THE PRINCIPAL STARED at the four of us across his desk, a disappointed frown on his face. I resisted the urge to confess to crimes I hadn’t committed and waited for someone else to crack. I’d ended up in Aaron’s office any number of times over the years, but this was the first time I was actually innocent. It was a refreshingly novel experience.
The silence stretched out and Aaron rubbed his right temple where the tight black curls were beginning to silver. “Well?” More silence. “Fine. Morgan, why did you blow a kiss at Kalvan and then knock him down?” So, he’d seen at least that much. “Is this about what happened at the conservatory?”
“It is.” Morgan’s voice came out tight and clipped. “Someone said he was my boyfriend, and I wanted to make it very clear he wasn’t.”
“Because blowing him kisses and knocking him over conveys that so much better than the obvious age difference…” Aaron sighed and visibly suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “Well, that’s a start. Would anyone care to explain why Angie was also on the floor when I came around the corner?”
Angie coughed. “I, um, I’m the one that teased Morgan about Kalvan. When she got in my face, I, um, I tripped.”
Tripped? I thought, in the same moment that Aaron raised an eyebrow and said, “Tripped?”
Angie nodded vigorously and I wondered why she wasn’t ratting Morgan out. It was the perfect opportunity for a little revenge, and she’d already admitted to the teasing, which was the only thing she’d done wrong.
Aaron’s eyes shifted. “Lisa, is there anything you’d care to add? You were present for both this incident and the one at the conservatory.”
“That all sounds like what I saw, Aaron.”
“Kalvan?”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t really paying attention until Morgan knocked me on my butt.”
“Right. Lisa, Kalvan, you’re not in trouble. Angie, that wasn’t nice. Consider your next free period a detention, which you will serve in the library.” He quickly scrawled a note and handed it to me. “Drop this off at the library for me, please, Kalvan, since it’s on your way.” Why did he know my schedule that well? “Morgan, you stay. Everyone else can go.”
When we got out to the hall I turned left toward the library, and Lisa fell in beside me. Angie went the other way, fast.
“She looks scared,” I said.
Lisa nodded. “She should be. Pissing off Morgan was stupid.”
I didn’t argue. If you’d asked me about Morgan a month ago, I’d probably have said she was pretty, that she had a sweet smile and dimples, that she was a dancer, and that she seemed nice enough. That would have been it. She hadn’t made much of an impression on me because we didn’t run in the same circles and she was a couple years older. But that was before seeing that kick, and before the conservatory. I owed Morgan my life. Almost involuntarily, I reached up and touched the edge of my bandage, reminded again of how close the bolt had come to hitting me in the eye. When I did so, Lisa suddenly looked down at her left wrist, rubbing it as though it ached.
“That was a heck of a takedown,” I finally said.
“Morgan’s a black belt. For her, that was gentle.”
“I didn’t know that.”
She finally met my eyes again. “There’s lots you don’t know about Morgan.” We turned into the stairwell and were briefly out of sight of anyone. Lisa caught my arm and turned me to look at her. Once again, I was struck by the golden color of her eyes, which was almost as weird as my own amber. “Be careful, Kalvan. Morgan’s a good person to have on your side, but she can be … dangerous.”
“All right. But why are you warning me? I thought Morgan was your best friend.”
Lisa smiled, though there was something sad about the expression. “That she is.”
“And?” I looked at her expectantly.
“And you could have acted to protect yourself first when that delver popped up with his crossbow. But you chose to try to save us instead. I owe you for that, and I always pay my debts.” Lisa put one foot back behind the other and bent her knees briefly in something very like the curtsy I’d seen some actresses use instead of a bow. “See you later, Kalvan.” She turned away, heading down the stairs, while the path to the library took me up.
After I dropped off the note, I continued on to Tanya’s homeroom, arriving right with the fourth-period bell. There was a short line in the hallway ahead of me since this was the period when Tanya dealt with her independent-study students. They were mostly doing stuff in the sciences, which was her main teaching area. But I was pretty sure at least a couple of kids were there for purposes similar to my own. If so, it was impossible to tell which ones were which from where I waited with the others—Tanya’s desk was at the back of the room, and for reasons I suspected were magical, conversation didn’t carry from there to the doorway.
I was last in line. As I stepped into the room, Tanya waved a hand, and a sudden breeze blew the door shut behind me. I startled at the slam. “Did I do something wrong?”
Tanya shook her head. “No, I just want to make doubly sure of our privacy. Sit down, Kalvan. Is Sparx home with your mom again?”
There was a flash like someone had flicked the world’s largest lighter, and my familiar flared into being on the desk. “No, I was abandoned in the—Oh, burn and blight it!” He had arrived on a pile of tests, igniting the top one, which he now had to stomp out. “Sorry about that, Tanya.”
“It’s all right; he was going to fail anyway.” She waved it off. “Abandoned?”
“Never mind.” Sparx flicked his ears. “Kalvan was simply being a typical adolescent. Nothing to worry about.”
Tanya snorted. “If you can say that being a typical adolescent is nothing to worry about with a straight face, you’ve clearly never taught at a public school.”
“Fair enough.”
I sat down and crossed my arms. “If you two are done pretending I’m not here, what’s up?”
“Ooh,” said Tanya, “he’s turning into a teenager.” She shifted her eyes to Sparx. “Always a great time with a power of fire. Good luck. You’re going to need it.”
“Don’t I know it!”
I rolled my eyes but kept silent because I was outnumbered.
Tanya shifted back in her chair so she could more easily speak to both of us. “I took a good look around the conservatory, but I didn’t learn anything about the delver. I’m a windwalker and earth is my opposite. I can’t read it well under the best of circumstances, and these were most definitely not that. Which is why what I did find worries me.” Tanya frowned. “The air in the wedding garden had been very badly disturbed.”
“I’m not sure I understand…,” I said.
“When someone passes through a room, they leave a record in the currents of the air—drag lines, patches of fresh turbulence, heat signatures. Wanting to learn more about how air moves is what drew me into science originally.” She smiled. “My powers allow me to see the way your breathing affects the space around you right now. Depending on the strength of the interactions and what follows by way of interference, I can also read things that have happened in a space for some amount of time afterward.”
“So, you can see if someone walked through a room after they’ve left?” That was pretty cool—she’d make a great detective. Which, if you looked at it the right way, was kind of what a scientist was.
“Exactly.” Tanya nodded. “Though some traces only last a few minutes, strong scents might leave patterns that last for days, and powerful enough magic can change things for weeks or even years, depending on what kind and how it’s used.”
“Oh.” Now how am I going to get out of telling her about Morgan and Lisa? I glanced at Sparx, willing him to honor the fact I didn’t want to give the girls away. “You saw some sort of magic in the conservatory? Beyond mine, I mean, and that delver’s?”
Tanya nodded. “A windweaver was there, though I couldn’t say exactly when. They smeared over all traces of their passage in a way that made it impossible for me to tell anything beyond the fact they’d been there between the time you were attacked and my arrival.”
“So, they were there after I was?” Maybe I wouldn’t have to rat on Morgan after all.
“Yes,” said Tanya. “Possibly during or before the attack as well, but I have no way of knowing since they blurred everything so badly. I could barely even see any evidence of what you’d done, and a firestorm of the kind you described should have left traces that would be obvious for several days at least. This windweaver pretty much nuked the evidence.”
“That’s the second time you’ve used the term windweaver, but you call yourself a windwalker. Is there a difference?”
I caught Sparx rolling his eyes and giving me his best you-never-do-your-homework look.
Tanya sighed and her expression mirrored Sparx’s. “I’m pretty sure it was in the book you’re supposed to be reading. Windweavers are both much rarer and vastly more powerful than windwalkers. I thought I knew all the windweavers within a hundred miles, but apparently I’ve missed one. I called all four of the others and if any of them know about the one from the conservatory, they weren’t willing to tell me. That a new windweaver has revealed themself now, in the wake of the fall of the Winter King, is very worrying.”
“You think this has something to do with the Corona Borealis?” I didn’t like that at all, especially knowing who the windweaver probably was—I doubted a third master of air was in the conservatory between Morgan and Tanya.
“Power attracts power, Kalvan,” replied Tanya. “That scar your stepfather gave you marks you as a major player, and that will draw foes and friends both. Doubly so in the magical chaos created by dethroning a monarch. Even if Oscar weren’t still alive and likely to want revenge, simply possessing the Crown would make you a target.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that weeks ago?” I spoke as much to Sparx as Tanya.
My human teacher spoke first. “I didn’t want to alarm you. I was hoping it wouldn’t start so soon.”
“What about you, bunny boy?”
“My reasons were similar, and it wasn’t until last night’s fire bowl that I began to worry the Crown might actually have fallen to you when Oscar struck you.”
“And after?” I demanded.
“You were exhausted and completely flipped out last night, and it didn’t seem a good time to add to your burdens. Then it was morning, and we both know that telling you anything in the morning is as effective as trying to light fire to a bucket of water.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “All right, now what?”
Sparx turned to face me, putting his back to Tanya. When I asked my question, he flicked his gaze toward her and back to me in a pretty clear don’t-you-think-you-should-tell-her-about-it manner. I pretended not to understand. Morgan saved my life and I owed her silence if that’s what she wanted.
“Could you two back up a moment?” Tanya sounded more concerned than ever. “Tell me about scrying the fire bowl. You saw a vision that makes you think Kalvan might be the coming Summer King? That would be much more dangerous than simply holding the Crown through the fallow months. He’s far too young!”
Sparx nodded. “Assuming nothing happens to stop it, yes. I think when Oscar threw the Crown at him, he symbolically chose Kalvan as his successor.”
“Tell me about the vision.” So we did. At the end Tanya shook her head. “That’s not good. Between the scar and the fact he’s the child of both the most recent Summer Queen and the last Winter King…”
“Oscar’s not my dad!” I said very firmly.
“Yes, of course,” Tanya apologized. “That was an insensitive way to put it, even if that’s how it plays out magically and symbolically. I’m sorry.” She frowned and then took a deep breath. “I think we may have to change your course of study.”
That surprised me. “What? How?”
Sparx looked thoughtful, but didn’t say anything. Though he was technically my familiar, he was also my main teacher when it came to magic, what with being at least four or five hundred years older than me.
When Tanya saw he didn’t have anything to add, she continued, “Up till now Sparx and I have been focused on getting you to master the basics of fire magic. Everything else you’re going to do rests on that foundation, and it can be quite dangerous to try the more advanced sorts of spells without it—you’ve been incredibly lucky so far. Having you perform the full familiar summoning without all the proper groundwork was a very risky move on Sparx’s part.”
The fire hare shrugged. “I was pretty much cooked without it.”
“I know, but considering all the things that could have gone wrong…” She shuddered.
“Could we get back to the course change thing?” I asked.
“Right.” Tanya set her shoulders. “I think we need to start teaching you some of the more advanced sorts of defensive magic. Starting today.”
Sparx agreed. “He needs to learn how to address the other elements.”
I looked from human teacher to hare mentor and back. “Didn’t you just say that could be really dangerous?” They nodded in perfect unison. “This is because of the Crown?” Again the nods. “That bad?” A third nod. “Oh.”
Yikes.
* * *
“I hate this, and I’m never going to figure it out,” I grumbled, dropping the polished ball of granite into the big silver basin at my feet and splashing water all over.
Several drops spattered Sparx, flashing into steam with a hiss. “No, you won’t.” He sighed. “Not if you don’t improve your attitude.”
He flicked his ears grumpily and hopped onto the lab bench, bringing him closer to my eye level. Embarrassed, I turned and walked away. Well, as far as the confines of the small space would let me. Once upon a time, the glorified closet off the science room had been a darkroom—I’d had to look that up—and it still had the big air lock–type door designed to keep light from getting in and destroying the film. The tanks of chemicals and developing tubs were long gone, but the workbenches remained and a fume hood stood in one corner now. It was a perfect place to conduct small experiments—both scientific and magical—that were safer done in isolation.
“Kalvan, you’re acting like a five-year-old! Well, or a fifteen-year-old … same behavior, different motivation.”
It was my turn to sigh, but I went back to the bench. “I’m sorry, but first there was the vision in the fire, and now I have to learn words from the language of earth. It feels like the universe wants to turn me into Oscar.”
Sparx snorted his frustration, and jets of flame shot from his nostrils. “Hardly. Whatever else you think about Oscar—may the fires of blame claim him for eternal torment—he is a highly disciplined sorcerer, and a master of both his element and the higher magics. You can’t even master yourself. Besides, Oscar isn’t the only power of earth out there. Your real father—”
“I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT!” I clapped a hand over my mouth, shocked at my own vehemence. “I … I’m sorry. I just … I’m kind of a mess right now. I can’t get the thought of that crossbow bolt out of my head—the sound of it, the slice on my cheek, the certainty that…” I shuddered and shook my head. “Now all this. The Crown stuff. Learning earth words when I’m a fire power. Visions of Oscar, and discovering my dad is like him … it’s all gone weird and scary, you know?” The more I thought about my dad and Oscar, the more I wished Noelle had left me in the dark.
Sparx sighed, and some of the tension left him. “You have already been forced to face much no one your age should have to deal with, and now I’m asking you to do more than you’re really prepared for. You have done so well that sometimes I forget how very young you are. I wish I didn’t have to push you, but Luck or Fate has singled you out, and you must either rise to the occasion or fail and fall into darkness. You have no other options.”
I took a deep breath and consciously suppressed the urge to argue. “You sure know how to cheer a guy up there, Mister Doom and Gloom.” It wasn’t much of joke, but it helped ease my frustration. “I’m really glad we had this pep talk. You’ve got me revved up and ready to take on … well, something small and not very fierce. Maybe a geriatric mouse with a trick knee and one paw tied behind its back? Yeah, I think I could almost manage that. You should totally become a life coach!”
Sparx snorted again, this time sans flames. “Better. A little late, but better. Let’s try this one more time, shall we?”
I pulled the stone from the water, holding it in front of my right eye and giving it a good glare. The spell was something called the Dragon’s Wings. For me, it was ninety percent fire magic, but for reasons I had kind of tuned out, it wouldn’t work properly if I didn’t do an invocation of all four primary elements—which statement sort of implied the existence of secondary elements, but Sparx had refused to get into that.
So, time to try again. “Issilthss!” The name of the wind in its own tongue … sort of. I couldn’t really pronounce it, much less spell it, what with all the weird susurrations and hissing sounds. The human throat was as ill suited to the task as any human alphabet, or, at least, that’s what Sparx had told me about elemental tongues, and I quote: “you big, bald thumb-monkeys.” Whatever the case, when I spoke the word, the still air of the darkroom suddenly stirred and came alive around me.
“Kkst*ta!” Fire. My own element and one I could actually pronounce properly by letting the fire of my heart speak through my throat, crackling and popping like a log on the hearth.
“Bglbgleb!” Yeah, right. Gargle, gargle, glub, glub, and I’m going down for the third time. Water was never going to be my friend, and my mangling of its name barely produced a ripple in the basin … if that. I was pretty sure I’d flubbed it, but that didn’t mean I was off the hook.
I still had to try, “Drooododor!” The globe of rock grew suddenly heavy in my hand and I felt a connection run from it straight to my heart, which went cold and hard, slowing in my chest and—
“NO!” I shouted in fear, and pushed back against that sense of being invaded by stone with all the fires of my soul. Earth was my enemy. Oscar had proven that.
Searing pain filled my hand and the suddenly red-hot stone fell into the basin. It hit with a hiss and cloud of steam, and the water began to bubble and roil. I focused on that instead of the black bundle of agony at the end of my arm.
My knees started to go weak and spongy, but before I could collapse, Sparx—seeming to have grown to three times his usual size—was pressing his forehead tight to my injured palm, fur blazing bright. Somehow, in complete opposition to everything my logical brain knew about fire and burns, he felt like ice where he touched my skin, and the pain began to ease.
With the blood roaring in my ears, I put my back against the wall and slowly slid to the floor. Sparx held contact all the way down and beyond as the world went red and then white before finally fading completely away.
* * *
As soon as the school bus got out of sight, I yanked my glove off and squatted to soak my hand in a deep puddle of melt water. That eased the pain of the blisters, but only a little, and I swore quietly as I waited for the ice-water to numb things further.
Dave whistled. “That burn looks really nasty, Kalvan. Are you sure you should be dipping it in such filthy water? Maybe you should see someone about it?”
I shook my head. “Sparx says it ought to be gone by tomorrow because the injury is mostly of my element.” When I couldn’t stand the cold any longer I pulled my hand out of the puddle and looked at the thick white blisters that carpeted my palm and the insides of my fingers. “I think they’re starting to go down a bit already.” Maybe. I don’t know.
“They are.” Sparx spoke over my shoulder from his perch in my backpack. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’ll barely be able to see them in the morning. Besides, the burned hand teaches best and—”
“Sparx,” I growled as I lifted the backpack off my shoulder with my good hand so I could look him in the face. “Would you please shut up?”
Dave shook his head. “Chillax, dude.”
Sparx simply raised one eyebrow and crossed his forelegs on his chest.
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry if I sound whiny. It just hurts a lot, and you and Tanya have me really spooked about the Crown. Oh, and there was that guy I saw in the alley, and nearly getting shot in the eye yesterday.” I was never going to forget the angry bee sound the bolt made as it kissed my cheek.
“I thought everything was supposed to get better after I defeated Oscar. I mean that’s how it works in the books—you beat the bad guy and then it’s happily ever after. But, my bad guy is still out there.” Not to mention that the idea of becoming somehow like him as I had in that vision was almost as scary as what was happening with my mom. “And…” I trailed off when I realized I didn’t know where I was going. This was sooooo not my day.
Dave punched me in the shoulder. “Come on, you’re looking a bit crispy around the edges and not just the hand. Let’s get you home. It’s a good thing for you I’m sleeping over.”
“Why?”
“Because you could clearly use a real meal and no one else is going to fix it for you.”
He might have a point. My mom didn’t do her best cooking when she was phoning it in from the moons of Mars, and my aunt … well, I really preferred my meals to come with expiration dates that fell at some point in the future.
“Hey,” I grumbled, “I can microwave a gas-station burrito with the best of them!”
“Exactly. You’ve been eating way too much garbage.”
* * *
Dave poked me in the ribs and I blinked my eyes open. It seemed like I’d drifted off only minutes ago.
“Whazzup? It’s not morning yet, is it?”
He shook his head. “Nope, it’s just shy of the witching hour.”
“Did I miss a meeting?”
“You wake up worse than anyone I’ve ever heard of. You know that, right?” Dave sighed. “You have homework, remember?”
“I … oh, yeah.” Some of the things Tanya and Sparx wanted me to learn had to be accomplished or prepared at specific times or places. “You don’t suppose it could wait till tomorrow night?”
All the sympathy went out of Dave’s expression and his tone took on something like disgust. “Dude, you are a piece of work.”
That woke me up. “Huh?”
“I know things have been hard for you, what with your stepdad turning out to be an evil sorcerer and all, but I cannot believe how much of an absolute lazy jerk you can be about this magic stuff.”
“I’m … sorry?”
“Yeah, you are. I’d give my right hand to be able to do the stuff you can do now, and—”
“Stop!” Sparx’s fur flared suddenly bright from his perch atop my bookshelves. “Never say things like that.”
“Like what?” asked Dave. “That I’d give my right hand to have my own magic?”
“Yes, that. Exactly! Do not say such things.”
Dave looked baffled and maybe a little hurt. “Why not? People say things like that all the time. Besides, it’s true.”
Sparx hopped down to land on the bed. “Ordinary people may be able to get away with it. But you have become part of the world of magic and are no longer anything like ordinary, and the truth of the thing makes for all the more reason not to speak of it. You never know who or what might be listening.”
“Wait, I thought you had to be born to it, like Kalvan,” said Dave.
“Not at all.” The hare shook his head. “It might be easier for someone with Kalvan’s family history, but there are as many ways to acquire magic as there are stars in the sky.”
“So, you’re saying a trade is possible?” Dave’s voice came out somewhere between scared and wistful.
“Quite possible and very, very dangerous. Especially the way you framed it, with no specifics about what sort of magic you want. There are many varieties of enchantment, and not all of them are things you would wish on anyone you cared for. Curses are as real as blessings. If the wrong power heard you, it might take your hand in exchange for making you into a monster your own mother wouldn’t recognize.”
“Oh.” Dave swallowed hard. “I was imagining elemental powers like Kalvan has, or Morgan, or even Josh. I didn’t know there were other options.”
“More than you can possibly imagine,” said Sparx.
“Okay, then. If anyone is listening, I think I’ll keep the hand, thanks.”
“Better,” said Sparx. “Now, we need to get going or we’ll lose our window of opportunity.”
As we were heading out the back door, my mother came stomping down from upstairs. She was barefoot in a blue taffeta ball gown and her long black hair was a wild and filthy cloud around her face. “Kalvan, the plants are eavesdropping again. I’m sure of it. Would you be a dear and pour bleach on all of them?”
I felt sick, but I nodded. “Sure, Mom.” Then I turned back toward the door.
“Where are you going?” She sounded intensely suspicious, which meant she probably hadn’t been sleeping, possibly for days.
It wasn’t the first time she’d gone paranoid on me, and I’d learned some decent coping strategies. “I don’t think we have enough bleach in the house, Mom. I’ll need to run to the store.”
“Oh.” She turned, took two steps up the stairs, and then stopped. “Hang on.” She reached into the bodice of her dress and pulled out a couple of twenties. “Here. Get some milk while you’re at it.”
After we got outside, Dave squeezed my shoulder. “My dad can get like that when he’s in a manic phase. Does she really think the plants are out to get her?”
“I don’t know. The first time it happened I thought she might be talking about bugs in the plants—the electronic kind—but that was before I really got involved in the magic world. Now, I live with a talking rabbit, so who knows?”
“I’m so sorry, man.”
I shrugged his hand off. “I’m dealing with it.” Sometimes, if you pretend not to care, you can almost even convince yourself.
* * *
“Ouch!” I jerked my hand back and the shard of obsidian I’d been balancing on my burned palm dropped to the ground between the pottery cup filled with clear water and the nearby railroad tracks.
“What happened?” Dave asked from beyond the edge of the magical circle.
“The rock bit me!”
Sparx poked at the black stone. It came from Oscar’s magical supplies and had been partially shaped into a spear head. “I don’t sense anything that would cause such an effect. Describe the sensation.”
“It. Bit. Me,” I growled. “I still don’t see why I should have to work with stone at all. I’m a child of fire. Rocks hate me.”
“Rocks do not hate you.” Sparx took a deep breath. “And your wants are neither here nor there for the purposes of this exercise. The highest formal magics touch on all the elements even when they draw most heavily on one. If you’re going to protect yourself properly, you will have to learn how to address and invoke the other powers.”
“It’s hardly fair.”
Sparx’s fur flamed suddenly bright. “Fairness is not an element in magic. Neither is it one that life pays much attention to. Which is something else you will need to learn. Now, tell me exactly what happened when you spoke the word of stone. And ‘it bit me’ is not an acceptable answer. Your hand is neither bleeding nor more swollen than it was before. If anything, the blisters have gone down. So, it did not bite you. What did it do?”
I took my own deep breath. Sparx was right, and I knew it. “I … it’s hard to explain. Maybe it’s because it was Oscar’s element, but when I speak words in the tongue of earth, I feel … weird inside. Cold and hard and hollow all at once.” See also: Rocks hate me. But I didn’t say that bit out loud.
“Better.” Sparx nodded. “Tell me more.”
“When I said the word for stone in its own language, it felt like a barb of ice came out of the shard and ran through my veins until it pierced my heart. It … hurt. But not like a cut or a burn … more like when I think about my mom’s problems.”
“That’s—” Sparx’s words were cut off by a sudden high howl.
I turned and saw a pair of glowing golden eyes coming up fast. It was the coyote again and she was running straight toward … “Dave!”
The coyote leaped and I got my first clear view of her. She looked huge, like Great Dane huge. Or, at least, that was my brief impression before she hit Dave, driving him backward over the line of the magical circle and into me.
We hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and fur, and that was the moment when the earthquake started.