Back in the training yard, Callum was starting to look defeated as I failed yet again to command the elements. Frustration seeped out of every pore and his mouth was set in a grim line.
“Give me your hand.” I did as commanded.
He took my hand in the traditional Celt grip – hands clasped higher on the forearm, pulse points at the wrist facing each other. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
His blue eyes opened, and he frowned.
“There’s barely a glimmer in your veins, girl. Did he think he could fool me? That believing you had strong magic meant I wouldn’t hurt you?” His broad smile was unnerving.
I attempted to step back, to pull away. Devyn was right: Callum was not to be trusted. Suddenly I glimpsed an echo of the angry man who had hit Devyn as a boy. I tried to escape his grip, unnerved by his strength, his size.
“Now, now, my dear, I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere.” He started to drag me towards a different door to the one we normally used. I tried to pull away again, but he held fast. Turning, he raised his hand as if to hit me.
Suddenly, fire licked along his hand, and as he let go of me, a gust of wind pushed him off his feet, sending him to the other side of the courtyard. The sky darkened overhead. I felt powerful. Crackling with energy. It was too much. I needed to get to Devyn. We needed to leave. Now.
Before Callum regained his feet, I was away across the yard and racing down the long corridor.
“Wait!” Callum’s shout behind me was off. He no longer sounded threatening. He was… laughing?
I careened headlong into Devyn who was running to find me, and I sent him flying. The sword that had been in his hand skittered across the flagstones, coming to a stop under the foot of the oversized professor. Devyn was on his feet in a second and quickly put himself between his former tutor and me.
“Hold on, let’s calm down for a minute.” Callum put both hands out, palms up, in a gesture of peace. He took his foot off the sword and backed up a few steps. “I’m sorry to startle you, lass, truly. But I was starting to doubt you had any real trainable ability beyond small arbitrary fluke results. It was one last test I needed to do before we gave it up for a loss.”
“You deliberately tried to scare me?”
“We had tried everything else. It occurred to me that you have had more success when threatened,” Callum said, casting a glance at the sky overhead, which was still darkly angry. My entire body was also still crackling with energy. Devyn took my hand, his thumb moving soothingly against my palm. “I knew you had more in you, but this… To take in that much energy, you must have a great affinity with the ley lines. I’ve never seen the like outside of—”
He stopped talking suddenly, his eyes looking directly into mine in startled certainty. “He’s done it. You’re not some random latent he found in the city.”
Callum stepped forward, his arm reaching out, and Devyn stepped in front of me once more.
“Damned say-nothing pup. You found her,” Callum growled. “You found her, and you have me teaching her without even… How is this possible? Is this real? Is it really her?”
Devyn flashed a glance at me, his face as cold as it had been all week, but his eyes glowed as he faced his former teacher.
“It wasn’t for you to know.”
“Foolish pup.” Callum put both hands up to his face in a wearied exasperation. I felt a tad insulted at his dismay; I thought my being alive was a good thing, personally. “You should have told me. You’ve got to go, and you’ve got to go now.” He waved his hands and, grabbing me, started to pull me towards the courtyard door. He turned back to find Devyn and Marcus standing still in surprise, unmoving.
“NOW!” he roared.
As we hurried through the corridors back up to the professor’s rooms, he explained that he had sent word to York that we – or rather Marcus, Devyn and some city girl – had made their way to Oxford. Devyn was furious. A party was already on its way to Oxford. On reaching his rooms, Callum was like a whirlwind in his kitchen, preparing food for us to take as we hurriedly put new packs together. The packs Marcus’s father had given us were replaced by Briton-style travelling packs filled with food and Briton clothing that Callum had obtained for us.
We donned our cloaks and Callum took us down through his tower and along more deserted passages, deep into the bowels of the college, until at last we came to a cellar door which he raised.
“This way,” he urged.
Devyn backed up warily, his face tight. “The last time I trusted another with the exit, we were delivered right up to the people chasing us.”
Callum ran a hand through his hair in agitation. “I swear to you on all I believe in, on the life of this girl, on the love I had for her mother, I am true. Go this way. There’ll be no record of your exit from the city, and it’ll buy you a little more time.”
I made my way down into the dark holding the torch, Marcus having led the way down. I turned around to thank Callum and wish him farewell to find he had grabbed Devyn and was whispering urgently to him. The force of his final words carried them to me, or perhaps it was the pain that made them echo off Devyn.
“You know she is not for you.”
Part Two Love Drips And Gathers
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a
