Truths

  Maybe it was the way the sun was streaming through the open windows of the tenth floor, or maybe it was a spell that had been cast, but as Ty walked down the hallway leading up to the Headmistress, she could not help but see herself reflected in the tired-looking professor standing in front of her. The shape of her eyes, the contours of her face, her flat, neutral smile, her malnourished-looking physique.

  It was like facing herself decades later. Hardened by time. Death. Bloodshed.

  “Hi, Ty,” the Headmistress said with an incomprehensibly warm smile as Ty stopped in front of her. “Do you have a moment to chat?”

  “I do.”

  Nodding, the Headmistress promptly walked into her own office with Ty following, gesturing to the same seat in front of her as she always did before sitting down herself.

  Ty sat down and politely folded her hands in her lap like she had seen Callie do many times before when she was nervous, her eyes falling on the Headmistress’s messy desk.

  “Ah, yes, lots of stuff,” acknowledged the Headmistress, waving dismissively at it. “With what’s going on, I’m sure you know why.”

  “Yes.” The situation surrounding the Ancients had grown even more volatile since the report from last week, that much she knew. “I apologize for the extra work my classmates made for you.”

  The Headmistress didn’t look very surprised to hear Ty speaking so formally, taking out two big bound books from a drawer in her desk before checking a sheet of paper mounted on a board to her side. She sighed. “Cyril and Theo’s punishments have already been decided, so their books are here for you to take back. Dorm arrest for them begins at midnight until they finish reading the mandatory Academy guidelines textbook and receive a perfect score on its assessment.”

  Knowing a reasonable request when she heard one, Ty nodded while watching the Headmistress place them in front of her to take, which she did. “Faris presents a unique situation. One, he had already been issued a prior warning. Two, the matter of the spell he used, which is forbidden on school grounds. While trigger spells are permissible under certain circumstances, any and all augmented ones need to be authorized by either a department head or myself before they can be cast; and even then, such cases are rare. As his tactician, you should have known he had it in his possession and confiscated it before something like this could happen.”

  Ty kept nodding, already having mentally steeled herself for whatever rebukes would come her way.

  “Three, he feels no remorse for it,” continued the Headmistress. “He still doesn’t quite seem to understand what he’s done.”

  Taking a shallow breath, Ty chose her response carefully when the Headmistress paused and gave her a chance to speak. “You’ve seen…all the previous Circles, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does…Faris do this every time? Get in trouble for casting magic he’s not meant to.”

  “Almost every time.”

  “So, if this transgression was so great,” Ty thought aloud now, looking around the messy office, “why didn’t you just alert someone to search his room for the spell in the first place?” Her eyes fell on the giant bookshelf sitting behind the Headmistress, all the thick black volumes. “Why are we having this conversation about his punishment when you knew it would happen? If you didn’t want to interfere, clearly you can set the same punishment as last time this happened. It shouldn’t be subjective if guidelines exist.” Ty absentmindedly stroked the smooth textbook pages on her lap. “You’re leveraging Faris against me. Because you know I wouldn’t come talk to you myself, but I would if it was for a classmate.”

  The Headmistress wordlessly stood up to pull a black book off the large bookshelf behind her. She did not speak as she flipped through it.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “You have the data, you know what’s going to happen whatever punishment he gets…you’re just orchestrating it the way you want to produce the outcome you like. So, what do you want from me?”

  The Headmistress could only flip through page after page, searching for something with that unreadable, neutral look on her face.

  “Are you finally going to tell me the truth?”

  “Fifteenth Circle. Month of the Second Grace, Day 1,” the Headmistress read aloud now, looking down at the book, “Faris was brought to my office, Ty followed. In lieu of expulsion, the punishment agreed upon is to suspend him from the Academy for a week. Fulfillment of request was accepted to make this change.”

  “So you do want something from me.”

  “I’m telling you what the decision was last time,” noted the Headmistress stoically as she flipped through a few more pages.

  “You were going to expel him.”

  “That’s what the Academy guidelines recommend.”

  She found herself getting defensive and heated again. “Then that gives me no choice but to accept whatever offer you give me.”

  “No,” the Headmistress raised an eyebrow. “We can expel him.”

  “I’m not going to get him expelled.”

  “That’s up to you.”

  Brimming with so much anger, the tactician could not find a suitable reply.

  The Headmistress closed the volume and met Ty’s eyes. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

  Ty gave the Headmistress a long, meaningful look. “Your job is this Academy’s Headmistress. To do what’s right for your students.”

  “It may—”

  “If you really wanted to do your job, you’d have Faris expelled.”

  As soon as the words left her lips, she wanted to take them back; she had made a promise, and she didn’t intend on going back on her word.

  “My first prerogative is to keep you alive, which includes making you accept the mission,” the Headmistress finally revealed, standing up to put the book away. The way she said it made it sound like she was doing a righteous thing, but her averted gaze told a different story.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I do what I can.”

  And then the words finally left her mouth, the bitter words she ultimately regretted. “You didn’t raise me; you’re not my mother.”

  There. Sitting back down, the Headmistress’s steely expression briefly flickered as if deciding which path she should take herself, before there was only softness in her eyes. Softness and vulnerability.

  “Every time I look at you, I’m reminded of four people,” she recounted wistfully. “I see myself when I was young. I was determined and brash. I wanted everything to go my way, and I understood nothing. I didn’t care about anything other than myself and what I thought was right.

  “And then I see your mother, the one who raised you. Joanie. My best friend. I miss her so much. I remember when we were in school, in the same class, how much she cared for me. How compassionate she was toward me, a commoner who fought tooth and nail to get into the Academy. She never envied me, never blamed me or made fun of me. She gave me only support and love, and in turn I loved her tremendously. You are as bright and tough as she is. You’d do anything for the people you care for. It’s terrifying.”

  She laughed shakily. “She loved me very much too, and I knew this. I knew she would do anything for me. Anything. Like how Luci would do anything for you. Maybe that’s why I have a soft spot for him. And maybe it’s a mistake. But that was back then.

  “The third person is your father. The Ancient. That was all they called him in the lab. That was what they called all of them. All the colors he had, I see in you. The fiery, striking eyes, the sun-kissed skin and hair. You may have some of my features, but the fire, the life—the life, he gave you. The unending compassion, the love for life. It was his.”

  Her gaze dropped, and her expression became hollow. “Maybe it was because I sought that compassion, that drive, that I loved him more than anyone, anything in the world. More than Joanie. More than myself. It was wrong. I didn’t understand the consequences back then, but by some…miracle, we had you.

  “And past all those memories…is you. When you were in my womb. When you were just born. When you were taken away from me. I got to hold you only once as a baby, my entire life. You were so small, so thin. You were deathly pale at first. I remember being worried that you weren’t crying, but I knew you were alive. I had a feeling in those few seconds I had you in my arms. I held you and told you it was going to be okay. And that I loved you. I loved you so, so much.”

  Tears streamed down the Headmistress’s face. “I sang you your song. I sang it to you as you were taken from me, even if you couldn’t hear me. And then, before they could whisk you out of the room, I heard the most beautiful thing. I thought I had been dreaming.”

  She finally looked up at her daughter. “You were crying. It was so soft, so tiny, but I knew. I knew you would live. I knew I would see you again. Every time I see you, I relive that moment over and over again. I hear that song, I can feel your warmth, your heartbeat. I can feel the love emanating from you. I can feel it giving me the energy to continue, to keep on going even though there’s no light in the distance. There hasn’t been one for a long time now, and I’m not even sure there is one anymore. But with you, I have hope. I can look forward to tomorrow, even if it repeats for eternity. I’ll wait an eternity if it means that I can hold you in my arms again. I’ll fight, I’ll be your weapon. Because without you, I have nothing. I am nothing.”

  Ty remembered. Clockwork. “You are a person, not a weapon.”