Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,66

heard the anger in her voice and winced.

“Nah,” he said. “Useless old Combat Mage, remember? Muirin said you wanted to be alone, and, well, this is where I always came to be alone when I first got here.”

She blinked up at him. He was holding out his hand to her. She took it. It was warm even through her gloves. He pulled her easily to her feet. “Your coat—” she said.

“Keep it,” he said. “I’m tough. Besides, it isn’t that far back to the house.”

They walked out from under the bleachers. “Yeah,” Burke said, glancing back, “it’s a good place—you can’t be seen, you aren’t really that far from the house, you’ve got shelter from the wind . . .”

“Don’t make fun of me!” Spirit said sharply, pulling away.

Burke’s face reflected his honest confusion. “I wasn’t,” he said. “That’s why I chose it. I figured that might be why you chose it. Maybe you’re a Combat Mage, too. It’d be nice if there was another one here,” he said, a little wistfully.

“You’re the only one?” Spirit asked in surprise.

“Well, not the only one ever,” Burke said. “But the only one here in all the time I’ve been here.”

“Maybe I am,” Spirit said. “I’d like to be something.”

“You’d like to be home with your family,” Burke said. “So would everyone here. Even people like Muirin and Loch who didn’t really have families. And I’d like to be back with my foster family—right now, right this minute—and it’s still awful, even if I know I’ll get to see them again in a few years, when I can protect myself and them. And I know that makes me luckier than everybody else here. I have a family to go back to.”

“I think it would be worse,” Spirit said. To have something and not to have it would be the worst thing she could imagine. “But at least you write to them, don’t you?”

“No,” Burke said in a low voice. “No, I don’t. It wouldn’t be fair. Doctor Ambrosius told me that when I got here. He was right. If I wrote them, the people who—well, they might figure out—” He shrugged. “Hostages.”

Spirit slipped her hand back into his. She thought it was a horrible kind of fairness—and what was worse was that Burke had accepted it so completely. “We won’t let anything turn us against each other?” she said a little desperately. “Us five? No matter what happens—or what other people tell us? We won’t believe them? Promise?”

“I promise, Spirit,” Burke said in a low voice. “I’ll always believe in you.”

Every meal at Oakhurst was formal, and Spirit had actually gotten used to it. But Thanksgiving introduced a new element into Oakhurst’s “elegant dining” obstacle course. Place cards.

She’d gone back to her room to try to get warm, having only realized how cold she’d gotten once she got inside. She took a hot shower and stayed under the water until she was on the verge of being late, but she still had to dry her long blonde hair. When she got to the Refectory, half the kids were already seated, and as Spirit headed for her usual table, Angelina grabbed her by the arm.

“Not today, White. You’re over there. Don’t you read your e-mail?”

“Oh, give her a break, Angie, she’s new.” Kelly Langley walked over to them. “Seating’s semi-alphabetical on Thanksgiving and a few other days: It’s in your Orientation Manual. Boy-girl-boy-girl. You’re over there: T through Z.”

Spirit nodded and walked over to her assigned table. She realized, with faint despair, that she was seated between Dylan Williams and Brendan Wilson. She liked Brendan—but she’d rather have skipped the meal completely than sit beside Dylan.

Blake Watson smiled at her as she passed him on her way to her seat. He was nicknamed “Henry” because he was a Healing Mage, and Henry Blake had been a doctor on an old TV show. At least if I stab Dylan with a fork there’ll be help nearby, she thought. Although I ought to be worrying about Dylan stabbing me!

“T through Z” meant Zoey Young was on the other side of Brendan, and also that Loch and Muirin were a couple of tables away, sitting at the “S” table. Most of the kids at her table were “W”s, except for Alexis Zimmerman and Nadia Vaughn, though there were a handful of “T”s, too: Andrew Tate, Kiara Tyler, Christopher Terry, Mariana Thornton, Noah Turner, and Serenity Thompson (why did parents always give their kids such horrible names?). Spirit