Jason stood, hands in his pockets, lips pressed together, looking off to the side as if he might find his answer written on the wall. “Listen,” he said after a long pause. “Let me think about it. Meet me in the woods by the outdoor chapel tomorrow at six. And you'd better not let anyone follow you.”
Seph nodded, and stepped aside. Jason brushed past him and was gone.
The next evening, Seph left the dorm, avoiding the paths and cutting through the woods. The air was cold and clear, prickling his nose, and his breath emerged in clouds of vapor. The winter sun had already set and the moon hadn't risen, but the snow reflected back what light there was and made it easy to pick his way through the trees.
Trevor had said Jason was with the alumni now. But Jason said he wasn't, and Seph hadn't seen him at the ceremony in the woods or at dinner. It was as if Jason had been hidden away from Seph, and perhaps from everyone. Why had Jason been told to stay away from him?
Now Jason wanted Seph to meet him at the outdoor chapel. He couldn't help wondering if it was a trap.
He approached the chapel from the woods on the right side. Surrounded by soaring pines, it had the look of a primitive cathedral. Someone had been there before him. Snow had drifted over the seats to the rear, but several rows of stones at the front had been brushed clean. The clearing was quilted with tracks, and the snow around the seats was beaten down, as if by many feet. The notion of a trap returned.
He climbed onto the stone platform. There were signs of recent activity there as well. Someone had constructed a ring of weathered gray stones in the center, and left blackened remnants of a fire within. Had there been another ceremony? The bonfire must have happened within the past week, because it had snowed a few days before Christmas.
Seph shivered, and not from the cold. The wind sighed through the trees.
He grabbed up a fallen branch and poked it through the ashes and chunks of charred wood on the makeshift hearth. Something glinted in the pale moonlight that filtered through the trees. He caught it on the branch and lifted it. It was a gold chain with a pendant, blackened from the heat of the fire. It looked familiar, but he couldn't place it. He put it in his pocket.
“Someone was celebrating the solstice.” Seph spun around to see Jason standing a few feet away. The moon was behind him, his face hidden, his shadow tall and angular as it stretched across the stone toward Seph. His gelled hair stood up a bit from his head like a crown. He looked like a shaman from an ancient tribe, in a leather jacket and blue jeans.
“Solstice?”
Jason nodded. “It's the best time to conjure old magic. Leicester'd better be careful or he might get burned.” Stooping, he picked up a piece of the wood from the fire and put it into his jacket pocket. “I'm surprised they didn't clean this up.”
He sat on one of the stone benches, his shadow compressing itself, and motioned for Seph to sit next to him. Warily, Seph complied.
Jason stared into the cold hearth for a long moment, a muscle working in his jaw. But when he began to speak, the words poured out in a rush, as if he had already made his decision, and just wanted to get it done.
“Look. I'm going to tell you some things. But you'd better know now that I'm dead if Leicester ever gets a whiff of this. God knows what he'll do to you. After what happened with Sam and Peter, I swore I'd work alone.” He paused again. “So what I'm saying is, if I help you, and Leicester twists your arm and you spill your guts, I'll kill you.” He opened his eyes and looked directly at Seph, and Seph believed Jason Haley when he said it.
“So the question is, are you strong enough to say no to him?” Jason's eyes were like bright blue crystals.
Seph nodded. He had already said no to Leicester, and he was paying for it, every night.
“Good,” Jason said. He sat thinking for a moment, as if he weren't sure how to begin. “How much do you know about the magical guilds?”
“A little. Nobody's trained me, if that's what you mean.”
Jason grinned. “Truly. I've seen your work. Nice job on the chemistry lab.”
“You said you had something to tell me.”
Jason's smile faded. “All right. Leicester is trying to get control of young, ignorant wizards like yourself.” Jason threw him a sideways look. “Wizards born into Anaweir families. Mostly he gets your common hoodlum. A lot are referred from the courts. The program up here works well for them. Leicester shows them a few of his nighttime videos, and they settle right down. So his success rate is very high.” Jason pushed himself up and off his stone seat, pacing back and forth in front of the dais. “But every so often he turns up a pearl in his oyster. That's you, Seph.”
Seph nodded toward the stone platform. “He brought me up here right after I came. I was the guest of honor at some kind of… of ritual.”
Jason rested his hand on the altar. “It's Old Magic. He wants you to link to him. You've seen the faculty and the alumni. All former students, all wizards, all under Leicester's control. I guess it's an easy sell for most of them. You're a teenager, you've been in trouble all your life, and he promises to make you 'one of the most powerful magical practitioners of the age.' I mean, why would you read the fine print?”
Jason had totally nailed Leicester's stuffy private-school British accent, and Seph couldn't help laughing. “What's he want with them?”
“I don't know, exactly,” Jason admitted. “But if you have even two or three wizards, you have an army. He trains some of them, anyway. That's what the library is for. All magic and poisons and incantations. Huge section on attack spells. Some of the alumni have spent years studying here. Leicester's in no hurry, because wizards live a long time. He hits pay dirt probably only once every two or three years. I came last year as a kind of bonus, but I haven't worked out very well. But, you—” Jason smiled crookedly. “Powerful as you are? He's never going to let you go.”
“What makes you think I'm powerful?” Seph was absurdly flattered.
“Trust me. That's why you've been having so much trouble. When you don't know how to use it or dissipate it, magic builds up and eventually explodes. It's like shaking a bottle of soda.”
“But what's he going to do with an army of wizards?” Seph persisted.
“Did you hear what happened at Raven's Ghyll?”
Raven's Ghyll. That girl Alicia had mentioned it at the warehouse. “Some kind of tournament?”
Jason settled back on the bench. "I hate to break this to you, but as a rule, wizards are nasty people. They're powerful, capricious, ruthless, egotistical, used to getting their own way. That's being kind. There are two great wizard Houses, the Red Rose and the White. They started fighting back during the War of the Roses, if you know your British history. After a couple centuries of bloodshed, they adopted a document called the Rules of Engagement. Without it, they might have wiped themselves out years ago.
"For hundreds of years, the only sanctioned fighting they've done is through the Game. Even in the tournaments, the fighting is done by warriors, not wizards. It's a fight to the death. They use medieval weapons, and it's all really structured under the rules. The winning house controls the Hoard: a crapload of property, magical artifacts, and like that. Still, there's a lot of unofficial bloodshed and intrigue that goes on behind the scenes. They call that wizard politics.
"There was this tournament at Raven's Ghyll last spring. An army of ghosts showed up, the players revolted, and the rules were changed. They established a sanctuary— in Ohio, of all places. Some little town called Trinity.
“Since then, the Roses have been conspiring, trying to figure out how to retain control of the Hoard and regain control of the other guilds.” He paused. “You know about the other guilds?”
Seph nodded. “Sorcerers, seers, warriors, and enchanters. I know a lot about sorcerers. Less about the others.”
“They've been dominated by wizards, because wizards can shape magic with charms. But they each have their own special talent. Sorcerers are good with materials, magical objects, potions, plants, and like that. Seers have the gift of prophecy. Warriors kick butt in a fight. Enchanters …” Here he smiled dreamily. “Enchanters have the gift of charisma. They cloud the mind and stimulate the—ah—senses.”
“Okay.” Seph had never heard the guilds described in just that way before.
“I've never met an enchanter,” Jason said, rather wistfully. "So. The Roses have established something called The Council of Wizards, supposedly to facilitate planning of the Interguild Council required by the new rules.
“There's also an underground interguild network led by someone called the Dragon. They've managed to keep the Roses occupied fighting among themselves. They intercept messages, plant false ones, blow things up. After the council refused to give up the Hoard, the Dragon's operatives began raiding weapons caches all over the world. When I get out, I'm joining up with him. Or her. I figure any enemy of Leicester is an ally of mine.”
“So is Leicester working for the Roses?” Seph asked. “I got the impression he's not.”
“Leicester's in league with another powerful wizard, name of D'Orsay, who is Gamemaster of the Council. They have meetings up here sometimes. They're planning something, and you know it has to involve the alumni. It may be the wizard wars, all over again.”
“How did you end up here?” Seph asked.
Jason hunched his shoulders and looked away. "I'm the product of a mixed marriage. My mother was a hedge wizard—an expert in spirituality and Old Magic. My father was Anaweir. He wasn't exactly okay with the occult, so she downplayed her gift. When I came along, she taught me some easy charms, how to use talismans, kids' stuff, mostly. It took me a long time to understand that the magic was in us and not in the tools and incantations.
“She died when I was thirteen. Really young for a wizard.” He seemed to be picking his way carefully. “Anyway, my father remarried, this time to an Anaweir woman. They were happy, but I was pissed off. My mom had dropped this big load on me and there was no one I could talk to, no one to teach me. I didn't get along with my stepmother.”