Schoolbooks & Sorcery by Michael M. Jones

Author:Michael M. Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riverdale Avenue Books
Published: 2021-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

After dinner, I went back to my room, hoping Kari would be elsewhere so I could focus on homework, of which I had a ton. But she was there, and so was mud-footed Bram. Kari parted the curtains around the upper bed and announced, “Bram’s spending the night. We’d like you to go somewhere else.”

I turned and grabbed the doorknob again. “I’m going to the dorm mother.” It was totally against the rules for boyfriends or girlfriends to spend the night, and also to kick your roommate out of her own room.

Bram pushed the curtain back farther, laughed like a donkey braying, and said, “No, you’re not.” A spell spilled out of him, singsong words, but mostly hand movements. Sticky white strands flowed from his hands and wrapped around me, all of me but my nose and eyes, until pretty soon I was in a cocoon, barely breathing, stuck to the floor.

Bram snapped his fingers and the last strand cut off and wrapped itself around me. “Change of plans, babe. She can stay. She won’t be making any trouble. Or if she does, you know about my stinger.”

Kari giggled.

I had warded myself, of course I had, but this stuff just wrapped right around my wards and everything else I had on me, clothes and backpack. My spine hurt from the kink in it of lying half on my pack and half on the floor, and the silk that filled my mouth tasted like moldy bread. I was so mad my eyes leaked tears, and a sun ignited in my chest. My hands were wrapped tight against my hips. I tried wiggling my fingers, to see if I could cast anything, but no luck. I had no magic skills I could use without words or hands.

I wanted to kill Bram, spray him with human bug spray. And strangle Kari. Or pour a vial of patchouli smoke down her throat and drown her in it.

Nothing I could do but lie there and seethe, planning different ways to kill my roommate and her boyfriend. It looked like a long, disgusting, uncomfortable night. Or longer? Depending on how long these bonds lasted, I could be there a while.

Five minutes later, someone pounded on the door. “What’s going on in there?” asked the dorm mother, Agree Solitude, a wiry, wizened practitioner of knot magic, one of the more powerful wizards on the staff. She was usually grumpy, and she sounded severely pissed off now.

“Nothing,” said Kari.

“I have a report to the contrary. Open this door, or I’ll open it for you, and there will be consequences,” said Agree.

Bram jumped down from the upper bunk and went out the window, never mind it was on the second floor. Kari sighed, climbed down, and opened the door.

“Karina Megaera Sullivan, what have you done to your roommate?” Agree yelled. She pushed Kari into the room and came in to stare down at me. She worked her fingers against each other and threw the resulting red ectoplasmic lash at Kari.

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