THIRTEEN
For three days, Spirit avoided the others. It wasn’t difficult; they were all being worked like dogs. It was incredible; she’d thought Oakhurst was hard before … well, now she knew what “hard” really was. She’d never worked so hard physically in her life, although at least now there was so much supervision over their training that there was no chance for cheap shots from any of the others. Anastus Ovcharenko was sadistic, but he spread it across all of them, so nobody got singled out as the favorite and nobody got singled out as the goat. His two assistants were absolutely indifferent. “Cruel but fair” was what kept coming to mind. The course work was tough, but at least she was spared the courses geared for specific Schools of Magic, since she didn’t have one. That gave her a precious free period to study and work on the other ones. The time she used to spend with the others, well … there was QUERCUS. By the time the day was over, her brain was so numb and her body so tired that QUERCUS was about all she had energy for. Not that he was much help.
Yet she couldn’t keep out of that chatroom; she still couldn’t make up her mind if it was some kind of trap or if he really was there to help her somehow.
What about these Breakthrough people? What do you know about them? she asked.
You should trust your own instincts.
She sighed. Thanks, Yoda, she typed. She had decided there was no point in holding back with him, because what did she have to lose?
He didn’t respond to that. She wondered if he was some sort of robot program, but even she knew there weren’t any “fake” AIs this sophisticated. And if somebody’d written one, why waste it on her?
So just what am I supposed to do, here? she asked. My friends bailed on me, I don’t have any magic, I don’t know what’s going on—
He actually interrupted her. You are at the center of a war. The beginning of the war was in the time of King Arthur.
There was a long pause; she waited.
The situation is complex. While the followers of Mordred, the ones called the Shadow Knights, are completely in the service of Darkness, blame for the war is not entirely on their side. Partly they chose Darkness, but partly they were driven to it. Partly, Mordred himself was driven to it.
All right, she typed cautiously. So?
So now the past is past. For centuries, Mordred himself was powerless. While some few of the Shadow Knights and Arthur’s folk were reborn, it was only a handful, and the conflicts between them were limited to mere duels. Now Mordred has come into his power again. The Shadow Knights are reborn, awakened to their true nature, and more are being recruited. Only Arthur’s followers, the Grail Knights, can effectively oppose them. The war itself has been reborn, and the time for confrontation is at hand. Yet, if one side does not defeat the other this time, the cycle will continue to be repeated, down the long years.
She was startled. This was—in clearer words—exactly what Elizabeth had told her! And QUERCUS had told her this without any prompting. She felt a cold lump in her stomach and a chill running up her spine. Okay, so he’s saying the same thing. But that doesn’t make it true. Facts, though …
Doctor Ambrosius and the Breakthrough people were talking about a war. There were Shadow Knights, and they’d actually been killing people, or trying to. People had gotten badly hurt at the bonfire. People had been Tithed to the Wild Hunt. And people were missing. Gone? Or—dead? Okay, this explanation sounded crazy, but was there a better one?
Her practical side came to the rescue. Well, plain old regular human greed. There doesn’t have to be a Mordred around for people to be evil. There were wars all over the world for the same reason. This one just happened to involve magic. Which she didn’t have. And she really didn’t want to become “Disposable Extra Number 23.”
So assuming this is true, she typed, what am I supposed to do? I don’t even have any magic! I just want to keep my head down—
He interrupted her again. Ignorance and powerlessness is your greatest defense.
Well, that made no sense at all. QUERCUS was back to cryptic mode. She sighed, gave up, and went to bed.
As for avoiding the others, all she had to do was to change her habits—sit somewhere else at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It helped that all pretense of formal dining had gone right by the wayside; everything was cafeteria-style lines now, and the linens and china had been put away “for the duration.” That might have been the only good thing about the new regime. Everything else—if people had been thinking that having the Breakthrough people more or less in charge was going to make things easier, they must have had a sad awakening.
Oakhurst was now being run like a military academy. The really athletic kids, the ones with warlike Schools and Gifts, had to get up before dawn. The few glimpses she got of Burke made her feel sorry for him, when she could get past the feeling of being betrayed. He really looked haggard. Actually, all of the ones being singled out as “warriors” looked haggard; he wasn’t alone in that.
Strangely, Spirit saw more of Muirin than she saw of anyone else; usually glimpses of Muirin and Madison acting like BFFs outside of class, though inside, Madison didn’t cut her any slack. On the afternoon of Spirit’s third day of “exile”—as she thought of it—she even saw Muirin being driven somewhere in some sort of sports car with Mark Rider at the wheel. That was so astonishing that for a moment she thought it was an hallucination. But … no. Word later had it that Mark Rider had driven Muirin into Radial at Madison’s request for some unspecified appointment. Appointment? For what?
Probably a dentist. Oakhurst doesn’t have a dentist, she finally decided. Serves her right for eating all that sugar.
There was no doubt she wasn’t the only person who found it odd that Muirin was so friendly with the Riders. She caught sight of a lot of funny looks from some of the other kids when Muirin came back, this time driven by Madison. It was right after supper, so a lot of people were free, and some of them had taken to hanging out in the Entry Hall instead of the lounges. Ms. Corby didn’t like that, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. To avoid her former friends, Spirit was there, too, covertly studying the Tree.
The sports car came roaring up to the front entrance, and Muirin got out. She leaned over and said something to Madison, then closed the door and waved. The sports car roared off again, and Muirin came sailing through the front door like she owned the school.
Little murmurs followed her, but nothing Spirit could catch.
And for a dose of something definitely on the dubious side, Anastus Ovcharenko seemed to like to hang around Muirin. Okay, maybe he was a lot younger than Mark Rider or even Madison, but still he was twenty or older. It just felt wrong to Spirit. It made her wonder all over again … how much of what Elizabeth had said was a fantasy and how much had been the truth? Because if Anastus actually was a Reincarnate.…
No, that was crazy. He was Russian, and for all she knew, twenty-something guys in Russia dated teenage girls all the time.
She wasn’t going to say anything to Muirin; Ovcharenko had this dangerous vibe that made Spirit really queasy. Like you wouldn’t want to be there if he actually got mad at you.
Finally, on the evening of the fifth day, Loch ambushed her as she left the Refectory. “Spirit … we’re sorry we got you upset. We want to apologize. Okay?” he said awkwardly, as people detoured around them.
“All of you, or just you?” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. She wasn’t going to give on this one. As he twisted his hand over his watchband, nervously, she noticed that he wasn’t wearing his ring anymore.
“All of us … except Muirin.” He shrugged. “You know Muirin. She likes to needle people.”
“Yeah.” Spirit watched him warily, trying to figure out if he meant it.
“We’d really like it if you’d hook back up with us,” he faltered. “I—uh—please? You were the first friend I had here.” He gave her a big puppy-dog look. She couldn’t help it; she folded.
“All right,” she said, but made it grudging. Let him know he—they—weren’t getting this one for free. She followed him back to the lounge. Burke greeted her with enthusiasm, Addie with her usual friendly reserve, and Muirin as if she hadn’t gone crying back to her room five days ago.
Muirin was sporting new (non-Oakhurst-Dress-Code-approved!) jewelry: earrings and a bracelet. The earrings were two little black snakes that coiled against her earlobes; the bracelet was another black snake with its tail in its mouth. Muirin saw Spirit looking, and thrust out her hand. “The Worm Ouroboros,” she said, with a giggle. “The big snake that coils around the world. Madison and Mark gave them to me. Enameled silver. Oh, and here, this is for you—”
She reached under the table and pulled out a bottle of perfume. “They gave this to me, but once I had it on, it turned too sweet.” Gingerly, Spirit took it. The bottle said “Bulgari,” and it looked expensive. “I figure it would suit you.”
Nice. “Too sweet.” But that was probably as close to an apology as Muirin was going to get, so Spirit took it. The perfume was nice, it smelled like roses. Yeah, very much not Muirin.
“I’m sorry, Spirit,” Burke said quietly. “For the other night.”
Addie nodded. “Me, too.”
“Okay,” Spirit replied, and slowly sat down. They started their usual desultory game of Monopoly, and that was when she noticed the only one still wearing the Oakhurst ring was Muirin. “So … how are things, under our new overlords?” she asked, trying to sound light.
Muirin made a face. “Awful, but Mark and Madison are pretty cool. They’re helping me get stuff in here, so that’s good. This might be Stalag Oakhurst, but chocolate helps everything.”
The Riders are helping her with her smuggling ring? Uh, what?
“I haven’t changed my mind about leaving,” Burke replied, shoulders sagging. “I have an appointment with Doctor Ambrosius in two days. I can’t do this. I just can’t.”
Spirit’s heart sank as Addie nodded sympathetically. She’d been thinking about telling them about QUERCUS—but with Muirin all cozy with the Riders, and Burke wanting to leave, it looked like she was the only one wanting to find out the truth anymore.
Except … Loch gave her a significant look. And when Addie cut the game short, because Muirin had pretty much cleaned her out, she lingered behind with Loch to clean up their area.
“Tonight. The basement,” he whispered. With a thrill and a little lift to her heart, she nodded.
* * *
“You’re right about one thing, Spirit. We’ve got to figure out if there’s a place where the Legacies with no magic go,” Loch said, as they went through more of the old boxes. “I don’t think it’s safe for Burke to go back to his family, and for another…” He stopped, and shook his head. “Your sister, Phoenix, didn’t have any magic, did she?”
“No, and believe me, she’d have been showing it off if she did,” Spirit replied, with a lump in her throat.
“So there has to be another Oakhurst. And we have to find it. If we find it, maybe we can get ourselves transferred to it or something. Heck…” he hesitated. “Maybe you were lied to at the hospital; maybe Oakhurst told them to lie. Maybe Phoenix is still alive, and there, and Oakhurst didn’t want you to know about it because, oh, I don’t know, because they didn’t want you thinking and worrying about her or something.”
Her heart contracted—hard!—at that thought. She pushed the idea away. She didn’t want any false hopes right now.
“I don’t think so,” she said, around the painful lump in her chest. “I think he would have told me—” She stopped, both hands buried deeply in a box of old papers, just about to blurt out the secret of QUERCUS. She stopped herself before she did.
Before Loch could ask her who she meant, she quickly changed the subject. “I can’t believe they’re still having a February Dance,” she said. “I mean, that’s crazy! Look what happened the last two times we had some kind of thing like that! It’s like asking for another attack!”
Loch shrugged. “They could be sending the Shadow Knights a message. I’m pretty sure it’s all to make us think things are normal. They’re probably laying traps. Breakthrough seems to do psychological things like that. Like, the way they changed the classes—okay, it’s like a military academy, and they’re telling us we’re getting ready for the war, but they’re also telling us that it’s okay, they’re protecting us and some things can still be the way they were.”
“Which they aren’t!” she exclaimed, throttling down the edge of hysteria in her voice as best as she could. She sat back on her heels. “Nothing is normal—”
“Tell me about it. Even for Oakhurst. Even this thing. They want us to go as couples. Girls are supposed to ask guys.” He laughed bitterly. “If I went as half of a couple, I wouldn’t want to go with a girl anyway.”
She turned to look at him, blinking. “You—what?” Then what he actually meant dawned on her. “You’re gay?”
He nodded, and flushed. “And there’s somebody I really like, a lot, but—can you imagine what would happen if I came out? Here?”
She grimaced, and he slumped. “Uh … yeah. This place isn’t exactly—open.” Suddenly she remembered something Loch had said to her a few weeks ago and barely kept from gasping out loud. “… he said since I cared so much about them and so little about him there was no reason for him to go on anymore…” Loch’s friend David at Carnarvon Academy. The one who’d killed himself in front of Loch. He’d been bullied—Loch had been bullied—because they were gay.…
She thought hard, and the only reference to anyone being gay here she could remember had come from her History courses, where they were always referred to as “ho-mo-SEX-u-als.” Yeah, nothing but Rainbow Pride here, she thought bitterly. She gave Loch a sympathetic smile. “Dylan would probably prank you—if you were lucky. As lousy as things are now, it wouldn’t take much to make your life complete misery.”
“Besides, I’ve got no idea if he likes me back, not like that. And I don’t want to screw things up. I just thought … I like you, Spirit. I just don’t like you.”
She smiled again, and it was more real this time. “Friends are harder to get than boyfriends. I like you, too, Loch. That won’t change,” she promised.
Loch’s answering smile was beautiful. He dusted off his hands and stood up. “That’s it. We’ve been through absolutely everything. If there’s something about another Oakhurst, it’s not down here.”
* * *
They all got together for lunch the next day; Burke sported a bandaged wrist. He didn’t comment on it, and Spirit didn’t ask, but even under the bandages it looked swollen. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said numbly. “I just—”
They all looked up as David Krandal and Ms. Corby came into the Refectory and headed straight for their table. Burke’s back was to the door, and he didn’t notice they were staring at anything until Mr. Krandal was right there.
“Mr. Hallows, Doctor Ambrosius would like to see you immediately,” Ms. Corby said, just as Burke looked up.
Burke went flush, then a little pale. Ms. Corby didn’t say anything else. She gestured toward the door, so he got up quickly and followed her out, with Mr. Krandal following both of them.
As soon as they cleared the door, the room began to buzz with speculation.
The others exchanged looks, and even Muirin was unusually sober. “That can’t be good,” Addie said, slowly. “And I don’t think it’s because he punched someone or something.”
Spirit nodded, a feeling of dread coming over her. “I—I think something is really wrong. I think maybe we should go wait for him.”
Addie nodded, and they all got up, even Muirin leaving her dessert half-eaten, and headed for the Entry Hall.
It was a good thing they did, too; just as they got there, they saw the doors to Doctor Ambrosius’s office open, and Burke stumbled out. “I’m very sorry, Burke,” Doctor A. was saying. “Very sorry indeed.”
The door closed behind him, and they all converged on him. Before any of them could ask what was wrong, he looked up at them with a dazed expression. “It’s—my mom and dad. They’re—they’re dead.”
“What?” exclaimed Loch, going white.
“How?” demanded Addie at the same time.
“House fire,” Burke said. He was as white as paper. “There was just barely enough to identify. He won’t let me go. He won’t even let me go to the funeral. I—” He stopped, and stood there looking like a touch would shatter him.
“Burke, that can’t have been a coincidence!” Spirit exclaimed before she could stop herself.
He turned on her with a face like a mask. “I’m sick of all this conspiracy crap!” he said, his voice cracking. “For God’s sake!” He shoved out a hand at her. “You can just leave me the hell alone while you’re all involved in that. And—just leave me alone!”
He pushed his way through them and ran toward the dorm rooms. “Go after him!” Spirit said, shoving Loch a little. “Go! Go talk to him!”
Loch shook his head. “Leave him alone, Spirit. He’s hurting. Let it go.”
“But he trusts you, and besides, you’re another guy, he’ll listen to you!” she exclaimed. Addie nodded, backing her up. But Loch shook his head stubbornly.
“You don’t understand. Just leave him alone,” he repeated, and walked off in the direction of the classrooms.
“I thought ‘you don’t understand’ was supposed to be the girl’s line,” Muirin said, but even the gibe didn’t have her usual force behind it.
* * *
“I still think we should take all this to Doctor Ambrosius,” Addie said stubbornly. “I think we should ask him about our parents, and find out about this other Oakhurst. He has to know where it is. Maybe he could send Burke there…” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t know … maybe he’d start to feel better there and want to come back.”
Burke hadn’t been at dinner last night, and he hadn’t shown up at breakfast or lunch. Loch wasn’t talking much. Muirin said if Loch wasn’t going to talk to Burke, she would—since she had a break after lunch—and headed resolutely toward the boys’ side. Spirit still felt his rejection like a blow to the gut. She felt muddled, and was having a hard time thinking.
“I don’t—” she began, then gave up under Addie’s gaze. “Oh, all right. I sure don’t want to ask the Riders…”
Addie got up and gestured to Spirit imperiously. “He has open office hours today. We’ll never have a better chance. Come on.”
For the second time in two days, Spirit found herself right outside Doctor Ambrosius’s door. They could hear him in there.
“… and sign here,” Ms. Corby was saying.
“Indeed. Jam tarts. We must start serving more jam tarts, Ms. Corby. The children will love them. Little rewards for good behavior. Like pretzels.”
“… and here.”
“Pity about the cricket pitch. But the lawn was just too torn up.”
“We’ve ordered the special equipment. It should be arriving in two weeks.”
“Lovely. And don’t forget the Dance.”
Addie and Spirit exchanged startled glances, but neither spoke. It wasn’t just that Doctor Ambrosius was rambling, it was that his voice even sounded vague. Addie gestured to Spirit, and the two of them slipped away, pausing in the door of the lounge. “What was that all about?” Spirit asked, wide-eyed.
Addie looked back in the direction of the headmaster’s office. “He’s always had times of being a little … you know … absentminded. But I’ve never heard him like that before.” She sucked on her lower lip. “I think he’s had a stroke or something. He’s losing it, or maybe already lost it. I bet that’s why he called the Riders—he must have realized he was in trouble, and called them while he still could.”
Spirit felt that all-too-familiar sinking feeling of despair. She hadn’t really trusted Dr. Ambrosius, but now she realized she’d counted on him more than she’d known. “Now what?” she asked, helplessly.
“I don’t know,” Addie replied. “Just … let’s keep this between us and Loch for now. Okay?”
“Because Burke doesn’t want to hear about it—” Spirit said tentatively.
“And because Muirin’s too close to the Riders, and…” Addie bit her lip apprehensively, “And if Elizabeth’s story was even partly right … some of the Breakthrough people are Shadow Knights. Whether or not there’s mythical King Arthur stuff mixed up in there, the fact is, we do have enemies, we know some of them are from here, and infiltration is always the best way to get things done. Doctor Ambrosius seemed perfectly all right until the Breakthrough people got here. So … maybe it isn’t a stroke or something. Maybe they did it to him. If that’s true, the last thing we want Muirin to know is that we know Dr. Ambrosius has gone senile.”
* * *
Burke wasn’t at dinner—again. “He wouldn’t even come to the door of his room,” Muirin said, nodding her head at the empty chair. “He just said none of us understood and to leave him alone.” She looked for a moment as if she was going to make one of her catty remarks, then shrugged. “He’s probably right. If Step died in a fire, I’d throw a party.”
“He needs—I don’t know, something I guess he figures he can’t get from any of us.” Loch sighed.
“Well I need some fun. Getting all emo isn’t going to help Burke. I’ve got a date,” Muirin announced.
“A date? You call watching a movie in the lounge with a guy a date?” Addie asked, amused.
“Au contraire, ma fond, this is a real date. Going out to a movie in Radial.” Muirin rolled her eyes a bit. “Okay, so it’s not bright lights, big city. But it’s off the campus. Madison’s dropping us off and picking us up. This was her idea.”
So now she’s aiding and abetting dates? Spirit thought. This was getting stranger all the time. Tell me it’s not Ovcharenko … because I think that might be illegal.
“Who with?” Addie asked, eyes narrowed, probably echoing Spirit’s last thought.
“Dylan Williams.” She made a face as all three of them stared at her as if she was crazy. “What? He’s okay. Besides, I think he’s on the short list for the Gatekeepers, and I know I am.”
Spirit felt completely appalled. Muirin wasn’t even considering that these Gatekeepers—or some of them anyway—might just be the Shadow Knights who had tried to kill them. Okay, maybe not them, specifically, but they’d certainly been trying to kill other students. And succeeding!
“Anyway, I have to get ready. Let me know if Captain Emo comes out of his room, maybe he’ll listen to one of us. If nothing else, I’m going to tell him he needs to see Doc Mac. That’s just sense.” Muirin got up, gave them all a twiddle of her fingers, and bounced out of the room.
“Lounge,” Addie said. Spirit and Loch nodded.
When they got there, the first thing that Loch asked was: “Did you talk to Doctor A.?” The looks on their faces must have given everything away, because his own face fell and he said, “Oh hell. That bad?”
“Worse,” Addie replied. “We eavesdropped. Ms. Corby was in there with him, getting him to sign papers, and he was talking about jam tarts and cricket pitches. As in, senile, demented, Alzheimer’s, or a stroke.”
“He was just rambling about absolutely nothing,” Spirit added. “It sounded like Ms. Corby was just in there to get his signature and wasn’t even bothering to listen to him.”
“Great. Just great.” Loch rubbed his forehead. “So effectively Rider and Company are in charge?”
“That would be our guess,” Addie told him. “We need to talk to someone. Right now, the only ones I can think of would be Doc Mac and Lily Groves.”
“Ugh,” Loch replied. “Both bad choices. Groves … she’s got a poker face I can’t read, and she’s been here since the beginning and she’s more than good enough a magician to have been the one to call the Wild Hunt. I can’t tell if she’s in favor of Breakthrough or against them. Doc Mac—I don’t trust shrinks. And since Muirin thinks Burke ought to be talking to him, I’m not sure where that places him. Maybe he’s another recruiter for the Breakthrough people and their Gatekeepers.”
All Spirit could think of was QUERCUS telling her to trust her instincts. It wasn’t as if they had anything else to go on right now.
“Doc Mac,” she said, finally. “I’ll go—he already said to come talk to him whenever I needed to.”
The other two nodded; Loch reluctantly, Addie with reserve.
“Good thing I have that free period every day,” she said with a grimace. “I’ll set it up for that. And don’t tell Muirin.”
“Not a chance,” Loch replied quickly. He shook his head. “Muirin and Dylan. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was mind controlled.”
Maybe she is, Spirit thought as they broke up. I can’t think of any other reason.
* * *
“Spirit,” Doc Mac greeted her, gesturing at the chair as she hesitated in the doorway. “Still having nightmares? Or do you want to know how you can talk Burke into coming here? Don’t worry about that, he already is.”
Spirit took the chair. “Actually … I guess I’ll come straight to the point. Doctor Ambrosius told me that the reason we’re all here is because we’re Legacies—that our parents graduated from Oakhurst, so when our parents died, part of the deal was that we got to come to Oakhurst until we were eighteen. That’s because we have magic. Nobody comes here who doesn’t, and if I hadn’t had magic, I wouldn’t be here.”
Doc Mac nodded.
What Doc Mac didn’t know (she hoped) was that Spirit had a wireless microphone in her pocket, courtesy of Loch, who’d bought it from a spy store in Billings, slipping away by cab and returning before anyone got suspicious. Muirin, it seemed, wasn’t the only one with a charge card that Oakhurst didn’t know about. Loch’s purchases at that store had been tiny things, all easily concealed; his shopping bag of books and magazines had been nothing more than the cover for what he had really been after.
“That’s what I’ve been told myself,” Doc Mac said. “I’ve only been here for about five years, and of course, I’m not a Legacy.”
“Well … see, that’s kind of the logic hole I’ve run up against,” Spirit told him. “If I’m a Legacy, then my parents had to go to Oakhurst. Same for Loch, we were both told that when we got here. The problem is, my parents didn’t have magic. Believe me, they were not the types to keep that sort of thing secret. Dad especially.” She rolled her eyes a little, even though the memory made her tear up. “If there was any way to pull a prank on us, he’d do it, and if he’d had magic he would have used it. Mom … she would have, too. The same way she showed us she had a gun just in case, and showed us she knew how to use it.…”
Doc Mac looked at her warily. “So—you’re saying?”
“That either they didn’t go to Oakhurst, and Doctor Ambrosius was lying, or they did, but it wasn’t this Oakhurst—that there’s another Oakhurst for the people that don’t have magic.” She didn’t add that this would be really strange if it was so. “In fact, there has to be, doesn’t there? Not every kid that’s a Legacy has magic. My sister didn’t— So Burke really needs to be allowed to go there before he snaps. And—I’d like to go there, too. I’m not cut out for this and even though you keep saying I have magic, if I do, it’s obviously completely useless for what’s coming.”
Doc Mac cleared his throat, and when he spoke, he sounded troubled. “Spirit, if there is another Oakhurst, I’ve never heard about it. Never. I’m sorry, but that’s all I can tell you. If that was what you were counting on to help you and Burke, well…” He stopped and shook his head. “This is all there is, Spirit. I can’t account for the fact that your parents never showed any signs of magic, but sometimes the very people you think would have no secrets at all are the ones that harbor the most.”
“But—do you think the people from Breakthrough might know about it?” she asked, feeling desperation clutching at her throat. “I mean, they’d have to, they’d have to protect both schools, right?”
“I’m not part of the Inner Circle, or whatever they call themselves, probably because I didn’t go to Oakhurst myself,” Doc Mac replied with a wry twist to his mouth. “But trust me, they’ve dropped everything to come here, and they aren’t dividing their time and attention three ways. Only two. Mark Rider has already effectively moved his part of the Breakthrough headquarters here; they’re only waiting on building construction. There is no second Oakhurst, I’m sorry. You and Burke are going to have to cope with the fact that you are here to stay—or at least, until you graduate.”
Spirit somehow managed to make coherent conversation until her hour was up. He let her out, and let another student in. She headed for the lounge, where Addie and Loch had been listening to her session.
“I recorded this,” Loch said. “I want Burke to hear it.”
Spirit nodded, and combed her fingers through her hair distractedly. “I’m not sure what this means.”
“If our parents went to Oakhurst, they had to be magicians. But if they were magicians, there is no damn reason why they should be dead,” Addie said angrily. “Yours—car wreck—every School teaches ways you could keep yourself and your family safe in a situation like that. Mine, plane crash. Same thing there. Loch—”
“My mother died in a riding accident when I was a kid. Maybe she was the Legacy and not Father. But if she wasn’t, I can’t think of any School that wouldn’t have some way to get out of a fire,” Loch said bluntly. “I mean, I got out, and I didn’t even know I had magic! Now I do, and I know it wasn’t just dumb luck and parkour, but parkour and magic that did it.”
“So we have three sets of supposed Legacy parents who could not possibly be dead if they really were magicians,” said Addie, and Spirit realized Addie—calm, quiet, gentle Addie—was more furious than Spirit had ever imagined she could be. “And there’s no mirror-Oakhurst for ordinary people to go to. Which means—”
“We were lied to. We aren’t Legacies at all.” Spirit bit her lip. “So … how did we end up here?”
“We’re here because Oakhurst is looking for kids with magic, and is somehow diddling with records to get themselves named our wards,” Loch said immediately. “In a lot of states that wouldn’t even be a problem. They’re an institution with no black marks against them, orphans are a drain on the state. Most states would be happy to turn us over, no questions asked.”
“Even those of us with money,” Addie said, her eyes flashing dangerously. “Because our Trusts have to put us somewhere. Why not here?”
“Please don’t call me a ‘conspiracy theory nut’ again,” Spirit begged. “But … is it possible that because we have magic, that’s why our families … died? Like … whatever sent the Hunt is trying to kill us off, and got our families, but not us?” That horrifying figure on the road loomed up again in her memory.
“Or maybe it’s our magic that saves us. I know it was in my case,” Loch said thoughtfully. “Given what we know now … that’s not all that crazy, Spirit.”
“My turn to sound like a nut bar,” Addie said, slowly. “We know there’s someone here trying to kill off the students. What if that same person is the one that found us in the first place, tried to kill us then, and got our families instead? Because our families didn’t have magic to protect them?”
Vindication should have been sweet. Spirit realized vindication meant having to tell her only friends their families had been murdered because of what they were. Vindication wasn’t sweet. It hurt.
“That’s not nutty, Addie,” Spirit replied, wrapping a twist of her hair around and around her finger nervously. “Take that a step further. What if that person already knew, because they’ve done it so many times already, that they couldn’t kill us at a distance, so they killed our families, knowing we’d be brought here, where it would be easy to get us?”
“Argh,” Addie replied, knuckling her temples. “I wish that didn’t sound so logical! It fits what we know too well!”
“And why didn’t Doctor Ambrosius tell us the truth about our families in the first place?” Loch frowned. “Because he had to know it. And I don’t think he’s the type to spare our feelings, either. Hell, if anything, he’d use the guilt. You know: ‘Your families died because Dark Powers were trying to get to you, now you have to train to become the Great and Powerful Oz and avenge them!’”
Both Addie and Spirit nodded. “That does sound more like his speed,” Addie agreed.
Then they all looked at each other. “He might not know…,” Spirit said, slowly.
It was Loch who addressed the elephant in the room. “Or he might be the one behind it.”
If that was true, Spirit thought they’d better be praying Doctor Ambrosius really had gone senile.