Right then, Holden came inside and crossed over to us. Seeing our faces, he came up short. “Is this lady time?”
“No.” Pilar patted the booth seat beside her. “You can sit with us, too. Tell Skylar about the townhouse.”
The fact that Holden was in on whatever was going on drove a jealous barb through my chest, short-lived as it was. It wasn’t his fault any more than it was mine, but it bugged me all the same. Last year I would have been more in the loop.
“It’s…” Holden appeared to be struggling, puffing out his cheeks while staring thoughtfully at his hands. “Weird as fuck. I don’t know how to explain it. You go in there for more than a few minutes and it’s like someone is watching you from the shadows that you can’t see, smell, or hear, dude.”
“Any chance you guys have a disgruntled brownie? You know how they get when you take them for granted.”
“They’re gone,” Pilar said flatly. “They left two weeks ago and have not returned.”
That took me by surprise. Brownies were the kindest, most patient creatures in the faerie kingdom. Sure, they could be fickle, but it took a lot to insult them enough to abandon a family or home.
“No others will come either,” Anji muttered. “We made a complaint to Housing and they called it bad vibes. Said it was our fault because of all the bickering between Victor and Holly.”
“Is he still having a hard time?”
“Actually, that’s not what they fight about. It’s more…” Pilar gestured with her hand. “They fight about her using magic.”
“For everything,” Anji added. “And somehow she’s become vainer than Pilar.”
“Hey!”
“It’s true,” Holden said, grimacing. “She’s always looking in the compact mirror Victor’s mother sent her. I thought Tinsel was into her looks, but goddamn, this girl can’t go a few minutes without checking herself out.”
That wasn’t the Holly I knew. Apprehension churned in my stomach.
Was this all the result of casting one blood magic spell?
Stark wandered over at long last, completely oblivious to our unease. When he dropped down beside me, he brought the acrid stink of cigarettes with him. My nose wrinkled and I scooched in closer against Anji. A server brought over our order a moment later and everyone grabbed at their food, grateful for the excuse to drop the depressing topic.
Even as I bit into my juicy slab of cheese and bacon stuffed beef, I couldn’t find real enjoyment.
I also couldn’t stop wondering what was going on in that townhouse and how to handle it in a way that wouldn’t result in Holly being staked.
12
Even the Fae Suck Sometimes
All I wanted after a long night of classes was to head home and sleep. I stuck around a few minutes to discuss an assignment with Professor Baranov then made my way into the hall, ready to retreat home to knock out my online coursework. Except instead of empty corridors and easy freedom, a crowd lingered near the main doors.
Cruel laughter reached me, the sort I recognized from high school days when bullies discovered weakness in a soft target. There was only one vulnerable target on campus who came to mind.
I could have turned around and left, there was another exit on the south side of the building, but that would make me as bad as all these bystanders. For a brief moment, I wrestled with my conscience. Then I pushed my way forward, nudging people aside.
Two mages and a rather burly fae blocked the doors, denying Jiro an exit. Jiro stood with his hands down at his sides, his fists clenched
“I have a class to get to. Let me pass.”
“You shouldn’t be here. You insult this prestigious institution with your mere presence,” one of the mages said, a tall blond wearing designer eyeglasses.
“Tell him, Elliot. Shitbrain has no business being here.”
Jiro said nothing, but I saw the way he tensed. Veins stood out on his clenched fists. “Please let me go.”
“Beg. You wanna leave so bad, then beg us to give you passage.”
The crowd around Elliot roared with laughter.
“Just let me by—”
“What are you going to do if we don’t? Plan to give us nightmares too? Please. I wish you would. My father is on the council. He’ll have your ass Bound and hung out to dry.”
“Maybe even destroyed,” said the sneering fae.
“That’s enough, guys.” I stepped forward, aware that every eye had turned on me.
“C’mon, Skylar, you of all people should want this piece of crap gone,” the fae countered. “Or are you a darkling sympathizer now, huh? Hanging around with vamps on the cusp of turning.”
“Oh shut up, Jonas,” I snapped. “C’mon, Jiro, we’ll go out the other way.”
“He shouldn’t be here. Darklings have no place among us!” Elliot yelled. “How long until he attacks someone else? We should have a say in who goes here.”
“He’s right,” someone murmured.
Other voices agreed, and heads nodded.
“He’d be better off dead.”
“He is dead. Dead to me. Dead to all fae.”
“Traitor.”
“Filth.”
Each word struck me in the heart like a nail and chisel. This was excessive. This was unfair. For all my time on campus, I’d somehow failed to realize how awful my kind could be when they believed their actions to be justified.
“Why should we have to put up with a darkling among us? We’re taught all our lives that his ilk are despicable monsters, but now they force us to attend classes alongside one? This is nonsense.”
More voices rose in agreement with Elliot. He had a persuasive voice to match his golden, California-boy looks. Too bad the soul inside was spoiled and rotten.
“The administration wouldn’t allow him to return if he wasn’t safe.”
“Oh, please,” a faerie girl said in a snide voice. I hadn’t taken a class with her for a couple semesters, but I thought her name was something like Sharon or Cheryl. “The administration isn’t perfect. Are you going to just blindly follow everything they say?”
“No! I’m only saying that there has to be more to the story that we don’t know. That you in particular don’t know.” A few hundred fae attended PNRU at any given time, but I was the only one privy to sentinel business.
“Like what?” She cocked a brow and placed both hands on her hips.
“Um…”
“What is happening here?” demanded the prim voice of Professor Tristal, her inquiry echoing from above us like the voice of god.
I didn’t know whether to jump for joy or slink into the shadows and hope to melt into them. I glanced up to see her standing on the mezzanine overlooking the lobby. Anger, which I’d never seen in three years, had blotched her fair face red.
“This is the sort of behavior I would expect of a high school bully.” Tristal stared down her nose at the assembly of mages and fae. “Far from what we demand from the esteemed students of this fine university. This is…” She blinked down to our level and landed in one precise step inches from the leading mage of the pack. “Shamefully beneath you.”
Elliot didn’t back down, the idiot. “It’s not right, professor.”
“And why is it not right? If the world’s problems were solved to your satisfaction, I suppose all people would be punished indefinitely, for the whole of their lives, for each mistake they made.”
“No, but—”
“Tell me why it troubles you so much that a young man has been offered a chance at redemption?”
“Because you can’t get back your soul.” Jonas pointed at Jiro, hand shaking. “He betrayed everything it is to be fae.”
“It is true a darkling cannot regain the soul they have lost, but they can protect what remains. And in the case of Jiro Yamazaki, he is not yet a true darkling. His appearance may never change, but his soul can recover. Much like losing a limb, the blood flow can be staunched and the body can heal.”
“How can
you say such a thing, professor?”
Tristal looked across the remaining group, her gaze lingering briefly on my own, before turning back to Elliot and Jonas. “I can say this because it is what I did when I was offered the same second chance.”
* * *
Tristal’s office had always been a little dark and formal, which gave it an almost spooky atmosphere, but it felt even more so after her surprising admission. Jiro and I each took a seat and waited while she closed the door behind us. That click sounded positively ominous.
“Now then, no one will disturb us.”
Maybe that was code for “Now I can eat you in peace.”
Guilt swamped me at the ridiculous thought. Tristal had always been odd, but she was a great teacher and she’d taken time out of her schedule to help me more than once. Discovering she was a rehabilitated darkling didn’t make those truths vanish. She made her way around the desk and took a seat.
“I imagine you both have questions, but first, allow me one of my own. Are you all right, Jiro?”
“Yes, professor. I knew to expect…” He struggled for words to accurately express his feelings.
“Douchebags?” I offered.
Jiro’s brittle smile barely curved his lips. “I knew people would reject me.”
“It is a hard line you walk, Mr. Yamazaki. The memories of events two years ago are still fresh on the minds of those here at campus. Monica wreaked havoc. Students and civilians died.”
“I know,” he replied in a quiet voice. “And I helped her. I don’t know if I can ever atone for my bad choices. It doesn’t matter that they threatened my family. I could have told someone. I should have said they threatened to hurt my mother.”
What?
My head snapped around to stare at him.
Why hadn’t the rest of us been told that?
A sinking feeling in my gut told me why. Who would believe it?
“The fact that you are here means you have already started down that path,” Tristal said kindly.
“Honestly, I thought for a long time that if I wasn’t with her, my heart would be next. I knew if I didn’t show up that night with the kids, she’d kill me. She wanted a dreamwalker. Badly.” He shuddered.
“You’re safe now. You made the best choice, both for the children and your own soul.” Tristal cut her gaze to me. “You’ve been quiet.”
“I’m not sure what to say, I guess. I…” I glanced from Tristal to Jiro then back to the professor again. “I had no idea.”
“And now that you know the truth, has your opinion of me changed?” Tristal asked.
“No. I mean, you’re still the same professor I know and respect.” And that was the whole point. While I hadn’t harassed Jiro or talked poorly about him behind his back, I hadn’t given the forgiveness he sought either. I was so set in my mind that he was a darkling and didn’t belong here, which would mean that the professor shouldn’t either. Except she did.
She’d mentored me and taught me the combative magic no one else would until I met Dain. Not once in all the time we’d known each other had Tristal ever been anything but a stern and loving authority figure.
“Mr. Yamazaki, why don’t you head on to your next class? I need a word with Miss Corazzi. Please rest assured that you will have no further incidents on this campus.”
“Thank you, professor.” He rose and turned for the door, only to pause beside my chair and look down at me. “Thanks again, Skylar, for stepping in.”
“Of course. I’m sorry you had to go through all that. You don’t deserve to be treated that way, no matter what they said.”
He dipped his chin in silent thanks then left the office. For the longest while, Tristal and I watched one another across her desk, neither of us speaking. To be honest, I still wasn’t sure what to say, trying to put it all together in my head. But her silence persisted and I broke first, likely as she intended.
“I didn’t think a darkling could come back.”
“They can’t. Not really.”
“Then…”
“As I said, neither I nor Jiro fully converted, unlike Miss Cunningham. That is the difference.”
“I’m not sure I understand. Jiro hurt so many people.”
“But he didn’t diminish his light completely.”
“But—”
She held up a hand. “Don’t misunderstand me. Jiro did some unspeakable things, as did I. The slide into darkness—into real, true evil—is slow but steady. A single killing, at least for the fae, doesn’t damn us for eternity, but it does darken our soul. Eventually that darkness, that hunger, grows and spreads, until it consumes us. Jiro didn’t get that far.”
“And you?” I asked softly.
“I came closer. It was friends who pulled me back from the brink and gave me a second chance. They could have killed me that night—hell, I’m certain they had orders to, but they made a different call.”
“Simon and Sebastian. That’s who helped you. You’re the cath palug with the redacted file.”
“Yes. We attended school together, at the same time as your parents.”
“What happened? I mean, if you don’t mind telling me about it.”
Tristal took a deep breath and folded hand hands together atop the desk. “A young man I was dating became a little too physical with me. It…was an accident that first time. But then I had a taste for it. I couldn’t stop myself. I sought out other men with similar behavior patterns and tendencies for violence, and eventually I began to leave bodies in New York City. That’s when Simon and Sebastian were put on my trail. As…the men I visited were proven predators, I was granted leniency.”
“Your scars…” I had seen them once, briefly, during an exam on Cinderella charms when I’d put the professor in a dress.
“Losing our light leaves a mark. So does a fireball from a powerful mage.”
I winced.
“Jiro will always bear the dark scales and forked tongue. They will be a constant reminder of what he lost and what he could have become.”
“I guess I always assumed that anyone who started down that path, once captured, would be Bound.”
“As with all rules, there are exceptions.”
I’d always looked at our world in black and white, good versus evil, but she’d opened my eyes to the shades of gray around us. Things I knew, but didn’t want to think about.
“Are you worried, professor? About revealing yourself, I mean.”
“There will be backlash, I’m certain, but Provost Riordan knows my history and I’ve been cleared in the eyes of those in power.”
“But if parents and students complain?”
Tristal shrugged. “Then they complain. I’ve taught PNRU students for fourteen years and I plan to continue teaching for many more. What I was has no bearing on my ability to teach. If anything, it grants me a unique perspective to guide others away from the path I followed.”
“True enough. You’ve always helped me see the bigger picture of things.”
A small smile softened her stern features. “Then I’m doing my job. My door is always open to you, Miss Corazzi.”
Taking my cue, I rose and shouldered my bag. “Thanks, professor. I just might take you up on that.”
13
Living the Fairytale
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise when all classes were cancelled the next morning for an emergency faculty meeting. News of Tristal’s confession had spread like wildfire across campus, creating a schism in the student body. There were those, like Elliot and Jonas, who wanted both Jiro and the professor gone. No matter where I went, people whispered, huddled in groups. I regretted going outside to jog with Ama instead of sprawling across the couch or my bed.
At least three fae had tried to catch me in conversation, but I’d had my earbuds as a valid excuse. Sorry, can’t talk! I’d shouted that every time, pointing to the phone strapped to my arm then both ears.
Then dad called with magical news.
“Are y
ou serious?”
Still winded from a sprint, I stood beside the fountain of Merlin, my dad’s soft laughter spilling through the wireless. Dad never called this early. That should have tipped me off that the stinker had a surprise for me.
“Completely serious,” he confirmed, voice filled with warmth and pride. “But I can totally cancel if you like. No hard feelings. No pressure.”
I sucked in a few hungry breaths of air. “No, no, no! I want it! When?”
My father had done the impossible, acquiring an appointment for me with a famous dress designer from Paris. Not any dress designer. The most popular dress designer of all our kind, who had whisked together bridal gowns for women from European princesses to dignitaries from Tir na Nog. I heard Queen Nadezka of the Sanguine Court had worn one of her pieces to a recent banquet.
And somehow, he’d gotten me into her busy schedule.
“Full disclosure first, bambolina. I don’t want you to feel obligated to take this. Honestly, when she and I spoke, I didn’t expect her to have any availability. She’s usually—”
“Just tell me where and when. I’ll make it work!”
“I’ll give you her number, and you can hash those details out with Maimouna.”
Half an hour later, I had an impromptu evening appointment to visit the most illustrious dress designer in the world and no idea how I would make it. She revealed her availability was every bit as limited as I expected, since soon she’d be flying from Chicago to London, then on to The Hague afterward to visit family.
Thankfully, this evening, I had some leeway in my schedule, and she was willing to see me outside of usual business hours. Refusing to squander this moment, I got on the phone immediately and sent a text to Pilar.
Her response was immediate, as expected: a call that began with her shrill scream in my ear and several shouts to the affirmative asking when and where?
After that, I jogged to the sentinel office with Ama and put in a request for an evening team with the receptionist at the front desk. First, she’d have to contact the available sentinels then see who was willing to accept a protection appointment for not one, but two fae at once. Apparently, guarding both Pilar and me was the dealbreaker that complicated matters. If four people didn’t agree to accompany us, we were homebound.
The Puppet Master: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 4 Page 14