Conspiracies - Mercedes Lackey [87]
She glanced over at Addie. Addie could usually be counted on to rein Muirin in, but Addie was just sitting there with a little frown on her face, twisting her ring on her finger.
Burke—
For the first time since they’d sat down, she really looked at him. Burke looked completely exhausted. There were more bruises on him, and now that she was really paying attention, he had the expression of someone who was on his last legs, but couldn’t see an end to the tunnel. Despair, that was it. And as Muirin chattered on, he finally held up a hand and stopped her.
“I just spent the entire day either getting beat up, or trying to wrap my brain around stuff I am never in a million years going to get,” he said, his voice a little rough, like he was holding back his emotions. “Mostly beat up. Almost all my classes now are actually martial arts, and the ones that aren’t are things I am not good at. And you know what? I’m going to admit it. I’m beat. We got lucky before, when we didn’t know any better, and the people who called the Hunt thought there was no possible opposition. Now we know better, and they do, too, whoever they are, and I think I just realized I’ve hit the end and there’s no more rope.” He sighed—it was almost a moan—and rubbed his eyes. “I can’t do this anymore. I keep thinking about you guys getting hurt—or worse than that. I can’t. I’m not a superhero. There’s going to be trouble here, and I think we need to leave it to the people who are already trained to handle it.”
Spirit sat up in alarm. “You’re not going to tell Rider about the Wild Hunt!” she exclaimed. “You’re not going to tell him it was us who stopped them!”
“No. I’m just going to go to Doctor Ambrosius and tell him I want to leave Oakhurst. If he wants, he can send me wherever they sent the others. But I just can’t take any more of this.” He looked as if he was about to cry for a minute. “I’m—just a guy. Just a dumb jock with a little magic.…”
“I think we need to tell Doctor Ambrosius that it wasn’t just an accident that we stopped the Hunt,” Addie said firmly. “I think we should tell him about the files marked Tithed, about what we’ve seen written on the Oak, about what Elizabeth told Spirit. All of it. We’re just kids, this isn’t what we should be doing.”
“But Addie—” Spirit began.
“Enough, Spirit.” Addie’s expression hardened. “Look, I understand that figuring all this out is partly your way of handling that your family is gone. I get that. I get that since your magic hasn’t bubbled up yet, this is your way of feeling effective. But it’s gone way beyond what we can do now. We need to stop, let someone else take over, and do what they tell us to do.”
She looked around at the others; all of them were nodding, even Loch. Her heart sank. Could they be right? Could she be trying to keep them involved in solving the problem, rather than turning it over to more competent people, just because she couldn’t bear to come to terms with her family’s death?
I need to talk to Doc Mac, she thought—but then she’d have to tell him everything. Could she trust him? She tried to remember. Did he wear one of the pins with the black snake on it?
And did that black snake even mean anything? Was Muirin right about that, too?
“Look,” she said desperately. “There is something we need to keep looking at! They keep telling us we’re all Legacies here, right? No one just pulled in off the street to go to Oakhurst. One or both of our parents had to be Oakhurst grads, even though they never told us about it. Which could make sense since Oakhurst is kind of secret, and for all we know, the other kids’ parents told them, and ours were just keeping things back.”
Addie nodded, but there was a look of faint impatience on her face. “Yes. So?”
“And have you seen anyone around here who didn’t have magic?” Other than me.
They all shook their heads.
“I know for a fact my parents didn’t have a smidge of magic. And they weren’t hooked up like the Riders are.” She ran her hands through her hair nervously. “OK, maybe they chose to give up