Raven and the Dancing Tiger (13 page)

Cai shivered and cawed unhappily, dizzy and disoriented from the nightmare.

Peter wrapped a blanket tightly over his shoulders, then did a patrol of his darkened apartment with Cai, assuring both of them that they were still alone, that they were safe, hidden, and home.

Then Peter sat down on the floor in the living room, in the stillness of the night, and began to practice again. He carefully gathered Cai closer to him, then he raised the raven warrior's traditional black glass armor under his skin. He started going through his drills, imagining how all attacks just slid off and away, both off his body and his mind.

He kept Cai safely next to him, secure behind the glass, not cut off from him by it.

He'd never let it grow too thick, or cut him off from Cai again.

Petie heard the other students in the hallway. He knew he should get up. But he didn't want to leave the warm cavern of his bed.

Cai stayed with his head firmly tucked under his wing, in no mood to get up either.

The morning bells rang again.

Petie had to get up soon or he'd miss breakfast, and that was too awful to contemplate. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw a folded piece of paper on the floor, next to the door.

Why couldn't he have some kind of cool magic, like the Force, and just be able to hold his hand out and have the paper come to him? No, he had to have some stupid sensitivity to magic, nothing more.

Petie closed his eyes and burrowed further under his blankets. Today was Saturday. Last day of classes for the week. Sunday was some kind of ceremony at the church, mostly a day for goofing off, and then only one more week before Mom and Dad picked him up.

Seven more days.

Petie missed his home, his bedroom, his games, his friends. He only had one friend here; the other kids were older or too different. He missed Mom and Dad, too, but Cai made things bearable.

With a sigh, Petie poked his head out and looked at the paper again. He held his hand out, just in case the prefect had been wrong, and raven warriors did have that kind of magic.

The paper didn't budge.

Petie poked at Cai, who grumbled at him. Cai wanted to go back to sleep even more than Petie did.

Still, Cai begrudgingly peeked around the room.

There was magic in his room. Petie had meant to check before, but he'd forgotten until now.

He sat up in surprise. The door to the hallway had some kind of magic around it. So did the balcony door. He wasn't sure what the magic was exactly, but it felt like some kind of barrier, or protection.

The cold floor on Petie's bare feet made Cai push forward more. Petie's skin prickled up, folded away, and the cold suddenly no longer bothered him as much. He hobbled to the door on partial bird feet, running-feather tipped fingers around it.

It wasn't a charm. It didn't look anything like what Prefect Aaron had shown them. Instead, there was a thin residue that ran all along the doorway, like someone had painted a line of sticky tape that his feather-fingers couldn't feel but still kept catching on.

The same thing circled the balcony door. What were those lines? How had they been made? Could he learn to make them, too?

Petie studied the lines around the balcony door in earnest, but it felt like trying to read a book written in a language he didn't know. He didn't know what he was looking at, or how to interact with it, or even jump-start it.

Cai resisted turning away. The day looked sunny and bright, with blue sky all the way to the horizon.

Later
, Petie promised.
After lunch.
He really shouldn't be looking at these things around the doors anyway: They didn't have a lot of time.

Abruptly, Cai pulled back.

The cold of the room slammed into Petie. His feet felt like ice, and he was shivering.

Petie hurried to the door, scooped up his schedule, then hurried back to the bed, sticking his freezing feet into the warm tunnel of blankets,
scooching
back down himself.

Ugh. Three hours of warrior training that morning? Were they trying to kill him? But at least he had a matching three-hour block for charms. Maybe he did have potential, more than just a sensitivity.

Petie looked back at the door. That tape, that protection—it was something. He pulled down his flannel PJ bottoms over the bottoms of his bare feet, barely keeping them up around his slim hips, then walked across the cold tile floor.

With his regular sight, Petie couldn't see anything, couldn't feel anything when he ran his fingers along the edge of the door.

Petie rubbed his hands together, warming his palms, then he splayed his fingers out along the edges of the door and
pushed
, with his mind and his body, trying to get the line to react, as the prefect had shown them, when constructing a charm.

Nothing happened.

Petie remembered the calming meditation Prefect Becker had taught them the day before. Prefect Aaron had said it was the basis of the calming spell all raven warriors could learn. Petie recited that, stroking where he thought the line was, trying to bring it to life.

Still nothing.

As Petie rubbed his hands together again, warming them for another go, someone knocked loudly on the door.

Startled, Petie jumped back.

"Breakfast is in five minutes. Get a move on."

Just the hall monitor, making sure Petie was up. He shook his head and took a deep breath. Both of them had been startled, and Cai had come forward immediately to protect them. Petie looked at the now-colorless door.

Maybe the strip was a little brighter than before….

"You up in there?" the hall monitor called.

"Yes!" Petie croaked. He cleared his throat, pushing back at Cai. "Yes! I'm up!" And he'd better get moving if he wanted breakfast. He'd come back and play with the door later.

Blue sky
, Cai complained.

Petie nodded.
Blue sky
, he promised again.

He couldn't break his promises to Cai.

* * *

Petie dropped his lunch tray next to Jesse's, then slumped into his chair. He didn't care if the seat was hard. Even sitting on the softest pillows in the world wouldn't make him feel better.

"They made me do three hours of recitations this morning," Jesse grumbled. "My aching hand!"

"I got bruises
and
aches," Petie told him. "Three hours of raven warrior training."

He reached for his glass of milk, then picked it up with both hands when he realized he was still shaking with exhaustion.

After training, he'd gone back to his room to change. Cai had asked about flying, but not insisted—they were both too tired. Still, Petie had opened the balcony door and let Cai come forward. They'd hopped up onto the railing, tucked their head under their wing, and snoozed in the warm sunlight, but not for long enough.

"That why you
eatin
' so late?" Jesse asked.

Petie nodded, shoveling cheesy potatoes in as fast as he could chew and swallow. "Changed my lunch time. Just for today."

Since classes were frequently different, students always had the same meal times. The prefects told them to make friends and talk while they ate, though frequently all Petie wanted to do was finish his meal, then go back to his room and collapse.

"Hey, isn't that your friend?" Jesse asked, bumping his elbow into Petie's, making him drop his fork or risk smearing potatoes over his cheek.

"Who?" Petie asked, scowling.

Jesse pointed to another table with his chin.

The two troublemakers had set their trays down at a table where one of the girls,
Tisha
, sat all alone. She was a tiny girl with long blond braids, big colorless eyes, and who wore clothes that looked like Jesse's—all hand-me-downs, nothing new.

She didn't look comfortable at all.

"We should go help her," Petie said.

Cai wanted Petie to keep eating.

"No," Jesse said, putting his hand on Petie's arm. "No fighting," he replied to Petie's glare. "You know why there are, like, ten times more boy raven warriors than girls, right?" Jesse asked, turning back to his food.

"No, why?" Petie asked, curious. He'd thought no one in the raven clan knew why.

"Because women are already fierce. They don't need no ravens to help them fight."

"What?" Petie asked, disappointed that Jesse didn't have a real idea.

Tisha
picked up her tray and slammed it down on the table. All the talk in the cafeteria died out.

"No one cares what you think,"
Tisha
said distinctly. "I've been coming here longer than you have. I've seen bullies before. One day they're here, and the next, they're gone."

Chris sat back casually in his chair. He couldn't have looked more bored. But the fingers of his right hand fluttered, thrumming like the wing of a frightened bird. "Is that a threat?" he finally asked, not even bothering to glance at her.

"Nope,"
Tisha
said, standing and picking up her tray. "Just a reminder about lost boys." She turned and left.

Thomas leaned across the table, whispering fiercely to Chris. Gradually, the other kids turned away.

Petie turned back to his food. "Lost boys?" he asked.

"No idea," Jesse said quickly.

Too quickly. Jesse knew something about them.

And Petie was determined to find out.

* * *

Petie wanted Cai to look around the Charms Room when they first got there, but Prefect Aaron was waiting for them, calling them all up to the front desk.

Only eight students were there: the one lisping girl, the other boys who the prefect had said were sensitive from Petie's first charms class, and a few other boys who Petie didn't know.

The sun reflected off the cliff rock wall outside the windows. Petie found his gaze sliding off them and wondered what sorts of charms hung there. He looked at the books that lined the walls, floor to ceiling, paying attention to the shelves he couldn't really look at or focus on. There were only a couple of them, and they were high up, out of easy reach. What was on them? What types of books were those, hidden in plain view?

On the table in front of the prefect lay an odd assortment of items: an oblong hunk of black glass with smooth edges, a silvery marble with a cat's-eye twisting inside it, a wooden coin with raised blue letters in a language that looked more like drawings than letters, a tan-and-white agate, some brightly colored pebbles, and three symmetrical squares of clear etched glass.

Petie found his gaze going back to the black glass. It wasn't like the charm that had made his head hurt; this filled him with longing and hope.

When all the students had come in, the prefect picked up the first piece, the black glass.

"Who can tell me what this is?" he asked, his gray gaze sweeping over them.

"Magic," Petie breathed out. He wanted to touch that glass so badly. He could already feel the smooth coolness of it, the soothing way it would slide into his palm.

"Really?" the prefect asked, cocking his head to one side. "Or are you just guessing?"

Petie kept his solidly human eyes on the glass in the prefect's hand. "Magic," he said firmly. Without Cai, he really couldn't be sure. However, this time, he was.

"Very good," the prefect said, though his smile seemed cool and his tone never warmed. He passed the glass over to Petie.

The weight settled against Petie's palm and pressed against his soul.

This.

This was something he knew he'd been missing, without really knowing what it was. He drew one finger across the smooth surface. Sparkles followed in a bright pattern, silver, blue, and gold. He pressed the piece down, harder against his hand. It needed to slip under his skin. That it stayed outside was wrong.

"Peter. Peter!"

Petie looked up, away from the glass he still tried to mold into his palm. He had the feeling the prefect had been calling his name for a while.

The prefect looked worried. "You need to put the glass down now," he said slowly, as if Petie wouldn't understand him.

Petie tried to stop the snarl that over took him. "No," he said, snatching his hand behind him and stepping back from the table. It was finally his.

Cai poked at Petie.

Not right. Wrong.

Petie shook his head.

No,
Cai insisted.
Outside. Not inside.

Petie finally got a sense of what Cai was saying. The glass, this piece, was outside of Petie, which even he knew was wrong. The real one, the one he needed, would be inside.

With reluctance, Petie stepped forward. He brought his hand around and opened it, looking at how the glass lay cradled like an egg in his palm.

Not ours?
he asked mournfully.

No,
Cai replied.

Petie nodded and put the glass back on the table. His hand felt empty, like not just skin and bone, but hollowed out, all its purpose gone. There was more glass, somewhere, inside him. He just didn't know where, or how to get at it.

Cai didn't know, either.

"Show me," Petie told the prefect through gritted teeth.

"When you're ready," the prefect said, drawing the piece of black glass back across the table, away from Petie.

"No," Petie said. "Now."

"Peter, really, it's too advanced a topic for you."

"But it's real, right? That glass. Inside me."

Cai gave an encouraging caw.

The other students stared at Petie like he was crazy.

"Yes," the prefect said slowly. "The black glass armor of a raven warrior. It protects your thoughts, as well as your flesh."

Petie nodded, somewhat mollified. He could
feel
the weight of it already.

"What is this, then?" the lisping girl asked, reaching across the table and picking up the glass before the prefect could stop her. She looked at it curiously, then passed it to the next student without a thought.

"Magic," the prefect said, still staring at Petie.

Was he afraid Petie would attack? Try to force him to show him how to raise the armor?

Cai cawed bravely. He wasn't scared of the prefect. Not much.