Page 12 of Spark of Sorcery

I turn the stone over again and again in my hands. Apart from those cracks there are no other differences. The weight is the same, the heat it penetrates no greater and no lesser, and the surface is still smooth.

“Was it you?” I ask the stone. “Was it you who saved me?”

“Saved you from what?”

I jerk, immediately stuffing the stone under my pillow, then I spin around and find Fly standing in my doorway.

“We’ve been searching for you everywhere,” he says, coming to sit beside me on the bed. Like me, he’s still wearing his gray tracksuit and, like mine, it has seen better days. “You know the Princes have been looking for you too.”

“Yeah, they found me,” I say.

“They did?” He looks surprised. “Those shitheads. They could have told us. Do you know Clare is actually searching for you in the library as we speak?” He leans in closer. “That place gives me the creeps, so I offered to come check your room again. I was not expectingto find you here.” He tilts his head to one side. “You weren’t here an hour ago. Were you at the clinic after all?”

He frowns because, if I was at the clinic, they have done a very good job of fixing me up. Much better than usual. I’m no longer covered in scrapes, bruises and burn marks. I bet I look unscratched. Unlike most of the other students probably receiving pathetic patching up at the clinic.

As if reading my thoughts, Fly says, “There are quite a few casualties in the clinic. It’s pretty full tonight. That … thing!”

“You came up against it too?”

Fly shivers. “I managed to beat it away with a heavy branch I found. How about you?”

“I outran it – lost it in the maze.”

“You outran it?” he says, then shakes his head. “Cupcake, you're fast but not that fast. That thing moved like a rabid hunting dog.”

It was fast; I remember it gaining on me quickly, I remember thinking it was going to catch me. And then it had stopped. I assumed I outran it but maybe I didn’t. Does that mean I was helped more than once?

Fly shudders again, this time so hard the bed wobbles, and I glance towards my pillow hoping the stone is secure under there.

It’s not that I don’t want to tell Fly about it. I’ve been half tempted for weeks. But that run-in with Madame Bardin has reminded me how dangerous this academy can be. Fly and Clare have been kind to me – heck, they’ve even seemed to enjoy hanging out with me. Like I told Fox, I don’t want to endanger my friends.

That’s also why I won’t be telling him about what happened in that maze. The less he knows the safer he’ll be.

“So if not at the clinic or playing make-up with the Princes, where the hell have you been?”

I stare at him, my mind struggling to grasp a suitable explanation. In the end, I decide to go for a half truth.

“Something went funny with the trial. I was in there for two hours instead of one.”

“What?” he says, incomprehension and shock spreading across his face. “Like a malfunction? But how is that even possible?”

I shrug. “I guess I got lucky.”

“Seriously lucky, Cupcake,” Fly wraps me in a hug. “You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t. Unfortunately for you, you can’t lose me that easily.”

“Thank goodness,” he says, “you’re growing on me.”

He ends the hug and holds me arms’ length away from him, examining my face. “Those shitheads healed you, huh? At least they can do something right.”

“It wasn’t them. We’re still not really on speaking terms.”

“They’re the Princes! If they wanted to speak with you, then, sorry Cupcake, but even you yourself couldn’t stop them.”

I shrug a second time. “Let’s not think about them now. Tell me, is Clare okay? Did she make it through without being hurt?”

“A few scrapes and bruises like me. Nothing too serious. Apparently she got seriously close to finishing the maze.”