Instrument of Peace (Symphony of the Cursed Book 1) Read online

  He was answered by a round of shrugs. Mitch shoved a little more food into his mouth. He spent enough time visiting the infirmary to know that the Doctor still hadn’t released Nikola even if he was allowed to go to normal classes. He stared at his plate, at least the only thing Cullum had to worry about was finding the right combination of anti-anxiety meds, the family curse would never affect him.

  “What’s up?” Gwen asked, seeing his expression and nudging him with her foot when he didn’t answer quickly enough.

  “Just thinking about Cullum,” Mitch mumbled.

  “How is he?” Mindy asked, the first time she had spoken to him since that day in the desert.

  “Fine I guess, they gave him a night light and all sorts of drugs so that he doesn’t freak out every time he goes inside or someone turns off the light.” He couldn’t believe his twelve year old brother slept with a night light. “How’s Belle?”

  “Top of the class, you’d never believe that she was trapped underground in an earthquake.”

  “Think we could average them out somehow?” Mitch asked, finally raising his eyes.

  Mindy snorted, “I wish, if I have to listen to my parents say how well she’s doing and why can’t I do better one more time...”

  “Swap?” Mitch suggested, “you can answer endless questions about what drugs Cully’s on and whether or not he’s eating enough and if they should send his blankie over.”

  “Beats being told that Belle just got a better score then me on some test I don’t remember taking.”

  They laughed, in part because of the conversation and in part because of the mystified looks everyone else was wearing; none of them had siblings.

  EASTER

  Mitch was glad to escape the confines of the Academy even if it was just for Easter. A couple of weeks without having to worry about his brother sounded like heaven. He’d even considered joining one of the weekend clubs to get away from him. The lack of homework was an added bonus. Their teachers knew better then to set holiday homework. He’d flown down south with Gwen and she had proved to be vastly superior to him at just about everything in Puzzling World, solving all of the little table top puzzles and making it through the maze while he was still wandering in circles. By the time he made it out she had bought and assembled all of the 3D puzzles in the gift shop.

  “How?” he asked between mouthfuls of the chips that she’d bought him as a consolation prize.

  “I do them at school. I get a lot of memory and spatial recognition exercises in our practicals.”

  Mitch grunted; Gwen was an illusionist.

  “Sounds like a lot more fun than what I get,” he said, offering her a chip. He got a lot of coordination exercises and lessons in Tai Chi.

  “That’s only because you don’t know who I have to do them with,” Gwen said, taking a whole handful of chips. Mitch resigned himself to sharing, she had paid for them.

  “Who? Inara?” he asked, trying to work out who else she would have classes with. There were only thirty-three students in their year and substantially more specialities, they didn’t often have that much overlap.

  “Nikola,” Gwen replied, leading the way to a picnic table. “He barely glances at the bloody things.”

  “I thought he wasn’t allowed to do magic,” Mitch said. He joined Gwen on the picnic table and set the chips down between them. Nikola seemed to miss every other class and he practically lived in the infirmary.

  “Really? Well I’ve never actually had any magic classes with him, whatever he does has nothing to do with illusion.”

  “As far as I can tell he never has classes with any one,” Mitch said. It was odd really, he had classes with people all the time, including far too many with Sam, but he couldn’t recall the last time someone actually had one with Nikola. Even Mindy had classes with other people sometimes and she was a necromancer. “Do you ever have any with Angel Girl?”

  “No, she’s probably still trying to play catch up. She is four years behind after all. Still haven’t decided what you’re going to bet on then?”

  “No, maybe I’ll just bet inconclusive,” he said, chucking the empty chip packet at the rubbish bin. All of those coordination exercises paid off and he got it in on his first try. “Where are we going next?” he asked. Gwen had planned this trip and so far it had involved a surprising lack of shopping, probably because Gwen was spending all of her money on accommodation. Hell would freeze over before she stayed in a backpackers.

  “Bus stop,” she replied, motioning for him he help her off the table though she hadn’t needed any help getting up there.

  “Gwen,” he said, reluctantly doing as he was told.

  “Queenstown.”

  “No mazes?”

  “No mazes.”

  #

  “Are you sure there aren’t any mazes?” Mitch asked, staring down the mountain. The day had started off well with the Shotover Jet and a helicopter ride but he hadn’t anticipated bungee jumping. At least it was too cloudy for paragliding to be an option. He would have preferred luging, though from what he had heard the luge tracks in Rotorua were better, or the high wire course. You know, anything that didn’t involve jumping off a perfectly good cliff and relying on an entirely too-stretchy rope.

  “Positive,” Gwen smiled at him, “we might be able to find a mini-golf course afterwards if you want.”

  “No, I don’t want,” Mitch grumbled. Despite specialising in self-manipulation and maths he had always been terrible at mini-golf. It had always seemed horrendously unfair that he could give himself perfect hand eye coordination and still be a complete failure at mini-golf. “They put you up to this didn’t they?” he asked. It was probably Bates’ revenge for him never apologising to Angel Girl. He’d never thanked Nikola either but Bates didn’t know about that.

  “Maybe,” Gwen said, her smile growing a little wider. “They were betting on how loudly you would scream. Bates reckons you’ll scream like a little girl.”

  “My vocal cords don’t go that high,” Mitch said, “not without magic.” He wished he could forget that week he had spent learning vocal magic, in what universe would he ever need to know how to hit every note perfectly?

  “Well that was the other bet, that you couldn’t do it without magic.”

  Mitch groaned and buried his head in his hands, he really needed to get better friends.

  “Come on Mitch,” Gwen said, leaning on the railing beside him and gently nudging his shoulder, “you jumped out a second storey window at the start of the year.”

  “That was different,” Mitch mumbled, his voice muffled by his hands. He’d never jumped off anything higher than a set of monkey bars before that and the experience had given him a healthy respect for heights and a strong desire to keep his feet firmly on the ground.

  “It’ll be fun,” Gwen said, “we can get Hell’s Pizza afterwards.”

  Mitch raised his head and glared at her, surprised to realise how close she was. She knew that Hell’s Pizza was his favourite. She’d unzipped her jacket and Mitch hastily looked away, his face flushing.

  “I’ll make you a deal. Don’t use magic on the way down and I won’t tell anyone how loudly you scream.”

  Mitch shook his head though it sounded like a pretty good deal. It wasn’t as if magic would do him any good while he was plummeting off the mountain side and if he happened to end up plummeting into the mountain side he didn’t think any amount of magic would do him much good either. Below them someone else made the jump accompanied by copious swearing in German. The idiot sounded as if he was having fun. How could anyone have fun jumping off a cliff?

  “I’ll go first,” Gwen said. Mitch kept shaking his head. “I’ll give you a present if you do it.”

  “What kind of present?” Someone else jumped, this time accompanied by a long, loud scream.

  “It’s a surprise,” she said, pushing herself off the railing and dragging him after her.

  “Do you want to go first?” she asked once
they were strapped into their harnesses. Mitch shook his head. The trees under the platform from which they were jumping had been removed, giving him a very clear view of the rock-studded ground below.

  “Your loss,” Gwen said, smiling at the instructor as he attached the rope to her harness and told her the correct way to jump off a cliff. Gwen actually laughed as she plunged off the mountain, stretching out in a futile attempt to touch the trees and the gondola cars sliding past, and then it was his turn.

  It was possible to scream like a little girl without magic. All you had to do was jump off a cliff with nothing between you and certain death other than a thin rope. All of those trees and gondolas were a lot closer than he had thought, close enough that he managed to get an octave higher. It never occurred to him to use magic as he fell and he never would have managed to maintain his concentration. He wasn’t even sure what he would have tried to do, protect his eardrums perhaps.

  Mitch was tempted to just lie on the ground when they pulled him back onto the platform but Gwen would have laughed at him so he shoved his hands in his pockets where their shaking wouldn’t be so noticeable. If that surprise turned out to be skydiving he was going to ‘accidentally’ trip and twist his ankle.

  “Do I get that surprise now?” he asked.

  “Not yet, but we can go and get that pizza, Mordor is your favourite right?”

  “Right, can we get wedges as well?” Mitch said, following her into one of the gondolas.

  “And coke and dessert pizza,” she promised, switching seats so that she was next to him. Mitch swallowed, he now had an unobstructed view out of the window and the ground was a long way away.

  “Do you want that present now?” Gwen asked.

  “Sure,” Mitch replied, tearing his eyes off the window and fixing them on her face. She was very close to him despite the fact that they were the only ones in the gondola. She reached up and kissed him. Mitch forgot about the height, he even forgot about the pizza.

  “What?” he asked when they broke apart.

  “I got tired of waiting.”

  “Oh,” he kissed her again, only stopping when the staff at the bottom cleared their throats slightly louder than was strictly necessary.

  #

  “Mitch and Gwen sitting in a tree,” crooned Bates when they sat down for dinner. Mitch winced at Bates’ unnecessary volume and terrible singing.

  “K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Mindy chimed in.

  “What are you two, twelve?” Gwen asked, glaring across the table.

  “We’re not the ones struggling to eat because we’re holding hands,” Bates said. Gwen didn’t seem to be doing so badly, but she was using her right hand. Mitch was stuck with his left and it was proving to be vastly more difficult than he had expected. He wasn’t sure what would make him look like more of an idiot, only getting the food into his mouth one time in three or having to use magic to feed himself. He decided he’d rather be a full idiot and used a little magic to improve his co-ordination though it didn’t feel any less awkward. No wonder all the lefties were terrible at sports.

  “Back so soon?” Richard asked, sitting down between the happy couples and looking decidedly alone. “We’ve got another four days till class starts, I figured you’d still be down south doing whatever it is you’ve been doing for the last fortnight.”

  “Jet boating,” Mitch said. He’d enjoyed that; it hadn’t involved getting lost or airborne. They hadn’t even got wet which was actually a little disappointing since Gwen had been wearing a white shirt that day.

  “Is that some sort of euphemism?” Richard asked while Bates and Mindy groaned.

  “Degenerates,” Gwen muttered just loudly enough for them to hear. Mitch flushed, he hadn’t meant it as one, he didn’t want to discuss that when they were having sausages for dinner. He winced as Bates disdained the use of cutlery and took a hearty bite out of his.

  “Definitely twelve,” he muttered. Gwen giggled. “Anything interesting happen while we were gone?” Mitch asked before they could find something else to tease him over. The last thing he needed was some wiseass comment about his inability to eat his sausage without magic.

  “Another aftershock,” Mindy said, “but it didn’t damage anything so they should be sending the little gremlins back where they belong over the weekend.”

  “Mindy!” Gwen said, “don’t be mean, there’s nothing wrong with Gremlins.”

  “As long as you don’t feed them after midnight,” Richard added.

  “We really need to watch that one day,” Bates said.

  “No way,” Mindy said, “that movie is old, it’s sure to be horribly disappointing if we watch it now. We’ve still got a few days left we should go and see the new Iron Man film.”

  “That’s out?” Mitch asked.

  Bates sniggered, “yes it’s out, I guess you were too busy ‘jet boating’ to notice.” Mitch concentrated on eating, maybe if he kept his mouth shut long enough they’d find someone else to torment. He looked around, the dining hall was pretty close to full but it was lacking any convenient targets. He kept eating and prayed for another earthquake.

  TERM TWO

  ONE NIGHT

  Mitch rolled over and banged his elbow on the wall; the beds at the Academy weren’t anywhere near big enough for this. Gwen leaned over him and the banging continued.

  “What the Hell?” Gwen asked, rolling off the bed and reaching for her dressing gown. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  Mitch snatched up the blanket just before she threw open the door and the light from the corridor came flooding in. Mitch flinched and hid under the blanket as the light stung his eyes. Still half blind he groped for his boxers and pulled them on before shuffling out into the corridor after Gwen. Belle was pounding on her sister’s door, tears streaming down her face.

  “Shouldn’t you be in the gym?” Mitch asked, that was where the primary girls were staying until they were moved back into the dormitory tomorrow. He wondered how she had even got up here. He’d had to sneak past the teacher on duty to get into Gwen’s room and he hadn’t done it wearing bright pink pj’s and fluffy slippers. Gwen rolled her eyes and Belle kept pounding on the door. Another door opened and Angel Girl stuck her head into the corridor.

  “What... Belle?” she closed her door behind her and came to kneel beside the younger girl. “What’s wrong Belle?”

  This time Belle turned away from the door. Gwen took a half step back and collided with him and he didn’t manage to regain his balance until after his head collided with the door frame. Belle’s eyes were completely bloodshot, the pupils so wide that they had swallowed the green iris. Somehow Hayley kept herself from flinching and simply hugged her. Belle sobbed into her arms, slowly releasing her white knuckled grip on her torch. Mitch thought it was the same one she had had in the earthquake.

  “Do either of you know where Melinda is?” Hayley asked leaning back against the wall and cradling Belle.

  “Bates’ room I think,” Mitch said, “I’ll–”

  “I’ll get her,” Gwen said, “you’ll have a hard time explaining why you’re in the girls dormitory in your boxers.” In any other situation someone would have laughed but the only sound was Belle’s softening sobs. Mitch shuffled back into Gwen’s room and hunted around until he found his pants, his shirt eluded him but at least now he wouldn’t be standing in front of Hayley in his underwear.

  Belle was still huddled in her arms. Mitch considered inching the door shut, crying children had never been his forte, especially not crying girls, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He found a packet of tissues instead and slid them across the corridor, settling himself in the doorway so he could hide if a teacher showed up.

  Hayley flashed him a quick smile and fished out a tissue, gently wiping Belle’s face. She had stopped shaking and her sobs had faded away to nothing, but tears still streamed from her reddened eyes.

  “I was falling,” Belle said her voice breaking, “falling and falling until every
thing fell away apart from the flames.”

  Hayley flinched.

  “They were so cold that they burnt and they burnt everything. Everything burnt but he didn’t. He walked through the fire and he was so angry and that burnt as well but he didn’t burn and he watched me. He watched and he watched as everything burnt and I could hear them screaming. Everyone was screaming but no one was there.” She shuddered and started to sob again.

  Where the Hell was Gwen with Mindy? Surely it wouldn’t take her that long to get dressed, Mitch didn’t even care if she got in trouble.

  “It was just a dream,” Mitch said, “a nightmare.”

  “No!” Belle shrieked, jerking upright, “it’s happening, it’s happening. The fire is rising. The cold flames are coming, they’re coming, he’s coming. He’s coming with his fire and those dead eyes and he’ll watch everything burn.” She shuddered and sank back into Hayley’s arms.

  Mitch shivered and rubbed his arms. For a second he met Angel Girl’s eyes. He looked away hurriedly; human eyes were not supposed to be that pale. He looked at Belle again. He wanted to believe that it was all just a dream, that she was just a scared little girl who had had a nightmare. He couldn’t. Belle was a magician. The fact that she hadn’t started training in a specialised branch of magic yet didn’t mean she didn’t have one though by the look of things Clairvoyance was a shitty specialisation.

  Belle blew her nose and Mitch was relieved to see a ring of bright green in her eyes. They still looked way creepier than they should, the red hadn’t faded at all, but he would take what he could get. As if to complete the reassertion of normality Gwen came down the hallway followed by Mr McCalis. For a second Mitch considered hiding in Gwen’s room but he didn’t think that would help, there was no way Mr McCalis hadn’t seen him already.

  Mr McCalis ignored him and crouched in front of Belle. In a broken whisper she told him what had happened, fresh tears leaking from her eyes as she recounted her dream.