“At least your legacy is something good—something you can feel proud about living up to,” he murmurs.
“Your family’s isn’t?”
His hand drops away from my face, leaving a ripple of disappointment behind on my skin. He shrugs. “Depends on your point of view, I guess.”
He glances away, his stare hovering someplace behind me, over my shoulder. He doesn’t want to talk about the legacy he’s charged with upholding. That much is obvious, even if his family’s secret isn’t. So I won’t make him say more. I don’t want to wreck this moment any more than I already have.
“You don’t have to, but if you ever want to … you know … I’m here,” I say.
His eyes dart back to mine, alive and playful again. The sun dancing on the sea. “If I want to talk about it, you mean?” he says, a crooked half-grin tilting his expression. “Isn’t that a little cliché for the free-spirited Bianca Harper?”
Finally, I smile. “Clichés aren’t always a bad thing,” I say, “even if they are the exact opposite of everything we’re supposed to represent as Muses—inspiration and creativity.”
He inches closer, and his fingertips find my arm, gently tracing tiny loops—infinity signs—against my bare skin. The tip of his tongue rolls between his lips as he presses them against one another, and I swallow hard. My mind goes blank except for one thought: what it might be like to have those lips against mine.
“And if I kissed you right now, would that be an example of a good cliché or a bad one?” he whispers.
“A good one,” I squeak.
Sebastian’s fingers entwine with mine, and he brings his other hand back to my face, to tilt my chin up toward his, then curl around my jaw. As I close my eyes, my imagination surrenders control to my body. I don’t have to wonder anymore if his bottom lip is as soft as it looks—or if our mouths will align like constellations through Urania’s telescope. I don’t have to guess that he tastes sweet, like butterscotch candy. And I don’t have to speculate that the skin of his neck smells fresh, like soap and cedar. I know it all firsthand. My senses swim in the sea of him. There’s no need for sight when I have his touch, taste, scent, and sound.
Then, before I really want it to be, the kiss is over. I step back, butterscotch still on my tongue, my hand still folded in his, and my cheeks flushed. As I stare up at Sebastian, I’m every bit as dazed—even if it’s for a completely different reason—as I was earlier when we read from Clio’s Scroll.
“You’re not … you’re who not I thought you were …” I murmur.
It must not be the usual reaction he gets from girls he kisses. For a moment, he seems startled. Unsure what to think or say or do. He just grows pale and gapes at me. Then, clearing his throat, he forces a half-grin. A partial smirk. The corner of his mouth tilts up, brightening his whole face like a curtain drawn back to let in the sun.
“Is that so? And just who did you think I was?” he asks.
I feel my cheeks heat up again. “Just … different.” I shrug. “Arrogant. Prideful.”
He chuckles, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck, and he tests the words like they’re something from Exotic Languages class. “Arrogant and prideful, hmm?”
I nod and playfully punch him in the arm. “You insulted me the first time we met!” I remind him. “Not to mention a couple of times after.”
Sebastian just chuckles again.
And I raise my eyebrows. An unspoken—and completely empty—threat to repeat my first strike.
Point taken, he clears his throat and quiets down. “Should I assume it’s a good thing I’m not who you thought I was, then?” he asks.
I nod and lean closer to kiss him again. “A very good thing,” I say as I press my lips to his.
I don’t want to tell Sebastian this. He can’t know this, actually—I’ll never get over the humiliation of it. But he’s only the second boy I’ve ever kissed. Going to an all-girls academy—even if it is unofficially so—makes those kinds of adventures with guys a little challenging for most of us. Harmony Dillard’s track record is an exception to the norm, of course. But then again, she has Erato on her side. Romance comes naturally to her.
My only other kiss was with one of Kash’s cousins. Alec. He drove Kash down from Connecticut to stay with me in Westchester County for a week during the summer between our sophomore and junior year. He was older and interesting—a recent graduate from a different kind of academy, one for normal humans, not ones with ancient magical powers like us. I liked that about him—how I could be myself around him, without him expecting anything from me. I liked that he liked me as I am.
It seems Sebastian does, too.
I think about kissing Sebastian the entire way up to my dorm room later. Through our hand-in-hand walk to the elevator. Through the peck on the cheek he gives me when we reach my floor. Even through kicking off my high heels and walking barefoot to my door. It’s nice to have something good to outweigh some of the bad of everything we’ve discovered today. As I turn the key in the lock, I almost forget about Kash being mad at me.
And then, immediately, I’m greeted with a reminder.
“Bee, where have you been?!”
The moment I step inside the room, Kash descends upon me. She’s in her pajamas, bouncing anxiously on her heels, and the way she glares—paired with the glow of the cucumber mask on her face in the lamplight—makes her resemble some sort of alien life form. My shoes clatter to the floor as I startle at the sight of her.
“I’ve been texting you all night, and you didn’t show up at dinner,” she adds accusatorily. “I got worried.”
“Well, you can relax. I’m here now. And I’ve been here the whole time,” I tell her. My words come out slow and stilted as I try to puzzle out why she’s so upset. “I haven’t left the building all day.”
“You were with Sebastian, I suppose?” she lashes. She emphasizes the “s” sounds in his name, as if to imply he’s a snake.
“Well … yeah …”
She rolls her eyes, and her glare intensifies. “I don’t get what you see in him—or in this entire ridiculous idea that you’re somehow smarter or more qualified than the Board of Nine to solve whatever’s going on out there.” She nods over her shoulder to the darkened window behind her, to the damaged city losing its soul behind that. “But this has to stop.”
The bottom has dropped out of my stomach so many times today that I’m starting to become numb to the feeling of it. “What do you mean? What’s your problem with Sebastian?”
“I don’t know. He just seems … off. There’s something strange about him. He shows up, and suddenly, all these ‘omens’ just start happening—”
“They were happening before he showed up at Brightling, too,” I remind her.
Her hands move to her hips like magnets. If we were outside, she’d be digging her heels into the ground by now. “What about the weird questions he asks? He seems to know almost nothing about our realm. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”
I scoff. “Are you talking about that day in Inspiration Practicum when he asked about over-inspiring Mundanes?”
Kash is on a roll, though. She doesn’t even seem to hear my question. She just moves on rapidly to her next point, yet another complaint about Sebastian.
“Has he ever mentioned the name of the school he went to before Brightling? And what about the Muse he plans to pledge to? Have you even seen him inspire someone? He knows so much about you, but he reveals nothing!”
Her questions hit me like a series of sucker punches now. She doesn’t know what happened downstairs in the auditorium or how he started to open up. She’s being unfair. I want to tell her this, but the words get too mixed up in my head.
“W-where is this coming from?” I sputter instead. “He practically carried you back from Brambleton that day you hurt your ankle—”
“He’s a distraction, Bianca,” Kash interrupts. “And you have more important things to worry about—you have to graduate. You have to
pass Poise and Charm, not to mention all your other classes.”
Here we go again with lectures and expectations.
“I am, Kash,” I tell her sharply, immediately on the defensive. “I went to class today, see?” I fluff up the skirt of my gown indignantly, as though the swishing of fabric alone proves my point.
“And what about other classes? How about your homework? Is that all done, too?”
My fingers curl into fists. It’s a good thing I already dropped my shoes—I probably would’ve snapped the heels off if I was still holding them. “You want to check my school bag for notes from the principal, too?” I snap. “You’re not my mom, Kash.”
“I know I’m not—I’m your friend,” she says bitterly. Tears well up in her eyes, and for the first time in our argument, her voice breaks and her bottom lip quivers. “I’ve been here for you for almost four years, and you’ve known Sebastian for what, like, four days? I need you, too, sometimes, you know.”
It’s been a little longer than four days since Sebastian showed up at Brightling, but given the circumstances, correcting her doesn’t seem like a good idea. Besides, her words strike something inside me. It could be the crack in her voice. It could be the tears that come with it. It could simply be that she has a point. A cleft seems to open in my chest, a cavern of cold and shadows, as a dark thought occurs to me.
“What do you mean? When did you need me? What are you talking about?” I ask softly. Worried, I reach out to brush her arm. “Kash, did something happen? Are you all right?”
She doesn’t answer me, though. She just wipes away an escapee tear, smearing the cream slathered on her face at the same time, and turns away.
“Just forget it,” she grumbles under her breath. Hurriedly, she wipes her hand clean on a nearby towel and scoops up her pillow off her bed. “I’m going to find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”
While I still stand there, gaping, wondering what’s going on, she pushes past me, heading for the door. The slam is so forceful it almost seems to shake the building, from the roof above the teachers’ apartments to the dance studios down in the basement.
Chapter Eleven
Kash doesn’t answer my text messages. She’s punishing me, I’m sure. She doesn’t come back that night, either. I fall asleep clutching my phone with my freshly gnawed fingernails, still dressed in my gown. Mascara smears stain my pillowcase, and more questions race through my head than I’ve had in a long time.
Questions about what she’s hiding, why she’d act so strangely—so unlike her normally shy, quiet self.
Questions about Sebastian and if there’s any truth to Kash’s accusations about him.
Questions about whether or not kissing him was a huge mistake after all.
And questions about the Lost Scroll of Clio and what’s coming next.
The doubts torture me until I finally give in to exhaustion, unable to solve any of my problems.
In the morning, matters are even worse. Kash doesn’t come by the room for a change of clothes, and I don’t see her in the cafeteria either. I pick at my yogurt disinterestedly, listening to Sebastian go on about various theories that he came up with overnight regarding Clio’s prediction. I nod a lot. Just to be polite. My heart isn’t really in it. I miss Kash too much. Even one of her goody-two-shoes lectures would be welcome right now.
Afterward, I walk with Sebastian through the basement hallways toward his tap class. He knows the way by now. We both know he does. Neither of us is admitting it, though. I think we both like the time together.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
The question catches me off guard. Only when he asks do I realize that I have no idea what he’s said since we left the cafeteria.
I sigh. “I had a bad fight with Kash last night when I got back to my room. She hasn’t answered any of my texts and appears to be avoiding me.” I glance around us to prove my point: no Kash in sight.
One of Sebastian’s careless grins cracks his face. “That’s all? For a minute there, I was worried you were going to spring something else about yourself on me—like maybe you have some secret, male-modeling, Mundane boyfriend who’s going to beat me up for kissing you last night.”
Beside us, a couple of sophomores talking in the hall before class overhear and snicker. “Don’t let Melody Dillard hear you say that,” one of them calls after us.
My cheeks blaze. “No, there’s no Mundane boyfriend,” I tell him quickly. “There’s no boyfriend at all.”
He lets out an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Phew … So what was this fight about? Did you tell her about what we found out in Clio’s Lost Scroll?” He lowers his voice when he adds the last part, careful not to attract even more attention to us—for which I’m grateful.
Still, my stomach does a series of nervous flip-flops. I look up at Sebastian when we pause outside the door to his dance studio, wishing I could drown the memory of all those terrible questions Kash asked about him. I don’t want to doubt him, but I can’t stand hearing her voice in my head accusing him, either. So I swallow hard and hijack the conversation.
“I keep meaning to ask you something,” I say, instead of answering his question. “Which Muse do you think you’ll pledge yourself to at graduation?”
There. I did it. I asked him something Kash mentioned. Something simple. A tiny test I’m sure he’ll pass.
Sebastian’s eyebrows wrinkle, confused. “Umm … That’s sort of off-topic, but if you absolutely have to know, I’m thinking I’ll go with Thalia, Muse of comedy.” His eyes twinkle mischievously as he adds, “It’d be a shame to let all my natural wittiness go to waste.”
Okay. He has picked his pledge. And it wasn’t even Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy—the darkest and rarest of Muses among us. That would’ve sent Kash off the deep end about him for sure. There’s one thing off my list of worries, at least.
Satisfied, I nod. “There’s one person who thinks you’re witty, anyway,” I tease.
The chimes reverberate over the speaker system then. The start of first period, and I’m still all the way down in the basement. There’s no time for more quizzes—or more explanations. There’s only time for Sebastian to catch my hand and give it a quick squeeze before I dart back down the hall.
“Kash will come around, whatever it is,” he assures me.
But she doesn’t turn up to Inspiration Practicum later that morning, either. The space on my right where she would normally stand remains vacant, even after the chimes sound. During roll call, Ms. Applegate repeats her name three times, her placid gaze roving over all our faces, just to be sure Kash isn’t playing a trick on her like the Dillard twins have done in the past.
As Zelda Mackey—today’s first guinea pig—steps to the front of the room so Ms. Applegate can begin demonstrating the differences between inspiring action versus artwork, I lean over to Sebastian on my left.
“What if this is about more than Kash pouting about our fight? What if something happened to her?” I whisper.
His eyes bulge, a small sea enlarged to an ocean. “You mean if she’s hurt again?”
“Maybe … Or maybe she ran away—maybe she went home or something. She doesn’t live far away.”
“Would she do that?”
I shrug and then freeze as I remember something. “The other night, as she was going to bed, she mentioned going to Brambleton Terrace. She wanted to see the damage the fire did herself.”
Ms. Applegate’s willowy frame bends and turns in my direction. “Ms. Harper, as a direct descendent of Clio,” she says dreamily, “I think you’ll find this lesson especially intriguing.”
It’s her gentle way of reminding me to pay attention.
Which I pretend to do.
For about two minutes, until her back is turned again.
And then I start whispering to Sebastian again.
“I think I should tell someone if she doesn’t show up soon,” I say.
“Who? Like the headmistress?”
&n
bsp; “Yeah.”
Under Ms. Applegate’s influence, Zelda Mackey puts the final touches on the sunflower she’s painting as part of the demonstration.
“I think so, too,” Sebastian murmurs. “If you want me to come with you, I will.”
I shake my head. “It’s okay. I can handle it.” I think.
I hear the announcement that afternoon, when I’m about halfway down the hall where the administrative offices are located—and where I’m hoping Headmistress Fothergill is sitting behind her desk, peering down through her cat glasses at some plans to update the curricula or increase tuition next year. I need to tell her about Kash—it’s been too long as it is.
“All students are to report to Harper Auditorium immediately for a special assembly. I repeat, all students are to report to Harper Auditorium.”
The corridor is already busy with girls at their lockers, swapping books for their next class, or heading to the cafeteria for lunch. The announcement adds another layer of chaos to the fray.
“Did you hear that?”
“What do you think this is about?”
I pause a second, equally puzzled. In almost four years at Brightling, I’ve never been called to a previously unscheduled assembly. Something’s wrong. My heartbeat quickens. What if this is about Kash—or Clio’s Scroll? What if they’re connected somehow?
While the other students begin to file in the direction of the auditorium, I force myself forward. Against the grain. Toward the headmistress’s office. Whatever’s happening in the auditorium will have to wait. Kash is my friend, and she needs me. And despite what she said last night, I do understand that. I have to help.
But the headmistress isn’t in her office. I spot her further down the hall, locking her door and rushing toward the auditorium like everyone else.
“Get to the auditorium, Ms. Harper,” she tells me when she notices I’m heading the wrong way. “You heard the announcement.”
Academy of Magic Collection Page 93