Page 79 of Self Studies
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It was the start of dinner when I attempted to shut Doctor Roy’s broken door. I shrieked when Professor Garnet came up behind me and helped push it back into the frame.
I pulled up my hood. My new permanent wrist accessories glinted in the light. Professor Garnet frowned at the clasps before reaching out and brushing my hood. “You don’t need to hide from me, Aphy.”
“Director Fleming blamed me for whatever you said in her office,” I blurted.
I hadn’t wanted to lead with that, but I felt raw. The administration knew about every bad thing that happened since I got here and did nothing. Saffron hated me, Beryl hated himself, and Doctor Roy wanted to write a paper.
I looked up into Professor Garnet’s worried red-rimmed eyes. He’d not gotten a chance to choose if he liked me or not. I’d filled him with my magic before we’d even spoken. I so badly wanted him to have genuine feelings for me, but now I wasn’t sure if he could.
“Why are you even here?” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.
We started walking, the professor’s usual long gait stiff. He guided us down a hallway and out of the Institute. The fresh air and sunlight momentarily dazzled my senses. We made our way to the greenhouse and walked through the rows of neatly ordered plants to a small door in the back.
A wall of heat and humidity washed over me. Unlike the front room, layers of green blanketed the walls. Vines looked to be strangling a few larger trees, and flowers of deep orange and purples displayed their petals. A swinging bench rocked of its own accord in the middle of it all. Professor Garnet stilled the bench, and I sat, stripping off my hoodie.
“I grew up in Old Greenwich,” the professor said gently, getting the swing going again. “It’s a very wealthy town in Connecticut. I went to a private school and had the best tutors. My twin and I won the junior division racing in our Laser Four on the Sound.” He smiled softly. “We were only nine years old. I had no idea how privileged my life was. It wasn’t long after that everything changed.”
He closed his eyes and leaned against the wood frame of the swing. “I went into a cave on a dare at summer camp. I don’t remember coming out of it. I woke up isolated in one of the camp cabins. Dirt and blood covered my hands and stained my uniform. I was confused and scared. It didn’t matter how much I yelled for help. No one came.” He snorted. “For three days, no one even brought me food. That Goddamn bland brown room. I still dream about it.” He looked down at his hand and flexed his fingers. “Magic I’d never felt before looped around me, strangling me. It made me see and hear things, even fifteen years later, I have no idea if they were real or not.”
My heart broke. I bit my lips shut and sat on my hands to keep from interrupting him.
“When my parents finally came for me, they arrived with men in suits who put me in a dog crate.” He snorted darkly. “I found out later runes covered it to keep Stolen Mages from using their magic, but as a nine-year-old kid, I had no idea. It was humiliating and terrifying at the same time. I’d become a Rimmed Mage, a parasite who fed off others. I no longer fit into my family’s perfect high society life.” He blew out a breath. “They let me say goodbye to my twin through the grate and my two sisters over the phone.” His voice cracked. “Two men took me to a lab where humans ran tests on me. Nothing crazy, nothing painful, but still terrifying for a kid alone for the first time in his life. Eventually, they realized what the world already knew. Rimmed Magic wasn’t something that could be cured.
“The scientists passed me to a priest, who passed me to a healer, who eventually took me to someone who would become my master. I’d not heard from or seen my family. For all I knew, they’d forgotten about me.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I know transfers come naturally to you, but they don’t to the few who dare. Most mages find mixing magic dangerous. But the thrill, and the rush when it works...”
His nostrils flared, and he tilted his head back as if tasting the power once more. His eyes widened, and he shook his head. “I spent too many years with him, embracing a darkness inside me that isn’t right.”
The cold recitation of his history almost hurt more than the tension filling his shoulders. Like me, he’d moved on, but the past still hurt. Talking about it only made it worse—more real.
“The rest, you know,” he released his grip on the swing, his pain-filled energy receding like the tide.“The Institute set me on the right path. I flew through their program, conforming to what I needed to be, and decided to stay and teach.”
My heart squeezed, his pain becoming my own. He’d been passed around like an unwanted toy. At least I’d thought I was happy and loved. What would life have been like if I’d grown up knowing that every time Damon touched me, it was wrong?
I shuddered. “Did you ever get back in touch with your family?”
Professor Garnet tilted his head to the side. “I’ve written old-fashioned letters to my twin, though I don’t know if he’s received them.” He paused. “I know their hearts were in the right place trying to cure me, but I’m not a good person, Aphy. Knowing something and having the capacity to forgive is not the same thing.”
He clenched his fists. “I got into something in that cave. When I came out of it, I’d sucked the life out of not only the older kids waiting for me to come out but the very trees and shrubs around me.” He shuddered. “My master had my police file. It looked like a bomb went off. Wild magic is volatile.”
I studied the ground, thinking about Beryl’s family passing him to the MA. Had mine abandoned me? A sliver of curiosity about my origins tried to bloom, but I ruthlessly crushed it. Damon had been my world. He’d shaped me. I didn’t need the crushing weight of my origins looming over me as well.
“Why are you sharing all of this now?” I asked.
The professor watched me swing for a minute before he sat and pulled me into his arms. I melted. Even if it was only a hug, I needed one right now, badly. He pulled back and held my clasps, careful not to touch my skin.
“Because I want you to know that you're not alone,” Professor Garnet tapped the metal with one of his nails. “What you did in the Sphérique, you did to protect yourself. I know it because I know you. We’ve barely even had a real conversation, but I’ve watched you. Saffron talks about you constantly. You’re powerful, smart, resourceful, resilient. Despite how the students here treat you, you look past their actions to try and understand more. You have the world in front of you, don’t trap yourself in your past.”
Like I did.
He didn’t say the words, but they hung thick between us. He chose to live under the same rules as the students incarcerated here. The weight of that choice took on new meaning.
“You’re not your past either,” I said.
Throwing my hands around his shoulders, I pressed my lips gently against his. The barrier holding my magic back dropped, surging under my skin, but it stayed inside me.
I willed it to stay inside me.