The Wizard Heir (7 page)

“No,” Seph said. “I can't.”

“Would you like me to repeat it, Joseph?”
Leicester asked softly, encouragingly.

“No. I mean I changed my mind.”

For a moment, Leicester seemed too astonished to
speak. “What?” The word seemed to spatter out into the mist.

“I refuse.”

A rumble of surprise rolled through the alumni,
quickly stifled. Peter closed his eyes and breathed out, as if relieved.

Leicester's voice was calm and reassuring.
“What's bothering you, Joseph? The painful part is over. When we're
finished, we'll go back to the Alumni House and dress that scratch and make
arrangements to move you in. Your training will begin immediately.”

“What's bothering me?” Seph shivered. It was
raining harder now, plastering his hair against his forehead and soaking him
nearly through. Somehow, it seemed to clear his head.

His arm still streamed blood, and he pressed it tight
against his side. “You're drinking my blood. Asking me to swear some kind
of oath I don't really understand. I can't be involved in a ritual like this.
It's like, out of a screamer movie. To be honest, this is really freaking me
out.”

Leicester's breath hissed out impatiently. “You
said you wanted to learn about wizardry.”

“I do.” Seph looked around the circle of
robed wizards, hoping someone would speak up in his defense.

“That can't happen unless we finish.”

Seph took a breath. “Then it can't happen.”

“Two weeks ago, I asked if you were willing to
make a total commitment. You assured me that you were.”

Seph jerked free of Hays and Barber. “I think you
need to tell me exactly what I'd be committing myself to.”

A muscle twitched in the headmaster's jaw. Leicester's
voice was still soft, but there was a thread of steel in it. “You'd do
better to ask about the consequences if you refuse.”

It sounded very much like a threat. “What
consequences?”

“There's a reason wizardry training starts
early,” Leicester said. “When untrained wizards reach adolescence,
they … self-destruct.”

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps it's hormonal,” Leicester said
delicately. “Perhaps developmental. It begins with uncontrolled releases
of power. Then the magic turns inward and destroys the mind, resulting in depression
and hallucinations. It's not unusual for untrained wizards to go insane.”

Seph thought of the warehouse. The destruction of the
bell tower. It seemed that he'd had uncontrolled spasms of power all his life.
And they seemed to be getting worse—more frequent. He scanned himself for
symptoms. Since the warehouse fire, he'd been depressed. He'd found it
difficult to concentrate. But wasn't that normal for a person with innocent
blood on his hands?

“Joseph,” Leceister said, in the manner of a
man who is trying hard to be reasonable. “Everyone else here has
agreed.”

Seph looked around the circle of faces. Hays and
Barber were openly smirking, eyes slitted against the rain. Some of the
celebrants looked back at him stoically. Others, including Peter, looked down
at their feet or off into the distance. It was not especially reassuring.

“I'm sorry,” Seph said. “I just
can't.”

“Fine,” Leicester said venomously.
“Then suffer the consequences.” The wizard took a step toward
Seph, extending the staff. Seph retreated, but came up against someone—Hays or
Barber—who held him in place. Leicester pressed the blood-smeared head of the
staff against Seph's chest, over his wildly beating heart. Power pulsed through
it like some kind of magical CPR machine.

“It won't be long before you'll beg for another
chance.” He motioned to the rest of the alumni. “Come along. We're
wasting time here.”

The alumni disappeared into the trees, leaving Seph to
pick his way back through the wet forest on his own.

Consequences

Seph woke in the pitch black, freezing and soaking
wet. He pushed himself upright, his palms sliding against sodden, splintering
wood. Moonlight intruded through two windows, high on the wall. He sat hip deep
in frigid water, and more poured in through a great square hole in the floor.
Still disoriented, he staggered to his feet.

He was in the boathouse. He recognized it from his
visit with Trevor during the campus tour. He could make out the vague shapes of
equipment hanging on the wall, see small objects already bobbing against the
dark surface of the water.

He'd returned to his room after the aborted ceremony
in the woods. How had he ended up here? And where was the flood coming from?

The water slapped against the walls, higher than
before, almost to Seph's knees. His mind was slow to process. Was the tide
coming in? Surely they would build a boathouse to withstand the tide. People who knew about oceans
would know better than that.

His wet khakis clung unpleasantly to his legs. The
water had reached his thighs. With difficulty, he waded to the door and pulled
the handle. It didn't budge. He yanked again, bracing a foot against the
doorframe. Stuck. Or locked. Panic fluttered under his breastbone. The water
was rising, and he couldn't get out.

It didn't make sense. Surely this old building wasn't
watertight. It ought to leak water like a sieve. Had he been drugged, spelled,
carried here by the alumni on Leicester's orders? For what?

He squinted into the darkness, teeth chattering with
fear and cold, looking for a way out.

He could swim out through the boat well, though he
didn't like the idea of diving into that black water. By now it was so deep,
only a disturbance on the surface told him where the opening began and the
floor ended. He moved cautiously forward, feeling for the edge of the floor
with feet that felt clumsy and numb with the cold. Blundering off the edge, he
plunged feet-first into freezing water. He shot back to the surface, propelled
by the current, and raked his wet hair out of his face. Folding himself at the
waist, he tried to dive deep, but was thrust back to the surface each time,
gasping for air. There was no escape that way. Coughing and spitting out salt water, he found the
edge of the floor again. When he stood up, the water lapped at his collarbone.
He needed to get to higher ground. He bumped into the fish-cleaning table,
pulled himself up, and managed to plant his feet on it. Now he was immersed
only to his waist, but he hit his head on the ceiling, and the water was still
rising.

“Help!” he screamed, his shouts faint and
ineffective. “I'm locked in the boathouse! Help! I'm drowning!”

While standing on the table, he could just reach one
of the small windows if he stretched far to one side. Grabbing a large landing
net that hung on the wall, he slammed it against the glass. The net was
lightweight, and he was working at such an angle that he couldn't produce much
force against it. Finally he lost his footing, flailed wildly for a moment, and
went under again.

He surfaced, spluttering, treading water. Then he
gasped as something slid past him, roiling the surface of the black water like
a great serpent, its rough hide scraping him as it went by.

Seph sucked in a breath and went absolutely still,
save the rough pounding of his pulse. For a moment, the water was quiet. Then a
thick, muscular tentacle searched along his leg, slid upward, and tightened
around his waist.

He pushed at the creature, pounded on it, tried to
push himself out of its grasp using both hands, getting a mouthful of water as
he did so. His fists made no impression on its leathery hide. His flailing foot
encountered something soft and yielding, and the monster's grip relaxed
fractionally. Launching himself upward, Seph wrapped his arms around one of the
rough wooden beams that supported the roof.

He clung there, gasping for breath, but he could not
lift himself completely out of the water. Ripples spread from the far corner as
the creature surfaced, its pale, dispassionate eyes and razor teeth revealed in
the light from the window. A squid? An octopus? Some unknown monster that had
lain hidden in the ocean's depths until now?

Once again, a tentacle quested forward, sliding
beneath the water like a great
snake. It explored along his thigh, then wrapped about his hips.

Slowly, inexorably, it dragged at him. Desperate, he
tightened his hold on the ceiling beam, turning his face upward so he could
gulp some air. He no longer tried to dislodge his attacker, but held on for
dear life. His joints cracked as a relentless strength threatened to pull him
apart.

Suddenly, the monster rocketed forward in an explosion
of spray and fastened its teeth into his right leg. Seph screamed and tried to
pull it off, losing his grip on the beam. He managed one last breath, sucking
in a mixture of seawater and air, before he was pulled beneath the water and
into black despair.

Light awoke Seph a second time, painful light that
caused him to roll onto his face to exclude it. He was in bed. Something
terrible lurked in memory, a beast kept leashed in the back room of his mind.

He swallowed; his throat was so raw it brought tears
to his eyes. He felt like he'd been beaten. Every muscle in his body ached. He
struggled to his knees, and then the full recollection of the night before
flooded back. He vomited over the side of the bed and onto the floor. His
throat felt worse than ever.

He rolled over onto his back and stared at the
ceiling. It gradually came to him that he was in a bed, back in his room in the
dormitory. He was soaked in sweat, not in seawater, and he was alive. He ran
his hand tentatively down his right leg, then his left, and could find no
evidence of injury. He checked twice, to make sure. Hot tears of relief filled
his eyes, slid from the corners and onto his pillow.

The monster had ripped him apart. He'd gazed
hopelessly up at the undersurface of the ocean as his own blood clouded the
water, had tasted it in his mouth, had felt the great jaws close on his flesh,
tearing it away in pieces. His struggles had grown weaker as he succumbed to
oxygen starvation and loss of blood.

Still, it had taken a long time to die.

He sat up, drew his knees up into a protective
position, and leaned his chin on his hands, shivering. Had it been a dream,
then? If so, it was like no dream he'd ever had before. It was the
three-dimensional, surround-sound, full-color mother-of-all dreams.

His bedding was completely mangled, evidence of a
struggle that had lasted most of the night. The ceiling and walls were pocked
with scorch marks, as if he'd been flinging out sparks. Good thing they hadn't
caught or he'd have burned to death.

He slid out of bed, avoiding the mess on the floor,
went into the bathroom and rinsed out his mouth. His face stared back at him
from the mirror, pale and haggard. Gingerly, he fingered the broken blood
vessels around his eyes. Half-moon welts marched across his palms, the prints
of his nails.

Grabbing a towel, he mopped up the floor as best he
could. He carried it into the hall and threw it into a laundry bag, then helped
himself to fresh towels from the linen cart, working automatically. He lay back
down in bed and turned his face to the wall, afraid to sleep, too tired and
heartsick to do anything else.

Leicester's words came back to him.

It's not unusual for untrained wizards to go insane.

The next morning was Monday. Seph didn't go to
breakfast, or attend his first class in the morning. Around 10 a.m., when Dr.
Leicester returned to his office, Seph was waiting outside, seated on the
floor, arms clasped around his knees.

“Joseph,” the headmaster said, looking down
at him. “Aren't you supposed to be in class?”

“I need to talk to you,” Seph said. It was
more of a whisper. It hurt to speak.

“Why don't you come back this afternoon, after
classes are over? You don't want to get off on the wrong foot.”

“I'm already off on the wrong foot. I need to
talk to you now.”

“Of course. Come in.” He stood aside so Seph
could enter his office. Seph moved carefully, because every part of him hurt,
body and soul.

For his part, the headmaster looked almost cheerful.

“Sit down,” Leicester said, closing the door
behind him and gesturing toward the table by the window.

“I'll stand. This won't take long.” Seph
gathered his thoughts. “I came to tell you that this isn't working out,
this placement, I mean. Since I can't be trained in wizardry here, I'm going to
contact my guardian and make arrangements for a transfer.”

Leicester raised his hands to stop the speech.
“Joseph, sit down.” When Seph didn't respond, he added, “Sit down,
I said.”

Seph sat. Leicester sat across from him, steepling his
hands and resting his chin on his fingertips. "I'd hoped

perhaps you'd come to tell me you'd changed your
mind."

“I have. I've realized that coming here was a
mistake.”

“Are you so sure of that? Where else are you
going to get the help you need?”

“I'll find someone else to teach me.”

“Really? Who? You told me yourself you've been
looking for a teacher for two years. I believe you're running out of
time.”

“I've done all right so far.”

“Have you?” The headmaster studied him.
“You're having symptoms, aren't you?”

Seph looked him in the eyes. “No.” He'd been
lying for a lifetime and was really good at it.

Leicester wasn't impressed. “What is it?
Hallucinations? Voices? Dreams? Paranoia?”

“Nothing.”

“If you are hallucinating, it is your own fault.
You have to give us the chance to help you.” Leicester leaned back and
folded his arms. “Cooperate with us, Joseph. That's all we ask.” He
smiled.

Seph remembered the scene at the chapel: the
flickering torchlight, the altar, his blood flowing into the stone cup, the
staff blazing up.

The warning on Peter's face.

Seph leaned forward. “If you want to help me,
then teach me. But I'm not joining your cult or club or whatever.”

The smile froze on Leicester's face. Then withered.
"Let me be plain. Our enemies are gathering. My House—the White Rose—is
the current holder of the Hoard. That is the collection of magical artifacts
handed down over the centuries through the tournament system.

"Last week, operatives believed to be working for
the Dragon launched an attack against a magical repository in the southwest of
Britain. They carried off weapons of unimaginable power.

“However, some believe the thieves were actually
working for the Red Rose. There is talk of retaliatory action. As you can see,
the stakes are incredibly high. The tiniest spark could set off a conflagration
like the world has never known. I believe my initiative may be the last great
hope for peace. Can you understand why I can't risk training someone as
powerful as you whose loyalty is questionable?”

It made sense. It made total sense. And yet Seph had
been on his own long enough to learn to trust his instincts. And his instincts
said that Leicester and Barber and Hays were not peacemakers. Maybe he was
crazy, but he had nothing else.

He smiled his best smile. “Dr. Leicester. I wish
you and the alumni the best of luck in preventing a Wizard World War.” If
that's what you're really about. “But I'm really—you know—apolitical.
I have a lot of personal issues to work through. I can't be joining a movement.
I'll find someone to train me on the outside. And maybe when I'm older I'll
feel differently.” It was a pretty speech.

Seph stood. “I'm going to call Sloane's in London.
They'll get me a flight, but I'll need a way to the airport. I tried my calling
card on the phone in my dorm, but couldn't get through. I need to call this
morning, during business hours.”

“I'm afraid that won't be possible,” said
Gregory Leicester.

Seph was sure he'd misheard. “You're not going to
let me make a phone call?”

Leicester stood and leaned his hips back against the
table. “It's time to grow up, Joseph, and understand a few facts. Your
guardian committed you. You are a minor, and he signed papers. Do you know what
that means?”

“Committed me? Like I'm mentally incompetent or
something?”

The headmaster sighed. “It looks like Mr.
Houghton has not been completely straightforward with you. This is, in fact, a
school for wayward and emotionally disturbed adolescents. I am, in fact, a
psychologist.”

“What?” Seph thought of the glossy brochure
with the sailboat on the front. “Houghton never said anything about
psychiatric treatment.”

“The fact is, Mr. Houghton doesn't want any more
catastrophes. He only wants to know that you're in recovery.”

The headmaster returned to the table and sat down,
dropping the file onto the polished wood in front of him. Retrieving a pen from
his pocket, he pulled a fresh sheet of paper from the folder and scratched out
a few notes.

“I don't believe you,” Seph said. Leicester
kept scratching away. “I don't drink or use drugs. No one ever said that I
am a danger to myself or anyone else.”

Leicester glanced down at his folder. “Didn't a
student in Switzerland file assault charges against you?”

Perspiration trickled between Seph's shoulder blades.
He wiped his damp palms on his jeans. “It was a misunderstanding. They
dropped the charges.”

The headmaster tapped his pen on the papers in front
of him. “There was also an … incident in Philadelphia.”

Seph stared at him wordlessly. How could Leicester
possibly know about Philadelphia?

Unless Denis Houghton had told him.

After Genevieve died, Seph had been determined to find
out more about his parents. Sloane's had stonewalled him, so Seph had begun a
search online, using the resources of adoptive children's networks, the
genealogy Web sites and mail lists, and electronic vital records. He'd finally
found his birth record, showing he'd been born in Toronto to Helen Jacoby and
Jared McCauley. When he'd tried to dig further, he'd found no birth records for
them, no grandparents, aunts or uncles, no listings in city directories in
California or Toronto, no news stories about the fire, no real estate records,
nothing.