Chapter 8
“I started a new club Maeve,” said Lavinia as Maeve entered the common room late one evening after dueling with Mal. Her legs were exhausted. Her arms full of lead. And her brain fuzzy.
He pushed her harder each time they met.
Each curse and hex was stronger, and each time she fell to the stone ground she pulled herself back up.
Red welts covered her knees. She didn’t have the energy to heal them.
Nor the bruises across her chest. Bruises she had a morbid fixation with in the bathroom mirror.
Something about his marks on her spiked her adrenaline.
Lavinia offered her a drink. Maeve declined.
“What’s that?” Asked Maeve absentmindedly, her attention on Harriet Simms across the common room. She and Presley and Lavinia played all the Magical sports Vaukore offered.
Harriet sat there, her skin flushed and her laughter loud. Maeve tried to stop herself, only a little, and was unsuccessful. She argued it was wrong, unethical. But the thought of Harriet and Mal at that party was burning a hole in her mind. She could put it to rest with ease. And so she did.
She slipped into Harriet’s mind. Harriet didn’t even feel her there. She was weak, and the drinks Lavinia poured were strong. The memory Maeve desired to see presented itself in a flash, and Maeve latched onto it at once.
The third year Serpentine boys’s dormitory blurred into shape. Only the tapered candles in the wall sconces were lit.
Mal and Harriet appeared into focus. The door clicked closed behind them. Harriet stood on her tiptoes to reach him. His arms wrapped around her waist.
Their lips pressed together and Maeve’s insides plummeted. Sweat pooled at the back of her neck. Mal’s hands moved to Harriet’s hips. And then her face. And then his hands dropped to his side. He pulled from her slightly. Harriet pressed forward, placing her hands on his face.
His hands brushed across her hips once more, gripping her tightly. She pushed their kiss deeper-
Suddenly, he shook her off and stepped away from her, turning his back. He ran his hand through his hair. Harriet took two steps backwards.
“What did I do?” She asked.
With a heavy sign Mal leaned against the wall in between his and Abraxas’ bed. “Nothing,” he said weakly, his head hanging.
“Then-” she started, but Mal sighed and looked up at her, cutting her off.
“Apologies, Harriet,” he said, little sorrow in his voice, never looking away from her. “But it’s time you left.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide with hurt. She didn’t protest.
Mal’s stare was intense.
Then without meaning to, Maeve slipped through a doorway. And was in Mal’s mind now. Harriet turned and left him without another word, slamming the door behind her. He didn’t even watch her go. He stared at the opposite wall in his dorm, his face taught with conflict.
Darkness slammed around Maeve like four walls that appeared from nothing. She turned and gasped, stepping backwards.
Mal stood, towering over her. His face rang with a mixture of awe and anger. The realization it was her washed over his face and the anger subsided. They stood there in that swirling silent darkness until Maeve finally spoke.
“You wanted to see,” she said softly.
Their voices echoed off the void, bouncing around them.
“Incredible,” he whispered.
Maeve sucked in a breath. She looked up at him. “No one has ever felt me inside before.”
“You might as well have been screaming at me.”
“I’m sorry,” said Maeve. “I shouldn’t have.”
He shook his head.
“Why did you stop kissing her?” She asked, regretting the words as they slipped from her lips.
His eyes turned cold.
He stepped towards her and Maeve panicked to hear his response. She pulled on that invisible doorway into Harriet’s mind, flinging herself out.
Intoxicated laughter filled her ears. The warm firelight of her common room shook into vision.
She had jumped from Harriet’s memory to Mal’s mind. And when he realized she was there, he attempted to block his mind from her. Successfully.
Harriet was sipping another full drink with a smile. She had not the faintest clue Maeve had just watched Mal reject her.
“Did you hear me?” Lavinia’s voice filled her ears.
Maeve shook her head, shaking off the lingering feeling of Mal’s presence.
“Sorry, what?” Asked Maeve.
“A book club,” said Lavinia. “And we have room for one more. Thought it’s not your kind of books. But I know if you gave them a chance you’d love them.”
Maeve tore her eyes away from Harriet and looked at Lavinia. Lavinia followed her gaze to Harriet.
“You threatened, Sinclair?” Asked Lavinia playfully.
He had stopped. He pushed Harriet away. While Maeve refused to acknowledge why this brought her joy, she allowed herself to relish it all the same.
“I’ve never been less threatened actually,” said Maeve cooly. “When does this book club meet?”
They didn’t speak of it, what she did that night. Mal didn’t question or berate her, and he paid no attention to Harriet Simms as they passed her and her fencing friends in the corridor.
Maeve jumped through minds, on willing subjects, three more times in the coming weeks.
Mal used their training to strengthen all her magic, and their tutoring lessons to expand both their Magical knowledge.
Other than their Paragaon duties, which Abraxas still affectionately called glorified hall monitor responsibilities, they spent all of their free time immersing themselves in Magic.
Mal was as insatiable as she was.
On Thursday evenings, she studied alone when Mal was with his closest Serpentine boys and head of Serpentine Court, Pofessor Hummingdoor. They had formed their own exclusive “gentlemen’s only” club as Abraxas called it.
Maeve had rolled her eyes. It was really “Serpentine only” if they were honest.
After a week of intense classes and a draining Defensive Magic Examination, Maeve was seated in her favorite corner of the Library, tucked away from the rest of the castle.
She was attempting to get as much work done as possible before the weekend because she promised Abraxas she would attend the Harpastum match between Serpentine and Draconem.
Antony had been unbeatable, a top player on Serpentine’s team.
The game was brutal and bloody without Magic, and with it it was even more dangerous.
The only rules in Magical Sports were about fatally wounding someone.
Everything else was fair game. Antony had learned to Obscure at a young age, making him an excellent player being able to disappear and reappear on the field.
She heard footsteps making their way towards her.
“Abraxas told an interesting story last night,” said Mal, with a hint of mischief in his voice.
Maeve didn’t look up from her essay as he sat down. “Abraxas exaggerates.”
Mal pulled up a chair across from her.
“He said that when you were eleven, the summer before primary school started, that you-”
Maeve interrupted him. “So what if that’s true? Don’t act like you haven’t gotten away with plenty.”
“Is that so?” Asked Mal with a conceited smirk.
“Certainly,” said Maeve. “For example, you should have been expelled last year.”
Mal leaned back in his chair, smiling. But Maeve noticed a sharp look in his eye as he watched her carefully. His speech was calculated.
He waved his right hand, flicking it out an opaque burst of magic that encapsulated them. Blocking in all sound.
“Explain,” said Mal.
“It wasn’t all that difficult to figure out actually,” said Maeve, playing with her quill.
“My Father was summoned here to the school with The Orator. Headmaster Elgin asked me to take a look at Valeria Carter’s memories.
The Headmasters insisted it was strange that Warner confessed and yet had no recollection of hurting Valeria. My Father agreed.”
Mal cocked his head to one side, still smiling at her.
“Of course there were no memories of such an event, as Warner was innocent. I knew that the moment I entered his mind. Warner kept insisting, through tears, he must have blocked out the memories, but that he was horribly sorry for what he had done. Valeria was all over the place. Someone had hurt her, but she repressed all of it. I couldn’t see anything.
But I felt all of it. There was a lingering trace of magic.
Magic I was, at the time, unfamiliar with. Different from all else.”
“That magic,” said Mal, quietly. “Are you familiar with it now?”
Maeve nodded and whispered. “It calls to me quite often.”
A long silence passed between them, the only sound the snapping of the fire. Finally he spoke quietly. Softly.
“It was an accident.”
Mal placed his elbows on the table and bowed his head. “Why did you lie? If you knew he was innocent?”
“Because that magic. . .” she trailed off. “I couldn’t bring myself to betray it.”
“You had no idea it was me.”
Maeve nodded. “That’s true. But all the same I couldn’t do it.”
“Then what did you tell them you saw? Warner was cleared of the crime.”
Maeve hesitated and debated telling Mal the truth. His dark eyes bore into hers. Truly, it had been an accident. She knew that. That day, inside Valeria’s head she had felt it.
Exposing her own lies was a dangerous game. But his eyes. . .they begged for her honesty.
“I lied to my father. To the Double O. To all of them,” she whispered.
“I said I saw the whole thing. I said that the memory collapsed as I was viewing it. That I made a mistake and broke it.” Maeve felt her stomach boil as she admitted the part she was ashamed of.
“I said that Valeria tried to kill herself. And Warner saw it.”
Mal’s eyebrows rose slowly.
Maeve’s heart was racing. Mal’s eyes moved to her throat. He shook his head ever so slightly and spoke softly, concern flooding into his voice.
“Relax, Maeve.”
“It was all I could think of to clear him in the moment, and still not tell them the truth,” she said, her voice catching.
His eyes were soft. “Do you believe that I didn’t mean to hurt her?”