Chapter 7

The School of Architecture building is one of the primary buildings on campus. It houses many classrooms as well as work rooms where the students in advanced classes build models for projects. In the main hall of the building, they were holding the ceremony. I eased my way in while one of the heads of the school gave his speech.

“ ... five and a half years ago, and tonight, we add the final piece to this epic compilation of hard work, dedication, and simple determination. This model not only represents the structures and landscape, but actually includes small scrapings from those buildings, bits of dirt from the land, and even small twigs from trees. Even the highways represented here have bits of the real thing molded into the model. It is an incredible feat, and the School of Architecture at the University of Texas in Arlington is proud to be its home.”

I found a seat in the back and realized there were a lot more people present than I had expected. I knew all architecture staff and students were invited, but because it was scheduled for a Friday night, I didn’t believe that many students would show up.

Behind the speaker was a large table. On it was a scale model of the primary hubs of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. From my seat in the back, I couldn’t make out a lot of detail, but I could see the main highways. It looked like the students had modeled loops 635 and 820 on the East and West ends respectively, with Interstate 20 forming the southern border, and DFW International airport acting as the northern border. The overall size of the model was impressive. I didn’t know what the scale was, but all of the buildings, streets, and even the trees were hardly visible.

After the first speech, there were three more. An hour and a half later, I stifled a yawn and briefly wondered why I had decided to attend. Being there wasn’t required and I wasn’t going to receive any kind of special bonus to my grades, so why?

I considered getting up and leaving, but no one else had, and I changed my mind when they brought out a box that held the final section of the scale-size model. I looked at the miniature city and found the empty spot for the section they brought out. I couldn’t tell what was included in the section but I found its intended location: north of I-30, between South Belt Line Road and Highway 161. No one would be able to reach that far to put it in. There weren’t any cables or hooks hanging from above and none of the students had any kind of poles or other devices to help them put it in place. Suddenly, I was very interested in how this was going to work.

The last speaker turned and said, “And now, the senior students who worked on this last section will have the honor of placing it.”

One of the students picked up the section from the rolling cart. I thought the base was too thick, but then I realized it was just as thick as the table the model sat on. That student, along with two others, crawled under the table. Everyone watched as the last section rose up into place. It was almost as if that section grew out of the base of the model from the audience’s perspective and everyone’s applause grew with it.

A couple of minutes later, the students crawl back out and one of them gave the speaker a thumbs up. The speaker said, “And there we have it!” The audience applauded again and I joined in. I was curious what they used to hold the section in place and the idea to ask the students ran through my head.

A few seconds later, something washed over me. It was an odd feeling, nothing I had ever felt before. There were a lot of things that it wasn’t. It wasn’t euphoria from the crowd, it wasn’t a sense of accomplishment from the students, it wasn’t a change in temperature, and it wasn’t a change in the lighting. What it did was make the hairs on my arms stand on end, it sent a shiver along my body, from my extremities to my core and back again, and it made me smell dirt, asphalt, trees, grass, water, and a host of different things. Needless to say, I had no idea what just happened.

Everyone left their seats to go study the model closer and talk to the students about the project. I stayed in my seat, watching them. I felt detached, as if I was watching what happened on TV and something else drew part of my attention away. Whatever I felt or sensed; no one else seemed to.

I stood up, to go down and take a closer look at the model, but for whatever reason, Dalton’s suggestion came to mind, “It’s possible you could run into different effects imbued into objects.”

I looked over the crowd. No one looked out of place. Nothing they wore or held looked odd. I really had no idea what I might be looking for. No one was paying any attention to me, so I held up my hand, doing what Stephanie told me to do when looking for magic.

I focused on the crowd, thinking about seeing Magic. Nothing changed. The speakers all wore suits, but nothing glowed. The students were dressed in different kinds of clothes, a few had hats, some were wearing jackets, and one student was wearing shorts, but I didn’t see anything strange. I swept over the rest of the students and staff that were looking at the model when I noticed it.

I inspected my hand, but it was clean, as I suspected. So, what made the glow? I used the spell again, looking at the crowd around the model. There was something there, some change in the light that didn’t make sense. Dalton said I would see a nimbus around any object I was looking at, but she never said what the color would be. Oddly, there wasn’t a single color.

I put my hand down and looked around again. No one was looking my way. Nobody seemed to notice that I wasn’t approaching the model like everyone else. I had to look odd, holding my hand up like that, like I was looking through an imaginary spyglass.

I looked at my hand again. I hadn’t been using my ring or pinky fingers while looking. Would the nimbus become more distinct if I did?

I sat down again, to seem less conspicuous, and then I looked again. The nimbus was there, broken up among the crowd. I watched the broken light while focusing on my hand and thinking of extending the spyglass by adding my ring finger. The light grew brighter. I added my pinky and the light became brighter again. The color, however, didn’t become more distinct. If anything, I would guess that there were multiple colors involved.

“Excuse me,” said a female voice behind me.

I dropped my hand and turned to look. A woman stood there with her arms crossed and a severe frown.

I didn’t even have time to take in her appearance before she grabbed my arm, and with surprising strength, yanked me up out of my seat. “Come with me,” she said, dragging me along.

I was confused as I stumbled behind her. “What are you doing?” I asked, trying to stop her, or at least pull my hand from her grip.

She stopped, turned to face me, and twisted my wrist. Pain shot up through my arm and I was on my toes trying to minimize it. “You will keep your mouth shut and follow me, now.”

She turned and strode off again, continuing to drag me along. We made it to the hall and a few doors later, we went into one of the many classrooms. The classrooms here were smaller than the main hall, and, unlike the rest of the rooms I had seen, they were carpeted.

A spark shot off between us. I felt her emotions, the most prevalent of which was fear. I didn’t understand why she was afraid, but she jumped with the spark, and I took advantage. I quickly twisted my wrist around and grabbed hers. I pulled her over to the teacher’s desk and made her sit on it. I let her wrist go, stepped out of reach and said, “Now, what is this all about?”

She had shoulder-length, straight red hair with bangs that just grazed her eyebrows. She wore a fairly tight blue dress. The material had tiny pleats all along the seams except around her breasts where it appeared she filled out the material so the pleats weren’t visible. The dress stopped about halfway down her thighs but with her sitting on the desk, it rode up a couple of inches, showing off her long, shapely legs. Black heels with a wide buckle for looks finished off her outfit. Obviously, she was dressed for the ceremony, but she wasn’t one of the speakers and I didn’t recall seeing her in the crowd. To be honest, she would have been difficult to miss. So how did I miss her?

She rubbed her wrist, and frowned at me. “What were you doing?”

“I asked first,” I said.

She shook her head and stood up again without bothering to smooth her dress back into place. She looked me over and said, “I don’t have to answer your questions, but you better answer mine.” All at once, she had an air of authority that would have made the Sheriff proud. It made her scary and I had the sudden urge to tell her the truth.

I looked her over again, worried that I was really talking to an undercover officer, and wondering if I had missed a gun or other weapon. Her dress didn’t offer much room for anything like that, except maybe under the skirt in between her thighs. As high as her skirt was, I didn’t see anything but her skin. Then I noticed something out of place. On her left side, there was a pink and fuzzy patch. Fearful enough to want to run, I tried to distract her. I pointed at the pink patch and said, “You might want to take care of that when you get home. I’d hate to see that dress ruined.”

Her brow furrowed and she looked down at her side. “There’s nothing...” She stopped and looked up again. Just as quick as I noticed it, her air of authority was gone. “How did you see that?” she asked.

I blinked at her and felt anger replacing my fear. “You have a lot of questions for someone who has no authority over me.”

“Who are you? How did you find me?” she asked with what sounded like a growl.

I met her eyes. “I didn’t find you, you found me. I came to attend the ceremony. I’m an architecture student.”

She hesitated for a second, probably thinking over what I said. “What’s your name?” she asked, looking even more dangerous.

“Seth,” I said. “What’s yours? Who are you?”

“My name is Valory Rosenbaum,” she said, taking a step closer. “And I’m a lecturer for the School of Architecture here.”

“Okay,” I said. Some of my anger diminished but only because I didn’t understand what was really going on. “So, why did you drag me in here? I didn’t do anything wrong. I wasn’t even close to the model.”

She shook her head slightly, and took another step closer. “I’m not worried about the model. In fact, I’m curious why you weren’t closer, why you were sitting so far away, and what you were doing with your hand.”

I shook my head and pretended to stifle a yawn. “I’ve had a long day and I was rubbing my eyes. And I was still in my seat because I didn’t want to fight the crowd to get a closer look at the model. I was going to wait until some of them left.”

She studied my face. “I think you’re lying to me.” She took another half-step closer. Her eyes fluttered and she licked her lips. “I want you to tell me the truth.”

Her voice sounded dreamy, very seductive, and for a moment I wanted to tell her exactly what I was doing. I had to. She was an important part of the school. Besides, it wasn’t like I was hurting anyone or the model. Then the thought crossed my mind, if I tried to explain what I was doing, she would really think I was lying. It was an odd situation to be in, but this was one of the many possibilities I had to face being a Magus. I shook my head and the desire to talk fell away as if I had been wearing a veil and it now fluttered to the floor.

She reached up and rubbed my cheek. “It’s okay, Seth,” she said in that same soft voice. “You can tell me.”

I reached up and put my hand on hers. I was going to pull her hand off my face because being this close to her was making me wish one of my girls were here instead. I tried to focus on her face, to tell her to back up. Instead, she faded away...