Magic University Book One: The Siren and the Sword (5 page)

Kyle thought for a second. “Isn’t there a fourth house?”

“Nummus. But it’s a hike and I’m hungry. The menu’s the same, only the company’s different.”

“Why would you want to eat with the snobs?”

Alex let another sly smile onto his face. “Because I’m a troublemaker.”

“Oh. Then, how about the bookworms?”

Alex laughed. “You’ll meet the snobs soon enough. If it really was you who rang the bell fourteen times, they’re going to be crazy to meet you.”

“Whatever,” Kyle said. His stomach growled loudly. “Food is food.”

They went past a large building built of gray stone with the shield and the word
Veritas
over the archway, then came to a very large, wooden-clapboarded house, sandwiched between the previous building and the next one, which looked rather more modern.

Alex led them up the steps to a brass doorknocker shaped like a lion. He rapped it twice and opened the door. Kyle glanced back at it as they entered, wondering what was special about the doorknocker, if anything.

But Alex did not explain. Just led him through a large sitting room lined with bookshelves except for right around the fireplace in one wall, and into an even larger dining room. Kyle guessed it would seat sixty or seventy students at once, though right now there were only maybe twenty seated and three or four milling around what looked like a large salad bar at one end. As they came deeper into the room, which was sunny from the tall windows all along one wall, Kyle could see there was a man in a white chef’s hat and jacket at a serving area in a niche to one side. Presumably there was a whole
kitchen behind him. Beyond the salad bar was a station just like the ones at fast-food places for filling your own drinks.

Alex picked up a tray from a cart and Kyle said, “So magic users drink soda?”

“And whatever else we can get our hands on. We’re supplied by the same food service as the rest of the college.” Alex led him to the large crocks of soup, hot entrees, and fresh-baked bread. Kyle read the labels on the crocks.
New England Clam Chowder
and
Vegetarian Tortilla Soup
. He ladled himself out some chowder, then followed Alex into the kitchen-y area.

The chef was behind a high divider so they could only see him from the shoulders up, but Alex seemed to have engaged the man in an animated conversation. “Yeah, so that’s why I don’t eat poultry,” he was saying to the chef.

“Well, eat the pasta, then,” the man answered, gesturing with a pair of tongs toward the serving counter. “There’s a ham, peas, and asparagus topping for it, or red sauce. Or just butter, if your delicate constitution can’t handle anything more.”

“Ohh, you are cold. Is there grated cheese? Ah, I see it. I’m all set then.” Alex gave the man a quick salute, then proceeded to serve himself ziti with red sauce and smother the entire plate in grated cheese. He popped the plate into a microwave oven.

Kyle finally saw the sign that listed the three lunch entrees and ended up getting a chicken cutlet from the chef, along with a little pasta and the ham and peas. Alex pulled the plate out carefully with two napkins as improvised potholders, and the two of them went to sit down in the main room next to a boy Alex introduced as Michael Candlin.

Michael had large round eyes and large round glasses to match. The food on his tray seemed to be entirely cold cuts and little cubes of cheese, and he was eating them one after the other with a fork. “Pleased to meet you. Wadsworth, was it? Any relation?”

“Um, yeah, sort of distant, but here I am.” Kyle sat down and spooned up some soup. “My first day here, actually.”

“Oh? A late arrival?”

Alex answered. “You could say that.” He glanced at Kyle as if for permission to say more. Kyle just shrugged. “Kyle here didn’t know until yesterday he was magical.”

Michael’s eyes got rounder and he seemed to hunch down in his seat. “That hasn’t happened in a while.”

“Not since I’ve been here, anyway,” Alex replied. “Jess said the bell was ringing for him.”

“Indeed? So, then, Kyle, what’s your talent?”

Kyle had just slurped up some soup and found it nearly too hot to eat. He nearly dropped the spoon. “Oh, um, I don’t know yet.”

“Curious. Usually people show some weirdness by your age.”

“Weirdness?”

“You know, speaking in tongues, or extraordinary luck or intuition, or understanding what animals say, or calling down lightning, or being struck by it but not killed...”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Kyle shrugged. “As far as I can tell the only magical thing I’ve ever done was walk into the admission office in Peyntree Hall, sign the book, and apparently make the bell ring.”

“Interesting,” Michael said, and watched Kyle eat for a bit, as if Kyle were a fascinatingly interesting animal.

“We figure ol’ Finch will probably have some test for him or something. Or maybe we just have to wait and see how he does.” Alex was eating his pasta with such enthusiasm that Kyle was glad none of them was wearing a white shirt.

Kyle returned his attention to his food for a few minutes, then looked up when someone else approached the table. Two girls sat across from them and started chattering to Alex immediately. Before he could get the girls’ names, another student came up to them, a pale-skinned boy with black hair. Kyle just stared as the newcomer slid his hands over Michael’s shoulders and Michael tilted his face upward for a quick kiss of greeting.

They made almost a matched pair, though Michael’s cheeks were a little rosier and his hair like straight silk, while the other’s curled in small black tendrils. “Who’s your new friend?”

Michael kept looking up at his friend.
Boyfriend
, Kyle corrected in his mind. “His name is Kyle Wadsworth. Seems to be a bit of a late bloomer.”

The newcomer extended a hand to Kyle, who shook it. “Frost. Timothy Frost.” Had his hand felt cooler than Kyle expected? Or was it— “Frost, like...”

“Robert Frost, yes. Hmm, Wadsworth, eh?”

Michael shook his head and spoke as if he’d just read Frost’s mind. “He hasn’t been assigned a house yet. Or shown any aptitudes.”

“That is curious,” Frost said, moving away from Michael and taking the empty seat on the other side of Kyle. “No party tricks? No visions?”

Kyle opened his mouth to say “No, I...” then stared in disbelief as Frost snapped his fingers and a few fronds of some kind of plant appeared in the palm of his hand. He opened Kyle’s limp hand and dropped them into his palm.

“You seem less than impressed?” Frost’s eyes were ice blue.

“I, um, I’ve never seen anything like that before...?” Kyle stammered.

“Not a botanist either, I would guess,” Frost said with a sniff. He snapped his fingers again and Kyle jumped as the long fuzzy flowers in his hand suddenly developed ice crystals.

“How did you do that?” Kyle said, too amazed to worry about the sneer Frost was giving him.

“He invoked his Name,” Alex said, glaring daggers at Frost. “Yeah, I’d call that one a party trick, Frost.”

Frost shrugged. “I’ll always be able to prove who I am though, won’t I? Put your eyes back in your head, Wadsworth. If they fall on the floor, they’ll get dusty.”

“How many times did the bell ring for you, Frost? Once?” Alex said, a toothy smile on his face.

Frost’s pale cheeks reddened, but he didn’t say anything in return. He just stood smoothly and returned to standing behind Michael’s chair, running his hand over Michael’s smooth dark hair possessively.

Michael looked up at him again. “Fourteen,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“According to Kimble, anyway.”

Frost’s eyes narrowed. “The cards will decide,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll see you later, darling.” They exchanged another very quick kiss, then Frost left.

The two girls were glaring daggers at his back as he went and Kyle felt a bit better. “Honestly, Michael, I don’t know what you see in him,” one of them said.

Michael shrugged. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Apparently not. But really, fourteen? Kyle, that’s amazing.” She had wavy red hair with blond highlights and reached across the table to shake his hand. “My name’s Marigold, but I can’t make marigolds come out of my ass,” she said with a last glance toward the exit.

“I’m Kate,” said the other. She had her straight brown hair pulled back in a pony tail. “Fourteen, hmm?”

“So they tell me,” Kyle said. “I wasn’t counting at the time.”

“Isn’t there something about fourteen?...Hmm.” Kate got up quickly. “I think there is...”

Alex watched her hurry into the room with all the books, then disappear from sight. “Well, you just shot her afternoon, Kyle.”

“What?”

“She’s going to spend hours now trying to look up the reference she’s trying to remember. Happens a lot here at Scipionis House.”

“Ah.” The bookworms, right. Kyle was still staring at the flowers in his hand, though the frost had melted to beads of water now. He set them down on his tray. “So that was...that was real magic? Or was it a sleight of hand?”

Alex shrugged. “Who knows for sure? A great magician never reveals his secrets.”

Michael made a noise. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you call him great.”

“That was sarcasm, Mike,” Alex said, rolling his eyes. “You really ought to dump him.”

Michael pursed his lips. “I like him just fine. He’s perfectly nice to me. Maybe if you didn’t bait him all the time, he’d be nicer to you, too.”

“Not too likely,” said Marigold with a snort. “Oh, here comes Kate again, with Master Lester!”

Kyle turned to see the girl returning with someone rather professorial in tow. He was even wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches, had a tuft of gray hair atop his head, and a pipe, though it was unlit. She was relating to him, from what Kyle could hear, the story of how Kyle had ended up at Veritas.

“Hmm, well, yes, you’re right, there is a line about fourteen heralds in the prophecy, but well, hmm.” The man walked up to Kyle, who got to his feet. “The prophecy,” the professor said, “goes like this:

“One will come from land and one will come from sea

And fourteen shall herald when first they lay eyes…

“You may have noticed though, Kate, that it doesn’t say fourteen of what. Now the translation from the original Avestan to Magian dialect may be faulty, but it’s largely assumed that the ‘fourteen heralds’ referred to here are fourteen angelic beings. Fourteen tolls of the bell, though, yes, it could be.” The man coughed. “And you say your name is Kyle? How interesting then, that relates to another couplet in a few lines later:

“The jasmine will meet the fairest flower of the field

And the narrows will be plied by the spirits beholden…

“Kyle, after all, being Scottish for ‘narrows’ or ‘strait,’ you see.”

Kate beamed. “And what do you make of the fact that Frost just gave him a handful of flowers of the field, Master Lester?”

The man burst into hearty laughter. “Oh! As for that, my dear girl, well, I suppose you may count it if you want, but most interpretations of the ‘flowers of the field’ give it a much grislier meaning, usually referring to the stain of blood on the ground under each fallen soldier. But well, I suppose, a literal interpretation, how novel! Yes, must think about that. Thank you, my dear.”

And with that, Master Lester turned and left the room.

“Kate’s doing a semester project on prophecy interpretation,” Marigold stage-whispered to Kyle. “It’s kind of like literary criticism, only...”

“Only even more bullshitting,” Alex finished.

Kate sat back down and stuck her tongue out at him. “At least I’m going to
do
my junior project.”

Alex waved a hand. “Yeah, well, what’s the rush? When I find the right topic, I’ll go for it. I’m wasting everyone’s time until I figure out what I want to do.”

“Yeah, right.” Kate got up with her cup in her hand and went to get a drink.

Marigold turned to Kyle and said earnestly, “You can basically take almost any of the old prophecies and, you know, between re-translation and metaphors and ambiguities, you can make it seem like they predict almost anything. Wars, assassinations, the weather...” She shrugged, but her eyes were quite serious. “That one Lester was quoting from, a series called the Avestan Prophecies, is about a kind of magical apocalypse, where we’d all disappear from the face of the Earth.”

“Like the Rapture,” Alex added.

“Rapture?” Kyle asked.

“You know, some Christians believe God is going to come down and judge everyone, then take those who are worthy off to Heaven? Right?” Alex said, looking around at the others for confirmation. “There was a church around here for a while putting up posters all over saying what the date and time was going to be, too. Then that day arrived and...”

“And?”

“Well, I don’t think anything happened. You don’t see those posters anymore, though.”

Michael pushed his glasses up his nose. “Maybe that’s because their God came and took them all away on that day.”

Alex laughed. “I suppose I can’t fault your logic there.”