witches would have called home and told them about the powerful warlock with the brains of a turnip?” she asked, giving me a sidelong glance as we walked.
I thought of the kids I’d seen after class last night… on their cell phones. Trying to gather my thoughts at all these revelations, I was glancing to the other side of us when I spotted him.
Adult male, middle-age, five-nine to five eleven, brown hair, dark eyes, beard, thigh-length dark leather coat, tan pants, brown shoes… staring at me.
On a college campus of over twelve thousand undergraduates, anyone older than twenty-five stands out. This guy didn’t have the professor or administrator vibe. Too polished, too metro looking.
“Who the hell is that?” I asked as a pack of kids crossed in front of my vision, blocking him off.
“Who?” Ryanne asked, looking where I was staring.
The kids moved past and the man was gone.
“Wow, that was odd. A dude was standing there staring at me. Now he’s gone.”
“At you? Oh does the whole world revolve around you, does it? Don’t ye think a man might be staring at me?” she asked, executing a quick walking pirouette.
“Absolutely, which is why it was weird he made eye contact with me. He should be staring at the hot girl, not the scruffy boy,” I said, still looking around for him. His disappearance was odd, too. Much too complete to be normal in my opinion.
“Oh so ye think I’m hot, do ye?” she asked.
“Of course. I’m a straight male, aren’t I?”
“Oh, that was almost a complement, I do believe.”
“Let’s rewind a bit, back before I got distracted by some dude and where we got sidetracked by your hotness. You said that other kids would be calling home and talking about the dirt lizard and stuff. What’s the big deal?”
“Okay, me hotness aside, let’s look at it like this. Suppose ye were in a school or college or place where a kid appeared who could throw home run passes or kick field bases from one end of the field to another,” she said.
“What? I think you mean throw touchdown passes and kick field goals?” I clarified.
“Whatever. Not my fault ye’ve no normal sports at’all. Anyway, some prodigy of a player appears in whatever sport ye want to name and is so completely beyond what anyone has ever seen in that sport as to make things almost unfair,” she said.
“Like football? Our football?” I asked.
“Whatever, ye chancer,” she said, clearly done with the sports metaphor.
“Well, there would be a lot of media coverage and probably a mad dash by all the head coaches to recruit the kid,” I said.
“Bingo. Give the man-boy a biscuit,” she said. We entered the English building and started toward the stairs.
“So you think recruiters are coming?” I asked.
“I think, boyo, that parents weekend is coming for our little Arcane in March and it’ll be crazy attended, with lots of aunts and uncles that have no blood at all in common with the students,” she said.
“Oh, circle leaders coming along with actual parents?” I asked.
“Yep. And they’ll be offering ye the moon, their daughters, and free tickets to the Superbowl,” she said.
“Wait… Superbowl tickets? Good seats?” I asked.
She smacked my arm. “Ye focker. Sell yer soul for end line tickets would ye?” she said in mock disgust. “Not to mention all the nubile girls ye’d be offered along with riches.”
“End zone,” I corrected quickly. “And I already have a girlfriend.”
“Yes, I know. Tell me, Declan, jest what’s the attraction to the soldier girl? She’s kind o’ cute, I’ll admit, but I don’t see any wicked sense of humor or interest in stuff other than things that’ll bleed you, blow you up or shoot you dead. Maybe you like getting beat up a bit?”
I didn’t answer right away, thinking about Caeco.
“We have a lot in common,” I said finally.
“Like, jest exactly what?” she wondered, completely serious.
“We’re both outsiders. Neither of us ever belonged. We are both gifted in our own areas. We each understand being hunted and living under the radar. We’re both freaks of nature,” I finished.
It was her turn to be silent. She glanced my way a couple of times as we climbed the stairs and moved down the hall to our class. The next hour and a half went by slowly. I partially listened to the lecture, took half-assed notes, and doodled designs of ideas for reactive shields. Ryanne appeared to be deep into the class, but I noticed she wasn’t writing down much. She