…’
‘Yeah, I know, you’re a mighty Wundersmith. Dry your eyes, mate,’ Cadence replied quietly. She spotted Lambeth emerging from her transcendental meditation class in her usual daze and waved to get her attention.
There weren’t nearly as many Arcane students as Mundane, but with teaching staff, graduates, academics and researchers, as well as visiting members of the Royal Sorcery Council, the Paranormal League and the Alliance of Nevermoor Covens, the Arcane halls were usually busy. Today they were filled with junior and senior scholars celebrating the end of term, in ways that most of them were strictly forbidden to do so outside the School of Arcane Arts. Illusion scholars could practise their craft anywhere in Wunsoc, because illusion – in the words of Murgatroyd – was ‘a bunch of tediously innocuous trickery’. (Morrigan thought this freedom was wasted on the illusion scholars, because they mostly used it to gross people out, creating false images of dog poo and scurrying rats in the hallways. Even Hawthorne, who loved grossing people out, was unimpressed with their efforts, declaring them ‘unimaginative in the extreme’.)
But if a junior scholar was caught practising – for example – sorcery or witchery anywhere outside of the Arcane floors, they’d almost certainly regret it. Some of Murgatroyd’s favoured punishments included cutting the arms off winter coats, shaving eyebrows, and dangling people by their ankles over the side of the footbridge above Proudfoot Station.
In the Arcane halls, however, nothing was off-limits.
This afternoon, in some sort of bizarre end-of-term celebration, a group of sorcery scholars had stolen a case of unlabelled elixir bottles from the Witchery Wing and were shaking them up, daring each other to drink them, and howling at the results, either with laughter or pain. One of them burned her throat breathing piping hot steam for a solid minute, one burst all the capillaries in his eyeballs, and another fell deeply and publicly in love with the first inanimate object he laid eyes on – a fire extinguisher.
‘Lam, hurry up, will you,’ Cadence groaned as she saw their friend dawdling several metres behind.
‘Stop,’ Lam said, holding up one hand. Morrigan and Cadence both halted instantly, just before they reached the intersection of two long hallways.
Lam was a gifted short-range oracle … which meant she had visions of the future, but only the immediate future – mere moments ahead. Unit 919 had realised by now that heeding Lam’s warnings often helped them avoid some minor disaster like stubbed toes or spilled tea. Sometimes it even saved lives, as Morrigan had learned last Hallowmas night, when she’d deciphered Lam’s cryptic predictions and shut down the illegal Ghastly Market – just in time to save Cadence and Lam from being auctioned off to the highest bidders.
If Morrigan hadn’t figured it out, someone would almost certainly have paid a lot of money to steal Cadence’s knack from her … but Lam’s fate could have been much, much worse. Because their friend Lambeth Amara was, in fact, the Princess Lamya Bethari Amati Ra, of the Royal House of Ra, from the Silklands in the state of Far East Sang. She’d been smuggled into the Free State illegally from the Wintersea Republic to trial for the Wundrous Society, just like Morrigan – but unlike Morrigan, her family had been in on the plan, and if their treason against the ruling Wintersea Party was ever discovered, they could face execution. Nobody in the Republic was even supposed to know the Free State existed.
Unit 919 had vowed to keep Lam’s secret. There were certainly others out there who knew – Lam’s patron, of course, and Miss Cheery and the Elders. A few wretched people who’d escaped the destruction of the Ghastly Market and scurried away into the night. But there was a feeling in Unit 919 that if they buried the secret between them and never said it aloud, they could protect Lam from anyone who might wish her harm.
Cadence heaved an impatient sigh, looking at her watch. ‘Lam, we really need to—’
‘Wait.’
SPLAT! Bzzzzzzzzz …
Morrigan and Cadence watched in horror as, farther down the corridor, one of the boys from the Sorcery Department sprayed a shaken-up elixir bottle all over a passing senior scholar. The older girl was engulfed by a wave of black tarry liquid which, on contact with her skin, turned into … bees. Angry, buzzy bees that swarmed to her as if she were covered in pollen. She ran down the hall, shrieking and trying to bat them away, while the sorcery boys