Bloodrage - Helen Harper Page 0,3

the trainers normally get their own rooms.” She wrinkled her nose for a moment. “It is a bit, er, stuffy though, isn’t it? Maybe we can get you some air freshener or something.”

I continued to stare at her. I seemed to have been beset upon by the human teenage equivalent of an over-enthusiastic Labrador.

Without appearing to even stop for breath, she continued. “So, did you meet with the Dean? He normally greets everyone when they arrive for the start of the academic year, but of course you’re a bit late for that. I’m sure you’ll catch up really quickly though, I’ve heard you’re, like, amaaaazing at Protection.”

I finally found my voice. “Um, yeah, I did meet with him. He wasn’t very friendly.”

“Ah, he’ll get over it.” She bounced down onto the bed. The mattress springs let out an alarming groan that she seemed not to notice. “Can you show me?”

“Show you what?” This girl was becoming more and more confusing by the second.

“The green fire thing that you do. I’ve never seen anyone with any colour other than blue. I’m not really much good at that myself. Illusion is, like, more my kind of thing, which is a bit boring really.” Mary looked at me expectantly with an eager glint in her eyes.

I tucked my hair behind my ears and regarded her steadily. “How do you know about that? And why are you being so friendly? Everyone else seems terrified of me.”

She laughed out loud. “Gosh, I’m so sorry, I should have explained properly. I have an older sister – Martha?”

Dawning realisation hit me. Martha was the mage who had come to pick up my theoretically comatose body in Inverness. Except it had been Mrs. Alcoon who was comatose, not me.

Mary carried on. “She says you met her and that you, like, saved her life. She’s a pain in the arse, really. I mean, I love her and all but she’s a bit full of herself sometimes, working for the gatekeepers and all. So it’s kind of cool that you managed to beat her in a fight. And, don’t tell her, but it’s also kind of cool that you rescued her. She asked me to make sure that you’re all right and don’t get bothered that much. She thought things might get kind of messy.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “Do you ever pause to take a breath?”

“Hahaha! You’re funny! Martha always says I talk too much.” She beamed at me happily.

“You said Martha’s a gatekeeper? What’s that?”

“Oh, they’re a bit like the police. They’re mages who excel at Protection,” she raised her eyebrows pointedly at me as she said this, “and who are recruited to keep the peace, watch out for rogue mages, deal with any incursions from other planes that we might be called upon to sort out. That kind of thing.”

Hmm. Well, Martha, who had unexpectedly – and rather pleasantly - become my apparent benefactress, might be a gatekeeper but Alex, the surfer dude mage who had helped me out in Cornwall, clearly hadn’t been. He had been terrified of any kind of fighting. So that would mean that with his skill at tracking he was probably into Divination. My ‘attitude’ had stopped the Dean from telling me more about the five disciplines, but this seemed like a good opportunity to find out more.

“So,” I said slowly, making sure I was getting this right, “Divination is about tracking things, then. With that blue light?”

“Yup. As well as a bit of fortune telling too and thought sensing for some mages.”

Right. So that would be what Mrs Alcoon had a small amount of skill in then. I definitely didn’t particularly like the idea of coming across any more talented mages who might be able to ‘sense’ what I was thinking, and made a mental note to find out later if there was a way to block my thoughts and maintain my privacy.

Mary continued, “Illusion speaks for itself really – we can make things appear differently to what they are. You know, so if, like, a great lumbering giant appears out of a portal, we can make him appear normal to the humans so they don’t freak out. Kinesis moves objects around. Some mages who are really good at it can send something from here to an address in Australia in almost the blink of an eye.”

“You mean like email?” I asked drily.

She gave a surprised giggle. “Yeah, I suppose a bit like email. And Evocation is the hardest one.