Chapter 193: Book 3 Chapter 31.1: A Once and Future Thing

Thanks to a lifetime of mostly private tutoring, Lee had never developed an inherent fear of the principal’s office. Still, she could not help but feel some trepidation as she approached the door to the office of Dean Lichman. The school’s Dean had called on her before, usually to ask for help, or to ask why she and her friends had launched a manticore out of a catapult, but Lee had the sinking feeling that today was not such an occasion. She held her breath as she walked in and took a seat in one of his comfortably plush office chairs.

“Good morning, Lee.”

“Good morning, Mr. Lichman.”

The undead dean had an unusually stern look on his face as Lee took a seat, which did not help her mood at all.

“I’m afraid we’ll need to have a talk about your continued residence at this school,” Dean said.

“I understand,” Lee said. “I imagine my parents are trying to pressure you into expelling me?”

She had expected violent retaliation after kicking her parents off the island and out of her life, and she was not at all surprised to hear they were trying to get her kicked out of the school.

“What? No,” Dean Lichman said. “Your parents paid your full tuition in advance, they have no leverage on me whatsoever.”

That hadn’t stopped the Burrows from sending approximately eighty-seven angry emails, phone calls, texts, et cetera, but Dean Lichman had studiously ignored them all. He had other issues in mind.

“You’re here because you blew up the wall of a dormitory, Lee.”

“Ah. Right.”

Lee did not regret giving her parents the boot, but she considered that she could have perhaps used the door instead of blowing up a wall of her own dorm to do so.

“Historically, I’ve allowed you some leeway in your treatment of this school’s facilities and structures, but only in service to your generally helpful, if inexplicable, antics,” Dean Lichman said. “I can’t extend such forgiveness to you for lashing out against your parents, no matter how well-deserved such a thrashing may have been.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Now, I have no intention of removing you from the school or this island,” Dean Lichman said. Lee tried to hide a sigh of relief. “However, even after repairs are complete, you will not be allowed to return to your old dorm. I hope you won’t mind sharing a room with a friend for the last few weeks of your time here.”

“Not at all,” Lee said. She’d bunked with Harley last night anyway, and she had every reason to believe she could continue relying on her friends for a place to sleep.

“Excellent. Now, there is one more thing,” Dean Lichman said. Lee felt a renewed dread as he reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a small stack of paperwork. “It’s come to my attention that some of your entry paperwork was filled out incorrectly. I will need you to sign these documents under your correct name.”

Dean Lichman split the stack of documents into two, and placed them both in front of Lee. One was her old stack of entry forms and applications, all signed under the name XL-X8 C/P Burrows. The second stack were the same forms, but blank. Lee grabbed a pen and started to sign the name “Lee” over and over again, smiling slightly wider each time.

“Excellent,” Dean Lichman said, as Lee handed over the stack of properly signed documents. She then grabbed the stack of documents that bore her old name.

“Do you need these, or can I keep them?”

“They’re yours to do with as you please,” Dean Lichman said. “I recommend incineration. Very cathartic.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Lee said. “Thank you, Dean.”

Dean Lichman nodded and got to work filing the new paperwork. Lee clenched the old documents in her fist so tight that they would’ve cracked, were paper able to crack. She tracked down her friends, who had all gathered in Harley’s dorm for the time being. Lee’s new circumstances had called for a gathering of friends, but Lee was only interested in Kim at the moment.

“Annihilate these.”

Kim grabbed the documents with both hands and immediately burned them with such intense pyrokinetic magic they turned to ash in an instant. She never questioned an order to incinerate, but she was curious about what exactly she’d incinerated.

“Done. I assume those were some papers with your old ‘name’ on them?”

“You assume correctly,” Lee said, as she took a seat. “Incidentally, I’m also technically homeless now.”

“Kicked out of your dorm, yeah?” Harley asked. Lee nodded. “Well, you did explode a wall.”

“Yes, somewhat questionable in retrospect.”

“It looked kickass, though,” Harley said. “Anyway, you’re not homeless, you’re just going to have to sleep on my couch for a while. And then Vell’s couch after you get sick of me.”

“You could just take my dorm,” Kim said. “We basically just use it as storage anyway.”

“You don’t have any furniture, dear,” Lee said. Kim never slept, didn’t eat, and wore no clothes, so she had no amenities for rest, food, or clothing storage, only storage shelves to hold spare body parts and trinkets she’d collected. Lee had a few things she could take out of her old dorm, but things like the bed and refrigerator were school property, not hers.

“Yeah, but you can just b- oh, wait, I see the problem,” Cane said.

“Indeed. I’m also broke,” Lee said. She’d thought to check her bank accounts this morning and found absolutely everything completely drained. She had a hundred dollars in her purse as an emergency fund, and that was the sum total of her assets at the moment. “I know I’ve helped provide for all of you these past few years, but it seems that will no longer be the case. I hope the loss of those funds won’t hurt anyone.”

Luke looked around. Nobody seemed particularly worried.

“Nope.”

“I’m good.”

“Same.”

“Turns out there’s something of a correlation between academic success and having parents rich enough to afford extra opportunities,” Luke said. None of them came from families as wealthy as the Burrows, but they were mostly upper-middle class. Only Harley came from a family that could be described as working class.

“If I’d known this was coming I would’ve asked for a new phone,” Cane said. His was getting a bit old now. “More just to drain your parents bank accounts than anything else. But I’m good, and I got your back. You’ve done a hell of a lot to take care of us, only fair we help you.”

Cane’s offer was soon joined by a chorus of affirmations from all of her friends, offering to help in whatever way Lee needed. It was heartwarming and very quickly overwhelming. Harley was the first to notice Lee going red in the face.

“Alright, that’s enough, you’ve all proved your very good friends,” Harley said. “But I’ve had enough of you people being sappy. Get out of our dorm!”

Harley’s shout was enough to clear the room, but she did a little extra pushing and shoving for good measure.

“Get out of here, you saps, you still got classes,” Harley said. “Do your homework! World didn’t stop turning because Lee told her parents to fuck off.”

Harley shoved the last guest out the door, and then snatched Vell by the collar to prevent him from leaving too.

“Oh, am I staying?”

“You’re staying,” Harley said. Too many people overwhelmed Lee, but Vell had the opposite effect on her. Harley dragged him back to the couch and plopped him down.

“Thank you for that, Harley,” Lee said. “It all got to be a bit...much.”

That was a bit too close to a dramatic pause for Harley’s tastes, but she let it slide for Lee’s sake.

“I get it. It’s a lot to take in all at once, right?”

“Quite. I regret nothing, of course, but I’ve lived twenty-five years with my parent’s expectations fencing me in,” Lee said. “Now they’re gone, and I find I don’t know what to do with all this freedom.”

“Well, let’s just pick something and try it out,” Harley suggested. “What do you want to do most?”

“Go on a date?”

“With who?”

Lee shrugged. She had a general romantic inclination now that she could date more openly, but didn’t have anyone specific in mind. Maybe Chrissy, her Gorgon friend, but even she felt that was a bit of a stretch.

“Okay, maybe tackle that one later,” Harley said. “What else?”

“That’s my problem,” Lee said. “I don’t know what to do! Should I try to stop talking with this ridiculous accent, should I change my wardrobe, stop studying magikinesis so I can focus on hydrokinesis instead, do I get a tattoo-”

“Oh my god that’s it!”

Harley latched on to Lee and Vell’s shoulders and pulled them both close.

“Let’s get matching tattoos!”

“Harley, you’re scared of needles,” Vell said.

“I know! It’s going to suck, but it’ll be worth it,” Harley said. “It’ll be the perfect icebreaker for Lee’s revamp of her life.”

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“I actually like the sound of that,” Lee said.

“I’m down too,” Vell said. He’d never been particularly keen on getting a tattoo, but he did like the idea of getting a matching one with Lee and Harley. “But, uh, what kind of tattoo would we be getting?”

“Well obviously I haven’t thought that far ahead,” Harley said. “I just say shit, you guys are the ones who got to make it work.”

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something,” Lee said. “That said, while we think about it, I would like to go to class. Maybe doodle some tattoo designs in the margins of my notebook.”

“If you’re sure. You know where to find us,” Harley said. Lee nodded and headed off to class, hoping academia would provide a distraction from the maelstrom her life had become.

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It didn’t.

“Yes, I’m quite sure I did the right thing,” Lee whispered. Their professor was still lecturing, so Lee kept her voice low. The student to the left of her did not show such courtesy.

“Have you seen your dad’s bank account lately?”

“Yes, frequently,” Lee said. “Just out of curiosity, what is the exact dollar amount you’d trade your soul for?”

That got them to shut up real quick. Lee had figured out that little trick in third period.

All day, in every class, she had been the target of prying eyes and overbearing questions. People she’d never spoken to suddenly felt entitled to interrogate her about her personal life and choices. Even now, a few students were ignoring the lecture to curiously glance her way. Their loss, because it was an interesting lecture. Professor Yafeng was discussing the ongoing debate on whether light manipulation fell under the broader umbrella of magikinesis, or should be considered a unique branch of material manipulation, like hydro or pyrokinesis.

“And now, Ms. Lee,” Professor Yafeng said. Lee snapped to attention, moreso than she already was. “Seeing as all eyes seem to be on you rather than me, why don’t you demonstrate the difference in arcane gestures for a light manipulation spell versus a conventional mana manipulation.”

“Of course.”

Lee didn’t necessarily enjoy being in the spotlight, but she’d rather be in the spotlight for a good reason than a bad one. She also respected Professor Yafeng enough to tolerate the added attention. Their classes were one of the only reasons Lee hadn’t dropped studying magikinesis outright. That study had always been foisted on her by her father, something she resented in spite of the skill being useful.

“Give me one moment,” Lee said. She still had to figure out which spell was best to cast. Even as she contemplated it, her fingertips started to tingle in an unusual way, which only increased her hesitation. Magic wasn’t supposed to feel like that.

While Lee contemplated the oddity, Professor Yafeng looked down at their tablet and swiped on a notification that had popped up.

“Apparently a medieval knight and a man in a robe are causing a commotion on the quad,” Yafeng said. They looked up at Lee and gestured towards the door. Lee had a habit of exiting class for every odd disturbance.

“Yes, excuse me a moment,” Lee said. They were getting into the evening hours now, so they were due for the first-loop apocalypse. She sheepishly scooted past the student that had been interrogating her earlier and hustled out the door. She intercepted Samson on the way to the quad.

“Heard the news, or just headed for dinner?”

“Yeah, I heard,” Samson said. “Weirdo in a robe and a guy in armor. We sure that’s our thing?”

“Not only is it likely our thing, I believe I know who it is,” Lee said.

“It’s weird that you can guess that easily.”

“Possibly true, but rude to point out,” Lee said.

They found their way to the center of the commotion, regrouped with the other loopers, and Lee found that her suspicions were confirmed. Unfortunately.

“Merlin,” Lee sighed.

“And Arthur, King of the Britons,” Merlin’s companion shouted, his slightly rusted armor clanking all the while.

“Former King,” Harley said.

After being roused from centuries long slumber in the mid-80’s, King Arthur had swiftly reclaimed his position as the once and future King of England -and been given the boot just as quickly. Having a king who was primarily concerned with reclaiming the Holy Grail and who considered telephones to be devils work had made the English people come to the long overdue realization that monarchies are an idiotic form of governance, and they had ditched the entire concept in favor of one-hundred percent democracy. No one in the former royal family had taken that shift in government worse than Arthur himself, who was still fully convinced he was the rightful ruler of all of Britain. And also that needed Britain needed more castles in order to defend from a Norman invasion. He was wrong on both counts, but Former King Arthur did not let that slow him down on his quest to reclaim a throne that no longer existed.

“Once and future means once and future,” Arthur protested. “Now return my destined blade to mine hand, wench!”

“And my staff, you wench,” Merlin added.

“Fuck off and come up with more insults,” Harley said. “You’re not getting your shit back.”

The loopers of decades past had ended up with both Excalibur and the staff of Merlin in their armory, away from the hands of the former masters. The loopers were generally onboard with returning relics to their appropriate owners, but Merlin and Arthur were real assholes, so they made an exception.

“Fools and knaves!”

Merlin threw his hands up and wiggled his fingers in a distinctly wizardly way. Harley nodded approvingly at his fresh new insults.

“Thou shalt return what is mine-”

“Ours,” Arthur added.

“Ours! Or suffer dire consequences,” Merlin threatened. He continued to wiggle his fingers, though no one could quite figure out why.

“What’s he doing?” Samson whispered.

“I think he’s used to doing magic with a staff,” Lee said. “Hasn’t quite figured out what to do with his hands yet.”

The fingers were still wiggling, to no apparent end goal.

“You kind of talk like you’ve met this guy,” Samson said.

“Oh, yes, those two pulled this exact same routine back in my first few months here at school,” Lee said. “I had quite the magic duel with Merlin. Took me the better part of the afternoon to beat him.”

“A tribulation we shan’t repeat, foul wench,” Merlin shouted.

“Oh, we shan’t indeed,” Lee said. She stepped forward to square off with Merlin. “But only because I’ve been practicing these last few years. Observe.”

With a dramatic flourish, Lee extended her hand and snapped her fingers. A bright burst of violet magical light exploded outwards from her hands, nearly blinding everyone who saw it. After they’d finally recovered their vision, the spectators to the would-be duel scanned the field and saw a smoking crater where Lee had been standing.

Merlin stared at the crater for a second, and then looked over his shoulder.

“Was that the spell?”

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Lee sat bolt upright, and nearly tumbled off of Harley’s couch as she did.

“Good god. Harley?”

“Wuh? Oh shit!”

Harley was not nearly as much of a morning person as Lee was. On the first loop, Lee had respected that fact by lying on the couch for an hour or so in the morning, so as not to disturb Harley. This time she had higher priorities than being polite. Harley stumbled out of her bedroom, bedhead entirely untamed, and Lee grabbed her and shook her awake.

“Harley? Did I explode myself?”

“It was kind of more like vaporized,” Harley mumbled.

“Oh my god. What happened?”

“Well we told everybody you teleported away, but they didn’t really buy it,” Harley said. “Merlin got all cocky, got his staff back, blasted some people. We put him to sleep and trapped him under a lake eventually, but it was rough. We need to study some magic shit, man, we really can’t handle ourselves without you.”

“While I appreciate the post-death synopsis, I meant to me,” Lee said. “What happened to me? Why would I just vaporize myself like that?”

She had meant to cast an incredibly simple spell. Powerful, but simple. An energy blast like she’d done a thousand times before. Lee was nowhere near arrogant enough to think she never made mistakes, but even her worst mistakes shouldn’t have resulted in such disastrous outcomes.

“I don’t know,” Harley said with a shrug. “Like I said, we don’t know magic shit. We assumed it was something Merlin did.”

A reasonable theory for a layman, but Lee knew better. It wasn’t impossible to interfere with another mage’s spellcasting, but doing so was usually more obvious. She would’ve been able to tell if she’d been counterspelled.

Further rumination on self-incineration was temporarily delayed by a knock on the door.

“We’re awake, Vell, come in,” Lee said. He did, but looked slightly confused as he did so.

“How’d you-”

“I recognize your knock,” Lee said. “Do you have any idea what happened to me yesterday?”

“I was hoping you knew,” Vell said.

“Alright, first things first.”

Lee went to the boxes of her things she’d dragged into Harley’s room and withdrew a small stack of magikinesis textbooks, plopping them down on a table in front of Vell.

“I want you to keep these in case you need reference material next year,” Lee insisted. “Second things second: Only way to know what happened is to see if it happens again.”

Though her two friends immediately tried to stop her, Lee raised her hands and conjured up one of the simplest, weakest spells she knew. Creating a small light source was one of the first things they taught magikinesis students -in elementary school. Actual seven year olds could perform this spell without incident. Lee went through the basic, simple motions of a spell as easy as riding a bike, and watched it explode into a shower of blue and red sparks on her fingertip.

“Ow! Fuck,” Lee said. She stuck her fingers in her mouth for a second to ward off the burning sensation.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” Lee said. “Physically, at least. I still have no clue what’s happening to me.”

Harley took a quick glance at Lee’s fingertips, just to be sure. They looked lightly singed, but not actually damaged.

“If it’s happening now, it can’t be Merlin,” Vell said. “He won’t even show up for another eight hours or so.”

“A curse or countermagic is still the most likely scenario, so if it isn’t him- Son of a bitch.”

Realization struck, and Lee rolled her eyes so hard her whole head rolled with them.

“My parents,” Lee said. “This must be some kind of petty curse on their part. Revoke my magic privileges as revenge for kicking them out.”

“Sounds like the kind of stunt they’d pull,” Harley said. “How do we fix it?”

“We’ll need information first,” Lee said. “That would usually be my responsibility. Thankfully, I know where to go for a backup.”

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Professor Yafeng stroked their beard as Lee listed out the problems she was facing, and her suspicions as to the cause. When the story was done, they leaned across their desk and beckoned Lee to come sit a little closer. Vell and Harley scooted a little closer too, just to stick by Lee.

“I think I should be able to figure this out,” they said. “We have more traditional testing techniques available, but if you consent, I can always try the gumball method.”

“That’ll be fine,” Lee said. She extended her wrist and let Yafeng grab at her palm as if they were snatching something from her hand. Though Lee’s palm was empty and always had been, Yafeng now held a small orb of violet light in their hands. Vell remembered Lee doing something similar to analyze the magic in his rune back in first year. The weirdest part was yet to come.

Professor Yafeng placed the magic gumball in their mouth and chewed it thoughtfully for a moment as they relaxed in their chair. The professor contemplated the flavor and made a single note on a sheet of paper before swallowing the orb of magic.

“Good news. I know exactly how to fix this.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Could be a quick process, could take a while, that’s up to you,” Yafeng said. “But knowing you, Ms. Lee, it should be quick.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Worry not, I have everything you need right here.”

Yafeng reached into their desk and withdrew a single dusty tome. He brushed the layer of dust off the cover and slapped it down in front of Lee. She lifted the book with both hands and read the title aloud.

“Build a Better You: 100 Mental Health Tips to be Your Best Self.”

Lee stared at the cover, looked up at Profess Yafeng, back at the cover, and back at them.

“Is this the right book?”

“You’re not cursed, Lee,” Professor Yafeng said. “You’re changing. What you’re experiencing is actually pretty typical, though it, uh, usually happens in teenagers.”

Lee turned red in the face as Yafeng pulled out another book, a more basic text on magic. They opened it up to one of the first pages, a recap of some of the simplest fundamental truths of magic.

“Magic’s strength is born from a person’s strength of will, but controlling that strength comes from discipline,” Professor Yafeng said. “The relationship between willpower and discipline is different for everyone. And it’s different for you today than it was yesterday.”

Yafeng closed the book again and put both their hands flat on the table in front of Lee.

“I can’t claim to know you well enough to know the specifics, Lee, but I know no one blows up their own dorm and hurls their parents off an island unless they’re making some very big life choices,” Professor Yafeng said. “Just try to avoid doing magic until you’ve figured out what your new life is going to be like.”

“I...thank you, Professor Yafeng. I’ll try.”

The self help book sat on the table, daring Lee to take it. She decided to leave it be. While possibly helpful, she doubted it would help her deal with the real issues. Lee stepped out of Professor Yafeng’s office with her two friends in tow.

“I have to rethink what my life means,” Lee said. “I have to decide what I want. Who I want to become. What I’m willing to do to reach that goal.”

Vell and Harley nodded.

“I also have to fight an angry medieval wizard in eight hours.”

Vell and Harley nodded.