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DEAN WALLSTONE stood alone in the gymnasium surveying the damage of the night before, nine file folders tucked under her arm.
As Dean Checks entered, Wallstone squared off her shoulders and faced the woman directly. Clean energy. Trust.
“Adare,” Checks began, “Quite a night they had.”
Wallstone nodded. “Natasha.”
Joining her in the center of the room, they held silent for a moment.
The gym wasn’t as bad she had previously thought. It would take a bit to rehang the padded mat onto the wall again, a few gouges in the flooring, but otherwise none of the fixtures had been broken. No duct work dented that she could see. The place smelled like floor cleaner.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Natasha said, pushing her glasses up her nose.
Adare shrugged. “Just waiting.”
“For?”
“My congratulations.”
“Are you really?” the Crystal College dean asked, shuffling her set of nine folders to the other hand.
She made eye contact and gave a tight smirk. “Apparently, I’m still waiting.”
“Fine.” Natasha sighed. “Congratulations.”
Wallstone beamed. “Our fastest round yet. I told you Victoria had a lot of potential. She’s an independent thinker. We’ve needed that.”
“Well, let’s consider the fact that they had Josiah held hostage for a number of days while he could have been learning.”
“Hostage?” Adare faked being hurt by the remark, practically clutching non-existent pearls.
“Whatever you want to call it, that girl Opera needs to get under control.”
Pent’s dean nodded. It was true; the girl’s unbridled ability was a cause for alarm. “I’ll give you that. Professor Ingram is going to work on stabilizing her emotions after break.”
“Good.”
The two chuckled and Natasha bumped a shoulder into Adare’s. “They’re not ready for the world.”
“Maybe yours aren’t.” Adare laughed louder than before.
“You know what I mean.”
Her demeanor stiffened. “They’re still First Years. None of them are ever ready at this stage for what we need them to face down the road. Victoria shows promise. A few others. Some of yours too, if I’m being honest.”
Natasha inhaled slow and released a solemn sigh as she spoke. “Do you ever feel like you’re leading the lambs to slaughter?”
Dean Adare Wallstone grew quiet. Her body stilled and a dense energy loaded with momentum brushed against them both.
“Every year,” she answered, her tone reflecting the seriousness of their cause, respecting their positions in the situation.
“But with each class,” she continued, “we grow them stronger. All we can do is prepare them for the fight, and when the moment is appropriate, explain to them what’s really going on.”
“Not too soon though. We don’t want to scare them.”
“God, can you imagine?”
The pair laughed again, then hugged before exchanging files. A few months of data on each student wasn’t much, but there was valuable information to mine out of it for next time: weaknesses, strengths, fears, abilities. At least enough to craft a new battle, give them more practice fighting an enemy, and bonding the sets of nine to one another as a team.
Natasha Checks started to walk away, but Adare called her back, extending her hand. “I told you I had the stronger team this go round.”
A playful eye roll and Crystal College’s dean dug into her pocket, retrieved a twenty-dollar bill, and slapped it into Adare’s hand.
“Happy?”
“I am now.”
She headed toward the doorway to Crystal College. “See you after the break.”
“Take care of yourself,” Wallstone said, moving toward the Pentagram College door.
The schools had their work cut out for them. Unruly students with attitudes and their own random sets of rules and beliefs. They were a mess, but if the colleges could break them, just a little, there would be good, usable material they could work with, manipulate.
But first, they had to break them.
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To be continued in
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