The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 1) (40 page)

Should she tell him more? She needed someone to confide in. Could that person be Gaius Valiant? On one hand, he might be evil. On another, the Lion urged her not to cut him—if she understood the Lion. On yet a third hand, she liked him. Even if he was evil, she still liked him.

In fact, she realized slowly—her gaze resting on his soulful brown eyes, the perfection that was his lips, and the handsome curve of his jaw—she liked him
very much
.

She leaned toward him, until their faces were so close she could feel the heat from his cheek, and whispered, “Valerie visited the Wisecraft offices in New York. She arrived early, but she was late for her appointment with the Wisecraft. She was trying to remember what happened in between.”

“That’s…disturbing.”

“It gets worse.” Her voice remained calm, but her body began to tremble again. “Do you remember what Cydney said at the meeting, that one of my friends was a snitch? Well…Valerie suspects herself. She thinks that she’s the snitch, but she can’t remember when she told.” Contemplating the indignities Valerie had suffered caused Rachel to sway on her feet.

Gaius laid a steadying hand on her shoulder. “I…don’t understand.”

“If Valerie is right,” Rachel took another deep breath, “some kids in your dorm—Cydney Graves, her friends Belladonna Marley and Charybdis Nott, that girl who cast that engorgement spell on me, Lola Spong, and probably Eunice Chase, too—considering she pinched Cydney for trying to say who the snitch was—have been making Valerie tell them things.” Rachel’s stomach clenched. Her voice grew louder, shrill. “Someone cast a spell on my friend and turned her mind over to these girls!”

The horror of it all was suddenly too much.

Rachel broke off and wailed loudly.

“Um…” Disconcerted, Gaius raised his hands—as if he did not have much experience with wailing girls. Stepping forward again, he awkwardly patted her shoulder. “There, there.”

Rachel instantly quieted down, embarrassed.

“Um…Sorry,” she murmured.

She felt disappointed that the boy had not pulled her into his arms. Her parents would have hugged her.

“Okay, what you just said…is not good,” Gaius’s entire attention was on what he had just learned. “Look, there’s someone I’ve got to go tell about this. He…might be able to help. Or at least find out what is going on with the kids in my dorm. I’ll be back in five minutes! I promise!” He turned and ran out of the infirmary and down the path toward his dormitory.

Before the door banged, the tiny Lion had slipped out as well.

“You don’t remember anything?” Sigfried sat hunched on the edge of Valerie’s bed, squeezing her hand.

Lucky hovered above her. His flame-red whiskers twitched in distress. A healing melody issued from the purple and green agates set into the headboard beneath him. Little green sparkles swirled out of the gems and danced around the bed, bringing with them a sense of well-being. The green fire in the glass ball floating overhead flickered merrily.

Beside the bed, Rachel perched on the edge of her chair. Nastasia stood by her shoulder, gazing down with regal concern. Her golden curls waved in the breeze blowing through an open window. Rachel could smell the scent of the wisteria that covered the gym as it mingled with the sandalwood and ubiquitous odor of disinfectant. Overhead, the chimes tinkled, jangling loudly whenever they became entangled with Lucky’s long whiskers.

Across the infirmary, the nurse and the dean talked quietly in one corner, one of the orangey-red curtains half drawn around them. Rachel glanced through the open front door and down the gravel pathway beyond, but there was no sign of Gaius returning.

Looking around for a clock, she realized she had not checked the time when he left.

Had it been more than five minutes?

It felt like a year and a half.

Valerie smiled at them blearily from her profusion of pillows. “No, I don’t remember. Why am I here? The proctors asked me lots of questions, but they would not tell me anything.”

Nastasia turned to Rachel, her face full of inquiry. “You found her. What happened?”

Rachel filled Valerie and the others in on what had happened.

“Nope.” Valerie shrugged. “Don’t remember this conversation at all. Are you sure you aren’t making this up? Where were we?”

“In…the girls’ bathroom on the second floor?”

Valerie squinted and then shook her head. “Sorry.”

Rachel rocked her chair back.

Okay, that was terrifying
.

In the silence, the chimes jangled loudly in the breeze.

“Nastasia, your father?” Rachel touched the princess’s shoulder lightly. “Any word?”

The princess bore the familiarity with patient fortitude. She shook her head.

“Do you think…” the princess began.

But she never finished. Her eyes rolled back until they were entirely white. Siggy jumped up to support her, but she did not fall. Instead, she took a stumbling step forward, her eyes returning to normal. Rachel rushed to her side and helped steady her.

“I’ve…” Nastasia’s chest rose and fell rapidly. “I’ve just had a vision…I think. But not like before. I didn’t go anywhere. I was right here. It might have been a vision of the future.”

“What happened?” Rachel and Valerie cried together.

“I saw Mr. Fuentes, the proctor. He came here, into the infirmary. His eyes were odd, cloudy. He crossed the room toward us, casting cantrips. Black fire flew from his fingers toward Miss Hunt. Mr. Smith jumped in the way. He…” she gazed at Sigfried, her eyes frightened, “ended up on the floor. Not breathing.”

“Mr. Fuentes tried to kill me, and Siggy saved me?” Valerie’s voice broke on “kill,” ending in a hoarse whisper.

Nastasia nodded. “I believe so.”

Valerie choked out. “And Siggy…
died
?”

Footsteps echoed on brick. The front door was open. Outside, the handsome Spanish proctor trotted up the two brick stairs that led to the entrance. Seeing him, an eerie horripilation ran down the back of Rachel’s spine.

Was the princess’s vision coming true?

Siggy lifted his trumpet and turned to Nastasia. “Should I attack, Princess?”

The princess stared at Fuentes, her face growing pale. She looked rapidly around, as if searching for someone to tell her what to do. But no adults had heard the description of her vision, and there was not enough time to fill them in before the young proctor arrived.

Fuentes opened the door and strode into the infirmary, grinning his customary cheerful grin. Siggy waited, poised. Still, Nastasia hesitated.

A decision had to be made now.

Rachel’s legs tingled with growing excitement. She could not see Fuentes’s eyes. Were they cloudy? Should she trust Nastasia’s vision? Or hesitate and risk losing Siggy?

Swerve or crash?

A flick of a flame.

Rachel whistled.

Blue sparks flew from her mouth toward the young proctor. The sound of it pierced the air, high and crisp. It blended with the blare of Sigfried’s trumpet, as he joined her.

Siggy raced across the beds, leaping from one to the next in his mad dash for the door. His blew with all his might, silvery sparkles whooshing from his instrument toward the door. His wind blast picked up Fuentes, carried him out the door, and down the two brick stairs. The young proctor tumbled backward slamming into the ground amidst blue and silver sparkles. He slid along the gravel path, paralyzed.

Despite her trepidations, Rachel could not help grinning in delight. She had frozen an adult!

Holding the trumped in one hand, Siggy leapt from the last bed while reaching for his new Bowie knife. Shouting in alarm, the nurse and the dean converged upon him. Valerie tried to rise, but dizziness assailed her. She put her hand out, as if to catch herself, and sank back onto her pillows. Lucky snaked through the air to Siggy, who now stood by the door, looking out, knife in hand. Rachel ran to join them. Nastasia joined them more slowly.

Fuentes lay motionless on the gravel walk. His hands were raised in an unfamiliar configuration. His eyes were milky white. Rachel let out a huge sigh of relief. Seeing him that way was frightening. She felt suddenly sick to her stomach, but at least she had not attacked him unnecessarily.

“Why is Carlos back here? I sent him to the City to bring back the Agents,” the dean exclaimed, regarding the rigid young man. She turned on them. “Children! What did you do?”

“The princess had a vision that he was going to kill Valerie!” Rachel blurted out. “He’s geased, too! Look at his eyes.”

The Dean turned to Nastasia. Her harsh expression softened. She looked more like a kindly grandmother. Rachel recalled that the dean was a friend of the princess’s family. “My child, is this true?”

“Look at his hands, Dean Moth,” Nastasia pointed. “That is the same gesture he made in my vision. Is it dangerous?”

The dean knelt down beside Fuentes, who was being fussed over by the nurse, and examined his hands. Blood rushed from her face. “Oh, my.”

“That gesture is…bad?” asked Rachel.

“Yes.” Dean Moth rose to her feet, brushed off her knees, and frowned down at the supine proctor. “Very bad. I am surprised he knows it. I have never met anyone who knew that particular cantrip who was not a truly black sorcerer.”

Rachel stared down at him. “Maybe the villains who hypnotized him showed it to him.”

The dean’s eyes bore into Rachel. “Miss Griffin, that is a very insightful hypothesis.”

Dean Moth gestured. A great golden eagle flew from the roof off toward the gymnasium. There was a rushing sound. Then, Mr. Chanson walked around the corner, smiling his mild, thoughtful smile. “You wanted me, Dean?”

“I don’t understand,” Nastasia whispered, as they gazed at the fallen proctor who lay like a tumbled statue. She fumbled with her purse, still pulling out her violin. “Why is he in such an unnatural position, as if he were still walking?”

“I paralyzed him.” Rachel gazed at her handiwork with satisfaction.

“You?” Nastasia could not have looked more surprised if she had discovered a fish flipping about in her knickers. “Without an instrument? When—when did you learn to do that?”

“Evil Rumor Monger Number One taught me while you were at the YSL meeting,” Rachel answered cheerfully.

She glanced hopefully down the gravel path toward Drake Hall, but it was empty. Nervously, she shifted her weight back and forth. It had definitely been more than five minutes now.
Where was he?

Glancing back, she caught an unpleasant expression crossing the princess’s face. Glancing down at Fuentes again, Rachel played back Nastasia’s reaction. The dark expression contorting the princess’s pretty features was clearly
envy
.

Rachel squirmed. Nastasia had so many gifts; surely she did not resent Rachel’s success?

“Hey! Watch out!” Siggy shouted, pointing toward Fuentes. “It’s going to bite him!”

“Bite? Bite what, child?” The dean frowned at Sigfried. “There is nothing there.”

The nurse and Mr. Chanson looked around but saw nothing amiss. Rachel, too, glanced this way and that but could not tell what Sigfried referred to.

“No, Dean Moth. I see it, too!” The princess drew her bow across the strings of her violin.

A furious blast of wind blew something backwards. Lucky dived after it, a plume of fire blooming from his mouth.

Rachel stared in frustration, unable to see the cause of the commotion. Then, she thought back a few seconds. A black-eared snake slithered across the gravel toward Fuentes. It approached closely, flicking its jet tongue at the vein on the proctor’s neck. The princess’s gust of wind picked it up and flung it end over end along the pathway, where it rolled to a stop at the feet of a furious Dr. Mordeau. In Rachel’s memory, the Math tutor’s robes appeared to smoke, as if steam were rising from the black cloth.

When Rachel stopped remembering back, Mordeau was still there, but her garments appeared normal. With an angry jerk, Dr. Mordeau gestured with her fulgurator’s wand and knocked Lucky aside. He somersaulted twice, twisted in mid-air, and darted back to wrap around Sigfried. Siggy grabbed him and petted him, scowling petulantly.

A shiver ran up Rachel’s spine. Had her friends not pointed out the snake, she would not have known it had been there until long after it would have been too late to save Fuentes.

“What is the meaning of this?” The Math tutor strode toward them, fuming. Her eyes narrowed as she regarded Sigfried and the princess. “Why are these students attacking my familiar?”

“My apologies, Melusine,” the dean said brusquely. “The children are trigger happy from their recent success. They stopped a proctor who was under a geas. Kept him from harming a student. Apparently, they are now seeing enemies everywhere.”

“It was going to bite him!” Siggy yelled, glaring at Dr. Mordeau.

“My familiar is a snake, Mr. Smith. It uses its tongue to sense the world. I sent it to discover what the commotion was about—so I would know how to be of help.”

“My apologies,” the princess lowered her head, quite contrite.

Sigfried continued to glare, unconvinced.

Dr. Mordeau strode to the dean’s side and gazed down at Fuentes. Displeasure darkened her face like roiling black thunderclouds. She snapped, “How could this be allowed?”

“Obviously, no one
allowed
it, Melusine,” the dean’s voice was firm. “As to how it could happen, I would like to know that myself. Colette, let’s move him inside,” she said to the nurse. To Nastasia, she added, “Child, if you have another such vision, please tell me immediately.”

“I will, Dean Moth,” the princess promised.

The nurse and the dean cast the
tiathelu
cantrip together and floated the young proctor into the infirmary. Mr. Chanson walked beside them. Dr. Mordeau frowned severely. Then she stormed off, her robes flowing about her.

As she passed out of the shadow of the trees and through a bright patch of sunlight, Rachel could see the steam coming off her cloak even with her natural sight. She glanced hopefully beyond Mordeau, but no lanky young man with longish chestnut hair hurried down the path toward them. She sighed.