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By Root 275 0

the magic and the perks, like being in a witness protection program so they could just bail.” Like Burke wants to, she thought, and a shadow of guilt passed over Burke’s face, confirming her thought. “And maybe the kids that didn’t get Tithed to the Hunt but actually do leave are doing that. But we’re orphans, and underage, and we can’t just leave and get jobs or inherit anything without a guardian and not everybody has Trust Funds to do that. So our parents being Oakhurst grads and us not knowing that, and—well, everything—it only makes sense if there’s another Oakhurst somewhere. One where no one has magic, or at least, no one uses it, ever.” She turned to Muirin. “Remember what Madison Lane-Rider told you about magic not being the only way you get noticed? So if you wanted, you could get all hooked up and get rich and all that without having and using magic at this other place. But unless it exists none of this makes sense—”

“Spirit, you’re starting to sound like Elizabeth,” Burke said, quietly. “Come to the point, will you?”

Now even Burke …

“We need to find out if there are any kids here who aren’t Legacies. We need to find out if there’s anyone here who is not an orphan—”

Muirin raised her hand. “Duh. Me.”

“Your stepmother doesn’t count,” Addie and Loch chorused. They looked at each other. Loch shrugged. “She doesn’t,” Addie continued. “She doesn’t want you, she’s been trying to dump you anywhere but with her, and besides, she doesn’t control your money, your Trust does.”

“And the third thing is—” Spirit rubbed her aching temples. “We need to find out if any of the Alumns have kids, if the kids are magicians, and if so, why they aren’t here.”

“And what will all this prove?” Muirin demanded.

“If we find out that we’ve been lied to about any of that, which is, like, pretty basic and important—what else did they lie to us about?” Spirit replied, feeling a horrible headache coming on. “I mean look, maybe it means what happened to our parents wasn’t—”

“What? You’re trying to say that what happened to our parents was murder, is that it?” Addie said, her tone icy. “And then what? If we’ve been lied to, maybe it was Oakhurst that killed them, or someone inside Oakhurst? More Shadow Knights? More conspiracy?”

“And how would a few people do all that anyway?” Loch added. “Because it couldn’t be more than a few, or someone would talk. Cops were investigating the hotel fire—don’t you think they’d have noticed arson? And how would you control a fire so it didn’t kill me, too?” Now he was twisting his ring, and shrugged. “Spirit, you have got to get a grip. If all our parents were killed by magic, there would be some trace of it. Face it, what we do isn’t exactly subtle, people would see things. If it was done by some other means, there would be evidence.”

But you didn’t see what I saw, she thought, starting to shiver.

“You’re confusing cause and effect,” Burke said, wearily, but in a tone that still sounded patronizing. “Or something like that. Most people our age have parents that are alive. People our parents’ ages generally don’t die, and when they do, it’s going to be something unusual. We’re just the ones in the minority who lost our parents, so of course how we lost them is unusual. So we’re orphans and we have magic, and our parents went to school here, so this is where we got sent by their wills. It’s no different than if we were all Native American and we got sent back to the rez when we were orphaned, even though we didn’t know we were Native American because our folks kept it secret from us.”

“Parents do that, Spirit, keep secrets from you,” Loch told her. “I don’t care how wonderful you thought they were, or how open, I know for a fact they were keeping secrets from you. The proof is that they never told you about Oakhurst. They might have been doing so because they were trying to protect you, or because they were ashamed of not having magic or ashamed that they did, or a million other reasons.”

“I’ll say it again, Spirit. Get a grip. It’s all coincidence.” Burke rubbed his head. “Seriously. Keep this up