Ordinary Magic (16 page)

After that it became a routine; I’d stay behind after dinner was done and scrub the floor. There were a few questioning glances thrown around the kitchen when Cook Bella remarked, “Abby will take care of the floor from now on,” since most of the kitchen jobs were rotated. But I don’t think anyone missed scrubbing the floor that much.

Third week in, fatigue was a living thing. It wasn’t bad, but it was always there, gray and fuzzy at the edge of my eyes. I figured with all the extra work I’d be tired enough to fall asleep, but … yeah, that didn’t happen.

I felt myself getting angry at people—over stupid, little stuff—and wanting to snap at them. And then I’d get angry at
myself, because that was mean, and I knew there was no reason for it. I tried to keep quiet about it, until the third time in a row I was late for study group in the lounge, and Peter called me on it. I got so mad I threw my book down on the table—which made Fran jump—and told him I had work to do, and they didn’t have to wait for me if I was holding them up.

“You’re not. I’m done.” Peter gestured to the neat, perfect pile of homework in front of him. I bet it was finished, every single page of it. I yanked a seat out, and Fran jumped again.

“Somebody’s in a bad mood,” Fred teased nervously.

“Somebody’s
tired
—got homework to do,” I amended quickly. “Sorry, Fran.” She nodded, a soft little bobble.

“Hey, here’s an idea,” Fred offered. “You could stop.” He was only half joking.

“Homework? I’d fail.” I flipped through my notes, the pages blurring before my eyes. If I slowed down and concentrated, they came into focus.

“I meant the kitchen. You’re there all the time, it seems. And I was wondering if, maybe, you don’t have to? Because Nate says you’re not even a real mouse.”

“Rat,” I corrected him.

“Whatever, still gross. Can’t you be the kitchen ‘cleanly animals’?” Fred asked.

“
Cats
,” Fran suggested, her dimples appearing with a small smile. “
Cats are very clean.
”

It worked. I smiled. “All right, all right.” I took a couple deep, gulping breaths; trying to calm myself felt like trying to let go of the scrub brush after a long night, when my fingers were so stiff
and cramped from holding on that it actually hurt to relax. “Where are we?” I asked, waving a hand over my Lit book.

“‘The Most Tragyc Saga uf the Warryur Hynrulf.’ We have to answer the questions on page forty-eight. And
he
gets to sit there and do … whatever he does with that thing, because he’s already done,” Fred said, pointing at Peter and his little blue book.

“Good. Great. What’s Hynrulf up to?”

“Still stuck in the lake,” Fred said. “What I don’t get is, he’s magic, right? So why doesn’t he just freeze the water, pop out like a Popsicle, and get the leviathan’s mother that way?”

I shrugged. “ ’Cause that would make too much sense?” I noticed Peter staring at me. “What?”

“You do look tired,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t say you looked bad, just tired. But you do look bad.”

“You can’t tell a girl she looks bad,” Fred warned him.

“But she does.”

“Yeah, but you can’t say that. Girls won’t like you.”

“Abby doesn’t like me anyway,” Peter said.

“I do too!” I protested. “Sometimes.”

Peter was still staring at me. I looked away, down at my book, flipping the pages without really paying attention to what was on them and, without really planning to say anything, said, “I can’t sleep. It’s—it’s too quiet.”

Fred laughed. “It’s never quiet here. And you have your own room,” he insisted when I didn’t answer. The longing was
palpable in his voice. “I’d kill for my own room. Not really,” he added to Peter.

“I am relieved,” Peter replied. “Don’t you three have homework to finish?”

That night as I was getting into bed, Peter knocked on the door. Now, lights-out means in your room until morning roll call, but Peter just shrugged when I told him that and closed the door behind him. He was in his pj’s and carrying a pillow. “Just as long as I’m back in my room for roll call,” he said. “It’s not like they can use magic to track us.”

“But Public Safety patrols the hallways.”

“But they don’t go in the rooms unless they hear something. Like us talking,” he finished in a whisper. He nodded to the spare bed. “You got extra sheets for this thing?”

I was still standing by the door. “You’re going to stay with me?”

He shrugged and sat down on the bare bed. It squeaked. That seemed to be answer enough. I was dimly aware that I was grinning like an idiot.

So I got out my extra sheets and we made up the other bed without talking. Then I got in my bed and he got in the other one, and we still didn’t talk, but I was grinning the whole time, grinning until my cheeks hurt.

Peter shook his head and smiled. “Okay. What?”

“We’re friends.”

The smile dropped away like a stone. “We’re not.”

“Yeah, we are. You like me.”

“I don’t.”

I rolled onto my stomach, tucking my pillow under me. “Then why’d you come here?” I teased.

“Pity.” There was light from the streetlamps through the windows, just enough to make his eyes gleam like a cat’s in the dark. “Maybe I’m just a nice person.”

“You’re not nice.”

“Goes to show how much you know. I’m the third-nicest person I know.”

“You punched Fred in the face this afternoon.” Granted, it was during Becky’s class, and mostly because Fred had been too busy trying to block Peter with humor to remember to block his face.

“I don’t like Fred either,” Peter tossed back. “He’s a fake.”

“He is not,
he’s
nice. And you’re just mean. That’s okay, though,” I reassured him, because at some point this teasing thing had become fun. “I’ll still be your friend.”

Peter sat up. “If you’re going to be this annoying, I’ll leave.”

“No, you won’t,” I said, swallowing my laughter.

Peter glared at me for a full minute before he sniffed and defiantly lay back down, pulling the covers up around his shoulders. I waited until the quiet seeped back in, until he’d feel safe, then whispered quickly, “It’s because we’re friends.”

He groaned and shoved the pillow over his head. “Abby! Go to sleep!”

With him there, I did.

The Fall Festival was still a few weeks away, but Ms. Macartney roped several of the First Years into decorating the dining hall, stringing garlands and wreaths made out of pinecones and fallen leaves. Carving jack-o’-lanterns and setting up the remembrance table (as a treat for the souls who’d pass through on the hunt for good parties) was later on, not until the week before the fest. (Plus cutting pumpkins meant knives, and we weren’t allowed to handle anything like that until we were Third Years.)

Peter and Fred and I were pinning up garlands around the windows when the doors flung open and the rest of the school was herded in by the teachers. Ms. Macartney, if possible, went more tight-lipped and rigid than usual. Becky had that “straight as an arrow, walking on the balls of her feet” stance that she used for the
really
dangerous demonstrations. Even Mrs. Murphy looked more formal. Only Mr. O’Hara looked completely relaxed, but then, I couldn’t think of a time when he didn’t look completely relaxed.

“Everyone, please take a seat. Students, please sit with your own Year.” Mrs. Murphy’s voice rang out, loud and clear, above the scuffing footsteps and the low, edgy hum of chatter. “I know I can trust all of you to be on your very best behavior.”

Kids hurried to their places, and Mrs. Murphy stepped forward and cleared her throat to silence us. “We have just received word that His Majesty, King Stephen, and several members of his court will be gracing us with their esteemed presence tonight for an inspection.” She paused, waiting until the exclamations died down to a low buzz before she continued. “Here are the rules, which you will not under any circumstances break unless you want me to break you. One: you will not speak unless spoken to. Two: if you are spoken to, you will give a short, polite answer. Three: if you are speaking to our esteemed patron, His Royal Majesty, King Stephen, you will refer to him by his proper title, and with the proper amount of respect—so help me, Eric, you wipe that look off your face. The same goes for his court. Four: you will be on your best and most proper behavior tonight, and you will make them all believe that we know what we’re doing, or I will murder you. Do you understand?”

We understood.

She nodded. “Take this time to straighten yourselves up as best you can. Aprons off, laces tied. Girls with long hair, pin it up. Let’s pretend you really are well-behaved children.”

Mrs. Murphy and the other teachers talked quietly for a moment, then moved through the room just under marathon speed, tucking away half-hung decorations, making sure everything was orderly.

One of the older girls was showing us how to twist up our hair and pin it in place with a pencil when
they
arrived. It took my brain a moment to process what it was seeing. Spots on the walls, ceiling, and floor warped into faces, and ten—twenty—a
lot
of men in official-looking uniforms poured out, as if they simply stepped into being. It was like they were both part of bricks and separate from them. It was like those creatures in the Black Forest that splooge over their victims and absorb them whole.

One man dropped down from the ceiling and landed on our table. Frances gasped, and Fred and I started back in surprise. He stepped down off our table with an amused look on his face, like Gil when he played a trick on someone. But he was clearly a normal guy, and he never would have gotten into campus unless he was allowed in. And the only people the school was allowing in tonight were King Steve’s men. You didn’t have to be a Level Ten mage to figure out he was a Kingsman. Also, the uniform with the royal crest was a big clue.

Kingsmen aren’t just regular guards who stand watch over the castle. Kingsmen are special. It’s not just the training (with its rumored ninety-seven percent washout rate); they have to put themselves through experiments, push themselves to become something more. Kingsmen aren’t quite human, not anymore, and they go into it willingly and with eyes open. They sign away their lives to the throne, and it makes them really intense, and I think that’s why there are so many romance novels that feature them. (Like
Married to a Kingsman
or
The Kingsman’s Secret Baby
or
Kissing the Kingsman
, which is the best one, actually.)

The Kingsmen took their position all around the room, stiff and formal, and then the door opened. Alexa entered, her hair done up and wearing the royal colors. Following her were four or five people, in much more expensive outfits and elaborate hairstyles, who glanced over us and made sure to keep a wide berth. They had to be the king’s court. And then came two Kingsmen in more complicated uniforms, showy ones with heavy belts that had powerful magic stuck all over them.

And then came King Steve.

I recognized him from the papers. (He’s in there a lot and, besides, he was the one wearing a crown.) He didn’t look very much like his pictures. Oh, he looked enough like that you’d recognize him if you passed by him on the street. But he looked—geekier, if you can imagine. He was tall and lanky, with a long thin face; the papers didn’t catch how thin it was, or how ordinary. And he did look ordinary. He looked like anybody else, which kings really aren’t supposed to do. He glanced at Alexa as he entered, and smiled. It made him look human, and not one bit majestic. Then he went over to the teachers, received their bows and curtseys and welcome with a regal nod.

I have never, ever heard the dining hall that quiet, not before or since. Nobody moved. I’m not sure if anybody breathed. We all just sat there, quiet and still, as if we really were nice, obedient children.

King Steve spoke to Mrs. Murphy briefly—he had one of those rounded, clear voices, kind of like announcers on game shows but less annoying—then Mrs. Murphy stepped forward and said a few words. It was everything you’d expect a teacher to
say if the king came: how glad we were that King Steve honored us with his presence, and how hard everyone worked to earn his patronage, and how we all wanted to show the king how much we deserved his trust.