The Sports Captain's Tale полностью

I picked up speed, allowing the spell to pull me into an alleyway. It was rare for anyone to really bother a student from Whitehall, not when the students were magicians and capable of defending themselves, which meant … I muttered a pair of night vision spells, then a hearing spell, as I reached the alleyway. Two people were at the far end, one pressing the other against the wall. Mildred was being held in place by … I ground my teeth in sudden fury. Blair. Of course it was Blair. Was he insane? If he tried to rape her … I swallowed hard, fighting to control my anger. Did he really think he was immune to punishment? Did he really think Mildred would keep her mouth shut? Did he really think …?

He was whispering, but the spell carried his words to my ears. “You got lucky,” he hissed, his voice low and threatening. To me, it was merely annoying. I knew I was a fair match for him. To Mildred, who froze when confronted with the unexpected … it had to be terrifying. “Your team won through sheer luck. But it won’t happen again. If you stay on the team …”

Blair leaned forward, pushing her against the wall and leaving her in absolutely no doubt what would happen if she stayed on the team. I was shocked. Trying to lure someone away through cajolery or bribery was one thing, outright threatening them was quite another. And he’d picked on the weakest link, the teammate who had the least emotional investment in a glorious victory. I would have admired his animal cunning if he hadn’t been a shitty person …

I started forward, intent on beating the shit out of him, as he pushed Mildred even harder. Her eyes went wide, an instant before there was a brilliant flash of light and Blair morphed into a frog. I heard his outraged croaking as he tried to hop away, then grinned at Mildred. She was staring around wildly, as if she didn’t quite believe what she’d done. I felt my grin grow wider. If she hadn’t turned a fellow student into something before now, she was probably the only one ... Blair kept hopping, until I put my foot on him. I felt his magic twist as he tried to undo the spell, to escape before it was too late. But it was already too late. I altered the spell and made it stronger, then kicked him down the alleyway.

It won’t last forever, I thought, as I caught Mildred’s arm and pulled her in the other direction. That would get me expelled. But he’ll have a few nasty hours before it wears off.

“Kai!” Mildred seemed torn between hugging or hexing me. “You … he … what …?”

“It’s alright,” I said. What was I supposed to say? “I … you bested him! You beat him!”

“I …” Mildred staggered against me. “I … he said he’d kill me …”

“Not after that,” I told her. “You scared him.”

“Really?” Mildred didn’t seem to believe me. “Did I?”

“Yeah.” I winked, although I wasn’t sure she could see me. “Bullies are always cowards. You put them in a world of pain and they go running.”

I sighed, inwardly, as I hurried her back to the school. It was true – a bully always had a cowardly heart – but it was difficult to expose it. A bully only becomes a bully because he’s allowed to get away with a small act of bullying, then a slightly larger act of bullying, then an even bigger act … with each act, the level of force you need to reveal his inner coward grows higher and higher. Sure, Blair had been shocked – and the adjustments I’d made to the spell should give him a nasty fright – but he wouldn’t be knocked down for good. He’d think she got lucky. He might even tell himself I cast the spell.

Mildred shuddered against my arm. “He said I only got the place on the team because we were … sleeping together.”

“Oh,” I said, deadpan. Someone said that about Darrell too. She kicked him in the crotch hard enough to do real damage. “And are we sleeping together?”

I didn’t need the spell to see her blush. “No!”

“No,” I agreed. “So you know he’s lying.”

She said nothing for a long moment, then: “What do we do now?”

“We train for the final match,” I said. Blair would be doing the same, as would whoever won the next match. They’d copy our trick, if I was any judge, and then … we’d just have to come up with something new. “And we kick his ass right across the field.”

It was easier said than done.

We trained hard, of course. We went to the field every evening and played time and time again, testing ourselves against each other and the arena’s automatic defences. There was no way to test ourselves against other teams – Blair, damn him, had been making all sorts of promises and there was no one I could trust not to report our tactics straight to him – but we made progress. Slowly. I was starting to think the team really was coming together.

But it wouldn’t last past the next defeat.