Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,87
the rescue. Well, plain old regular human greed. There doesn’t have to be a Mordred around for people to be evil. There were wars all over the world for the same reason. This one just happened to involve magic. Which she didn’t have. And she really didn’t want to become “Disposable Extra Number 23.”
So assuming this is true, she typed, what am I supposed to do? I don’t even have any magic! I just want to keep my head down—
He interrupted her again. Ignorance and powerlessness is your greatest defense.
Well, that made no sense at all. QUERCUS was back to cryptic mode. She sighed, gave up, and went to bed.
As for avoiding the others, all she had to do was to change her habits—sit somewhere else at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It helped that all pretense of formal dining had gone right by the wayside; everything was cafeteria-style lines now, and the linens and china had been put away “for the duration.” That might have been the only good thing about the new regime. Everything else—if people had been thinking that having the Breakthrough people more or less in charge was going to make things easier, they must have had a sad awakening.
Oakhurst was now being run like a military academy. The really athletic kids, the ones with warlike Schools and Gifts, had to get up before dawn. The few glimpses she got of Burke made her feel sorry for him, when she could get past the feeling of being betrayed. He really looked haggard. Actually, all of the ones being singled out as “warriors” looked haggard; he wasn’t alone in that.
Strangely, Spirit saw more of Muirin than she saw of anyone else; usually glimpses of Muirin and Madison acting like BFFs outside of class, though inside, Madison didn’t cut her any slack. On the afternoon of Spirit’s third day of “exile”—as she thought of it—she even saw Muirin being driven somewhere in some sort of sports car with Mark Rider at the wheel. That was so astonishing that for a moment she thought it was an hallucination. But … no. Word later had it that Mark Rider had driven Muirin into Radial at Madison’s request for some unspecified appointment. Appointment? For what?
Probably a dentist. Oakhurst doesn’t have a dentist, she finally decided. Serves her right for eating all that sugar.
There was no doubt she wasn’t the only person who found it odd that Muirin was so friendly with the Riders. She caught sight of a lot of funny looks from some of the other kids when Muirin came back, this time driven by Madison. It was right after supper, so a lot of people were free, and some of them had taken to hanging out in the Entry Hall instead of the lounges. Ms. Corby didn’t like that, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. To avoid her former friends, Spirit was there, too, covertly studying the Tree.
The sports car came roaring up to the front entrance, and Muirin got out. She leaned over and said something to Madison, then closed the door and waved. The sports car roared off again, and Muirin came sailing through the front door like she owned the school.
Little murmurs followed her, but nothing Spirit could catch.
And for a dose of something definitely on the dubious side, Anastus Ovcharenko seemed to like to hang around Muirin. Okay, maybe he was a lot younger than Mark Rider or even Madison, but still he was twenty or older. It just felt wrong to Spirit. It made her wonder all over again … how much of what Elizabeth had said was a fantasy and how much had been the truth? Because if Anastus actually was a Reincarnate.…
No, that was crazy. He was Russian, and for all she knew, twenty-something guys in Russia dated teenage girls all the time.
She wasn’t going to say anything to Muirin; Ovcharenko had this dangerous vibe that made Spirit really queasy. Like you wouldn’t want to be there if he actually got mad at you.
Finally, on the evening of the fifth day, Loch ambushed her as she left the Refectory. “Spirit … we’re sorry we got you upset. We want to apologize. Okay?” he said awkwardly, as people detoured around them.
“All of you, or just you?” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. She wasn’t going to give on this one. As he twisted his hand over his watchband, nervously, she noticed that he wasn’t wearing his ring anymore.