Chosen (9781742844657) (36 page)

‘Maybe,' Sterling said with a shrug. ‘I don't care. I love him.'

‘Love's a big word to use with someone you hardly know,' I cautioned. Sterling shrugged again and gazed sidelong at Renatus.

‘Maybe,' she said again.

A cold breeze cut across the estate, and I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. My fingers brushed against crumpled paper, and I pulled the offending page free and slowed to read it. Sterling leaned against my shoulder curiously.

Dylan Wright

Isao Tanaka

Khalida Jasti

Constantine Vogel

Joshua Reyes

Aristea Byrne

Xanthe Giannopoulos

Iseult Taylor

I hadn't meant to take this from Renatus's office, and I'd forgotten until now that after leaving with it the other day I'd shoved it into the pocket of that day's jeans (which I'd not bothered to put in the wash, and which I was wearing once again), intending to return the list shortly. I didn't need to glance back at Renatus to guess that now was probably not an appropriate time.

‘What's that?' Sterling asked. I smoothed the crumpled edges with my fingers.

‘My scrying class.' Why Renatus would want to keep a list of the students in my scrying class was beyond me, but it wasn't nearly as mystifying as his overreaction to my finding of the list, his ability to read my thoughts, or the visions and feelings I'd channelled from him. Or the way he'd just accepted it without discussion when I'd broken that sphere, interfering with what definitely would have been evidence in a White Elm investigation.

Sterling laughed and pushed away from me.

‘You carry around a list of people from your class,' she said, ‘and you think
I'm
weird.'

The reach of Lisandro was mightier than the council had ever realised.

On Monday morning, Aubrey stood with Jadon at the door of dormitory one while two of Jadon's students packed their bags for home.

‘Got everything?' Jadon asked, apparently at a loss as to what to say. The boys, both sixteen years old, nodded silently. The ever-shrinking world of social networking had made it possible for people to communicate with strangers with more ease and convenience than ever before, and Egan Lake's mother had taken full advantage.

Six families had contacted the White Elm over the weekend to cancel their children's enrolment. Two of these had simply turned up to take their kids home with them, unhappy and sold on Lisandro's story; two more had telepathically contacted their children to tell the White Elm the same story; one had written asking for a councillor to bring her boy home as soon as was convenient. One mother had arrived at the gates in a state of hysterics, insisting she hadn't believed the story but was afraid that the war was looking to be escalating shortly and didn't want her child in the midst after all.

‘Let's go, then,' Aubrey said. The boys shared muttered goodbyes with their roommates and left their dorm for the last time. When Jadon extended a hand, both gave in their keys.

‘See you, Jadon,' one boy, Michael, said, shaking his supervisor's hand briefly. The other hesitated before doing the same.

‘Yeah. See you. Thanks for everything.'

They went down the stairs, one to meet his uncle and the other to meet Elijah to be displaced home. They were gone. Jadon folded his arms and stared down the now-empty stairwell.

‘That sucks so much,' he commented.

‘Agreed.' Aubrey clapped his friend's shoulder. They'd only had the students for a month or so and it seemed unfair to lose them so early over something so ridiculously small. Hearsay? An overreacting mother's fanciful tale? It was hard not to be impressed with Lisandro's storytelling if he could incite such passion and trust with only words.

And just a little hint of magic…

‘I'm down to two students, just like that.'

‘You can have one of mine if that makes you feel better,' Aubrey offered, steering Jadon up the stairs with him on his way to his classroom. ‘I still have four.'

‘At this rate we could all be down to none by next weekend,' Jadon said negatively. Aubrey didn't bother to counter that. There was no reason to think every student would go, but also few reasons to expect that any would be able to stay. He also knew that in his current mood, words would do little to bolster Jadon's spirits.

Aubrey had only known Jadon, and everyone else on the White Elm, for about half a year. Initiated at the same time and similar in age, Aubrey had immediately connected with the sociable and impulsive American, as well as the sweet and sensitive Romanian Teresa. He'd not expected those initial friendly exchanges to transform into friendships as deep as family bonds, nor had he intended them to. This was meant to be just a job – a means to an end; a way to secure his future with his beautiful girlfriend Shell – but it had become a life. Distanced from the rest of the council by mistrust and uncertainty of competence, the three new initiates had banded together, intent on proving themselves and demonstrating their worth to the senior councillors. Aubrey had never known two other people so supportive and emotionally invested in his successes as Jadon and Teresa were – even his three blood brothers showed less care than these two new friends.

If only the rest of the White Elm would take Aubrey as seriously as Jadon and Teresa did.

Aubrey sifted through the mountains of crap on his desk, looking for his lesson plan for this morning's class. The students were still at breakfast but would soon be here, expecting to be taught something.

‘
Merde
,' Aubrey muttered, pausing to look at a stack of papers bound with elastic bands. ‘These will need to be all adjusted now.'

‘What is it?' Jadon asked, taking them to look. ‘Enrolment forms?'

‘Just copies for the records, but some of those students have left now so I'll need to add that before I can enter them as current.'

The White Elm was hundreds of years old, with tens of thousands of various paper records, from minor stuff like minutes of meetings, public statements, publications and surveys to major things like private journals of long-dead councillors, confiscated dark spells, documentation of investigations and records of criminal trials and verdicts. It was necessary, of course, that this all be kept safe, and so a secure archive had been established. As Historian, Anouk was the only White Elm with access to this treasure trove of information. Aubrey didn't even know where it was, but as the White Elm's Scribe, most records added to it this year were written in his hand.

A bell rang to signal students to head to class.

‘Man, do me a favour,' Aubrey said, still searching for that lesson plan. ‘Take those to my place? I'll work on them tonight and have them back tomorrow for Anouk.'

‘Yeah, no worries,' Jadon agreed. He tucked the stack of forms under his arm and held out a hand while Aubrey dug through his pockets for his house key. ‘Will Shell be home?'

‘Doubt it.' Aubrey handed over the key. ‘She had an appointment this morning so she's probably taken that as an excuse to have breakfast with a girlfriend or go shopping. You know, since she's out of the house already. Or because it's overcast, or because a new café opened, or any other excuse she can think of.'

‘How is she?' Jadon asked quietly as the first few students entered the classroom. Aubrey went back to looking for that stupid lesson plan. He'd left it here somewhere, hadn't he?

‘She's good,' Aubrey answered, but he knew that Jadon was asking about more than just in general. Unlike the rest of the White Elm, Jadon and Teresa knew that Shell was due to have Aubrey's baby in about three months. It had been unexpected and ill-timed, considering that Aubrey was twenty-two and his partner only nineteen and neither had been planning to start a family for many more years, but her family, and especially her foster-father, had been so delighted and supportive that Aubrey had quickly gotten past his fear and embraced this for the blessing it was. He hadn't intended on telling anybody White Elm – after all, the council had done so little to prove its trust in him, so why should he share his joy with any of them? – but Jadon, a Telepath, had stolen the news straight out of Aubrey's head the very day he'd learned it.

How had he managed to lose a page of dot points he'd written only two days before? Jadon gave him a resigned look and pulled a sheet of paper out from under a folder. Aubrey grabbed it from him, knowing he'd overheard his thoughts. The trade trick of Telepaths. No matter how well-guarded your thoughts are, thinking in questions immediately voids any wards you thought you had protecting your inner monologue. By their very nature, questions are intended to be answered, which was perhaps why they were always broadcasted for the listening pleasure of nearby Telepaths, and which was why Jadon knew exactly what Aubrey was looking for without needing to ask or be told.

‘She's got some appointment in Glasgow this morning,' Aubrey added, reading over his dot points quickly. ‘A scan thing. We couldn't see last time what it was; she wants to know whether to buy pink or blue.'

Jadon grinned and pulled a Euro coin from his pocket.

‘It had better be a boy or I owe this to Teresa,' he told Aubrey as he left.

The students arranged themselves in their seats and a few wrote the day's date in the margin of a fresh page. Some of the Academy's younger girls entered and took seats near the back. Aubrey recognised one as Aristea Byrne and resumed going over his notes to avoid looking at her.

Aristea Byrne. Seventeen years old and local. Renatus's pet. She was pretty enough, though did nothing to accentuate it. She dressed as though she were somebody else; she was not yet comfortable with who she really was. Of thirty-whatever students in the Academy, she was the only scrier. He knew that Qasim had been watching her progress very closely. Word was that she and Qasim didn't actually get along – she'd apparently crossed him somehow and landed herself almost a month of detentions with Renatus, which seemed to suit Renatus just fine. Renatus, most unusually, had also taken an interest in her, asking other councillors about her abilities in their specific fields. Aubrey had told him the truth as he knew it: Aristea was a powerful sorceress, certainly, but with no particular gift for spell-crafting or spell-writing. Her talents obviously lay in other areas.

Like disobedience.

On Saturday, after a confrontation with Egan Lake's neurotic mother, Aristea had destroyed a precious memory sphere that might have contained Lisandro's every motive, idea and plan. The information was irretrievable. Yet Renatus was perfectly unfazed; indeed, he'd seemed almost proud when he'd reported this to the council. Aubrey had wondered several times what it was about her that so intrigued and impressed the Dark Keeper.

Maybe he just liked to look at her, or maybe he just liked the idea of someone with the potential to be even more trouble than he was.

The students were all gathered, so Aubrey began his lesson. They were a good bunch. They just sat silently, writing anything he told them to write, putting their hands up to respond whenever he asked a question and always, always watching attentively.

Again, teaching magic to teenagers wasn't something he'd intended to do with his life, even when he'd applied for the White Elm, but it was something Aubrey had come to really enjoy. The students were interested and interesting, and Aubrey was surprised each day by how much
he
learned by working with them.

He set them copying a spell from the blackboard and wandered between the desks. One student, Jacinta, put her hand up to ask for help. Aubrey stood beside her and leaned over to check her careful handwriting.

‘It doesn't look right,' she said quietly, frowning at her words with searching blue eyes. Aubrey could see what she meant. She'd been careful to copy his spell letter by letter, even going so far as to replicate his slanted font, but it still appeared incorrect. He ran his fingertip along each line as he read it under his breath, looking for the error. He soon felt the problem, and his eyes – always slower than the magical senses – confirmed it.

‘For this to work, you'd need to close your o properly,' he explained softly, pointing to a few examples of the second-last vowel that were not closed circles. He took her pen and rewrote the beginning words a few lines lower, deliberately etching each letter as they were intended to appear. ‘Try it slower.'

‘Thanks.' Jacinta smiled up at him, taking back her pen. They were good kids, if kids was still the right term for sixteen to nineteen-year-olds. They were only a few years younger than Aubrey was – the eldest was born the year after Jadon. Despite that fact, they were very definitely kids in Aubrey's mind. The girls were pretty and the boys were funny and friendly, but Aubrey was careful to keep a cool, detached distance from them all. Professionals did not make friends with their students.