Wizards

CHAPTER 10: The Gambit

Rei was getting used to flying in her two days of consciousness in Magicana. She's getting used to staring outside the window, admiring the clouds and, weirdly enough, the heights they're in. Moments after the Amphibian emerged from Round Rock Lake, a pushcart stopped by their cubicle.

     After almost emptying the cart, the cubicle started smelling burgers and fries. Rei watched Brooke grabbed anything her hands can hold and bit everything until her mouth was full.

     Amused, Rei spoke. "Stress eating?" she said.

     "You have no, idea," Brooke said. "Just grab anything. Eat anything you want."

     With a mouth full of both burgers and fries, Brooke leaned back and stared at the clouds outside the window.

     Rei followed her friend's advice and grabbed a container full of fries and started eating.

     "I wasn't wrong, was I?" Brooke said.

     "I don't know, Brooke," Rei answered, "But it's arguable enough to think — I think — that you found your match."

     "Ha! Match?! Not even close, Rei. No. Not even an inch."

     Brooke bit a huge chunk of the burger she was holding — almost half of it — spitting some of it as she began to mumble something that sounded "Ish-greedy" and "Pe-mm-pul like im"

     Rei, finding herself in between intrigued and amused while wondering how someone with such high stature behaves in such a manner as to devour like a dinosaur and talk at the same time, replied in the same way with something like, "Yeah, I guesh sho."

     Rei thought about something for a second. Brooke has it all; the fame, the wealth — the everything. Whatever she does, people may react but she will still have the same riches, the same status, and the same fame, no lesser. But there was more to her than meets the eye, wasn't there? She was . . . different. And in what way, Rei was still trying to figure out. Her aristocratic friend doesn't care about how she walks and who she stepped on along the way, but she does care about something. Was that her image? With the way she eats — certainly not.

     "Honestly, Rei, who do you think's right between me and that Neil guy?"

     "I don't know. But, I must say, you could have been sensitive . . . a little bit."

     Brooke frowned. She hid it. But Rei saw it. It was probably a mistake to choose sides, although Rei couldn't count it as choosing sides because it really wasn't. Nevertheless, Rei still felt she needed to rephrase that. And so she spoke, "What I mean to say was. . ."

     "Let's just drop it, Rei."

     They reached the Nesting Peak several minutes before lunchtime. Rei figured that out with Brooke's whining about food . . . again. And while Rei laughed at the rumbling stomach of her most fabulous friend, her attention was caught by an echoing voice of a little person as though it was amplified by a megaphone.

     "Get out of the way!" said the voice, "Make way, all of you, or I swear to all the gods I will have you all in detention!"

     It was only then that Rei saw students that gathered by the walls of the main gates. Rei and Brooke couldn't get any closer but it was easy to point out what everyone's gathering about. Ten steps, more or less, from the top of the stairs, Rei and Brooke halted to examine the message that was painted on the wall; it was big enough to be seen from runway to top.

     Rei read it, not realizing she was whispering every word. "Our brothers will come for her blood. . . . You have been warned."

     Seconds have passed and clouds started to rise, covering the whole wall.