Tessili Academy (10 page)

Elle straightened, tossing her long braid
over her shoulder. Her tessila darted through the air and landed on
the bundle, clinging to the fabric as it swayed in Elle’s hand.

Jey looked from one friend to the other. She
took a deep breath, let it out, and spoke. “Ok. Yes. That sounds
like the best we can do for now.”

Behind them, the latch on the door
clicked.

If Jey hadn’t blocked the spell, it would
have killed Professor Liam as he poked his head through the door.
Kae sent it off in a spasm of fear and anger. Jey felt it shoot
into the air – an active strike spell. She swiped it off its course
with her own counter-magic.

Behind them, she heard Professor Liam draw
in a quick, sharp breath. Jey hadn’t known, for sure, it would be
him when she’d blocked Kae’s spell. She only knew killing more
people was not going to make their escape any easier.

When she saw it was Liam, a red haze bloomed
at the edges of her vision. “Kae, you idiot,” she snapped. “He’s on
our side.” Jey wasn’t sure how she knew this, but she was more
certain she could rely on Professor Liam than she was of her own
name.

His face a little pale, the professor
stepped into the room. Kae’s face had gone pale as well at the
sight of him. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

Liam closed the door behind him and stood
for a moment, staring at the three girls in their night dresses and
the dead man on the floor. The orderly’s robe was unbelted, his
chest, legs, and everything between them exposed. The professor
swore quietly and strode across the room. He dragged the quilt off
Kae’s bed and tossed it over the dead man.

He straightened, turning back around. He
looked at the girls. His short hair was light brown, shot with
gray. His eyes were somber and sad, but also alight with some
brilliant curiosity. “All three of you?” he said. “You’re all three
…” he paused, looking for a word, “… aware?”

Jey nodded. To her amazement, he laughed.
“Finally,” he said. He stood a moment, shaking his head and
chuckling as if he’d heard some wonderful joke. He looked at Jey,
eyes intent. “You remember how to get out?” He asked the question
as if he was certain she would.

Jey frowned. Her mind stirred, a memory
trying to surface. She seemed to recall standing by the wall with
Liam. While the other students recharged the shieldstones, she was
doing something else – chipping away at one narrow crevice,
targeting a fissure in the wall behind a rose bush, making it
deeper and deeper and deeper. The work, she suddenly remembered,
had been started before her. Liam had only shown her how to
continue what was already begun.

She struggled to remember more, but the
knowledge faded. She stared at Professor Liam, heart pounding with
fear. “I haven’t had any spritzer,” she said. “Why can’t I
remember?”

Professor Liam walked across the room and
set a gentle hand on her arm. The smile had faded from his face.
“It’s all right, Jey. Calm down. What they’ve done to you, year
after year after year, it’s not as simple to fix as getting rid of
the drugs. It’s going to take time. It’s probable you’ll never have
complete memories of what happened here. Most likely, that’s for
the best.” His eyes strayed again towards the shape of the orderly
beneath the quilt, his expression troubled.

Jey allowed herself to be soothed by his
words. She drew in a long, slow breath and let it out again,
centering herself as Professor Straph had taught her.

Liam continued to speak. “It’s a crack in
the wall, down past the stable, in the lower southeast corner. I’ll
take you.”

Kae, who’d recovered from her momentary
embarrassment, turned to regard Liam with a look of withering
scorn. “A crack in the wall won’t do us any good. If it was that
simple, our tessili could just fly over.”

That little smile returned to Liam’s lips.
He shook his head. “Not just a crack. Jey here has been working on
it for almost a year now, when we could manage it, of course. It’s
lined in shieldstone, like that which holds the magic of the wall
in place.”

Kae’s expression shifted. She glanced
towards the door with a kind of fierce hunger. “Then it’s a
tunnel,” she said. “A tiny tunnel through the magic? Our tessili
can pass through safely?”

Liam nodded. Kae took a step towards the
door, which Jey was still blocking. “Professor Liam,” Jey said.
“Thank you. Thank you for coming to us, for making me remember. I
know where it is now.” It was true. When he’d described the tunnel,
she’d remembered as surely as if he’d shown her a map. “You should
go back to your rooms.”

For a moment, Liam looked as if he might
protest. Then he glanced again at the humped shape of the dead
orderly. He gave a small, decisive nod. “This evidence will give an
explanation for your flight. With any luck, no suspicion will fall
on me. I’ll stay behind. I’ll do what I can do for next year’s
seniors.”

As Kae and Elle began to move towards the
door, Jey realized with a sudden strange pang that she might never
see this man again. It was overly optimistic, she knew, to think
his movements tonight would go unnoticed. She didn’t know how he’d
gotten himself into the dorm cloister after faculty hours. There
was so much she didn’t know, so many things she was certain she’d
forgotten.

Jey felt a sudden prickling heat behind her
eyes. She hurried forward, throwing herself into Liam’s arms. He
caught her with a startled grimace, then wrapped his arms around
her. She could smell the mingled scent of soap and ink.

They stood for a moment. Liam felt warm,
solid, and safe. Jey didn’t want to let go.

At last, the professor gave her shoulder an
awkward pat. “Go now.” His voice was quiet. “They’ll be onto you
soon. And don’t forget, the hounds will smell you even with your
passive echo spells in place.”

Jey nodded, wiping her eyes. She stepped
back and turned towards the door as it opened for the third time
that evening.

The orderly who was now staring into the
room with wide, startled eyes was one Jey recognized. She didn’t
know his name, but he was one of the regular ones who saw them into
bed each night. He was a quiet man, with pale hair and delicate
hands.

Now, as Liam took a deft step to the side so
the partially open door hid him from view, she watched as the
orderly’s eyes took in the sight of the three seniors standing in
their night dresses, Elle holding a bundle torn out of a robe just
like his.

The orderly took two stumbling steps
backwards. Before Jey could think of a way to quiet him, to contain
the disaster, the man screamed. It was a high wail of sheer terror.
Then the orderly turned and bolted, sandals slapping on the stone
tiles and echoing through the quiet cloister.

Jey drew in a quick breath as he ran away.
Now that the worst had happened, her mind felt suddenly clear and
focused. She spoke. “Girls, case your passive echo spells.”

She felt the air bend around her. Kae and
Elle vanished. She turned to Professor Liam, still standing behind
the door. She didn’t think he’d been seen, but she couldn’t know
for sure. She focused, pulling strands of magic into existence in
the air around him. She tied off the spell. Liam’s eyes widened in
surprise as he felt the magic cling to his skin. Then he vanished
also.

“I’ll not be able to hold it for long,
particularly as you get further away,” she said. “So hurry.”

She felt a soft squeeze on her hand and a
brush of air as Professor Liam moved past her and out the door. Jey
wove another spell and draped this one around herself. The strain
of holding both magics in place made sweat bead on her forehead.
She set her jaw. She would hold them as long as she could.

She turned and spoke to the seemingly empty
room behind her. “Let’s go.”

She couldn’t see her two friends, not
exactly, but she could make out soft spots in the air, places where
the landscape seemed to shimmer as if seen through uneven glass.
She could hear soft footsteps and feel the whisper of air moving.
Mostly, though, she could see their tessili. Phril was all but mad
with anxiety now. He darted about her head in frantic loops.
“Settle,” she told him. She held out her hand and he landed there.
She could feel how difficult it was for him to hold still, to allow
himself to be restrained. She cupped her hand in a light curl
around him, so the spell that concealed her would cover him too.
“Carry your tessili,” she whispered to the other two girls, “or
they’ll give us away.”

Around them, the academy was coming alive.
Lights flared in dark windows. Doors opened and closed. Orderlies
ran everywhere, calling to one another in frantic voices. The three
girls left their room and headed to the east. When they reached the
corner of the cloister, Jey said, “Up and over. You first
Elle.”

She could no longer see Elle’s purple
tessili, but Kae’s green one darted and flashed in the air like a
frantic spark. She waited in tense silence. In the distance, there
was a resonant boom. The orderlies had swung shut the great gates
that separated the cloister from the quad. Jey could only hope
Professor Liam had gotten out in time.

“I’m up.” Elle’s voice sounded from above
them.

“Go,” Kae’s voice hissed out of the air
beside her. Jey leapt forward.

She had to release Phril to set her hands on
the stone pillar. He fluttered to the nape of her neck and hung to
the braid there, hissing. She was about to use a little surge of
magic to blast a handhold into the smooth stone, but her fingers
found one Elle had already made. She focused, bringing tension into
her muscles. She climbed.

It was tricky. The holds were shallow and
the shouts and slamming doors were distracting. But as she climbed
Jey felt herself slip into a meditative place of stillness where
her mind was concerned with nothing but the task of bracing her
fingers, molding her feet, pushing herself up the pillar, one step
at a time. She could do this. She was prepared. She’d spent 13
years preparing.

Elle was visible when Jey reached the
rooftop. She reached out a hand. Jey accepted it. Elle pulled her
onto the rough slate tiles of the roof. “Now you, Kae,” Jey called
down. She too, dropped her passive echo spell to save her strength.
As she did she felt the spell that had been clinging to Liam fizzle
and fall away. She glanced towards the faculty compound. The
building was a dark smudge visible beyond the wall, a few lit
windows visible in the night. She couldn’t fathom any way he could
have arrived safely back in his own rooms by now.

Jey pushed thoughts of Liam from her mind.
She and Elle waited on the rooftop, gauging Kae’s progress by the
darting speck of her tessila. Kae was unwilling or unable to get
him to settle.

Jey moved to the other side of the roof,
looking out across the smooth lawn that separated them from the
wall beyond. It was not a hugely formidable wall. It was thirty
feet high, perhaps, and ten feet thick. Without the magic woven
into it, the magic that would kill any tessila it touched, it would
have been no barrier at all.

Along the top of the wall, torches were
being lit. One by one, they flared to life like glaring eyes.
Shapes of men in dark uniforms were fanning out from the gatehouse,
jogging into position. From the west, she heard excited yips and
barks, the clang of a gate being thrown open. She remembered Liam’s
words.
Remember, the hounds can smell you even with your passive
echo spells in place.

Jey heard a thump. She turned to see Kae now
also on the roof. The three of them sat for a moment, watching as
the academy swarmed into readiness. Jey found her mouth was dry. A
cool breeze stirred her thin night dress, but she was not cold. She
felt alive for the first time she could remember.

With a nod to her companions, she leapt off
the roof, casting a passive bearing spell to displace her weight
and leave it on the rooftop so she fell with less force. She hit
the ground and absorbed the impact with her knees. A moment later,
Kae and Elle landed on either side of her. Each set down in a ready
crouch as Jey had, three fingers against the grass to steady them.
They’d all had the same teachers, after all.

The grass was damp and soft beneath Jey’s
feet. The three girls straightened in unison.

A hound bayed in the darkness. Together,
they began to run.

The first hound came barreling out of the
darkness, running at speed. It was a tall, fleet creature, with
long legs and a narrow head. It was a blur in the night, a flash of
white eyes and teeth.

Jey heard Elle give a little shriek as it
came towards them. They hadn’t recast their passive echo spells
yet. They’d thought they would have more time. But the dogs were
fast. Far faster than Jey had assumed.

There was a flash and a high yip of pain.
Blue light flared in the night. The hound collapsed into a dark
heap, dead at Kae’s feet.

“Passive echo,” Jey hissed. But she knew it
was too late. The three girls cast their spells, but there were
shouts along the walls as men pointed and cried to one another.
That flash of magic had pinpointed their location. The path they’d
taken from the academy, straight for the crack in the wall,
revealed exactly where they were going.
Stupid, stupid,
Jey
thought to herself as she began to run again. She knew Kae was
there. Her green tessila was a frantic, darting whir in the air.
Elle was not so easy to spot, but Jey could hear her breathing and
the soft thump of her bare feet in the grass.

They ran to the wall. More hounds streaked
through the darkness around them, but the tall, fast animals were
sighthounds. She remembered that lesson suddenly, the knowledge
spilling into her brain in a rush. Sighthounds hunted by tracking
movement. They were fast and strong and could pull down a deer. But
they wouldn’t track the girls by scent.