Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,50

threatened to load up the machine with an extra pound for every three donuts.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Spirit replied.

“I mean, look at me!” Muirin gestured to herself dramatically, before picking up her tray and heading for “their” table. “Does this look like the body of someone who needs to worry about a couple of donuts?”

Spirit had to shake her head, because in all truth, Muirin looked like the sort of person who might need to consider packing a few extra pounds on rather than trying to take them off.

Addie, Burke, and Loch joined them a few minutes later; Muirin repeated her complaints about the new class.

Burke just shrugged. “Didn’t seem bad to me,” he said.

“Well it wouldn’t, would it?” Muirin retorted resentfully. “You being the King of the Jocks and all.”

“I’m so not looking forward to this,” Addie replied uneasily.

“I’d like to know why they’re springing it on us,” said Loch. He took a bite of his sandwich thoughtfully. “Have you actually looked around at everyone here? We may not be Olympians, but we’re all pretty athletic. And magic burns the fat off you pretty quickly once you start practicing it.”

“Pretty athletic might not be good enough…” Spirit said slowly. “Not if we really are going to be in some kind of war soon. Maybe I was wrong about Doctor Ambrosius not taking the Hunt seriously enough. Maybe this is part of his answer. I mean … I don’t know how you’d have a war with wizards, but any time people fight, endurance plays a big part, right?”

“Huh.” Burke looked at her with new respect.

Muirin groaned. “You sure know how to suck the righteous indignation right out of something, don’t you?” she said with feeling. “Curses on you, Logic Girl!”

Spirit laughed weakly. “Oh, go right ahead feeling righteously indignant,” she replied. “After all, even if there is a good reason for it, Mr. Wallis is still a sadist.”

“Amen to that,” said Loch.

* * *

Lunch went a long way to fully reviving her, so Spirit went on to her math class feeling less like a damp rag and more like a human being. She took her place behind the empty seat that had been Judy King’s. It was with a bit of a shock and a lot of guilt that Spirit realized she couldn’t even put a face to the name, only the back of a head and a severely bobbed hairdo.

Ms. Smith waited for them all to get seated, then crossed her arms over her chest and regarded the class with glittering eyes. “There is absolutely no point in trying to concentrate on mathematics today,” she said, to Spirit’s shock. “Believe me, I understand. What’s probably making it worse for all of you is that most of the teachers don’t even want you to talk about it. They want you to act as if everything is business as usual, to go back to classes like nothing happened. But I don’t.”

She paused for effect, and raked her eyes over all of them.

“What happened New Year’s Eve was a horrible shock. What caused it really doesn’t matter; what matters is the effect it had on you.” Ms. Smith leaned forward, and lowered her voice a little. “You all had a terrible experience. I know I did, and I’m a trained magician with … let’s just say I have a lot of stories I could tell. Bottling your feelings up isn’t healthy. In fact, it might cause problems down the road—psychological problems, like post-traumatic stress disorder, and problems with your control of magic. You need to talk about these things, and I’m here to help.”

She fastened her gaze on Nadia Vaughn, who chewed her fingernail nervously. Ms. Smith didn’t even call her on it. Finally, Nadia broke under the intense gaze. “It was awful,” she said in a small voice. “I was so scared—it was so dark, except for those awful little sparks, and I couldn’t breathe! I thought I was going to have a heart attack or something, I kept trying to say something but nothing would come out!”

Ms. Smith nodded. “I’m not sure which was worse, the dark, or those little sparks of light.”

“They were like eyes!” Kylee Williamson burst out. “Like— Like the eyes of something that knows it’s going to pounce on you and it’s just waiting for you to be scared enough!”

That pretty much did it. Everyone but Spirit started pouring out what they’d seen, and especially what they’d felt. Ms. Smith made no attempt to soothe them;