The Schism (The Broken Prism Book 4) (18 page)

Master Graus must have summoned help at some point, because he was greeted by a group of Masters as soon as he entered the castle: Asher, Willow, and Reede blew past him after only a cursory glance, headed out to the Schism to begin adding new magic; Sark and Mistress Razelle were leading the way to the infirmary to begin mixing antidotes for them; Kilgore caught Hayden just as his knees buckled and helped him back to his feet, half-carrying him to the infirmary and saying, “Why does it always have to be you?”

Hayden didn’t have a good answer.

10

The Sorcerer

Hayden was beginning to wonder if there was a prize for most visits to the infirmary, because if so, he was probably a contender for winning it. The moment Master Kilgore helped him sit down on the side of a cot, Mistress Razelle came over with a bucket of soapy water and a sponge and told him to strip off his remaining clothing.

“Even my underwear?” he asked, aghast at the prospect of a group of Masters seeing him naked.

“Unless you want to risk the acid eating away anything beneath them,” Razelle said with a steely glint in her eye.

Hayden scowled and tugged off the remaining scraps of his shirt and pants, relieved when the Mistress of Healing placed a modesty screen in front of him so he could have some privacy. He was less relieved when she stepped behind it to assist him with washing.

“There’s no need to blush, young man, I’ve seen it all before,” she assured him airily, dunking a second sponge into the soapy water and scrubbing his back and neck a little harder than he would have liked while Hayden tackled the front. He muttered a swear word when she reached the parts of his skin that had been burned through.

“I know it hurts, but it’s only going to get worse until we wash the vile stuff off,” she added sympathetically, continuing to scrub.

Hayden mumbled something about how it wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t a woman helping him and Razelle said, “Would you rather have Kirius Sark assist you?”

“No thanks, he’d probably take the chance to kill me and claim it was an accident. I’m pretty sure he still hates me, even after last year,” Hayden sighed, rinsing the last of the soap off of his body and covering himself with a towel while she began mixing up burn paste.

“I’m not deaf, Frost,” Master Sark snapped from somewhere on the other side of the modesty curtain, and Hayden winced as he remembered that the Master was helping Graus.

“Glad to hear it, sir,” he answered back automatically, earning an amused snort from the Master of Scriptures.

Mistress Razelle reappeared around the curtain, pursing her lips at their conversation. Hayden was prepared to forgive her for any past, present, or future embarrassment he might suffer at her hands when she started applying liberal amounts of the bright orange burn paste to his injuries. The areas with paste on them immediately went numb, and Hayden sighed in relief and opened his mouth to drink the cup of murky brown antidote without complaint—he didn’t even care that it tasted like black licorice.

His head began to clear almost immediately and his vision righted itself. It wasn’t until he began to feel better that he was able to appreciate just how terrible he had been feeling before. Before he could do more than thank the Mistress of Healing for saving his life for the umpteenth time, the door to the infirmary opened and Tess and Zane hurried in, the former carrying an armful of clothes.

“I’m naked,” he said in greeting, immediately feeling like a dolt.

Zane laughed out loud but Tess merely tossed him the bundle of clothing, which he realized were his, and said, “We heard. I figured you’d want something to wear.”

She turned her back to him so he could get dressed.

“How did you all already hear about what happened?” he asked the back of her head. “I know news travels fast around here, but that’s still surprisingly quick, even for Mizzenwald…”

“Most people don’t really know what happened yet,” Zane explained, turning back around when Hayden signaled he was finished dressing. “Kilgore saw me practicing conjury out front and told me you were injured and might appreciate some company. I went and got Tess, because she likes you more than I do and is willing to nurse you back to health.”

“I wasn’t sure what you’d need,” Tess ignored Zane’s sarcasm and began handing him the rest of what she brought, “so I grabbed your pillow, a comb, your toothbrush, and I sent for Bonk.”

Hayden raised his eyebrows, impressed at her foresight. Zane apparently agreed because he said, “See, that’s what’s nice about bringing a woman along—they think of these things. I would have just come down here to laugh at you.”

“Nice to know you’ve got my back,” Hayden made a face at him, accepting the rest of the things Tess brought and stretching out on his back on the cot. “I’m pretty sure that Razelle is going to keep me overnight to make sure I don’t take a turn for the worse. I’d argue with her, but I’ve seen her cow Asher and Laurren both, and I want no part of that scariness.”

“That’s fine, we’ll stay until she kicks us out,” Zane dragged a couple chairs over from the other side of the room so that they could sit beside him. “I intend to spend most of the time reminding you of the fact that Mistress Razelle has seen you naked.”

Hayden groaned at the memory.

“Better her than Sark, I guess. He’d probably stand around making snide comments about my manhood for a while before giving me the antidote to the hydra venom.”

“I’m still not deaf, Frost,” Master Sark called from the other side of the curtain.

“Damn this thing!” Hayden leapt out of bed and yanked the curtain back so that he could see the remainder of the room. He climbed back into bed and said, “Sorry again, sir—I usually try not to talk bad about you when you can hear me.”

Master Graus was sitting up in bed, already donning a new pair of robes and looking much better than Hayden, though he hadn’t been burned nearly as badly or beaten up as much. Hayden noticed that he had two convenient bandages covering the back of either hand so that his siglas weren’t visible. Graus saw him looking and narrowed his eyebrows, saying nothing.

“Well you’ll soon get your chance,” Sark added sardonically, gathering the last of his things. As soon as his colleague was back on his feet, the two of them left the infirmary.

“You know, I really think he’s starting to warm up to you,” Zane observed as soon as Master Sark closed the door to the infirmary behind him. “If you had gotten smart with him in your first year here he would have started screaming, choking you, and ranting about how you deserve to be expelled and ripped into pieces by hungry vultures.”

“Yeah, compared to that, he was downright pleasant,” Hayden agreed, yawning widely.

“Oh no you don’t,” Zane frowned. “You can’t fall asleep until you’ve told us all about what happened at the schism. The whole school is going to have a garbled version of it by tomorrow morning, and I want to get the inside scoop before then so I can laugh at them for being sadly misinformed.”

Hayden yawned again and explained how he and Kobi were doing their usual rotation, and how he heard his partner make a weird noise and knew something was wrong. Zane and Tess both showed identical looks of surprise when he told them it was a seven-headed hydra that emerged through the opening.

“Nice to know you still have absolutely terrible luck,” the former commented cheerfully. Tess merely scowled and examined his bandaged skin with renewed interest.

  He told them about fighting the hydra more-or-less successfully, and about summoning Graus to assist him.

“Was he any good?” Tess asked with obvious interest. “I’ve never seen him fight before, but Master Willow told me he’s one of the best he’s ever seen.”

Hayden hesitated, not sure whether he should mention the siglas on the back of Graus’s hands to his friends yet. He decided against it for now, at least until he got a chance to talk to the Master of Scriptures and ask him to explain.

“Yeah, he was pretty awesome. He must have had a kajillion scriptures pre-drawn, because he was activating them way faster than I thought was possible. Good thing too—if he hadn’t summoned that cushion for me I’d probably be dead instead of just really sore.”

Tess and Zane made appreciative noises as he told them some of the things the Master had summoned, and as soon as he was finished with his story, they were interrupted by a gentle knock on the door. Zane got up to answer it and looked surprised when Bonk flew into the room to perch on Hayden’s bed.

“About time you showed up,” Hayden greeted his familiar with a gentle pat on the head. “I could’ve used your help when I was getting maimed by that hydra.”

Bonk let out a belch that smelled suspiciously like bacon and flopped over on Hayden’s pillow to settle in for the night. Tess volunteered to bring him his book bag so he could get some work done, and soon afterwards they left him alone for the night. All in all, he didn’t mind the solitude, and managed to knock out two essays for Wands and Elixirs before going to sleep.

The next day was mercifully a weekend, and Hayden was cleared to leave the infirmary before breakfast by Mistress Razelle. He even got some of his bandages removed, as his less serious burns had already been healed by that excellent orange paste—though the new skin still looked pink and raw.

When he entered the dining hall he was unpleasantly surprised by the immediate upswing in noise as people began staring and talking about him to their friends. Ignoring it as best he could, he eventually found his friends and made his way over to join them.

The first thing Conner said when he sat down was, “I don’t know how you managed it, but somehow you became even more popular overnight. They’re probably going to start selling lunchboxes with your face on them at The Magnificent Mage soon.”

“For what—fighting a hydra and not dying?” Hayden asked with a raised eyebrow.

“You know how these things get warped in the retelling,” Zane sighed. “Somehow everyone has the impression that you singlehandedly took the thing down, while simultaneously saving Kobi from being stomped on or eaten, so now you’re a hero all over again.” He rolled his eyes in mock annoyance.

“But that’s ridiculous!” Hayden argued hotly. “It’s true that I helped drag Kobi out of immediate danger, but if Graus hadn’t shown up when he did we’d both probably be dead right now.”

“Yeah, well, for some reason everyone thinks that he just showed up at the end to help you to the infirmary or something.” Zane shrugged. “I’m surprised that the girls in this place haven’t started throwing themselves at your feet by now, begging for a date.”

Hayden smirked and said, “If they do, I’ll set Tess on them.”

Tess gave him an impish smile that suggested she’d like nothing better than to set a few people straight.

“It doesn’t help that you’re still wearing all those bandages,” Tamon pointed out. “It just reminds everyone of how brave and strong you are and all that.”

“I’d gladly take them off, if only I had skin beneath them,” Hayden said with pursed lips. “I removed all the ones I was able to before I came in here.” He pointed to the patches of new skin on his arms and neck.

“Well hurry up and eat your toast and fruit so we can get out of here—all the attention is creeping me out,” Zane said while glancing around the dining hall. “We should take a break from homework and spend some time outside with our familiars today.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Hayden agreed readily, shoveling a mouthful of buttered toast into his mouth. “I need to talk to Master Graus at some point today though, and I’ve also got a meeting with Fia Valay in the afternoon to review something boring involving investments and dividends that I don’t really understand,” he added with a scowl.

“Why do you need to see Graus?” Tamon asked. “I didn’t think you were even taking Scriptures.”

“I’m not—I just wanted to ask him something about yesterday,” he answered vaguely, trying to look nonchalant. He didn’t think the news that one of their teachers was secretly a sorcerer would be well-received, given that they had just emerged from a war with them where most of the people they knew very nearly died.

He looked around the dining hall, noting that most of the Masters were conspicuously absent, and resolved to finish eating as fast as possible. The moment he was done, he told his friends he’d meet them at the obstacle courses in half an hour and left the dining hall in search of Master Graus.

It was surprisingly easy to find him. As Hayden entered the pentagonal foyer with the five major arcana inscribed in the walls, he looked up and saw the Master of Scriptures ascending the main stairwell near the fifth floor. Not feeling up to running up five flights of stairs to attempt to catch him, Hayden tilted his head back and shouted, “Master Graus!” his voice echoing around the foyer.

The Master turned at the sound of his name and looked down at him, leaning against the railing.

“What?” he yelled back.

“Can I talk to you for a minute when you’re not busy?”

The Master seemed to consider it for a moment, then shrugged and withdrew a scripture from his robes.

Then he jumped over the bannister.

Hayden would have screamed if there had been time, but the Master dropped down five levels in seconds, activating the scripture at the last moment and slowing to a stop in mid-air, his feet hovering a few inches above the ground. He scratched the vellum and alit gently a few feet in front of Hayden.

“Sure, what’s up?”

For a long moment Hayden just stared at him dumbly, trying to recover from his shock.

“Whenever you’re ready…” Master Graus prompted gently.