Simon turned away, snickering behind his hands. "Man, this is classic. Getting paid to snoop on a girl…"
Corwin shot him a death glare but then slumped back, muttering under his breath. "…what a moron…oh what the heck…she was going to find out eventually any way…"
I turned to Corwin. "What was that you said?"
He crossed his arms around his chest in an imperial manner and looked down his nose at me. "I said, my dunderhead brother failed to tell you the entire truth. We're actually ahead of you by about four years."
"Four years? That means you're…twenty-one?" My eyes popped.
"We just turned twenty-two back in April. We're here because we are working on our graduate program, and part of the program requires us to observe mages in various stages of development. That's why we were sent to your class last year to observe you."
I swallowed. This was getting creepier and creepier. "Me? Why me?"
"Because," Corwin gave a sardonic reply, "for a mage born to a family with such strong powers, you can't seem to do any traditional magik at all. We had to observe you and to find out why."
This thought disquieted me. I didn't realize I was the lab rat, so to speak, and the feeling of being a test subject, to be studied, poked, and probed, was not a good one.
"So...did you figure out why?" My voice faltered. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know the answer to that question even though it had to be asked.
Connor took a slight breath and closed his eyes. "Not yet." He turned to his brother. "We have a few ideas, but nothing concrete at this time."
Corwin rolled his eyes. "I have no idea why we were even pegged for this assignment. We're not mage healers. That's the Imara House profession. We're wizards, for crying out loud!"
"Look, mister. I don't need any healing, ok?" My anger boiled over. "I never asked for any of this—never asked for you to be observing me, or feeling sorry for me, or whatever it was that you were doing. I'm doing just fine!"
"Nana, listen," Connor began. "Don't take this the wrong way. We're not trying to suggest that you need to be healed in any way, shape or form, but if we can figure out how, we would like to help you in some way. You just—you weren't the easiest person to get to know." He gave a mischievous grin. "I promise you, we're not bad guys."
I gazed at him for a moment, and then nodded. I wanted to trust them, partly because it was nice to have a few sincere friends, and partly because I also wanted to find out if there was something so deleterious with me that couldn't be corrected in some manner, shape, or form so that I could join my community as a full-fledged mage.
"I'm ok, Connor." I sighed, grateful for his gentle understanding. "Sorry I got a little upset. Now that I know what you're really trying to do, if there's anything I can do to help with your research, let me know."
"Really?" Connor jumped at the offer, his eyes bright and eager. "You would help us with the research?"
"Of course." I smiled at his boyish fervor. "In exchange, I want you to share what you know with me because obviously, it affects me. If you can find a cure for me then I also need your assistance to get the help I need."
"Nana," Connor touched my shoulder, "it may not be a cure that you need. In fact, there may not even be anything wrong with you."
I shrugged his hand off my shoulder.
How could he say that there was nothing wrong with me, when all around me, people were able to utilize magik as easily as they breathed while I could no more levitate myself a foot off the ground than I could walk on water or see through buildings.
I fixed my gaze on the ground, not wanting to show them the hurt in my eyes.
"Even so, promise me you will share what you know, and try to help me get better." I stated as plainly and as unemotional as I could. I did not want them to see how much this was affecting me.
"Of course! We will do our best to help you with anything, won't we, Corey?" Connor slapped his brother on the shoulder.
Corwin shrugged but the truth shone in his eyes. He was not as indifferent to my plight as it seemed.
We stood there stewing in uncomfortable silence. I cleared my throat. I had to refocus the group back to the reason why we were here.
I turned back to Simon. "Other than the weird weather and the rains, have you been personally affected at all by this magikal disruption?"
Simon scratched his ears and cleared his throat. "Not really, but once in awhile, and it's really not that often, but just often enough that I remember it happening, I get this strange buzzing sound in my ears."
"Buzzing? How does it sound?" I asked.
"How can I describe it?" He squinted into the distance.
"It's like a low rumbling noise, almost like a dull roar, and it's just annoying enough so that if I were doing some magik, it would be irritating and disrupting because it sounds like I'm hearing snippets of strange conversations, except…" He shook his head.
"I can't understand the words because either it's crazy distorted or it's like—," he cocked his head, an odd glint in his blue eyes. "It's like a different language."
"A rumbling, buzzing noise that sounds like distorted conversations." Connor mulled over the words. "Does this mean then that the only mages who are affected are ones who use audio waves to work their magik?" He turned back to Simon. "What type of magik are you specializing in?"
"I'm an Alchemist!" Simon boasted with a bright grin. "We Alchemists are on the cutting edge of everything, exploring new discoveries every day. We don't dig into the past to find out what has already occurred in the ancient world, we forge ahead and make new important findings!" He raised a fighting fist into the air.
"Yeah, yeah." Corwin rolled his eyes at Simon's theatrics. "So what is a cutting-edge alchemist doing hearing vibrations and picking up low-level sound waves? Doesn't that belong within the thaumaturgical realm of magik? What does it have to do with alchemy?"
"Nothing. It has nothing to do with alchemy." Simon retracted his previous enthusiasm for feigned indifference.
"I can't help it if I can hear these vibrations that thaumaturges use to work their magik with."
"But if you were to ignore it, would you still be able to work your magik?" I probed.
"Yes, but only if I'm doing alchemical work, because alchemical magik really only involves the chemicals and compounds that I'm using. If I were to be working on non-alchemical work, say some low-level thaumaturgy, then the wave disruptors would wreak havoc on anything I tried to do."
Corwin raised an eyebrow. "When do alchemists dabble in low-level thaumaturgy?"
Simon shrugged noncommittally. "I'm just saying—IF—I were to be doing thaumaturgical work, the buzzing would disrupt everything."
"How does it disrupts thaumaturgy?" I asked.
"Well, as you know, thaumaturgy is a field of magik that requires the manipulations of waves in nature that resemble or produce an effect that is required by the Thaumaturge," Simon explained.
"The buzzing usually disrupts the magik at the point where the wave is being amplified at the level where its effect becomes useful."
I shook my head. "I don't get it."
Simon looked at me as if he couldn't believe that I was so dense as to not comprehend what he had just said. He began picking his words more carefully, and I could tell he was trying to find less complicated terminology to use, for my benefit.
"Okay, you know how most things in nature vibrate at some frequency, right?"
I nodded.
"Think about it, Nana. When you mess with the low-level baseline vibrations, it gets more and more distorted as it goes higher and higher."
He waved his hands wildly. "If you amplify a tiny distortion to many times its magnification, that tiny distortion becomes exponentially larger and larger until it destabilizes the structure that you are trying to create."
He paused, his eyes growing large as saucers. "The end result is a big mess."
"So you HAVE tried to do some thaumaturgical work before, and this buzzing, rumbling disruptive sound caused a big mess, eh?"
Corwin lowered his head until he was at eye level with Simon, who shrank away at his sharp gaze. "Do you know what happens to naughty mages who try to dabble in magiks that they have not been expressly taught by the professors?"
"Hey! It's not my fault I can do thaumaturgic magik because I can sense the vibrations needed to make it work. I didn't go looking for it. I just happen to be able to do it, ok?"
I glanced back and forth between Simon and Corwin. "What happens to them? The two-timing mages I mean."
Corwin turned to me with an evil glint in his eyes. "They get put on probation. Then there is a council meeting to determine their fate. If all goes well at the council meeting, they do some community service, pay a small fine, and is allowed to return to class."
"And if all does not go well?"
He put a single index finger to his lip and blew. A puff of smoke exploded from his mouth and disappeared into the air between us.
"Then they are taken away, and nobody ever hears from them again."
Simon scowled. "You don't scare me. I know for a fact that half the professors in this school are proficient in at least two fields of study. What happened to them then, huh?"
"Maybe they were taken away and made to teach brats like you." Connor laughed as Simon sputtered and shook with righteous annoyance.
I shook my head in amazement. I knew Simon was a genius, but I didn't realize he hit his balls that far out of the field.
For that matter, what was a fourteen-year-old genius doing hanging out with Tory and his loser group? I could not believe that Simon was able to handle all the difficult alchemy work that he was given, and still had the time to play around with thaumaturge.
And to top it all off, he was curious about demons, something well within the higher levels of wizardry and necromancy.
My estimation of him went up several notches.
"So now what?" Connor asked.
"What else?" Corwin said. "We go find the source of the rumbling."
"Now?" Simon gaped, his mouth opened fish-like.
Corwin gave him a withering look.
"But—but...I'm starving!" Simon protested. "Can't we do it after breakfast or something? Or better yet, how about this weekend? I can clear out my weekend activities and I'll take you wherever you want to go."
Corwin shook his head. "It's only Thursday. We can't wait that long."
"Man, I can't miss Alchemy lab. Professor Quimby is gonna kill me if I skip today. He's already got his hooks into me this summer because I messed with one of his potions and caused a little fire."
"Oh, that was you?" I covered my mouth trying to hide my laughter.
That 'little fire' over the winter solstice had rocked the alchemy building and blown out one wall of the south-side wet lab, sending everyone running for the hills thinking a war had broken out on campus.
It was a good thing Professor Quimby had an automatic safeguard spell set within the lab which managed to protect everyone within the vicinity from serious harm, or the infirmary would have been filled with alchemy students.
That one act of mischief also single-handedly failed Simon for the year, hence the explanation for his presence at summer school despite the fact that the boy was an obvious genius.
The magikal genius grimaced and rubbed his stomach. It gurgled in protest, making me laugh even harder.
Beside him, Corwin sighed, unamused, while Connor snorted, trying to stay cool looking and failing miserably.
"Look, it's still super early…" I checked my wristwatch. "…its' barely 7. I vote we go eat breakfast first."
I felt a bit sorry for the sophomoric alchemist. "After breakfast, let Simon excuse himself from class, and then we can go. I need to prepare for this excursion as well."
It was probably best for everyone to start with a full stomach. No telling how long it was going to take or even if we'd be able to make it back for lunch.
Since I was the one who voiced the suggestion, the twins complied with some reluctance.
Simon shot me a grateful look and mouthed something that looked like, "I owe you one," which I was happy to accept.
As smart as he was, he'd probably be useful for something in the near future.