Chapter 19 - The Rumor

September 5

Amy walked in awkward silence with Max cradling her broken arm. The only noise being the shuffling of their feet as they followed the floating wisp of light to the infirmary. She didn’t like the look Max’s familiar Filomena was giving her. It was like a cross between suspicion and disappointment.

“I’m so sorry, Max. I didn’t mean to-”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Max said quietly, “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. Filomena, you don’t need to look so upset, this was partially my own fault for not listening to Coach Thickmist.”

“I suppose.”

Great. They had just started school, and she already had a princess mad at her. How did Max even manage to summon a princess as her first familiar? That shouldn’t be possible. She looked at her feet where Cinder was walking as though this were just where she happened to want to be. Sometimes Amy envied the aloof nature of the matrem.

The wisp of light made a sharp turn to the right and through a door with a shuttered window. On the glass was painted:

Infirmary

Knock on Glass for Care

Amy and Max looked at each other and shrugged, Max with only one shoulder because of her arm. When Amy knocked on the glass, they found themselves in a room with a bed with the whitest sheets she had ever seen. A woman in what should have been a hilariously outdated pink and white nurse’s outfit knocked and opened the door before anyone could say anything.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Maxine Oldstone. Who would have thought you’d be the first one to show up this year. And you managed to beat the pre-breakfast rush for dealing with scrapes, and bruises.”

“I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Oh, dear, where are my manners? I’m Healer. I heard about you from Groundskeeper during our biweekly poker game in the basement,” she paused and put a hand over her mouth, “Oh! But you didn’t hear about that from me, and what about you dear? Are you one of Maxine’s friends?”

“Yep,” Amy said without hesitation, “I’m Amy. We’re actually roommates, and, well, I accidentally broke her arm during training.”

Amy was confused about how this servitor spirit knew Max. Maybe her family was connected to the school? Most old mage families considered themselves above things like servitor spirits, though. She found herself wanting to know more about her new roommate.

“Ah, I imagine that Coach Thickmist let you so he could teach you a lesson, right?”

Amy nodded sheepishly.

“Don’t let that get you down. He’s a tough old goat, but between you, me, and the walls, he’s actually the best of the House Trainers. You’ll get pretty roughed up during the training, but once you’re out there in the wild facing down who knows what, you’ll be glad he’s as thorough as he is.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. Now let’s get that bone fixed up. Oh, you don’t need to stick around for this part, Amy. Folks tend to get a bit squiggy once I start working. Why don’t you head on back to your house and get started on breakfast. Your friend’ll join you soon enough.”

Amy was about to say she’d rather stay, when Healer pulled out a scalpel, a roll of bandages, and the largest needle Amy had ever seen.

“Yeah. I think you’re right. See ya, Max!”

She barely heard Max say goodbye as she closed the door. She was face to face with a woman who looked exactly like Healer except for her makeup and blue hanging earrings.

“Um, excuse me, could you point me back to Den House?”

The woman looked up from filling out some very complicated looking paperwork and gave her a kind smile, “Of course, dear.”

The woman did the same thing as Coach Thickmist and sure enough a wisp of blue tinged light floated above her palm.

“Just follow the light. Don’t get lost now.”

“Thank you!”

Amy waved back at the woman and ran off after the wisp, promising herself that she would learn that spell. After a while, she met up with a swarm of students going the other way in various levels of banged up. There was a mix from all four houses, and both grades. Some of the students were holding cloth bandages against cuts, while others were limping. Some of the older students seemed to be particularly worn out. Most of them were covered in grim looking scars.

Voices swirled around her from sources unknown, and she didn’t like the things they were saying.

“I heard that she’s taking advantage of the familiar contract to force her to sleep with her.”

“No way. That’s awful!”

“Why aren’t the teachers doing anything about it?”

“Maybe they don’t know.”

“We should tell someone.”

“I heard that her parents bribed the school board into allowing her to use the family familiar here instead of taking the exam.”

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“Come on. That can’t be true.”

“There’s no way they would allow that. It would ruin the school’s reputation.”

“Did you see the way the dean handled her father?”

“I heard he was trying to kidnap her familiar.”

“The familiar’s a princess?”

“Maybe she has some kind of underworld connections, and had her familiar kidnapped and forced into the contract.”

“That would be terrible.”

“How else do you get a familiar that looks like that before you even start school?”

Amy stopped as students passed on all sides of her. A princess? Are they talking about Filomena and Max? Surely these rumors weren’t all about…

“Hey,” she grabbed one of the kids that was trying to limp past her, “What is everyone talking about?” She didn’t like engaging with rumors but sometimes that was the fastest way to get to the bottom of things.

“I don’t know, I just want to go to the infirmary,” the kid with broken glasses pulled himself out of her grip and continued on before she could ask anything else.

Amy decided that she wouldn’t get any answers here, but maybe if she hurried back to Den House, she could find someone in the cafeteria. She continued her journey through the crowd like a salmon swimming upstream, carefully dodging this way and that. Barely managing to not step on toes or the odd familiar, and spinning around students who weren’t really watching where they were going.

Soon enough, she had got through them all, and was completely lost. The wisp was nowhere in sight, and when she turned around, the students were gone. She was in the middle of a four way crossroads that was completely empty, and none of the halls that stretched in every direction had any identifying features. Who had thought that was a good idea?

Cinder sat at her feet unconcerned by anything that was going on, and licking herself.

“Hey, Cinder,” she said in a sing-songy voice, leaning close to her furry black familiar.

“Am I to assume you want me to get you out of this mess?”

“Ah, c’mon. You don’t have to be like that!”

An otherworldly sigh came from the cat-like hollow.

“Follow me, human. I assume we’re still going back to the dwelling?”

“Yep!”

Another sigh, “There had better at least be something worth eating when we get there.”

Amy was glad that her familiar knew the way back, because she would never have guessed the path they took. She had found herself facing a dead end, with a window that looked down on the front of the grounds from at least five stories up, when the matrem had simply turned around and a door leading to the path to Den House was right there.

“How did you do that?”

“You’ll learn how soon enough. You need to get over your tendency toward linear thinking first. The halls here work like the Hollow Lands. Everything is connected and nothing leads where you think it will.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it for now.”

“Amy!” a dark haired girl with twin ponytails ran up to her as she entered the cafeteria.

“Oh, hi, Penelope.”

“Oh my gods, you will never guess what I just heard about that girl you hurt during morning training.”

“You mean Max?”

“Is that her name? She’s the one with the really pretty familiar right?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s Filomena. I don’t think she likes me much. Which I suppose is fair, since I broke Max’s arm.”

Amy let out a sigh. She wasn’t sure why it bothered her so much. Maybe because Filomena was so cool?

“Ugh, don’t worry about it. From what I’ve been hearing about her, that girl had it coming. Apparently, she’s been using the familiar contract to force her familiar to do unspeakable things.”

“Huh?”

“You know. In bed?”

“What? No! Max isn’t like that.”

“Have you seen the way she forces that poor familiar to dress?”

“She isn’t forcing her to do anything. Filomena is a femtagh. They’re used to the sub-zero temperatures of the frozen wastes, so everything here is unbearably hot. Who’s saying these things?”

“I don’t know. Everybody? So she’s not forcing her familiar to dress inappropriately?”

“No! I doubt anyone could make Filomena do something she didn’t want to.”

“Oh, so her familiar is the one making Max do-,” Penelope made an obscene gesture with her fingers.

“No! What? Stop saying things like that!”

“Hmmm. I don’t know. There is definitely something fishy going on between those two. Maybe you should distance yourself between-”

Amy turned and looked where Penelope had started staring. Max and Filomena walked in and suddenly the overlapping chatter of hundreds of students eating and talking stopped cold.

“Max!” Amy said, running up to her new friend, “did they get your arm fixed?”

“Yeah. It’s good as new,” Max waved it around in demonstration, “I’m glad I’m not going to have to go to class with a broken arm on my first day.”

“Was it really as bad as Healer said it would be?” Amy couldn’t help but be curious about what had happened.

Max’s face became instantly gray, “I’d really rather not talk about that.”

“Oh. Well, let’s get some breakfast,” Amy dragged her friend along by her newly unbroken arm to the line of students with trays.

“Wait, weren’t you talking to your friend?”

Amy turned and Penelope was mouthing something that she couldn’t catch.

“Nah, it’s fine.”

The two proceeded to grab a tray of breakfast that didn’t look half as good as it tasted. Amy wasn’t sure what exactly it was, some sort of casserole but breakfast? Maybe, but it did fill her up and she was grateful after the morning exercise. She made empty small talk with Max, making sure she didn’t hear any of the nasty things being said about her.

Amy was determined to get to the bottom of things, and whoever started these rumors had better watch out.