I stared at him, realising that I’d pushed my bar stool back and was now standing and facing him. Thomas’ hands were gripping my upper arms with surprising strength and I was dimly aware of the barman watching me steadily from behind the polished mahogany counter, wary in case I was about to kick off inside his little domain. I took a deep breath and started to count in slow measured steps, the flames licking their way around my heart and squeezing it as I did so.

“You need to see things from the Dean’s point of view,” stated Thomas in a calm even voice. “He’s been in charge of the academy for virtually three decades, churning out happy mage after happy mage. And then the Arch-Mage comes along, completely usurps his authority and plants you in the middle of things. Of course he’s going to do what he can to maintain his little world.”

The flames retreated from around my heart, and I began to push them back down into my stomach, feeling the after-burn akin to having eaten the richest, spiciest, creamiest curry within the walls of my chest. “He’s a fucking power freak,” I snarled, bitterness mingling with my slowly receding fury.

“Is he?” asked Thomas, quietly. “Or is he just trying to protect the traditions and the students of an institution that has been around longer than even Cambridge or Oxford?”

“I’m no danger to the students,” I snapped, as the fire twisted its back inexorably through my veins and arteries.

Thomas’ grip eased slightly. “But he doesn’t know that.” He sighed. “You grew up with the shifters. There’s a long history of tension between our two groups. Yes, things are better now than they have been in the past and there are treaties in place to prevent any, uh, problems from occurring that might upset the delicate balance between us, but that doesn’t mean that there’s still not a lot of residue antagonism hanging around.”

I held the mage’s gaze. “We work together. I mean, the shifters and the mages work together. To stop bad things from happening.”

“Yes,” he said gently. “But the enemy of my enemy isn’t necessarily my friend. And the new Lord Alpha has a lot of the Council worried. He’s got more control than previous Brethren leaders, and more respect. That has them concerned. They don’t want the shifters to become any more powerful than they already are, because that would inevitably take away some of the influence from them.”

“I’m not a shifter,” I pointed out, finally pulling away from him entirely and sitting myself back down.

Thomas moved backwards, and re-seated himself too, and I sensed, rather than saw, the barman also relax and begin to start wiping down the sticky remnants of previous patrons at the other end of the bar.

“You’re right, you’re not. And that makes you even worse and even more dangerous. We don’t know what you are. You’re not a shifter, and it’s clear that you’re not a mage. But you can fight like a deranged ninja on steroids and you do have magical powers. It’s only natural that the Dean would feel nervous about having you here. You go postal, and it’s him who would get the blame for not controlling you, not the Arch-Mage for dumping you with us in the first place.”

The heat had settled down back inside me to a dull thrum. “So what do you suggest?”

Thomas shrugged. “You bide your time. Be good. Keep trying at your lessons, keep making friends. Smile at the Dean when you pass him. And I mean actually smile in a friendly fashion, not with that look that you get that suggests that you’ve sighted your next meal and you’re about to start gnawing on their flesh.”

“I don’t look like that!” I protested.

Thomas just smiled. “Then, the Dean will realise that you’re not a threat and the Arch-Mage will realise that forcing you to stay here is pointless. And you’ll be let go.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Do you think they’ll let Mrs. Alcoon go, or is that all bullshit?”

“They’ll let her go,” he said confidently. “It’ll just be when no-one else is paying attention any more, that’s all. You have to understand what a huge loss of face it is for His Magnificence that he screwed up so royally and had someone so patently unthreatening and completely lacking in power put in enforced inhibitory stasis in the first place.”

“They weren’t aiming for her.” I picked up my glass again and drained it, laying it back down again sadly. “It was me they were after.”

“So you see why the Dean might be afraid of you then. No-one’s ever done that before – avoided having such a powerful spell take root. No-one who’s human, anyway.”

“I’m human,” I said in a small voice.

Thomas grinned at me. “Of course you are.” He motioned over to the barman. “Come on, let’s get as humanly drunk as we possibly can.”

I raised my empty glass in agreement. Sounded like a plan.

Chapter Twenty

When I awoke the next morning, bed sheet twisted round my legs and a weak winter sun filtering in through the tiny window, my mouth felt as dry as parchment. However, otherwise I felt reasonably fine and congratulated myself silently on no other appearances of a hangover. Thomas and I had continued on until the wee hours, when the barman had begun noisily and pointedly washing glasses and tidying up, encouraging us without words to hurry the fuck up and go home so I figured I’d had a lucky escape to not be feeling any worse than I was.

“Still got it, Mack,” I muttered to myself, then swung my legs over to the floor, wincing at the cold touch of the floorboards whilst pulling myself upright. I walked over to the sink and twisted on the tap, letting the water run for a moment or two, then cupped my hands to scoop up some of its delicious wet frigidity into my mouth.

I bent down to pick up my (for once) neatly folded robe from the floor where I’d left it when I had changed before going out, and felt a sudden lurch of oily nausea flicker its way into being in my stomach. I straightened up somewhat dizzily, swallowing down the unpleasant feeling, and then the pain in my head kicked in, slowly at first as a dull ache, building up with unerring swiftness into a thought shattering pain. Groaning, I ran my hands over my head, barely registering the half inch of soft downy hair that now covered my scalp, and pressed down on my temples. Another ripple of bilious queasiness shuddered through me. This was most definitely not good.

Somehow managing to dress myself appropriately, although it seemed to take a lot longer than usual, I stuffed my feet into my shoes and stumbled down to the cafeteria. Surely some food and some shots of stiff black coffee would set me right.

The level of noise and chatter from the dorm rooms as I passed shrieked its way through my eardrums with a level of intensity I’d barely ever felt before. It was even worse inside the cafeteria itself, the collection of voices less a hum and more a bellowing throb. The feeling of sickness inside my stomach showed no signs of easing up, so I grabbed a dry bagel and began stuffing it into my mouth, hoping the heavy carbohydrates would improve the situation, then helped myself to a cup of coffee. Deborah and Mary were already sitting down in their usual places, and called over to me with annoyingly chirrupy voices. I downed the coffee, gulping it down and burning my tongue and raised my hand to them in a weak greeting, but didn’t join them by sitting down. I wasn’t sure I’d manage their easy-going banter at this particular point.

However, seeing Deborah at least, had nudged my memory about the skirt of hers that I’d shoved into the washing machine the night before so I returned my now empty cups and wandered back out of the dining room. The escape from the hurtful sun that had been flooding its way through the large windows was particularly welcome to my sore eyes. I walked slowly down the narrow corridor, concentrating very hard on keeping the bagel inside my digestive system rather than out, as it was threatening to do. Passing a couple of people, and keeping Thomas’ words about being friendly in my mind, I grunted a couple of hellos out. The recipients looked somewhat startled and nervous, scuttling away from me. I was too tired and feeling too rough to worry about whether it was because they were still scared of me or whether it was because I looked like the walking dead, and gave up trying to acknowledge anyone else, instead putting my head down and letting my eyes focus on the cracks and grooves in the stone floor.

The clean scent of the laundry room again announced itself grandly as I entered. Stumbling over to the washing machine I’d used the previous evening, I spent several moments attempting to open the round misted door, before working out that I had to turn the stupid thing off at the switch before it would let me click it open. Grumbling at the fact that the bloody mages hadn’t worked some easier magical way to wash and dry their clothes, I pulled out the ball of tiny yellow fabric and shook it out, then hung it up on a nearby clothes horse to dry. I was hoping that Deborah wouldn’t wander in at any point during the day and discover it hanging forlornly there and take it back before I’d had the chance to do so myself. I’d just have to count on the fact that she was as yet a teenager for whom the act of washing clothes was as mystifying as Evocation was to me.

I still had an hour or so before my Protection lesson with Thomas was due to start, so I padded my way back through the main building to the library, this time scowling at the little wooden dragon on the door rather than greeting it happily. Once inside, blinking away from the sunshine that yet again was making its unabashed way inside, I cast a dirty look over at the forbidden filing cabinet before heading to the shelves instead, pulling out a random book and then making my way over to a table and chair to collapse down. There was no sign of Slim anywhere, which was probably a good thing, as I doubted I’d be able to wisely keep my tongue inside my mouth feeling the way that I currently did. I wondered how culpable the little gargoyle was, and whether he was even now hovering around somewhere and keeping a beady eye on me in case I made a move to find the spell release book that would save Mrs. Alcoon. Despite Thomas’ revelations of the night before, I liked the grumpy little purple librarian and I hoped that it was purely the Dean’s nefarious and cunning plan to catch me out, and not Slim’s also. However, my head was throbbing painfully and the bagel seemed to have done little for the state of my stomach so instead I curled my ankles round the legs of my chair and let my head droop down till I was slumped over the table with my eyes closed. The book, whatever it was, remained unopen next to me.