When things calmed down at the Academy, I returned to the Fornax mansion. I had to tell my parents about Wira Kusuma’s treachery, and the new mage that had the city abuzz. If our family could gain access to the new magic sooner than most, we might be able to advance our position in the city further than ever before.
Taking off my shoes, Yvonne led me to the drawing room and advised me to wait for a lull in the conversation before entering. The doors were closed but may as well have not been. Multiple voices expressed vehement outrage. Ear to the door, I pieced together the topic: Me. The yelling stopped for a moment. I pushed the door ajar and put my an eye to the opening. Mother glanced over her shoulder at me; her sense of heat really was unparalleled.
My parents and close to a dozen other adults formed an intimidating semi-circle around Principal Vandagriff. He sat alone in the middle of a couch. The poor man wore a light grey suit, darkened with sweat, and he gulped in a comically anxious way, as if any second he’d melt under the heated stares and glares and downright cruel looks of scrutiny.
‘What do you intend to do about it?’ a man, perhaps a student’s father, demanded of the Principal.
‘For starters, we’ve cancelled next year’s excursion to Alderrow, I can assure you of that, and additionally—in addition—we’ll ensure that any future transport of students will always be accompanied a member of staff. Sentinels, as well! Yes, if we can afford it—I’m sure we can—we will look into hiring Sentinels for security.’
Next, a woman, perhaps a mother. ‘I don’t understand how you could’ve let students into the Auroch without a teacher around.’
‘I assure you, ma’am, we are on the same page. The same novel. Our ink is the same colour and the font we’re using both have serifs.’ He tittered and wet his big, fishy lips. ‘The teacher overseeing the excursion will be—has been reprimanded. Severely.’
‘He shouldn’t be teaching.’
‘Well, no—yes. What I mean is: The teacher in question should be temporarily removed from the faculty, so he has time to better understand his role. As a teacher. Thank you for the suggestion.’
I opened the door wider and knocked on the inner panel.
The room’s temperature changed. My arrival brought a gust of mandatory levity. Finding an opening, Principal Vandagriff excused himself, mumbled, and slipped past me into the hallway.
‘Victoria,’ said Father, coming to embrace me, followed by Mother, followed by handshakes from more than a few of the other adults. From what I gathered, the adults were other parents who’d come to add their voices to post-Auroch complaints.
The demanding man from earlier spoke up:
‘It’s shocking that a Fornax stepped onto the Auroch and nobody thought to have added precautions.’ The others murmured assent.
Running a hand through my hair, I calmed my fury: In the man’s tone, in his explicit mention of my surname, in the consensus that I shouldn’t have been allowed to be unaccompanied, as if I were impaired, that such freedoms were tantamount to asking the Devil for a spoonful of misfortune. I shall concede I almost died during the Auroch crash, but by my standards, I did not appreciate their flavour of concern.
‘There was another girl with me,’ I reminded, though my listeners looked ambivalent. ‘I don’t believe being a member of this family should grant me special treatment.’
One of the adults hastened to reply. ‘Of course not, but it isn’t unreasonable to expect better for those who contribute more.’
‘Then, I should not expect much.’
That left an awkward pause, filled by my parents, who thanked the adults for coming. Yvonne, our maid, materialised at the cue-to-depart implication, and led the group out. Mother and Father remained, and I with them. I had already spoken to them on the phone, so we skipped the back-and-forth about my health and their worry.
‘I want to tell you about the crash,’ I stated. ‘There are a few things I haven’t told anybody else.’ Mother and Father turned grave, taking a seat either side of me on the grey couch. Mouth dry, my voice caught. I felt light, as if lying upon water, and terror at floating toward the Dusk remerged from my memories. I steeled myself. ‘Wira Kusuma was there.’ Mother’s eyebrows shot skyward. Father kept overtly impassive. ‘He flew in a couple minutes after we crashed. He used his magic on the guards, my classmate, and me. He tried to send us into the Dusk.’
Father began to pace the drawing room, while Mother froze.
‘Did he hurt you?’
‘Not physically. Being left to die isn’t the best feeling, though.’
‘You haven’t told anyone else?’ Father asked.
‘It’d be my word against his.’
‘No other witnesses?’
‘Not exactly.’
Father had a grand, monolithic stature, but he moved with a strength and precision that could’ve been called elegant.
‘Why?’ Mother thought aloud. ‘Was he on patrol, noticed the crash, and decided it’d be a good chance to…?’
‘Something along those lines,’ I replied. ‘Pruning the Fornax family, I think he said.’
You could practically hear Father’s fingers curl into fists. ‘What did you mean by “not exactly” any other witnesses?’
I sighed, in under two seconds deciding to save mention of Eleanor Wilson, the secret mage, for the dramatic end. ‘My classmate was there, but she’d hit her head and doesn’t remember seeing Kusuma.’
‘This has to be about the UMDE,’ Father said to himself. ‘Did he want us compromised? Pliable?’
‘He said the UMDE were stupid and naive.’
Father sighed and ran a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t understand.’
My patience had near depleted, and indignation replaced it. ‘Are we going to retaliate or not?’ I snapped.
Mother and Father shared a look. Of course they did. Calculated, not prone to impulse, even in the case of family. No, no, don’t be like that now, I thought. ‘We will,’ Father said, and I predicted the next word. ‘But, we have to be careful.’
‘Careful.’
‘You said it yourself: It’s our word against his. Let’s say we act anyway, it doesn’t change the delicate risk of getting accused about actions against the UMDE, which the other cities will take as a declaration of anti-unity.’
‘He tried to kill me,’ I not so much reminded as fervently reiterated. ‘Not even that; I was an afterthought. He flew there to destroy salt.’
Another reaction. Another infuriating shared look. Another bit of information I wasn’t privy to. ’Please elaborate,’ Father said.
‘Phoenix salt.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah, oh. “Oh” what? What’s Phoenix salt? Stop doing that! Stop doing that weird look with each other, just talk.’
Father stopped pacing and arranged his words. ‘It, the salt, has been in circulation for some months. Salt infused with Phoenix-class magic. Said to improve health and longevity.’ He sat back on the couch. ‘I promise, Vic, we’ll make Wira Kusuma suffer. Soon.’
‘Soon,’ I echoed.
‘We promise,’ Mother said, hand on my shoulder. I left it there, unmoved and unmoving.
Once again, I couldn’t help feeling rumours were true: My parents lost their edge. Years ago, if this had happened to Octavia, they’d have turned the culprit into ash and scattered it in a river. No, that wasn’t fair. Back then, the UMDE didn’t have much influence. The cities had a heated yet reliable peace. It wasn’t impossible to believe Father when he said attacking Kusuma could cause a far worse situation. Of course, that rationale didn’t make me feel better.
If they needed time to prepare or speak to people or handle business, fine, they’d benefit from fewer distractions. Hence: I did not utter the name Eleanor Wilson.
#
I returned promptly to the Academy, internally noting this habit of visiting home, getting annoyed, and rushing back. By the haste with which I returned to the Academy, you’d assume I had a definite source of solace, but I did not. While I felt less stifled there, I also felt less serenity than at home.
Stolen novel; please report.
Kusuma, lying lunatic or not, wasn’t wrong when he expressed gladness at being able to share his plight with another person, unwilling or willing. A sickly feeling infected me at the prospect of sharing traits with Kusuma, for we both lacked confidants.
I considered seeking out Elliot, but I feared, knowing him, he’d take it as an overt sign of affection. Samara and Dust had their own friends, and training kept them busy. I considered Eleanor, but the “new magic” situation left me wary; I needed to compose a means of confronting her.
What about Cecilia? I didn’t get the impression she liked me, but we’d both been on the Auroch, and we’d interfaced in the common room about the Man-in-Darkness, so we may yet get along. I knew she played tennis, so I went to the courts. I found her. She played against Eleanor. They both exuded a certain—
They had expressions too obvious for me to bother with my usual flowery words, so: They both looked really happy.
‘Victoria Fornax.’
I turned to the low, quiet voice, tone so deep you’d think it travelled underground. It belonged to Elidred Griggs. I’d met him at the Sentinel trials, and spoken to him a few times after. He was in class-A with me. A lot of the girls liked him, given his reticence and stature.
‘They’re looking for you in the admin building,’ he said.
I thanked him and went on my way. In my present state of mind, I was thankful when he fell into step with me. My knight in bomber jacket and ripped jeans.
The footpath was elevated, with a grassy slope on either side, adjoining both tennis courts and the athletics centre. We walked south, through an imitation copse, and circled toward the main pathway. We could’ve kept going south, straight to the admin building, but for some reason most of the faculty went supernova when students tried to use the rear entrance, which prompted a lot of jokes about certain faculty members’ conservative preferences.
Anyway, it gave Griggs and I further to walk, passing the Qronyurch Supply Centre, which housed all the tools a mage could ever need, followed by the Callothier Tech Centre and Music Hall, which provided a place to use the aforementioned tools. We also passed the chapel, a diminutive building unused by any students aside from the above-average to zealously devout. Occasionally, students sold-slash-traded illicit substances and contraband in the pews. So I’d heard.
‘I heard about the Auroch,’ Griggs said. ‘You holding up?’
A flock of birds flew overhead. The shadows came and went and looked eerily like a person. I flinched and heart raced. ‘I’m fine,’ I told Griggs. ‘You?’
He smirked. ‘I didn’t get stranded in the Dusk, so yes, I’m holding.’ His smirk left, replaced by a self-conscious twitch of his chin. ‘Have you joined a study group yet?’ I replied in the negative, emboldening him. ‘I’m thinking of making one. I got invited to a couple, but they didn’t have a good balance of subject specialties.’
‘What’s yours?’
‘Literature. Specifically pre-Dusk, Russian and Japanese. I’d like to get a better grasp of their shared history, but my senior-2 thesis will be on parallels between samurai and gunslingers in fiction.’
‘You’ve got it all mapped out,’ I remarked.
‘Sorry, getting ahead of myself. I say this because if what I’ve heard is true, your family are adept at history.’
I braced myself. Sounded like he wanted something from Fornax, not Victoria.
‘Adept or not,’ he said, ‘do you have an interest in it?’
‘I do.’
‘Then, would you be interested in forming a study group? We will have to find specialists for the other subjects, but literature and history are a good start.’
‘Sounds good,’ I replied. ‘I’ll ask around.’ Elliot had a real duck-to-water aptitude for physics and mathematics, yet he didn’t understand why others drowned. He might not have been the best at answering questions, but I didn’t know anybody else with such a capacity for mathematics.
Griggs talked about the study group a bit more. His friend, Trench Oyun, had been getting good results in impossibilities and holistic studies, a pair of Vandagriff-specific subjects that, respectively, covered things that could never happen, and the causal links between everything. They were pretty abstract, but some Entities demanded information relating to those ideas.
He left me when we reached the admin building. Inside, I learned the staff had called for me because of a post-trauma recovery session—a therapy session—and that I was strongly advised to attend. When? That very moment.
The staff directed me to the end of the hall, where I’d find the therapist’s office. I went and knocked. A youthful voice beckoned me inside. Based on the boxes and sparse decorations, the therapist must’ve been new.
‘Hi, I’m Lucas Owen.’ He offered a hand, calluses dotting the inner joints, so when I shook it, it felt like the protruding spine of some creature. ‘You can call me Lucas, or Mr Owen.’
Never trust a man with two first names, I thought, recalling a bit of old superstition.
‘I am Victoria,’ I replied.
We sat. Mr Owen read from papers stapled on the top right, possibly making him left handed. The papers rested on a clipboard but he forwent the “clip” part. He scratched the back of his neck with the eraser-side of a pencil.
‘How’re you feeling today?’ he started.
‘Good.’
‘I heard about the crash.’
‘Yep.’
‘And what happened during your Detective Mage duty.’
‘Yep.’
‘All that barely into the semester must’ve been difficult.’
‘Not particularly.’
He cocked his head and scribbled something on his papers. I scowled at the back of the clipboard. ‘Have you been sleeping okay?’
‘Yes. Those two incidents haven’t caused me any undue emotional or psychological stress. The only issue they present is practical.’
‘Like how?’
‘Like a dead man isn’t good for the city, and a crashed Auroch might be worse.’
‘So, practical issues in a macro sense, not pertaining directly to you.’
‘I reckon.’
‘Is there a sum total of zero issues you’re facing?’
‘Everyone has issues.’
He pushed out his lower lip in assent. ‘What’s the most minor one you have?’
The question caught me off-guard. I had to think. ‘I keep matching the wrong socks,’ I replied, angling my ankle outward. ‘They’re almost the same shade, but the material is different.’
‘You notice when you’re walking around?’
‘All the time.’
‘What’s the second most minor issue?’
I sighed and crossed my legs. My aversion to therapy hadn’t slackened, but in a prideful, self-destructive way I didn’t want to admit that I found myself getting pulled into the conversation. It helped that organising my issues into a spectrum of least and most minor had the cathartic quality of flipping through an organised filing cabinet.
‘I got someone in trouble.’
Mr Owen waited.
‘She works for my family. I wanted to do something, and she helped me. She got in trouble instead of me.’
‘You blame yourself?’
‘There’s no reason to blame myself. The issue is so far detached from blame because there’s literally no debate about who was at fault.’
‘Did you force her to help you?’
‘No.’
‘She chose to help you.’ Statement. Annoying.
‘Yes. That doesn’t mean she’s to blame. In context, it was all on me.’
‘It almost sounds like you want to take the blame.’ Mr Owen wrote.
‘I’m being objective.’
‘Blame aside’—still looking at his clipboard—‘why do you think this person helped?’
‘She likes me. I’m probably her favourite of our family.’
‘The famed Fornax family. Sorry. Hard not to hear about your folks.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Do you think there’s a reason you’re the favourite?’
‘You’d have to ask her,’ I replied.
‘Fair enough.’ He put the clipboard face-down on his lap and offered me beverages and snacks, both of which I declined. He took up the clipboard anew. ‘What’s your dad like?’
I took a moment. ‘Imagine an industrial blast furnace with limbs, and then taper some of the harder edges and sharpen the softer edges, and then disregard all that and imagine a tall, broad man in a suit. The blast furnace thing was stupid.’
‘He sounds intimidating.’
‘To some.’
‘Your mum?’
‘She’s pretty tall, like my father, but she dresses a lot more casually. Her hair is like a thinner version of mine, and we wear the same pendants. My sisters wear it, too. But, anyway, my mother usually seems like she knows more than she’s telling you.’
‘That might get tiring, after a while.’
I didn’t respond. Mr Owen cleared his throat, and went on:
‘How do you feel about your name?’
‘Elucidate.’
‘I met a girl named Adelaide, named after the city, and she said she hated it. She always went by Addy. Only a few people knew what it was short for.’
‘Being named after a state is easier than a city,’ I replied. ‘Mine is Latin for “Victory”. It doesn’t bother me.’ I scratched the side of my ankle with my opposite heel. ‘Besides, I’m not enough of a somebody for it to matter.’
‘Everyone is someone.’
No shit, I thought. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means everyone has a part in this world’s story.’
‘What’s yours?’
He massaged his palms. ‘Mine is mostly over.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-one.’
‘A little young to be checking-out.’
He scratched the back of his neck and shrugged, more from assent than disregard. ‘How about your peers? Are you settling in?’
I processed my acquaintances one by one. ‘There’s someone I’ve been spending time with; we’re working on a project.’
‘What kind of project?’
‘Investigative journalism.’
‘And, so, do you like spending time with them?’
‘I think I do.’
‘You’d call them a friend?’
‘Yes.’
‘That sounds nice. Does something about it worry you?’
‘I’m not sure.’ I ran a hand through my hair. I needed a shower.
Mr Owen said:
‘Sometimes when things are going good, in my own life, I start getting anxious because I think it’s only a matter of time before something goes wrong, like a karmic rubber band snapping back.’
‘I don’t think it’s that. I don’t think I know her very well.’
‘That sounds pretty natural, with new friends.’
‘But I really, really don’t know her.’
‘Are you worried that you won’t understand her, even if you stay her friend?’
‘I don’t think so.’ I think I have to understand her, or we won’t stay friends.
Mr Owen scribbled. I indicated to the clipboard with my chin, saying:
‘What are you writing? Seriously, I don’t care if it’s against policy, I just want an overview.’
‘Well.’ With a nervous smile, he bounced the clipboard on his knee, before spinning it around. Depicted on the paper, rendered in startling clarity, was a scene of penguins sliding around an iceberg. Shading in the background, using a trees-among-the-forest method, suggested a whole waddle of penguins. In the foreground: The slightest hint of a raft, or pre-Dusk researchers.
‘I don’t get it,’ I said.
‘I started with this penguin, the big king one standing up, but he looked lonely so I added these ones. And these ones are sliding around like it’s a snowy skate park.’
‘I don’t get why you drew it.’
Mr Owen’s nervous smile intensified. ‘The truth is I’m barely a therapist. Someone at Vandagriff selected me and here I am.’
‘So I’ve spilled my guts to some random guy?’
‘On paper, I am a therapist. So you didn’t spill your guts to a guy off the street. I believe I was picked because my background lends itself to understanding the stress students may be under. And, to be clear, I can’t share anything said in these sessions.’
‘Understanding stress,’ I murmured.
‘It’s a long story.’
‘Ever tried the hot springs? Some magic salt with it?’
‘Doesn’t appeal to me,’ he replied. ‘You?’
‘I don’t believe in it.’
‘Oh?’
‘It restricts magical advantages to people who can afford it.’
‘In my professional opinion,’ he said, with mock gravity, ‘that is a very virtuous, egalitarian perspective.’
‘Your professional opinion,’ I echoed.
‘I’m trying.’
I sighed. ‘Well, you’re not terrible.’
‘Thanks.’
I checked my watch. The sessions didn’t have a min-max limit, so I figured we’d reached a strange but good conclusion. Saying farewell, I left the office and administration building. The sun didn’t shine brighter or sky look bluer and I didn’t jump in a meadow while clicking my heels, but I didn’t feel too bad. Not bad at all.