Page 33 of Spark of Sorcery

Is that what happened? Did a shadow weaver give me their magic?

And if they did, who the hell was it?

Clare takes her volume back to her room with her and I take all the others back to mine.

Fly complains about being ignored in favor of books so I stay up chatting with him a while before retreating back to my room.

I head straight for my closet, pull out the stone and bring it into bed with me, resting it in my lap as I pull the volumes from the library towards me.

The cracks have grown even longer during the day and the stone feels warmer than normal against my skin. I run my palm over its surface and it seems to reverberate.

That’s new.

I stare down at the volumes – at the thick ones from my sister’s year and the thin one from my own.

I flip open the cover of my own, cautious to see what lies within.

The account starts right when the last train – the one from Slate Quarter – arrived at the station and the last of the students filed out onto the platform. It recounts the Empress’s speech and even the words of that asshole shadow weaver who stood on the pile of bags and threatened everyone. Then it goes on to list what happened that night. I skimover all the harrowing details of shadow weavers attacking other students – beating them, frying them, strangling them. It doesn’t make easy reading. And Beaufort wondered why the hell I’d be resentful about his kind.

I keep skimming and then, to my utmost surprise, catch a glimpse of my own name. I retreat back up the text and find it again.

My encounter with Beaufort.

I stare at it in shock. I don’t know why, everyone else’s encounters are included – it’s just ours was so fleeting, such a passing nothing event. He didn’t hurt me. He barely spoke to me.

And yet, while other altercations are given a line at the most, our encounter is described in detail over one paragraph.

I frown, reading it again and again, reliving it as I do, unable to help but shiver.

There’s one sentence in particular that puzzles me, that I don’t understand.

The shadow weaver saw and that is why he pursued the girl from Slate Quarter.

What the hell does that mean? Saw what?

Are all our other encounters included in here? Are they included in as much detail? My cheeks burn as I flick through the pages, the stone warm in my lap.

I catch snippets of bits and pieces as I flip the pages. Stanley has been enjoying himself as far as I can see – sleeping with most of the girls from Iron Quarter already. Odessa has been up to all sorts with the Hardies. And it seems I’m also not the only one she’s been bullying.

I find my various encounters with Beaufort, even with Dray too, but – thank goodness – the book doesn’t go into asmuch detail as that first encounter. They are more just passing comments.

I’m about to put the book away for the evening, when another idea occurs to me.

I flick right to the back of the book, looking for the account of the maze trial.

Maybe it’ll give me information about who helped me in the maze.

I have to wade through a lot of information. Several hundred students went through the trial and it gives at least some details about how each did. I see Thorne Cadieux completed the maze the fastest – Beaufort and Dray not too far behind him. I find details of Clare being whisked away by a tornado, Fly chased by that beast. And then finally I find myself.

I stare at the few words written about my ordeal in the maze. And then I stare some more.

It says I failed.

That’s all. Nothing more. Nothing about the brambles retreating. Nothing about Madame Bardin attacking me. Nothing about the wisp of a shadow.

Should I be surprised? The academy has its secrets and its cover-ups. Of course, there’d be no record of a teacher attacking a student.

I shake my head in disgust and run my finger over the deceptive words. As I do I feel the texture of the paper is different here. Holding the book up to the light, I peer in more closely. Something’s been altered. The words have been tampered with.