"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. My voice came out as a tiny squeak but I had to work with what I had. Then I kicked him in the shins for good measure. "So back off."
He took a step back and then blinked at me, as if he was shocked at himself for doing as I asked. Or maybe at me for kicking him. Either way.
"Right," I said. "Now explain to me in a calm and rational manner what happened and we can use logic to figure out what happened and how to fix it, instead of these strong arm tactics, which quite frankly never work for you anyway."
He sat quietly for a moment, his brow furrowed.
"The orb is gone," he said.
"Yes, you said that part." I didn't roll my eyes at him, but it was a close thing. "When did you notice it missing?"
"Just now," he said. "I keep it in a small iron box so that no outside magic can affect it but when I checked it, the box was empty."
"How often do you check it?"
"Once a day. Sometimes more."
I nodded, thinking it through. I'd been doing my reading since all the business with the truth spell, so I knew that magic could not penetrate iron, it couldn't pass through it and sometimes iron even repelled it. If the box was empty, someone had opened it and taken the orb out, old school style with no magic.
"You asked the others?"
"Of course."
"And you hadn't taken it out to play with it or something and forgotten to put it back."
He glared at me.
"Or dropped it?"
"I checked it last night before I went to bed and the orb was there, intact. The box was locked and the room was under the most heavy security in our house. I checked the footage and there is nothing strange about it. It is as if the orb just ceased to exist."
"Well, that would be a good thing, right? Then we wouldn't have to worry about it."
"Are you stupid? Of course it didn't actually cease to exist. Nothing in this world ever ceases to exist, it merely changes form. In this case, I believe the energy inside the orb has returned to the original spellcaster, or possibly been redirected to another tool of the spellcaster, as was the case last time."
That wasn't something I wanted to think about. The truth spell had not been a barrel of laughs.
"But how? You said nobody went into the room, nobody opened the box."
"Clearly somebody did, they just evaded our methods of detection."
I huffed. "And you just automatically blame me?" Just the thought of it made me about a thousand times more angry. "Because I have so much spare time after all the trouble you've caused me this week, I can just suddenly pull of some master crime job and steal a ball of magic? Are you ever going to stop and think how stupid it is for you to blame me for every little thing that goes wrong in your dumb jerk life? How about you take some responsibility? And while you're at it, stop making things worse for me. As if this school wasn't bad enough but you make it a hundred times worse. Just leave me alone." I was so mad that I stepped right up in front of him and flicked him square on the forehead.
A fraction of a second after doing it, I realized it was probably not the smartest move I'd ever made and high-tailed it out of there before Tennyson Wilde got his senses back enough to snap my spine like a twig.
Chapter 4
Things didn't get any worse but they didn't get better either. The bullying kept on, but it wasn't as if the students of Amaris were particularly creative in their methods. It was the same thing every day, a bit of shunning, a bit of incidental violence, a few spitballs. It got so I could set my watch by it. I'd left my blazer in the locker room and when I went back for it, it was gone, so I looked online for a new one but the cheap eBay ones I'd found weren't available and everything else was so far out of my price range I'd be BFF with Astor before I could afford one. It was freezing out but I went to classes without my blazer and did the best I could. It was no big deal.
Worse than all that was what Tennyson Wilde had said. After the anger faded and I thought about what had happened, it really freaked me out. The person who that magic belonged to was not messing around. They were strong and they were angry. Plus, they'd gotten access to the Golden House and I'd seen the high level security they had going on there. If they could get into the Golden House undetected, they could go into anywhere in this world. Tennyson Wilde said that the energy in that ball of light was their power. They'd managed to break into the Golden House without their main power, and now they had it back. They could strike at any moment. It was scary stuff.
I had no proof they had a problem with me in particular. It was just coincidence I'd been at ground zero when the spell struck last time. They'd been after Tennyson Wilde, I was sure of it. Hopefully, if something else happened, it would be Tennyson Wilde-specific. They could steal his voice. Or turn him into a donkey. Or give him boils. Man, maybe I should've stolen the orb. I was fairly sure it didn't work like that but still. I could've thrown it at his head and that would've been awesome.
It wasn't fun, waiting around for the next spell to hit, but it kind of seemed unreal too, as if everything that had happened before, with the truth spell, had been a bad dream. If it hadn't been for the werewolves constantly reminding me that all that stuff existed, I probably could've convinced myself quite happily that it didn't. It wasn't real in the same way that the bullying was real, wasn't such an imminent threat. And it wasn't as if I could do anything about it, anyway. I tried not to think about it more than I had to. It was Tennyson Wilde's problem, not mine. Still, the thought kept sneaking into my mind when I dropped my guard, thoughts about what might happen next, what the spell would be, if we'd be able to stop it this time.
Clouds gathered in the sky like a warning of things to come, gray and murky and ominous. It was hard to stay positive when even the weather looked as if it was done with the world. I shivered my way up to the school the next morning, wondering if I'd find a spell cast over everyone. Maybe a spell to stop them being jerks, that would be dandy.
Hannah had already been gone when I'd woken up, but I thought that was probably for the best. If the bullies weren't intending to let up, it was no good for her to be seen with me. I was surprised they hadn't already begun targeting her as a way to get to me.
When I entered the dining hall for breakfast, everyone seemed intrigued by something they were reading on their laptops, their tablets and phones, but at my arrival they all looked up. There was silence for a moment and then the muttering broke out. I sighed. What now? Some new blog post? Another top ten ranking by Tennyson Wilde? At least if he publicly disliked me again, the bullying would be for a legitimate reason. Whatever it was, I didn't care. I didn't have to read it, and everyone already hated me anyway. What harm could it do?
I spotted Hannah at our usual table. I gave her a little wave and headed over, determined to ignore all the eyes following me. When she saw me, her face went pale. She grabbed her things and fled the room.
What was up with that? I had definitely not done anything to offend her. I cleaned up after myself in our room and I never touched her stuff, and I was fairly sure I didn't say weird stuff in my sleep. I mean, I never had before so I doubted I'd have suddenly started. Plus, she knew she could talk to me about that kind of thing.
"Wow," said Olivia Hearst, stepping in my way and blocking my path. Man, were those girls everywhere? Were they stalking me or what? "I knew you were some weird sort of social reject but this is a whole new level."
I scrunched up my face in thought. Nope, no clue what she was talking about. I wanted to ignore her, but if whatever was going on affected Hannah, I should probably sort it out.
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
She rolled her eyes. "As if you don't know."
I rolled my eyes back at her. "As if you don't know that I don't know." Her and her cronies were definitely behind all this, with their creepy Tennyson Wilde loving.
Instead of explaining though, or rubbing her triumph in my face, she turned back to her gaggle of friends and walked away. Weird.
"This is really bad," said Fatima, who was sitting at a table nearby. When she spoke to me, the other people at the table looked at her in surprise and edged their chairs away. She glanced up at me. "I don't know if you did this or if someone is impersonating you, but you should put a stop to it."
"What?" I asked her.
"Your Facebook page."
I tilted my head to the side, curious. "I don't have a Facebook." My only friend had been dead until recently, so I hadn't seen the point.
"You do now," she said, then went back to her books, ending the conversation.