Dawn

Corrie bit her lip, worried. Maybe Leila really didn’t know her sister that well, if she thought the book didn’t seem like something she would do. But what were the chances that it hadn’t been Mardalan at all? Not good, she thought—Professor Lal had been pretty certain it was her. Still, she could ask for more clarification. “What about the book itself? Professor Lal checked it for malevolent magic, but there wasn’t any in it. Just bad information. Does that sound like something she would do?”

“Why not?” asked Edie, frowning.

“Because,” said Leila, “there is very little that I know about my sister that Lal does not know. That is, I believe Rook knows her rather better than I do, and as she is trying to harm students I am sure they have shared all of their information in an attempt to stop her.”

“But she’s your sister,” Corrie said, confused. “Don’t you know her really well?” She looked around the table, trying to get agreement from her friends. “I mean, I don’t have any siblings, but I always thought if I did have a sister we would tell each other all our secrets.”

They had a surprise at dinner that evening—at least, it was a surprise to Corrie. Leila joined them in the dining hall. She and Edie were waiting there at their usual table, along with Rico and Dawn, when Corrie arrived. She paused before approaching them, unsure for a moment whether her discomfort was with Leila or with the idea that she would be a fifth wheel, then shook her head at her own silliness. She and Leila had made a truce, and should be getting along fine now.

Corrie’s eyes widened. “A link to Mardalan? Do you mean that you could use it to find her?”

Monday, November 24

Corrie was delighted at first to have another day of trance in magic class. It wasn’t that she thought she needed the practice—there was no way she could overdo trance like she had with elemental magic, and she was pretty much confident with any type of magic now. But she was glad that she was able to make up for the problems she’d had in Friday’s class, when she had been unable to achieve trance at all.

When Dawn opened her eyes, she could see all the magic around her. For a moment she was overwhelmed by her two friends—Corrie just had so much magic, and Edie’s was so strange and sparkling. But her internal eyes quickly adjusted, and she could see the haze of magic all around her. And it really was all around; as Corrie had predicted, all the books seemed to have a little magic in them, more than other inanimate objects. Dawn wondered whether that was something inherent to all books, or whether they had picked it up from being on a magical campus and used by people who did magic.

By the time Dawn’s shift ended, not only was she starving, but she had hardly found any of the books. She managed to check on the titles of the ones she did remember in the library computer system, and found that four of them had been checked out (including The Practical Use of Magic, which was under her name, of course) and three were on the shelves. When she located the ones on the shelves, she realized she had no idea how to check them. Two were history books and one was an upper-level philosophy text.

Sunday, November 23

As it turned out, Dawn had to save most of her homework for later that evening—she’d almost forgotten her shift at the library. She spent a few minutes talking to Rico, then wrote a note for Naomi saying that they needed to talk, though it wasn’t urgent. Then she bundled up, because the cold weather was really arriving in earnest, and hurried off to the library.

Emi greeted her with a wide-eyed expression of shock. “Dawn! You’re a minute and a half late! I’m shocked and appalled, really I am.”

Corrie shoved her hands in her coat pockets as they left the magic building, heading back toward Gilkey. It was getting really cold. “Dammit, I don’t want to do my homework.”

“Well, I don’t think you have to quite yet,” said Dawn. “We should really tell everyone else about this.”

Corrie glanced at her and nodded. “You’re right. Our friends need to know.”

“I should probably let Leila know,” said Edie with a frown. “I mean, it’s her sister trying to mess with us still. They really don’t seem to get along at all.”

Sunday, November 23

Corrie, Dawn, and Edie had agreed that they would all go see Professor Lal. They’d all used the book, and Edie, after hearing about how the book had failed to give Dawn the instructions that would have helped her, and the fact that Professor Lal was worried about it, feared there might have been some malevolent magic on it that affected them. Corrie thought she was being over-cautious, but was certainly willing to indulge her; it was certainly safer to be too cautious than not cautious enough.