She hit the ground and rolled, looked up in time to dodge a fireball. Energy crackled around her body. The fine hairs on her arms stood up. Lush threw another fireball and Valkyrie straightened, holding out her left hand, her magic becoming a shield that the fireball exploded against. Lush ran for her gun, but Valkyrie caught her in the side with a streak of lightning that spun her sideways and sent her down.
Valkyrie pulled her magic back in and quelled it before it scorched her clothes. That was getting to be a problem.
Yonder was lying on his belly, his hands cuffed behind him.
“You can’t do this!” he raged. “I’m an officer of the City Guard!”
“Not for long,” Skulduggery said.
Yonder rolled on to his side so he could glare at him. “No one will believe you! Commander Hoc knows you’ve had it in for me from the beginning! He’ll take my side!”
“He won’t have a choice,” Valkyrie said, walking over. “He’ll do what Supreme Mage Sorrows tells him to.”
Yonder snarled. “You’re so smug, aren’t you? You’re in with the Supreme Mage, so you get to strut around, doing whatever you want. Let me tell you, let me be the one to tell you – that time is coming to an end. You hear me? Things are going to change around here.”
Despite her worries, despite her anxiety, despite everything that had happened and everything she had done, Valkyrie looked down at Sergeant Yonder and found she still had the capacity to laugh at stupid people.
“Omen,” Miss Gnosis said, leaning forward, her elbows on her desk and her fingertips pressed together. “We need to talk about your future.”
Omen Darkly nodded. The office, filled with the morning sun, was nice and neat and smelled of some exotic spice that was not too pungent. Miss Gnosis had books everywhere. Her desk was packed full of stuff. She looked like she had a lot going on.
“Omen,” she said.
He looked up. “Yes?”
“Your future. How do you envision it?”
“I haven’t really thought about it too much.”
“I realise that,” Miss Gnosis said in that cool Scottish accent. She pushed a form towards him. “Do you know what this is?”
“It’s the SYA.”
“And what does SYA stand for?”
“Senior Years Agenda.”
“Very good.” Miss Gnosis sat back. “What age are you now, Omen?”
“Fifteen.”
“So you’ve got another two years of school after this one, and maybe two years after that before your Surge. Do you have any idea yet what discipline you want to specialise in?”
“Well, I … I mean, I suppose being an Elemental would be, you know …” He trailed off.
“Do you want to be an Elemental?” Miss Gnosis asked. “You don’t sound too enthused.”
“Yes, no, I mean, sure.”
“Is there anything else you’d rather be?”
Omen shrugged.
“Rack your brains, Omen. Is there any discipline other than Elemental magic that you would like to do for the rest of your life? Because that’s what we’re talking about here. The discipline you’re focused on when you have your Surge is the discipline you’re stuck with from then on.” She hesitated. “You do know how the Surge works?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Good, good.”
“Like, it’d be cool to be a Teleporter,” Omen said. “I’m always late for stuff and I get car sick on long journeys, so that would solve a lot of my problems.”
“Teleportation is one of the tricky ones,” Miss Gnosis replied. “You generally have to be born with the aptitude for it, like Never was.”
“Yeah, I know,” Omen said, a little glumly. “See, miss, the problem is I’m just not very good at most things.”
“Ah, Omen, don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“It’s true, though. I’m not. I’m no good at Energy Throwing or—”
“Proper names, please.”
“Sorry. I’m no good at Ergokinesis and I did want to be a Signum Linguist, but I just find it hard to understand all the letters.”
“Which is a problem when it comes to language,” Miss Gnosis said. “But you’ve still got time to decide. What I want you to do is come up with a list of seven disciplines – realistic disciplines – to take into your final two years of school. Then you can figure out which one you want to specialise in.”
“And what if I can’t?”
“Then you’ll still have two or three years after you leave in which to make your decision. You’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to have this worked out, but do you want to know a secret? Nobody has it worked out. We’re all just playing it by ear. No one knows what the future has in store.”
“Auger knows.”
“Your brother’s situation is slightly different.”
“Sensitives know what’s in store.”
“No, they don’t,” Miss Gnosis said. “Sensitives can see a future – not necessarily the future. But what about that? What about becoming a Sensitive?”
Omen’s face soured. “We’re doing one of Miss Wicked’s modules right now.”
“And how’s that going for you?”
“She paired me up with Auger, because siblings have a strong psychic connection, and twins have an even stronger one.”
“I’m aware.”
“And we did that test, you know the one, where we sit opposite each other and I look at a card with a pattern on it and he has to, like, read that pattern in my mind, and then we switch? Auger got every single one right.”
“And how did you do?”
“I fell off my chair.”
“Oh.”
“I think it’s a balance thing. Miss Wicked says psychic stuff can upset your equilibrium, so … Anyway, today we’re going to try to talk to each other using only our minds.”
“You might be better at that.”
“I don’t see how.”
Miss Gnosis smiled. “Omen, come on. A little self-belief wouldn’t hurt, now, would it?”
“It’s just, we’re the only set of twins in the class, and Auger can do it all brilliantly, and I’m kind of holding him back.”
“I doubt he sees it that way.”
Omen gave a little grunt.
Miss Gnosis let him out a few minutes early, which allowed him to get to the toilets without being caught in the sudden crush of students. In fact, he had time to take the scenic route to his next class, past both the North and the