Inhibition

Chapter 20

Cat stood in the middle of where the tornado had been, her magic still crackling like lightning around her body. She raised her hand to her face as she turned around, and watched the purple lightning jump across her fingers. With its job done, the magic was almost playful, jumping across her finger, winding up her arms, and rubbing against her legs.

Cat lifted her face to the giant tree that housed the school. Faces stared down at her. Hundreds of faces. Faces peering through holes in the walls, through broken windows, through doorways. All staring at her. And there was suspicion there, loads of suspicion.

How could she, the girl who screwed up so recently, be able to fix this?

How could she do this when she couldn’t do even the simplest magic right?

As Cat stood there, looking up, as the other students looked down, she felt a divide form and grow. She was different, and these people know knew it. They didn’t trust it. If they knew what she’d done over winter break, there would be no telling what they might say. Or do.

Cat was dangerous. To them. To their society. She couldn’t be a part of it. Not anymore. She should’ve realized that when Sari died. But no, she just wanted to belong.

“Stupid humanitarian feelings,” Cat whispered under her breath.

Then she put on a bright smile and started jumping up and down like a maniac, waving her hands in the air.

“We’re all good down here! I got it all covered!”

The watchers recoiled from her insanity.

“Their loss.” Cat shrugged, back at normal volume.

As Cat watched, the damaged areas of the tree began to come together. The bark at the edges of the holes turned liquid and flowed inward, connecting in the middle of the hole with the other liquid tendrils. They flowed in, covering the faces still peering down at Cat. When all the tendrils met in the middle, and the hole was covered, the material solidified. The tree was back to normal in the minutes.

Now, this might have been really cool to Cat, but at the moment, she had other things on her mind. This was the second unnatural natural disaster to happen at the Academy. If the disasters were happening so often, and so strong, in a city guarded by magical barriers, what were these disasters doing to the outside world?

How much damage had already occurred? Even now, were their people on the other side of the country crying in agony, trapped under a building that had collapsed on top of them during an earthquake? Was there anyone helping? Were the Magus using their magic to help in heal?

For that matter, was there even anyone out there? Who was to say that the entire world had died, with the people inside the Academy’s city deaf to their suffering? Cat had the sudden urge to check on everyone she had ever known. Especially her parents. Cat hadn’t seen or heard from them in months, since she had left them last fall. She’d been promised ways to contact them, but she had never even tried. Were they hurt? Scared? Were they worrying about Cat as much as she hadn’t been worrying for them?

It was true. Cat hadn’t worried. Her mom and dad were adults. They were supposed to be the ones that worried. They were supposed to take care of Cat in times of trouble. But now, Cat was the strong one. She was much stronger than her parents, at least her magic was. It didn’t matter anymore that Cat was younger, or naïve, she was the one with the power to protect her parents from what she used to think couldn’t be protected from. Because really, who could control these things? Who would?

Cat’s mind stuttered to a halt. Of all the thoughts and ideas and questions whipping through her head, those last few words had struck Cat as important. Was she really contemplating that a person had done this? Cat knew she wasn’t an optimist; life sucked and she ceded that point to reality. But thinking that another human being could murder thousands? That was too much. She’d hoped that those terrible personality traits had been breed out of the human race.

Sure, she had read about the old wars. People used to kill each other all the time. But then the governments started using the Magus. One Magus was more than enough to kill off an entire non-magic army. The Magus were so efficient, that a truce was called between all the warring factions. The incentive? The continuation of the human race.

Now that Cat thought about it though, that long period of peace merely made people turn against themselves. Prejudices skyrocketed, but instead of it being based on skin color or nationality, it was based on whether you could perform magic. Hatred had been sparked over nothing but fear of what they couldn’t do.

They were blaming this on magic, Cat thought, the people with no magic. What a perfect scapegoat. You can’t prove magic, not without a Magus. Which means that it can’t be disproved either. There were people, right at this moment, preaching about how hated the Magus were. About how they were all worthless brats, aristo-brats. They said mean things, terrible things. Cat knew it, could hear it in her head as if she was there right now.

She also knew that if this kept up, there would be more than just talking. There would be burnings.