Page 27

“Have you ever heard of a spell that puts, like, moving stories in a box?” I ask, leaning on Mr. Vega’s desk before second period. My new class schedule is a little disorienting; everything had to be shifted around to accommodate my new Advanced Spelling transfer.

The rest of the weekend was a wash of worry; once I recharged my runebook, I cast a quick diagnosis and found the first spell that Order guy aimed at me was a brief memory modification, specified to about thirty minutes prior to any subject within range.

The second was a location tracker, clumsy compared to mine, but would have been effective if my shield spell hadn’t been up.

I’d watched his little glow on my tracker map the rest of the evening; he’d gone to UCLA and then bounced around Westwood for a bit before settling somewhere in Culver City. Work and then his home, I’m guessing, my theory that he’s some sort of grad student becoming more likely.

I’m still shaken by the encounter, but I’m determined to figure out exactly what the Order is and what they know about Brenda’s world.

The portals must be unique and rare enough for them to monitor them, and they must have some sort of map or schedule, if they send people out to make sure no one is getting through them, and modifying their memories if they do.

I fiddle in my pocket, playing with Brenda’s blue object—I’d forgotten to give it back to her yesterday, but after seeing that huge moving picture thing on the street in her world, I’d remembered about Mom’s stuff and the stories.

Other people had to know about these stories, too, right?

I tap Vega’s desk impatiently.

The spelling teacher jumps up, startled, staring at me, like seeing me outside of class is so entirely out of his realm of understanding that it doesn’t quite make sense.

The bell rings; students are shuffling into Basic Spelling, idling in their seats and chatting with one another. The words Potions and Tinctures: What’s the Difference? are scrawled messily on the board.

“You mean like a live spellcall?” Vega asks, blinking at me quizzically. “Is this about the essay topics for advanced? You could choose any spell out of Ribay’s Introduction to Rudimentary Matrices to write about.”

I wave my hand away; I completely forgot about that assignment.

“No, just in general, because you’re… the expert.

” I swallow back the grimace that I want to make and strain for a smile instead.

I don’t know any academic mages who aren’t either friends with Dad or in deep with the Mages’ Council.

I suppose I could reach out to mages at local universities, but I hate stepping foot on any campus—it always turns into a slick you-should-go-here tour once someone figures out who I am.

“Oh, why, thank you, Miss Woo,” Vega says, puffing out his chest. “You know, I’d be happy to talk with you further about all the different ways live spellcalls can be cast. I understand you’re coming to Spellcraft Club now, right?

That’s great, we can chat then. And the advanced students who come just stay for class the next period, so it’s super convenient! ”

“Right, okay,” I say, pulling back from the desk. I’ve never gone to Vega’s lunch hour with the other magic nerds before, and I actually forgot that was one of my post-pineapple consequences, but this works out. I can see if Vega or anyone else knows about this stuff.

A few wide-eyed freshmen in the first row are staring at me and whispering, and I hear my name and the word prophecy batted about.

“Something to say?” I turn my focused stare on them, raising my eyebrows.

“Uh, no,” one blunders.

“That’s what I thought,” I mutter. As I stride out the door, I hear “She talked to me!” in an excited whisper.

I roll my eyes. There’s nothing I’ve done to earn this hero worship, and as much as I’ve done to try to mess with my reputation and what people might expect of me, the prophecy always wins.

I shove the depressing thought away. I’ve got better things to do than dwell on the future.

Just the idea of lunch is awkward; I hardly ever eat in the school cafeteria.

I’m usually off campus or have already ditched by lunchtime.

I bring a sandwich and a sad-looking salad to Vega’s room just to hold something.

Hannah and her girlfriend, Jamie, are laughing and giggling over an open spellsheet, drawing runes as Mr. Vega looks over.

A few honors society–type kids and some students from Intermediate Spelling are here, too, which tracks.

Joe and some others I recognize intermittently from detention are also here, which is weird.

What’s he doing hanging out with the magic nerds?

Joe’s sitting next to Hannah, looking suspiciously chummy.

Maybe he likes her or something, but there’s little chance there; Hannah and Jamie have been attached at the hip ever since freshman year.

Joe waggles his eyebrows at me when he catches me looking, and I give him an exaggerated eye roll.

“Ms. Woo! So wonderful of you to join us. We were just discussing the implications of using the Jensen matrix in translocation spells,” Vega says with an oily grin.

“Great,” I say with a forced smile.

“Kat!” Hannah waves at me enthusiastically. “Here, sit with us. Mr. Vega said you transferred to Advanced! That’s so great, I knew that pineapple spell was pretty genius, even though it went kinda haywire.”

I snort. “Yeah, I didn’t account for the mana surge.”

Hannah pushes aside her backpack and gestures me toward a chair. I take it, scrutinizing the spellsheet where she’s added an interesting flourish to a basic spell matrix for levitation.

“What do you think?” she asks.

“It looks pretty good.” I nod at her. “I like that you used Huy Trung Thanh’s theory there. You’re trying to make a backpack constantly change color as it floats?”

Hannah beams at me.

“You forgot to close a runestroke here, though,” I point out.

Hannah stares at her work for a long, drawn-out moment before groaning and pressing her face to the sheet. “I cannot believe I’ve been stressing how to make it work in the Jensen matrix and I was missing a stroke the whole time! Thanks, Kat.”

“No problem.” A strange warm feeling starts to unfurl inside of me. It’s nice having someone who understands spell programming well enough to actually banter with me about it.

And it’s nice being with my friend again.

Hannah tilts a bag of chips toward me. “Shrimp chips?”

I take one, grinning. I love these things.

“Kat is researching live spellcalls. It could make an interesting capstone assignment,” Vega says. “We’ll chat more about those in class later today. Hannah is doing hers on the properties of levitation.”

I pull out a notebook and sketch Mom’s story box. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” I ask Vega.

He shakes his head.

Joe raises his eyebrows at me, but he doesn’t say anything, just keeps chewing his sandwich thoughtfully.

“What is it?” Hannah asks, peering over my shoulder.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “Something that facilitates live spellcalls—or maybe not live—but a recorded one. Like you could tell a story on it or something.”

Mr. Vega blinks at me.

“What about these?” I pull the cards Brenda gave me out of my pocket, fanning them out to show Mr. Vega and the other students clustered at my table. “Anyone ever see these before?”

He shakes his head. “Interesting art,” he says. “What’s this have to do with spellcalls?”

I shrug. Joe is squirming uncomfortably in his seat. He gives me a weird accusatory look before stuffing an entire sandwich in his mouth.

Hannah peers over my shoulder. “Can I see?” I hand the cards to Hannah, who studies them carefully. “Caterpie,” she pronounces carefully, and glances at Joe. “I wonder what it’s for? Some sort of art project?”

“That’s what I wanted to know. Found it at the pier. Somebody must have dropped it.” Something about Hannah’s careful question seems suspicious. Like she does in fact know what it is but is deliberately pretending not to.

Joe raises his hand. “Mr. Vega, what is the difference between a potion and a tincture?”

Mr. Vega’s whole face lights up like he’s been waiting his whole life for someone to ask that.

What a wasted lunch. I didn’t find out anything about Brenda’s world at all. Well, hanging out with Hannah and Jamie and everyone wasn’t terrible. Class afterward was even kind of interesting; we got to choose something unique to program for the capstone project.

I throw my satchel over my shoulder, hustling out of the classroom when Hannah catches up to me.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey back,” I say. I pause, wondering. Do we just go back to being best friends? Could we even? Should I invite her to hang out?

“Joe’s really territorial, you know,” she says, looking around shiftily as if to make sure no one is within earshot. Jamie eyes us suspiciously from the classroom, where she’s packing up their backpacks.

“About…” I raise my eyebrows.

“The anchors. I probably wouldn’t flash those around him if he didn’t sell them to you, and especially not around Mr. Vega.”

“These?” I pull out the cards again.

“Shh!” Hannah gestures quickly for me to put them away. “You’ll get us all in trouble!” She glances quickly down at the card with the water droplet on it. “Actually, do you have plans for that one? I could use a level-two anchor for a focus spell tonight, I totally need to finish this essay.”

I tilt my head with interest. What does this card game from Brenda’s world have to do with controlled spell cornerstones? You can buy precharged ones for various spells anywhere, but you need to be over eighteen to purchase anchors for stimulant spells over the counter.

“Go ahead,” I offer it to her.

Hannah beams. “I’ll buy you lunch tomorrow,” she says. “And remember—the rules of the anchors is that we don’t talk about the anchors.”

I lean against the wall casually, amused. “We’re talking about the anchors right now.”

Hannah laughs as Jamie approaches us. “I’ll see you at Spellcraft tomorrow.”

Jamie throws her arm around Hannah and narrows her eyes at me, as if to say back off .

I roll my eyes back at her—seriously?

Hannah elbows her girlfriend and Jamie coughs, embarrassed. “Bye, Kat,” Hannah says before they walk off, whispering with each other.

I’d heard the rumors about Joe before. He’s always been one of those guys who could get you anything—a fake love potion, a sham tincture, controlled ingredients like dreamdram or sprintsage, or even age-restricted anchors.

So if these are things from Brenda’s world, how are they getting here?

I wonder how much money people make off this. It certainly seems like something someone would risk a lot to protect.

I open my runebook again to check on my tracking spell. It only lasts twenty-four hours, and it’s going to wear out soon. I haven’t gleaned any useful information about the guy other than the fact he definitely is a student at or works at UCLA.

I pull up the map in closer detail and my breath hitches as I see exactly where he’s been all day.

The Department of Magical Arts.

Specifically, the Advanced Research wing.

Mom’s old department.