Forest of Illusions (The Broken Prism) (33 page)

His mood didn’t improve when a mastery-level girl stopped him in the courtyard to ask for his autograph.

19

Family

After weeks of studying and preparation, final exams were upon them at last.
Elixirs was first up on his schedule, and Hayden wished his friends luck as breakfast drew to a conclusion and he made his way to Master Kilgore’s classroom.

Sure enough, the Elixir exam was tricky, but he thought that with any luck he’d at least managed a passing grade, and after two hours of writing down everything he could e
ver member reading about the subject, he set down his pencil with a sense of relief.

His joy was short-lived, as his next exam was in A
bnormal Magic. He and his fifteen classmates sat in the basement of the school, fidgeting nervously while they waited for Master Laurren to finish passing out their tests and call for them to start.

Hayden flipped his exam paper over and read the first question:

1. Describe the known properties of an Absorber.
   

He exhaled in relief, because at least this question had a fairly straightforward answer. In fact, Hayden had more experience with Absorbers than he cared to for one year, and had no difficulty listing all of the things he knew about them:
absorbs magic, transforms magic into visible light, shows variations and discrepancies in magical instruments and magical Foci…occasionally explodes when smashed against walls.

He hoped Master
Laurren could appreciate the humor of the last part, now that the castle was all put back together. A few of the Masters were still grousing about the stonemason’s bill, in addition to all the magical work they themselves had to do to restore the exterior to new condition. Laurren mostly just grumbled about having so much of his magical cache of weapons depleted during the war, and how long it would take to gradually siphon off enough materials to replenish it without any of the accountants noticing.

The rest of the exam became
more difficult as the questions became more obscure, until at one point Hayden found himself writing a paragraph about irregularly-shaped clouds to help illustrate a point. Most of the questions were about abstract concepts that had no definite answers, and were simply asking him to state his opinions and thoughts on the matter and to attempt to justify them.

By the end of the two hours, Hayden had no idea if he passed or failed. Most of his classmates were scratching their heads with dazed looks on their faces or else crying quietly into their hands, so he figured there might be a curve.

He was practically sprinting to lunch at the end of the test, since thinking too hard always made him hungry for some reason. He sat down beside Tess and she kissed him on the cheek in greeting. Zane mimed vomiting into his mashed turnips, but Conner and Tamon simply pretended not to notice.

“How was Abnormal Magic?” she asked him, ignoring Zane’s mocking.

“I’m not sure,” Hayden admitted with a wry smile. “I think I might have accidentally proven that one equals two at some point.”

Conner tried to laugh with a mouthful of stew, which resulted in it spraying out of his nose and causing him to curse emphatically about the discomfort of h
aving potato chunks stuck in both nostrils.

Bonk glided down from his post near the ceiling with his claws extended, and Hayden realized what he was going to do a moment too late to prevent it. He tried covering his stew, but Bonk managed to dive down, grab the large chunk of meat from it, and fly off before Hayden could do anything
more than shake his fist at his familiar’s retreating back. With a victorious hunting cry, his familiar took off towards the grounds to enjoy his spoils while Hayden’s friends laughed at him.

“Dumb dragon,” Hayden grumbled, digging around in his stew in the hopes of finding more beef, though he knew there was none.

“At least he’s back to normal,” Zane pointed out, pointedly taking a bite of meat and chewing loudly to rub it in Hayden’s face.

He was right, of course. As much as Hayden complained about Bonk being a nuisance and a jerk, he had been devastated when his familiar had fallen ill and stopped eating and playing properly.

Halfway through the meal, Master Reede approached their table and said, “Zane, you’re wanted in the Pentagon.”

Raising his eyebrows in surprise, Zane dropped his spoon with a clatter and asked, “Why, sir? Have I done something wrong?”

“I expect so, given the way your mother was grumbling about you when I was asked to come find you,” the Master said with perfect cheer.

Zane’s face blanched alarmingly.

“My mom is
here?
Now?
”

“In the Pentagon, yes.
I offered her one of our guest quarters until the end of term, since it seems pointless to send her home without you with only a couple days left.”

Zane rose slowly, looking like a man who was being sent to the gallows to die. Hayden
laughed, glad to have his revenge for the being mocked over losing his meal to Bonk.

“Don’t look so cheerful, Frost. She wants you too.”

“HA!” Zane pointed at him, suddenly mollified. “Good, then she’s going to yell at us both.”

Hayden suddenly felt a lot less hungry, and he released Tess’s hand reluctantly and joined Zane on the death-march towards the Pentagon. The walk never felt longer or more nerve-wracking.

“If she starts hitting me, I’m going to hide behind you,” Zane explained hurriedly.

“You wimp—why would you do that?”

Zane scowled and said, “Obviously she’s not going to hit
you
…you’re not family. So if she’s beating me and I hide behind you then she’ll have to stop.”

“Zane, I doubt your mom is going to whip you. She’s actually a really nice lady, so we’re probably just overreacting to this entire thing…”

“Yeah, hold that thought,” Zane mumbled mutinously as they entered the Pentagon.

Mrs.
Laraby was standing in the center of the foyer with her arms folded across her chest, wearing a thick woolen dress with flowers stitched onto it and carrying a long overcoat and mittens. It reminded Hayden that it was actually winter outside of the boundaries of the school.

I
t took her a moment to hear their approach—she had her back to them and was studying the murals of the major arcana on the walls with interest—but as soon as their footsteps stopped she turned to face them.

“There you two are,” she
narrowed her gaze on them like a cat who spotted a nice fat mouse.

Zane tried to affect an air of nonchalance and waved.
“Hi, Mom.”

That seemed to be all she needed to get started on her rant.

“How DARE you two run away from school in the middle of the year without telling anyone!” her voice echoed around the five walls of the foyer, magnifying the noise and making it sound like many angry mothers were yelling the words. “Do you have any idea how much the rest of us worried when you never came home for summer holiday and no one could tell us why? How do you think we felt when those horrible posters went up that you were wanted fugitives on the run?” she was switching her gaze between Zane and Hayden, and neither one of them was stupid enough to answer her.

Fortunately she didn’t require one.

“Flory and Victoria cried their eyes out, thinking you were both dead! Then we heard rumors that you were seen in Amvale, that you were in jail awaiting trial in Kargath—only we went to Kargath and heard that you’d escaped and were likely headed to the Forest of Illusions to fight in a war you had no business involving yourselves in!”

She paused and glared at them both with her hands on her hips, apparently waiting for one of them to answer. Zane tried to keep his voice steady as he said, “Well, yeah…”

Mrs. Laraby smacked her son in the face, not hard enough to really hurt, but enough to startle him. The sound reverberated oddly around the foyer.

“But Mrs.
Laraby,” Hayden interjected, “the Masters and Council members were being tortured and dying…we had to do something.”

She leaned over and smacked him too, and Hayden felt the light sting in his cheek as his mouth dropped open dumbly in shock.

“I thought you only hit family,” he blurted out, and Zane’s mother frowned.

“Well your mother isn’t here to
knock some sense into you, so I’m willing to do it in her stead,” she snapped. “You two are fourteen-years old and undertrained, and you thought you’d waltz into a battle zone after knowing that much more talented mages than you had been overpowered? You’re lucky I don’t bend you over my knee and spank you both like the children you are!”

Hayden took a step back, aghast at the thought of being spanked in the middle of Mizzenwald by a woman who looked more than capable of overpowering him right now, magic or not. Zane looked similarly horrified, obviously reliving some unpleasant childhood memories.

“If you two idiots ever pull a stunt like that again, you’d better hope you die in the process, because if you survive, I’m going to have you chopping firewood until you reach your majority or your arms fall off.”

And with that she seemed to deflate, the anger washing out of her.

“Chopping wood would doubtless be good for both of them,” Master Reede startled them all by speaking up from behind them. Hayden turned and saw him leaning casually against the open window frame, apparently having watched the entire spectacle.

The Master stood upright and moved forward to shake Mrs.
Laraby’s hand.

“I’m Reede,
by the way, Master of Conjury. It’s a pleasure to meet such a level-headed person in this madhouse.” He smirked. “Pity that none of it rubbed off on your son or young Frost. Still, they did manage to save us in the end, against inconceivable odds, so I suppose their lack of foresight occasionally has its merits.”

Mrs.
Laraby was still looking a bit flustered at having an audience to her ranting, though she shook the Master’s hand and recovered nicely.

“You’re Zane’s mentor here?”

Reede shrugged and said, “I’m technically supposed to be mentoring quite a few students—all of the Conjury majors, really—though some of them get more of my attention than others.”

“The Masters only bother with the
really powerful, really smart ones,” Zane put in ruefully. “You practically have to streak through the dining hall naked to get their attention otherwise.”

Master Reede grimaced and said, “Don’t try it, it’s been done. Ruined my appetite for days.” He smirked at the look on Hayden’s face. “I don’t know why you’re complaining,
Laraby; you’re one of the youngest students I’ve ever favored with extra attention.”

Zane got a strange look on his face and said, “Since when? I hardly see you outside of classes.”

Master Reede looked around and said, “I’m here now, aren’t I?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Mrs. Laraby, a room is being set up for you on the second floor in the guest area. Allow me to show you to it, and we can share stories about your son along the way that will horrify him to think of for years to come.”

Zane looked like he’d just be
en told he’d have to live in the Forest of Illusions, but Mrs. Laraby brightened slightly and said, “Thank you, that sounds lovely.” To Hayden and Zane she added, “You two had better stay out of trouble and focus on your exams.”

And with that they walked off.

Zane turned to Hayden and said, “Well, that was awful.”

Hayden chuckled darkly. “What does she think we were planning to do in the next two days, start a riot and burn down the school? Of course we’ll be focused on our exams.”

“Yeah, well at least Reede showed up before she could make good on her threats to spank us. Believe me, it’s not an experience you want to have etched into your memory. I haven’t been spanked since I was about seven, and I still remember it vividly.”

Hayden shuddered just as the noise from the dining hall picked up, signaling the end of lunch.

At least the entire school didn’t get to watch us being chewed out by Zane’s mom.

“Well, on
to our next exam I guess,” Zane sighed.

“Yeah, good luck. See you later,” Hayden replied, still feeling off-balance from the confrontation in the Pentagon. There was really nothing for him to do at this point but go to Charms and try to focus his mind back on schoolwork.

His Charms final went better than expected, and he finished the day in relatively high spirits. When Zane’s mother joined them for dinner that night she was her normal cheerful self and didn’t attempt to strike either one of them again, for which they were both grateful.

The following day began with Hayden’s Prisms final. This was his easiest class by far, and when he entered the classroom with Bonk it was to find Master Asher standing impatiently by the door.

“Uh, good morning, sir.
Don’t I have an exam today?” he asked in greeting.