Page 22 of Validus Vale Academy 1
Strict, rice, dice, riced, iced, tried, ride, rides, deice.
“Wilson?”
Deice? No, that's hyphenated, de-ice, right?
“WILSON!”
I jerk my head up to find Professor Gimble glaring.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Even if you are here by mistake, I expect you to pay attention. Stand up.”
My stomach plummets. I get to my feet, feeling the collective eyes of the class burning into my skin.
“Now, explain to the class how the spell is performed?”
The spell? What spell? I’d been distracted. I'm going to have to do something deeply, deeply unethical.
I peek inside Professor Gimble’s brain.
—What’s the point of trying to teach a remedial? Like they’d ever master Projected Communication Artifice—
Bingo.
Quickly blanking out the fact that Professor Gimble had also been thinking about Cosmo Drakeward’s broad shoulders (ugh), I recite what I know about the spell. “Uhm, you link your magic with the subject's voice box and…”
“And…?” Professor Gimble asks, pinning me with a beady look.
Shitballs. I can’t remember anything else. I’m not going to cheat and look in her head again; I already feel I need a good scrub with a wire brush, so instead I stand looking down at my desk, trying to appear thoughtful rather than utterly clueless.
As I do so, a sudden burning pain sears my throat. My hand flies up to clutch at my neck in a panic. “And…” my voice croaks.
What the shit is happening?
“Wilson,” the professor growls. “Can you elaborate, or are you just wasting everybody's time?
I’ve no ability to stop the words that start pouring out of my mouth. “I’m wasting your time because I’m a stupid fucking dud.” I slap my hands over my lips. Why did I say that? Wait—oh no, not again. “I don’t belong here,” my voice croaks of its own volition. Laughter erupts, and I look around to see Cosmo Drakeward sitting there with a smug smile, his hands performing some sort of elaborate finger ballet at his desk.Just great.
Professor Gimble notices as well, and her face brightens. “Why, Mr. Drakeward, excellent work.”
My vocal cords start up again without my permission. In fact, they are actively working against me. What will I say next? Please don’t let it be too awful.
“And everyone should know that I’m a sl…” my traitorous voice box announces, before—CRASH! A loud noise fills the room, startling everyone, and suddenly the claws on my throat are released.
It was the janitor. Thank the sweet merciful Gods. He’d spilled the bin. Crumbled papers and empty cans litter the floor. I sag down into my seat as spontaneous applause breaks out for Cosmo.
“Get that mess picked up,” Professor Gimble grumbles, as the man in the coveralls kneels, shovelling trash back into the metal canister. I slide from my seat to help. It’s the least I can do; his timely accident saved me from any more humiliation.
“Fucking duds,” a red-headed boy calls out as he flicks an empty water bottle off his desk towards my head. The janitor snatches a hand out and snags it mid-flight.
“Thanks,” I whisper, as Professor Gimble continues on with her lesson. The janitor meets my eye. Whoa, his gaze is hypnotic. Long, pale eyelashes frame his heterochromic eyes. One is hazel with gold flecks, and the other is a deep, brown, so dark it’s almost black. The stunning eyes are focused on me with an unnerving intensity. I read both sympathy and anger in their depths.
The moment is broken as another jerk fires a balled-up wad of paper in our direction. I retrieve the final pieces of garbage and slink back to my desk. By the time I’m seated, I’ve missed all the proper instructions on projected communication artifice. Not that it matters. I could learn every step, every nuance, and still never cast the spell. Spells don’t work without magic, duh.
I spend my time watching the rest of the students. The class has partnered up, wrists twisting and fingers flicking, but only a couple manage to get even partial success. Cosmo is looking at his phone. He's made it abundantly clear he's already a master of this restricted spell.
What other spells will these awful students learn? I scroll through the rest of the Restricted Studies syllabus. Talk about fake media.Voice manipulation. Cloaking. Memory misdirection.
