I didn’t have a want or need for any part of the Academy. Wira Kusuma was my only goal. He taught the senior classes, so I’d barely seen him. It took me weeks of searching for him to learn he didn’t walk anywhere. When he finished teaching one class, he shot into the sky and glided to his next class. Sometimes he flew out of windows. How was I supposed to spy on a guy like that? I skipped a couple days of classes to try finding him, but all I got were glimpses of his navy suit high above the buildings.
But, finally, a chance came. The Academy announced Kusuma would hold a seminar for junior students. The seminar would cover his hardships growing up and training that led him to become the Erudite of Flight…and it was my chance to get a hint at when the gang might murder him.
I mentioned not wanting or needing any part of the Academy, but that might’ve been a lie. Once during dinner, that girl, Cecilia Harkenfield, had sat across from me in the cafeteria. We didn’t talk for the whole meal, until at the end she mentioned the seminar. That’s how I learned about it, so I rushed to the faculty offices to sign up.
Along the way, I strolled past a line of people who, I figured, waited to speak with the faculty. But the line kept going. And going. And when I reached the faculty office’s entrance, I discovered there wasn’t a plain sign-up sheet, but instead a full application process. Students had to go into the office and give a pitch on why they deserved to attend the seminar with the Erudite of Flight.
I retreated to an alcove in the hallway. No way I would line up. Way too long. Plus, there was a good chance they’d stop applications once they accepted enough people.
‘Still want to apply?’ Xandria asked.
‘No, but I will.’
‘What’ll your pitch be?’
‘Depends on the interviewer. Either I cry about loving Wira Kusuma, or I cry about my grandma’s dying wish was for me to learn flight magic.’
‘Seems pretty dependent on your ability to cry.’
‘I can. On command.’
‘Noted: Some humans can induce tears for personal agendas.’
I sneered and eyed my classmates.
‘Ask someone if you can jump in line,’ Xandria suggested.
Not a bad idea. They wouldn’t help out of kindness, but I might’ve been able to promise a reward. What did I have to offer? A DVD. A knife. No, and no. My services? Fuck it, intimidation wasn’t out of the question. Forget the carrot-and-stick method. All I needed was the stick. I needed a rabbit, too.
I ambled down the hall and scanned the line. I recognised a few faces from the Sentinel trials, but I didn’t care much for them, except one. Victoria Fornax stood a few spots from the front. Perfect. I sidled up and elbowed her arm.
‘You’re Victoria, right?’
‘You’re the mute, correct?’
I gave what I thought was a convincing laugh. ‘Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to—’
‘Deceive me? The trials may not have mattered to you, but you didn’t need to bring the rest of us down,’ she said, and punctuated her dismissal by sharply turning away.
Bad start. I had tried to give an impression I didn’t care about my classmates, but when most of the people in line looked at me with disdainful, pitying, or irritated faces, it made it hard to focus. I needed to make an offer or apply pressure before my courage failed. Yet…
‘Screwing up was a group effort,’ I said, indignant. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have played leader.’
Victoria spoke without looking at me. ‘I didn’t ask to lead.’
‘You made the group and tried filling it with people who’d agree with you.’
She whirled back to me. Blonde hair flicked like strands of heated steel framing grey eyes aflame. ‘Would you have rather been eliminated by default?’
We glared at each other.
‘Blame that Bray guy,’ I said. ‘He broke our radio.’
‘I blame him, but I blame you more. Care to know why? Because you don’t even want to be here. You’re a waste of space and Academy resources. I don’t know why you bother staying. Perhaps you’re too much of a coward to face the truth. Perhaps the only good thing about you still breathing is that it helps keep the Dusk at bay.’
People in line started to pay attention. Victoria’s voice had gotten harder and louder. My head felt heated, jaw tight, hands curling into fists.
Later, I didn’t deny throwing the first punch. Was proud of it, too. My punch was clean and sharp, but it didn’t connect. Victoria dodged back, my knuckles grazing her chin. She responded with a kick. Stinging pain surged through my thigh as her shoe made contact. In my rage, I lunged at her. She might’ve dodged, had the other students not been around. The rest of the fight passed in a red haze of rolling on the ground, punching or scratching as best we could. Even through my rage, I admired how she fought. She gave off a won’t-back-down feeling.
Unfortunately, we fought literal meters away from the faculty office, so teachers were on us in under a minute. We got pulled apart and half-dragged into the office, where they put us on separate couches. Handling the seminar applications took priority over us, so they left us to simmer. And simmer. And simmer some more.
#
I’d fought Bravery Sansing. I’d fought Cecilia Harkenfield. I’d fought Victoria Fornax. It should’ve been easy to overpower them, but they all put up a good fight. Was it a coincidence, or did everyone at the Academy have combat training? No way. The kids were rich and pampered. Besides, I wasn’t giving my full effort when I fought. Yeah.
The fight with Victoria was the first to have a formal punishment. Like the Sentinel trials, our punishment was new: Victoria and I were assigned to assist Detective Mages. Detention would’ve been easier, given that sitting in a detention room and sitting in class felt roughly the same to me. But, no, Vandagriff had to be innovative and special.
If you’re wondering, the Detective Mages were probably what you’re imagining. They were detectives who were also mages, and they handled magic-related crimes. They were a pretty new division and universally hated. Regular folk felt they were unhelpful at best, malicious at worst. Mages felt they were incompetent. Sentinels looked down on them. Dogs peed on their shoes—you get the idea.
Personally, I thought of them like a new breed of leech. They got the power of magic and authority of being police, but they didn’t have the true responsibility of either. Though, I may have disliked them because Hunter-Yao was their primary target. They could’ve gone after all sorts of other magic-related crimes, but for some reason they decided our small gang was a priority, all because we used illegal magic. Which is worse: Using illegal magic to rob a train, or legal magic to burn people?
Scolded and assigned our punishment, Victoria and I got released from the faculty office. It had gotten pretty late. Obviously, I didn’t get to sign up for the seminar. I went straight to my room. But, too annoyed to sleep, I grabbed my backpack and left campus.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
I needed to meet up with the gang. I hadn’t heard from them, so giving an update on my progress, or lack, was a good excuse to visit. Truthfully, I missed them. I’d never been away from them for so long, and heavy loneliness settled into my thoughts.
It was a decent walk to reach the hideout, but I was used to going through the city in the dark.
Around midnight, I reached the factory in the amber zone, our hideout. I found the side door, used our secret knock, and slipped inside. The side door placed me in the break room. It was dark, quiet, and empty. Upstairs was the same. I crept toward the main area of the factory giddy about surprising everyone with my midnight return. Ellie, Tea. Solomon, Justin, Marshal, Aoide—all of them.
It may have been midnight, but usually a few of the gang stayed awake. Stefan and Wei worked on schemes by candlelight, or a group played cards, or Batari calculated our finances. Something. Anything. But, as I crept through the factory, it quickly became apparent that the gang wasn’t simply asleep.
They were gone.
My breathing got heavy. They must’ve been captured. The Detective Mages must’ve finally found the hideout, or we were betrayed. Who was the traitor? I bet on Howard. That rat fuck!
But, the place was too neat for a raid. They wouldn’t have been captured without a fight. My shoulders shook. Shadows in the factory seemed to crowd me. I found the place my hammock should’ve been hung, and on a supporting beam there was a note. I read it once, twice, and then tore it apart.
Due to circumstances, the gang had to change hideout. The note was longer than that, but that was the basic idea. They’d left.
Was it my fault? Had I missed a message from them? Had I not gotten information on Wira Kusuma fast enough?
Nah, fuck that.
I did as they asked. I joined the Academy. I put up with the bullshit.
For all I knew, Sergio was fine, off in Sydney or Canberra with his family. The gang knew I’d learned they wanted to send me away after the train heist, so they did a trick by making the Academy seem less bad than wherever they wanted me to think I was going. Wei would plan something like that. Wira Kusuma might be what everyone assumed: A cool guy in a suit who flew really well and saved kittens from trees.
I stood in the middle of factory. It used to make cabinets. The factory had tools and sheets of wood. I grabbed a hammer, found a piece of wood, and swung. It cracked. A sharp kick broke it in half.
Yeah, I thought. This’ll do.
It took a while—and lots of broken wood, splinters, and cuts—to process the gang deserting me.
Obviously I couldn’t stay in the abandoned factory, but did I have to go back to the Academy? Without the gang, I didn’t have to bother. But, the alternative was plunging into the city and going…
It occurred to me I didn’t know much about the city. I only knew about it in relation to the gang: Grocery shopping with Solomon or Justin. Going to a café in Collingwood with Tea, where we had hot chocolate. Distracting targets for Ellie to pickpocket.
‘Is this “on command” like you claimed,’ Xandria asked. I slapped the tattoo-like cold spot on my bicep. ‘You are upset,’ she continued. ‘I did not observe these individuals for long, but I get the impression you were fond of each other.’
‘No shit,’ I panted, dropping the hammer, hands on knees.
‘Where do you believe they have gone?’
‘Who cares.’
Xandria fell quiet, but I felt her coldness travel across my body. She reached the side of my neck, which felt oddly intimate. I wished she weren’t around to witness my distress, but having company wasn’t bad, either. Even if it were an Entity.
‘I suggest you return to the Academy,’ she whispered.
‘I don’t need your help.’
‘Not help. Merely providing options.’
I huffed, climbed onto an old machine’s cutting board, and sat cross-legged to think. At the Academy, I had food and a place to sleep. I didn’t know how long I could keep up the act of being Eleanor Wilson, especially if the gang stopped paying my school fees, but being on the outside was worse. I didn’t have many good ways to make money. Sure, I’d heard rumours of underground fighting rings, but I didn’t know how to find them. At the time, the Academy was the best choice.
‘I can’t go back tonight,’ I mumbled to myself. It was early morning, still a few hours until sunrise. I was confident walking to the hideout at night because, in the back of my head, I was a member of the Hunter-Yao gang. The gang had my back. If I got hurt, they’d hurt the people responsible. If I got kidnapped, they’d destroy half the city to get me back. But…that confidence had evaporated.
Using cardboard and scrap wood, I put together a makeshift pallet to sleep on. In every sense, I was tired, but sleep didn’t come easily. The factory tripled the weight of being alone. I hadn’t been so alone since before the gang took me in, a time I scarcely remembered. My tension since joining Vandagriff Academy reached a new high. My mind felt twitchy and unfocused, and I breathed unsteadily. Lying on my side, it felt like a monster crept around behind my back, waiting to pounce. I jumped up and dragged my pallet to the corner.
It was unclear how long I slept, or if I did, but dawn came. Whether from fatigue or time, I’d calmed down. I rubbed my eyes and went to work a chain that opened the shutter door. Then I climbed onto the old machine, like I’d done in the past, to stare at the hazy glow of the rising sun. The shutter and glow framed a rusted pylon overrun with nature from the red zone. I liked looking at the pylon, the figure of old industry. It was as impressive to me as pyramids must’ve been to people in pre-Dusk days.
If I stared long enough at the pylon, maybe I’d absorb some of its qualities. Mighty in solitude, supporting people who relied on it.
I didn’t feel like the pylon. I felt more like the thin, snapped cables dangling from the top.
#
A few days passed, and I hadn’t fully reconciled the situation with the gang, but I couldn’t stay in bed and dwell on it. I had to deal with my punishment: Detective Mage duty.
At seven o’clock in the morning, a disgruntled teacher escorted me to the Academy gates. The sun had barely risen. There were a couple kids from the senior classes there, too. Four of us in total. Victoria Fornax wasn’t there, and the teacher’s clipboard didn’t even have her name, but just as we started to leave for the precinct, Victoria jogged into our midst.
Victoria and the teacher talked a short distance away, and then we were off.
We used one of the Academy’s vans to reach the precinct, which took about twenty minutes. It shouldn’t have taken that long, but we got stuck behind some transport vehicles. A lot of the buildings on the gate-side of the Academy served as general storage, with very few people around. Back when the Academy got founded, they didn’t want people lingering too close, just in case things went wrong and the whole area blew up.
A few DetMages waited outside the precinct. The seniors split from Victoria and I, who were introduced to Detective Hawkins and Vannerling.
Hawkins had a long face, mostly jaw, with high, muscular shoulders that hid most of his neck. Vannerling looked like a young, blonde Johnny Depp, with a blank, serene expression.
The teachers left soon after, leaving us to spend the day with the two DetMages, helping them – somehow.
Hawkins explained they often answered calls about unusual smells. Yes, smells could indicate the use of magic, but most people called the DetMages because they were paranoid about pungent odours. A certain woman called about once a week, each time to report a different smell. At first they tried ignoring her, but then she visited the precinct and pestered the non-mage staff, which brought fresh hostility to the DetMages. For the most recent call, the woman reported smelling camphor, the scent associated with Caelum-class magic. Caelum mages cut things, usually in the manufacturing industry, occasionally for artistic sculptures.
Hawkins, Vannerling, Victoria, and I got into a police car and set off.
During the drive, Xandria whispered:
‘Victoria F. Fornax is here of her own volition.’
‘Yeah, she started it,’ I whispered back.
‘Volition means to act by one’s own will.’
‘…I knew that.’ The passenger window was partially opened. Smells of coffee and bacon came from a café we passed. I almost drooled. ‘So what’re you saying?’ I asked Xandria, still distracted by food in the café’s window.
‘Victoria is here because she wants to be.’
‘You can read minds now?’
‘I saw the teacher’s clipboard and read their lips. Victoria’s name was added after she arrived. Based on her reputation, I can deduce that she was excused. In spite of that, she chose to serve her punishment. Rather noble, if you ask me.’
‘Rather stupid,’ I mumbled.
We pulled alongside a building with peeling orange paint, shuttered windows, and beams of wood propping up the veranda’s slumped covering. The foyer wasn’t much better. We climbed a spiral staircase covered in blue tarp.
On the second landing, Vannerling knocked on a door, waited a few milliseconds, and then knocked again. And a third time. He was about to go for a fourth when a woman screeched and told us to bloody wait. The door opened, chain in place, and the screeching woman spoke through the door. ‘In there, idiots!’ She jabbed a crooked finger upstairs, to the next landing. ‘Can’t you smell it?’
‘I can, ma’am,’ Hawkins said. ‘We’ll investigate.’
‘Are you making fun of me?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘If you can smell it, why did you bother knocking?’
‘Just protocol. We wanted to make sure—’
‘Go and find the bloody mage,’ she snapped, before slamming the door shut.
Hawkins sighed, but Vannerling looked unperturbed. In fact, I hadn’t seen his expression change since we met. Well, the DetMage punishment may have stolen a Saturday from me, but at least I got to see some weirdos.
Marching up to the next landing, Vannerling knocked on the door, already ajar. It swung open. The locking chain hung limp, metal smoothly severed. A sharp camphor smell spilled out. Hawkins had said the woman called weekly, and had done so for almost a year, but I got the eerie sense this wasn’t a false alarm. Real magic had been used, and with it, a real threat.