4.42: Her Own Way

Max arrived for the second week, staying (once again) in much fancier accommodation than I was. I didn’t say so to anyone, but I found myself wishing that it’d been Kylie, not Max, who was dating one of my friends, so she’d be in range. I should’ve arranged to spend time with her family this holiday. I should’ve accounted for the strain of separation. A bit too late to worry about that, though.

Max stepped off the bus into town with his goatee immaculately groomed and in expensive clothes, which I would’ve thought was to impress Melissa if it had’ve been anyone else, but Max just looked like that all the time. His slight blush, matched by Melissa’s, was hard to ignore, though.

Chelsea scowled at me. “Why didn’t you find me a rich mage boyfriend? You’re playing favourites. I expect a rich mage boyfriend by next holidays.”

I shrugged. “I can introduce you to my ex, if you want. I don’t know if he’s dating anyone right now but he is rich, and hotter than Max.”

“Your leftovers? Pass.”

“Then you overestimate my influence among rich mage boys. Looks like you’ll have to find one on your own.”

“You’re a terrible friend. Get your girlfriend to find me one. How are things with her, by the way? What’s she like? Do you have pictures?”

“Yeah, but not here. I have pictures on my laptop but it’s magical, I can’t put them onto like, normal computers and phones.”

“You have a phone.”

“It’s not a smartphone, it’s one of those super primitive burner type phones. I dont’ know if it even has a camera. Also, it’s way too much of a risk to bring it into the school.”

She rolled her eyes. “We’re buying you a camera, then. Come on.”

“What about Melissa and – ?”

“They’re fine. Come on.”

They were, too. The pair were locked in deep conversation and barely looked up to acknowledge our goodbyes before Chelsea dragged me off to look at cameras.

The rest of the holiday was uneventful. I’d been hoping for some moments between Max and Melissa that I could relentlessly tease him about later, but he and Melissa seemed perfectly comfortable and fairly low key, their relationship characterised mostly by mild blushing and a tendency to go off together occasionally. And even then they were probably just talking about science or books or something. By the time Instruktanto Cooper came by to pick us up, I’d acquired one forbidden digital camera and absolutely no memories to embarrass any of my friends with. Which just wasn’t fair.

As usual, I knew the instant we were getting close to Kylie, because I suddenly felt normal again. I relaxed into my seat in the back of the van, and Max perked up.

“Someday, we need to find out what your familiarity range actually is,” he said. “It seems like it’s probably useful information to know.”

“Yeah, probably.” I watched the door as Instruktanto Cooper parked the van. We’d barely stopped when it was yanked open and Kylie clambered in. There were plenty of seats, but I moved my bag off the seat next to me and Kylie slumped into it, her arm pressing against mine. The touch was reassuring, even though I knew it didn’t have any effect – within range was within range, whether Kylie was right next to me, or in the next room, or up in Duniyasar while I was in bed. (There was probably a grey area around the edge of our range, where the link would be strained but still work, but we’d never been in a position for that to happen.)

“We need to figure out something else for next holidays,” Kylie said as we started driving again. With Instruktanto Cooper in the van, the obvious ‘assuming there will be future holidays’ went unspoken.

“One week together at yours, one week together at mine?”

“Mhmm. Did you guys have a fun holiday?”

“It was fine,” Max shrugged. “I’ll be happy to get back to school.”

“I’m gonna tell your girlfriend you said that,” I said.

“Are you ever going to stop?”

“No. Not until Kuylie dates someone so I can tease her instead.”

“Who says I’m not dating someone?”

Max and I stared at her.

“Who?” I asked.

“How long?” he asked.

Kylie just leaned back in her seat, silent.

“Are you dating someone?” I asked. “You can’t just not tell us.”

“Of course I can. It’s none of your business.”

“You always know when I – ”

“We know!” Kylie and Max said together.

I crossed my arms. “You’re both just jealous that I’m dating the prettiest girl in school.”

“I’m going to tell Melissa that you think she’s not pretty,” Max said.

“Uh-uh! I said prettiest girl in school, technically that’s not compared to Melissa. Kylie, who are you going to tell I insulted them?”

Kylie just shook her head.

“Saina is a very nice girl and I’m glad you two are happy together,” Max said in the weary voice of someone who was thoroughly sick of a topic.

“And she’s really pretty.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“… Wait, do you not?”

Max avoided my gaze. “Looks aren’t everything. Anyway, when we get back to school – ”

“Oh my god! Are you blind? Kylie, tell Max he’s blind.”

Kylie and Max shared a glance. “Saina is really nice,” Kylie said. “It was very generous of her to lend me Duniyasar to help with the Destiny.”

I was surrounded by people with no taste whatsoever. I leaned forward. “Cooper! Saina’s the sexiest girl in school, right? Back me up here.”

Instruktanto Cooper didn’t even look up from the road. “Any forty three year old who can tell which teenager is ‘the sexiest’ shouldn’t be working in a school. You all just look like kids to me.”

“You’re no help whatsoever.”

“I really don’t care.”

“Anyway,” Max said as I slumped back into my chair, “when we get back to school, we need to start looking into you two moving up to apprentice level. You can’t be acolytes forever.”

“He’s embarrassed by us,” I stage whispered to Kylie. “We’re bringing shame to the nerd.”

“How horrible for him,” she stage whispered back.

We completely ignored his advice, of course.

A pervasive sense of wrongness lingered over the first few days back at school. I felt like I was braced for something to happen, something that didn’t come. Not the coming apocalypse, or Max finishing his tools which were supposed to some how kick off whatever happened next, or waiting for Kylie to prophesy some new random danger; those were familiar feelings, and this was something new. It took me almost a week to figure out what it was.

“Hey,” I said to Kylie one afternoon, “has Magista contacted you recently?”

“No? Why?”

“She should have by now, right? I mean, we’re going away, there’s simply no way she’s not going to throw an elaborate party. I would’ve expected her to check our availablity right after the holidays.”

“Huh. You’re right. Can’t really plan without knowing our availability, can she? Maybe she’s not throwing one?”

“She had a ‘little get together’ two months ago because one of her friends got a particularly nice haircut.”

“Oh, right. I was so glad I had a class then. Maybe one of us insulted her somehow?”

I shook my head. “She’d still throw a party. For diplomacy or whatever. Has something happened? You hang out with her more than me, has she been alright?”

“I haven’t seen her this week, actually.”

“Huh.” I checked where she was on the school map. Her location was off, but Magistus’ wasn’t. I followed him to the gym. “Hey, Magistus.”

“Kayden! Here to admire my fantastic physique?”

“Eh, I’ve seen better. I own a mirror after all. Is Magista around?”

His grin faded. “Oh. She didn’t tell you? I mean, she didn’t give me much warning either, but I expected her to send everyone a note or something.”

“About what? What’s going on?”

He shrugged. “She’s not in school any more.”

“How can.. how can she not be in school? There’s no way she graduated this fast; even Max – ”

“Oh, no; nothing like that. She’s taken on a private apprenticeship under some Sekura mage. Just… decided out of nowhere that that’s what she wanted to do, I guess.”

“That… doesn’t sound like her. She normally plans stuff.”

He shrugged. “Beats me what’s going on in her head.”

“I thought you guys talked about everything.”

“So did I,” he sighed. “But, well. I mean, we agreed some time ago that I should be the Magistus, so I guess she had to find some career path eventually. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.” He lay down on a weight bench.

“… Huh. Right. Okay.” I got into position to spot him. “Seems odd that she wouldn’t let everyone know, though. I would’ve expected her to make an event of it.”

“Yeah, me too. I dunno. She didn’t tell me until the holidays, but she must have decided before then. These things take time to plan.” He lifted the barbell, and the conversation was over. It’s kind of hard to hold a conversation while you’re lifting a barbell.

That was… unexpected. I’d always sort of thought of Magistus and Magista as a unit, largely because they deliberately presented themselves that way. A duumvirate, a natural alliance to frustrate their parents’ blood feuding families and present a formidable political force to the rest of the magical world. It had never occurred to me that they’d just… go their separate ways. I was pretty sure they’d never spent a significant amount of time apart. And now Magista had just decided to strike out on her own? With a private apprenticeship, just abandoning the political network she’d spent her life building? What the fuck?

On the other hand, Magistus seemed grumpy about her decision, but not surprised. Maybe I just didn’t know Magista as well as I’d thought.

After some time, he set the weight down and sat up, panting. I handed him a towel.

“Alright,” he said, “your turn. Let’s see what you can do.”

I shook my head. “There’s more to me than lifting dumb weights.”

“Pfft, sounds like an excuse because you know I’m stronger than you.”

“Sounds like someone has to rely on his muscles because he knows I outclass him in other areas.”

Magistus squeezed my shoulder companionably and headed for the showers. I didn’t follow.

It seemed like, no matter what we did, the world just kept on changing around us.