Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,68
that Jenny O’Connell was happy to sabotage her partners’ equipment for fun. Now she knew that Kylee was . . . Spirit wasn’t sure what. And Dylan didn’t seem grateful for the way she’d stuck up for him at Thanksgiving. Aside from Burke, that left ten other students, and the odds were that every one of them was . . .
Normal for Oakhurst.
But the hours of practice with Burke had helped a lot. She got through her two sections of the demo—sparring hand-to-hand against Nadia, and a sword-kata with Kylee—without screwing anything up. Of course, neither Nadia nor Kylee wanted to look bad in the exhibition. In between those parts, she got to kneel on the mat with the other beginners and watch the advanced students’ routines. And the showpiece of the whole thing was Mr. Wallis versus Burke, both in karate and kendo.
It was beautiful—like a dance—but it scared her to watch it, because by now Spirit had done enough training to know no punches were being pulled—at least by Mr. Wallis. And Burke had already played a football game—both halves—only a couple of hours before. Blake Watson could Heal him, but Healing didn’t take the place of rest.
Watching Burke’s part of the exhibition, she remembered what he’d said the first night she’d been at Oakhurst: how it would be unfair for him to compete against non-magicians at something in which he had a Mage Gift. She remembered how Muirin had jeered at the thought. But today, Spirit understood it bone-deep, where before it was only something she’d believed to be right.
Mr. Wallis was a master kendoka and karateka. He’d trained for years to gain his level of skill. Burke said himself he’d only been doing this for a year or so. But he was better at it than Mr. Wallis—better, faster, superior.
Burke says it doesn’t matter what Gift you have—even if it’s something little like sensing weather patterns, you’re generally stronger and healthier and everything than non-magicians. And . . . nobody here wears contact lenses, or glasses, and . . . I haven’t even seen a single zit.
She wondered for the first time if the “enemies” Doctor Ambrosius talked about really were other magicians—or if maybe they were non-magical people who just hated the fact that there was another kind of person around that was better than they were?
If it was really true that they were better.
The five of them had only had scraps of time to get together as a group since what Muirin had started calling The Adventure of the Haunted Basement, and none at all to get together since Spirit had conceded they weren’t going to solve this. Everything would have been so much easier if they could just have gotten onto IM for ten minutes—or could risk sending an e-mail. But they didn’t dare. So there’d only been enough time to state the problem, not to discuss the solution. Not until this Sunday. As it was, they had to put that off until late in the afternoon, because Addie had to go to the Afternoon Tea, and she didn’t want to do it before that.
At least there were two full hours before dinner. Plenty of time to find the most deserted corner of Oakhurst they could that was indoors, because the weather had now graduated to being really freezing, and there were patches of snow on the ground.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together,” Muirin said in portentous tones.
“Oh, hush, Murr-cat,” Addie said.
The Greenhouse wasn’t off-limits, but it wasn’t a place most of the kids thought of hanging out in, aside from some of the Green Witches whose magic had a direct involvement with plants and growing things. Even most of them associated it with studying and not free time, though, so on a Sunday afternoon the Greenhouse was deserted.
“We all know what the problem is,” Loch said. “The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
“I bet there’s more information down in the Haunted Basement,” Muirin said darkly.
“Why should there be?” Spirit demanded. “Or—what if there is, and there’s a booby trap, too? Then they lock you up in one of those cute little cells we saw and tell everybody you ran away to be with Seth.”
Muirin’s face sharpened with anger. Spirit knew it was a low blow, but she was scared. And if Muirin got into one of those crazy states where she’d do anything—she might go down there alone, without telling the rest of them.