Defensive Magic Chapter 26: Garion’s Nightmare Brigade

WINTER TERM - January 3rd

"So, what's the deal with you and Aries now?" Aisling asked over breakfast. I'd gotten here early, to read the new combat textbook with coffee, and Aisling, likely suspecting this, ca to needle out of it.

We hadn't had a mont really to talk just the two of us, and even then, it was hard for my attention not to be drawn up to the invisible familiar making a nest for itself in her hair.

That thing had overtaken most of our conversations in recent days. I still didn't know what kind of animal it was, or if it was dead, or if it had ever been alive. Aisling was more focused on trying to give it a na and maybe next, determine if it had a gender. We can't just be calling it an it! she'd said.

But like I said, we'd been busy with other things, so I hadn't seen it coming when she'd asked about Aries. I'd gotten used to in the past month not having to explain myself, for better or worse.

"Zeph?"

Apparently, I'd been taking too long with my answer.

"I'm trying very hard not to be an ass," I said. It was more than that though. I was stuck between wanting to talk to her about Aries and knowing that might hurt more than help. Because what was I going to say? We kissed a few tis and fought and now we just had awkward silences and too-long hugs.

I liked Aries. I didn't want to, but I do. And it's annoying, in part because he's annoying, but now I have to also contend with the fact that I think it's cute when he's nervous, or that I like that he's always invading my personal space. I didn't tell Aisling all this exactly, but I tried to imply it in so many words.

"We're still figuring things out," I said.

Aisling eyed , pressuring to go on but there wasn't more to say, or at least not more I was willing to talk about.

"Because he watched you flirting with that guy in the wolf mask?" she asked.

"Aisling, co on, that was weeks ago." I'd almost forgotten about him. But even saying this, sothing clicked. I might have forgotten about it, but Aries hadn't.

And at least then, we were joined by Aries and Noodle carrying plates with bacon and eggs and gave an excuse to drop the conversation. Aisling rose to get a plate of her own and shooed her invisible familiar out of her hair. It croaked and fluttered. Even if we couldn't see it, we could hear it, at least when it seed to want to be heard.

"Morning, Zeph." Aries's hand caught one of my horns and jerked my head sideways. He took the empty seat next to . I got even by stealing his coffee. I'd already finished mine, just wished his hadn't been mostly milk and sugar.

This term, Blackclaw's course was called "Hostile Scenarios & Necessary Battle Magic." It was a limited class with students admitted by invite only. Blackclaw invited unprompted with the note, "You're a werewolf. You ARE a hostile scenario in the making." I resented that opinion, but given that combat lessons were one of the few places where I'd learned combative spells last term, I accepted the invitation anyway. Aries managed to talk his way into it, which I was glad for, but other than him, Noodle and Aisling had opted to take Intro to Ritual Summoning instead. The one drawback was that Blackclaw's class t outside, on the lawn beside the gatehouse, despite the January cold. At least for today, we had clear skies.

Aries and I spent the walk down practicing a wind spell, gust, trying to see if either of us could give it enough umph to knock the other off his feet. This shouldn't have been a big deal, but given what Blackclaw had said about drinking too much wolfsbane solution, I was trying my best to keep that for ergencies only.

I cast first - my casting was stronger, but Aries was sturdy and while the strong wind whipped around him, he managed to keep pace walking through it. Aries's casting was less precise, but he managed to take aim, and a few tis I nearly stumbled. On his last attempt, his spell caught around my foot. I tripped and caught myself a few inches from face-planting in the grass. I felt the wolf lurch awake. I rose cautiously, but the wolf did nothing, no scratching, no baying, just watching from behind my eyes.

"Did I win this one?" Aries was panting hard from all the casting. He was red in the face and glistening with a thin layer of sweat.

"Yeah. You win this one," I said. I tried not to think about the wolf, willing it gone. It was easier instead to let my thoughts drift to Aries, who was still trying to catch his breath. A few strands of his hair clung to his forehead and a few beads of sweat dripped down the side of his face. Aries breathless and sweaty— it was only going to feed my imaginings.

Blackclaw's eyes narrowed on us as joined the rest of the class on the lawn. "You should try not to show up to class already exhausted, Mr. de la Fel. You and Ashbourne are my only first year students in the class this term and I'd like to keep necessary dical intervention to a minimum if we can."

It's syllabus week, so it really didn't matter that Aries was exhausted. We didn't do anything significant. Blackclaw explained that he'd be dividing the class up into small teams, not to fight against each other, like last term, but to tackle various simulated obstacles and hostile creatures in a controlled environnt. This ans fighting golems, automatons, and various magical constructs, accompanied by readings and various pieces of international legislation on scenarios and situations where magical attacks are understood as appropriate asures.

As for the rest of the class, it was strange not to recognize anyone. Blackclaw had already said that Aries and I were the only first year mages. Beyond that, there was one girl who I suspected might be a mber of our coven, but I'd never seen her without her mask, so really, I hadn't a clue.

It also occured to that most of them already knew each other, though that was less from any sense of shared camaraderie and more to do with how Aries and I drew their attention more than we should have.

I felt eyes on . A few sets– an infernal woman with dark skin and deep shadows under her eyes and a half-elf man, a little younger than , with a shaved head and pale eyes. It was enough for the wolf to put his hackles up, but at least, he was still quiet.

I tried to tell myself I'd been imagining it. One day without wolfsbane and you're suspicious of everyone.

But after class, as Aries and I started the walk back to the Court, the guy with the shaved head grabbed my shoulder. It'd surprised and the wolf– I growled through my teeth at him. Or rather, the wolf did.

I choked the wolf back as best I could. "Sorry," I said quickly. It was still barking inside my skull.

The guy smirked. "I thought I knew you from sowhere, buck."

I blinked. What? Between the noisy wolf in my head and strange man in front of , it took too long for it to click.

"Everything alright?" Aries asked. I forgot he'd been there, but he was.

"Not interested in talking now that you're sober?" he asked , ignoring Aries.

And it clicked. The golden wolf. The guy in front of didn't look like him: shaved head, blue eyes, broad shoulders. But the man at the ball had always been a disguise. None of us looked like ourselves that night.

Aries hovered a little closer at my side. He hadn't really been a part of this conversation, but I could feel him butting in. He was staring

"It was kind of a weird night for ," I said.

Then a voice from behind him called out, "Quit taunting him, Stellan. We're going to be stuck with him all term." The infernal woman. She had short gray horns, smooth as bone, carefully adorned with braids. She had been waiting nearby, but I hadn't realized that she too was part of this, whatever this was. "It's not like you've always played nice with others. Alright?"

He rolled his eyes. "Right, whatever. Just thought we'd et the new werewolf."

I tensed at the word. They knew. Had Blackclaw told them? Was I that obvious? No one had seen shift. I'd hardly spoken to anyone about it. Even half the professors should have been still in the dark.

"I don't know what you heard-"

"Takes one to know one," Stellan said.

"You're a werewolf." It was Aries who said it. I'd been thinking it, and now I understood the wolf's baying in my head. It was a greeting, a frenzy, a warning. A realization that we are not alone.

Then, there was the woman behind him next. Was she-?

I hadn't been looking at her closely until now. Not with Stellan right in front of . She smiled a little too wide. It wasn't really a smile though, she was showing her teeth. Her fangs.

"And a vampire," I said. I could see the other signs of her curse coming into focus— the red eyes, the deathly pallor to her dark skin, the hardly-there scar just below the shadow of her jaw, where a vampire had torn out her throat, before putting her back together again.

"Nadine," she said, extending a hand. I didn't take it. She was a vampire, sohow out in sunlight but that didn't change what she was.

"A warm welco to Garion's Nightmare Brigade," Stellan muttered. "Whatever bullshit attitude you've got about vampires, best stow it now, or you and I aren't gonna be friends."

Aries took a step forward, putting himself between and Stellan. "Maybe he's got good reason not to trust vampires."

Nadine scoffed. "I'm a person and I'm right here. Talk to , not about . Yes, I'm a vampire. But also, gods, you're a werewolf, alright? This is sym and here, we're both seen as monsters."

She was missing the point. "Call a monster but I've never killed anyone," I said.

I might have expected her to bite my head off for that. I didn't realize how much I was bracing for her to explode at , until she didn't. Instead, her voice was soft and asured. "I was turned during the war. It was a bleak ti in a lot of ways. I was grief-stricken and scared. I'm not the person I was then," Nadine said. "But if it matters that much to you, I live on cow's blood and limited blood drawings from consenting donors."

"Nadine, you don't have to explain yourself to him," Stellan said.

"They're the ones from Caburh," she said. "I don't owe them anything, but I'm curious, what side of the war do you think they were on then?"

Aries shot a look. He was in over his head. He'd been relatively proud of his father's achievents. It didn't matter that Caburh had lost. And Nadine was a vampire with enough of a motive to want to see him drained of all his blood.

"No one can help what life they were born into," I said finally. But it was the wrong thing, Stellan was now looking a little too intently at Aries for my liking.

"What's your deal then? You're not a werewolf," he said.

I was scrambling for an answer that didn't entirely revolve around him being tied to the king of Fel, but Nadine was quicker. "He's from Caburh. It's not just werewolves and vampires there. Plenty of ordinary idiots too."

I almost laughed. Relief. And yes, that was exactly what he was. An ordinary idiot. I didn't want her thinking anything otherwise.

"So now the Masquerade was a weird night?" Aries asked.

It was later. We were in the Sanctum, where I could flip through the grimoire Marblebrook had return over break. She'd said it wasn't a beginner's book, but she hadn't explicitly forbid from reading it either. Aries had been reading from another book at my side.

I knew he was going to bring this up at so point. He'd been on edge all through the conversation with Stellan and probably for all the wrong reasons.

"Yeah," I said. "It was weird. I made out with a cute guy and for so reason, he wouldn't co ho with ."

I was t with a hard glare. I'm trying to make this easy for you. Let it just be easy.

"Were you ever going to tell that he's also a werewolf?" Aries asked. "I an, the wolf mask probably should have been a dead giveaway, but you didn't say anything."

He was way too hung up on this.

"Would you believe if I said I didn't know?"

Aries grumbled. That wasn't the answer he'd expected but maybe that in itself was a good thing. "You're such a shit werewolf, you know that?"

He was still in a bad mood. A few more minutes of his sulking and I snapped, "Did you ever think maybe I was looking for you that night?"

"Right after he turned you down."

He wasn't listening. I tried a new tactic, reaching for his hand. He tried to tear it from my grip, but I still caught what I'd ant to- his pinky finger with the gold signet ring.

"We were wearing disguises. I had to guess yours and I guessed wrong." He was still trying to wrestle his way out of my hold. His ring slipped off.

He scrambled for it but it was already in my hand. "See?" I held it up to him. "Gold, wolf, sun."

He elbowed in the ribs before snatching it back. And I don't think any part of what I'd said even registered until he slipped the ring back on his hand. He stared at the crest for a long ti, saying nothing. I went back to reading my grimoire. Eventually, he settled back beside , a firm pressure against my side. He flipped open his book again and went back to reading. This wasn't forgiveness exactly, but it was close.