The Wizard Heir (2 page)

“Get out!” he shouted. His voice, strangely
amplified, reverberated throughout the hall. Faces turned toward him, pale
spots in the ruddy dark as he stood, fountaining flame like a Roman candle. His
cotton clothing smoldered and smoked. People stared at him, horrified, then ran
for the exit, screaming and shoving each other in an effort to get away from
him.

A crowd collected at the front door, like a panicked
beast trying to force itself into a narrow burrow, while embers rained down
from overhead. Too many people were jammed into the opening, and no one was
getting through. Those who weren't crushed stood to burn to death.

Seph charged toward the warehouse wall, arms extended,
driven by nothing more than raw power and a determination not to preside over
another disaster. Flame roared from his fingertips, blasting through the
battered wood, leaving a charred and smoldering opening that smelled like the
wood fires of winter and looked like a gateway out of hell. He stared at it,
stunned for a moment, then shouted, “Through here! Go!”

The crowd poured through the new doorway. He was
overtaken by the mob and carried along with the press of bodies.

Finally, he was out on the street. The storms that had
threatened all day let loose, and he stood steaming in the pouring rain. Within
seconds, he was soaked to the skin. Refugees who hadn't fled the scene huddled
under an overhang across the street, watching him warily. Somewhere close a
siren sounded.

Where were Carson and Maia and the others? Blinking
water from his eyelashes, he scanned the crowd but could not find his friends.
Nor Alicia, the girl who had set this train of events in motion.

He struggled back toward the entrance, against a tidal
wave of humanity.

“Maia!” Maia was small, and likely to be
trampled. He finally forced himself back through the opening, only to be met by
a wall of flame and smoke. “Drew!”

He circled the exterior of the warehouse, desperately
seeking a way in, and finding none. How could it burn like this in a deluge?
Sparks gouted skyward as the roof caved in. The fire burned so hot that he had
to retreat across the street again.

Pressing his back against a building, he slid to the
ground and wrapped his arms around his knees. Gripping Maia's cross, feeling
the gold soften under his hot fingers, he turned his face up to the downpour,
letting it cool his fevered skin, wishing it could wash away the memory of what
he had done.

The meeting was held in Sloane, Houghton, and Smythe's
Toronto offices. When Seph arrived, they showed him to an opulent little suite
lined with walnut bookcases, the carpet so thick it swallowed sound. Denis
Houghton, Seph's legal guardian, had traveled all the way from London for this
event. He probably wanted to make sure that Seph came nowhere near the home
office.

Seph had only seen his guardian two or three times.
The solicitor was a tall man with graying hair and a taste for expensive
watches and elaborate pinky rings. His custom-tailored suits couldn't hide the
beginnings of a paunch.

Seph couldn't help wondering how many suits and pinky
rings his guardianship had paid for. His foster mother, Genevieve LeClerc, had
died three years ago. It was only then that he'd learned that he had a legal
guardian, a very large trust fund, and a crowd of lawyers to look after his interests.

She'd kept so many secrets. While Genevieve had taught
him how to make an omelet and hang wallpaper and choose bottles of wine for
their guests at the bed-and-breakfast, his feeble knowledge of magic had been
acquired in fits and starts, grudgingly released, pried from her like oysters
from their stubborn shells.

She had a sorcerer's mistrust of wizards and their
ruthless ways, born of long service to a wizard in her native France. Her
wrists had been braceleted with layered scars, evidence of the shackles she'd
worn. She'd loved Seph with a fierce devotion, but seemed to hope that his
wizardliness would go away if unacknowledged. Instead it had sent out long
runners, climbing fences, and sprouting unexpectedly between the cobblestones.

Seph's fingers tickle, his nursery school classmates said. His teachers had
loved him in those days, surrendering to the boy with the dark curls,
changeable eyes, and sweet smile. The classroom guinea pig denned up under his
desk and wouldn't allow anyone but Seph to handle him. The pond at the park
froze in the middle of July when Seph wanted to go skating. He liked recess
best of all. Sometimes it lasted all day. All he had to do was ask nicely.
Until Genevieve found out and intervened.

But as he grew older, the magic grew stronger, more
dangerous, more difficult to control. It had become worse since Genevieve's
death. He was the ugly cowbird in the sparrow's nest, impossible to ignore.

Houghton came out from behind his huge walnut desk and
motioned Seph to a table by the window. It was to be a toe-to-toe,
compassionate sort of meeting, then.

Seph settled into a leather armchair and Houghton sat
in the chair opposite. The lawyer regarded Seph sorrowfully for a moment,
removed his glasses, polished them to a sheen, and replaced them. Then heaved a
great sigh.

“So. All right now, then, are we?”

“I'm all right,” Seph said, looking the
lawyer in the eye, daring him to ask another question. Seph didn't want to talk
about the warehouse. He was afraid he would lose control.

Houghton soldiered on relentlessly. “A bad
business,” the lawyer said. “A bad business, indeed. But then, with
those after-hours parties, one never knows. Completely unsupervised. Often
attract the wrong sort.”

“Yes.” One-word answers were safest.

“One hears there are drugs, drinking, and so
on.” Houghton paused and raised an eyebrow in inquiry, but Seph looked out
the window, forcing himself to take deep, slow breaths.

“Right,” Houghton said, disappointed.
“Well, at any rate, we've managed to make those preposterous charges go
away.”

“Good.”

“I mean, really. Flinging flame from your
fingertips like a character from a graphic novel? Rubbish. But people become
hysterical, you know.”

“Yes.”

“Of course, the university has some liability in
this. All summer-camp students are required to be in the dormitories by ten
o'clock, so it said in the brochure. And yet, there you were, sixteen years
old, running the streets of Toronto at four in the morning.”

Seph was finally goaded into speech. “I wasn't
running the streets. I was at a party. I've gone to lots of parties, and
nothing ever—”

“Then they're doubly liable. They knew, or should
have known, that—”

Seph leaned forward. “You know I go to clubs.
You've been paying the bills.”

Houghton cleared his throat loudly. Seph half expected
him to stick his fingers in his ears. “Well, then. There you are. I think
we can agree that your idea of spending the summer at the university in Toronto
has been … a disaster.”

“Toronto's not the problem,” Seph said.
“Toronto's great. I …”

“No.” Houghton toyed nervously with a
paperweight. His forehead gleamed with sweat. “Not this time. The
Metropolitan Police have required my assurance that you will leave town as soon
as possible.”

Seph felt a great weight descending. “I thought
you said the charges had been dismissed.”

“There were a number of witnesses who tied you to
the fire.”

Seph gripped the arms of the chair. “Really? And
what do you think?”

Houghton mopped his brow with a snowy handkerchief.
“What should I think? You seem to have a penchant for combustibles. There
was that incident in Switzerland, the fires and explosions on the chapel roof,
the … ah … demolition of the bell tower.”

“I went up there with a … a friend. I did not go
up there to blow a hole in the bell tower.” Marie wanted to see the stars,
Seph thought. It was after they kissed that the fireworks began.

“And that boy at St. Andrew's. That Henri Armand.
Attacked by a flock of ravens, wasn't he?”

Seph shrugged. He couldn't conjure any regret about
Henri. Armand was an older boarding student from Marseille, rumored to be the
illegitimate son of the head of a French crime family. He was also a skilled
street fighter, a talent unusual among private-school students.

Armand had considered Marie to be his personal
property, like his gaudy gold jewelry and his Italian sports car. When he'd
heard about the incident on the chapel roof, he'd ambushed Seph in a remote
corner of the campus, pounding away at his midsection so the bruises wouldn't
show.

Then the ravens had come.

“Those birds tore the boy's clothing to
shreds,” Houghton persisted.

Armand had been so frightened he'd wet himself.
Afterward, several of the huge black birds had settled gently onto Seph's arms
and shoulders, watching naked Armand with their shiny black eyes. Never mind
that Seph was just as frightened of the birds as Armand.

Well, maybe not quite as frightened.

Seph looked at Houghton and raised an eyebrow. An
appeal to logic was usually effective. “So you're saying I sent a flock of
ravens after Henri?”

Houghton smiled a tight little smile. “I'm saying
that you've been expelled from four schools in the past three years. We are
running out of options.”

“But I'm going to UTS. It's all set.”

“That is no longer possible.”

“What about St. Michael's, then?”

“No.”

Seph saw where this was going. He needed to stay in
Toronto. He needed to find that girl Alicia and get some answers. She was the
only lead he had.

He was reduced to begging. “Please. Let me stay
here for school. There has to be someplace that'll let me in. I swear, I won't
get into trouble.” He extended his hand toward Houghton. If he could just
make contact…

Houghton put up his hands and leaned away, as if to
fend Seph off. “Don't … It won't work. Not this time. Our hands are tied.
The police have made their position quite clear.”

“Let me talk to them.”

“You'd better leave well enough alone. Thank God
they've lost interest in you. It's time you learned that you cannot talk
yourself out of every situation.”

“I already know that.”

“Besides, it's all arranged.”

“What is?”

“Your new school.”

“Where?”

“Maine.”

“Maine?”

“Seems a lovely place from the photographs. It's
right on the ocean.” Houghton thrust a brochure into Seph's face.
“Luckily for us, this came in the mail right after the warehouse story
broke.”

Seph took it reluctantly. “I hate the
ocean.”

“Perhaps you'll grow to love it.”

The front cover featured a sailboat. He scanned the
text and shook his head. “A boys' school?”

Houghton shrugged. “Beggars can't be choosers.
And perhaps the absence of young ladies will help you…focus.”

“You never asked me what I wanted.”
Seph scraped the toe of his sneaker over the hand-knotted rug.

“As I said. We didn't have a lot of options this
late in the day.”

“Is there even a city in Maine?”

“Yes, I think so. Portland, I believe it's
called.” He frowned and rubbed his chin. “Or is that in New
Hampshire? Well, no matter,” he said briskly. “You'll need to leave
immediately. The term's already begun.”

Seph shrugged and slid the brochure into his pocket.
Ordinarily, he would have continued to argue the matter. But just then he felt
like he might deserve to go to Maine. Or any other place with a scarcity of
people.

Houghton looked at his watch, relieved that Seph
hadn't put up more of a fight. “So. Well. Do you have any questions?”

“Yes. Who were my parents?”

Houghton sighed. “Not that again. You've seen the
documents. The photographs. I don't know what else you—”

“I know they're fake. I've checked it out. I've
been online. It's made up.”

Houghton stood and fussed with his cuffs, straightened
the crease in his trousers, put a little more distance between himself and his
client. “I know these past three years have been trying. It is difficult
to lose one's parents at a young age. And it is likely that your foster
mother's death has renewed your feelings of abandonment…”

Seph came to his feet, and Houghton took a hasty step
back. “You're a lawyer. No one's asking you to be a bloody
psychiatrist.” Power prickled in his hands and arms, and he struggled to
damp down his anger. It doesn't matter, he told himself. It's not
worth it.

“… and now this…event at the warehouse. So
tragic. That young girl. What was her name again?”

“Maia.”

“You knew her?”

“Yes.” He was back to one-word answers.

“Well, best not to noise that about. It could
complicate matters just as things are settling.” Houghton hesitated, then
cautiously draped an arm around Seph's shoulders. He smelled of expensive
tobacco, wool, and aftershave. Seph resisted the urge to flinch away.

“It may be that this is just what you need,
Joseph. Go to Maine. Focus on your studies. Get away from all this for a
while.” The lawyer's voice was not unkind. “You've managed to come
away without a police record. Your grades are good. See if you can finish
strong at the Havens. Then we can begin to talk about University. Perhaps you
can even come back to Toronto for school.”

Two more years, Seph was thinking. Two more years, and
I claim the trust fund and dismiss Sloane, Houghton, and Smythe. Two more
years, and I'll have the time and money to find out who I really am.

Two years sounded like an eternity.

The
Havens

Seph pressed his face against the cool glass of the
airplane window, watching the rugged New England coastline pass beneath him.
From this altitude, the Atlantic seemed a gentle lake, a deep gray-green with a
delicate frosting of lace where it broke against the beaches.

The music pounding through his headphones was not
enough to occupy his relentless mind.

He thrust his hand under his sweatshirt, pulling free
the half-melted cross Maia had made for him. Surprisingly old-fashioned for a
free spirit like Maia. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the ropy
intensity of her embrace.

Seph didn't consider himself particularly attractive.
He knew enough about art to realize he met no classical standard of beauty. His
face looked like something he needed to grow into: all bony prominences and sharp
angles. His hair tumbled into unruly loose curls if he didn't gel it into
submission. He'd grown so recently that he still felt awkward and poorly put
together. But girls still made excuses to touch him, to play with his hair.
Maia had always talked about his eyes: how they changed color with the light—
brown, and then green or gold.

And now she was dead. Because of him.

He stared down at his hands. Murderer's hands, though
they looked like normal flesh and bone. He was… pathological. Was it merely a
lack of knowledge, or was it some kind of fatal flaw?

He pressed his fist against his chest, imagining that
he could feel the weight within. “Vous avez un cristal sous votre
coeur,” Genevieve had said. You have a crystal beneath your heart. A
source of power that is different for each of the guilds. For sorcerers,
enchanters, warriors, and seers, the use of power is more or less hardwired.

But wizards needed training in order to use and
control their power. Genevieve had told him that when magical accidents
happened. So he wouldn't think he was possessed, as the Jesuits had claimed
when he was still small.

But she hadn't told him the truth about his parents.
And for that, he felt betrayed.

He needed a teacher. If he couldn't learn to control
his gift, it was "better not to have it at all. Could the stone be
removed, like a diseased gallbladder?

At least Genevieve had not had to deal with the
warehouse. She would have gone to church and lit a candle and prayed for him.
She would tell him that in God's eyes he was perfect, though how she knew this,
Seph couldn't say.

Seph's ears told him they'd begun their descent. The
aircraft was a sixteen-seater, with only six other passengers—hunters and
tourists, by the looks of them. Seph liked the intensity of small planes.
Perhaps he'd buy a plane now that he was old enough for flying lessons. He
smiled at the thought, his first smile of the day, and pulled off his
headphones.

The plane banked and circled. The ground rushed toward
them and bumped down on the grassy runway. Before they had rolled to a stop, he
was on his feet, pulling his bag from the overhead compartment.

He closed his eyes and centered himself, as Genevieve
had taught him. You can do this. You've done it before. You're good at
meeting people. Only, this new school was small, about one hundred
students, according to the brochure. He'd never done well at small schools. He
made too many waves to survive in a small pond.

Somehow, he had to find a way to succeed here. Two
years, and he could go back to the city and disappear.

The airport boasted one battered, sheet-metal
building. Grass feathered the asphalt of the parking lot.

A man waited by the metal fence that surrounded the
landing strip. He was tall—taller than Seph by at least half a foot. He was
absolutely bald, but whether he was naturally so or shaved his head, Seph
couldn't tell. Despite the brisk weather, he wore a white, short-sleeved golf
shirt that showed off his muscular arms. He looked to be about fifty, but it
was hard to tell with bald men.

Seph waited until the crew had unloaded the baggage
compartment, then pulled his other bag from the cart, swinging it over his
shoulder. As he walked toward the gate, the man stepped forward to meet him.

“You must be Joseph McCauley,” he said in an
upperclass British accent. “I'm Dr. Gregory Leicester, headmaster of the
Havens.”

Up close, the headmaster's eyes were a peculiar flat
gray color, like twin ball bearings. The absence of hair and the fact that his
lips were the same color as the rest of his face gave him a strange, robotic
quality.

Relieved that the headmaster didn't offer his hand,
Seph conjured a smile and said, “Pleasure to meet you, sir.” Must be
a small staff, he thought, if the headmaster comes to collect you at the
airport.

“Is that all you have?” Dr. Leicester asked,
nodding toward the luggage.

“That's all. I shipped some books ahead, and my
computer.” Seph traveled light, which was convenient when you moved around
as much as he did.

Of the half dozen vehicles clustered in the lot, Dr.
Leicester directed Seph toward a white van with THE havens and a sailboat stenciled in gold on the door. The van
was unlocked. The headmaster took Seph's bags and tossed them easily into the
backseat. He motioned Seph to the shotgun position, and climbed in on the
driver's side.

“We're just about an hour away from school,”
Leicester explained. “It will give us a chance to get to know each
other.”

They pulled out of the gravel parking lot and turned
onto a two-lane highway. From the maps, Seph knew there was a small town south
of the airport. But their destination was about fifty miles north, with nothing
much in between. Why would anyone build a private school in such a remote
location? A hunting lodge or a prison, he could understand.

“Did you come directly from St. Andrew's, or did
you spend some time at home?” Leicester asked, keeping his gaze on the
road.

“I came from Toronto. I was at a camp there all
summer,” Seph replied. His head ached, as if metal bands were tightening
around his forehead, and he felt dizzy and disoriented. It could've been the
aftereffects of the flight, though he was usually a good flyer.

They swept past two gas stations, a scattering of
houses, and then plunged into a thick forest of pine and aspen. He lowered the
window, hoping the fresh air would revive him, and was rewarded with the sharp
scent of evergreen.

“You've had a long day, then.” Dr. Leicester
broke into his reverie. “I hope you were able to sleep on the plane.”

“Yes. Some.”

“Where are you from originally?”

“I was born in the States, but I grew up in
Toronto.”

“Do your parents still live in Toronto?”

“My parents are dead.” Seph stared straight
ahead.

“Ah. Well. We've corresponded with your guardian,
Mr. Houghton. I assume you have relatives in England, then?”

“Mr. Houghton is just a solicitor. An attorney. I
don't know much about my family.” Nothing, in fact.

What he'd been told of his parents was frail and
colorless, like a line drawing, an outline of a story without the flesh and
bone. His mother was a Toronto-based flight attendant; his father a software
entrepreneur. They had died in a fire in their California canyon home when Seph
was a year old. Genevieve LeClerc had been his childcare provider, and became
his foster mother. That story had been repeated to him since he was very small.

And now he knew it was a lie.

“I think you'll like it here, Joseph, once you
settle in,” Leicester said. “I know you've changed schools several times.
Often talented students get into difficulty when their needs are not met. Here
at the Havens we rarely lose a student. In fact, we integrate high-achieving
secondary students into our more specialized programs. We're believers in
tailoring the curriculum to the student.”

“I see,” Seph said. “That sounds like a
good approach.”

He couldn't help being distracted by the view. He was
a city creature. For the past half hour, he'd seen nothing but trees on either
side of a fragile strip of pavement. Not even another car on the road. “It
seems…um…isolated.”

“You can wander for miles and never leave the
property,” Leicester said, as if that were a plus.

Many of the crossroads were now dirt roads that
carried the names of beaches. Following a long stretch of unbroken trees, they
reached a turnoff marked with a tasteful brick-and-stone sign that said, the havens and PRIVATE PROPERTY.

A high stone wall extended in both directions, as far
as he could see. To keep the trees from wandering, no doubt. He blinked and rubbed
his eyes. The wall had a smudged and fuzzy quality, as if shrouded in tendrils
of mist.

Maybe he had a migraine coming on.

They turned right, through a high wrought-iron gateway
onto an oiled dirt road.

Along the lane, the trees stood so close Seph could
have reached out and touched them. Their leafy tops arched and met overhead,
sieving the light into frail streamers that scarcely colored the ground. The
air hung thick with the scent of green things long dead and half decayed. They
drove through dense woodland until the trees thinned and the light grew.
Glimpses of water and a freshening of the air said they'd reached their
destination.

They pulled up before a large cedar-and-stone building
separated from the water by a broad boardwalk. A long dock ran out into the
harbor. Several sailboats bobbed alongside, sails furled and tied to the masts.

“This is the administration center,” Dr.
Leicester explained. “The cafeteria, gymnasium, library, commons areas,
and other student services are all in here.” He drove a hundred yards
farther and stopped in front of another building. “This is Gareth Hall.
Most classes are held here, with the exception of physical education, art, and
music. We've been in session for several weeks now, so you'll have some hard
work ahead of you.”

Art and music shared their own building. It couldn't
really be called a campus—there wasn't enough open space for that. Each
building stood isolated in its own clearing, the forest crowding in on all
sides, as if struggling to hold it at bay. The tall, straight trunks of trees
marched away until they collided in the gloom.

All of the buildings were of similar construction, as
if the school had erupted, fully formed, out of the ground. It was a jarring
contrast to St. Andrew's, with its ancient stone lecture halls, bell towers,
and green lawns, the mountains framing every vista. And UTS—he shoved images of
the city out of his mind.

“You must see a lot of wildlife here,” Seph
observed, because Dr. Leicester seemed to be expecting him to comment. Middle
of nowhere, he thought.

“A little bit of everything: moose, bear, wolves,
deer. The raccoons and bears can be a problem.” Leicester laughed like it
didn't come easy. It was hard to imagine this man presiding at a fundraising
dinner or glad-handing parents.

They stopped in front of a more modest three-story
structure, stone and glass and cedar, similar in design to the other buildings,
but on a smaller scale. “This is your dormitory.” He handed Seph a
key card. “You're in suite 302. Need help with your luggage?”

“No, thanks. I'm fine.” Seph climbed out and
retrieved his bags from the back seat.

“I'll arrange for one of our students to give you
a full tour before Monday. If you're hungry, you ought to be able to find
something in the cafeteria in the admin, building.”

Seph wasn't hungry. His headache was worse. He felt as
if someone had been beating against his skull.

“Swimming is at four thirty,” Leicester
said. “Change into your swim gear and follow the signs to the cove.
Everyone will be down there, and you'll have the opportunity to meet the other
boys.” The headmaster didn't give him a chance to argue. The van lurched
forward, spitting gravel from beneath its wheels.

Seph looked around. Sunlight painted the tops of the
trees, and here and there a break in the canopy overhead allowed it to
penetrate all the way to the forest floor. Otherwise, the ground was bathed in
a cool green twilight. Leaves shuffled overhead and branches rattled in the
wind. A squirrel scolded him furiously from a nearby stump. He was already
chilly, even in his hoodie. Maybe this was swimming weather in Maine, but not
where he came from.

Wherever that was.

He slung his bags over his shoulder, ignored the
elevator, and climbed three flights of stairs to his floor. His room was at one
end of the building, rather isolated, off a short corridor. Leicester hadn't
said anything about a roommate, and Seph wasn't surprised to find he had a room
to himself. Students at expensive schools were used to their own space and
plenty of it.

Each school he'd attended was captured by single image
in his mind: the cavernous great hall at Dunham's Field School in Scotland; the
view from the bell tower at St. Andrew's in Switzerland; Montreal illuminated
at dusk in midwinter, where the sun seemed to set in midafternoon.

This room boasted a gas fireplace and a screened porch
overlooking the woods. The furniture included a single bed with a heavy oak
headboard and a thick comforter with a pine-tree pattern, a dresser, a
serviceable desk and bookcase, two upholstered chairs for guests, rag rugs on
the floor, and ceramic tile in the bathroom.

The walls had been left empty, a fresh canvas for
someone to paint on. Only, Seph didn't do much to personalize his rooms
anymore. There was no point. He'd learned to carry his sense of self around
with him.

A basket of fruit and several bottles of water were
arranged on a small table with a note, Welcome, Joseph, imprinted on
cream-colored stock embossed with a sailboat.

His books had arrived and were waiting in boxes in
front of the bookcase. His computer had been unpacked and left on the desk.
There was no phone, however, and no data port that he could find. Pulling out
his cell phone, he scanned the screen. No signal. He swore softly and returned
it to his jeans pocket.