Firespell

The signature was just a first name—William.

That was it.

The proof of my parents’ lies.

About their jobs.

About their trip.

About whatever they’d gotten involved in, whatever had given the Sterling Research Foundation the ability to pass down dictates about my parents’ relationship with me.

“They lied, Scout,” I finally said, hands shaking—with fear and anger—as I stared down at the letter. “They lied about all of it. The school. The jobs. They probably aren’t even in Germany. God only knows where they are now.”

And what else had they lied about? Each visit I made to the college? To their offices? Each time I met their colleagues? Every department cocktail party I’d spied on from the second-floor staircase at our house in Sagamore, professors—or so I’d assumed—milling about below with drinks in hand?

It was all fake—all a show, a production, to fool someone.

But who? Me? Someone else?

I picked up the envelope again and glanced at the RECEIVED BY mark.

The puzzle pieces fell into place.

“When was the twenty-first?” I asked Scout.

“What?”

“The twenty-first. September twenty-first. When was that?”

“Um, today’s the twenty-fifth, so last Friday?”

“That’s the day Foley received the envelope,” I said, holding it up. “Foley got a copy of this letter the day I got hit by the firespell. The day before I went into the hospital, the day before she came to the hospital room to tell me she was wrong about my parents. That I was right about their research. There’s probably a letter in here to her, too,” I quietly added, as I glanced around the room.

“Foley told you about the genetic research when you came to her office,” Scout concluded. “Then she got the letter and realized she really wasn’t supposed to tell you. That’s why she dropped by the hospital. That’s why she changed her tune.”

I dropped my gaze back down to the letter and swore out a series of curses that should have blistered Scout’s ears. “Can anyone around here tell me the truth? Can anyone not have, like, sixty-five secret motives?”

“Oh, my God, Lily.”

It took me a moment to realize she’d called my name, and to snap my gaze her way. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted in shock. I thought we’d been caught, or that someone—something—was behind us, and my heart stuttered in response.

“What?” I asked, so carefully, so quietly.

Her eyes widened even farther, if that was possible. “You don’t see that?” She flailed her hands in the air and struggled to get out words. “This!” she finally exclaimed. “Look around you, Lily. The lights are on.”

I looked down at the flashlight in her hands. “I’m having a crisis here, Scout, and you’re talking to me about turning on a light?”

I could see the frustration in her face, in the clench of her hands. “I didn’t turn on the light, Lily.”

“So what?”

She put her hands on her hips. “The light is on, but I didn’t turn on the light, and there’s only one other person in the room.”

I lifted my head, raising my gaze to the milk-glass light shade that hung above our heads. It glowed a brilliant white, but the light seemed to brighten and fade as I stared at it—da dum, da dum, da dum—as if the bulb had a heartbeat.

The pulse was hypnotic, and the light seemed to brighten the longer I stared at it, but the rhythm didn’t change. Da dum. Da dum. Da dum.

“Think about your parents,” Scout said, and I tore my gaze away from the light to stare at her.

“What?”

“I need you to do this for me. Without questions. Just do it.”

I swallowed, but nodded.

“Think about your parents,” she said. “How they lied to you. How they showed you a completely false life, false careers. How they have some relationship with Sterling that’s going on around us, above our heads, that gives the SRF some kind of control over your parents’ actions, what they say, how they act toward you.”

The anger, the betrayal, burned, my throat aching with emotion as I tried to stifle tears.

“Now look,” Scout said softly, then slowly raised her gaze to the light above us.

It glowed brighter, and the pulse had quickened. Da dum. Da dum. Da dum.

It was faster now, like a heart under stress.

My heart.

“Oh, my God,” I said, and the light pulsed brighter, faster, as my fear grew.

“Yeah,” Scout said. “It’s strong emotion, I think. You get freaked out, and the light goes on. You get more freaked out, and the light gets brighter. You saw it kind of dims and brightens?”

“It’s my heartbeat,” I said.

“Well,” she said, turning for the door, “I guess you have a little magic, after all.”

She glanced back and grinned. “Twist!”

In no mood for study hall, we found a quiet corner of the main building—far from the administrative wing and its treasonous folders—and camped out until it was over. We didn’t talk much. I sat cross-legged on the floor, my back against cold limestone, eyes on the mosaic- tiled ceiling above me. Thinking. Contemplating. Repeating one word, over and over and over again. One word—maybe the only word—momentous enough to push thoughts of my parents’ secret life out of my head.

Magic.

I had magic.

The ability to turn on lights, which maybe wasn’t such a huge deal, but it was magic, just the same.

Magic that must have been triggered somehow by the shot of firespell I’d taken a few days ago. I didn’t know how else to explain it, and that mark on my back seemed proof enough. I’d somehow become one of them—not because I’d been born into it, like Scout said, but because I’d been running in the wrong direction in the basement of St. Sophia’s one night.

Because I (apparently) had magic, and we were out and about instead of hunkered down in the file vault behind Foley’s office, I was focusing on staying calm, controlling my breathing, and trying not to flip whatever emotional switch had turned me into Thomas Edison.

When study hall was over, we merged into the crowd leaving the Great Hall and returned to the room, but the brat pack beat us back. I guessed they’d decided that torturing us was more fun than spending time in their own rooms. Regardless, we ignored them— bigger issues on our plates—and headed straight for Scout’s room.

“Okay,” she said, gesturing with her hands when the door was closed and locked behind us, and a towel stuffed beneath it. “I need to check the Grimoire and see what I can find, but so I know what I’m looking for, let’s see what you can do.”

We sat there in silence for a minute.

“What am I supposed to be doing?” I asked.

Scout frowned. “I don’t know. You’re the one with the light magic. Don’t you know?”

I gave her a flat stare.

“Right,” she said. “You didn’t even know you’d done it.”

There was a knock at Scout’s closed bedroom door. She glanced at the closed door, then at me. “Yes?”

There was a snicker on the other side. “Did you find anything interesting in that little folder?”

I nearly growled at the question. As if on cue, the room was suddenly flooded with light—bright light, brighter than the overhead fluorescents had any right to be.

“Jeez, dial it back, will ya?”

I pursed my lips and blew out rhythmic breaths, trying to calm myself down enough to dim the lights back below supernova.

“What?” M.K. asked from the other side of the door. “No response?”

Okay, I’d had enough of M.K. for the day. “Hey, Scary Katherine,” I said, “don’t make us tell Foley that you invaded her vault and stole confidential files from her office.”

As if my telling her off had been cathartic, the lights immediately dimmed.

Scout glanced over appreciatively. “Why does it not surprise me that you have magic driven by sarcasm?”

There was more knocking on the door. “Scout?” Lesley tentatively asked. “Are you guys okay in there? Did you set the room on fire?”

“We’re fine, Barnaby,” Scout said. “No fires. Just, um, testing some new flashlights. In case the power goes out.”

“However unlikely that appears to be now,” I muttered.

“Oh,” Lesley said. “Well, is there anything I can, you know, help with?”

Scout and I exchanged a glance. “Not just right now, Lesley, but thanks.”

“Okay,” she said, disappointment in her voice. Footsteps echoed through the common room as she walked away.

Scout moved to a bookshelf, fingers trailing across the spines as she searched for the book she wanted. “Okay, so it was triggered by the firespell somehow. We can conclude that whatever magic you’ve got is driven by emotion, or that strong emotions bump up the power a few notches. It’s centered in light, obviously, but it’s possible the power could branch out into other areas. But as for the rest of it—”

She stopped as her fingers settled on an ancient book of well-worn brown leather, which she slid from the shelf after pushing aside knickknacks and collectibles.

“It’s going to take me some time to research the particulars,” she said, glancing back at me. “You want to grab some books, camp out here?”

I thought for a second, then nodded. There was no need to add academic failure to my current list of drama, which was lengthening as the day wore on. “I’ll go grab my stuff.”

She nodded and gave me a soft smile. “We’ll figure this out, you know. We’ll figure it out, go back to the enclave, get you inducted, and all will be well.”

“When you say well, you mean I can start spending my evenings torturing soul-sucking bad guys and trying not to get shot in the back by firespell again?”

“Pretty much,” she agreed with a nod. “But think about how much quality time you and Jason can spend together.” This time, when she grinned, she grinned broadly, and winged up her eyebrows, to boot.

The girl had a point.

Later that night, when I was back in my room in pajamas, and calm enough to dial their number, I broke out my cell phone and tried again to reach my parents. It was late in Munich, assuming that’s where they were, so they didn’t answer. I faked cheerful and left a voice mail, still avoiding the confrontation and because of that, almost glad they hadn’t answered. There were too many puzzle pieces—Foley, my parents, and now the SRF—that I still had to figure out. And if they thought keeping me in the dark was safer for all of us, maybe letting them think they’d kept their secret was the best thing to do. At least for now.

That didn’t stop the hurt, though. And it didn’t stop me from wanting to know the truth.

At lights-out, I turned out the overhead lights, but snapped on a flashlight I’d borrowed from Scout, and broke out my sketch pad and a soft-lead pencil. I turned off the left side of my brain and scribbled, shapes forming as if the pencil were driven by my unconscious. Half an hour later, I blinked, and found a pretty good sketch of Jason staring back at me.

Boy on the brain.

“And just when I needed more drama,” I muttered, then flipped off the light.

18

Tuesday went by in a haze. My parents had left a voice mail while I’d slept, a hurried message about how busy they were in Munich, and how much they loved me. And again, I wasn’t sure if those words made me feel better . . . or worse.

Mostly, I felt numb. I’d pulled a navy blue hoodie, the zipper zipped, over my oxford shirt and plaid skirt, my hands tucked into pockets as I moved from class to class, the same two questions echoing through my head, over and over and over again.

First, what was I?

Let’s review the facts: An entourage of kids with magical powers was running around Chicago, battling other kids with magical powers. A battle of good versus evil, but played out by teenagers who’d only just become old enough to drive. One night I was hit by a burst of magic from one of those kids. Skip forward a couple of days, and I had a “darkening” on my back and the ability to turn on lights when I got upset. So I had that going for me.

Second, what were my parents really doing in Germany? They’d told me they’d been granted permission to review some famous German philosopher’s papers, journals, and notes—stuff that had never before been revealed to the public. It was a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity, they’d told me, a chance to be the first scholars to see and touch a genius’s work. He’d been a Michelangelo of the world of philosophy, and they’d been invited to study David firsthand.

But based on what I knew now, that story had been at least partly concocted to satisfy me, because they’d been directed to tell me that they were on a sabbatical. But if that’s what they were “supposed” to tell me, what were they actually doing? I’d seen the plane tickets, the passports, the visas, the hotel confirmation. I knew they were in Germany. But why?

Those questions notwithstanding, the day was pretty dull. Classes proceeded as usual, although Scout and I were both a little quieter at lunch. It was a junk food day in the cafeteria—corn chip and chili pies (vegetarian chili for weirdos like me)—so Scout and I picked over our chili and chips with forks, neither saying too much. She’d brought a stack of notes she’d copied out of the Grimoire the day before, and was staring at them as she ate. That tended to limit the conversation.

As she read, I looked around the room, watching the girls eating, gossiping, and moving around from group to group. All that plaid. All those headbands. All those incredibly expensive accessories.