“The Ogre hates me.” Victoria wailed, as we were dished up our food.
“I think the Ogre hates everyone. “ I said, although I imagined she particularly hated sirens, just like everyone else around here.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Cristina peered at the lumpy pasty coloured contents of her bowl.
Yeah, it wasn’t exactly pancakes.
“I want what he’s having.” She pointed to another vampire wearing navy robes sipping from a fancy goblet.
“help yourself.” The dinner warden smiled, gesturing to a large buffet of...rocks?
“It’s a test.” Lox said, sliding his tray next to ours as we sat down in an empty booth and cleared a spot on the table. (everything in the cafeteria was covered in books and parchments, a fact that secretly both thrilled and horrified me. They could just leave this stuff laying around? Unbelievable.)
“Rumor on the guys floor is the last person to pass gets kicked out.”
“What are we supposed to do?” I asked, testing a bite of the sludge like porridge. It wasn’t that bad. It was like eating socks...clean socks, a very wool and soap kind of experience. It reminded me of some truffle bruschetta I had at a family reunion one time. Except in that case I expected it to taste grandiose and was disappointed, and in this case I was expecting feet and got socks instead, so really it was an improvement. But a test? I prefered my evaluations to have a few more boundaries with a clear cut expectation or two. “Memorize these three books and write a one hundred and eleven paged paper citing at least five different experts” would be better than “here’s a bowl of porridge and ….GO!”. It took all the joy out of eating socks.
“I think it’s probably a basic food transformation spell.” Victoria said, she was had her head upside down under the table, reading the spines on the stack of books nearest her. “Do you think they left the answers somewhere here for us to find?”
“No, I think people here just like to read while they eat.” Cristina said “What do they think we are, farm girls and service maids?”
“Let me guess. You’ve never so much as blown your nose before.” Lox said.
“Vampires don’t have snot.” Cristina said. “and I bet you five rubies Lucy can make us something edible before you can.”
“I don’t have five ru…” I started to say.
“Oh shut up Wilkes, you’ll win...don’t sirens eat fancy crap all the time? I don’t even think they eat in hell, do they?.”
“Fine.” Lox said “Easiest ten rubies I’ll ever earn.” he smirked at me.
“But I thought she said five…”
“Wilkes agrees to ten.” Cristina said flicking a spoonful of porridge Lox’s direction.
Ok fine, we were really doing this. Except I had no idea what “this” was. “You better have ten rubies for him, otherwise I’m selling some of your pillows.” I said, pulling out my wand. I was going to try an anti glimmer spell first. Maybe they’d just disguised the food. One could hope, right? .
“Verbumitus corpinicus absolu….”
“Oh my gosh” Victoria grabbed my wand hand, sending the spell crashing into a pile of parchment the next table over that promptly turned into a pile of apples. Huh.
“Wilkes wins!” Cristina said, pumping the air in a victory dance.
“She cheated.” Lox said. “Victoria helped her.”
“Stop whining, you’re just a…”
“...don’t turn around now, but I think I just saw my future husband.” Victoria said, thankfully interrupting Cristina and Lox. She squealed and pretended to fan herself.
“Seriously?” Cristina said. “What are you, thirteen?” She turned around “Oh wow, don’t look now Wilkes, but he is really steaming hot even by vampire standards.”
Lox rolled his eyes, I started to turn around but Cristina stopped me. “I said don’t turn around! What...you want him to get a big head? He’s probably used to all the first years swooning over him, lets be different.”
Yeah, I was pretty sure that ship had sailed.
It’s really hard not to turn around under circumstances like this, I’m pretty sure your neck is on a pre-programmed rubber band that whips around whenever it’s told not to. But it’s also very difficult to turn around when a vampire has your arm. Impossible in fact.
“What did I miss?” Tad said, sitting his bowl of porridge down at our table and joining us.
“The girls are swooning over some stupid professor dude”. Lox said sullenly “They’d fall over anything wearing a black robe.”
“Actually, black isn’t the only color worn by professors here at St. Hernadines.” Tad said “There’s also red robes for the physicists and apothacarians and I hear Master Dartor wears a white robe.”
“Actually, he was wearing just a plain brown tunic.” I said without thinking. Which was stupid because now everyone was staring at me with their mouths open.
“Figures.” Cristina said disgusted.
“Wow, you’ve met Master Dartor” Tad asked.
“He’s coming this way!” Victoria squealed.
“Master Dartor?” Tad asked.
“No! Steamy Dr. Wizard...Future Mr. Victoria....quick, act like we’re eating.”
Which we were, but I didn’t point that out, because I chose that moment to actually turn around and take inventory of this specimen of flesh that had both Victoria and Cristina melting like butter.
It was him.
Him.
As in uppity wizard boy with the letter who I attempted to curse with a scrotum and rectum rash.
He was wearing a black robe. Of course.
If I had thought about it there were three ways a normal person would have reacted. They would have either feigned complete and utter ignorance, addressed it like a man (woman?) and confronted it head on "hey dude, so sorry about the rashy balls, we're all good, right?", or they would have run, found an excuse and left. I of course could think of none of these things as we locked eyes and got stuck staring at each other...me in horror. Him...well, I couldn't tell what he was thinking. But he recognized me that's for sure. Groan.
.
He recovered first. "Flynn Cargill. Dr. Groats had an emergency gemheart repair on a razordred dragon and assigned me to you five. You’re mine for the night.”
Was it just my imagination, or did that last sentence sound foreboding?
Victoria looked like she would happily mop floors for the rest of her life for him. I was still doing my best impression of a bat in wandlight. Something Cristina picked up on with lightening speed.
“Let me guess, you two already know each other.” She said, glancing between the two of us. The way she said it made me want to give a strangled laugh and assure her it wasn’t what she was thinking at all.
“I don’t particularly make it a point to know Sirens.” Flynn Cargill said oh so cooly. The words practically had frostbite.
Of course he didn’t. No one here did. It was the one thing I had indeed figured out quite loud and clear. So why did it not bother me that my room was currently covered in pink leopard print by a squatter vampire who despised sirens, but one word from uppity wizard boy and my heart turned to ice in my chest.
Bah, I was better than this.
“Headopher and Barren. You two have Dires tonight. You will be watching and observing. No wands.” Flynn said.
Cristina and Lox sat up straighter. Dires. That was where all the serious cases were.
“Suthers, you’re in the fairy nursery.”
Victoria flashed him her most charming smile like babies were her life long aspiration.
“Tad, you’re with me, and Wilkes you have bedpan duty in acquisitions.”
Someone snickered. It was probably Cristina. So that’s how he was going to play.
Part of me wanted to melt into a pathetic puddle of remorse and embarrassment and give up. This was too exhausting. Why stay here when clearly no one wanted me? But the other part rallied and the stabbing cold in my heart turned into righteous anger.
I tried to copy Victoria’s smile, although I think I probably looked more like a bedraggled gremlin.
“And after that?” I asked.
He grit his teeth. “I’m sure that’s all you’ll have time for.”
Fine then. Challenge accepted. Cleaning bedpans couldn’t be that bad, right? A hardy pair of gloves and a few decent cleaning spells and I’ll be fine.
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