Isla Rivera and the Broken Cradle: Dark Lessons, #4.5

By Anna St. Vincent

Isla Rivera has a problem. Her counterpart from El Paso Cerrado, having failed to secure his own place as Keeper there, now wants to steal her slot as Keeper of Umbrum Hall. The only question is how far Miguel will go to take that from her.

 

The solution seems obvious, but it means taking a step she's not ready for.  A step that might create permanent ties between her and Jason Brown. She's not sure if she's more afraid that would tie her to him, or that it would bind him to her. Honestly, she'd rather put it off until she's a little older, and possibly wiser.

 

And then there's the Christmas party she has to plan… 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Three Swallows Press
• Release date: Dec 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215838440

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I am the soil of Oklahoma, the dark brown silty loam of the Choska bottomland, nestled in the slow rhythmic curve of the Arkansas River. How many days did I lie on that soil, feeling it call to me, name me its own? In the far distance, north of our farm, I could just taste the flint hills of Kansas; to the east, the heavy red clay of Oklahoma City; to the south, the granite and limestone of the Arbuckle Mountains, and then the deeper black clay of North Texas.

I lie in the cradle now, and here in Umbrum Hall, the soil is uniform, minerals and biologicals mixed inextricably together. The hall does that, breaks everything down—every last bit of matter that has ever been brought into this little world—into parts so small that they are no more than particles of sand, loam, and compost. So completely blended that they are all one—the matrix.

The matrix wants me to become tiny bits, dissolve, no longer troubled by who I am or those pesky things I want from my life. That comes from listening to it and letting it have its way. I’m not here to do that. I’m not here to become what it wants.

I’m here to make it into what I want.

I am Isla Talisa Rivera, the solid land amid the beautiful waters, and my will is stronger than any pile of magic dirt.

ONE

Breakfast this fine Sunday morning is the normal array of egg, breakfast meat, and cereal, hot or cold. These are supplemented with oatmeal breakfast bars that have a cinnamon-apple filling. This version reportedly has hazelnuts rather than pecans, so Jason is experimenting with his recipe again. He does that when he gets frustrated.

I’m probably the source of that frustration.

Natasha Lopez is currently trying the breakfast bars, her hazel eyes closed in some sort of sugar-coma bliss. She’s half elf, so she’s got the same type of super-hot metabolism that her cousins Finn Mitchell and Dillon Woods have. Unfortunately for me, Earth Elementals don’t burn calories that way. I’ve got to watch what passes my lips or it will be, like Tia Isabela says, forever on my hips.

But Jason Brown made those oatmeal bars for me, so I’m going to have one. Pretty much everything he bakes is for me. Everyone knows.

Who knew that his makeup Chemistry class would become an obsession? Instructor Emden assigned a baking syllabus to Jason and my roommate Mary Quirk over the summer, a way to hammer the import of chemistry in everyday life through their thick skulls. The summer’s work clearly didn’t affect Mary the same way. Once she got Instructor Emden’s nod on her chem credit, she stopped baking. Jason just kept on going. Once he moved on from bread—and that man makes delicious bread, let me tell you—to other desserts: scones, muffins, cookies, and oatmeal bars. So many calories.

He has a secret he’s only whispered to me so far. Yes, he wants to study water management systems like Dr. Suiter did, but he also wants to open a bakery. In Umbrum.

He’s talked about doing the online master’s program at OU after he gets his Cadet diploma. That diploma, even though it’s from a magic school, works as well as an undergraduate degree from any other accredited college. He simply has to get a stamp from a special administrator there, and that won’t be a problem, not with the P&A backing him. The Parents and Alumni Association of Umbrum Hall have a lot of clout, even out in the real world. Especially out in the real world.

Will Jason stay here in Umbrum? Will he take over Dr. Suiter’s spot managing Umbrum’s cistern system? That job isn’t like being Keeper. He would be able to leave Umbrum from time to time. Or he could stay for a time and then leave.

Me? If Professor Simonsson passes away, I’m here forever. I cannot leave, not any more than Professor Nomen, our Wardsman. The Keeper and the Wardsman are the two people who keep a school like this functioning. Alive.

The disaster out at Paso Cerrado is proof of that. Their Wardsman died, and without anyone in training to take that responsibility, the wards for the shards that house each portion of the realm started collapsing one by one. By the time Natasha got there to steady the wards, it was too late. She called it a cascade failure. I have no idea if that’s accurate—it’s a term she learned watching The Expanse—but the similarities are pretty obvious. Once enough wards had collapsed, there was no way to stop the rest of them from dying.

Even though Paso Cerrado’s Keeper, Professor Breisacher, had been there, she couldn’t do anything either. Her job was matrix manipulation, not wards.

Air control and water control inside the school are also important, but they’re not as specialized. If the air in Umbrum Hall went wonky and Professor Sivala was away, Instructor Emden is a strong enough Air Elemental that she could hold things together. Even my classmate, Ken Okoturo, who also happens to be Instructor Emden’s nephew, might be able to do it. If something happened to Dr. Suiter, Jason could keep the cistern system under control long enough to get another water manager in.

What do I want Jason to do? I’m afraid even to say it aloud, even though I suspect everyone knows.

I glance at Natasha again, who’s working on her second—no, third—cinnamon-apple oatmeal bar, and decide I’d better grab one now before she eats them all. I push aside my sensible plate of egg whites, grab the spatula, and dig out a medium-sized piece. Still warm. I put it on my napkin instead of the plate; I don’t want to mix eggs and crumbly stuff. That would be wrong.

I break off a small bite and put it in my mouth and… oh, Natasha is totally right. It’s got exactly the right amount of cinnamon. The oats taste nutty. The apples have body and aren’t too sweet. This is heaven, and I feel it all the way down to my toes. Jason has nailed this recipe.

This would be great with vanilla ice cream, my traitor brain says. More calories!

I’m wearing one of my favorite black T-shirts today, the one that says If only sarcasm burned calories. I know that Mary believes I pick out my T-shirts carefully to fit my plans for the day, but the truth is that I reach into the pile of folded shirts and yank one out without looking. And weirdly, it often turns out to be prophetic. Well, about as prophetic as a horoscope in the newspaper. I can relate events back to whatever’s on my shirt, about half the time.

Because I totally don’t care about the calories in my breakfast, right?

I ignore my brain’s screaming for ice cream and concentrate on Jason’s masterpiece. I’m about to put a second piece in my mouth when the chef himself strolls up to the Shamrock—the four round tables our class has shoved together—and plonks down on the seat next to me.

When I first met Jason Brown, he was desperately trying to fit in with the class, or at least one part of it—the students