Chapter Text
Not that there would have been a good time to lose control of his powers, but all things considered, Laurent wished it hadn’t happened in third period English class.
Mr. Hypermandes could never make it through a complete lesson plan without getting distracted by some student questions. Everyone in the class knew this. If they were lucky, he would get distracted enough to forget to announce the homework for the day. And so with only a few minutes left until the bell, people were starting to get creative. Laurent had long ago accepted that the lesson was effectively over and had gotten his book out to read.
“Mr. Hypermandes, didn’t you say you had some announcements to make?”
Cut off from his brothers, he strikes too short at Nisos, Laurent read. He had probably already read that sentence already. He blinked and tried to refocus.
“Something about the lacrosse team tryouts tomorrow?”
Laurent’s heart skipped a beat and his stomach gave a lurch. There was a knock at the window, as if it had been struck by a strong gust of wind.
He strikes too short at Nisos…
“Oh yes,” Mr. Hypermandes said, clearing his throat. “Thank you for the reminder. The tryouts are tomorrow! As you know, our school’s men’s lacrosse team has been the regional champions two years in a row. These are open tryouts, so anyone is invited to try to make it three years in a row! Come prepared!”
Laurent stopped reading. He closed his eyes. There was the sound of another dull thud from the window.
“Is that the wind?” he heard someone ask. “It must be really strong.”
“But it was so nice out earlier,” someone else muttered in disappointment.
But once Mr. Hypermandes had gotten on the subject, he was not so easily distracted. “This year our captain is Damen. This year is his senior year, and I have full confidence in him, although I think everyone at the school knows he has some awfully big shoes to fill.”
Laurent did not open his eyes. Why would he? He didn’t want to see all the people staring at him, or doing their best to pretend they weren’t. Everyone knew whose big shoes Damen was filling. Tragic, they would say to themselves in hushed tones, so tragic what happened, so young, so much promise, and you know the brothers were so close –
The window burst open with a clatter. Laurent’s eyes flew open. No one was looking at him; their attention was on the window, which now swayed helplessly back and forth on its hinges. Mr. Hypermandes had stopped talking. The whole room was buzzing.
“What happened?”
“It must have been the wind.”
“I didn’t feel anything.”
“That’s strange,” Mr. Hypermandes finally said. He had walked over and begun to fiddle with the latch, attempting to figure out what had caused the incident. “It must be broken. I’ll talk to the custodians about this, make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
While the class’s attention was on Mr. Hypermandes, Laurent stared at the clock. One minute left. Hopefully the window would keep Mr. Hypermandes distracted. Or maybe he would remember that he had homework to assign and would rush to finish that. Anything would be fine, anything at all, except more talk about the lacrosse team –
“Thank you, but I think I have it. Now, as I was saying –,” Mr. Hypermandes began. Laurent turned back to look at the teacher. A student had gotten out of his seat and was pointing to the latch, maybe trying to show how it might have been damaged. Most of the other students were staring or talking excitedly among themselves. The more prescient among them were looking at the clocks and mouthing their own silent countdown until freedom.
There was one exception.
Aimeric sat in the far corner. He wasn’t talking to anyone. He wasn’t distracted by the window or the clock. Instead, he was staring right at Laurent. There was no mistaking it. Laurent didn’t know why he would be staring. Aimeric and Laurent were not friends: they barely knew each other. Aimeric was in a few of Laurent’s classes and had been for the last two years, but they had never really talked.
But Aimeric was definitely staring at him. And a knowing grin had started to spread across his face.
Their eyes met briefly. Laurent scowled and closed his book with a little too much force.
The bell rang.
“Oh, damn, that’s the time, I forgot to mention – for tomorrow, please make sure you read –,” Mr. Hypermandes began, but it was too late. Students had already begun to shuffle out. Laurent grabbed his book. He did not look at Aimeric as he turned to go. It didn’t matter what Aimeric thought he knew, anyway. There was no way he could guess at the truth of what had happened. What Laurent had done.
Laurent left the room in a hurry.
It was a tremendous relief to Laurent that the next period was lunch. That was the best period of them all, because it was the only time during the school day that students were allowed to leave the grounds. Laurent had brought his lunch today and fully intended to take advantage of that freedom. He walked through the school’s front door and began the walk south.
South of campus was a fairly residential area. It had nothing to recommend it but one simple fact, and that was the thing that was most important to Laurent right now: it was not the school grounds.
(The fact that it was the opposite direction from the school field probably helped too, but Laurent didn’t want to think about that.)
He had almost made it past the school lawn and onto the sidewalk when he heard a familiar voice say, “Laurent, wait up.”
Inwardly cursing the fact that he hadn’t walked a little faster, he turned around. “Aimeric,” he said, trying to feign surprise. “What are you doing here?”
That annoyingly knowing smile had not left Aimeric’s face. Laurent fought the urge to roll his eyes. Or perhaps ask Aimeric what he had done to get his face stuck with that expression.
“I liked what you did in Hypermandes’s class,” Aimeric said. His smile might be described as like the cat that got the canary, but that wasn’t quite right; it was the expression of a cat who had gotten the canary and knew there’d be more birds like it coming. Laurent stiffened. “Finally, someone found an actually creative way to stop him from assigning another chapter.”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” Laurent said automatically. He paused and asked, “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, at the cafeteria or something?”
“I don’t have lunch for another period,” Aimeric answered. “But it doesn’t matter, this is more important.”
“Whatever you say,” Laurent turned back around to start walking again.
“Wait!” Aimeric called out again. “I’m serious. I know what you did, and I – I want to help.”
That was enough to get Laurent to stop. “What are you talking about?” he asked, disbelief bordering on incredulity that Aimeric was still trying to continue with this conversation. “Help me with what?”
“I know it was you!” Aimeric shot back. “You made that window fly open. You didn’t want Hypermandes to go on and on, so you created a distraction.”
“You’re crazy,” Laurent scoffed. “I was on the other side of the room, how could I have caused that latch to break?”
Aimeric, however, was not going to listen. “Stop lying!” he all but shouted, and like a child he stomped a foot in frustration.
Laurent was aware of a sudden change in the air. The birds nearby had stopped singing. The breeze – which had been nice enough, pleasant, but of course not nearly strong enough to open a window – vanished. Laurent felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
“See, I know a little something about controlling the wind too,” Aimeric said. His voice was soft.
Laurent turned back to him. He glared at the other boy, as if he might somehow through sheer force of will convince him to stop talking.
Because, of course, talking about things you could do that were supposed to be impossible was how Laurent had ending up spending last summer in a mental hospital.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, in the most matter-of-fact tone he could summon on such short notice. He cast a furtive glance around. The lunch exodus was already over; there was no one around to eavesdrop.
“Really?” Aimeric asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Strange things that just happen to happen around you? A sense of power you can’t control.” Aimeric’s smile brightened as Laurent’s scowl deepened. “There was nothing natural about that window opening. I was right by it, felt nothing. And just when I start to wonder how that could be, I look over and see everyone is looking so surprised – except you. But of course, Mr. Hypermandes had been talking about the lacrosse team, and everyone knows that it was your brother who used to be captain –”
“Shut up,” Laurent said, his voice barely above a whisper. Its tone must have worked, because Aimeric did stop this time, and for one brief second his saccharine smile faded. But Laurent continued, his voice resuming its normal tone, “We don’t need to talk anymore about that stupid window. Whatever else you have to say, just get on with it,” and Aimeric’s smile was back in full force.
“My dad travels a lot,” he said, speaking quickly as if afraid Laurent might cut him off again, “He always goes to rare book stores when he’s abroad, and he’s got quite a collection. And I’ve been reading through and I think it can help, you know, people like you or me –”
“And who exactly are people like you and me, Aimeric?” Laurent cut in quickly. He did not add: because I’m starting to think I don’t want to consider us being in a group together unless I absolutely have to.
“Why, witches, of course!” Aimeric exclaimed, his voice overflowing with delight, as if he had been dying to say the words from the beginning.
There was a silence as Laurent mulled over those words. Mulled over them a little bit more. Then he let out a short, bitter bark of laughter.
“You’re crazy,” he finally said. And he turned again to walk away.
“Listen,” Aimeric jumped forward to stop him. “What I’ve found – it’ll help control your powers, or whatever. Refine them. It’s already helped me a lot. Just – here. I’ll give you my number. And if you change your mind, just text me. I can hook you up.”
“You sound like a drug dealer,” Laurent muttered, but he still offered up his phone for Aimeric. “Fine, if it’ll make you go away faster. Now, I have to go eat and you have to – go back to class or whatever.”
Aimeric just shrugged at that particular piece of advice.
“Think about it,” was all he said to Laurent before finally retreating back to the school.