Chapter 2

= = =

When I told Kate that I was willing to give the school a try, she was stunned. She obviously expected more of a fight from me.

The previous school I went to was ultra-traditional - they catered to kids of well-to-do families who expected to sit behind guards and warded walls and be waited on by servants. They had uniforms, and morning assembly. They had classes on Art Appreciation and Social Studies, even Ballroom Dancing as an option, for crying out loud. Some subjects, like Arcane Magic and Herbalism, I could get into, but nobody seemed to care if I did well or not. Chemistry, which I REALLY liked, was so dumbed down I could just gag. I mean, what good is it when you're not even allowed to blow things up?

Seven Stars had a much more practical approach to education. If it helped you survive, then it was important. Knowing which fork to use for the fish course? Not so much.

So I told Kate that Seven Stars seemed to want to teach me things I wanted to learn and, the best part, their students were pretty weird themselves, so among them, I could almost feel normal. She looked relieved, and even agreed to let me board over, since it's a two hour trip to and from the keep and I can't see me getting a car any time soon.

"Might as well," Kate sighed, "When you ran away from your other school, I had to send people out four days in a row to look for you. Here, you run off and I don't see you in 24 hours, I'll be pretty certain you're dead already." Yep, Kate Daniels, mother of the year.

Since the school pretty much jibed with Kate's idea of an education, I was up to strength on most of the subjects. Her freakish knowledge of ancient histories, cultures and languages gave me a leg up in all those subjects and, since she made a living killing things, I was pretty good at weapons too.

The one exception was algebra. I mean I had enough maths to know that a dozen dead bodies meant I needed 12 body bags, but who cares how many pies you need if you had to feed 20 people? Where I come from, it could be 10 or 100, they'd all be eaten. As far as I know, neither Kate nor Curran gave a hoot about algebra, but Kate had told me she wanted to learn everything so I'm trying my best.

Still, I was not in a good mood after fifth period.

"The answer is five," insisted Ashlyn. The same Ashlyn who, in the last test, got a whole 17 as her score.

"Seven." I said.

"F-five." She looked behind me, "Brook, can you please tell her."

"What's the deal?" Brook asked.

"It's just that Python's Theorem…"

"Pythagoras's." Ashlyin corrected. "The answer is five…"

"No, it's the square root, so can you get rid of the squares, 3 plus 4 is… seven!"

"Err, Ashlyn's right, it's five." Brook said, "You have to watch the Precedents. You have to do the Squares first, before you…"

I held up a hand, "Stop, stop. My head's exploding! I can't take this… It doesn't make any sense! It's like they deliberately make up rules to complicate everything!"

"Don't worry, we can go over all this at study period," Brook consoled me, "there's a couple of credits for tutoring."

"Of course," I sighed. Brook is constantly aiming for a 4.5 GPA.

"I know what will make you feel better," Sheila joined us, "will you spar with me at gym?" After a pause, she continued, "Your Mom's a merc, right? I want to join the Red Guard when I graduate." As security goes, the Red Guard is the elite of the elite, and only the best can work for them. Kate had nothing but good things to say about their skills.

"Sure…" I nodded.

"OK, meet you there…" Sheila said, then with a glance behind me, they all took off down the corridor.

"Hey, where are you all going? Wait..."

"Hmm, Julie Olsen, I would wish to speak with you." I turned and a white flower was bobbing about head height. On the petal, a single eye stared at me. Yu Fong.

"What do you want?"

"I would like to speak with you…"

"You said that already, so speak."

"It's a matter of delicacy, to be discussed face to face, as it were…"

"I have gym in ten minutes."

"Excellent, I shall be at the maze." The flower said and drifted away. I considered planting my throwing knife in the thing but it wasn't worth the cleaning afterward.

The school is a gigantic four story square, made up of four wings, and an open garden area in the middle. The gym takes up the width of one wing and, facing it was the Maze, so called because hedges formed an intricate pattern around a solitary apple tree. The maze was also protected by a powerful ward that punished intruders with something close to annihilation.

Yu Fong was sitting on one of the stone benches just outside the maze. Out here in the sunlight, his skin, which was perfect before, took on an ethereal quality and I almost tripped when he moved and a ray of sunlight caught his hair.

"Julie Olsen…" He turned his soft brown eyes on me. So warm, so deep...

"What…?" I snarled. Snarling is good when you feel like falling down and groveling. Snarl good, grovel bad.

"Julie Olsen, you have marked me."

"What?"

"You have left an indelible mark upon my person."

"What? Huh?" I'd really mastered this witty comeback thing.

"At lunch, after I removed the 'Heavenly Blossom of a Hundred Days' scent, I discovered the I have now acquired a likeness of you."

"What do you mean? A likeness of me?"

"It's the essential-ness of your being. And it's part of me now!"

"Essential-ness? Is that a word?"

"Ahh," he threw his hands up, "The English language is so limited! Your… zhen di - your, ah… aura!"

"Oh… My aura." I looked at him, "I needed to get the scent to go back to you! So I made you 'smell' like me, only stronger…"

"You can do that?"

"I guess…"

"You can remove it, can't you?"

"I guess…" Please. Somebody get me out of repeat mode!

"Now…?"

"I… can try… Just sit there and let me think." I concentrated and I could see my blueness interwoven within his human strands. They were also a lot finer than when I put them on him. And there's a lot more of them too. "It's really worked its way in you! It wasn't like that before."

"After I absorbed the scent, I may have tried to absorb your aura too."

Somehow that thought really bothered me. Quickly I held a hand over Yu, urged one of my threads out and it disappeared into my finger. One down, a million to go. "Yeah, I can do it. But you've got it so mashed up it's gonna take a while."

"No problem, I brought a book." He sat back and started reading.

"But I'll be late for P.E."

"If it takes that long, you will finish it later." He replied nonchalantly.

"Why did you send me the flower? And the perfume?" I asked.

"It was intended as a gift to welcome you to the school. And I've been given to understand that perfume is a suitable gift for girls." He frowned, "Did that displease you? Have I been misinformed?"

"The information is not wrong. But," I looked at him, "you know I make my home with a thousand shapeshifters, right? The same shapeshifters whose sense of smell is a hundred times better than ours. So, ask yourself this, how do you think a perfume that sticks around for a hundred days would do to them?"

"Ahhh, I see… I may have been too rash, perhaps..." He paused, "In my youth, some may have judged me impetuous."

"In your youth?" I laughed, "You're still a youth, and still impetuous."

"It may be that you are right, Julie Olsen…" He sighed, "I had not thought beyond the fact that a present from me would bring you happiness."

"I appreciate the thought, really. So thank you, Yu." I said, "But as Kate, my mother, has always said, 'Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.' "

"Yes… that bears some deliberation…" He turned away and returned his attention to his book.

"What's with the book?" I asked, "I see you reading it all the time."

"I'm not reading it... I'm writing in it."

"Really? Where's your pen?"

He sighed, held it up to me and, amazingly, as I stared at it, words were appearing on the blank page.

"That's is so frikking awesome!" I said, "What language is it? Wait -" Hmmm, block characters, not runic, nor anything recognisable, lemme think "- It's Chinese!"

"Of course, I'm translating an older text into modern Chinese for Gendun."

"What original? I don't see anything here."

"I have it in memory. It doesn't exist anymore - but I had managed to look at a few volumes."

"What happened to the rest?"

"I do not know - I was not able to read beyond the first part."

"What happened?"

"I... I was taken away... imprisoned."

"Why? For what?"

"For destroying the book."

"Wha..?" I sputtered, "You read it, and then destroyed it?"

"Yes." He nodded sadly.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"Perhaps another time, the story is quite lengthy. You have to meet your friends in class now." He gestured towards Brook and Barka who were walking towards us.

"OK, yeah, right, you'll tell me after?"

"We shall continue here, and you can finish removing your aura as well."

"We've got a deal!"

= = =

"What WERE you doing?" Whispered Brook, "You picking lint off him?" I suppose it could look like that, me pawing at imaginary noodles in the air.

"Cooties." I said. That got a snicker, which stopped when Yu looked up.

"You told him he has cooties? You must want to die young! Although," Barka grinned, "I once saw a video of baboons grooming each other, and you looked like you were doing that… Do you eat the nits too?" He led the way back, still giggling.

"Hey, Barka, eat this!" I threw a silver sphere at him and it fanned open, sending sparks all over him.

"Ow, ow, dammit, ow, it hurts!"

"Be careful who you insult!"

"Geez, remind me never to show you a trick!" He paused, "Oh, wait, you shouldn't be able to do that!"

"Sometimes, if I get irritated enough, I can do it more than once." I smiled. There, let him worry about that!

"No, I mean the magic is down, there's nothing..." He held up a hand - a mere flicker manifested itself, "nothing!"

"Ahh, just a fluke..." I said, "residual stuff... from hanging around gods." I frowned and shook my head, trying to remember something that Yu had said...

"Oh and Sheila says she'll be at the range while tech is up."

"Great, I'll meet her there then."

"We'll meet you back here after."