Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,84

all be . . . well, be facing something horrible. Or . . . Addie looked cool, as usual. And Loch . . . gah, she just wanted to strangle him! And Muirin.

At least Burke didn’t look as if he didn’t have a single worry on his mind. He just looked like he was doing his very best to pretend he didn’t. She remembered what he’d said the night he’d taken her out to see the ice sculptures: “I hate it. I hate lying. I hate going to bed at night knowing I’m keeping secrets from Doctor Ambrosius.”

And it would be nice to think it would be over soon, but it wouldn’t be. This was only the beginning.

The morning of the Winter Solstice dawned bright and clear. Spirit watched the sun rise from a chair looking out her window. She’d been completely unable to sleep.

Full Moon tonight. Plenty of light. Chris Terry was a Weather Mage, and he’d said on Monday it would be clear for the next few days, to the disappointment of everyone who wanted more snow for the skating rink, and the Winter Carnival, and all the other things that were utterly meaningless to Spirit right now. Chris’s Gift wasn’t accurate past seventy-two hours, but that made him more accurate than the National Weather Service. And Spirit didn’t need to know what the weather would be like on Christmas. Just tonight.

It’s going to be a beautiful day, she thought, and felt like bursting into tears. As she got to her feet, she heard the crackle of paper from the pocket of her robe. The spell. Maybe I should? . . .

But no. If she hadn’t learned it by now, she wasn’t going to. She carried the incriminating sheet of paper into the bathroom, tore it into tiny scraps, and flushed it down the toilet.

At breakfast everyone in the Refectory was so noisy the proctors actually had to stand up and ask them to quiet down a couple of times. Spirit had managed to forget the Winter Dance was tomorrow until Brendan asked her who she was going with.

“To the dance? The Winter Dance?” he asked in disbelief as she just stared blankly.

“Oh, Spirit’s going with Burke!” Muirin announced, bursting into a peal of mocking laughter. “Spirit likes having her feet stepped on!”

Spirit just stared down at her plate and shoved her eggs around with a piece of toast. While she was grateful to Muirin for the quick save, she did wish Muirin had been less cruel about it.

“It’s okay,” Burke said quietly. “You don’t have to.”

“I’d love to,” Spirit said defiantly. She liked Burke a lot. At least with Burke she didn’t have to watch her back—like she did with most of the Oakhurst boys—or try to figure out what he meant by anything—the way she did with the other ones. Even Loch. She trusted Loch, more or less, but she didn’t understand him at all.

Once breakfast was over, Spirit wasn’t sure whether to spend time with the others or avoid them. She was too nervous about tonight to read or to work on any of her homework assignments, and too irritable to go outside and take “advantage” of their vacation time the way the other students were. Instead, she wandered around indoors for a while and then ended up back in her room. Only that turned out not to be a good choice either, as Kristi and Madison both came and asked if they could use her room to stash presents in until Christmas, and then Sarah Ellis came looking for Kristi because they were going to go skating, and by that time Spirit gave up and went and hid in the back of the Library until lunch.

At lunch everybody was talking about how Claire Grissom had fallen while she was out skating and broken her ankle. Mr. Bridges had driven her to the hospital in Radial.

Or had he?

“When Kylee broke her arm in karate a couple of weeks ago, she didn’t have to go to Radial,” Spirit said carefully. “In fact, Claire Healed her.”

“No,” Loch said slowly. “She didn’t, did she? And Claire’s not the only Healing Mage here.” His expression was grim, and Spirit knew that he was thinking the same thing she was: Claire was tonight’s Tithe to the Wild Hunt.

“But that was different,” Addie countered. Spirit couldn’t tell whether Addie was speaking for Spirit’s benefit—or for the benefit of whatever unseen listeners they might have. “Claire’s a Healing Mage. It’s a lot