very familiar face near him, and my heart skips a beat.
Cadance notices at the same time I did. “Huh. What did they bring the charity case in for? Did Professor Raith pay them extra?”
Madison’s mouth twists. “He’s actually… Asher’s got some pretty good combat skills, especially blocking and deflecting. There was a debate in the Cutting Flame about whether to invite him into the club. But the vote was that he wasn’t quite strong enough with the attacking part.”
Because Asher never trained all that hard at taking down people, only beings of another sort.
I drag my eyes away before anyone notices me staring at him.
There’s plenty more to gape at. We’ve gathered in front of an apparatus that looks as big as my current house, with wooden beams and nets and glints of metal that look sharper than I’d prefer. It must have been erected here this afternoon while we were in class.
Captain Ross strides between us and the new structure, his gray-blond hair glinting in the warm sunlight, still looking every bit the action hero. Professor Jovak scurries along behind him, more West Highland Terrier than garden gnome at the moment.
The captain glances at his colleague, and Jovak scans the few dozen of us across all six senior years who’ve gathered. “It looks like just about everyone’s here… Has anyone seen Salvatore Cosgrave?”
Murmurs to the negative pass through the crowd.
Someone pipes up. “He’s normally in my Lucent History class today, but I didn’t see him there either.”
A chill nips under my skin. Salvatore was at school at lunchtime when we had our quick meeting in Cole’s office. Where did he go after that?
“This is plenty,” Captain Ross says, his resonant voice breaking through my worries. “I know you’re all busy people, so let’s get started.”
He strolls over to an object about the size of a refrigerator and yanks off the tarp that covered it. The metal box with a mottled circle on the upper half isn’t any more recognizable now that I can see it. For all I can tell, a flying saucer might have dropped it off.
Ross pitches his voice to carry, although we’ve all fallen silent as we watch him.
“To step up your combat and defensive skills under pressure, we’re going to be incorporating military techniques—and the equipment we use to train our lucent recruits in those techniques.
It will be intense and sometimes uncomfortable, but I assure you that you’ll come through these sessions with a new confidence in your abilities. ”
I guess that’s why the academy brought this guy in. He’s got more fancy equipment than a superhero’s hideout.
He pats the side of the thing that’s definitely not a fridge.
“First, I want you to experience the shocker on its own. We use these to rattle lucent aggressors when we have to go up against a large number of them—and in training to learn how to keep our own ephemera steady. Take a moment now to brace and shield yourselves as well as you know how.”
Trepidation squeezes my gut. It doesn’t sound like this thing deals out actual injuries—but it’s hard to know what might trigger my glim. No one here can shield against that kind of backlash.
Breathing slowly, I center my mind the way I taught myself from my earliest preteen meditations. My stricter regimen of the last three years has prepared me to detach and float all lotus-like above more mundane concerns.
If this will actually be mundane.
I can’t afford to detach completely. With a little remaining focus, I weave a shell of ephemera around me that should deflect an initial blow of magic.
“Here we go!” Captain Ross calls out, and cranks a dial on the machine.
In the first moment, I think nothing’s happening—or I’ve guarded myself so well that I’m immune to it. Then the full impact of the shocker hits me.
A blare of fluctuating ephemera slams into my barrier and smashes straight through. It jangles and jitters, pummeling me with unpredictably shifting currents of energy, so swiftly I can’t adjust to any of them before it changes again.
My nerves squirm as if trying to crawl out of my body. My thoughts scatter like a vampire bursting into dust at stake-point. Pain splinters across my skull and down my spine.
Gritting my teeth, I force another even breath and another. Seek out some small bit of calm inside me amid the storm. Float higher, higher, higher above it, repeating my mantra again and again…
I have all I need. I have all I need. I have all I—
The blare cuts out. I blink, staring around me at my schoolmates.
Several have clapped their hands over their ears even though the blast wasn’t sound. Others have doubled over, hugging their knees. Every face has paled with blotches of strain.
Byron is still standing straight, but his mouth is as tight and flat a line as I’ve ever seen it. His gaze ticks to one side and then the other.
Did this test scrape against the pre-existing ticks he keeps so carefully hidden? My heart strains to move closer to him.
I instinctively try to catch his eyes, words of solidarity forming on my tongue—
His dark gaze collides with mine, and I jerk my head away with a sudden spurt of panic.
He doesn’t know I know about that part of him. I’m not supposed to, not here.
Not with this Byron.
I can’t help him. Not any way at all while we’re trying to keep our bond a secret.
If only knowing that would stop it from wrenching at me.
Captain Ross speaks as steadily as before. “Good. Now you know what to expect. Prepare yourselves again.”
Cadance mutters a curse under her breath. I plant my feet against the earth and resume my rhythmic breathing.
How many times is he going to put us through this torture?
Somehow the blaring of disjointed ephemera is both better and worse when you know what to expect.
It’s harder to relax into a meditative state when my body knows how awful it’s going to feel.
But through three more exposures, I find the techniques that keep me the most stable and disaffected.
By the last of those, the pain only gets to the point of prickling before I’ve walled myself away from it.
Ross and Jovak walk between us, offering tips to students here and there in between the blasts. Neither of them speaks to me. I must look like I’ve got a reasonable grip on the situation.
Apparently three years of immersing yourself in any possible technique to suppress your innate magic will do that.