The Nightmare Charade Read online

  I raised the band to my face, glaring down at the inanimate object. “You shut up.”

  The sound of a snort startled me. “Huh?” Selene said from the other bed. “What did you say?”

  I hid my arm under the covers. “Nothing. Sorry to wake you.”

  Selene waved a hand at me and rolled over, burying her face in her pillow once more. I got out of bed, trying to ignore my envy that Selene was a siren and therefore able to sleep in an extra half hour because she didn’t need to spend a lot of time on hair and makeup. My only consolation was that I didn’t have to go far to get to the bathroom anymore. Oh, the perks of being a junior.

  I showered quickly, but took awhile getting dressed. This was the first day of school, after all, and no matter how many times I’d done this, no matter how well I knew all of my classmates, I still had the jitters. I hadn’t seen most of these people since before the attack on Lyonshold. I’d spent the last few weeks of sophomore year in a coma. Most everyone knew about the part I played in stopping the island from sinking, but as Bollinger proved, I couldn’t be certain of a warm welcome.

  Thank goodness I would have Eli with me all day. That was one of the best parts of being a dream-seer pair—we’d had matching school schedules last year.

  With my thoughts on Eli, eagerness overtook the jitters and I hurried down to the cafeteria. We wouldn’t have any privacy for a lot of kissing there, but at least we would be able to talk. We had so much catching up to do. I didn’t even know what Eli had been up to over the summer break. Once he realized I didn’t have access to my phone, he hadn’t bothered sending e-mails.

  No, when I finally got my phone back—and charged the months’-long dead battery—the only e-mails waiting for me had been from Paul Kirkwood, my ex-boyfriend. More than a dozen filled my in-box, most with subjects like I’m sorry or Explanations or Where are you?

  I still hadn’t read them. Even thinking about them made me anxious. My feelings for Paul weren’t of the romantic variety, not anymore, but I wasn’t emotionally prepared to deal with him. Especially not after his latest, possibly duplicitous, actions at the end of last year. He’d been one of Marrow’s supporters when we’d first met, and even though I believed he’d had a change of heart, I couldn’t be sure. Thank goodness he was in hiding somewhere. Avoidance was always the easiest tactic.

  The cafeteria didn’t sound very busy as I approached, the noise nominal instead of the full-on roar it would become at high breakfast. But before I walked in, I paused just outside the doorway to read the posted sign:

  WELCOME BACK, UPPERCLASSMEN!

  REMEMBER, STARTING TOMORROW YOU WILL NEED YOUR CASTERCARD® IN THE CAFETERIA

  I shook my head, recalling the little tidbit about the cards in the welcome back letter. Junior and senior magickind had to start learning about how ordinaries lived, including responsible use of credit cards. Lucky me, I’d learned that lesson early on thanks to my impulse-buyer mother. It was simple—do whatever Mom wouldn’t.

  I continued on into the large hall, only to come to another halt, this time to deal with the wave of disorientation that had come over me. I’d never been inside the upperclassmen’s cafeteria before. It had a similar layout to the underclassmen’s, a bunch of tables and chairs scattered in a roughly rectangular pattern. But the lunch line here was completely different. It looked more like a food court in a mall. A row of vendors lined the back wall. I scanned the various names, unable to keep from grinning at all the riffs on ordinary food joints.

  Instead of a Pizza Hut, there was a Pizza Tut. It had an Egyptian theme, including a pharaoh mascot chomping down on a big cheesy slice of pizza. Next to it sat a Taco Spell, this one with a wizard in traditional blue robes and a pointy hat holding up a taco that he’d just conjured using the wand in his hand.

  Some of the others were less obvious riffs but no less amusing. There was a Fairy Garden that seemed to serve primarily soups and salads, and a Demon Burger that needed no description. My personal favorite was the Unicorn Skewer. It looked like it served pretty much everything so long as it came skewered on a fake unicorn horn.

  Once I got over the distraction of the food court, I scanned the tables for Eli. I was almost convinced that he wasn’t here yet when I spotted him at a table off to the right. He wasn’t alone. A girl stood in front of him with her back to me.

  I stared at the figure, recognizing the long blond hair and curvy shape all too easily. I’d just seen it in my dream, after all. Nervous, I headed for them. Why was Katarina talking to Eli? Had they seen each other over break? Was this the reason she’d made an appearance in my dream?

  Stop being so paranoid, Dusty. I grasped the silver band on my wrist, responding to the warming sensation there automatically. At once my doubt began to ease.

  As I drew nearer the table, Eli’s gaze shifted my direction. A bright, broad smile lit up his face. It made my insides turn mushy, but the feeling vanished a second later as Katarina glanced over her shoulder to investigate who was worthy of such a greeting.

  When she spotted me, her eyes narrowed. So did her lips, which was saying something considering how fluffy and full they were. She turned back around at once, spoke some final word to Eli, and then sauntered off, catwalk style. I wanted to glare at her, but it was impossible. The sight of her had turned my brain momentarily fuzzy. Katarina was a siren, same as Selene.

  Before I could shake the feeling off, Eli was beside me, his arms sliding around my waist. “Good morning,” he said, as he captured my mouth with his. As kisses go, it was pretty chaste, hardly more than a brush of lips, but in the middle of the cafeteria, surrounded by our peers, it felt risqué.

  Best. First Day. Ever.

  “Good morning,” I whispered, but Eli stiffened and pulled back. A Will Guard was moving toward us from across the room. We broke apart and sat down across from each other. The Guard, a young man with colorless brown hair, seemed to consider the value of scolding us for a second. Then he decided it wasn’t worth it and returned to his station next to the Taco Spell.

  I grimaced and turned to Eli.

  He reached across the table and took my hand, squeezing my fingers. “You all right?”

  “A little tired, but okay.”

  “Me, too.” He motioned toward his food tray. “Are you hungry? I got extra just in case.”

  Glancing at the tray, I snorted a laugh. A mountain of food covered the entire surface, everything from scrambled eggs to gravy and biscuits to pieces of sausages wrapped in bacon and skewered on a golden unicorn horn. “Um, thanks,” I said. “But you know I’m just one person not three, right?” I reached over and pulled a sausage off the horn.

  He patted his flat stomach. “Don’t worry. It won’t go to waste.”

  I nodded my agreement to this statement, having seen proof of his ability to eat enough for three people.

  “So,” I said, once I finished chewing, “what did Katarina want?”

  “Nothing really.” He shrugged. “She just wanted to say hi, and … um … to thank me for being nice to her little brother.”

  “Her little brother?” Outwardly, I sounded normal. Inwardly, my stomach was doing backflips and my vision had gone a little hazy around the edges. Great. Now I was being paranoid and jealous.

  “Yeah, it’s kind of embarrassing, but—” He hesitated, running a hand over his shaved head. “I sorta spent most of the summer at a camp for magickind. A kids’ camp, that is. Kat’s little brother was one of the campers.”

  I felt my eyebrows first draw together and then rise up as if pulled by an invisible puppeteer.

  A faint pinkish color filled Eli’s cheeks. “Dr. Hendershaw suggested I go, to try to catch up on everything I’ve missed. You know, with the not being able to do magic until a couple of months ago.” He tapped a finger against his glamoured wand. It was a numen vessel, same as Bellanax, more powerful than a regular wand but not as much as the sword.

  “Huh.” Realizing my mouth was open, I closed it, tryi
ng to regain my composure. I forced a neutral smile to my lips. “That sounds interesting. How was it?”

  Eli made a face. “Awful at first. I didn’t even want to go. I’m too old for summer camp. At least to be attending one as a camper. If anything, I should be a counselor.”

  “No kidding.” I cringed inwardly, understanding all too well what it felt like to be so out of place. My whole first year at Arkwell had been that way, and a good portion of the next one, too.

  “But after a couple of days, the other counselors started treating me like one of them and it turned out to be fun. The kids were a blast.”

  “Even Katarina’s little bro?” I said, half-joking but mostly just incredulous.

  He laughed. “Surprisingly, yes. Tommy’s not at all like Kat.”

  Tommy and Kat? Tom Kat. The thought got me laughing, too, and any worry I might have had about Katarina making a move on Eli vanished. I reached forward and snagged another sausage.

  We ate in silence for a few moments. Then Eli glanced around and leaned forward, dropping his voice as he said, “So about the dream last night. I’ve been thinking it over, and I don’t believe the De—” He made a sound like trying to clear his throat.

  I frowned at the strange face he was making, as if his mouth were overfull of peanut butter. His eyes began to water.

  “Oh,” I said. “It’s the nondisclosure spell.” I started to say more, but an ominous tingle sprouted over my tongue and I stopped. It seemed the spell had deemed the lunchroom too crowded for that topic of conversation. I exhaled. “Well, this sucks.”

  Eli nodded, his eyes still watering as he tried to force his jaws apart. Several minutes later he finally succeeded. “Holy crap that hurt.” He rubbed his chin and cheeks with both hands.

  “We’re going to have to be careful,” I said, not quite unhappy to discover the strictness of the nondisclosure spell. If we couldn’t talk about the Death’s Heart in here, despite the cover of so much noise and activity, then that meant we would have to wait until we were completely alone to talk about it. The idea of alone time with Eli made my skin warm. “Why don’t we plan on meeting up in one-thirteen after classes today and talk about it then?”

  “Um … I can’t. Not today.”

  “Why not?”

  Eli shifted in his seat, his eyes darting across the room as if he were looking for a reason to change the subject. I waited, unaccountably anxious.

  Finally, he sighed and his eyes landed on me again. “There’s a training session tonight.”

  “Fooooor what?” I said, drawing out the question.

  “The gladiator team.”

  My mouth fell open. “Huh?”

  Eli rolled his shoulders, downplaying the monstrosity of this statement. The gladiator team was the only school sport at Arkwell Academy, but joining it required a level of proficiency in combative magic far above Eli’s skills. Even if he had been practicing all summer, I doubted he’d be good enough to make it on. Not to mention that Coach Fritz hated ordinaries, stacking the odds even further against him.

  “I want to play,” he said, his expression hardening.

  I winced at the yearning in his voice. A mix of regret and guilt rose up inside me. Before that fateful night a year ago when I first discovered Eli and I were dream-seers, he’d been just an ordinary human boy, handsome and popular, a bit of a rebel, and perfectly content and happy with his life. Now he was low man on the magical totem pole.

  “I know it sounds crazy,” Eli said, “but I’ve got to give it a shot.”

  “You’re a lot braver than me,” I said.

  “Nah.” He waved me off. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  The worst? Well, firstly, he might fail, and I definitely didn’t want that. Just the opposite. I wanted him happy and triumphant. I wanted things to go easy for him just once. And secondly—if I was going to be honest—the worst would be all the time we’d lose together if he made it on the team. The gladiators’ training schedule made ordinary football practice look tame. They trained every night and every weekend, sometimes hours at a time, and they competed nearly all year.

  But no, I refused to play the part of needy girlfriend, one jealous of extracurricular activities. Besides, I had my own extracurriculars to think about. So far, that mostly consisted of the Dream Team, but that might change. I could join the school newspaper or maybe even the Superheroes of Tomorrow Club, where all the members were aspiring superheroes obsessed with comic books and convincing the magickind government to let them use their magic out in the ordinary world for the greater good. I could totally rock the superhero thing, I thought, picturing Bellanax as it looked outside of the glamour. So long as it doesn’t include spandex.

  Yes, there would still be plenty of time for us. Those pesky authority figures would have to try a lot harder before they could stop Eli and me from happening.

  Feeling better about the situation, I gave him the biggest, most sincere smile I had in me. “I hope you make it.”

  Smiling back, Eli reached over and grabbed my hand. “Me, too.”

  5

  Involuntary Separation

  My confidence that Eli and I would find time for each other took another hit when we arrived at homeroom a short while later. This was my third year reporting to Mrs. Bar’s classroom in Finnegan Hall. Mrs. Bar was a fairy, and one of my favorite teachers at Arkwell. When Eli and I walked in she bestowed on us a smile so wide and jolly that it made her jowls jiggle.

  She was still smiling a few minutes later as she handed out our course schedules. I scanned mine at once.

  First period, history and English. Those two subjects had been separate freshman and sophomore year, but were now combined to allow room for studying new subjects.

  Second period, biology. This was my first entirely new subject. Despite it being a science class I was looking forward to it. Rumor had it we would study magical plants and animals in addition to all that boring ordinary stuff like mitosis and dissecting frogs. Personally, I was hoping for unicorns on the syllabus.

  Third period, ordinary living. This, too, was a new subject, one directly related to the CasterCard and the food vendors.

  Fourth period, psionics

  Fifth period, spell casting

  Sixth period, gym

  Seventh period …

  “Math?” I said aloud. “The last class of the day? What kind of cruel and unusual torture is this?”

  “What are you talking about?” said Eli, looking up from his examination of his own course schedule.

  “We have math seventh period. I’m terrible at math, it’s—” I stopped speaking, suddenly aware of the way Eli was looking at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I have spell casting seventh period.”

  A lead ball spiraled down the edges of my stomach and settled into the pit. “Are you sure?”

  Eli motioned to my schedule. “Can I see?” I handed it over, and he placed it on the desk next to his. His expression soured as he compared the two.

  “Is it bad?” I said, already knowing the answer but still hopeful.

  Eli didn’t reply, just handed both papers back to me. I didn’t want to look, but it was like trying to ignore a wreck on the side of the highway, morbid curiosity a magnetic force. As I’d suspected, our schedules were completely different. Other than lunch and sixth period gym, we wouldn’t be seeing each other at all, all day long.

  Swallowing anger, I raised my hand. “Mrs. Bar, I think there’s a problem with my schedule.”

  Mrs. Bar, who’d been circulating around the room answering questions, waddled over. “What is it, my dear?”

  I handed her my schedule. “I don’t think this is right. Eli and I are supposed to have the same schedule. We’re dream-seers.”

  Mrs. Bar’s smile, so perky a moment before, drooped. She didn’t even bother reading the list of classes before handing me back the schedule. “I’m afraid there is no mistake.”

  I inhaled, dizzy with outrage.r />
  “Thanks for checking, Mrs. Bar,” he said. “We just wanted to make sure.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Booker.” She patted him on top of his buzzed head, looking relieved. Then she headed off for safer environs.

  Huffing, I folded my arms over my chest and fell back against my chair. “Score another one for the establishment.”

  Eli laughed, although there wasn’t any humor in it. “Are you thinking of becoming an anarchist?”

  “Yes, if it means we won’t have to deal with this forced separation.” My voice cracked as I spoke, tears threatening.

  Eli reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Dusty. We’ll make do.”

  “I know,” I said, sighing. “But I wish they’d cut us some slack.”

  “Me, too. But they just think they’re doing what’s best for us.”

  I ran my tongue over my lips, his reasonableness making me feel anxious instead of comforted. Last year, Lady Elaine had shared with him a vision of the future she’d seen—a vision of our future, mine and Eli’s. I didn’t know what had been in it, but it was bad enough that for a while he’d avoided letting our relationship extend beyond the friend level. I wasn’t sure what had changed his mind, although it might’ve had something to do with how I almost died trying to save Lyonshold. Or maybe he’d decided the same as I had, that our feelings were too strong to deny. So strong that there wasn’t any chance the curse could defeat it.

  Eli let go of my shoulder. “You could come to the gladiator practice tonight, if you want.”

  I coughed. “You mean like to train?”

  “Sure why not?” he grinned. “You’re pretty good at combative magic.”

  I shot him a crazy look, eyebrows and mouth askew.

  “What? It’s true. I’ve seen you do it.” Eli’s eyes flicked briefly to Bellanax. He knew what it was, of course, although not the sword’s name. No one but me knew that. Well, except perhaps for Marrow.

  “I think I’d rather watch.”

  Eli shrugged. “Whatever makes you happy.”