Page 27 of Lucent Academy 2: Trinity Awakens
"If it makes you that uncomfortable, I wouldn't blame you if you can't be my instructor anymore. If you truly think I'm that horrible of a person, then maybe you shouldn't be."
I turned and left him standing alone in the hallway. What hurt the most was that he didn't try to stop me with an apology or further explanation.
He just let me go.
After lunch, when I didn't see Cleopatra in the dining hall, I made my excuses to Amber and Oliver, determined to trackher down and apologize. I hated the feeling that I had been inadvertently mean to someone, that I had hurt her feelings in some way.
After traipsing through the entire castle, almost, and asking loads of people whom I've never spoken to before if they've seen her, I finally found Cleopatra sitting alone at a desk in the West Wing Library with books folded open all around her. She looked very busy as she sat there, poring over all those books.
I walked up to her. "May I sit down?"
She glanced up and shrugged. "Do as you please, I can't stop you."
There wasn't a chair at the same table, so I brought one over. It scraped across the floor with a high-pitched squeal, and when I put it in front of the desk, she was looking at me, rather annoyed.
"Are you quite done making a racket? This is a library, you know."
I sat down, then took something out of my pocket and put it in front of her. Cleopatra stared down at the folded paper frog as if it were going to bite.
"What is it?"
"It's a frog. My mother taught me to make them. When my brothers and I fight, we're supposed to make one for each other. So I made one for you. Because earlier, I was a big jerk to you, and I didn't mean to be. I'm sorry."
She shrugged, "What do you mean?"
I sighed. This was more difficult than I had anticipated. "When I said you should be cheering for me, it's only because you are so obviously talented and everything that the thought of youcheering me on was supposed to be the joke. I was just trying to be funny, to lighten the mood. I'm starting to think I'm not funny at all and should stop making jokes."
"You're right, you should stop, because you're not." But her mouth pulled into a crooked grin as she regarded me. I grinned back at her, and it was okay between us.
She picked up the frog and studied it before looking at me. "I don't always pick up on subtle social cues, you know. I think it's because I've had so little practice."
I nodded, "That's the thing, though. I suck at it, too, and I've had loads of practice. I'm just awkward and put my foot in my mouth sometimes."
Now, she really did smile. "Well, I accept your apology frog, but I do have some studying left to do."
I understood that she wanted to be left alone again, so I got up. "Alright. See you later, I suppose. But if you ever feel like practicing your social graces on a few easygoing, unjudgmental people, you can always join our table in the dining hall. Amber, Oliver, and I are easy to practice on, I promise."
She nodded. "I'll think about it."
I left the West Wing Library feeling light and happy.
Chapter 15: The Last Demonstration
The moments blended into each other as days turned into weeks. Nothing of great importance happened, but I failed time and again to create even the smallest flame during my magical classes. Principal Lucius appeared once or twice in our classes and even tried to give me some sort of reassurance that the first demonstration hadn't been as bad as I thought it had been. I was sure he was trying to be nice. I had stumped all of them. Again. Now they didn't know quite what to make of me.
Every time I tried to cast the spell, I failed to clear my mind, and the thoughts that intruded during those sessions were all the same: the shock and horror on everyone's faces during my last demonstration. Trina's face as she had called me an abomination. The image of her whispering fearfully with another staff member about me. With these images in my mind, it was no wonder I had difficulty casting the spell. It certainly didn't help matters that I could feel Crystalline, the Ice Phoenix, watching me carefully during the magical lessons, just in case I exploded again.
In the meantime, Vaerath tried to comfort me, to lend me his support, but asking him how he managed fire magic was like asking anyone else how they managed to breathe. It came naturally to him; he just did it. Time and again, I was left feeling helpless and embarrassed after these sessions. Since I couldn't maintain our connection for very long, there was little Vaerath could do after each failed attempt. A few words of encouragement before he disappeared didn't come close to making me feel less like a failure.
By now, all the other students were practicing their final spell for the end-of-year demonstrations. And there I was, unable to perform any magic at all aside from summoning Vaerath. I had expected the Principal to move me to another class since I wasn't performing up to expectations. But he never did. After each sad class, he just dismissed everyone, including me. I would have given anything to know what he was thinking, but I understood. He had a whole Academy to run and couldn't just focus on me and my troubles. Still, his silence was as damning as a reprimand would have been. Or so it seemed to me.
After our talk, things were awkward between Caleb and me. A few times, Amber and Oliver asked what was going on, but I rejected their attempts to talk about it. At least Caleb hadn't asked for someone else to be my mentor instead. Then again, perhaps he had asked and had been either denied or reprimanded by the Principal. I had no way of knowing, and was afraid to ask, to open up a Pandora's box of awkward conversation between us. I had no desire to fight with him.
Caleb was unbearably formal, even aloof now, and I missed the easygoing nature of that first week's lessons. Every evening in the dining hall, he still sat next to Trina but didn't seem to engage in her conversations. That was something, at least. I tried not to feel betrayed. He had been her friend for a very long time. If anything, he had made it clear that we were not friends. He was just my instructor, nothing more. I shouldn't have been surprised that his loyalty lay with the person he had known the longest, unpleasant as she may be. It just stung, that's all, and my own hurt feelings made it difficult to regard the situation with indifference.
The other students seemed to have lost interest in me again, to have written off the near-disastrous incident as a fluke, aonce-off thing. Now that I was turning out to be less-than-remarkable, pathetic even, they didn't seem to think I was intent on destroying the world. I tried to see that as the silver lining.
Spellcasting wasn't the only class we attended, and if it weren't for the success I found in our other classes, I would have really felt lost. My favorite of these, and by far the most interesting, was Religious Studies with Miss Jenny. She was passionate about the gods and their role in all the realms, and it was immensely interesting.
