"Let's check them out," I whispered, whether to myself or to the ring I wasn't sure.

The first wall I came to was earth. The masks were mainly brown, and some even appeared to be covered in dirt of both darker and lighter colors. But there were other colors mixed in, gray, green, blue, orange, all the colors found in the world.

The next wall was water. One ma.s.sive wave was painted onto the wall, crashing down, providing a stunning backdrop to the masks that hung there. Some looked like seash.e.l.ls, while others were a little more unusual, like the skins of otters or fish. All were beautiful.

Air was next, and it might just have been my imagination, but I thought I felt a gentle breeze blow across my face as I stepped towards that part of the wall.

The masks here were more unusual. Some were cream while others were a deep night. I felt power rise up under my fingers as I touched them.

The last wall was the most . . . impressive. Unlike the vampire red, the elemental fire was more of a curling orange mixed with reds, yellows, and a little white and blue. The masks were stunning, many looked like flames, and I knew that if I were to put one on, my face would look like it was on fire.

"Do you know which proclivity you are?" came Dacer's gentle voice.

I shook my head. "Haven't had the chance to find out yet."

"You know some elementals showed apt.i.tude with all four elements," he said wistfully.

I shrugged. "Sip, my friend Sip Quest, told me that was very rare." I rubbed my hand lovingly over the masks.

I felt Dacer nod more than saw the movement.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know anyone was in here." A boy, well, actually probably a guy around my age, came to a halt. He held a broom in his right hand and a pail in his left.

"Ah, Mark, no need to apologize. I was just showing my new intern her heritage."

The boy, Mark, had light brown hair, almost blond, and milky brown eyes. A large dollop of freckles covered his nose. "Morning, Miss," he said. "It will be good to have an elemental around again." He gave me a nice smile and then nodded to Dacer. "I'll go clean the front room," he said, before disappearing back out the door.

"Mark takes care of the Museum," said Dacer. "It is as fantastically clean as it is because of his hard work. There is nothing more important to him than keeping the Museum up to snuff. I'm very lucky to have him."

"He seems nice," I murmured. I paused, unsure how to continue, but then decided I had to just spit it out. "Sorry, why did you want me here?"

I had finally gotten to the question I had wanted to ask him ever since I found out that not only was I doing an internship, but I was doing one in a place that never had interns.

"Ah, well, I would have thought it was obvious, but if you require an explanation, an explanation you will have. It is a brief one." He pursed his lips, as if thinking how to phrase it, while his hands were again clasped behind his back. "The masks can be cared for by anyone with an apt.i.tude. I have such. I can care for all the masks here, but of course there are certain things that can only be done with the masks if you know how to use them. The best people to use the masks are the descendants of their makers. Obviously, others can use them to an extent if they get their hands on them, which is why the vampire masks are a danger, but some things can only be unlocked in a mask if you have the right heritage.

"The elemental masks have not been used in a generation. They are growing rusty. All of the other masks are taken out and used, albeit harmlessly, and if they're dangerous, in controlled situations, by their paranormals. This keeps the magic sharp. It allows me, as curator, to know if there are any cracks or flaws in the masks due to their increasing age. If you're willing, I'd like to teach you to use the elemental masks. That is my main aim, my mother aim, if you can call it such: to cultivate a good relationship with one of the most powerful paranormals in the world for me to use to my advantage in the future."

His perfectly white teeth flashed in a large smile while I stared at him open-mouthed.

"Who is that?" I asked stupidly.

His smile grew wider, if that were possible. "You."

He gave a wide grin. There was a sort of strong humming racing through the air. My attention was brought back to the room I was in and away from the vampire standing next to me and grinning like the Cheshire cat. My reactions amused him and he had given me a lot to think about.

It took me a minute to realize that the humming in the room was the power in the masks, calling to me, expressing their pleasure at my presence.

"I have done what I can with them and they are very good with me. The powers that reside in them understand that we are in special circ.u.mstances, but we both felt them wake up when you walked in. They know what's important. They know where home is. You are it."

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I knew that if I spoke I would start crying, so I simply nodded.

"I'll try," I whispered. My eyes locked on the masks. Somehow I felt like they were looking back at me.

"Excellent," said Dacer enthusiastically. "Now, sadly, I do believe it's time for you to go. You have to eat, and then you have Professor Zervos's cla.s.s, do you not?"

I sighed. "Yeah. He wants us to learn to fight. Or something."

"His methods might be unusual, but he does care about the students," said Dacer. I glanced at him sidelong. Given that Dacer was flamboyant and oddly happy for a vampire, I was surprised he spoke of Zervos with such praise. No one spoke nicely of Zervos, but then again maybe Dacer spoke nicely of everyone.

"Thank you for the tour," I murmured.

Dacer smiled and gave me a small bow. "Until next time." He showed me to the door and I waved at Mark as I left.

The descent down the Tower stairs was good for me. I needed the time to think before I got to the dining hall.

I was going to be working with the elemental masks. Maybe I should have guessed it, but I was now excited about my internship. I should have asked Dacer what the masks could do, but I guess I had the whole semester to figure it out. I couldn't wait to tell Lisabelle and Sip. The other thing I now knew for certain was that the masks were dangerous, far more dangerous than I had realized. I was lucky to be allowed inside the Museum at all.

"Hey," said Sip, meeting me at the bottom of the stairs. Lisabelle was standing next to her, brandishing her wand at what appeared to be the world at large.

"Hi," I said, grinning. "How were your cla.s.ses?"

Sip shrugged. "Werewolf Speed. I found out I'm very far from being a fast werewolf, but then again growing up with five siblings I already knew that."

"And Lisabelle?"

I saw Sip grin. "What?" I asked. "What happened?"

"Lisabelle is a tutor this semester," Sip squeaked out before she doubled over in a fit of giggles with her hands over her stomach. "It's all kinds of awesome."

Lisabelle's face was sour. "Lisabelle," I said, "who would inflict you on young minds?"

"I know, right?" she said. "Well, I'm working with vampires on darkness powers, since we're the ones that have them. They discovered that Lanca and I are the two strongest, so we're working with everyone else. Korba actually had the nerve to say I'd be a good professor one day. All kinds of crazy."

"Tell her what he said after that," said Sip, trying and failing to get her laughter under control.

Lisabelle looked affronted. "Oh, THEN he said I would only make a good professor if I got my temper under control. Imagine."

"Yeah, it's real tough to picture that," I murmured, grinning at my darkness friend. "I think there's something wrong with Lanca, though," said Lisabelle. "We need to talk about it later." I nodded. If Lisabelle had noticed it too, then we definitely should.

"And the only other bit of gossip is that the Bells transferred," said Sip. "They were afraid to be here with the demons attacking."

The two Bells had been Starters in Airlee with us. I had liked them, but it wouldn't really impact my life that they were gone. The only impact was that they had done it because of me. I wondered how many other students Public would lose on my account.

After dinner we all headed to Professor Zervos's cla.s.sroom. On the way I talked to my friends about the Museum and they promised to visit.

As we filed into the cla.s.sroom I was excited to see who I was in cla.s.s with this semester. It was all the usual suspects, including Camilla, Cale, and Lanca. Lealand, the cute pixie transfer who had pickpocketed some of the students, was also there. And Evan Drapper, a vampire who had Started with us, was sitting next to Lanca. The only face missing was Keller's. I felt my heart sicken to realize that I might not have any cla.s.ses with him this semester.

The three of us settled in next to Lough, who was already there.

"Hiya, gorgeous," said the transfer with the long blond hair tucked into a ponytail. I turned around. He was tall and tanned, as if he'd just stepped off the beach. He was sitting behind us, and he wasn't talking to me. I remembered from the Demonstration that his name was Trafton and that he was a very powerful dream giver, which meant that we'd be seeing a lot of him, because like Lough he was in Airlee.

When Lisabelle realized that I wasn't responding to the new guy, she glanced over her shoulder, crossing her arms over her chest in her best p.i.s.s-off mode.

"What did you just say?" she demanded. Her black eyes bore into the guy. In a minute we'd start to see two holes in his chest. Trafton cleared his throat. He didn't look at all nervous under Lisabelle's glare. He was the first.

He gave her a huge smile, revealing lots of white teeth. "I called you gorgeous. I'd do it again." Before Lisabelle could respond, he got to his feet, tucked his hands into his pockets, and sidled up to Zervos's desk.

"He wasn't afraid of you," Sip murmured, fascinated. "We should study him or something."

"Is studying your solution to all problems? There's a first time for everything," said Lisabelle, shrugging, but for the rest of cla.s.s she looked irritated and would periodically glance over in the direction of Trafton. Next to me, I felt Lough tense.

Chapter Twelve.

"Evening," said Professor Zervos, glaring around the room.

I hadn't missed him at all.

"As I'm sure most of you know, this is a special cla.s.s called Tactical. I have given over the teaching of my other cla.s.ses so that I can focus on this. As was announced last night, the entire student body will perform three Tacticals throughout the semester. In the time between one Tactical and the next, cla.s.ses will meet and discuss good points and what was absolutely terrifyingly bad, and we'll try to learn from what happened and do better the next time. I fully expect most of you to be awful. Now, outside we go! The organizational meeting for Tactical is tonight."

"Talk about hitting the ground running," Lough murmured. "This is going to be terrible."

We were all a little sh.e.l.l-shocked as we got up and walked outside. I had expected Zervos to lecture us as usual, but instead he was taking us outside into the winter night, where a biting cold a.s.saulted us. This was going to suck. We were headed towards the outer reaches of Public, where the demons waited just beyond the barrier.

"Now, our primary objective is to learn how to survive in a real-time environment," Zervos bit out as we walked.

"Excuse me, but will Ms. Rollins be going through the force field?" Camilla's singsong voice grated on my ears.

"No one goes through the force field, even if they are able. That is not the point of the exercise," Zervos gritted out. "It would put us all at paramount risk and is unacceptable under any circ.u.mstances."

"I cannot believe the Committee approved this idea," Sip muttered. I nodded, but a part of me, a pretty big part, was looking forward to fighting. "And we can't even blame it on the pixies, because the pixie representative on the Committee, Oliva, isn't even here yet."

"Now, under no circ.u.mstances are you to go near the wall," said Zervos, talking over Sip. "We are here mere to learn fighting tactics."

When we got to the large field, I realized that we were close to the pond and the tree line. I also realized that most of the school was there.

Lisabelle's uncle Risper was standing in the midst of it all, yelling orders. He looked every bit the bounty hunting Committee member.

"We're all going to learn how to fight," he bellowed. "This is a school-wide cla.s.s and everyone will partic.i.p.ate. You will learn how to defend yourselves or you will die trying. In order to do that you will be working in teams of four, with each team member representing a different dorm. This is to promote acceptance and intercooperation yada yada yada. There might still be divisions among paranormals, but here those divisions will be left at the door."

"Wait, we have to work with Airlee students?" Camilla sputtered. "Ew."

Risper's eyes landed on her like the glare of headlights. "You do. And that will be the last complaint I hear from you. Or else." His voice had gone soft and threatening. Sometimes not yelling is more scary than the loudest scream.

Camilla shut up.

Lisabelle looked around at everyone. "It's like my worst fear come to life," she muttered.

"'N SYNC reunion?" Sip asked.

I was only half listening to their banter, because suddenly I was tempted to run away to the pond, wanting to know what special power it might hold, wanting to know if I would meet my mother again.

But obviously I couldn't. Risper was still talking, and I had to force myself to listen.

"I am going to split you into teams, and those teams will be yours for the semester. Each team will be competing against all the other teams on campus. At each Tactical, different challenges will be posed and winners will result. At the end of the semester there will be a team with the most wins and a team with the most losses. At that point I will devise suitable rewards and punishments. Under NO circ.u.mstances are any of you to hurt others, and you will be very closely supervised in this regard. Professor Zervos has agreed to act as referee. I and Professor Erikson will also always be on hand. Tactical is not a 24/7 game. Only at sanctioned times and under controlled circ.u.mstances are you allowed to engage in Tactical. I will not have mayhem and battles around my campus this semester.

"These rules are strict, because we have enough fears in the paranormal world at the moment. I do not want anyone to be constantly in fear of attack by fellow students."

"Easy for him to say," Lisabelle muttered. "Has he seen how the pixies feel about you?"

I tried not to grin. She had a point. Camilla and Kia hated me, and of course they were both standing with Cale, who was busy pretending I wasn't there. Sometimes he did that when Camilla was around. I knew she had little fits at him if he talked to me.

"This is fantastic," said Sip. "I really wanted to work on my werewolf moves, and now I have an excuse. Lisabelle, I hope we aren't on the same team. Then we can battle each other."

Lisabelle snorted. "Good luck."

"Alright," cried Risper, "gather *round."

Lots of feet crunched on snow as we all moved nearer to Risper.

"It's cold isn't it?" he asked, grinning. Now that I was near him I saw that he was standing in front of a ma.s.sive pile of wood. In a matter of seconds he had turned around and lit it, setting a huge blaze tearing into the pools of black sky.

Gasps went up from the crowd of students as heat trickled towards them and made being outside more bearable. I was transfixed by the flames, lost in enjoyment of the way they jumped and sparked around the wood, consuming it. They reminded me of the masks in the Museum. I was sure that at least one of those masks could be used to manipulate fire, and I hardly dared to imagine what a powerful mask that must be.

"Alright now," said Risper, pacing back and forth in his all-black ensemble and looking especially menacing, "let's begin."

The process of splitting the students into teams of four took a long time. There were probably simpler ways to do it, but I got the idea that Risper wanted to see everyone's reaction as the groups were formed. I couldn't decide if that information would somehow help him with running the school over the next few months, or he just enjoyed creating havoc. Glancing at Lisabelle, and knowing they were closely related, I decided it was probably more of the latter than the former.

He started to rattle off names, and for a while I tuned him out. My mind drifted back to the Museum, the incredible elemental masks I had seen there, and the dangers that such powerful items could pose. The first few teams didn't have anyone on them that I really knew except for Jordan Lawrence, a pixie who had Started with us. Then Risper started naming another group of four and I heard, "Sip Quest, Tat Devon, Nat Greg, and Kevin Donalds." Tat was a vampire, Nat was a fallen angel and a good friend of Keller, and Kevin was a senior pixie. Sip put her chin up and walked towards her group.

"Lisabelle Verlans, Trafton Rooks, Cale Humphrey, Betsy b.u.t.ter." Trafton gave Lisabelle a wide smile as they joined their team, while Cale looked nervous and Betsy, a junior fallen angel, looked bored.

"Lough Typer, Camilla Van Rothson, Evan Drapper, and Marcus Pelletier." Camilla looked like she wanted to punch someone. Obviously she wouldn't want to be anywhere near Lough, because he was friends with me. Evan looked angry that he wasn't paired with Lanca, and Marcus, Keller's other good friend, looked high on life. That would make an interesting crew.

"Princess Lanca, Lealand Babson, Keller Erikson, Charlotte Rollins."

My reaction was instantaneous and mixed.

YES!.

No.