The Tenth Performance

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Author's note: you might want to save this for an evening when you have a good long while to read leisurely. I hope that if and when you join me, we'll share an excellent journey ... but we aren't going to get there quickly ;)

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PROLOGUE

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When I snapped at Cora, it was obvious that I was way too stressed. As in: unbelievably, unmanage-ably, un-live-ably stressed.

Presumably we all were. But I'd just taken it out on the kindest person I knew. Nobody should've been rude to Cora, let alone someone who, if I'm being totally honest with you, had a fair bit of a crush on her.

And why, exactly, had I snapped? Well, we'd been studying in the Divinorium library - which sounds like most of our days here, which we spend memorizing spells in the library, uncorking vials in the chemistry lab to experience new sensations, or nervously darting between buildings - and I'd been sitting at a large mahogany table with Cora.

And Cora had been tapping her pencil.

Yup, dear reader, that was all. After a few minutes spent pressing the eraser absentmindedly against her glossy lower lip (which looked sexy enough that I'd already felt distracted), Cora had begun tapping her pencil against the wood. Tlick. Tlick. Tlick. At which point I'd hissed, "If you're hoping to hide from monsters by disguising as a metronome, maybe the library isn't the best place to practice."

Obviously I knew that I was being awful, even as I spoke. It wasn't funny! Nor even remotely clever.

But Cora must've been feeling sufficiently on edge that my snarky comment got to her. She stood up without a word, grabbed her things, and rushed off toward the exit. So, I swore under my breath, scooped my own scrolls and such, and chased after her. We probably both looked like overwrought contrails of cape and lace as we bustled across the room.

"Cora, wait," I called out, at which point not only had I been rude to Cora, but also, I was the person being most disruptive in the library, probably drawing irate glares from our classmates.

But, whatever. I could deal later with anybody else who was cross with me. Apologizing to Cora felt more urgent.

Seriously, even if I didn't have a crush on her, I'd want to make things right with Cora. She was always looking out for others - I bet several of us wouldn't have survived even our first week at the Divinorium except that Cora noticed when people weren't where she expected them to be and would quickly gather the rest of us to rescue them - and always so optimistic that we'd get through our training here together.

And she's beautiful. I mean, not just by Divinorium standards (my own eyes would surely look dark from the lack of sleep even if I didn't whip out my gothiest "Black Like Your Soul" eyeliner most mornings): Cora would seem beautiful anywhere, with her bright blue eyes, sandy blonde hair, and cherubic cheeks. And she's so often smiling, accentuating her plush pink lips and slightly dimpled chin. Faint constellations of freckles arc over her button nose each time she crinkles those little eyes.

I bet that at least half our classmates had either subtly or not-so-subtly hinted at hooking up with Cora and her boyfriend Rick (also attractive: conventionally handsome in that clean-cut, strong-jawed, unabashedly confident way of ex-high-school-basketball players). And every single time it happened, I bet, the two of them had probably turned to smile adoringly at each other before Cora gently, kindly, lovingly let the person down.

At least, that's how it had gone when the person not-so-subtly propositioning them was me.

But I wasn't the only person who'd felt drawn to them - the two of them had made close friendships right away, Cora with Yvonne, and Rick with Trevor (who was also an ex-athlete, football ... although the thing that really cemented Rick and Trevor's friendship was that they were both huge fans of Broadway musicals. The two of them would often encourage each other to do push-ups in a hallway, or chin-ups from a door frame, and they'd sometimes even go outside jogging in the chilly morning air. Which would have been fine, except that then they'd return, sweaty and puffing, still singing a show tune in harmony together, which would inevitably remind me how little energy I had left over for anything other than studying and fearing for my life).

And when Cora and Rick strolled through the hallways together, or slipped into each other's rooms at night (which they always tried to do surreptitiously, although I have no idea why - whenever they had sex, Cora would get very loud), I can't have been the only one who watched them wistfully, jealous of their relationship.

Cora and Rick had apparently dated for the entirety of their junior and senior years of college; they'd been planning to get married after graduation and join the Peace Corps together. Right up until they realized that they both needed to come here to study instead.

Still, think about it: how great would it feel to arrive at the Divinorium with someone? To know that there was a person nearby whom you could trust absolutely, someone who'd give up everything in order to keep you safe. A person whom you'd keep safe in turn, maybe listening to them snore softly at night while you took care of all the warding and vigilance and occasional monster quelling that the rest of us shouldered daily.

Although, with how dramatically Cora's face crumpled when I was rude, it seemed like she must have been near her limit, too. I mean, let's be honest: even if it was only every other night that either Rick or Cora needed to fend off monsters for each other, isn't that still pretty awful compared to any normal person's life? And in some ways, it might even feel worse to arrive here with a partner: you'd feel constantly worried about their safety, too, instead of just hunkering down and focusing on yourself.

Although, dear reader, I must say that all our lives got better after we learned to love everyone around us more.

But I'm getting ahead of myself - in that moment, all I knew was that I'd just been rude to someone I'd been crushing on.

"Cora, wait," I called out again as I hurried after her, only quieting my voice after I finally caught up. "Cora, I'm sorry. That was awful of me. I ..."

"No," she said, "you're right, I shouldn't have ..."

"Cora, no, it wasn't your fault. I'm just ..."

Cora looked uncomfortable talking to me - she was staring at the floor, letting a veil of blonde hair dangle over her face to shield herself from me. She probably wanted to leave, to just get out of the library and maybe find Rick or even spend some time alone. (Although that sort of totally normal emotional response can be dangerous at the Divinorium. It's not a good idea to even step outside a building until you've got your wits about you.)

"Look," Cora said, "can we do this later, because I ..."

I bent my knees a little, crouching down to catch her gaze; when her eyes met mine, her voice trailed off. I forced a little smile; Cora made an effort to smile back, but couldn't. Her eyes looked wet.

And, I know. Dear reader, obviously I know. Like, somebody tapping a pencil? Somebody being rude for a moment? These are such minor things!

But this school - everything we'd been through before arriving, and all the demands and terrors of our semester so far - was wrecking us.

And it's not like we were slouches. Under normal circumstances, my classmates and I could clearly do school. I mean, we'd all had other options besides attending the Divinorium. Good ones, too: Shane and Noah already held degrees from Yale and Stanford Law; Eddie had been midway through an MBA. Sebastian, Yvonne, and Ravi were at various stages along the trajectory from pre-med to medical school to residency. Quinn was studying experimental physics; Nicole had a grant to do historical research at the Bodlean.

I'd been planning on an M.D./Ph.D. For as long as I could remember, I'd wanted to be a doctor - to help people get better when they were sick. I know, right: I had such big dreams! And one of my college professors had told me that if you get accepted for an M.D./Ph.D., you can get your medical degree for free - that seemed crucial, since nobody would be helping me with money.

But none of that happened. Not for me, not for any of us.

Instead, we'd all matriculated here.

Which was a decision born of desperation. Like, made entirely in self-defense. Because what good would it do, the whole "wanting to be a doctor" thing, after I'd begun to notice monsters lurking within every shadow, their fanged mouths salivating over the inchoate power burgeoning inside me?

Okay, maybe I should just come out and say it: we had magic. Like, big-time: conjurations, levitation, manipulating time and space. That's why we were invited to study here.

And in the Divinorium enrollment materials - that shimmery roll of parchment I found on my nightstand one morning that explained in elegant cursive script that, although the school wasn't safe, and although no actual instructors could accompany us for our studies (apparently their power would lure so many additional monsters that we'd be better off training on our own), we'd be safer here - we were always referred to as "gifted."

As in, "You and your gifted fellows will study the theoretical underpinnings of magic and hone its practical applications."

As in, "You have come to our attention in light of your latent gifts."

But, dear reader, let me tell you: that was never the word we used among ourselves. When my classmates and I were whispering to each other in the Divinorium library, or exchanging snatches of conversation in the dormitory halls before we locked and warded our doors at night, we always called each other "haunted."

Like, "When did you first realize you were haunted?

The sensation of magic coming in actually feels a little bit like puberty, except that instead of waking up in the middle of the night all flustered and wet, you might wake up after having set your sheets on fire. Or maybe you'd have a night like I did, in February of my senior year of college, when a hookup yanked on his clothes and stormed out of my apartment at two a.m. because apparently I'd electrically shocked him awake several times. In my sleep!

I like to think that I'm pretty good in bed, but I guess I hadn't been good enough for him to put up with that.

So, sometime in your twenties, maybe, you start to gain a bit of magic. At first it's just this raw power that you can't quite control and mostly manifests when you're asleep. But then, eventually, the magic seeps into your waking life. And you can do things with it! Within a week of zapping that guy out of my apartment, I'd learned how to charge my phone with a press of my fingertip.

Which probably sounds great, right? I was brimming with power! I could do things that would've seemed unimaginable before. Some mornings as I walked to class, it felt like the very air around me was crackling with potential.

But pretty soon, if you have magic coming in, a bevy of literal living nightmares will also seep into your waking life. Because all manner of monsters are able to sniff out your newfound power, and they would like to have that power, too.

If you aren't careful - and lucky, and prepared - eventually, those monsters will drink your power out of you.

So, sure. I could've gone to medical school. And perhaps I would've survived for a few years. Maybe even long enough to finish all my introductory med school coursework and embark on that Ph.D. But eventually - out there in the real world, full of magic but unsure how best to use it - those things would have gotten me. And I'd definitely prefer not to be hollowed out by any fairy-tale monsters, thank you very much.

Which meant that this school, the Divinorium, was my only option. Instead of a medical doctor, I'd become a wizard. Which has a lot of the same benefits, right? Financial security, respectable career paths, the chance to make a positive impact on the world. I'd be able to help others, and I'd learn how to protect myself from whatever eldritch forces were lured by the scent of my magic.

But, oh my god, it was so. damn. hard! The constant fear and hypervigilance was hard, and memorizing so many spells was hard, and the requirements to actually cast a lot of those spells were hard (for example, the spell I'd been studying at the time of the pencil-tapping incident had included the instruction to "recall the sensation of flitting through the night, guided only by the reflected timbre of your own voice," which, like, what the fuck?), and it was also so, so hard to unlearn everything I'd been taught about physics and chemistry and the logical cohesion of the world, lest my preconceived notions about how things ought to work get in my magic's way.

To become a wizard, you not only have to learn volumes of devilishly inscrutable new things, you have to break down all the (apparently faulty!) knowledge that you'd built up over your lifetime.

And my brain didn't want to break!

So, there we were, Cora and I, staring into each other's apologetically trembling faces.

And, really, it wasn't just that stupid altercation that had brought us to the brink of tears. We were obviously both cracking under the strain of everything that had happened to us since we'd first realized we were haunted. The ghastly visions, the heart-pounding near escapes, and that unceasing prickle of nervous fear.

I mean, what an emotional whirlwind! I'd gone from anticipating my impending college graduation - hurray! - to feeling glee at my newfound magical powers - like, double hurray! - to absolute horror when I first had to fight off a monster, a long-legged, hideously toothy thing that pursued me until I lured it into a decorative pond outside a retirement home and managed to condense a whole lightning strike's worth of electricity into the algae-ridden water. The monster had collapsed and sunk beneath the lily pads; I'd sat on the damp ground and clutched my knees to my chest, shaking, until an aid stepped out to smoke a cigarette and asked, "You okay, sweetie?" at which point I had to choke out a "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," because if I'd tried to explain what had just happened, she'd think I was even more delusional than her wards.

Soon after that, I'd realized that the monsters would never stop coming. And so - despite my MCAT scores, despite the acceptance emails I'd nearly swooned over when I first scrolled through them on my phone - I'd enrolled at the Divinorium.

Only to find out that my life would be horrible here, too!

So in that moment, standing face to face with Cora, working up the nerve to apologize, I found myself wanting to just throw my arms around her, to squeeze her or shake her or maybe clutch at her shoulders while I tossed back my head to scream about how unfair it was that monsters were real and they wanted to eat us - only us! - and why, why, why were so many spells so damn hard?

And in that tremulous moment, with Cora and me staring at each other - god, I found myself thinking, we look like such an incongruous pair, what with Cora's light gray cape and sunny highlights and round, rosy cheeks ... me with my dark unruly curls, midnight black cape, excessively angular face ... my cape's left sleeve not quite covering the outer edge of my murmuration of starlings (inked all the way from my shoulder to my forearm), contrasting with Cora's perfectly untouched skin ... yet both of us blinking back our tears - a third year student stood up from his table and sauntered over. His hair was artfully mussed, his smile was sympathetic, and he looked so infuriatingly calm compared to Cora and me.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," he said, "but I think your class is ready for The Spell."

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Cora and I hardly spoke while we sat waiting for him to return from the stacks. We stared down at the table, embarrassed. At least, I assume that's what Cora was doing - I was too deliberately staring down at the lacquered wooden surface of our table to watch her (oooh, also mahogany, and with a little silver inlay, I'm going to pretend so hard to care soooo much about woodworking right now!).

Then the third-year student, Gunter, walked back toward us with a slim purple manuscript in his hand. His cape fluttered gracefully behind him.

"This spell will save you," Gunter said in his lilting accent, settling the book onto the table between Cora and me. Curlicues of embossed gold adorned its wordless cover. "You'll learn this spell, you'll gather your class, and all of you will cast it together. As a group. And then, trust me, you're going to feel less stressed."

"What does it do?" asked Cora, intrigued.

"It's ... I don't know, almost like, how do you say, ice-breaker?" Gunter mused. "But it could not have worked when you first arrived. You would not have been ready. There is no way. Because this spell, it animates the room you are in and lets the Divinorium ... show you things. I mean it! The spell looks into your minds, shows each of you something that someone else is thinking. Like, a fantasy. And then you will act it out for them."

"What?"

"The fantasy. Someone else's fantasy."

"Oh," Cora said, quietly, pursing her lips lightly together.

"That's weird," I said. "Why not our own?"

Gunter laughed. "No, it must be someone else's. Each performance is ... they are gifts. Showing people that perhaps their dreams or desires are within reach. I don't know how much you've felt it, yet, but gift-giving is much of what makes magic work. And, you will see. Once the spell gets going, it can feel ... um ... intense. I don't think you would even want to do your own."

Cora said, "So you think, if we can manage to get everyone together somewhere and cast this spell ..."

"You will use the apartment suite above us," Gunter said. "I'm sure you have both noticed, yes, those rooms above the library? There is only a single entrance, through the stacks. And it is nice. There is a bathroom, a shower ... everything. It is the safest spot in the whole school. Especially since ... well, after you and your classmates go in, the rest of us will ward it, and we will stay just outside the door, to guard you. Just like older students did for us, my own first year. Your class will focus only on the casting. And, don't worry ... even after the room begins to show you things ... each performer shown a glimpse from someone else's mind ... you will always have a choice. About whether or not to do it."

At this point, another third-year student - Avery, with her spunky head of short-cropped hot-pink hair - stood abruptly and swept over to our table, her rune-lined velvet cape radiating around her.

"You're showing them The Spell," she said to Gunter.

"You saw them, they're ..."

"Oh, it's reasonable! I'm surprised they made it this long. Did we?"

"Well, no, but our year there was ..."

"Even so, we could have ..."

Their conversation was clipped, their thoughts half-spoken, as though their relationship was much more intimate than I'd expect from two-and-a-half years of quietly studying near each other. I looked up and glanced toward Cora; she and I made eye contact. And my heart warmed when Cora gave me a tentative smile.

Then Cora interrupted the third years' conversation. "You've cast it?" Cora asked.

Avery laughed, a big, throaty guffaw. "We're still here, aren't we? We're alive. We're not, each of us, an utter, frazzled, nervous wreck. Which lets you know we've cast it."