He shook his head. “Irene and Shelby are vacationing with Jordan’s family. Somewhere in Europe I think.”
“We’ve had class with the same group of twenty-something students for a year. You must know someone else, surely.”
Max shook his head. “That might be true, but only vaguely. I know of Drew and Jason and people, but I’ve never really spoken with them.”
“Hmm,” Juliana tapped her finger on her chin. “I can’t say I’m much different. Something to work on this year.”
“I’ll pass,” Eva said. “I’ve gotten through a whole year not talking to anyone outside our group, I’m sure I’ll get through another with no trouble. Besides,” she waved a gloved hand, “it is hard enough keeping secrets in our little group.”
Max quirked an eyebrow. “Secrets?”
Eva’s face immediately twisted into a scowl. Juliana quickly gave her a little nudge. There was an unnatural wiggle beneath her shirt as Juliana’s elbow ribbed her.
For that demon that saved her life, Shalise did the first thing she could think of to pull attention to herself. She smiled and nudged Max in his side. “Oh you know, secrets like which boys we like and who among us girls is most developed.”
His face changed colors. It was almost imperceptible, but it was there. His eyes struggled to maintain contact with Shalise’s own.
Seeing his reaction, Shalise’s smile curled into a grin. “I’ll give you a hint: it isn’t Juliana,” she said in a stage whisper.
“Hey! I’ll have you know that I’ve got more muscles in my pinky fingers than the rest of you put together.” She glared at Shalise. “I’m not afraid to use them.”
“Ooh, spooky,” Shalise giggled. She half skipped, half hopped down the path. “We’re going to be late if we keep dilly-dallying.”
The rest of the group followed, though they skipped the skipping. Soon enough, all four were seated around the middle of the amphitheater. Just in time too.
Professor Baxter appeared on stage near a pile of silver marbles. She scanned the crowd. Her eyes stopped briefly on their group and she gave them a light smile. At the end of her scan, she frowned for just a moment. The frown vanished as quick as it came.
“Welcome to my seminar,” Professor Baxter said. She then launched into a short speech, one that was exactly the same as the year before according to Eva. Despite her mentioning discussing battle tactics, apparently such events were few and far between. It was similar to Professor Kines’ club except they fought the professor instead of each other.
She started off with some student she named Mr. Burnside. He put on a dazzling show of fire with the occasional pillar of earth to block her marbles. They kept the fight going for almost a minute before one of the marbles struck his shoulder. After that, more hit him and he went down to the ground.
“Excellent, Mr. Burnside. A vast improvement over last year.”
Mr. Burnside didn’t seem to think so. He was grumbling under his breath as he walked back to his seat.
Juliana leaned over as another student took to the stage. “A lot of them seem to show up for only a seminar or two to fight Zoe. He is one of those. In a few weeks he’ll be back with some new gimmicky way to fight.”
“I didn’t think that looked that bad.”
Juliana scoffed. “He used a massive amount of tiny fireballs in a vain attempt at getting a lucky hit in. None of them even made it close as a light gust of air extinguished them.
“His use of earth magic was atrocious, but as an earth mage, I might be biased. Still, he could have tried to open a pit beneath her feet to throw her off-balance.”
Shalise was feeling the butterflies settle into her stomach. What she planned on doing was in no way as impressive.
“Don’t worry,” Juliana patted her thigh. “I’m a little nervous myself. Last year I didn’t carry thirty pounds of metal around with me.”
“Thirty pounds?”
“I said I had more muscles than all you.” She rubbed her hands together. “Zoe likes to use lightning a lot, and she will with me because her metal marbles won’t touch me at all. But I’ve been doing some research lately; I think I can nullify her lightning as well.”
“Think? You’re not sure?”
“It’ll be a fun test. Zoe doesn’t use her full power. At least, I hope she doesn’t.”
Shalise wasn’t sure she’d be willing to test Professor Baxter’s lightning strength on the whims of hope. Juliana just smiled and went back to watching the spar between the professor and a water mage.
Once he got knocked down and wandered off the stage, Shalise decided to act. Waiting any longer wouldn’t help. She’d only get more and more nervous.
“I-I’d like to go next,” Shalise said as she stood up.
Professor Baxter glanced at her with a puzzled look on her face.
