"No lie, yeah," Thomas St. Patrick said, shaking his head with his arms folded. "You're straight useless, bruv, a waste man of the highest order."
Andrea looked at the burning target and sighed. "Bruv this, bruv that, bruv your momma—how about that?"
She had expected that to wound him, but Thomas had burst out into laughter instead. "My mother would've done a lot better than you have."
She looked back at the target that only then turned to ash—many seconds after Thomas' target had. "Oh? I thought that you were like me, a street mutt brought in from the wild."
They waited for a new target to appear, right on top of the old one. It was a magic spell laced into the arena that Professor Robertson was maintaining, allowing them to use their magic on targets instead of on one another—which probably would've been the case if this were Professor Goldman's class.
"No, I am. My mom's a nurse."
Andrea stood back and waited for Thomas to prepare himself before saying, "Don't nurses have the highest rates of sexual relations at the workplace?"
Thomas' fireball barely missed Maisey Wojcik. "What the fuck, St. Patrick?"
He raised a hand in apology before glaring at a smiling Andrea. "What the fuck, bruv?"
Andrea feigned an innocent expression as she stepped forward, prepared to destroy the target once more. "What do you mean?"
He rolled his big brown eyes. "So is that how we're gonna play it, yeah?"
She sighed. "Okay, okay, sorry. We'll play nice from now on, deal?"
Thomas looked at her with the sort of suspicion one would reserve for an infamous pickpocket.
"I mean—you know that I could just choose you over and over again next time we're at Goldman's, yeah?"
Andrea snorted. "I mean—you know that Aisling will kill you if you do, yeah?"
She laughed as he swallowed his response. Andrea focused on her breathing and began to move her hands in her determined pattern—a cheat to help her improve her fire magic. Professor Robertson had given them a few weeks to try to crack the spell using incantations alone before he decided to give them another tip.
"By making a spell more difficult to perform," he said, "you can find it takes less magic and less precision to pull off."
Andrea had wondered why he had not mentioned this before, but Tabitha beat her to the punch. "Okay, then why are you only telling us this now, Professor?"
There were grumbles of agreement from the class, which the professor allowed to die down before he responded. "Because, my dear students, I did not wish for you to rely on these tricks without first exhausting the best methods. If you must cheat, then cheat only after you have given your best to studying."
There were some chuckles as the professor moved to explain more. "In the same way that incantations may be used to juice up one's magic, movement can be another variation of a handicap to achieve this."
The professor moved his hands over and over again in a manner that was surprisingly mesmerising, graceful pattern. Professor Robertson finished off his hand movement with his index finger raised and above it sparked a large fireball. "Incantations had come first, but this pathway was soon discovered. The earliest writings of this method date as far back as the Pax Romana, but in truth this had been a viable method since the inception of magic. Kings of the Bronze Age used to punish magicians by cutting out their tongues, to ensure they would pose no threat going forward. But one sorcerer, believed to have been born mute, found that hand movements, gestures, and especially dances could serve as a viable alternative."
Andrea had taken that message with her and spent the last week doing stupid hand gestures in front of her mirror whenever she got a moment's peace away from her many roommates.
She did it now, and the gesturing reminded her of the hand signs Andrea had seen during her time of being forced to watch Naruto for the benefit of Kaala's love life.
Fucking Kaala, she thought, her heart going out to her friend. The two had called a couple of times and texted a lot more when time allowed it, but the time zone difference proved itself a barrier that kept most of their interactions to Saturdays and Sundays.
"Spark of life, ignite this light, grow ever brighter, until we conquer night."
A fireball the size of a coffee mug formed a few inches away from her palm before Andrea launched the ball forward with her willpower, striking the target in its dead centre and igniting it.
Andrea felt like she had just run a marathon, but she still had enough in her to turn and smile at Thomas. "How was that one?"
She waited expectantly as Thomas thought through his answer. He was about her height, but his high-top box-cut gave the illusion of him being taller than she was. He was skinny in build although well chiselled and defined, with broad shoulders and a cut chest that she could see through is gym shirt.
"Depends. If I chat shit, will you bring up my mom again?"
"Immediately, and with highest prejudice."
Thomas clapped his hands together. "I've never seen a fireball better! You're beyond amazing, Andrea."
Andrea feigned being flattered. "Really?"
He smiled and then shrugged. "I swear on your life."
Andrea frowned as he laughed, preparing to launch another fireball. As for her, she was pretty much at her limit for the day. Five fireballs is all I got, she thought, trying not to feel too down. Andrea balled her fist; five fireballs is all I got for now…
"Spark of life, ignite this light, and grow ever brighter!" he said, launching a fireball double the size of the one she had just died to make.
"How'd a boy like you get discovered anyhow?" she asked, waving off his offer for her to step forward. Thomas shrugged again. "Wish I could say that it was all that exciting, but there was not much to it. I was walking home from the schoolyard one day when I noticed a man walking close behind me. I took a couple turns but I couldn't lose him, until I broke out running. I booked it down an alleyway that should've taken me to a friend's home, but I didn't even get close."
Thomas did a couple of gestures this time around, and this time the fireball was about the same size as hers, if not a little smaller. That made her petty heart smile.
"I felt him grab me by the collar and throw me down. But I wasn't scared so I told him off yeah, told the man to go and suck his mom."
Andrea cocked her head with a raised eyebrow, and Thomas snorted. "Okay, fine… I was a little scared yeah, but only a tiny bit."
She could not fault him there. It was not like she was the exemplar of courage when Riggs had her dead to rites. "Was he a bounty-hunter?"
Thomas grinned. "Oh? That's how they got you too, huh?"
Andrea had considered her backstory on that, on whether she came through recommendation or if she was a nomad brought in at gunpoint, but ultimately she had to go with the recommendation angle due to her not having been present for the entrance exams.
And there is also Helena, she thought, remembering her short-term roommate and her reaction to finding out that Andrea had gone around the entrance exam.
The animosity between the two made the idea of Helena keeping her mouth shut a true shot in the dark, although Andrea had not heard a thing about it among her classmates. But it was too obvious for her to lie, and so Andrea said, "Sort of a hybrid type deal. There was a bounty-hunter—can't remember his name—who decided I was not delicious enough for sacrifice, and so arranged for me to come here."
She watched for Thomas' reaction, but he gave nothing away as he fired off another fireball before he said, "Yeah, life has a fucked up way of setting things into motion."
"So," Andrea said, looking toward the big clock in the corner. "What did he do after you told him to suck off his own mother? Did he tremble with fear like I'm imagining?"
He laughed. "You're taking the piss, Drea? No man, course he didn't. He smacked me upside the head and took me to a pub."
"A pub?" she snorted. "And the owner allowed you in, huh?"
"This isn't America," he said, firing off another fireball. He finally looked like the task was taking a toll on his magical reserves, five fireballs more than her own, and all with fewer gestures and fewer words. "We don't have to wait until we're finished uni before we can take a sip of alcohol."
Andrea was prepared to defend the flag in most things, but the age of alcohol consumption was not it. "The owner didn't at least question a grown man carrying a little boy?"
He frowned. "Little?"
"I mean that's crazy,"
"Boy?"
Andrea shook her head. "A damn shame that we live in a world like this."
"Shut up man," he said, rolling his eyes. "First of all, I'm not little, yeah? I'm lean, fit, strong too."
Andrea felt at his biceps as he flexed them and gasped. "Bruv, this bicep is taking the piss, yeah? Is that how you say it?"
That made Thomas laugh as he shrugged her off. "Secondly, the grown man was a grown woman. A Jamaican woman who I didn't know, but she had some bunda so I decided to go along with it."
She rolled her eyes at that. "Yeah, a boy you are."
He wiggled his eyebrows at her and was about to say something when Professor Robertson's voice broke through the noise of incantation and burning targets. "Students, I am afraid that that is all we have time for. Thank you all for being such diligent pupils."
Thomas turned to Andrea. "Meet you back here in five and we walk to Maths?"
She tapped the bottom of her lip as she pondered on it. "Me, a bunda-less girl, meet back up with you, Thomas the lean? Can't be, I can hardly believe it."
He flicked her on the forehead as he walked past her toward the changing rooms of the Arena. "Shut up, man. I'll see you in five."
Andrea returned to find him waiting, as he had promised, this time with a frown on his face. "What?"
"What took you so long?"
Andrea sighed as she pointed toward her hair. "This thing has a mind of its own,"
"Well, it don't look like it," he said, and Andrea exaggerated a gasp.
"You see now, talk like that will get you my phone number, St. Patrick."
"No thank you," he said as he prepared to leave "You're chopped, fam."
Andrea gasped for real this time. "Spark of light!"
He laughed as he pulled out his phone. "Okay, okay. Fine, I'll have it."
She smiled as they turned to go to Mathematics; Andrea ignored the snorting of her friends far off in the distance.
"You lot going to Nate's birthday?" he asked, having noticed her friends making funny faces walking behind them.
Andrea frowned. "Who is Nate?"
He laughed at that and said, "Well, I guess that's a no." Thomas then pointed to the long-limbed creature that was walking alongside Oscar Patel. She had seen him before—a pale boy with tousled black hair and sharp hazel eyes, who came from a normal family, though you would not be able to tell from how talented he seemed.
"Does Nate even know who we are?" she asked, and Thomas rolled his eyes. "You lot? No, but everyone knows who Aisling is. Isn't that right, Aisling?"
"Yep," Aisling said excitedly. "I don't know why, but everyone seems to love me."
"That is because you're so loveable, Ai," Andrea said, beckoning the three of them to join her and Thomas' walk toward class. "That and your surprising affinity for violence."
Aisling frowned up at her. "If that were true, Andrea Salem, I'd have long beaten some sense into you."
"You okay with us coming along and ruining the vibe?" Zoya asked, sticking her tongue out at Andrea, and Thomas cringed. "What? Eww brotha eww."
Andrea frowned. "Bruh…. Bruh come on now, bruh come on now. Look at me, and then look at you, and then look at me again. Don't make me explain what should be understood now."
Thomas laughed. "How can you explain anything when you're so delusional mate!"
Thomas ran—not willing to risk it when he saw Andrea doing her hand signs.