Scott
Gods, why did I agree to this? I was already shaking and breaking a sweat, and I had hardly walked through the front door. And Mark had immediately wandered off, leaving me stranded.
The communal lounge had at least three dozen freshmen packed in it, and someone had brought in a wireless speaker which was playing indie music loud enough to make me uncomfortable. Guys lounged on the many couches or stood in groups around the room like everything about this was fine and casual.
The ice-cream bar, which was merely a folding table loaded with several gallons of ice cream and a myriad of toppings, stood below a bulletin board covered in colorful announcements and pamphlets advertising clubs and tutors. I picked up a paper plate, and eyed the sticky ice-cream scoop warily. Glancing around the room again, I noticed Mark join a group on one of the worn green couches, his bowl already piled high with syrup-covered chocolate and vanilla.
I didn’t really want to sit with his friends, who were already talking and laughing with each other. But he was the only one here I knew. I recognized some of the others from my classes, but couldn’t recall their names well enough to go up to them and not embarrass myself.
The scoop in front of me suddenly lifted from its place on the table, and of course I flinched. Ralston had a few telekins, but only one had been in school with me. She hadn’t used her magic much where other kids could see, so an object randomly darting into the air was still a weird phenomenon. Of course I had seen telekinesis on TV, but things only looked so real on a screen, after all.
After a few moments of hanging in the air, the scoop wiggled over to the closest carton of ice cream and plunged in. Mark’s group erupted in snickers as the scoop worked its way through the melty ice cream like it was being wielded by an invisible toddler.
Huh. Weren’t telekins better than that? I peered at Mark’s group, a mix of guys in button-ups and geeky shirts. Then I noticed one of them was facing the wall, and it all made sense. He was the telekin, trying to move the scoop without looking.
The others were all watching the show and laughing, Mark with his phone out recording the whole thing, and I couldn’t help but smile too. And as the scoop managed to extricate a dollop of mostly melted ice cream from the carton, I held out my bowl.
“This dude at the table just offered his bowl. A foot forward. Now to the left. LEFT, Nick. Your other left!”
The telekin laughed, his shoulders and sides wiggling with the sound, as the scoop dropped a few inches on its way over to me, and bumped into the bowl. What ice cream he had managed to scoop up fell onto speckled blue carpet.
“You missed!” I called out, and finally the telekin turned around. He had metal-framed glasses and a round face, with straight black hair feathered across his forehead. His shirt featured an Angel of Flavius, one of the many demigods that had been co-opted by popular media. This one starred in a comic series and had a movie that came out earlier this year. Maybe that’s how eccentrics usually worshiped? Through creative consumption?
“I didn’t get any on your pants, did I?” the telekin asked, walking toward me, his tone and movements all confident and smooth. Heat blossomed in my cheeks.
One of his friends, muscular with deep bronze skin, chuckled. “Tulio condemn you get sticky white stuff on a boy you haven’t even met?”
An eruption of laughter accompanied my jaw dropping. And oh gods, the telekin’s reaction was merely to waggle his eyebrows at his friend as he came to a stop a foot away from me.
“Don’t mind Lucas. His mind’s always in the gutter. I’m Nick, by the way. Do you still want some ice cream?”
With his eyes still on me and his hands at his sides, the scoop plunged back into the carton and skillfully deposited ice cream in my bowl.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, glancing back at the table. “Can I have a scoop of strawberry too?”
Nick obliged, a smirk raising his golden-tan cheeks, while he also picked up a bottle of chocolate syrup manually. “Want some?”
I shook my head, so he shrugged, tilted his head back, and squirted the syrup into his mouth. I inwardly swore at my weak knees, watching his Adam’s apple bob. He was cute, and he was acting cute, and this was all so Flavius’s doing.
“Come sit with us,” Mark called from the group, as Nick plopped the bottle back on the table.
“Sure.” I followed Nick back to the couch where Lucas, Mark, and one other guy sat with mostly empty bowls of ice cream.
Mark smiled, catching the group’s attention as he lightly punched my arm. “Hey guys, this is my roommate Scott. I finally managed to get him out of the dorm.”
There was a smattering of hellos. Mark gestured at the others around him. “Lucas and Chase are on the soccer team and are high school sweethearts—”
A sleek, golden-haired guy, Chase, I assumed, screeched and scooted away from Lucas. “We are not! To the gods!”
“Yeah, Chase isn’t my type,” Lucas added, and Chase snorted.
Mark then gestured at Nick. “And I think you’ve met this one-trick pony, now. Nick. I met him and Lucas in biology.”
“But I’m not a science major like these nerds,” Nick teased. “I think I’m leaning toward English. Or something.”
And then there was silence as their gazes drifted to me. Oh gods, it’s my turn to talk. I swallowed my mouthful of ice cream.
“Cool. I’m, uh, Scott. I guess Mark already said that.” I did a pathetic little wave. Gods. “I’m majoring in divinity.”
The reaction was about what I had gotten from most of the other people I’d told: polite nodding with no real flash of recognition or excitement. Except from Chase, who touched a charm that hung around his neck. “Hey, that’s cool. Are you eccentric? I’m a healer,” he said, all in a rush.
“Nope, I’m normal. But my whole family’s pretty religious.”
Chase gave me a large smile, and let the charm hang loose. A forked fin, for Sanya. Made sense that a healer would worship the healing goddess.
Nick watched me, inquisitive and interested, and I felt compelled to explain myself in his direction. “The stories are fascinating, really. And I love feeling connected to the gods.” In my own way. Without magic. I didn’t need magic to feel like I was together with the divine. Mom had always stressed that as well.
“I like these gods,” Nick said, gesturing at his shirt.
“Did you know the Flavian angels represent asteroids hitting earth?” I asked, a chill of embarrassment shooting down my spine at my overly excited tone. But Nick smiled, and it warmed me.
“So that’s why they’re always drawn with craters around where they land,” he said.
“They didn’t show that in the Angel of Flavius movie,” Mark pointed out.
I scrunched my nose. I had seen that movie, but it had been weird, knowing how the stories were supposed to go. “There was a lot of stuff in that movie that wasn’t quite right.”
“Wait, like what?” Nick asked, pulling his shirt straight and staring down at it with a furrowed brow.
To my surprise, Chase answered. “Well, first of all, Rainier probably shouldn’t have been brown-haired.” He pointed at the front figure of Nick’s shirt, a broad-shouldered angel cutting through swirling clouds with a black-gloved fist raised high. “‘Flavian’ literally means blond-haired.”
“I bet they wanted Rainier to be more like the heir apparent,” I said. “Just like the Flavius statue in the quad looks suspiciously like the Emperor.”
“Maybe the Emperor resembles Flavius?” Lucas asked.
“Not according to any artwork of Flavius from the second age,” I said.
“How do you know all this?” Nick asked, propping a fist on his hip.
I fought a hot wave of embarrassment at everyone’s attention. Staring at my feet made it easier to answer. “Collections study groups in high school.”
“You know what else? Rainier didn’t have a love interest in the Collections,” Chase pointed out.
Nick chuckled, and with his attention diverted, I exhaled deeply to try to soothe my twisted nerves. I already wanted to get out of here and back to my dorm, but my earlier prayer for confidence echoed through me. I could survive this, if it meant making some friends. That’s what I wanted.
“Things are more interesting with a love interest, aren’t they?” Nick challenged, and to the gods, did he wink at me? I sucked in a breath and pretended that it didn’t happen, and that Nick’s smile wasn’t melting my insides.
“Adding a love interest to a movie is fine,” Mark said. “It’s when the video games get love interests that I roll my eyes.”
“Ugh, agreed.” Lucas said, his short black hair sticking through his fingers as he covered his face. “Would it kill them to make some same-sex couples if they’re going to add a romance at all? Or how about a Filipino main character? Anything other than straight white guys.”
The others made sounds of agreement, and I had recovered from Nick’s wink enough to admire him again. He stood with his arms crossed loosely, holding his above-average weight confidently, his foot tapping out of time with his laugh. His glasses distorted his eyes, magnifying them just enough for me to notice.
“So . . .” I started, and Nick met my gaze. “What other parts of the Collections have been turned into comics?”
“Not much of a comic reader?” he asked, and I shook my head. “Want to walk around the floor? I can tell you about my favorites.”
Flavius, you are really testing me! “Uh, sure.”
Nick glanced at the others. “Catch you in a bit?”
Lucas stifled a laugh as Mark whispered to him. Their expressions were very there Nick goes flirting again, and I prayed for the sweet release of death.
Chase ignored them and nodded at Nick. “We can head to my and Lucas’s dorm for some games,” he announced, to the other’s agreement.
Nick turned from the others, and I followed; then, when we were a few paces away, the lounge’s door flew open like it was hit with a gust of wind. It took me way too long to realize it was Nick’s telekinesis. We walked outside and again a wind that affected nothing else blew the door shut. I couldn’t help but be amazed, and simultaneously embarrassed that I was so out of touch with eccentrics and their magic.
Nick and I walked the opposite way from my dorm, the hallway deserted, quiet. The dorm hallway was cool enough to prickle the hair on my arms. Frannesburg had much colder weather than Ralston this time of year, and I definitely wasn’t used to it.
Nick smiled at me. “I knew college would have hot guys.”
Oh gods, Natalis save me! I was tall, but I was skinny and pale, with mousy brown hair. Not hot at all, except for the mortification warming my cheeks.
“Me? Uh, thanks? But what if I’m not into guys?” I asked, trying to gain the upper hand in the conversation.
“I took a risk. Did it pay off?”
I cracked a smile and watched my feet as we rounded a corner.
Nick hummed, and the playful tone was killing me. “So, yes.”
“Damn you.”
“Hey, Scott? I’m telling it the way I see it. You’re hot, and I want to talk to you about comics.”
“Okay, go for it.” We walked smoothly together. When I was younger, I remembered watching my parents’ strides as we went on walks around the neighborhood. My mom was so much shorter than my dad that she’d be practically jogging to keep up with him. Nick was only an inch shorter than me, so we matched up without difficulty.
“But,” Nick started, sticking his hands in his pockets, “I can’t really answer your question. I know a lot of the Collections have been turned into comics, but I don’t know what’s from scripture and what’s been added by one of the authors.”
“No Saturday church school for you, then.”
“Nope. I was in Chinese school instead. And then soccer practice when I was older.”
We reached the end of this shorter hall and turned around, walking back the other way. “Oh, okay. Do you speak Chinese? And do you still play?”
Nick shrugged, his smile strained. “No and no.”
“Ah. I probably shouldn’t have assumed anything.”
“Hey, asking me if I could first is infinitely better than assuming and telling me to say some phrase in Mandarin.”
I nodded, and tried to calm the spike of adrenaline from my screw-up. “So why don’t you tell me about some of your favorite comics, and I’ll tell you what isn’t religious canon.”
Nick laughed. “Sure. A really good one recently was last season’s run of Angel of Flavius. Rainier and his squad were tracking a pack of Claudian shape-shifters. These guys are ruthless killers, traveling across the Empire wreaking havoc on key moments in history. They’re either one step ahead or you never know what they’ll look like or who they’ll be. And the art is amazing.”
I smiled at Nick, shaking my head. “What a load of propaganda.”
“How? It’s just a comic book,” he challenged, giving me a playful push, his warm palm on my arm. We passed the lounge again, and were now approaching the door to my dorm. A bunch of guys were roaming the halls now, returning to their rooms.
“There’s epistles about Claudia being against the tyrannical tendencies of Flavius, dude. This is blatant propaganda by the Empire meant to be anti-shape-shifter.”
Nick stammered, then furrowed his brow. “What’s an epistle again?”
“It’s a story about the gods told by transcended matriarchs. Almost half of the Collections is made up of them.”
Nick quirked an eyebrow. “Right. Right. But shape-shifters don’t exist. Claudia hasn’t . . . you know.”
“Gifted it yet?” I finished, stopping in front of my dorm. “This is my room by the way.”
“Cool,” he said, a smile brightening his face. He gestured past us. “I’m two doors down. 329.”
Part of me urged the words, wanna come in? But I didn’t say them. Nick raised an eyebrow, glancing down the hall.
“Yeah, looks like the guys are just getting to Chase and Lucas’s. They’re in 305.”
“Do you want to join them?”
His eyes twinkled. “Not yet.”
Oh man, I hoped he hadn’t seen the full body tremble his tone of voice gave me. This felt like a one-eighty switch from my anxiety during the ice-cream social. I pulled out my key and let us in. Nick kicked off his shoes, then immediately gravitated to my altar, and touched the edge of the mirror pedestal before returning his focus to me.
“You have your own altar.”
The way he said it and the way he had reached out so hesitantly made me realize he probably didn’t know many people who did have their own altar. I approached it too and ran a finger down Natalis’s arm. “Yeah. My mom always says prayer can get you through anything.”
“Huh.” Nick’s gaze lingered on the altar, and as I did the same, I tried to imagine seeing it for the first time. Statues and half-burned candles. An incense holder with a pile of ash. It wasn’t any weirder than Mark’s stack of games, right?
“So anyway,” Nick started, taking a step back from the altar. “I think my favorite comic series is The Chronicles of Gnomon.”
The topic change relaxed my shoulders as I sat at my desk. “All about tinkering and inventing gadgets to help . . .” What was my favorite thing about Gnomon? “To help solve crimes?”
“Oh, you read it?” Nick asked, reaching up to grab the loft’s frame. I shook my head, and he laughed. “Well you described it to a T.”
“Of course I did. That’s one of the best epistles. Gnomon solves the murder mystery of Tulio’s son.”
“Wow, yeah. Did you know they’re making a movie about it?”
“Nope.” Somehow hearing this from a guy who had flat out told me I was hot made the idea of a Gnomon movie actually appealing. “And it’s already a comic?”
“Yeah, there’s a whole series of comics about Gnomon and his tinker brigade.”
“Tinker brigade?” I echoed. “They’re just called his children in the Collections.”
“Maybe they spruced it up for the comics. But I’m really excited for the movie. Rainier’s making a cameo and everything.”
“That’s totally not canon . . .” I mumbled, wondering how much of the Collections had been co-opted by the Empire in mass media. “But cool,” I finally finished, giving Nick a smile. It wouldn’t quite have the stories I know, but it would sure be nice to go see it with you.
“It’s out in the spring. Maybe that can be arranged.” He waggled his eyebrows.
I chuckled, and it took a full three seconds to realize I hadn’t said that last part out loud. A thrill shredded down my spine as all the metaphorical gears in my head ground to a halt.
“Wait. What?” I muttered.
“I mean, assuming we’re still hanging or whatever?” He shrugged.
This had to be a joke. “No, what can be arranged?”
“Uh, seeing the movie with you.”
No, wait. Maybe I did say it out loud. “Did I say . . .”
“Oh man, I’m sorry. You told everyone you’re normal, didn’t you? I should have figured you don’t like people talking back to your thoughts.”
“I’m not . . .” This was unreal. Completely unreal. Natalis, what on earth?
Nick shrugged. “My cousin’s boyfriend is like that. Telepath quirk or something. Doesn’t like people answering his thoughts unless he makes eye contact when he says them.”
“I’m not a telepath,” I finally got out, the waves of confusion and excitement sweeping through me to my arms and legs. Did Laesth just gift me magic? Why was this happening to me now? With this guy I didn’t know? I wrung my fingers together, and Nick’s expression twisted up.
“Are you serious?”
All I could do was nod.
“To the gods, did you just get telepathy?” His voice was much quieter than it had been throughout most of our conversation. He was frowning, biting his lower lip. And why on earth did he have to be so damn cute when nothing made sense anymore?
“Obviously, we need to figure this out.” His phone flew into his hands from over his shoulder, and he tapped at it briefly. “Okay, okay. Here’s a website. Laesthan Resources Online. Let’s go to . . . ‘So you think you’re a telepath.’ All right. Think something random at me.”
I couldn’t even . . . purple elephants.
“Purple elephants? Well, I guess I did say random.”
Natalis save me. I sucked in a breath, and it hitched in my throat. “This can’t be happening.”
“Okay, I’m going to think something random at you. Look at me.”
I did. I wasn’t sure if I was expecting to hear his voice in my head, but after five seconds of me studying the deep black-brown of his eyes, I exhaled and looked down.
“Nothing?”
I shook my head.
“Fine, no rainbow salamanders for you then.”
Gods, he got me to chuckle.
“So you can broadcast but can’t receive—that’s really typical. At least, you can’t receive auditory thoughts.” He tapped at his phone and frowned at his screen. “What am I looking at?”
My attention wandered to him, the phone, my altar. “I don’t think that’s working.”
“Okay. You are definitely not receptive then. Most telepaths aren’t. But let’s see if you have image projection. Bring something up on your phone. A specific picture.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and went to my photo library. Found a picture of my little sister Kathrine cradling our dog. Stared at it.
“Uh . . . a teenage girl with long, brown hair. And a puppy? Man, everyone had a dog growing up except for me, damn apartments.”
I practically dropped my phone.
“This can’t be happening, how can I suddenly get telepathy now?”
Nick frowned at me, and I took several deep breaths as I tried to keep my mind as blank as possible because what if everyone could read everything I thought.
“It mostly works if you think it loudly in someone’s direction,” he said, quietly. “And it works better with people you’re closer to. You’ve never known any telepaths?”
“No? No!” I was shaking now, afraid to think. What did this mean for my future, for my family? Gods, what would Dad say?
Nick put a hand on my shoulder, but I swiveled my chair away from him and faced the wall. The thankfully blank wall. I stared at it and breathed. The Empire liked telepaths. They were interrogators, translators, diplomats. But, I didn’t want to work for the Empire.
I didn’t trust the Empire enough for that.
There was a tickle up my arm and I jerked, but nothing was there. I glanced over my shoulder, and Nick was several feet back, his hands in his pockets.
“I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to. I just think you need someone and wanted to remind you I’m here.”
And now there was the itch in my throat and the threat of tears blushing up my cheeks. I don’t know who I am now.
“You’re you,” he said. “You probably know as well as any eccentric that this is a gift.”
“But my whole family is normal. I’m normal.”
“I’m normal too, if you’re going to use the word like that,” Nick shot back. He got me there. Being eccentric wasn’t bad and I knew that. “Sometimes magic comes in a little late. Sometimes early. My dad’s telekinesis started when he was five. Mine? Sixteen. We all thought I would never get it.”
“I’m . . .” I’m going to be nineteen in a month.
“You’re still within a standard deviation or two.”
“Oh gods, don’t math at me right now.”
Nick stuck out his tongue, and I almost laughed.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” I swept out my hands, and felt the twiddle of telekinesis in my palms. I appreciated that he cared—if this meant he cared—but his touch-without-touch was almost eerie. At least, it was at the moment, with me figuring out my magic.
My magic. Damn. Did . . . Did I really have telepathy now?
“Companies are going to love you for that image projection.”
I shook a finger at him. “Oh gods, those advertisements have been the worst part of campus.”
He imitated my finger shaking, and I did laugh at how silly it actually looked. “You learn that from your mom?”
“Maybe.”
“Anyways, read up on telepath rights if you don’t like them. Which god is telepathy again?”
I sputtered. “How do you not know this?”
Nick leaned toward me, my desk light reflecting in his glasses as he held on to the edge of my bunk frame. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. A lot of us don’t know god stuff like you do.”
“But how?” I asked, scooting my chair toward him so the ties of his sweatshirt dangled a few inches from my face. “I’ve known the names of the ten gods as long as I’ve known how to count to ten.”
“I know their names,” Nick scoffed. “I just can’t remember who does what past Sanya healing, Flavius with the fire weaving, and Vogel having telekinesis.”
Yet so much of the rest was in his comics. “You know more than you realize,” I said, touching the dangling ties. The ties waved at me as Nick pushed himself back. I stood too, and then leaned on my desk. “The god of telepathy is Laesth.”
“Oh, the panther. And United Nations of Laesth. Duh. Right. That means you might have Asian ancestry.”
I had to really think about it. Telepathy had originated a few hundred years ago in the United Asian Nations, now called, at least by the Empire, the United Nations of Laesth. He had to have been right, since magic inherited as though it were genetic. “Three generations back on my mom’s side, I think? But that’s it. I’m pretty . . .” I gestured at myself. “White.”
Nick smiled. “Yeah, but I can forgive you for that.”
I nodded, crossed my arms over my chest as I offered him only the smallest of smirks. “You mentioned Chinese school earlier, but, I’m sorry, I bet everyone asks you this.”
“I’m biracial. My dad’s white. And a telekin. My mom’s Chinese.”
“Cool.” My fatigue from before the ice-cream social returned in full force, and I deflated with a sigh. “I guess I better talk to Laesth tonight.”
If there was a time I wished the gods would speak back to me, this would be it. None of what happened tonight made any sense, and I didn’t know how to process it. Why here, why now, why him, why me?
Nick glanced at my altar. “Should I leave you to it?”
With another nod, my bones weighed me down with exhaustion. My arms fell to my sides, and I didn’t think I’d be able to lift them again.
Can I have your number? I thought, still not completely sure he’d hear it.
He held out his hand, and I unlocked my phone and handed it to him. Tap tap tap, and then his phone chimed.
“Catch ya later, Scott. Maybe sometime you can tell me more about the gods.” He pulled open the door manually, but it swept shut behind him.
I picked up my phone. He had texted himself.
Scott: I’m eccentric now!
Yeah, apparently I was. What was I supposed to do? Post a ConnectUs update? Scott Kensington has marked a new life event: Telepathy. Like. Wow. Heart.
No, no way. Too public. Not yet. The first thing I had to do was pray.