Lies and Prophecy (3 page)

A nod of his head, toward the back of the building. “Theories of power containment.” He paused, then said, “You're going to be fine, Kim.”

It stopped me dead. I blushed, staring blindly at the shelf to my right. “Am I that obvious?”

“Midway between Liesel and Robert, I'd say.”

Meaning one would notice, the other would not. I didn't need Julian to tell me I was an open book to my roommate; Liesel had made that clear in Dusseldorf. “I just … this is new to me.” Which was a lie, but I made sure my shields were good before I said it, and crouched to scan a bottom shelf, so he couldn't see my expression.

Julian either believed me or was willing to let it pass. “Most things are, when you start learning them. Though I guess divination was different for you.”

“That was new to me once, too.”

“Not like this,” he said. “You've got a natural talent for divination—a strong one. One of the strongest I've seen.”

Stronger than a wilder's? But they tended to be good at everything, not great at one thing. Still— “I'm not
that
good. Not in the same league as, say, Madison, or Bradley.”

“They're professors; they have more experience. But give it time.”

He was standing close to me, now, and I didn't quite trust myself to look up. The flattery was a nice boost for my ego, but it only made me dwell more on CM. I reached out to grab a book, to cover my embarrassment, and realized just in time that I'd been staring at a row of Arabic-language texts. Sighing, I pulled my hand back, and tilted my head inquiringly toward the exit. Julian shrugged agreement and followed. “Yeah, well,” I said. “I'm not spending much time on divination this term—Historical Tarot on Fridays, and that's it, other than Div Club. Assuming I even have time for meetings. How about your schedule? What have you been up to today?”

“Combat Shielding this morning, Power Reservoirs in the afternoon. You?”

And I thought
my
schedule was ambitious. If I didn't miss my guess, both of those were grad-level courses. Julian, with years of training behind him, had tested out of the basic requirements and gone onto bigger things. “Sheffield's class and CM.”

We reached the circulation desk. I slid my book across face-down, so Julian couldn't see the title. “What did you think of Grayson?” he asked.

“She scares the crap out of me,” I admitted. “But it's weirdly reassuring, in a way. I honestly believe she could do the basics she's teaching us in her sleep. And I like her style. Very simple, no flashiness or wasted time.” To Robert's eternal disappointment.

Julian nodded, leaning against the desk, facing away from the student there. “That's because she was a Guardian.”

The word sent a thrill down my spine, which I tried to hide.
Guardian.
I'd grown up on the same stories everyone else had, outrageous action flicks wherein the hard-bitten, lone Guardian single-handedly defended New York City against some sorcerer's unleashed demon. Then I'd looked further, into the reality, which was more like the magical equivalent of an EMT. Not as glamorous, but a lot more useful.

And a dream that wouldn't let me go.

But you needed a strong background in CM to qualify. At present, I wasn't even within spitting distance. Hence the book in my bag, and my schedule for this term.

“How do you mean?” I asked Julian as we went out into the bright sunlight. Our nice first-day weather, a day late. “Do they teach Guardians to work like that?”

“Teach, no. It just happens. They usually work under pressure, so they don't waste time on a fancy personal style. After a while, they strip everything down to the bare necessities.”

“To them, and past,” I said. “I swear I saw Grayson cast a circle at the end of class with about half the usual process.”

Julian's eyes weren't on me. They rarely were. “She's strong. That's part of why she can do it that way. Most people don't have the power to operate on a reduced procedure. But it's strength of mind, too, as well as strength of gift. New Guardians have trouble, until they're in a situation where they have no time for the full thing. Then they cut it down, because they
have
to.”

Strength of mind. I bit my lip, thinking. How much could it make up for lack of gift?

By the end of this quarter, I'd have my answer.

As usual, our fellow students—with varying degrees of subtlety—were giving Julian, and therefore me, a wide berth. He watched them out of habit, but I'd learned to read his body language, in the absence of the usual empathic cues. His attention was on me. Which was not where I wanted it, not while I was thinking about something so personal. What had he been talking about? Stripped procedures. “Sounds good to me,” I said. “Robert may want to be the next de la Vega, but I like Grayson's way better.”

A faint smile touched his lips. “Yes,” Julian said, “I think Grayson's the right teacher for you.”

Because she'd train me, or kill me trying. I sighed. “I guess I'll find out.”

~

I'd wanted a cobra for my birthday, and I'd gotten one.

That image—last night's dream—made me think of the quote I had taped to the top of my screen, Professor Madison paraphrasing Mark Twain.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and prophecy.
Not words you expected to hear out of the woman teaching your intro divination class, but I knew what she meant. Like statistics, you could twist prophecy around to mean practically anything you wanted it to. The point of divination, she said, was not to find some fixed truth, but to open your eyes to possibility, and to help yourself think ahead.

The question wasn't what the cobra foretold, but rather what I was going to do about it.

I recalled it distinctly: me, sitting in my old green armchair, holding the snake just behind its head so it couldn't bite me. I'd been stuck between triumph at finally getting what I wanted, and a sneaking suspicion that wanting it had been a Bad Idea.

I chewed on the meaning of the snake in between classes, and tried to put it out of my mind during. Ceremonial magic, or Guardianship, or maybe something more. Parental approval? Whatever it was, the cobra hadn't bitten me. I'd taken no harm from getting my desire.

Or maybe I'd just woken up too soon.

I fished in my bag and pulled out the library book I'd gotten the day before, gliding one hand across the familiar blue cover.
The Yan Path,
by Yan Chenglei. Subtitle:
Early Foundations in Ceremonial Magic.

Inside, the pages were just as I remembered. Some parents sent their kids to math camp or Suzuki violin lessons; my mother got me a Yan Path teacher. Child-sized lessons in the principles of Western ceremonial magic, designed to familiarize your daughter or son with the basics before their gifts even kicked in.

It worked just fine, too. Right up until I manifested, and tried to do the exercises for real.

Loud music from across the hall covered the sound of Liesel's key in the door, so that I jumped when she came in. I didn't bother to try hiding the book, though. She knew about the Yan lessons; in fact, she was the only person I'd ever told about them in any detail. When she cocked a curious eye at the open text, I held it up so she could see the cover.

Echoing my own thought from the library, she asked, “Is that a good idea?”

“Who knows. I can't decide if it's comforting or stressing me out.”

Liesel took the book from my hands and paged through it. “Doesn't look like much.”

“It isn't, really. You learned more than this from Charbonneau last year. It's just….” I gestured, trying to shape the words I couldn't find. “The book isn't the problem.”

“Your memories are.”

“Yeah.” I watched as she put away her shoes and bag and fetched her hairbrush. Tidy as always. That our suite was at all livable so soon was her doing; she'd even stacked my half-empty boxes neatly in the corner, out of the way. Liesel's pictures—a mixture of family and the Alps—were already arranged above her desk. Me, I hadn't unpacked my books yet.

The lamp haloed her golden hair as she brushed it out. Saint Liesel, I'd dubbed her during freshman year. Martyr Liesel, if you let her. She was the most seelie person I knew, helpful and kind to a fault.

And her empathic gift meant I didn't bother trying to hide much from her. “What if nothing's changed? What if I go to do my first practical for Grayson and it fizzles like before?”

She paused in the middle of braiding. “What if it does?”

My gut clenched at the words, a familiar mix of dread and disappointment. I'd spent a year living with that feeling, after my gifts manifested, before telling my mother I was done with Yan lessons, and fleeing with gratitude to divination.

But I had to know whether I stood any chance of becoming a Guardian. And that meant facing up to the dread, and seeing if I could push past it.

If my attempts fizzled … Liesel let me think it through, her fingers going about their task without needing her attention. “If I rock the theory, and fail
completely
at the practical,” I said, “I can still get a C plus. And I won't fail it completely. I'm not baseline incapable; I just suck. So I guess I'll work my ass off and see what happens.”

“And when will you tell your parents?”

By which she meant my mother. I let out a noise that was half-sigh, half-grunt. “When I have to?” Liesel gave me a chiding look, and I said, “Yeah, I know. But if I tell her now, there'll be all the expectations again. She'll try to hide them from me, because she really doesn't want to put pressure on me—”

“But she does it anyway.” Liesel tied off her second braid. She looked like a sweet German milkmaid, except for the t-shirt that said
Empaths Do It With Fühlung
. “You can't hide it forever.”

I bit my lip, then said, “How about this. Let me get through the first practical. See how that goes.
Then
tell her.”

“That makes sense.”

Her agreement sent a wave of relief through me. I shot her a suspicious look. “Are you playing mind-healer on me?”

She put one hand to her cheek, all innocence. “I have to do my homework, don't I?” My sudden jerk made her laugh. “That was a joke. We're not allowed to use fellow students as guinea pigs without you signing a waiver—at least for class purposes.”

“Comforting,” I muttered. “It's
freelance
meddling.”

“And free for the asking,” she said. “I don't like you being stressed any more than you do.”

Most strong empaths grabbed at the chance for private rooms as soon as they could. Liesel had stayed with me, despite the strain of living in dormitory conditions with another person. I made a special vow to watch my shields this term. Between CM and the less-fraught but more advanced challenge of PK, I was going to be a walking ball of stress, and if I broke, the last thing I wanted to do was take Liesel down with me.

~

Grayson, I imagined, was the sort of woman who would throw a baby into a lake to teach it to swim. Glad as I was to be getting the first major practical out of the way early, it still seemed appallingly abrupt.

“Your athame is one of the most important pieces of ritual equipment you will ever make,” the professor said in the third week of classes, placing both hands on her desk and leaning forward to pin each of us with her gaze. She was a tall woman, with a profile carved from walnut; despite the solid white of her cropped hair, she was not what anyone would call old. Nobody sat in the front row of
her
class. “You'll use it to cast and banish circles, to direct and sever your power, and countless other tasks. If it's well-keyed, it will become an extension of yourself. If not, everything else you do will suffer.

“The materials for this class included a black-hilted knife. If you haven't obtained one by now, do so. Your assignment for the weekend is to cleanse and dedicate the knife as your athame. I'll inspect them in class on Tuesday.” She scanned the rows of students, mouth set in a forbidding line. “Do this carefully. If you create a shoddy athame, it will set the tone for all your future workings. Class dismissed.”

Her words left a cold stone in the pit of my stomach. Judgment Day. Couldn't we have started with something smaller?

The small assignments were all in the fluff class, the one I'd oh-so-cleverly decided not to take. But if I had to be an idiot, I could at least be smart about it.

I couldn't skip the Divination Club meeting that night; it looked bad if one of the co-presidents flaked, and besides, I'd promised Akila, the other co-president, that I would give a talk on tarot for our freshman recruits. But once that was over, I begged off the post-meeting ice cream run. All my classmates would be lined up in the Arboretum come Monday, doing their athames at the last minute, and I didn't want the distraction of somebody impatiently waiting their turn. Besides, if I botched it tonight, I could ask Julian or Robert to wipe the thing clean so I could start over.

If my pride would let me.

“You aren't going to botch it,” I said to my silent, empty dorm room, and started throwing equipment into my bag.

I didn't have to use the Arboretum. There were nice, modern sorcery labs in Adler, with all the amenities I could want. Like lots of people, though, I preferred the natural environment. Welton's biggest selling point was its world-class faculty, but its location ran a close second: out in the Minnesota countryside, far from the pre-Manifestation steel architecture, which disrupted the magical atmosphere.

Witchlights marked the path as I entered the forest. The first ritual glade I came to was roped off, but the next was empty. I dumped my bag on the edge and took a deep breath.

My home in Atlanta backed onto a couple of acres of woodland, with a glade at their heart. It was more a bit of landscaping than anything else—my mother had her own well-stocked workroom on the third floor—but I'd used it for my abortive attempts after manifestation. This was familiar, very familiar.