Cruel Magic (Royals of Villain Academy #1)(52)
He was nodding at Ms. Grimsworth, his expression bland. “It builds character when not everything comes easy to you. I’m sure he’ll find his way over that hurdle in time.”
“Well, if you should decide you want to arrange for extra assistance, I’m sure you’re aware of the summer training session in Maine…”
The headmistress went on for a little longer about my options for magical development, and Mom thanked her profusely on our way out. Dad barely waited until we’d crossed the hall before muttering, “Quite the drive out here just to hear a lot of nothing for fifteen minutes.”
I’d thought about how useless these conferences were myself, but his vacantly dismissive tone lit a flare of rage in me on the pile of kindling he’d been building since he arrived. I bit my tongue, but in my mind’s eye I imagined his head smashing in like Rory Bloodstone’s joymancer father in her desensitization session, all with one swipe of her hand. Skull cracking, blood spurting…
My mouth stretched into a grim smile. What a lovely picture that would make.
The satisfaction I got from it dimmed at the memory of Rory’s pretty face crumpled in anguish. What was it like to have a parent you cherished that much even after finding out they’d told you the most horrible lie?
I didn’t have a clue, but the question lingered with me as I saw my parents to their car and waved them off. Dad didn’t take his eyes off the road for a second. Mom waved back until she had to twist around in the passenger seat. I turned away from the parking lot and meandered around the side of Killbrook Hall, the memory of Rory trailing after me. Rory after the session, her voice taut as she said, Maybe you’re not as smart as you like to think.
Her breakdown in the chamber should have been perfect fodder to spread around the school. I hadn’t told anyone, though. Every time I remembered it, my stomach clenched with the impression that what I’d seen wasn’t real weakness at all.
She was a strange one, the Bloodstone scion. Unconventional and unpredictable, and that made her interesting. I could set her off with a few well-placed words, but underneath that defiant temper she had an iron core. And no one could have denied she was particularly stunning to look at when she was pissed off.
I found myself smiling again and shook myself. Why the hell was I giving her this much thought? As long as she refused to make amends with Malcolm, she was a thorn in all our sides, undermining our authority with every day that went by.
The way she’d slipped past my shield somehow that first day in the Insight seminar… I had no idea how she’d managed it, but if she’d dug very far, lord. The thought nauseated me.
She hadn’t gotten any farther, though. I’d stabbed back hard—enough to both stop her and to make her terrified of trying again, I’d imagine. Until she was ready to surrender, we’d just keep tipping her off balance.
I snatched at the first idea that crossed through my mind and said a few words under my breath over my closed hand. When I opened it, an illusion of a wasp flitted off into the air to find its target. Only Rory and I would be able to see it, hear it—feel it. She was going to have some trouble concentrating for the next few hours.
Oh, yes, she’d be begging for a change in tune soon enough.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rory
“You’ve been coming along well with the casting skills,” Professor Banefield said as we strolled across one of the campus fields together. The spring day was so clear and bright that he’d suggested we take my mentoring session outside for a change of pace. “I suspect at this point it’s just your blocks around generating the fuel you need that are holding you back.”
My reluctance to terrify random people and creatures out of their wits, he meant. I think that’s called a conscience. Most of you here should look into that.
I kept that snarky remark inside and searched for one that was more diplomatic. “Everyone here grew up practicing this stuff. It’s a pretty big mental shift when you didn’t.”
“I realize that, and I’ve been thinking about the progress we have made. Clearly, you find it much easier when the fear serves a constructive purpose. Perhaps we can do more with that framing.”
“What did you have in mind?”
He stopped and pointed to a boy who was sitting in the grass with a book about ten feet away from us. The kid looked like he might not be any older than fifteen, still a bit childishly chubby.
I might not have been raised by fearmancers, but I’d absorbed enough of their perspective in the last few weeks to be able to look at the boy and immediately recognize him as prey. In a cat-and-rabbit scenario, he was definitely the bunny.
Who was the cat, though? I glanced around, but there was no one else in view who appeared to have any interest in tormenting the kid.
“You know why your peers have been practicing provoking fear their entire lives,” Banefield said. “It’s what our community runs on. Those who are the most in control of others’ fears—and their own—are the greatest masters of their own destiny. Don’t go over and terrify that junior because you’ll enjoy it. Terrify him because he needs to learn, in every possible way, how to deal with being terrified so that he can handle himself in the world beyond this campus.”
Every muscle in my body balked. “I don’t know.”