Chosen (9781742844657) (29 page)

I shouldn't have worried about how difficult it would be to lie to people about the day's events, because all I'd had to do was tell the lie to Sterling, and she did the rest for me. Over lunch, she enviously retold the story to Kendra and Sophia, and then to Hiroko when she turned up.

‘I see,' Hiroko said, once Sterling had finished. Her dark eyes shifted to me, questioningly. I met her gaze, wishing I could use telepathy already. I'd shared the truth with her that morning about my dream – I fully intended to fill her in on the rest, but
only
her. I hadn't known Hiroko long, but I trusted her implicitly, and I felt that leaving her to believe the story she'd just been told would be ten times worse than lying to Sterling or Xanthe.

Luckily, Hiroko didn't bring up the dream all day, even when Sterling continued talking about my detentions to anyone who'd listen right through the afternoon and into the evening. I didn't bother but Hiroko tried valiantly to change the topic, especially when Sterling noticed Renatus enter the dining hall.

‘He, like,
never
comes to dinner,' Sterling reminded us. Her bright eyes followed him from the tall doors over to the table where the White Elm sat eating. As usual, she wasn't the only one – most of the female student population did the same thing. I glanced over the White Elm.

For the first time, I noticed that most of them didn't share the girls' interest. A few councillors glanced at him quickly and then turned back to their conversations; most of them paid very close attention to their meals. It wasn't like they just didn't notice him. I got the distinct impression that the headmaster was being ignored. I had once imagined them all to be close friends, but what I had seen of Qasim and Renatus together told me that there was at least some animosity within the council. Were there others who disliked Renatus, too? Why?

Emmanuelle, however, nodded respectfully to Renatus and glanced once to the empty seat beside her, offering him the spot. He pulled the chair out and sat down, the only councillor without a meal in front of him.

‘That must be how he keeps his figure,' Sterling commented, shoving her plate away and dusting off her hands. ‘He never eats. He just sits in his office all day. It's about getting a balance between energy input and output.' She frowned slightly and tilted her head to the side. ‘But Emmanuelle just eats and eats, and she stays looking amazing, too…' She eyed her plate suspiciously but didn't pull it over again. She suddenly turned to me with bright eyes. ‘It's your first detention tonight!'

‘Elijah's lesson today was very good,' Hiroko interrupted – rescuing me – and she kept talking, recounting her whole lesson. The whole group latched onto the conversation desperately.

‘I wish I could displace like you can,' Kendra said jealously. ‘Teleportation is so, so cool. Are you the best at the school?'

‘Probably not,' Xanthe mentioned, not in a nasty tone but I felt a flash of annoyance at her for needing to even say that, and then a second bout of annoyance at Xanthe for ruining my good mood.

‘In my Displacement class, I am the only student which can displace unassisted for more than ten metres,' Hiroko told the group. ‘Elijah was very pleased.'

‘That's great,' I said. ‘How far
can
you displace?'

‘Probably one hundred metres, because I have never been anywhere with enough to space to practise further distances,' she said. ‘I may be able to displace further, but in such a case, the destination must be visible to me, and in Sapporo, there is nowhere with such wide open spaces as here. Soon, Elijah plans to take us out of the school grounds to some hills, and then we can practise long-distance.'

‘Our mom has had a go at teaching us to displace,' Sophia said. ‘We've both managed some pretty dodgy results.'

‘But results, nonetheless,' Kendra asserted. ‘It's because we're awesome.'

‘I believe that.'

We all looked up at the newcomer who had spoken. The tall, dark-haired stranger was the twins' admirer, and he was standing beside them, his plate in his hand. He was so tall that he cast a shadow over Sophia.

‘Hey,' Kendra said, and both she and her sister's faces were lit by identical smiles.

‘Do you mind if I sit here?' he asked, indicating the seat beside Sophia with his cutlery. Sophia pretended to dust it off.

‘All yours,' she said, as Kendra began introducing us.

‘I don't know who knows who,' she said with an air of easy confidence, ‘but this is Addison. Addison, that's Sterling and Hiroko from our scrying class, and these two are Xanthe and Aristea.'

‘Hi,' he said, grinning around at us all as he took the seat beside Sophia. We echoed his greeting in a girlish unison that embarrassed me – were we twelve?

‘So,' Kendra said, before the conversation could lapse uncomfortably. She leaned past her sister to address Addison. ‘What brings you all the way from your group of mates to brave our lame, girly conversations?' She nodded once to the other side of the room, and we all glanced over – at the other end of the table, a small group of lads were pretending not to watch our reaction to Addison's presence. They all turned away when they realised that they'd been caught.

Perhaps, after all, we
were
all only twelve.

Addison grinned.

‘Don't mind them,' he advised. ‘They just wish that they had the balls to talk to cute girls, too.'

Kendra grinned back, and went back to her meal, unable to stop smiling.

The flirting went on all night, and although Addison was generous with himself – making every effort to engage every member of the group in honest, friendly conversation – it was obvious that his pick was Kendra.

‘What's wrong with him?' Sterling asked me quietly just as I finished my beans, shaking my arm and pointing discreetly at the staff table. I shrugged as I turned to look, pretty sure I knew who she was talking about. Renatus was standing, but he looked strange. His head hung and his hands were braced on the table as though for balance. I saw Emmanuelle touch his arm worriedly but he did not react.

‘No idea,' I murmured back, slightly disquieted by my own worry. What did I care that the headmaster was experiencing a migraine? It was none of my business and I didn't know him well enough to let his problems concern me. 

It was only a few moments later that Qasim strode into the hall, too. My stomach turned anxiously and I tried to look away, not wanting any further contact with my scrying teacher today. It was hard not to watch, though, as he beckoned once to the unresponsive headmaster, face grim, before turning on his heel and leaving again. Renatus couldn't have seen; however, he blinked and murmured something to Emmanuelle, then hurried after the Scrier. The other White Elm stared after the two men in something like shock – perhaps because despite their earlier disagreement they were now presumably off to do something important together – and I started to feel queasy.

‘Wonder what that was about?' Sterling said. She seemed only mildly worried. My stomach was still turning like it had when I'd seen Qasim, but he was gone now.

‘Does your lasagne taste strange to you?' I asked, scraping some of the béchamel cheese sauce from the top. It had seemed fine, but could it be causing the ill-feeling in my tummy?

‘No, it's good.' Sterling frowned at me. ‘Are you alright?'

What else had I eaten? A ham and cheese toasted sandwich for lunch, those beans and a few potato wedges before starting on this lasagne…

‘You look a little pale,' Kendra agreed. She reached flirtatiously across Addison and nudged her sister. ‘Don't you reckon?'

‘Hmm,' Sophia said non-committally. She looked critically at the air around me. ‘It's not you.'

I was going to ask what she meant when suddenly it clicked.

It wasn't me, and it wasn't
my
anxious ill-feeling. How many times had this happened before? When someone else nearby was feeling something really strongly, I often found myself unconsciously tapping in and feeling it, too, despite not understanding the cause or the context.

I jumped as I felt a hand on my arm and suddenly I was overcome with mental pictures and strange feelings.

A classy hotel bar with low, flattering lights…A man and a woman sitting in stools sipping drinks…'If you'd told me your name at the outset I probably would have called them on you'…The man laughs…Long black hair hangs over his shoulders…Warmth, honesty, genuineness…His bronze-brown eyes are bright and friendly…'I would have understood'…Smiles, another round of drinks, and the light atmosphere moves to a more serious one…'Is my boy safe?'…Trust, warmth…'I'm not saying they'll hurt your son – not at all. I won't lie about them like they lie about me. They'll treat him right. I'm just saying that their idea of “right” can be different from yours or mine'…Worry…'How different?'…

‘Aristea?'

I heard my name, sounding to be in a separate place from what I was seeing and experiencing and was aware that Renatus had a hand on my arm and that less than a second had passed. The images, I knew innately, were from him – he was a channel, and I was tuned in to it, whether he realised or not.

‘You know why I left? The story nobody tells? I wanted the power to save one life – just one little life, make it worth living…and they wouldn't grant me that.'

I yanked my arm away from his touch, and the stream of images, sounds and feelings immediately stopped. I was in the dining hall, with a plate of lasagne sitting in front of me and my friends sitting around me, and nobody else had noticed what I had.

‘I hope you don't mind but your detentions start
tomorrow
night,' Renatus said, already backing away. I nodded, pretty sure it wouldn't matter if I
did
mind, and he turned and all but ran through the doors.

I was left feeling completely content and warm, just as that classy hotel place had felt.

‘
Oh my god he touched you
.' Sterling grabbed my arm as though she could absorb his essence by touching where he'd touched. I didn't tell her he'd also held my hand, just hours ago, because then she might want to amputate the whole arm and keep it forever.

What the hell was that about? It had been both less and more realistic than actually being present at that scene. Able to see and hear everything in the bar while also feeling distinctly distant, like watching a TV programme, made me think I'd scried it all, although feeling what the people felt had been completely surreal. Was that normal in scrying? Who cared? The warm, trusting, friendly atmosphere of the scene had totally relaxed the anxiety and worry I'd been feeling moments earlier. Except last night when I'd accidentally Haunted Renatus's office, I'd never scried anything that clearly before. And I'd never scried anything
through
someone, either.

In my happy and quiet state, I decided it didn't really matter. I was feeling so pleasant that I couldn't even bring myself to feel particularly sad for Sophia, whereas normally I would felt extremely sorry for someone whose sister and Addison actively and unashamedly flirted
over
her for the duration of the whole meal.

I finished off my lasagne, glad for the general simplicity of the existence I led.

Qasim was having trouble quietening his mind.

All day he'd felt off, ending lessons early and overhearing the quiet conversation of students as they left, so certain were they that they were out of his earshot.

‘He seemed fine to me. Did you hear that he went off at that girl Aristea this morning?'

‘I heard she was being a smart-arse.'

Teenagers spread rumours like kindergarteners spread germs, and just like disease, rumour had a tendency to evolve and change as it moved from person to person. Aristea had indeed been too arrogant for his liking, but that wasn't the core of his anger. She was a
scrier
, a powerful one – so powerful and gifted that she could
Haunt
, yet she consistently failed the simple exercises he set her in class. A lot of the time, she seemed to not really understand
how
to do what he asked of her.  Given guidance and support, she could be amazing…but Haunting was such a dangerous, serious issue. How many sorcerers had killed others or themselves by projecting themselves from their bodies? She would be charged, of course, for such a gross breach of law and ethics. She would be expelled. She would be out of reach, gone forever.

He'd been too proud, he knew. Renatus had done exactly what he'd really hoped he would – he'd been only too willing to sweep the problem away, make it unseen – but Qasim had been too angry about being overstepped by his least favourite colleague that he hadn't even realised. Aristea was still a student at the Academy. She was not going to be charged. She was not going anywhere. She was still within reach.