“Yet,” I corrected her as I walked back into the kitchen. “And Nathaniel can’t do it at all. He’s tried. Borden doesn’t even know alchemy exists.”
Mary-Beth raises an eyebrow at that, a smirk on her lips.
“Guess the secret’s out,” I said. “I trust you more than I trust him.”
She smiled and I appreciated that she didn’t try to lecture me with some speech about growing up.
“So, what’s the plan once you figure out how to make it permanent?” Mary-Beth asked as she looked down at the gold in her hands. “Because once you do, you’ll suddenly be exceptionally wealthy.”
I leaned against the counter, looking around the destroyed house. “I’ve never really cared about being rich. I mean, we never had much growing up, though we always had enough for our needs. I’ve just kind of always associated being rich with being an asshole.”
“Hey, now,” Mary-Beth said.
I laughed. “Until you came along.” She smiled and all was well again. “So, having a lot of money never equated to happiness for me. But…having some would make things easier.”
I turned and looked out at the ocean through the cracked window. “I’d like to be able to buy a house for me and Nathaniel. Have enough money that we didn’t have to work outside jobs. So, we could just work on magic. Resurrecting it all, it’s going to take time. Our entire lives. I don’t think we’re going to have time for everyone’s regular version of normal.”
Mary-Beth looked around the house. “You should buy this place,” she said simply.
I looked over my shoulder at her. “What?”
She shrugged. “You already love this place. It’s private. Big enough that we could all live here and not bother each other.”
“We’re all going to be roommates now?” I asked, laughing at the idea, even as I pictured it.
“Why not?” she asked. “We all get along, for the most part. Resurrecting magic will happen a lot quicker with us all working toward the common goal. It would be like…a boarding school.”
A school.
We’d talked about a school. How one day it would be needed.
I turned back around and walked into the living room.
This place really was massive.
“It would totally work as a school,” Mary-Beth said as she followed me in, looking around.
“It really would,” I said, an excited smile pulling in one corner of my mouth. “A home, and a school.”
And instantly, I was having all kinds of ideas, making all kinds of plans for the future.
Chapter Ten
I walked through the doors of Alderidge on Monday, and shouting and cheering floated all the way down the hall from the common room. Being human, curiosity got the best of me, and I followed the noise.
A thick ring of students was circled up around the center of the common room. I pushed my way through, getting closer and closer to the scuffle happening in the middle.
I stepped into view just as David pulled back his fist and connected it with Borden’s jaw.
He spun hard to the side, falling to his hands and knees. I couldn’t see where it was coming from, but I watched as blood dripped onto the tile floor beneath him.
David, flanked by Gerald and James, took another step forward. But Borden spun around, fists swinging.
He caught David square in the face, and he went careening back onto the tile, his head hitting it hard as he fell back.
James and Gerald didn’t hesitate. They launched themselves onto Borden.
There was blood all over the place. Streaking the floor, on their faces, fists, their clothes. It was getting worse by the minute.
I focused on one particular puddle of blood on the floor. While everyone else was watching the fight, I asked the blood to move beneath James’ right foot. I brought another beneath Gerald.
Like a perfectly orchestrated dance, they both slipped, falling forward, and smacking their heads together like it was an old cartoon.
“Borden!” a voice boomed, and I found myself more than a little shocked when it was Nathaniel who broke through the crowd and grabbed him before he could lay into anyone again. “It’s over. It’s over. Let’s go.”
“It’s not over,” Borden said, and his voice shook with untamed rage. “Not this time.”
David propped himself up on an elbow, glaring death at Borden, his former right-hand man, as he ran a thumb over his bleeding lip.
“Come on,” Nathaniel said as he pulled and shoved Borden away from the crowd. The bell rang and knowing they had somewhere else to be and seeing that the fight between Society Boys was over, the crowd broke off.
I sighed, because I knew that all I could do was go with Borden and Nathaniel.
Borden was shaking with rage. I’d never seen him so angry. His bloodied hands were still curled into fists and he looked like he would snap if Nathaniel breathed wrong. His eyes were dark and dangerous, his lips set in a thin line. The breath heaved in and out through his flared nostrils.
Nathaniel peeked into a classroom and when he deemed it empty, he opened the door and shoved Borden inside.
“What happened?” Nathaniel demanded after backing Borden into a wall.
He took four deep breaths again, harsh and wild. He ran his hands through his hair, and I realized his hands were shaking.
“I got a letter from the Dean this morning, delivered right to my dorm,” Borden said. “I’ve been expelled.”
“What?” I said, folding my arms over my chest, my eyes widening. “On what grounds?”
“Cheating and falsifying grades,” Borden glowered. “My economics professor is claiming he saw me cheating off Howard Starrling on the last test. Which I didn’t do great on because I’ve been working on mage stuff. Yet they still think I cheated off Howard. And then my professor says I went and changed my overall grade from a C to an A.”
“Do they have any evidence?” Nathaniel asked, his voice calm and even.
“Of course not,” Borden scoffed. “But this is all backed by the Society Boys and I no longer have my father’s support. They’re framing me. And now I’ve been kicked out of school? I’m supposed to move out of my dorm in a week, because it’s designated for students only.”
I’d been hard on Borden before. But things were different now. I was watching his entire life fall apart.
I hadn’t had to sacrifice anything yet. But Borden was losing everything.
His family. His social circles. His school. His reputation.
It was all disappearing. Because he was committed to doing this. To learning magic. To bringing back a race of people who had been hunted into extinction.
“You can stay with me,” I said around a dry, thick throat. “We have an extra bedroom at my house that’s just being used for storage. We can clear it out and you can stay there. I don’t think Dad will mind.”
Borden stared at me, still breathing ragged and hard. He stood there with his hands on his hips, and suddenly, I saw him different. As someone who was vulnerable. Simply human. Subject to faults and mistakes, someone who could be torn down in days or minutes.
“I can find my own place, Margot,” Borden said, looking away. “But thank you. I appreciate it.”