Foretold Page 15

  Regan’s blush is practically purple. “He’s young.”

  “He’s our age.”

  “Guys our age are so immature. I guess he’s kind of got an old soul thing going for him, though. Maybe because of his great-grandma always being around? We were hanging earlier and he said ‘trousers’ and—”

  “You guys hung out without me?”

  “Well, yeah, but like… ew! Don’t get any ideas.”

  I laugh and wipe my sweaty palm on my knee before placing it in Regan’s awaiting outstretched hand.

  “Oh no! What happened to your hand?”

  I blanch and try to pull it back as people look over at us. She holds tight. “I… I don’t… It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing?” She lowers her voice and looks down at my hand, leaning closer. “Cassie, these red patches aren’t nothing. And your… Is that dried blood on your nail? Have you had it looked at?”

  The pity in her voice sparks my temper. I place my other mess of a hand onto the table. “There’s nothing to have looked at. I did it to myself.” The confusion on her face and the naked caring leeches the anger from me. I’m left saddened my illness always has to crash the party. I swallow, force myself to look into her eyes. “From washing. And picking. I have OCD.”

  “Oh. Oh, Cassie…”

  “It’s not cute like being neat or quirky or neurotic. It’s like… my doctor told me everyone has weird passing thoughts like, ‘What if I push this guy in front of this subway car?’ or, ‘Should I jump off this balcony?’ or, ‘What if my dad dies?’ But most people just get skeeved, recognize it’s dumb, and move on. I’m the same, except for the moving on part. For people like me, the thought gets stuck, like water in your ear after a swim. I’ll fixate on the violent details. The meaning. Why did I think that? Would I do that? What does it mean? How would I feel? And even though I know it’s not real, my body doesn’t realize it’s not actually happening.”

  I inhale heavily. “A couple of weeks ago, a dirty dog brushed up against me and I was sure I was going to die. Like, a logical part of me knew it wasn’t true, but the rest of me—my lungs, my heart, my entire body—was positive I was toast.” I keep my eyes on my hands. Those raw, dry, cracked things. “And when I get like that, when the water is stuck in my ear, I can’t get it out without doing something. All sorts of things, like washing or saying something five times or touching something. I’m a mess.”

  Regan’s lips twist and she covers my hands with her own. “Cassie! This is your Big Bad. Sometimes you win and sometimes it does, but… these are battle scars. You’re a total badass!”

  I snort out a laugh and brush at my eye. “Whatever.”

  “I’m serious! You’re totally Cassandra, Warrior Princess.”

  “It’s easy to say, but you don’t know—”

  “Yeah, I don’t know exactly what you’re going through. I’m not trying to blow it off or pretend I do. But I get living with fear and…”

  I wince. I’ve triggered something in her. I watch as she wrestles with it.

  “You can’t see my battle scars, but they’re there.” She swallows. “My dad abandoned me and my mom.”

  “Oh, Regan. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. He didn’t care? Well, I don’t either. I’m a survivor. And now I’m a scryer. I got a raw deal, but I’ll see the next one coming a mile away, and not only because I can see the friggin’ future. Plus, others have it worse. We have this opportunity. We’re going to rock this opportunity. And if we weren’t sitting here in my future husband’s class and it wouldn’t look totally weird, I would totally hug you.”

  I laugh and blink away the mist in my eyes. I turn my palms up, and Regan places her hands on mine. I give them a squeeze.

  “So, what have you learned over here?” Mr. du Lac asks as he approaches our little nook.

  Regan responds immediately. “That Cassie is a badass.”

  “Not sure how you got that from her palm,” Mr. du Lac says slowly. “Let’s take a look at yours and see what we’re working with first.” He smiles at Regan and takes her hand. “So, this mound is…”

  “Apollo Mount. It signifies a sunny disposition,” Regan says.

  “That’s right. You must be a charming young lady.”

  “Oh, I am.” Regan flutters her eyelashes. I laugh.

  “And this dip here, next to your first Mars Mount? Menelaus Valley. Hard time forgiving, but an old hurt… you’ll have a chance to… here, where your head line, destiny line, and life line intersect and form this letter? Approaching a decision. A major life decision. This is your heart line. It leads…”

  “Wherever you like,” Regan breathes.

  He sets her hand down and gives it a pat. “Why don’t we see what’s happening with your friend’s palm? Show me what you got from it.”

  “Sure,” Regan says. I present my palm to her awaiting hand. “Okay, so. Hm… the lifeline is frayed here, and the Mercury line jabs into the fate line. That means…” She hesitates and looks up at Mr. du Lac.

  His gaze sharpens as he takes my hand himself. “Suffering in your past, tentacles into the present,” he says quietly, tracing his hand from my middle finger down to the middle of my palm. He winces. “So young, and so much pain.” He whispers so faintly I barely make him out. "But I can’t… nothing is set in stone except your past. Usually there are… see here? Your life and fate lines are open-ended. He rubs his thumb over the bump between my index finger and thumb. “Sacrifice.” He lifts my hand and peers at it from another angle. “And love. See this here? These parallel lines?” I pull my hand back and stare up at his tanned face. He looks pained. “Your palm isn’t giving up its secrets without a fight, kid. Unusual.”

  When we’ve packed up and Regan has assured me her wedding to James is off, she adds, “Honestly, Palmistry is a joke. You said it yourself.”

  “I didn’t say that. I told you Pict said that.”

  “Even better! He’s an expert.”

  “It’s fine, Regan.”

  “No, it’s not. I don’t want you running off and OCD’ing the crap out of your hands some more.”

  I laugh. “Very sensitive to my condition, thanks. Not really how it works, either.”

  Regan eyes me warily. “You’re shockingly calm about the ‘never seen a palm like this’ spookfest.”

  I laugh again, but it isn’t a pretty sound. “For someone with my condition, you mean?”

  “No! Anyone would be wigging out.”

  “Honestly, you’re overreacting. I didn’t really need Mr. du Lac to tell me I’m a freak. Besides, hearing the open-ended stuff was actually pretty comforting because I know what’s coming. That’s why I’m here.”

  “That’s why we’re all here.”

  “No.” I hesitate. Sharing feels like a trust fall. “It’s Colin… I told you about him, remember?” I tell Regan about Colin’s death, about that day in front of the school. About my mom. I spare no detail.

  “Cassie. What the hell? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know. Pict didn’t believe me when I tried, and I figured… Anyway, I’m telling you now.”

  “Well, I’m going to help you. Don’t worry, Colin isn’t going anywhere. And Mrs. O, who sounds fantabulous by the way, isn’t going anywhere, either. We’ll figure it all out.”

  “Regan…” My throat spasms.

  “Yeah, I know. Best friends. Also? I guarantee you Colin lurves you. And if he doesn’t, that means he only gets with uggos and you can do better.” She pauses and changes the subject. “You know how you saw things with your mom and Colin? That only happens with tons of practice. That doesn’t make you a freak! You’re amazeballs, with a capital ‘A.’ Battle scar Beyoncé.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I really feel ‘amazeballs,’” I say dryly.

  Griffin notices us and rushes over, ignoring Regan’s audible groan. “You guys see the Agon Coil Walk team assignments? Triggs put them up in the common room.”

  “I requeste
d you, Cassie,” Regan says. “Hope my team doesn’t suck.”

  A smile creeps slowly across Griffin's face.

  “No.” Regan opens her mouth and screams, theatrical and full-throated. Students and teachers around us stop to stare.

  I'm about to reach over and put my hand over her mouth when something pulls me back—fingers, grasping fingers, hot and tight, around my throat—ripping my own scream from me.

  “Help!” it screeches.

  I twist it in front of me, pushing at its throat as it holds onto mine. Not a thing. A girl—filthy, skin-and-bones, clawing at me. I shriek again, trying desperately to push her away.

  “Help me!” the girl wails.

  Griffin and Regan pull at her. She releases me and drops to the ground in fetal position, long matted black hair obscuring her face as she moans and whispers to herself.

  A guard in a green jumpsuit pushes through a few onlookers. “Back up! Clear out, everyone!” He brushes by Regan and kneels in front of the girl, pressing a hand to her forehead to smooth back her hair. She flinches. “Samara Trefoil. That’s your name, right?”

  “No names. No games. Don’t play with your food,” the girl says in a sing-song voice.

  Regan grabs my hand and squeezes. I squeeze back, transfixed. The girl launches herself at the guard, grasping at his shoulders to try and remain upright. He hefts her into his arms, and she goes limp.

  “Who is she?” Griffin asks the guard as he moves past us. “What happened to her?”

  The guard doesn’t respond.

  “What was that?” I ask. I begin counting, trying to make it to ten. Regan shakes her head helplessly.

  When we enter the Mirror Scrying Lab’s moonlit expansive terrace, we’re a great deal more somber than when we left our Palmistry class. The night’s heavy heat is interrupted by the occasional brackish breeze. I walk over to the stone railing and peek down at the darkly glinting river behind Theban Group.

  “I wasn’t thinking of jumping,” I say, catching the worried question in Regan’s eyes. I mean it, too. I’m more worried about the scratches on my neck becoming infected, despite the vigorous scrubbing I gave them in the bathroom on the way to the lab.

  Regan nods and greets Noah, pointedly moving in the opposite direction of Griffin, the shared Samara Trefoil trauma not enough to solidify a truce.

  Who is Samara Trefoil?

  The memory of Madame Grey’s warning about Theban Group slides through my mind like a ghost, sending a shudder of disquiet through me.

  I pull my mirror out of my bag and set it alongside everyone else’s on terrace railing as class launches into full swing. Thessaly Nua, our mirror scrying instructor, nods absently at a latecomer—Sebastian—as he enters. We haven’t exchanged a word since he escorted me to my dorm, though I see him at least once a day. Awareness crackles throughout my nerve endings as he circles our group, coming to a stop behind me. My reaction irritates me. For some reason he throws me off, upsets my equilibrium.

  “Samara Trefoil. What happened?” he murmurs from close behind me, quietly so as not to disrupt Nua’s lecture.

  “No, I’m Cassandra Morai,” I quip.

  He steps up so that he’s standing next to me and gives me a serious look. He isn’t the tallest person in our group, but somehow he looms larger than everyone else.

  I sigh. “She jumped out at me and a guard took her away. I’m okay. Sweet of you to care, but don’t sweat it.”

  “I’m a prefect for the initiate class. It’s kind of my job to sweat it.”

  I flush. “I’m good, thanks.”

  He gives me an inscrutable look and moves to the outskirts of the class. I watch his golden head as he walks away and wonder if he thinks I was being cold as a ploy. The tidal pull of his looks and his position as Jordan Welborne’s son is strong, and most people are happy to wreck themselves on his reef. I’ve watched as a few of my classmates tried the cold shoulder in an attempt to stand apart from the nerd herd and catch his eye. He stares through them with the same obvious disinterest he shows the ones who fawn over him.

  It’s not a ploy for me, though. I’m awkward enough as it is around normal people, let alone arrogant golden gods. I close my eyes to call up an image of Colin. Comfortable Colin who soothes me instead of throwing my mind onto a giant hyperdrive hamster wheel. I picture him standing in front of me on a very different balcony, his blue eyes trained on my lips. Slowly leaning in until the Spite House’s creaks freaked me out. His scent that day: sun and grass and coconut soap.

  “Make sure you always… ah, I’ve lost my train of thought! Where was I?” Ms. Nua lisps, her thick fringe of bangs swinging and pointy chin twitching as she shakes her head.

  “Safe scrying,” Tessa volunteers, her braces glinting in the moonlight as she smiles.

  “Thank you, Tessa! That’s right. You wouldn’t operate heavy machinery without an eye toward safety, and Scrying is no different. Proper care for your tools is crucial. Size and shape don’t matter, but the lunar charge you select for your mirror will impact your visions significantly.”

  “Good thing for you, Griffin! Size doesn’t matter,” Regan announces. A few kids chuckle.

  “I practice safe Scrying with your mom,” Griffin responds.

  “As you should.” Nua nods. “Tonight, we’ll be charging your mirrors with this gorgeous waxing gibbous moon. The waxing gibbous charge is fantastic for picking up positive visions, happy things! It’ll last you about a week, depending on how much you use it. You’ll retrieve your mirrors in the morning, and your homework for next class is to Scry something delightful. Yes? Is there a question?”

  “Can you charge a mirror with the sun?” a girl with a long plait down her back asks.

  “An excellent question, Helen. Sunlight generates too much heat. It’s too harsh, so it bounces off. Lunar light is cooler, so it melts into the glass. Yes? You in the back.”

  “What about dark mirror scrying?” a heavyset boy, Joe, asks.

  Nua hesitates. “That’s not something we’ll be covering. Dark mirror scrying is not permitted at Theban. Yes?”

  The same boy points to one of the mirrors on the table. “But this mirror is black.”

  “Ah!” Nua brightens. “That’s an obsidian mirror, not a dark mirror. Dark mirror scrying has nothing to do with the mirror’s color. It has to do with the light, or lack thereof, that you use to charge your mirror… and that… hm. I… I’ve lost the thread. What were we talking about?”

  “Dark mirror scrying,” Griffin prompts.

  “Oh yes, thank you.” Nua warms to her topic. “Any mirror charged with the dark of an eclipse can become a dark mirror. The Gloaming Moon eclipse set for next week is an especially potent one—Magnitude Five! One hundred and three minutes of totality! We won’t see another Gloaming Moon for at least seven years.”

  “Thessaly,” Sebastian interjects, warning in his tone.

  “So… er… you… that mirror is not a dark mirror is the point. Obsidian mirrors are a matter of preference. Yes.”

  I glance over at Regan and Noah. Noah puffs out his cheeks and Regan raises her eyebrows in response, her eyes huge fascinated saucers. She scribbles something in her notebook.

  “If you’re the forgetful type, you’ll want to stay away from other lunar charges and stick with full moon charges—they’re good workhorse charges that last a full month,” Nua says. “Gets the job done, but visions aren’t as specialized or nuanced. Now that you’ve set your mirrors out to capture this waxing gibbous charge, let’s pick up a pre-charged mirror here on this table and you all try and figure out what kind of charge your mystery mirror has.”

  “What, like a blind taste test?” Dill asks, as we each select a mirror.

  “Not just taste. You’ll need to pay attention to what you taste, smell, feel—all of your senses are in play. Not so much with full moons, but certainly with the other phases. Let’s see if you can tell the difference between them.”

  “Oh! Ms. Nua, I�
�m getting something!” Griffin shouts before anyone has an opportunity to even make an attempt to scry. “There’s this really ruggedly handsome guy staring back at me from this mirror.” Clearly, Samara Trefoil is no longer weighing on Griffin’s mind the way she is mine.

  “Your mirror must be broken,” Regan says. “That or your eyes.”

  Griffin turns with a grin. “My eyes work fine, Ronald.”

  I stare into my mirror, trying to clear my mind. The scratches on my neck are barely visible. The inevitable infection hasn’t reached the surface yet. The germs are still feasting and multiplying underneath my skin. They’ll trigger a lymphatic reaction soon, leading to redness, swelling, itching as my body tries to fight them off. It won’t be enough to stop the infection, though. How long has it been since I got a tetanus shot?

  I look around. I can’t concentrate. Pict’s tutoring, Dr. Ward’s exercises—nothing helps. There’s too much ricocheting through my mind. Regan looks like she’s in the beginning throes of a trance. I make eye contact with a few others who look like they’re having a tough time. How am I supposed to walk the Coil if I can’t control my thoughts? How am I going to save Colin?

  “I’m not getting anything,” Joe says, pushing his hair out of his eyes in frustration.

  “I wanted you to try. I don’t expect everyone to succeed. Full moon-charged mirrors are easier to handle. The other phases take some getting used to. Sometimes you get a nibble on the line and other times…” She looks befuddled for a second. “Other times you… that is… what was I going on about?”

  “Fishing,” the boy says.

  “Right, thank you!” But Nua doesn’t seem inclined to elaborate any further.

  “Man, your mentor is a fruit loop,” Griffin whispers to Tessa. She ignores him. “Ms. Nua, can you tell us more about dark mirrors?”

  “I haven’t told you anything at all about dark mirrors, so I can hardly tell you more, Griffin.”

  “Right.” Griffin looks over at Tessa. “Like I said. Fruit loop.”

  “Can you stop being so disruptive?” she hisses.

  “Lighten up. She’ll forget anything I did five minutes later, anyway.”