Magic University Book One: The Siren and the Sword (2 page)

“Mr. Wadsworth.” It was the librarian again, and she and Dean Bell glared daggers at each other for a moment.
“Before you move on, would you sign our visitor register? Our department doesn’t get very many, you see, and our funding for tea and cookies will be cut if we can’t prove a certain amount of interest. Right through here.” She stepped aside and indicated the open doorway.

“Oh, sure. Anything to help...?” He dared a smile at the girl, who was watching him with that same open curiosity and a hint of a smile. She was wearing brown corduroy jeans with a flower embroidered on the pocket and he wasn’t sure why he noticed little details like that, but he tucked it away in his head for later. Maybe he’d get a chance to run into her again.

Inside the office was a large, wooden reception desk which, like much of Harvard, looked like it was either from pre-1800 or like it was
made
to look that old. Behind the desk sat a pretty blond woman whose lipstick was rather bright. She set a large, leatherbound book on the desk, facing Kyle. The leather creaked as she opened it and she pointed to a cup of pens next to it.

They were all watching quite closely while Kyle took a step forward. Maybe this was the psychology department and this was all some kind of experiment on him? He reached into the pens and pulled one out, hissing sharply as he felt something prick his finger.
Great. Now I’ve cut myself and I’ll be bleeding all through the interview. Way to make an impression.
He decided he had best just sign his name and get out of there as soon as possible. Maybe he could hurry next door and stop the bleeding in the men’s room or something.

He touched the pen to the first empty line in the ledger and felt a curious shock go through his arm.
This has got to be some kind of weird experiment! Or maybe a reality TV show.
But he signed his name in flowing letters, hoping the reddish tinge to the ink didn’t mean he’d bled onto the page, or at least hoping they didn’t notice.

As he lifted the pen, he heard a bell tolling. Was he late? He whirled around to find they were all staring at him still. “Um, I...um...better be going...”

That bell just kept ringing though, so loud it was as if it were right in this building. What was going on? None of them moved until the bell ceased to ring, the women sighing in relief and Dean Bell crossing his arms over his chest.

“Well, thank you very much, Kyle Wadsworth,” the librarian said. “I’m Madeleine Finch.” She held out her hand to be shaken, and Kyle reluctantly set down the pen, but he didn’t seem to get any blood on her hand as he shook it. “Welcome to Veritas. It would appear there’s been a bit of a mix-up in your matriculation papers, though?”

Kyle stared at her. “Wait a second. That’s it? I’m in? I only just sent the application. I thought I wouldn’t hear until March...”

Dean Bell made a disgusted noise. “He’s
your
stray puppy to deal with now, Mistress Finch. If anyone needs me, I shall be in my office.” His tone of voice made it clear that anyone who needed him had best take a leap into the Charles
River. He stalked out, robes fluttering behind him.

The receptionist immediately began digging in a file cabinet behind her, while the other two women kept looking at him with growing curiosity.

Kyle tried again. “Look, I’m supposed to have this interview today. I guess maybe I’m already pre-approved because I had to apply early in order to qualify for the scholarship, except I’m supposed to have this interview to, um, make sure I’m not an idiot in person, I guess, because Harvard doesn’t admit idiots, or at least, that’s the theory...uh...” He trailed off, realizing just how much like an idiot he sounded. The student hid her smile behind her hand.

“Mr. Wadsworth, may I ask you a personal question?” Mistress Finch folded her hands in front of her.

“Um, sure, please.”

“Are you, by any chance, an orphan?”

He blinked. “Yes, I am, actually.”

“But is Wadsworth your family name?”

How did she know these things? “Yes, yes, it is.”

She paused. “Helena, did you find anything?”

The receptionist sighed. “Nothing, Ms. Finch.”

Okay, and why do the women call her Ms. Finch, but the dean call her Mistress Finch?
He knew university society was supposedly different from everywhere else, but he’d never heard of that. Which one should he use? “Um, find what?”

“A record of your birth,” Ms. Finch answered. “Well, you are a mystery but hardly the first one, Mr. Wadsworth. I’ll just spell it out for you and see if it makes sense to you. The building you’re standing in right now is not a part of Harvard. Well, it is, but it isn’t. There’s a secret university inside Harvard, known as Veritas.”

Kyle blinked. “But isn’t that what’s on the signs outside? Harvard’s motto...”

“The two institutions have an intertwined history,” she went on. “Harvard is for the elite scholars, the future leaders of the world. Veritas is for, well, those with more arcane talents.”

“Arcane?”

“Magical.”

“Magical?” Kyle could still hear the bell ringing in his head. “You mean like wizards?”

The student snorted behind her hand. “We prefer the term ‘magic users.’ ‘Wizards’ is so patriarchal and un-PC.”

Kyle shook his head, but although everything was as weird as some dream, it still seemed to be real. “So, sorry to be skeptical, but...you’re saying I’m magical?”

“You wouldn’t have even been able to see this building if you weren’t at least a little Sighted,” Ms. Finch said, “and
you certainly wouldn’t have been able to sign the matriculation register if you didn’t have the power in your blood.”

He checked his finger reflexively, but the bleeding had stopped and he couldn’t even see where the pen had pricked him. “Um, the Dean didn’t seem as convinced...”

“Yes, well, that was another test. He has the power of Voice. If you’d been a non-magical person, you’d have just turned and walked out as soon as he told you to.” Ms. Finch sighed. “We’re already two weeks into the semester, you haven’t registered for any classes, and we need to find you a place to live.”

Kyle looked back and forth between them. “You mean, start now? I, um, I’m supposed to, um...” Supposed to go back to a house where they didn’t want him, a school where he didn’t fit in, and count the days until he could leave. Maybe this was just the chance he had been waiting for. Hadn’t he felt like this weekend was going to be the first step into a new life? Maybe it was just a bigger step than he’d thought. His skepticism shredded in the face of what felt like a real chance to change his life in a drastic way. “I mean, I’d love to start now.”

“You had better. If you were completely unaware of the magical world until now, you have a lot of catching up to do. Helena, could you call up Admissions and see if you can get his file? It’s hardly the first time we’ve had a mix-up between our office and theirs. Mr. Wadsworth, please make an appointment to see me, let’s see, tomorrow at four o’clock. My office is on the second floor here in Peyntree Hall, and we can figure out your schedule then, after I check with the professors on what kind of openings we have.” She paused and tapped her finger against her lips while she thought.

“I can take him over to Camella House,” the student offered then. “We’ve got that foldout couch in our suite. And actually, come to think of it, Alex doesn’t have a roommate and he’s in a double...”

Ms. Finch debated for a moment. “Just for a few days, that sounds fine. He can draw cards later. Yes, Miss Torralva, I’d appreciate it if you could give Mr. Wadsworth here a bit of orientation.”

“No problem, Ms. Finch.” She stuck out her hand to shake Kyle’s as Ms. Finch left the room. “I’m Jess Torralva. I’m a sophomore. You hungry? We could grab some pizza out in the Square, or do you have a suitcase somewhere that we ought to move up to the dorm?”

“Oh, um, yeah, it’s at the bed and breakfast I stayed in last night.” He followed her out the heavy doors and back down the stone steps. “So...’magic users’ eat pizza?”

“Oh yeah. With newt’s eyes and toadstools, though,” she said, completely deadpan for a moment. Then she burst out laughing. ”My God, the look on your face!”

He grinned. “Anchovy and mushroom okay? Yeah? Okay, I’ll buy.” This day was getting better and better. First he thought he was going to go to Harvard. Then he found out he was somehow magical. And now he was going to have lunch with a pretty girl who seemed really nice and down to earth and didn’t treat him like he was some kind of pond scum. Yes, a
whole new world seemed to be opening up before his eyes.

* * * *

They made their way back to the suite where Jess lived in Camella House, another red brick building not that different from the others all around Harvard, Kyle noticed, though perhaps a bit smaller than some. It was three stories tall, with about fifty students in residence. The suite was a central room on the third floor with two beat-up couches, a coffee table, and a large TV screen. There were doors to what Kyle took to be several bedrooms. Just down the hall was a very small kitchen. Students had decorated their doors in various ways; some had notepads or white boards for people to leave messages, and it all looked, well, completely
normal
.

He and Jess had bought two pizzas and brought them back to the suite to eat. As they walked in, a shaggy-headed student was just closing his door. “Ho, Jess, is that for sharing?”

“Yes, Alex, it is,” she said as she put the boxes down on the coffee table.

“Did you hear the bell ringing? Any clue what that’s about?” Alex said as he eagerly tossed himself into an armchair, whatever errand he had been on forgotten. Kyle quietly remembered the bell that tolled when he signed the ledger. “I’ve never heard it ring so many times in a row,” Alex added.

Jess didn’t say anything about the bell right away. “Alex, this is Kyle. As of today, I guess, he’s a freshman.” She sat down on the couch and opened the box on top. Steam rose from the pizza and Kyle’s stomach growled as he sat down next to her.

“Yeah, hi, Kyle Wadsworth,” he said, holding out his hand for Alex to shake, and they both reached for a slice. “Um...”

Jess grinned. “He thought he was going to Harvard.”

Alex’s eyes went up at that. “A foundling? When did they figure out you belonged here?”

Kyle stopped with the slice partway to his mouth. “Um, just today. I walked into the Veritas admissions office by mistake.”

Alex looked back at Jess. “The bell was ringing for him?”

Jess just nodded, nibbling carefully at the tip of her slice of pizza.

“The bell rang like...fourteen times.”

“Is that bad?” Kyle asked, unable to contain his anxiety any longer. “I signed my name in this book and...”

Alex waved him off. “No, it’s not bad. Just...unusual. When it rings, it means you’ve been accepted. It only rang twice for me. Although for Jess here, I think it rang six or seven?”

Jess shrugged, as if it was of no consequence.

Kyle forced himself to take a bite before getting sucked deeper into the conversation. “What’s a foundling?”

Alex drew a long string of cheese from his slice with his mouth as two more students came in and Jess waved them over. When he’d snapped it off and devoured it, he went on. “Foundlings are usually magical children who get raised by non-magical families, oftentimes ones who have no clue about the kid. It’s pretty common, actually. History’s full of them. It’s a problem, because fertility among magic users isn’t great to begin with...” He shrugged. “I guessed foundling and not prodigy because of your name. There were some magical Wadsworths a couple generations back.”

Kyle had managed to wolf down the rest of the piece while Alex was talking. “Prodigy?”

Alex investigated the second box and grunted with approval at finding the black olives. “Prodigy. Like Lindy here.”

A girl with chestnut brown hair, suddenly sitting cross-legged at the end of the table and had a bite of pizza in her mouth so she couldn’t answer, waved with her free hand.

“Lindy’s from a non-magical family, and far as anyone knows she’s the natural daughter of her mother and father, but she’s got the Sight, among other talents.” Alex turned to Jess. “Did you get anything to drink?”

“There’s soda in the fridge,” Jess said, nudging him in the direction of the small refrigerator in one corner of the room. “Anyway, Kyle, it doesn’t matter how you got your magic. Just what you do with it.”

Kyle got the feeling Jess was arguing a point she’d had to make many times before, and he wondered if she was a prodigy, too, and if there was some kind of stigma attached to that.

Lindy wiped her hands on her jeans. “Nice to meet you, I’m Lindy Carmichael. And this is Jeanie,” she said, indicating the Asian-looking girl standing behind her. “And that’s Randall, going into his room there.”

A heavyset student in a polo shirt waved over his shoulder as he went into his room and put his books down. When he emerged, Kyle was surprised to see he was black, but with his hair bleached completely blond. “Hello. Randall.” His hand was large and warm as he shook Kyle’s. “And no, it’s not my natural color. You can blame Alex for this.”

Alex chuckled. “Yeah, horrible spellcasting accident.”

“Really?” Kyle’s eyes widened.

Randall snorted and took a seat, and a slice of pizza. “No. But let us just say that hydrogen peroxide and ethanol do not mix.”