Magic University Book One: The Siren and the Sword (10 page)

On Halloween morning, he received a letter from Great-Aunt Agatha.

Dearest Kyle
, it began, which he couldn’t help but hear in an ironic tone. Very little was dear to Agatha other than her very old, half-blind tomcat Mr. Whiskers, and her attic full of old furniture and junk.

I hope you are doing well at Harvard. I still do not know what to tell the neighbors about your sudden departure as your explanation about the professor in immediate need of a fellowship student assistant is still very plainly hogwash to me, young man, and so I am loath to repeat it. I have been instead acting as if they are the ones who are confused. “What? You knew Kyle was accepted to Harvard, didn’t you? Oh yes, didn’t you realize it was this year he was going?” That of course works with many, but there are those who would think I have gone out of my mind except for the fact that you are very definitely Not In Evidence. Therefore I must either be telling the truth or I’ve hidden your body somewhere. I resent greatly that you have put me in this position, and I would at least appreciate something from you that I can show them that a normal college freshman would send to his family. I am enclosing twenty dollars in case that should help.

“Jeez, Agatha, I can tell you really miss me, too,” he said sarcastically. What did the neighbors think? First Jove, then Kyle? He doubted the neighbors even noticed. He nearly crumpled up the letter, but instead took the twenty dollars down to the Coop and bought a shirt that said “Harvard” in large letters across the top, centered over the shield-like logo reading VE-RI-TAS. He then spent an hour trying to take pictures of himself on the steps of Widener Library with his cell phone camera and mostly failing until he saw Yoshi coming out of the library.

“Yosh! Can you help me?”

“What up, dog?” Yoshi always sounded to Kyle like nearly everything he said was a question. Something about his accent and the way his eyebrows went up and made his eyes seem very wide and inquisitive. Yoshi seemed to aspire to the “cool” of a pop star, his clothes often looking like something straight from a music video, but his face never managed the pouty disdain or artful smolder that would match.

“I’m trying to take a picture of myself to print out and send to my great aunt to prove I’m really at Harvard.” Kyle handed him the phone with the camera set to go.

Yoshi examined the camera. “You need megapixels! Use mine?” He pulled a phone out of his jacket pocket.

“Okay, but hurry.” Kyle rubbed his bare arms. It was a bit chilly to be standing out there without a jacket.

Yoshi backed down several steps, then Kyle heard the sound effect of a camera shutter and was surprised to even see a flash.

Yoshi hurried back up to show him the results on a screen much larger and clearer than the one on Kyle’s crappy phone. “You look awesome? Very cool. Very fly, my man. E-mail?”

“Um, sure. Yeah, that works.”

Kyle pulled his jacket back on and thanked Yoshi for the help, then headed off to one of the places on campus he could get the file and print it. He wondered if perhaps he could return the shirt now and get the money back—trying to stretch his unspent book stipend to last to the end of the semester was already going to be a challenge, but in the end he decided he liked the shirt. An hour later he had printed the photo nicely, and mailed it in a nice envelope with a brief letter which said nothing of consequence.

He was sure Agatha would take one look at it, then probably never take it out of the envelope again. Her mantel was covered with photos of other family members, and she even had one of Jove, but in all the time Kyle had lived with her, she’d never put up one of him.

Whatever. Agatha was in the past. In the present, he still had a poem to write.

* * * *

Putting on his costume alone in his room, Kyle wondered if maybe he should have gone over to Camella House and gotten dressed with the rest of them. Then maybe he wouldn’t be turning back and forth in front of the mirror wondering whether the entire thing looked remarkably stupid.

The weather was too cold to just wear the costume as it was, so he’d put a shirt on under it, but then it looked too bulky, so he had taken it off again. The tights for his legs were so thin, it felt like the breeze was blowing right up his ass crack, honestly. It was a little better with the cape and cowl on, though. Maybe it would be all right. It would be kind of dark in the dance hall anyway, and he decided he had just better stop worrying about it. He was committed to this course of action.

He was meeting Jess in the front of Lowell House, one of the non-magical residential houses. The Lowell dining hall was large enough to host a dance for a few hundred people, something none of the magical houses could boast. Kyle wondered if it could be a problem, having a bunch of magical revelers in a building where so many mundanes lived, but
then they shared classroom buildings every day and no one seemed to blink.

The sun had set, but it didn’t seem too cold just yet.

Lindy and Jeanie came up to him, holding hands. Kyle attempted not to blink or look shocked—had he known they were a couple? Or was it part of their costuming for the night? Lindy was wearing a black wig and was dressed like belly dancer, while Jeanie looked...sort of like a geisha, maybe?

“Wow, Kyle, impressive package,” Jeanie said, then reddened, her hand over her mouth, while Lindy laughed.

“Yeah, nice tights,” she added.

“Um, you guys are...”

Jeanie uncovered her mouth. “You really have no idea, do you?”

“I’m Jasmine, she’s Mulan. We convinced Marjory to come as Cinderella, have you seen her? And Marigold is going to be Snow White, and Kate... I can’t remember who Kate was going to be.” Lindy tapped her finger against her pursed lips.

“Ariel?” Jeanie guessed. “What other Disney princesses are there?”

“Oh, right. I think she decided on Pocahontas, though. And Monica was going to do Ariel since she doesn’t like dancing that much.”

Monica was Jess’s roommate, whom Kyle almost never saw since Jess always planned his visits to coincide with her absence. He nodded like he’d known all along what their common theme was—somehow Disney princesses wouldn’t have probably been high on his list. Then again, what other common theme could he come up with that could accommodate so many girls? He wondered if Jess felt left out. “I haven’t seen Marjory yet, but I’ve only been standing here for a few minutes. Did you guys see Jess?”

“She was already gone when we left, I think?” Lindy said, looking around. “She might have come here with her costume to change into it here. I think that’s what Marjory was planning to do. Maybe they’re together.”

Marjory was the resident tutor on the Camella House third floor. Kyle had met her a few times in passing. She was a grad student in Esoteric Studies, but he didn’t know her well. Jess talked about her some because Marjory was someone she had spoken with a lot regarding which major to pick.

“Oh. My. God.” Lindy’s eyes were wide, looking at someone over Kyle’s shoulder.

Kyle turned quickly, his cape swirling, and caught sight of a woman in black stiletto boots and a skintight black suit, carrying a bullwhip. She had a panther-like slink to her walk, hips rolling, and a black mask around her eyes, and...

Oh. And cat ears. “Jess?”

“Rrrrrow,” she said as she came close, running one fingernail under Kyle’s chin. “Shall we go in?”

“Sure.” He followed her, turning back to give a half-hearted wave to the other two. They were giggling as they waved back.

Inside the hall, colorful lights had been set along the walls, painting them in gold and purple and green and blue, and from time to time the colors changed with the music. All the dining tables had been removed, leaving a large open floor with a deejay at one end. Kyle didn’t recognize the song playing, but it had a nice beat to it and Jess pulled him right out onto the dance floor. There were already a few dozen people dancing while others stood around the edges watching, or walked back and forth between the various snack and drink stations set up in the corners.

But Kyle only took that in at the edges of his vision. Jess filled his sight, and he wanted nothing more than to just run his hands down the sleek gloss of her hair, over the skintight curves of her outfit, pulling her against him.

Instead, they danced, which was dizzying and made his blood rush nearly as much. She came close enough sometimes for him to catch her scent, but she wasn’t touching him. He felt the edge of his cape swishing along the backs of his legs and wondered what she would say if he picked her up and tried to carry her. Although Camella House was probably too far for that.

Those were the sorts of thoughts that ran through his head, and just as he was beginning to wonder how much time had passed, and whether maybe they ought to pause to get drinks, the music slowed.

He didn’t hesitate, pulling her close as the slow dance began. She sighed contentedly as she leaned her head against his, nearly his height in her tall boots. Kyle was anything but content, but his instincts were soothed for the moment. Closer was better than not closer, after all. He lost himself in the scent of her shampoo, and decided when the song ended, he’d ask if she wanted to get some air.

His reverie was broken by someone tapping on his shoulder, and a voice, “May I cut in?”

“Um, sure...” he said automatically, before he realized who it was.

But a moment later Frost was in his arms, his wrists crossed behind Kyle’s head. “Frost, what...?” He looked up and saw Candlin was dancing with Jess, who had to look down at him from her high heels.

Frost leaned close. “It’s nearly half past nine, you know? Don’t be late.”

Then just as suddenly, his arms were empty and Frost was making his way toward the exit. The music changed, picking up pace, and Jess was chuckling as Candlin bowed to her and left her, too.

She seized Kyle’s hand as she pushed him toward the edge of the dancing. “So,” she said, once they were a bit further from the deejay and the speakers. “Are we going to the broom race?”

“Um, what?”

“Michael said Frost invited us to go.”

“Oh.” Kyle blinked. “Er, yeah. Roof of William James Hall, ten o’clock. Do you want to go?”

She grinned. “I’ve never been! It’s usually only the Gladius types who get to go.”

So Frost wasn’t calling him out for a duel or trying to hit on him or any of the other quick mental explanations Kyle had come up with for the secret rendezvous. Or not so secret, as it turned out. “Wait a minute. They actually race brooms?” Kyle asked, his curiosity getting the better of his usual instinct to just play along and try to fit in.

“So I hear. Come on.” She led the way out of the hall, drawing a few appreciative whistles from some of their compatriots.

Kyle followed, starting to wonder if he really should have brought a coat. The roof of the tallest building on the campus was not likely to be a warm and cozy place. Maybe they could stop at Gladius House and he could pick one up? But, no. He couldn’t see himself complaining in front of her. So he kept his mouth shut as they crossed the campus, the clouds shredding like gossamer to reveal a gibbous moon a third of the way up the sky.

* * * *

He wasn’t surprised to find a door to the building “conveniently” unlocked, nor another one leading to the roof stairwell.

He was surprised to see Alex, squatting on the gravel roof with two guys Kyle didn’t recognize, passing a pipe back and forth between them. Alex was in his pirate outfit, though he’d lost his headscarf somewhere along the way, and a parrot—a real, live parrot—was pecking at the gravel near his boots.

About twenty other students were there, and Kyle found himself looking for Frost among them. The shadows were strange and disorienting, the light coming from two corners of the roof. He couldn’t tell if it was always like that, or if the students had rigged the lights. Jess held his hand, which was the only warm part of him up here in the wind. She pulled him closer to the edge and they looked down on Memorial Hall in all its cathedral glory. He put his arms around her as if to warm her up, and wondered if his shivering was too obvious.

“I wonder if someone brought...aha. Come on.” She pulled him closer to a small knot of people where a Gladius House tutor, Remy, was passing out tiny glass vials from his messenger bag. Jess went and got two, bringing them back to Kyle.

“What is it?” He held it up in the light and saw it was a deep red color like wine.

Jess had already downed hers. “You’ll be warm once you drink it.”

“Will you tell me what it is if I drink it?”

She giggled as he pulled the cork and drank, then answered, “It’s magic.”

It was. He felt the warmth start in his stomach and blossom outward, almost like getting goosebumps, except it was heat that flashed over his skin when it reached there. The palms of his hands were suddenly hot.

“They call it Red Heat. If you end up going any further in Alchemy, you might learn to make it,” she said, watching his stunned expression. Then she slid into his arms. For a moment he thought it might feel too hot to be in such close contact—but no, after the initial flash, the effect seemed to mellow to a steady warmth that felt even better when they were holding each other.