“Hold out your hands. Gloves off.”
The man complies, revealing pinkish skin and the ruddy spire of a single-pointed bond mark on his palm.
The grad student grins at his friends. “Dalton wants to claim that anyone could use basic magic to accomplish the same thing as my glim. Let’s put that theory to the test.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but something about his tone makes my stomach sink.
He jerks his head toward one of his companions—Dalton, I assume. “You take the right. I’ll take the left.”
The other guy chortles before drawing his posture straighter with a competitive air. Two pairs of eyes narrow with concentration.
The air shimmers around both of the attendant’s hands—with a hazy quality around the right and sparkling faintly on the left.
The attendant sucks in a sharp breath that holds a trace of a whimper. His arms shake with apparent effort. He closes his eyes, a wince contorting his features.
My jaw clenches. The words to interrupt this awful game, to end the man’s distress, leap up my throat.
I clamp my lips against them. If I speak up, I’ll probably get tossed out of here.
But how can I just stand here and watch?—?
Before I have to grapple with my morals for long, the grad student dispels the magic with a flick of his fingers. His friend follows suit. The shimmers vanish.
The attendant tucks his hands close to his sides with a rasp of a sigh.
His chief torturer gives him an expectant nod. “Well? Which one bothered you more?”
After clearing his throat, the attendant tentatively raises his left. The grad student shoots a triumphant glance at his companion. “There! Is that proof enough for you?”
They fall into a bantering argument about the validity of the test while the subject of that test sidles away. My gaze follows him, sympathy squeezing my chest.
No wonder the real Chuck had enough of this place. What did the assholes here do tohim?
I may not be able to tell the jerk off to his face without jeopardizing my mission, but the craving for some kind of payback rushes up inside me. He lifts his drink to his lips, and I nudge a subtle layer of ephemera between the glass and his fingers.
A very slippery layer. His grip skids, and a dollop of dark brown liquid splashes over his chin and his fancy shirt.
The guy sputters, another attendant darts in to offer him a napkin, and I contain my smirk.
Dalton doesn’t bother hiding his amusement. “Can’t hold your bourbon as well as you used to, huh?”
As his friend glowers at him and dabs at the liquid staining his clothes, the guy with the French accent looks off in the direction their test subject headed.
“Will that man’s hands be all right?” he asks, in a tone that’s more curiosity than concern.
The grad student waves him off with a swish of the napkin. “Oh, he’s fine. He should be glad that’s the worst trouble he’llface at his job. Most of the dopes who come out of the Discount Void Buffet aren’t that lucky.”
The French guy knits his brow, echoing my confusion. “Discount Void Buffet?”
Grady snickers. “Haven’t you heard that one yet? It’s our more accurate name for Beacon Prep. The teachers there are mostly training the dimwits to go fight voids—and get slaughtered by the things, sooner or later.”
His joking tone makes my skin creep. Is that really how the rich kids at Luminary talk about our sister school?
I haven’t heard Other Elodie’s friends use the term, but we haven’t discussed Beacon or the students there so far. The phrase could be something specific to this reality—or I was just too far out of the loop to have heard it on my own.
Confirming the latter possibility, Grady taps his elbow against the French guy’s. “Don’t say it out loud when you’re in school, though. The Luminary professors can get stuffy about it—’Everyone has an important role to play in the lucent community’—even though they know we’re just saying the truth.”
“Sure it’s important,” Grady’s classmate remarks. “Very important cannon fodder so the rest of us can get things done.”
