Halfway (Wizards and Faeries) (11 page)

    
He shook his head. “The gate may be watched.” He swallowed. “When I was a boy, I used to sneak out and go into the city. There’s a tree that overhangs the wall somewhere over here.”

    
A tree. Excellent. Climbing on the roof of my house by the cliff was easy for me; this should be easy as well.

    
Ormas pointed to the tree, a tall one with branches that did indeed overhang the wall. I climbed it with ease, and Ormas followed me.

    
I climbed out onto the overhanging branch, over the wall and dropped to the ground below. Ormas joined me on the ground. Around us were the thickly-packed buildings of the city.

    
Within the span of a moment, Ormas grabbed my hand and pulled me towards an alley beside the nearest building.
 

    
I jerked my hand from his grasp. “Ormas!” I demanded. “Tell me! Why does Von Chi want me? What would he do with me?
 
I’m not a wizard!”

    
“He wanted to study you because you are part faerie, and those are very, very rare.”

    
“What? How does he know what I am?”

    
“It’s obvious to any trained eye that you are part faerie. Halfway, actually, to use the technical term. The offspring of a faerie and a human. Very rare. He wanted to study you the second he laid eyes on you—that’s why he took you in.” He cocked his head. “My father’s not a kind man. He doesn’t take in strays unless he benefits from it.”

    
I was stunned. Betrayed. Was no one in this city even
capable
of kindness?

    
“Then I met you,” he continued. “I don’t want him to hurt you.”

    
“What would he do?” my voice was a whisper.

    
“He would study you in your sleep with his instruments at first. You’d never know, except he was sloppy about it so you found out. But once he had learned all he could that way… he has something. In the underground levels. He—he built a machine to look at people’s minds and read their Talents.”

    
I shuddered. “Why?”

    
“It is what he does. He’s obsessed with Magic. He wasn’t born a wizard, so the Order never took him away. He failed their tests when he was young, but he wanted Magic—he saw it as power. He studies people with unusual Magic or abilities. He wants to copy them into himself or steal them. He—he has an entire lab in the underground levels.”

    
I felt myself grow cold. “What… does he do there?”

    
“I don’t know for sure. He’s been doing it since I was a child. I stay away from his lab. Honestly, I don’t
want
to know what he’s doing.” He swallowed.
 
“My father had no intention of helping you find Temet—he was just telling you that so you would stay and be his experiment, his toy. But I do want to help you. I just couldn’t until now.”

    
“What do you mean?”

    
“Look around. The snow and ice. It is finally below freezing, so we have a much better chance of escaping.”

    
“What does snow have to do with it?” I shivered.

    
“Von Chi made his own army. You’d know if you saw them. He copied the Talent from someone: he can shape people from water.”

    
I bit my lip, looking around. The streets were empty, covered in snow, the residents of Vel City all inside their homes to take refuge from it.

    
“They’re not perfect,” Ormas continued. “They can’t speak and they have no facial features. They’re just gray, watery, blank things shaped like humans. But they do his bidding, and they can form anywhere there is as much as a puddle of liquid water.”

    
“And they can’t form from frozen water or snow?”

    
“Correct.”

    
I was shaking again. “Why are you telling me this? Aren’t you on his side?”

    
“I want to help you and save you, Cemagna.”

    
“Why? Why would you risk enraging your father by taking away his plaything?”

    
“Because I think I’m falling in love with you.”

    
My breath froze in my throat. “Oh.”

    
“Please,
please
let me help you. I want to take you to the Wizardly Order and help you find your brother. I want to see you smile.”

    
Finding myself able to breathe again, I nodded.
 

    
“Good.” He hefted his canvas bag. “I packed a few things when the snow started.” He handed me a coat from the bag. “Here. You’re shivering. Ready to go?”

    
We started walking, my heart in my mouth. What if the temperature rose and the snow melted? I walked faster, my boots plowing through the snow.

    
As we passed the square with the cathedral and the fountain, something clicked in my mind. The people who had attacked me from the fountain… I knew who they were. They had been the duke’s men.

#

    
Ormas and I walked in silence for a time as the night wore on. It had begun to snow again. After some time, he reached for my hand.
 

    
“I’m glad you didn’t take me back to the duke,” I said to him.

“I’m glad you’re letting me continue with you. You know how I feel about you… but do I have a shadow of a chance? Do you feel anything for me?”

I bit my lip, trying to hide my smile and failing. I stared at him through the falling snow. “I liked you from the moment I saw you lying unconscious and dripping wet in the palace.”

“You never told me!”

“My main purpose is to find Temet. Romantic attachments didn’t really figure into that. Besides, according to you, I was drugged most of the time.”

He reddened. “I’m sorry for my father’s actions.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“You know, Cemagna, your life doesn’t have to be about nothing but finding Temet. You are allowed to have fun along the way.”

“Well, I’ll start doing that now. Want to kiss me?” I felt my cheeks grow hot, asking that question. I had read about kisses in books, but had never had a proper one.
 

He pulled me close and kissed me so hard I forgot the rest of the world existed for a moment.
 
Then he pulled away and I looked at him through snowflake-covered lashes.

“I liked that,” I breathed. “Do it again.”

#

    
After several minutes of kissing in the snow, Ormas pulled away.

“We’ve lingered here too long,” he said. “We have to keep moving. My father may discover we’re gone and come after us himself soon.”

I nodded. “Where are we going? Are we going to the Order?”

“Yes.”

After a time, we reached the end of the tightly-packed city and came to the edge of the forest. The trees reached out to us, almost-bare branches covered with snow. Taking a deep breath, I followed Ormas into the forest.

In the forest it was decidedly darker, but less snow had fallen.
 
The trees looked all the same to me.

“How far?” I asked, trudging through the snow.

“Quite a walk,” he said.
 

Chapter 15

Temet

As Temet slid the door shut behind him, he exhaled heavily.

     
As one of the students in the Wizardly Order’s Wizarding University, he was, of course, required to take tests. Lots of them.

But the Requisite Midway-Point Sanity Test would be brutal. He had never seen the Ten Ring, who would be giving the test, before. The very thought of going before them made his knees weak.

The Ten Ring were the power behind the entire Wizardly Order… indeed, behind every wizard alive. They made the rules; they ran the Order.

The Ten Ring. He knew so little about them, except that they were the ten most powerful wizards alive.

    
Two years ago, Temet had outgrown the Orphan House and joined the Wizarding University. He would finally become an official wizard. If the Ten Ring were going to force him to stay under their thumb like every other person with wizard-level Magic, at least he could learn how to use it. And learn he did… far too fast for some of his professors.

    
And now was the Midway-Point Sanity Test. After two years in the University, he was at the Midway Point. Everyone else took five years to reach Midway, then graduated after ten years in the University. But if he learned as fast as he was learning now, he would graduate in two more years for a total of four. He exhaled again. Four years while everyone else took ten. He really
was
abnormal.

    
He had hoped until today that he had been only imagining that he had been learning faster, but when the letter came informing him of the test today, his fears had been confirmed.

    
That was why he was hiding in a spare robe closet, trying to compose himself.

    
Did the other students whisper about him behind his back, calling him a freak? They were right. He was a Halfway freak. And now the Ten Ring had confirmed it with their letter about the Requisite Midway-Point Sanity Test.

    
“It’s only a test,” he whispered to himself. “Only a test. I’ve taken lots of tests. I shouldn’t be afraid of one that simply has a terrifying name.”

    
“Actually,” he whispered again, huddling deeper into the robes. “Actually, there’s
every
reason to be terrified. You’ve only been in the University two years. Two years out of the standard
ten
. And already they want you to take the Midway Test. There’s something wrong with that.”

    
“No, it simply means I learn quickly.”

    
“It means more than that,” said his devil’s-advocate self. “It means the Ten Ring want to keep an eye on you. You’re progressing too fast. That could mean insanity.”

    
“But I’m not insane. I should do excellently. I’ll pass with flying colors,” he whispered firmly, shutting off the doubting voice of his own thoughts.

    
He stood straight, inhaling the comforting scent of wizard robes and cedar. Then, with another deep breath, he opened the door and took a step back into the outside world.

    
The Order Halls were all the same: crimson-painted with black ribbing on the vaulted ceilings. His home for the past ten years, since the first days in the Orphan House. His blessing and his curse, as he liked to think of it. It was his blessing because he had been given constant opportunities to expand is mind and his Magic since his days in the Orphan House. It was his curse because, like everyone else, he had no choice. He was, for better or for worse, a slave to the Order and the Ten Ring. Everyone born with wizard-level Talents was the property of the Order. There was no outside family, no other friends except with other wizards. And the outside world viewed all who bore the moon-eye, as he did, with a suspicion bordering on fear.

    
Feeling much calmer, Temet made his way across the hall to the laboratory where he knew Aesath Rogenstar, now a professor and researcher at the Wizarding University, would be.

    
Sure enough, there he was, bent over a beaker of a luminous green liquid, the glow casting an eerie color on his bronze goggles.

    
“Aesath,” said Temet, coming up to his old friend, “I need to speak to you. In private.”

    
Aesath looked up at him through a cloud of steam from the potion. “It has to take less than ten minutes, or this invisibility potion may destabilize. Temet, this potion—I’ve got a good feeling about it. Not like the others that failed. I
found
the flaw in my formula, isolated it, and corrected it. And this one, Temet, has
none
of the side effects—”

    
“All right!” Temet interrupted, smiling. Aesath could go one for hours when talking about a potion he was working on. “It won’t take long, I hope. Come on. Into one of the studios.”

    
Peeling off his goggles, Aesath followed Temet into a nearby empty studio and shut the door behind them.

    
Temet got straight to the point. “Aesath, I got a message today. From the Ten Ring. They want me to take the Requisite Midway-Point Sanity Test. Today.”

    
Surprise registered on Aesath’s features. “But you’ve only been in the University for two years, not five.”

    
“Exactly.”

    
“But you have been progressing faster than the average student. Much faster.”

    
“I know! Do they think I’m a threat?”

    
“That… that hadn’t occurred to me.”

    
“But it could be, right? They don’t know me personally.” The Ten Ring were the most powerful wizards alive, and if it was possible for Temet to match them… “Nonsense. I’m Halfway, but that doesn’t mean I’m magically superior to anyone.”

    
“Actually, it does.”

    
“I don’t want to hear it!” cried Temet. “Sorry.” He bit his lip, ashamed at yelling at a friend. “I know I’m different, but what if I don’t want to be? I didn’t ask for this.”

    
“None of us did. Now, you should go to your test. Just… tell the truth. And if the truth sounds too crazy…” He furrowed his brow. “I remember my Sanity Test. They can tell if you lie. Best not to do that.”

    
The deep toll of a bell marking the hour reached Temet’s ears. “I think it is time,” he said, his mouth dry.

    
“Good luck. When you come back, you’ll be able to tell me how you worried for nothing.”

    
Temet nodded firmly, squaring his shoulders. Turning, he marched from the room. The highest tower—that was where the Ten Ring would be. That was where he had to go.