A Faerie's Revenge

Chapter 6

Six

I lower myself onto the mat on my hands and knees, stretch my legs out behind me, and start my set of push-ups. “Not much,” I say to Gemma in answer to her question about what I’m doing later. “Probably just homework and any extra training Olive decides to give me.”

“Well, if you don’t have extra training, do you want to come over later? We can just chill and chat about girl stuff.”

“Okay. Sure.” My eyes remain fixed on the section of floor in front of my face as I push against it repeatedly. “I don’t think I’ll have much to add to the conversation, but we can chat about you.”

She laughs. “Okay. I’m hanging out with Rick for a little while after we’re done with training, so we can dissect that.”

“Cool.”

It’s our last session for the day and Gemma and I have been assigned to the strength training area. I started with weights and now I’m onto push-ups. Beside me, Gemma is doing lunges while holding a bar across her shoulders. The idea of spending the evening rehashing every word the guy she’s crushing on said to her doesn’t fill me with a great deal of excitement, but if I were in her shoes—and if the guy I liked hadn’t turned out to be an evil, brainwashing, Destruction master—I’d want to do the same thing. Besides, Rick is a Seer, so talking about him might not be that boring after all. There are so many things I’ve wanted to know since I discovered Mom was a Seer trainee before she fled the Guild years ago.

“How much do you know about Seer life?” I ask Gemma. My arms are beginning to burn and my breaths are coming faster now, but I can keep going for a while. “Has Rick told you lots? Like, what their training is about and … what the process is from the time a vision is Seen … to when it makes its way … downstairs for guardians to take care of?”

“Yeah, some of it. They use special mirrors.” She stops her lunges and pulls one leg up into a stretch. “Why don’t you ask him? You can come upstairs with me after this session.”

“Okay. But won’t that be … a bit weird? Just the three of us … hanging out?” It’s getting harder to carry on a conversation, but I manage to get my words out at the top of each push-up.

“No, we’ll be in the Seer common room. Other trainees hang out there, so it won’t be—Freaking heck, will you stop already? How many push-ups are you planning to do?”

“I don’t know,” I say breathlessly, still going. “I don’t count anymore. Olive tells me to … keep going until it hurts … and then to keep going some more after that.”

“Okay, your mentor seriously needs to chill out.”

“Do I, Miss Alcourt?”

From the corner of my eye, I see Gemma step back quickly. Olive’s boots appear in my line of vision. “Um … oops,” Gemma says. “I’m sorry.”

I get to my feet, rolling my shoulders and swinging my arms as I look from Olive’s crossed arms to Gemma’s guilty expression. “Hi,” I say to Olive, hoping to break the glare she’s currently directing at Gemma.

“I’m just gonna go use those weights over there,” Gemma says. She turns and hurries to the other end of the strength training area.

“I have a new tracker band for you,” Olive says. “We need to test whether it’s working.”

I take the tracker band and put it on. “Okay. Is there anything in particular you want me to do?”

After a long exhale of breath that suggests it’s the bane of her existence to come up with an exercise for me, she says, “Yes. Do that aerobics routine from the other day. Bring the tracker band to my office when you’re done.”

I manage to nod instead of groan. I’m one hundred percent certain Olive came up with that stupid routine specifically to embarrass me. With a combination of stepping, jumping, running on the spot, punching the air, and kicking imaginary opponents—all in a repeating pattern—it’s easily the silliest thing I’ve ever done. No doubt Olive’s sole purpose was to get me to finally say no to something. I’m pleased to say I managed to resist.

I head to the far corner of the training center where the obstacle course items are stored and attempt to hide myself between some of them. Then I imagine the beat Olive told me to count in my head and get started on the silly side-to-side stepping while pulling one knee up in between each step. I ignore anyone who walks past. I keep going through all the various moves, recognizing that this might actually be fun if I were on my own with some music playing. I’m not, though, and when I feel I’ve embarrassed myself sufficiently, I bring my little routine to an end.

I slip the tracker band off and walk across the training center. “Come up to the Seer trainee level when you’re done,” Gemma calls to me as I pass her.

“Okay.”

Olive doesn’t waste time when I get up to her office. She opens the cupboard where all her trainees’ past assignments, recorded onto tiny marbles, are stored in rows. She takes a blank marble from a box and returns to her desk where the replay device is waiting. The replay device—which Ryn told me is new technology; they didn’t exist in his day—is a sphere with a flat base on which to sit and a small hollow at the top in which to place the marble. She picks up the sphere, puts it down on top of the tracker band, and places the marble in the top. With her stylus, she quickly draws a symbol onto the side of the sphere. Then she stands back, crosses her arms, and watches. A small three dimensional image of me doing my aerobics routine appears in the air above the device, proving that I did, in fact, look as stupid as I felt.

“Good. The tracker band’s working.” She removes the marble and adds, “We definitely don’t need to keep that recording.” She returns it to the box of blank marbles, presumably so she can record over it next time.

“Thanks.” I wait for a moment, in case she’s about to give me some extra training for tonight, but when she says nothing further, I turn around and leave her office.

I’ve never been as high up as the Seer trainee level, but I know where it is. When I reach it, I ask a young girl for directions to the common room. She takes me to the end of a corridor and points to the room on the left. I step into a large round space with a rich blue carpet covering the floor and pairs of blue curtains hanging at regular intervals around the room. In between each set of curtains, an oval mirror is attached to the wall, each with a pretty, decorative frame. Couches, tables and chairs are arranged into various different sitting areas.

I walk down a few steps into the room, searching the groups of people until I see Gemma. She’s talking with a guy I presume is Rick. As I move toward the two of them, I can’t help comparing him to Perry. Rick is almost as tall, but he isn’t as lean and muscular—obviously, given that his training doesn’t involve anything physical. His face is handsome, but there’s something about Perry’s smile and that mischievous glint in his eyes that makes him cute. Perhaps I should ask Gemma if she’s noticed it. Then I can at least tell Perry if he stands any kind of chance with her.

Gemma sees me approaching and stands. Rick gets to his feet and Gemma introduces the two of us. “Calla’s curious about the life of a Seer,” Gemma tells him. “I said she should come and ask you herself.”

“Oh, sure,” Rick says with a good-natured laugh as we sit. “As long as you’re not about to ask me why the Seers didn’t see The Destruction coming.”

“Oh no, don’t worry,” I assure him. “Gemma explained that one to me already.” I rub my hands along my legs, not sure what to ask now that I finally have the opportunity. “So … I was thinking that I don’t know all that much about how it works. As guardian trainees, we receive assignment details on scrolls, and that’s pretty much all I know about your end of the process. I don’t even know what it’s like when you actually have a vision.”

“It’s … disorienting,” Rick says. “We get pulled into it, as if we’re really there, and then thrown back to the present. We get used to it after a while, but sometimes it still results in dizziness and nausea.”

I lean forward on my knees. “And you can’t control what you See, right?”

“Well, no, but we can influence it. We have to direct our thoughts a certain way, focus on certain ideas so we’re more open to seeing the important things. It’s also difficult to control the length of a vision. Sometimes I’ll see barely a flash of something, and other times it’s longer.”

“That’s part of your training as well, isn’t it?” Gemma says.

“Yes.” Rick groans. “We have to try and immerse ourselves in the visions so they last longer and we see more details, but it’s tough. Even the instructors can’t always get it right. The other day one of them Saw a fire-breathing dragon in a setting that looked like the foyer downstairs, but it was only about two seconds of a vision, so it was totally useless.”

“That’s a bit scary,” Gemma says. “I didn’t think anything could get inside this Guild.”

“Exactly, which means it probably wasn’t the foyer. So with a vision like that where there’s no useful information at all, you have to just move on. Hopefully if it’s something really important, someone else will See it in more detail.”

“And then how do you record these visions?” I ask.

“We have mirrors with special enchantments in them, like these ones here.” Rick stands and removes the nearest mirror from the wall. As he sits down with it, I see what I missed before: these mirrors don’t reflect anything. “Once I’ve had a vision,” he says, “I just need to recall it while using the right magic, and it will be transferred to the mirror so other people can see it. If it’s something a guardian needs to take care of, and if it has enough details to be useful, like place and time, then everything is written down. Then someone higher up, a Seer who’s already graduated, decides what level of guardian or guardian trainee the vision is sent to.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding. “At least I have a better understanding now of how it all—Oh.” I stop talking and pull away from Rick as his body goes rigid, his head tilts back, and his eyes flutter back and forth behind his eyelids. Somewhat afraid, I look at Gemma. “A vision?” When she nods, I ask, “Does this happen often?”

“Fairly often, I guess. It freaked me out a bit in the beginning, but I’m used to it now.”

Rick recovers with a shake of his head. “Sorry about that,” he says as he lifts the mirror with both hands. He chants some foreign words while staring directly at it. He turns the mirror to face Gemma and me, and in its surface I see a woman with smudges of dirt on her face and strands of silver in her messy black hair. She laughs—and then she lunges forward, fury flashing in her silver eyes, her arm outstretched as if to grab us. Gemma and I pull back in fright, but the scene vanishes from the mirror. Then it begins replaying.

“That’s unpleasant,” Gemma says as we watch the woman’s snarling face a second time.

“You see?” Rick says to us as he places the mirror flat on his lap once more. “That one really wasn’t useful at all. Do either of you recognize that woman?” Gemma and I shake our heads. “And there’s no sense of time or place, so … yeah.” He swipes his hand across the mirror and mutters a word I’ve never heard before. “That one gets erased then.” He stands and returns the mirror to the wall. As he walks back, he says, “Are you okay, Calla? You still look a bit startled.”

“I’m … yes. I’ve just never witnessed something like that before.” My amber vibrates in my pocket. As I remove it, I add, “But it was interesting to see, and thank you for explaining everything. I understand better now.” What I mean is that I understand Mom better now. I can see why it might be unpleasant to have visions taking over several times a day.

I read the message on my amber, then look up at Gemma. “I’m sorry. I won’t be able to hang out tonight after all. Last minute babysitting emergency.”

“Oh. Whose baby?” Gemma asks.

“Friends of my brother’s.”

“Okay, we can chat tomorrow then.”

I nod and stand. “Thanks again, Rick.” I head across the common room for the door, trying not to look at the creepy mirrors that don’t reflect anything, and trying to forget the image of a woman with savage fury reaching out of the future to grab hold of me.