Page 6 of The Tribes of Magic (Paragons #3)
THE MAGIC MARK
I had to find out if Ainsley was the General’s spy in the Castle.
So instead of standing idly beside the other Apprentices by the door like I was supposed to, I followed the Knight deeper into the kitchen.
She must have sensed me sneaking around behind her, though, because I didn’t make it far before she pivoted around.
I quickly darted behind a wall stocked full of high-tech kitchen appliances. I should have looked first. In my haste, I nearly ran into the chef working there.
The woman’s eyes grew wide as they took me in. “Hey, I know you.”
I’d never seen her before in my life. And I would have remembered. She looked like the quintessential cookie-baking grandma, complete with a flour-dusted apron, rosy cheeks, and dimples.
Chef Grandma set a ball of kneaded bread dough into the bowl and covered it with a cloth.
“I saw you on the news. You’re Savannah Winters.
You saved the Spirit Trees.” She uncovered another bowl, reached inside, and started shaping cute little chocolate-chip rolls.
“The Iron Wolf says it was his soldiers, but everyone knows it was you. You were in the videos, fighting those terrible criminals. You are a hero.”
Blushing, I poked the rolling pin resting on the counter. “Well, I had help.”
“Yes, I know.” Her smile stretched wider. “Those two valiant Knights. Are they, by any chance, your boyfriends?”
I pretty much choked on my own tongue.
“Are you all right, dear?” she asked me, concern etched into her sweet grandma-face.
I coughed, trying to clear my tight throat. “I’m fine. Just fine. What made you think that they’re…”
“Your boyfriends?”
“Yeah.” I coughed again. “That.”
“Oh, well, it’s all over the GGG.”
“GGG?”
It sounded like a contagious disease. Or maybe one of those old candy brands from the World That Was before the Curse.
Chef Grandma grabbed a pastry brush and started painting beaten egg goo across the tops of her rolls. “GGG is Gaia’s Gossip Guide, of course. Surely you’ve heard of it?”
“Actually, no.”
And I didn’t want to. I did not need to watch the whole world gossip about me.
It was bad enough knowing that they were doing it without seeing it for myself.
I’d thought Kylie’s teasing was bad. Well, that was nothing.
Apparently, someone had managed to turn my life into a global phenomenon.
I clutched my stomach, fighting back the swirling storm of acid rising inside it.
“So which one are you going to pick?” she asked me.
“Which what?”
“Which Knight? You can’t have two boyfriends at once, young lady. That just isn’t proper.”
I must have wandered into some twisted alternate reality where Mrs. Claus tortured me with love advice while she baked me chocolate-chip rolls.
“The two Knights and I…we’re just friends,” I told her. “That’s all.”
“That’s all?” she repeated, frowning.
She looked at me like I’d just ruined the ending to her favorite fairytale.
“What do you think you’re doing here, Savannah?”
Ainsley stood in the aisle between the steel counters, staring at me, arms folded in front of her chest.
“I was just helping?—”
“I told you to wait by the door, not fraternize with the kitchen staff. Hurry up. Get back to the other Apprentices. It’s almost time to serve the first course.”
The friendly chef offered me a sympathetic smile before I turned and walked away. So much for stealthily spying on Ainsley. I was really terrible at this.
“Where have you been?” Bronte hissed at me under her breath as I squeezed into the line between her and Dutch. “When Ainsley saw you weren’t here and no one knew where you’d gone, she totally lost it. How did you manage to sneak away without any of us noticing, anyway?”
“Magic,” I replied with a slow, dramatic sweep of my hands.
“Really?” There was an eager spark in her eyes. She observed me closely, curiously, like she was waiting for me to show her some magic.
“No, Bronte,” I told her honestly. “It wasn’t magic. I just slipped away while you guys were distracted.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t magic?” Bronte asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
It seemed that the only time I was good at magic was when my life was on the line or the fate of the world was at stake. Luckily, Zoe was there to cheer me up.
“Do you know what I think?” she said. “I think she’s not some powerful Polymage at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean, Bronte, is that she can’t do any magic at all. She’s never been able to do any magic when we ask her to do it. So maybe she’s been faking it all this time.” Zoe hit me with her nastiest smile.
“That’s ridiculous. She has a magic mark.”
“Does she, Dutch? Does she really?” Zoe’s brows drew together like two rivers flooding into one another. “So, you’ve seen it?”
Dutch blushed.
Bronte frowned at him. “Wait, when did you see her mark? I haven’t seen it.”
“Not everyone’s mark is right there on their wrist for everyone to see like yours is, Bronte,” Victoria said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to need to see some proof .” Zoe directed the statement at Victoria, but her gaze was locked squarely on me.
I rolled my eyes at her. “I don’t have to prove anything to you, Zoe.”
Zoe flicked one of her tiny pigtails. “Yeah, because that doesn’t make you sound guilty at all.”
“What exactly do you think I’m guilty of?”
“Pretending to have magic.”
“But we’ve all seen her do magic, Zoe,” Jack pointed out.
She shrugged. “Everything we think she did, she could have just been using a magical artifact or something.”
I let out a really loud snort.
Zoe bristled. “What’s so funny?”
“You are, Zoe. People who don’t have magic can’t use magical artifacts, genius.”
“Says who?”
“People who have a clue about magic.”
Her mouth dropped in outrage.
“Ask Ainsley if you don’t believe me.”
Zoe’s gaze flickered to the Knight, like she was tempted, but she must have decided that annoying Ainsley with random questions wasn’t the best way to get into her good graces.
“I could ask Ainsley,” she purred. “Or you could just settle this here and now by showing us your magic mark. Unless you don’t have one.”
“Fine,” I bit out. I pulled my shirt up and pushed my pants down—just far enough to show them the magic tattoo on my hipbone. “Satisfied?”
“How do we know it’s even real?” Zoe squinted at my mark. “Well, I guess there’s one way.” She reached toward it.
I batted her hand away. “Try that again, and you won’t like what happens.”
Zoe backed up a step, looking pretty startled.
“And that goes for all of you guys,” I told the other Apprentices. “This is my personal space.” I waved the air around me. “Which means you don’t enter it unless I say you can.”
“Whoa, you’re just as much of a freak as everyone says you are, Savannah!” One of the Apprentices raised his hand in the air, a clear, enthusiastic, undeniable invitation to high-five him.
I stared at him for a few long, hard seconds, then slapped my palm against his.
“Savannah’s the real deal, guys,” Victoria said. “She teleported me and Jack Johnson clear across the Park yesterday, and I saw what a toll that spell took on her. Her nose started bleeding. You can’t fake that .”
“You can’t fake a magic mark either,” Dutch added. “There’s this special way that it shimmers in the light. If you stare at it long enough, you’ll be able to spot a fake.”
Jack cracked a smile. “And just how long have you spent staring at Savannah’s bare midriff, Dutch?”
Dutch turned redder than a strawberry, and this time, the color spread all the way down his neck.
“I’d be careful if I were you. Remember, her boyfriends are Knights!” Jack laughed.
“Ugh, I preferred it when everyone was accusing me of being a fraud,” I whispered to Bronte.
And though she gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, her gaze was firmly on Dutch.
Wait, she couldn’t be jealous, could she? She didn’t like him, did she?
I was about to tell Bronte that Dutch was no more my boyfriend than Conner or Kato were—that this was nothing more than idle minds trying to stir up drama to keep themselves entertained—but Ainsley had just glided to a graceful stop in front of us.
“Get to work, Apprentices,” she told us. “The time has come to see if you’re worthy of joining the most powerful Tribe of them all!”