To Love

  “Yes.”

  With a silent nod, the Headmistress returned to the thick book in front of her.

  “What, that’s it?”

  She didn’t even look up from her book as she answered. “I’ve got a lot of appointments today, as you could clearly tell by the line you had to wait in to get here. I don’t have time to entertain you.”

  Considering that they had what couldn’t have been more than a two-minute conversation, Theo did not move from his spot.

  “That’s it?” he asked again.

  This time, the Headmistress looked up. Her eyes were stony and piercing, her face a deathly pallor that betrayed not only her age but her fatigue. “I answered your question about Ty. We didn’t lose her, despite whatever Luci may have said. You asked me about the tactician’s role; I replied by asking if you were going to take it, and you said yes. Did you want a reaction out of me? Because I genuinely do not care if you become ‘The Tactician’ or not. I have more important things to focus on. Now, if you want something else, ask it or leave.”

  He paused, a thousand questions running through his mind, but only one surfacing: “Why Luci?”

  “Why not Luci?” She stared at him as if waiting for him to come to the realization that he was a fool.

  “You’re down two tacticians this year for taking him along. Why didn’t you get someone else to do it?”

  “You mean you?”

  “No, I don’t mean me,” he shot back without even the slightest hesitation.

  Her detached expression did not change as she returned to her work. “He understands, that’s why. He understands me. Everything we do, we do for her.”

  “So, you’ve made him your pet.”

  The Headmistress shrugged a single shoulder. “He followed my instructions perfectly last year during the entire expulsion debacle, but I’m afraid these days he’s been growing…what is it—a conscience?”

  “Something that fodder should be averse to if they know any better,” quipped Theo dryly.

  A smile crept across the Headmistress’s face as she stopped her pen to point it at Theo. “Exactly.”

  Theo could no longer conceal his scowl. When he was with Ty, the exchanges with the Headmistress were far different—her true colors made it far easier to be authentic. “Spoken like the true fodder you are, continuing this charade while leading students to their graves.”

  She retracted her grin and set down her pen, pulling a golden pin lined with white, gray, and red out of her hair. Almost the same colors as Ty. “Your words mean nothing to me. I consigned myself to the life of being used as a weapon decades ago. Sounds like you’d have a better night’s sleep if you did, too.”

  “I refuse to be reduced to a weapon.”

  The Headmistress’s smile returned as she guffawed. “What are you, then?” she asked while opening a drawer to her side and pulling out a white letter-sized envelope from it. “Why are you at the Academy if not to be a weapon for MATS?” She turned around and pulled her coat off the back of her chair, heels clacking on the cold floor as she walked around her desk and up to Theo. “Who are you if not a weapon?” Dragging the tips of her ice-cold nails over his cheek, her ghostly face and dark eyes menacingly close to his, her words were a teasing whisper, her honeyed words dripping with poison. “Who are you if not her weapon, here as a means to her end, Tactician?”

  Boom.

  Without even batting an eye, the Headmistress dropped her hand and straightened up. “Now, make yourself scarce. She’s here.”

  Theo turned his head to the window overlooking the courtyard, where the loud explosion had come from.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Fire. A wall of it, running around the perimeter of the school, for as far as he could see. A single figure surrounded by several others, standing in front of the Academy’s completely obliterated front gate.

  Click, clack, click, clack, went one of the two threats.

  And then: nothing.

  Theo snapped out of it and bolted out the door and down the hallway only to be stopped by the sound of yelling from the courtyard.

  The sky had turned into molten lava, a wall of fire suffocating the domed barrier surrounding the Academy. On the ground, students and staff alike were scattering in all directions as an emergency alarm sounded. He could no longer see the figure at the front, but there was a distinct trail of smoke leading into the Great Hall.

  Speeding down the stairs, Theo could not help but feel oddly calm as the protective barrier shattered—a terrible crashing, splitting sound—and the indistinct yells turned into orders for lockdown while panicked students gathered by the sidelines in the main courtyard.

  “Theo!” yelled a student in the crowd, tugging on his arm to try to tear him away from watching in awe as the Great Hall burst into flames. “Theo! Come back in!”

  He glanced briefly at his insistent classmate and shook his head, wrenching his grip out of their even weaker hands. “No, I—I need to see this. Are Kor and Elias okay?”

  Selene nodded seriously.

  “Good…good,” he replied as he walked toward the Great Hall, watching shards of black magic cut through the falling pieces of roofing and into the glittering, milky-white ceiling.

  They made quick work of that fire after the barrier shattered.

  Still feeling a mysterious calmness and courage within him, he quickened his pace, walking past professors trying to reinforce the melting ice above them, ignoring the cracks of lighting now forming above the half-open building and the massive shards of pure red that shattered the delicate and smoky, once-crystalline windows.

  When he finally stopped, heeded the calls of all the staff around him trying to protect him from the debris, it was a few steps away from the door. The ashen, limp figure of the Headmistress burst through the doors of the Great Hall, engulfed in flames like a meteor as she skidded across the courtyard grass and into the center.

  And then, the figure from the front. The source of his calmness—he knew now where it had come from. There was no reason to be afraid.

  “How dare you take advantage of her?” screamed the intruder as they walked out of the smoky building, clad in a white uniform he only ever saw at MATS HQ. “Who was the one who raised her and took care of her all this time? Loved her?” the member of the 1st order continued to shriek, walking deliberately toward the limp figure of the Headmistress as purple static started to swirl and form a torrent around her. “How can you call her your daughter when I was the one who sacrificed my life for her?”

  Eyes wide, looking around the courtyard, wondering if anyone was of rank to even interfere, he caught sight of a pitch-black figure standing at the very back of the courtyard. Barely a few steps away from the Headmistress, motionless.

  Motionless, even when the purple sparks coalesced into a giant cloud and pelted a giant black crack of thunder down on the Headmistress.

  Ex-Katagid—Ty had told him to learn that. He could still remember the curious look on Moriya’s face when he had requested that spell during the next class.

  Where did you hear about that spell?

  Ty.

  Huh. Must have been the—

  The sudden downpour startled him out of his reverie. He wiped his hair away from his eyes as he watched the Headmistress lay on the ground and Joanie steadily advance toward her in the heavy rain.

  “Why are you so intent on taking everything I love from me?” she screamed, sending obsidian blades woven out of magic into the Headmistress. “Why do you keep on putting me through grief, of losing you, and now you send my daughter away knowing she’s never going to come back, turn her into a fugitive to be hunted by our people!”

  When she finally stood at her prey’s feet, she knelt down on the ground where the motionless Headmistress lay and pulled her up by the front of her coat. Her eyes were open, looking at her assailant, but all that was in her expression was dissociation.

  Clutching the shadow of her former lover and shaking her again and again, as if that could dispel her stupor, the figure in white cried, “She was my life. She was all I had. Everything I did, I did for you. And when you left, I did it for her. What do I do now? What reason do I have to live anymore if I don’t have her?”

  Slowly, the echoes of her screams faded. The hands that clutched tightly onto the Headmistress shook. The last traces of rain ceased, and yet droplets fell onto her bloodied hands.

  The Headmistress lifted both her arms slowly and wrapped them around her attacker. Her lips moved. A single word. And then she let go of her best friend, shakily reached into her breast pocket, and then pulled out a letter.

  Whispers were exchanged between the figures; whether their faces were marred with rain or tears, he could no longer tell. But the white one took the letter and unfolded it.

  Then, the intruder stood back up. She put away the letter and began walking away, toward the Great Hall, which was no longer on fire. Her eyes were steely and determined, while the Headmistress returned to staring in their direction with her distant gaze.

  It did not truly sink in how close Theo was to the destruction until the mother of his ghost stood in front of him. There was a smile on her face and a vivid, burning softness in her eyes. “Thank you for everything you did for her, Theo. I wish you could have seen how bright her eyes looked every time she talked about you.”

  Then, as the smile vanished, and she continued walking, Theo turned to the Headmistress on the ground in the center of the courtyard. Her expression had changed.

  It was pain. Regret. Forlornness.

  Love. It was love.