Sophia Jackson
Stories
11
Chapters
5,834
Words
1.6 M
Comments
0
Reading
5 d, 14 h
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170 ****** > The woman’s peppy voice was suddenly joined by the first notes of a fast-paced song. The chatter ended, and the cafeteria at Matadero filled with a voice singing in Punjabi. A metal tray sailed through the air, and Alden caught it. The last bit of a banana peel fell into the trashcan beside him. Then he unpreserved and added the tray to one of the clean stacks on the table at his back. “No,” Kabir was saying to whoever he’d just called. He reached for another dirty plate and…-
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169 ****** “Why did you think I was over a hundred years old?” Alden’s fingers stopped tracing the seam where the table’s crystal inset met polished wood. “I just thought you were a little older than you are, not Zeridee was sitting across from him in the only other chair. Behind her, the wall of her hospital room had turned into a giant “window” with a view of an Artonan city. Alden didn’t know which one. “It “We’d just been rescued from drowning,” Alden interrupted. “It…
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168 ****** Haoyu sat backwards in the desk chair, his arms propped on the backrest while he watched Alden take a turtleneck from his closet and fold it. “How do you avoid getting lost?” Lexi, leaning against the door frame, groaned. “He tells us he’s going to sleep over at Matadero, and your first question is how he Alden reached for the hanger. “The wizard who’s been healing me is at Matadero. It’s more convenient for him if I’m there.” Esh-erdi had said it was fine to blame his…
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167 ****** “My Body Becomes My Assistant?” Stuart asked. He was on the floor with his legs crossed, and though he had sat in polite silence while Alden finished the wordchain, he’d watched the whole casting process intently. “I want to use it in gym and get the hang of it, but I’ve been thinking I might mix up having it active with having it inactive so that I’m getting better at moving in both ways. Trouble doesn’t always happen in convenient six-hour windows. Do knights use a lot of…
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166 ****** The lab coat had a hole in it, right over the center of Alden’s chest. He covered the hole with his free hand as he chased the sound of Kibby’s whistle through the grass. His other hand held the bomb and the black glitter putty that she had entrusted him with. The high tone of the whistle sounded again. His nose was full of the smell of rotting grass. Why was it rotting away so quickly? And the case with the bomb in it was heavy, but if he dropped it… He tossed it aside and ran.…
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165 ****** “Here comes another one!” Stuart called. “Or maybe it’s not just one. It Alden had his eyes closed, and he was trying not to feel like a sad, sad failure of an Avowed. “You’ll get it this time!” Stuart said. “I think it would help if you weren’t so encouraging. I’m worried I’m hurting your feelings every time I miss.” There was a pause in the cheerleading. They had left the area around the house behind to have their “duel” farther out in the woods. Alden was…
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164 ****** “Well?” Evul asked, stealing an ink brush from the tray in front of Emban. She twirled it once, then dragged the tip of it around one of her middle fingers. It left a slender spiral of red ink in its wake. “You braved Stu’s wrath to go have a look at the two of them. What did you learn? What do you think of Human Alden?” “That was my next brush.” Emban didn’t look up from her work. They were the only ones in the formal dining room. Evul sprawled on top of the table in front…
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163 ****** The child who lived in the dome by the river was trying to decide what kind of beautiful the day was. He squatted a couple of steps from the wide silver band of the water, dark sand squishing between his toes. He splayed his small fingers, patting the stone he had just warmed with magic before flopping over in the soft sand to lay his cheek against it. That way he could feel the heat with his face, too. He had learned the spell only a few days ago. His mother would come soon, and he would…
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162 ****** They entered the main house through a door that opened into a narrow solarium. The room was situated between the exterior of the building and the kitchen, and vertical planters rising up the long transparent walls partially obscured the view in both directions. Sitting at a table, a trio of household staff, all of whom Alden recognized from his stint as the room service guy the last time he was here, were talking quietly with each other and enjoying cups of steaming wevvi. Two were rolling…
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161 ****** In the corner where the cottage’s two transparent walls joined, on the floor, Alden’s jar of zansees turned into a swirling galaxy of sparks. One of the tiny yellow-orange water bugs lit up, and all the silver and green ones suddenly began to flash in response. He sat on the edge of the bed, toes digging into the rug while he watched them. Stuart had put his own jar on top of the cabinet that held the enchanted rings, and the two decorations were currently the main sources of light in…
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