Conspiracies - Mercedes Lackey [106]
Spirit might not have noticed before she’d gotten her series of fashion info-dumps from Muirin, but now … she tried not to frown as she cataloged Mandy’s outfit and realized that it could not have possibly been more precisely put together to appeal to the “old” Spirit. No-name, unpretentious sneakers, no-name jeans, a muted t-shirt with a worn Lord of the Rings eagle graphic in earth tones layered over a comfy sweater … Mandy was dressed exactly the way Spirit used to.
“Mostly I’m scared,” Spirit said hesitantly. “I mean, they keep telling me I have magic, but so far it’s not showing, and…” She shrugged. “I don’t know how to fight. That attack when we were out riding…” She teared up, and didn’t try to stop it. “People died. I was just lucky it wasn’t me.”
“Don’t worry about fighting. That’s what the meat-shields are for,” Mandy said with a little snort. “As for the magic, late-bloomers tend to get the more interesting Schools anyway. Early gets flashy; late gets the good stuff. Your peeps giving you a hard time for not having anything yet?”
“Yeah,” Spirit lied, to see what Mandy would say.
“Figures. Trust Fund set. Used to getting everything handed to ’em; you can bet they’re thinking once they’re graduated, you’ll make a great maid. They have to put up with you ’cause Oakhurst is all about making us equal, and probably you’ve got something they can use, but boy, does that ever change once you’re out.” Mandy leaned against the door frame and drank her tea. “Not like Mark. He made his own way and his own money. He’s one of us.”
I’ll just bet, Spirit thought.
“Have you thought about what you are going to do when you graduate?” Mandy continued.
“Don’t you mean, ‘if I get out of this alive’?” Spirit countered, allowing herself to sound bitter. “’Cause that isn’t looking good from where I sit.”
Mandy waved her hand carelessly. “Stick with my bunch when the fireworks start, they don’t dare let us die, we’re too important. No, seriously, you need to start thinking about things like that. You don’t want to end up in fast food. Breakthrough’s got scholarships for Oakhurst grads who don’t have Trusts to fall back on. Who else do you think would be willing to hire a Bachelor of Arts in—oh—Languages, Mythology, and Literature? At Breakthrough, we don’t call that degree ‘useless,’ we call that a researcher. Archaeology, oh man, you bet, there is an outstanding scholarship for anyone willing to go all the way to a Ph.D. in Archaeology. But, of course, anyone who got these scholarships would have to be a magician, and there aren’t a lot of those around.”
“Huh,” Spirit said. “I didn’t know…”
“Go ahead and use those so-called friends of yours, because God knows they’ll use you. But when Breakthrough comes through before graduation recruiting, sign up for the college sponsorship program. Hell, if your foreign languages are good enough, they’ll send you overseas to college. Always wanted to go overseas? Want to attend Oxford? Glasgow University? The Sorbonne? University of Vienna? Study in Rome?” Her eyes glittered behind her glasses. “They’ve sent people all over.”
It made Spirit a little sick and a lot angry to realize how much Breakthrough knew about her. They’d obviously picked out the right person with the right offer to tempt her. Before she’d come here she’d never been outside of Indiana—she would have killed for a full scholarship to study abroad. And when she’d first gotten here, it would have worked, too. But the more Mandy bad-mouthed her friends, the angrier Spirit got.
But she was smart enough not to show it. Instead, she nodded, and continued to look scared and timid, and finally Mandy seemed to think she’d done her job and let her go. Spirit wasn’t sure whether to head back to where she’d left the others, and hesitated just inside the door, trying to see if anyone was still there. It was pretty obvious from the body language in the room that the Gatekeepers were having the effect they wanted. Those who were