It was a very subdued group that retreated to the Subroom. Tristan wondered why the others were so quiet and serious—they had not received fifty hours of punishment. They were not in danger of getting sent back to Juvie, or worse.
Then he overheard Eli mutter to Trey, “What do you think it is?”
Trey frowned at him. “What d’you mean?”
“Whatever Drakewell’s doing that none of the other teachers are comfortable with!” He was no longer bothering to keep his voice quiet. “There’s something messed up going on here.”
“I think you’re right,” Evvie murmured. “But what can we do about it?”
Eli jumped up from his favorite armchair and began pacing before the enchanted fireplace. “I don’t know. But there must be something. Some way to get leverage, to threaten the teachers until they tell us the truth.” He laughed harshly. “We could always kill ourselves, if it came to that.”
Trey seized Eli’s arm and wrenched him around to face him. “Don’t you dare say that.” Trey’s face was stony, his dark eyes cold. “Not even as a joke.”
“Wait a moment,” Tristan said loudly. “Stop. Are you actually considering fighting our teachers? When they can use magic and we can’t?” He struggled to rein in his temper. “Do you want to go back to Juvie? Because I don’t. I want to live, and I don’t know if I’d survive another few years locked up.”
Eli rounded on him. “So you’ll happily go along with whatever they’re doing because you’re scared? What if they’re murdering people to collect some other type of magic we don’t know about? What if they want to take over the world? What if there are good magicians out there, and we’ve been recruited by the evil side? Why else would they want a bunch of criminals?”
Leila stalked over to Tristan’s side. “Maybe some of us don’t care. We’ve been locked up—thrown out of society—and I don’t think most of us deserved what we got. Unless you think whoever arrested you was right to ruin your life?” She glared at Eli.
He cleared his throat. “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean everyone is horrible and deserves whatever the professors are doing to them."
"Hang on," Tristan said. "You have no idea what they’re doing. You’re just making this into a big deal because you don’t like Drakewell. But what about the other professors? What about Alldusk and Quinsley and Gracewright? Do you really think they’re evil?”
“I don’t know what to think!” Eli said loudly. “I didn’t trust this place from the start, and the other professors are definitely uncomfortable with something Drakewell’s doing. Am I supposed to just ignore it? Pretend I don’t care?”
“I just don’t want you to do anything rash,” Tristan shot back. “If we mess up, all of us might get sent away. Coming here was the only good thing that happened since—since—” He had been about to say “since my brother died,” but he couldn’t get the words out. He drew a sharp breath. “I don’t want to ruin this. I’ve got nothing waiting for me out there—my family doesn’t care about me, and I don’t have a future once I leave Juvie. I don’t know what you were arrested for, but my record is going to follow me forever. Here I actually have a chance at doing something with my life.”
“Of course you’d say that, you’re actually good at magic,” Eli said sourly.
“Listen,” Leila said. “Let’s all just calm down for a moment. Eli, not everyone wants to give this place up. Maybe that makes us evil, or maybe we just don’t belong anywhere else. But you can’t ruin it for us all.”
“I—”
Tristan talked over Eli. “If I try to figure out why we’re here, will you promise not to do anything stupid until we have a better idea what’s going on?”
Eli glared from Tristan to Leila. He was breathing hard, hands fisted by his sides.
At last he shook his head. “Fine. Just don’t take too long.”
The next day was Saturday; it should have been a relaxing, festive day as they prepared for Halloween, yet the students and teachers were equally quiet and grim-looking—all except Zeke’s gang.
“I can’t believe you just stood there,” Zeke said under his breath when he caught up to Tristan on the way to the ballroom. “It’s like you wanted to get caught! What sort of idiot does that?” Smirking, he shoved Tristan aside and bounded up the stairs.
“I’ve been thinking,” Leila whispered over brunch. “You should try to work off a few hours helping Delair. Alldusk told you something dangerous was hidden in the tunnels, right? I bet that’s the key to whatever the academy is doing. Delair would know all about it.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Tristan said. He didn’t know Delair very well, and worried the professor would report him to Drakewell if he started asking questions.
“I can go with you,” Rusty said. “I’ve got a couple hours to work off too.”
“Good idea,” Leila said.
Tristan shook his head—there was no arguing when they both ganged up against him.
As soon as they finished eating, Tristan and Rusty headed to the lowest level of the school, where they hoped to find Delair in the mine tunnel across from his classroom. If Delair was in an unhelpful frame of mind, he could punish them for venturing into his mine, but Tristan hoped he would appreciate the help enough to let it slide.
“Tomorrow’s Halloween, remember?” Rusty said as they started down the last flight of stairs. “D’you think Drakewell’s gonna let you come to the feast?”
Tristan hadn’t thought about this. “I hope so. I might not be eating again for weeks if I can’t work off these hours fast enough.”
Delair’s classroom was locked, as Tristan had expected, so he and Rusty turned to the rough mine tunnel. When Tristan lifted the lantern propped beside the entrance and blew gently on the top, it flared to life, casting an inadequate glow into the gloom of the tunnel.
“Are you sure about this?” Rusty asked, peering down the tunnel. From here they could smell the heavy, dank air that drifted up from the mine.
Tristan snorted. “I don’t know what you’re worried about—it’s me who might get thrown out if I get in any more trouble, not you. There aren’t any trolls down there.”
“Says who?” Rusty said. Then he grinned. “It’ll be an adventure.”
Holding the lantern high, Tristan led the way into the dark passage. The uneven floor was littered with loose stones; Tristan stumbled as soon as the bright lights from the marble hallway faded.
The tunnel quickly began sloping down, the air growing colder and mustier. Soon the passage took on the mildewed, closed-in feel of a natural cave, nothing like the warm elegance of the Lair. From the dim light spilling from the lantern, Tristan glimpsed the occasional passage heading off the main tunnel; he was wondering if they had taken a wrong turn when he heard a distant thud.
He stopped at once, alert and listening, and Rusty collided with him.
“Oof. Don’t do that!”
Tristan hushed him. “Listen. I think it’s Delair.”
They stood still for a moment, until a resounding clang echoed nearby. Tristan flinched.
As they rounded the next corner, treading carefully now, Delair came into view. He was no more than a hunched shape at the end of the tunnel, illuminated in the soft glow of two lanterns. The bald teacher stood beside an empty cart, and as Tristan and Rusty watched, he hefted a pickaxe over his shoulder and swung it at the tunnel wall with a clanging crash.
“Professor?” Rusty called out.
Delair jumped and dropped his pick; when he turned and saw Tristan and Rusty, though, his face relaxed into a broad grin.
“You’re here to do punishment, eh?” He bent and retrieved his pick. “Bad idea for you kids to come wandering down here alone. Drakewell wouldn’t like it.”
Tristan grimaced.
“Still, I could use the help.”
As Delair pushed his cart forward, Tristan caught sight of an odd, splintered luminescence coming from the rock he had been chipping away at. In his surprise, he forgot to worry about Drakewell.
“It’s glowing.” Tristan elbowed Rusty out of the way so he could get a closer look.
The hazy silver glow was nearly as bright as the two lanterns on the wall, casting its odd sheen across Delair’s bald pate.
“’Course it is,” Delair said, thrusting a pick at Tristan.
Tristan barely caught it—the heavy wood handle slipped and slammed into his knee. He winced.
“It’s a vein of the purest metal.”
Rusty squinted at the wrong part of the wall. “I can’t see anything. It’s one of those auras, isn’t it?”
Delair handed Rusty a second pickaxe. “Indeed. Put out that lamp, Fairholm. It’ll look brighter in the dark.”
As Tristan blew out his own lamp, Delair extinguished the two lights on the wall with a quick wave of his hand. In the absence of other light, the exposed vein shone brighter than ever, infusing everything with a ghostly brilliance. It was like an icy moonbeam sculpted from rock—Tristan shivered and clutched the handle of his pickaxe.
“Now can you see it?” Delair asked eagerly.
Rusty squinted at the wall for a long time. His face had taken on the deathly pallor of a drowned person in the odd light. “I think there’s something…how bright is it supposed to be?” His gaze was still fixed on the wrong section of the wall.
“Just as with magic vapors, auras appear brighter to certain people.” Delair nodded happily at Tristan. “No one knows why that is, but everyone can become better with practice.”
“How bright is it for you, Tristan?” Rusty asked worriedly.
“It’s nearly as good as the lanterns.”
“Impressive,” Delair said, relighting his with a flick of his finger. “You’re better than I am, I seems—without the lamps, I can barely make out your shapes in the darkness.”
Rusty stared at Tristan, mouth open a fraction.
To distract Rusty, Tristan asked, “Was that magic, what you just did? Lighting the lamps without blowing on them, I mean.”
“Of course,” Delair said. “Now, if you’ll get to work widening this tunnel, I can teach you a few things that I should’ve gone over in class.” Even now he rarely came to lessons more than twice a week. “Don’t worry about falling rocks—I’ve got a safety barrier in place. Same as Professor Merridy used to keep you safe from the avalanche.”
Tristan hefted the pick onto his shoulder and frowned at the wall. Not at all sure what he was supposed to do, he took a step backward and swung wildly at the stone. A few small rocks broke free and crumbled to the ground.
“Wait a moment,” Rusty said. His pick dangled uselessly at his side. “Did you just say you used magic without those marbles?”
Delair grunted. “Don’t aim straight at the wall, Fairholm. You have to single out a weakness first.” He pointed to a craggy knob of rock before turning to Rusty. “Yes, I can use magic without it first being concentrated. So could you, theoretically.” Delair shouldered his pick and resumed chipping away at the end of the tunnel.
“Huh?” Rusty squinted at the wall.
“Drakewell doesn’t want me to tell you this,” Delair shouted over the sound of his own hammering, “at least not yet. So don’t go telling the other kids.” He tossed a chunk of stone over his shoulder and resumed his attack on the wall. “The teachers decided you’d be less tempted to make trouble if you thought magic could only be used with marbles.”
“What’s the point of the marbles, then?” Tristan asked quickly. They were getting so close to it—the reason why he and his fellow students were here in the first place.
Delair paused, resting his pick against one knee. “The main reason is something even I can’t tell you yet. However, there is a second reason for the marbles.”
He set aside his pick and turned back to the wall. Now it looked as though he was shaping something with his hands, though he touched nothing but air.
“As you know, magic vapor is created by destruction—when you collect the vapor, you are gathering the essence of destruction. Even when you don’t use the congealed form of magic, you need to destroy something to make the power work. When you use magic without the marbles, you destroy your own strength.”
Tristan stared at Delair, thinking hard. To his left, Rusty was tapping the handle of his pick on the wall with a vacant sort of rhythm.
“I’m sure you boys can see why this would be dangerous. When you draw from your own strength, you quickly become exhausted—if the spell is allowed to go too far, you could damage yourself beyond repair. It takes many years to build up the sort of endurance necessary to perform even the most basic tasks without depleting your strength.”
Amber could do magic without using marbles, Tristan remembered suddenly.
“But you can do it now?” Rusty asked.
Delair stepped away from the end of the tunnel and wiped his hands on his pants. Then he reached forward and splayed his hands just inches from the wall. With a click, a piece of glowing ore shifted and dislodged itself from the wall. The ore tumbled away from the dull rocks, perfectly intact; Delair caught it and threw it into the empty cart.
“What’s that glowing metal?” Tristan asked. It had to be powerful, with such a bright aura. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Ah, I’m so glad you asked.” Delair blew rock dust off his moustache so the ends fluttered. “This element exists almost exclusively in the earth’s core. I was the first to realize we had discovered something new—I’m planning to call it Delairium.”
Tristan laughed.
“In fact, this is one reason the academy was built here in the first place—it’s the only location in the world with such an impressive concentration of Delairium. As to what it’s used for…” Delair lifted his pick and chipped off a loose sheet of rock. “Delairium releases a great deal of magic when it’s melted. Among other things.”
“Like what?” Tristan asked.
“I’m saving that for one of my lessons.”
Thinking hard, Tristan resumed his work widening the tunnel. The answer was so close, yet he didn’t know how probe for more details without raising suspicion.
The marbles were harvested for some larger purpose—something beyond using one at a time for minor spells. And since the marbles disappeared after their chemistry classes each day, they had to be stockpiled somewhere…in Alldusk’s office? Or, more likely, in the tunnels?
Tristan had to figure out what the stockpile was used for. It was the only way to convince Eli that the school was not evil, to keep him from antagonizing the teachers and getting everyone sent back to Juvie.
Yet if he ventured into the tunnels, he would be risking expulsion. Maybe there was another way to piece together the limited information he could extract from his professors.
Lost in thought and the rhythm of the hammering, Tristan did not realize how much time had passed until Rusty set aside his pick and said, “I’m hungry!”
Delair glanced at his watch. “You need to hurry, or you’ll miss dinner! Go on, off with you.”
Tristan wiped sweat from his forehead, which was caked with grime. “Thanks, Professor. We might come back next week.”
Delair chuckled. “You’re planning to earn more punishment?”
“Not planning,” Rusty said. “It just kinda happens.”
“And I’ve got fifty hours, remember?” Tristan muttered.
When Tristan returned to the Subroom after dinner, he was disgruntled to see Eli, Trey, Hayley, Cailyn, and Evvie huddled in a corner, speaking in undertones. As soon as they spotted him, they fell silent; Evvie cast a suspicious look in Tristan’s direction.
“Have you learned anything useful?” Eli asked pointedly.
Tristan took off his coat and folded it, stalling. He did not want to give away too much information, for fear Eli would start poking around where he wasn’t allowed and get everyone into even worse trouble, but he had to prove he was making progress or they wouldn’t trust him.
“Delair mentioned the marbles are mainly used for something other than the spells Brikkens is teaching us,” he said slowly. “So if we could figure out what that is, we’ll know why we’re here.”
“And he wouldn’t tell you anything more?”
Tristan shook his head. “Everyone keeps saying they can’t talk about it. Drakewell must’ve made them promise to keep quiet.”
“That’s bull—”
Trey cut across Eli. “It sounds about right. We know the teachers are hiding something from us, and that we’ve been recruited for a specific purpose that they refuse to explain. It does make it sound as though we won’t like whatever it is—or maybe they don’t trust us yet. We are criminals, remember.”
“Can we really wait to find out what it is?” Eli asked darkly. “I mean, what if a baby dies every time a marble forms? What if this is like Ender’s Game, and we’re doing horrible things without even realizing it?”
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing if the earth’s population went down just a bit,” Cailyn said, folding her arms over her chest. “Not everything is good or evil. Something that can be good for a lot of people can be horrible for plenty of others. Maybe we should give the professors a chance before we start plotting against them.”
“Whose side are you on?” Eli snapped.
Cailyn arched her eyebrows at him. “You don’t know anything about me. Have you ever bothered to ask what I did to get arrested?”
“No, of course not. Don’t you want to forget about that? Pretend it never happened?”
“No,” Cailyn said airily. “I did it for a reason. To make a statement. I knew I’d get in trouble, but that wasn’t the point.”
Tristan dropped onto a sofa by the enchanted fire and opened a textbook at random, pretending he was not listening. Cailyn was not his friend; it seemed indecent to eavesdrop on such a private conversation.
But Cailyn was not bothering to keep her voice down.
“Now you’ve got to tell us,” Eli said. “What did you do?”
“I broke into a feedlot and let all the pigs escape. Then I set fire to the place. Did you know that pigs are as intelligent as dogs?”
Tristan could not help himself; he glanced over to see that Cailyn’s eyes were shining with indignation.
“Damn,” Eli said. “That was brave—and a bit stupid. Don’t they have security cameras at those places?”
“Of course. Again, that was sort of the point.”
Eli shook his head.
Tristan was baffled. He could not comprehend putting himself in danger—knowingly breaking the law and jeopardizing his entire future—for the sake of making a statement. And for a bunch of pigs! What had Cailyn accomplished in the end? Surely the pigs were rounded up and slaughtered just the same as if she had done nothing.
“Well, that doesn’t change anything about this academy,” Eli said. “Tristan—you’d better figure out why we’re here soon, or we’re going to put up a fight.”