The Floating Room Read online

  Guess he was, though. And he must have been one of what we’ve started calling the “good logomancers,” the ones who were allied with Mr. Liefer, our headmaster. They cast the spell that caused the Moment, and they’re the ones programmed to get their memories back and kill me if they see me do magic. That’s because of who I was in the world before.

  Still trying not to think about that.

  We’re taken by surprise so we don’t react very quickly. Nate sits up. Jasmine steps back. I extinguish the fire on my finger, but the damage is done.

  The Kenny I know is a great guy. He’s tall and lanky, white with shaggy red curly hair. Kind of a goofball. Amazing lacrosse player, captain of our team. Has a crush on Alisa. Still gets teased for throwing up on the first day of school our first year at Charlesville Academy. Never been in a fight in his life.

  Whoever’s here now, it’s not that Kenny. He’s got a big duffel bag over his shoulder, but it falls to the ground without him even noticing. He stares at me with utter hatred, his lips curled.

  Alisa is the first to her feet. “Kenny. Whatever you’re thinking right now, it’s not the truth.” She takes a breath. “You’re Kenny Pillman. You’re our friend. That’s the truth.”

  Kenny takes his eyes off me for the first time and surprise washes over his face. “You’re standing with him, Ree?”

  Ree was Alisa’s name in the world before. She was one of the good logomancers too, but didn’t help cast the Moment, so missed out on the kill-Chris compulsion.

  “Yes. There’s a lot you don’t know,” she replies. “He’s not evil. That’s the truth.” She’s using her word. Trying to bring him to his senses.

  “Not evil?” He looks at me again. “But…” His eyes are a little glassy, but he shakes it off and the anger returns. He points at Alisa and says, “Amplify!”

  Alisa drops to her knees. And we all start talking.

  I say, “I’m afraid of being the Common King but I like doing magic and I need his power if I’m going to protect my friends from Mr. Miller and Mr. Liefer and get my mom back and free all the imprisoned magical creatures. And I’m afraid of how I feel about Zane and I feel guilty because he bullied us and is it messed up that I’m dating my former bully? But that never actually happened. Do I even need to forgive him for something that didn’t happen even though we all remember it? But if he’s not guilty of bullying us because it happened in the fake world that the Moment created then am I guilty of the Common King’s crimes even though I don’t remember committing them? Because those happened in the real world even though we don’t remember it and I can’t have it both ways—”

  I can’t stop. I slap my hands over my mouth but my lips won’t stop moving. Alisa, Nate, and Zane are all talking too but I can’t hear them over my own confessions.

  Kenny did something to Alisa’s power. Amplified it past where she can control it. I can’t think, I can’t use my own magic. The sound of the truth in my head is so strong I can’t think of anything else. I have to speak it.

  Kenny’s not affected. He’s looking around the bases of the trees. He picks up a broken branch, swats it into his palm a few times, then tosses it. He’s looking for a weapon.

  But Jasmine isn’t affected either. She runs towards us, but when she gets a few feet away from Alisa she starts talking. She catches herself fast enough to pull back to safety.

  “I miss my mom,” I say. “I want my mother back. I want the world to go back to the way it was before. I want the way I remember the world to be the truth. I don’t want there to have ever been a different world, except I want to keep my magic without any danger of turning into some evil king I don’t remember being.” I’ve got to get away from Alisa. I try to stand but the truth knocks me back down. “I want to have sex with Zane so much but I’m afraid of rushing things. And I’m afraid I’m bad at it and he’ll be disappointed.”

  My cheeks burn but I don’t think Zane can hear me any better than I can hear him. From the way he’s avoiding looking at me I’m sure he’s just as embarrassed.

  Kenny doesn’t have any luck finding a suitable branch, but he notices the head of his lacrosse stick, poking out of his half-zipped duffel bag. He pulls the stick out and swings it a few times, frowns, then turns it around, holding it just above the head. He swings it again and seems more satisfied.

  He’s right. The butt will hurt more than the plastic head with its net pocket. It’s not a great weapon, but it’s not like I can fight back while he beats me to death with it.

  Jasmine grabs his arm but he shoves her off. He walks towards me until he starts talking, compelled by Alisa’s out-of-control magic, then takes a tiny step back. He’s at a safe distance, but I’m well within stick-length.

  Jasmine picks up Kenny’s duffel bag.

  Kenny lifts the stick.

  Jasmine runs and tackles Alisa, pulling the bag over her head. The two of them roll together off the blanket and into the grass. A dirty sweat sock flies past me.

  The compulsion to speak shuts off and I snap my mouth closed. Kenny swings the stick but I catch it and pull, yanking him off-balance. He lets go of the stick and I try to sweep his legs with it, but I’m sitting at a bad angle and I’m holding the stick awkwardly so I just bop his shin a little.

  Zane extends a clenched fist and a shadow forms around Kenny’s feet. It creeps up his legs, holding him in place.

  “Wait!” I drop the stick. “Zane, stop!”

  Kenny looks down at the darkness, then points at Zane. “Amplify.”

  The world goes dark. I’m smothered by an icy shadow. It’s freezing cold, but I’m held so tight by the darkness that I can’t even shiver.

  I expect a blow from Kevin, but nothing comes. He was affected by Alisa’s magic, so he’s not immune to the effects of whatever he’s doing to us. Which means he’s probably in the same boat I am. Nate, Jasmine and Alisa, too. Maybe Zane himself.

  The shadow is cold, but not so cold I can’t think straight. He doesn’t have ice powers, like—

  Not relevant right now.

  I want heat and light. No fire. Just heat and light. Shadow, I want you to dispel yourself because of the heat and light coming from my body.

  Sun.

  It’s still cold. And it’s still dark. I can see myself, because I’m radiating light, but the illumination is swallowed as soon as it leaves my body. The whole world is blackness.

  But I can move. I slide my arm out to the side, to where Zane was sitting. I feel his leg. It’s cold, but warms at my touch and I can see a bit of his jeans. I slide up him until I find his chin. I cup his cheeks in my hands and his beautiful face is there.

  “Can’t…” His teeth are chattering. “I can’t shut it off.”

  “Then don’t. Cast a new spell. Make yourself immune to it.”

  “I’ve never had to do that—”

  “Zane! You have to communicate with your shadow. Tell it to not make you cold or paralyze you.”

  “I don’t know how!” His eyes dart back and forth in a panic.

  “Yes, you do! Think what you want your shadow to do, and tell it with your word!

  My light fades. I can’t see my arms anymore. Zane’s amplified magic is too strong. Cold spreads up my chest to my face.

  “Zane! You can do it!”

  “Shadow!” Zane shouts. “Shadow!”

  The darkness swallows my face. I can’t see or feel anything.

  Sun. Sun. Sun.

  Nothing.

  I can’t get a breath. I think my heartbeat is slowing down. There’s more to this shadow than just cold. It’s sucking the life out of me.

  Kenny’s killing me with my boyfriend’s magic.

  Daylight! So bright! I’m blinded. It comes back all at once, too fast. My friends gasp for breath all around me.

  My eyes adjust quickly. Kenny’s on the ground. Zane grabbed his legs and pulled them out from under him.

  Still weak, but I gotta help. I pick up the lacrosse stick and use it as a crut
ch to lift me to my feet. I stand over Kenny and raise the stick.

  “Chris?” Kenny flinches, throwing his hands up over his face. “What the hell?”

  “Uh.” I lower the stick, just a little. “Kenny? You back?”

  “Back?” He sits up, rubbing his forehead. “Huh?” He looks past me and waves at everyone else. “Oh, hey. I was looking for you.” He frowns. “You all look like crap.”

  Here’s a fun fact about the Moment. It wasn’t a one-and-done kind of spell. It lingers. When people get their memories of the world before back, it tries to steal them away again. And when preprogrammed good logomancers see me do magic and try to kill me, they tend to forget the whole thing as soon as the fight’s over.

  I let out a breath and plop down onto the blanket. Alisa crawls over next to me, dragging Kenny’s duffel bag.

  “First, Kenny, please, please, please wash your gym clothes once in a while. And second, how did you find us?”

  Kenny takes the bag from her and shoves loose clothing back into it, apparently unconcerned about how or why they got scattered to begin with. “Jasmine has ‘Find My Friends’ turned on.”

  I pivot to look at Jasmine. She and Nate huddle together, warming up. She raises a finger at me. “Okay, sorry, but remember just now how I saved you by knocking Alisa over? What if I hadn’t done that? Then you wouldn’t even be alive to give me that look. Think about that.”

  Nate squeezes her. “You did great, babe. You’re a superhero.”

  I laugh. I’m too relieved to be annoyed. “Why were you looking for us, Kenny?”

  “Oh.” He takes his stick from me and shoves it into the bag. “I’m mad at you, Chris. Why did you quit lacrosse? Mr. Finlay is subbing in for Mr. Ambrose while he’s on sabbatical, and he’s terrible. He barely knows the rules. I’m trying to hold the team together and you quit? We need you, man, you’re our best attacker.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I gave up Drama Club, too. I’m cutting out all my extracurriculars for the rest of the year. I need to focus on other stuff.”

  Kenny’s eyes dart towards Zane. “Yeah. Other stuff. You guys have been spending a lot of time together.”

  Zane stiffens. He throws his arm around my shoulder. “You got a problem with that?”

  “What? No.” Kenny gestures towards the remains of our picnic. “I meant all five of you. You’re always off by yourselves and you never hang with the rest of us anymore. What are you even doing all the time?”

  There’s an uncomfortable silence. It lasts way too long.

  Finally, Alisa scoots over so she’s sitting in front of him. “Kenny, I need to tell you something. I really like you, but only as a friend. I’m sorry.”

  Nate smacks his palm against his forehead. “Oh my god, Alisa. Don’t give him another reason to want to kill us.”

  “What?” She turns around to look at him. “You said I had to tell him!”

  Kenny’s face turns beet red. “I don’t…I never even…did Lily tell you? Aw, man. Screw you guys.”

  He grabs his bag and gets up. He walks back the way he came, then stops and turns.

  “Chris. Are you sure you’re not coming back?”

  “Not until next year. Sorry, Kenny.”

  He takes one last look at the five of us, then shakes his head. “Try to remember you have other friends, okay? Don’t forget about the rest of us while you’re having your private picnics doing whatever.” He walks off through the trees.

  “Well,” Nate says. “That sucked.”

  Zane puts his arms around me and rests his chin on my shoulder. “Screw him. It’s for his own good. If he got his memories back for real, Liefer would try to recruit him and Miller would try to kill him.”

  “Yeah.” I lift his hand to my mouth and kiss it. “I know.”

  “All right, then.” Alisa smooths out our blanket. “Back to practice?”

  Three

  I’m asleep. But I’m not dreaming. I’m remembering.

  I’m in a village. Not a modern village. Huts of woven grass sit on rich brown dirt. A boar roasts over a roaring central fire.

  The people who live in this village aren’t human. They’re green, with big eyes and wide pointed ears and sharp teeth. Dressed in scraps of leather. The adults are about four feet tall. Goblins.

  The goblins are celebrating. They’re playing music on pipes and drums and some of them are dancing. There’s been a successful hunt. A party of hunters brought back not just meat, but treasure. Loot. Metal they can use to make tools and weapons, and jewelry they can trade to humans or elves or centaurs, and food they can’t make themselves. Bread and sweets and beer.

  The members of the raiding party are evasive with their story, but the truth comes out. They did awful things to get these treasures. Monstrous things. They wiped out a human settlement, killing the entire population. Many of the villagers are horrified. They pressure an older man, I think it’s their chief, to punish the hunters.

  This could cause war with the humans, one says. Forget about war, says another. It was wrong. It’s murder. The music and dancing stop as the story spreads. As the goblins argue about their laws, and whether they apply to other species.

  I don’t care about any of that. I’m thinking about how disgusting this village is. And how small these goblins are. Not just their stature. Their lives. So petty and squalid.

  I make the fire pit explode, which kills the women tending the meat. My new companion wants them to suffer, and I think he might be useful to me, so I take my time with the rest. I make a ring of fire around the village so none can escape. The illusion making me invisible to them drops, but it doesn’t matter. I surround myself with flames too, and none of the creatures can get near me.

  Killing people directly is hard with logomancy. I’m getting better at it, but I’m glad for the practice. I set the goblins on fire, one by one. Some try to attack, but I burn off their arms before they can throw a spear. Some run into their huts to escape, but I barely even need to think my word to make the dry thatch burn. Some run into the wall of flames, thinking they can make it through. That’s funny.

  All too soon the whole village is dead. I extinguish all the flames and look to my new friend.

  “Was that what you wanted?” I ask.

  He nods. “Thank you. My family can rest now.”

  Muln is a logomancer, with the power of illusion. He’s an old man, flabby with gray hair and a red face, but there’s something about him. He has a strong connection to the Logos, yes, but more than that. An inner strength, a resolve, that I find admirable. He sought vengeance against these goblins who killed his family. I was happy to provide it.

  We start to leave the village, but a cry stops me. There’s a child alive in one of the huts. I put out the fires too quickly, I suppose. I set the hut alight again, and we continue.

  The village is gone. I’m in a barren plain. The ground is dry, cracked clay. But I’m not on the ground. I’m on the ninth step of a staircase made of free-floating flat stones. There’s a tenth step hovering a few inches above and beyond the one I’m standing on. There are no other steps past that one, not yet, but if there were they would lead up to a room hanging unsupported in the air.

  The floating room has an occupant. I can’t see him yet. I haven’t climbed high enough. But he wants me to ascend. He wants me to join him.

  It’s the Common King. The person I was in the world before. The person who murdered those goblins.

  I can’t control my legs. Without intending to, I climb onto the tenth step.

  I’m awake. Sitting up in bed. I’m crying. Sobbing. I take deep, heaving breaths to get myself under control. I don’t want my parents to come in.

  My father, I mean. My mother’s not here.

  Breathe. Breathe.

  For two weeks I’ve been having nightmares. Visions of the crimes the Common King committed. The crimes I committed.

  I murdered those goblins and I didn’t care. They were nothing to me.

&nb
sp; How old was I? Eleven? Twelve, maybe? God.

  That man with me, the logomancer, Muln. In the world after the Moment, he became Mr. Miller, my history teacher. My friend, my mentor. Until he got his memory back. Then he lied to me, pretended to help me, but really he was trying to restore the Common King’s memories. To get his master back.

  Mr. Miller showed me these goblins in an illusion, two weeks ago. They killed his family, murdered their whole town. Miller found their bodies. He used this as an excuse, a rationale for why the Common King’s brutal treatment of magical species was justified.

  In my nightmares, I’m entirely the Common King. I see what he saw, think what he thought. But now, remembering the vision, I understand what he didn’t. What he wasn’t capable of caring about. The goblins were people. Individuals. Some of them committed a horrible crime and deserved punishment, sure. But some were innocent. Most were innocent.

  I killed them anyway. All of them.

  No. Not me. Him.

  I sit in the darkness for a minute.

  I hold my index fingers out in front of me. I make a flame on one. Easy.

  Flame, I want you to form a sphere, then float slowly towards my other finger and settle there.

  “Sun.”

  The fire does exactly what I want. It forms a perfect orange sphere and floats to my other finger where it reforms into a jet of flame.

  I couldn’t do this yesterday. This morning it’s effortless. And all that’s changed is I climbed a step in a dream.

  My alarm goes off. Six o’clock. Monday morning. Time for school, normally, but not today.

  I get dressed and ready quickly. I grab my school bag and lacrosse stick.

  I put the lacrosse stick back. Force of habit.

  I tiptoe downstairs. My dad’s a late sleeper. Better not to wake him. He works in town, and doesn’t have to be there until nine, which means I’m usually off to school before he gets up.

  I get down to our little foyer by the front door, drop my bag, and head through the arch into the living room. But I stop before I pass through into the kitchen. My dad’s up after all. He’s on the phone. I freeze and listen.