Smoke and Mirrors (29 page)

She wouldn’t do well on the final practicals involving elemental casting, but if she tested well on the written theory and passed the familiar binding test, she’d graduate. By the skin of her teeth, but she knew she could do it.

Coasting through her next few classes, she made it a point to take more copious notes than usual, keeping herself occupied so she wouldn’t spend too much time wishing for things she couldn’t have. When she got to her etiquette class, she lingered outside until just before the second bell, not wanting to deal with Professor Reed a moment longer than she had to.

The professor’s attention whipped to her briefly during roll call at the beginning of class. She stared just long enough to make it clear she was not expecting Kimberly to be back yet, and that she had a few things to say. Not yet. Later. After class.

Kimberly intended to have one foot out the door the second the bell rang, both after this class and as soon as school let out. Whatever the professor might have to say to her, she didn’t want to hear it.

Like the other teachers, Professor Reed was cramming a year’s worth of study into a final review. Kimberly wasn’t too worried about how she would do on the test for that class, but she still diligently took her notes and paid attention to the bullet points on the chalkboard at the back of the stage. She could crib off someone else’s notes for any lessons she may have missed earlier in the week.

When the bell rang, the professor’s voice rang out over the excited chatter of the students. “Have a nice weekend! Study hard. Kimberly—Kimberly Wells—I need to see you.”

Kimberly did her best to pretend she didn’t hear anything, grabbing for her bag and ducking out of her seat. She almost plowed right into the professor, who had anticipated her attempt to rush out the door without facing her. The tall, slender woman had somehow materialized right before her desk with her arms folded, staring down at her student over the rims of her glasses.

“Cormac told me about your little run-in with the wyvern. If you need extra time to prepare for your finals, I need to know now so I can make the arrangements.”

Kimberly slumped back into her seat with a scowl, though she bit her tongue to keep from saying something caustic at the mere mention of Cormac’s name. Then remembered her manners, mumbling a response.

“No, I think I can handle it.”

Professor Reed gave a pointed stare to a group of lingering students by the door. They dashed out when they realized she’d noticed their eavesdropping. The word wyvern carried back to her before they disappeared, and she flinched. Rumors would start circulating faster than she’d thought.

As soon as they were alone, the professor dropped her rigid stance, one hand settling on her hip as she ran a hand through her short, light brown hair starting to streak with gray and loosed a frustrated sigh.

“Things did not turn out as I intended. I’m very sorry for that, Kimberly.”

It felt like a lot of people were saying that to her lately. “It’s fine, professor.”

“And you’re sufficiently recovered to handle next week? You still don’t look well. Perhaps you should see the school nurse—”

“No. No, I’ll be fine. Can I go now? I have to get to my next class.”

“A moment before you go. Cormac also told me that you are quite cross with him and have no intention of accepting his offer to be your familiar. Is that true?”

Kimberly’s scowl deepened. The professor frowned.

“I see,” she said. “Whatever he may have done, I can assure you, he is top notch familiar material.”

“Maybe for someone else, he is. Not for me.”

The professor’s face tightened. Her tone, while reasonable, was just a smidge too loud. “He has expressed regret for whatever he’s done to upset you. He wouldn’t give me any specifics about what happened between you two, and I don’t wish to pry, but I hope you realize what an opportunity you’re turning down by refusing him. I wouldn’t have recommended you to him if I didn’t think you two would work well together.”

Kimberly’s flat stare was answer enough.

“Do you have an alternative lined up?”

“Yes,” Kimberly said, her response far more sharp than she intended. “Look, professor, I appreciate your efforts, but I’ve had about enough of people helping me to last a lifetime. I’ve got this.”

The professor’s eyes narrowed to slits of green fire, her lips going thin. She gave her student a curt nod, then turned away in obvious dismissal.

Kimberly gathered her things and dashed for the exit, not wanting to stick around to deal with the consequences of her snippy behavior. Maybe the professor deserved it, maybe she didn’t, but Kimberly was beyond caring at that point.

Just as she reached the door, the professor called out. “Oh, Kimberly? One last thing.”

Gritting her teeth, she stopped in her tracks, looking back over her shoulder. The fae power glittering in the professor’s eyes was apparent enough that she flinched and turned her eyes down so she wouldn’t have to meet that judgmental stare.

“You,” she said, “have an appointment in the dean’s office on Wednesday evening at 7PM. See that you don’t miss it.”

Wednesday. The last day of real school. The fourth year students would be doing tests Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and were supposed to spend Thursday and Friday filling out applications and meeting with representatives from every local coven who had the resources to send one. Their final grades would be issued at the end of the day on Friday, and forwarded with the applications to whichever covens they had applied to.

“I’m sorry, professor,” Kimberly said, dodging aside as the first group of students for the next period appeared in the doorway. “I’ve got to work.”

“Make other arrangements. This is a mandatory meeting.”

“Yes, professor,” she muttered.

“You are excused.”

Great. Like everyone else around her lately, it seemed the professor was intent on making her life miserable.

She was sure Don would have a fit, assuming she had a job to go back to.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The rest of her classes were uneventful. Xander was waiting for her in the main hall after she finished her high school equivalency and college preparation class. Her teacher, Arnold, held her after class for a few minutes to give her a pile of homework to take home with her and study over the weekend to catch up, as well as a list of dates, times, and locations to take the necessary tests and a variety of college applications for mundane schools. She had shoved everything into her backpack to deal with later.

If anything, once she emerged into the hallway, it was busier than it had been that morning. Students, teachers and familiars were rushing to and fro to carry out last minute tasks. The excitement for this particular weekend was a palpable thing, cheerful chatter booming through the halls.

Xander clapped his thick Intermediate to Advanced Enchantments textbook shut and shoved it in his bag as he scrambled to his feet to join her. They walked together in companionable silence to the Gateway room and took her usual portal to the street above the museum.

Not a soul noticed their exit, prying eyes conveniently looking elsewhere and minor (quite deliberate) glitches in security cameras making it appear as if they had slipped around from the other side of the tree or light pole or from a doorway. The Gateways acted as combined portals and permanent illusions—ones that barred the mundane or unwanted Others from stumbling into the hidden school. The incredible amount of foot traffic in and around Central Park and the Museum of Natural History acted as a natural infusion of the chaos needed to permanently imbue the area with an obfuscation enchantment of that caliber.

Once they were far enough away from the school and certain no one was following them or paying them any attention, Xander spoke up first.

“You want to tell me why you look like death warmed over?”

She snorted, glancing at him with a wry smile. Her illusion to hide the dark smudges under her eyes clearly wasn’t enough to hide how badly drained she was. “That bad, huh?”

“Yup. I heard a rumor in Counterspells that you fought a wyvern. That have anything to do with it?” He paused. “Wait, it wasn’t that one that showed up in Central Park, was it? That was all over the news this weekend. They were saying the wyvern, it… uh… flew off with… with…”

“Me.”

He waited for her to continue. She didn’t, staring straight ahead as she marched toward Allegretto’s.

Xander gave her a light nudge with his elbow, speeding up as she did. “So? Spill. What’s the deal? What about that dragon that was all over the news? You know, flying over Uptown and shifting right in the middle of the park. The hits on the Youtube videos are already hitting the millions. Was that the same one who saved you?”

She sighed, then gave him a very abbreviated version of her adventure, leaving out any mention of how Cormac had tricked and betrayed her or where she’d spent the initial few days of her recovery. She also left out that Cormac was the dragon who had saved her.

Xander’s eyes went round as saucers, suitably impressed by her story. When she was finished, he gave a low whistle.

“I didn’t know Others with magic could use magi like familiars. Or anything for familiars, for that matter.”

“Neither did I,” Kimberly said. “They didn’t teach us anything about that in any of our classes and I haven’t seen anything about it in our textbooks or the stuff about familiars or binding. I’ve been trying since last year to find a better way to summon so I’ve been over everything on it in the school library at least twice. Something tells me this isn’t the sort of thing anyone talks about.”

“No, probably not. Maybe it isn’t an issue if we have a familiar since there’s already a bond in place. That might be why the wyvern wanted you.” He cleared his throat. “Since you… well, you know.”

She thought about it, kicking a stray empty soda can out of her path. “I guess. I always thought dragon-kin were supposed to be these powers unto themselves. All the stuff in the textbooks talks about them being these intellectual and magical heavyweights. I never thought about them as having the same flaws people do. Greedy, grasping, lying, deceitful—”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Xander said, cutting into the building rant. Some of the other pedestrians walking by were giving them funny looks. “What about the dragon?”

Kimberly flushed, toning her voice down. “Sorry. What about it?”

“You said it saved you. Did you hear from it after you woke up? Not all Others are horrible, and it sounds like it did you a solid. Didn’t you want a dragon for a familiar anyway?”

“Not that one.”

Her tone of voice said drop it. Xander didn’t get the hint.

“Why not?” he persisted.

“Because he tricked me and lied to me, and it turned out he thought this whole thing about me wanting a dragon familiar was a joke. Okay? Can we drop it now?”

Xander quieted, though his eyes had gone wide again and he was staring at her so intently that he ended up shoulder-checking a woman talking on her cell phone. He stammered out an apology as she flipped him off and continued on her way. Kimberly snorted laughter as he flung out his arm in a helpless gesture, red-faced and frustrated.

“Sorry,” she said, though her smile said she wasn’t really. It was hard to stay angry in the face of his recent embarrassment. “All right, if you have questions, ask them now. I can’t promise you’ll like the answers.”

He ducked his head, shoving his hand in his pockets with a mock-scowl. “I don’t know, man. Sounds like you’re in pretty deep.”

At her incredulous stare, he gave her a lop-sided grin to show he was joking.

“Okay, yeah. I’ve got about a thousand and one questions for you.”

She answered his questions almost as quickly as he fired them off. He wanted to know everything about the dragon and wyvern. How big they were, what they looked like, what kind of magic they used, where they took her, how she managed to keep it together with the two fighting over her. He had dozens of questions for her, and his curiosity was only held in check because they reached Allegretto’s. She was glad for the interruption. Being grilled about her experience—never mind how enthusiastic her audience was—unnerved her.

Before heading inside, she held up a hand for Xander to wait. “Listen, my boss doesn’t know about what I am, and I want it to stay that way. No talk about dragons or magic inside, okay?”

He shrugged. “Sure, I can keep a lid on it. I can’t stick around, though. I promised my girlfriend I’d take her out to dinner tonight. Can we meet on Sunday afternoon like we planned last week? I still need help with enchantments and I can give you a hand with some of the summoning stuff.”

“Absolutely,” she said.

He gave her a fist bump and a wave as he started off down the street, calling over his shoulder. “If you don’t feel safe walking home alone, give me a call.”

She nodded thanks and returned his wave, then ducked inside the café. She hadn’t given any thought to walking home alone until he’d brought up the subject. For all she knew, Viper was still out there. Maybe other nasty things that wanted a piece of her. As tired as she was, maintaining her invisibility spell for the walk home was out of the question.