The Dawn of Dae (Dae Portals Book 1) (17 page)

Huffing, the dean shook his head and waved his hand to prevent me from saying anything else. I clacked my teeth together and waited for the verdict.

Losing my temper with the man who ran my college wasn’t wise or smart. I focused on the memory of smacking Rob with my bag, which made it easier to stand still and wait for the dean’s decision.

“You’ve done well with the interview process so far,” he said, although I got the feeling he wasn’t too happy about having to dish out a compliment.

“Thank you, sir.”

“It is fortunate your tardiness doesn’t affect things today. The first set of interviewees will arrive a little over an hour from now. These individuals are from the fringe and have been specially selected by their employers for evaluation. Some of them are children, so you may have to coax them into demonstrating their abilities. Here is a rundown of the candidates and everything I have on them. Send the ones you think are worth additional evaluation to my office. The police will take care of the others.”

A chill ran through me. It shouldn’t have surprised me; the elite evaluated children all the time. It had happened to me, and it happened to every other kid in the fringe, too. However, aptitude tests didn’t include a high risk of self-immolation. Was there anything worse than self-immolation?

I didn’t know, and that worried me even almost as much as the thought of witnessing a second Claudia.

“Yes, sir,” I murmured.

The dean gestured to a stack of papers on his desk and returned to his work. Taking his refusal to further acknowledge my presence as a dismissal, I picked up the stack, curtsied, and left.

Chapter Eleven

When the dean had said some of the candidates were children, I had been under the impression they were the minority rather than the majority. I propped my feet up on the table, leaned back in my chair until I balanced it on two legs, and went to work flipping through the sheets to get an idea of what I faced.

Playing with fire meant someone would get burned, and the elite in charge of the fringe knew it. Of the sixty children and five adults I needed to interview, forty-three were fire-breathers. One was a shifter, although her type wasn’t listed. The rest were unknown entities.

“Mommy?” Colby whispered.

I glanced around, holding my breath fearing someone had heard my macaroni and cheese call out for me. The police kept their distance. While some of them were shifters, I doubted they would overhear me. They were too busy talking among themselves to pay much attention to me.

Still, I lifted my papers to obstruct my face before I replied, “Fire-breathers.”

“Mommy.” Colby didn’t sound happy.

“I’ll keep you out of the blast radius,” I promised. Behind my chair was probably far enough. With it hiding in its insulated cooler, it’d probably be okay. If I had known I would be dealing with a lot of children, I wouldn’t have brought Colby along.

I had no idea how dae powers worked, but after witnessing Claudia’s death, the thought of asking children to demonstrate powers made me want to throw up. The aptitude tests to apply to primary school had been brutal enough; examiners asked questions so fast there was no time to think about the answers. The quick passed. Those who needed time to process the questions and think their answers through failed.

In a way, failure was a mercy; children who didn’t make the cut to attend primary school entered apprenticeships suiting their abilities. Some became craftsmen. Some became laborers. Those who could be taught useful and necessary skills had everything they needed provided for them.

They were the lucky ones. They lived in the fringe, but some parts were nicer than others, and those who didn’t attend primary school were usually too dense to understand they were repressed and trapped in the system.

They went to work, they were given good food to keep them healthy, homes they shared with their families, and small stipends for their pleasure. Too often, that pleasure ended up being drugs through no fault of their own.

The real problems started in primary school, and judging from the list of children, most of them had either qualified or were already attending classes. Year-to-year, they fought for the right to stay in school. The highest graders, like me, progressed to the next level. The rest began apprenticeships.

Unfortunately for them, they became the true lowest of the low. They knew the basics of writing and math, but they couldn’t use their knowledge. They were too skilled for many of the basic jobs. The good positions were claimed by the children who hadn’t dedicated the early years of their lives training in hope of advancing their studies.

For each class of fifty, twenty wouldn’t last through the first year. The remaining thirty would be whittled down to twenty by the following year. Only two or three would graduate to secondary studies.

Most kids were either forced into the aptitude tests or were guaranteed admittance into primary school. Before my parents’ deaths, I had fit the latter group; I couldn’t remember what caste we’d been from. When they died, I went to the fringe, and I slipped through the cracks.

Kenneth had found me, and for the next few years of my life, I sniffed around for him, a puppet tied to his strings. In a way, it was ironic.

Without Kenneth, the police never would have caught me poking around in places I shouldn’t have been. Without Kenneth, I never would have undergone aptitude testing. Without Kenneth, I wouldn’t have waltzed through the questioning. My drug dealing, murderous boss had taught me everything I needed to know to qualify for primary education.

Schooling had been vice and hope; because of what Kenneth had taught me, I had kept it secret from everyone except my instructors and fellow students. I came to Bach studies late, but I had made it.

Being the one testing the children, firing questions at them in a barrage to judge their ability to think on their feet, was a role I didn’t want. Did the elite responsible for the aptitude testing regret their decisions when determining a child’s fate?

I already regretted the choices I had made, and the adult dae had been willing. If I could find a way to help the children without betraying what I was doing, I would. No child, human or dae, deserved to be a tool of conquest for power-hungry elite.

Unlike with the adults I had interviewed, all of the children were brought to me at one time, although they were separated into small groups. I didn’t have a bodyguard, which wouldn’t have bothered me if the police had been willing to stand near my desk instead of running and hiding like cowards.

Life on the fringe changed people; it certainly had changed me. I recognized the dull-eyed stares of the children who knew they were facing defeat. They were the ones poised on the brink of failure, who understood what their lives would become once they were ejected from primary school. Those who scored better stood tall, watching me, judging me, and deciding how best to overcome the challenge I represented.

I saw myself in their eyes.

The oldest was maybe ten, while the youngest was five or six; although I could remember details well enough, I’d never been a good judge of age. I turned my attention to the adults. I would deal with them first.

Once they were gone, I would be in a better position to manipulate the system I had created for judging dae and their potentials. All I had to do was keep close enough to the truth—and make a best-guess decision on whether the child would be better off under the heel of the elite or returning to the fringe.

The adults were all fire-breathers. I flipped through the sheets and found the one most likely to burst into a column of flame.

“Sylvia Manchester,” I called out. Grabbing my bag, I moved it to the ground behind my chair. The laptop had survived both of its unintentional run-ins with Rob, and I booted it up while the woman approached my table.

“I’m Sylvia Manchester,” the blond-haired woman stated, coming to a halt a discreet distance away. I heard the crackle of fire in her voice.

“Let’s skip the bullshit,” I suggested, slapping the stack of papers onto the table. The woman jumped, and the scent of wood burning teased my nose. “You’re a fire-breather. I’ve been burned, singed, covered in soot, and I’m pretty sure I’ve lost a few inches of hair over the past couple of days. I’ve seen a woman decide she liked fire more than life itself. I’d rather not have those sorts of demonstrations. Prove you’re elite-quality and capable of controlling yourself, or tell me exactly why you can’t control yourself.”

The way Sylvia flinched warned me the woman likely had control issues. She stared at her feet and said nothing.

“You don’t know why you can’t control your fire.”

She nodded.

“Are you a threat to those around you?”

For a long moment, Sylvia stared at me. Her eyes reminded me of Rob. Once again, the thought of the dae roused my annoyance.

Normal women didn’t growl. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Instead, I watched Sylvia. Orange tinted the whites of her eyes.

I considered my next words carefully. There were so many different types of people from the fringe. I could infuriate her into a repeat performance of Claudia’s demise, or I could strengthen her resolve with my words. I wouldn’t know until I tried. I tensed, wondering if I’d be able to get out of the way if she did decide to open her mouth and flame me in the face. “A woman who thought she had control and burned herself to a crisp the other day, you know. It was dumb luck she didn’t take out a lot of people with her when she went.”

Sylvia’s cheek twitched. After a long moment, she sighed. “When I touch things, they catch on fire.”

“That classifies as a control problem. What can you touch without causing combustion?”

The way she refused to meet my gaze told me everything I needed to know. People counted as things, unless I was very mistaken.

“I see.” I hesitated. My next words would condemn the woman to the elite, but if she was killing people accidentally, leaving her on the streets would make me guilty of other crimes—worse ones. I echoed her sigh. “Well, you certainly can’t go around lighting everyone around you on fire. I’m going to send you over to the dean for a second interview. I’ll send an escort with you to open the doors, since I don’t think you want to burn the college down.”

“I’ll try to do better,” she whispered.

All of my life, I had heard the same words over and over, and I swallowed them back before I could use them on Sylvia. Telling her to try harder wouldn’t do her any good. I’d been a victim of the phrase often enough. I nodded, because I believed her.

“When you touch people, you burn them, don’t you?” I whispered, hoping I was soft enough no one—even the werewolves—could hear me.

“Yes.”

“You kill them.”

Again, Sylvia diverted her gaze to the ground. She did nod, which was enough for me.

“Be direct when you speak with the dean. Don’t mince words. Be up front, honest, and detail the facts. He doesn’t appreciate his time being wasted. If you can find a pair of gloves you can wear to prevent accidental contact with people until you learn to control your skill, I recommend you wear them.”

I waved my hand for the police. A werewolf came at my call. I couldn’t tell its gender, but it had a splash of white across its nose and reddish fur, which made it stand out compared to its brown-and-gray brethren. “Miss Manchester needs to be escorted to see the dean. Make certain no one touches her. It could have adverse affects for them and their property.”

“Come with me,” the werewolf snarled, and because its ears were perked forward, I realized it wasn’t angry despite the viciousness of its voice.

I waited until Sylvia was out of sight before calling the next person. The young man who approached my table had black hair. I couldn’t tell if his skin had always been black or if he was covered in soot.

“Can’t walk down the street without bumping into a fire-breather,” he said, a little too cheerfully for my liking. “Figured you didn’t want to see another one of us muckin’ about in your business, but they said I had to show up, so ‘ere I am.”

He didn’t sound like someone from the fringe, and puzzled, I looked over his file again. “I try not to bump into anyone, Mr. Hasling. What makes you different enough you were sent here?”