by Eva Chase
I went still and then eased open the car door so I could hear better. When I strained my ears, I made out the voice but not the words, filtering through the garage walls. It sputtered something, fell silent, and then abruptly hollered something else.
No, I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“Come on,” I said. I shoved the box back in the trunk and leaned close so Deborah could jump onto my shoulder. We hurried out of the garage.
Outside, the sound reached me more clearly. “There’s no point,” a guy was saying raggedly. “It’s all so stupid.”
There was something familiar about the voice. And it was coming from around Killbrook Hall—from the east field. I picked up my pace.
As soon as I came around the building, my heart sank. I had a view of the clubhouse now—the external frame complete and the roof just finished—and a figure standing on the peak of that roof. A figure I could recognize even at that distance as Benjamin Alvarez.
Several other students had gathered around the base of the clubhouse. “Come down, Ben,” one of his classmates called. “Please.”
The steel rungs of the ladder he must have climbed up gleamed in the mid-morning sun. He’d walked to the opposite end of the building though, teetering there on the edge like he was thinking of jumping. It wouldn’t have been that far a fall, but he could still hurt himself badly.
My gaze darted across the grounds and settled on a head of ice-blond hair streaked with purple and pink. Cressida was watching the commotion from farther down the field, a small falcon-like bird I guessed must be her familiar perched on her arm. Her lips were curled with just a hint of a smile.
She’d done this. She must have cast some sort of persuasive spell on Benjamin to set him out of sorts and then pushed him toward the clubhouse. The building was protected from magic, but he wasn’t.
Somehow I doubted he was even her assigned Nary. Everyone seemed to have figured out by now that this construction was my summer project. This was all part of the same campaign to mess with me.
The sight of her predatory familiar sent a flicker of caution through me. I veered toward Ashgrave Hall on my way over and touched the wall. “You can make it to my room no problem from here?” I whispered to Deborah. “I don’t know if you’ll be safe out here while I’m dealing with this.”
Understood. I can find my way back. Take care of yourself too.
“I will.” As much as I could.
“Why do you even care?” Benjamin was saying. “I wasted so much time…” He swayed on the roof, his arms whipping out for balance, and my stomach lurched. I had to get him down from there.
I stepped a little closer, but not so close that the gathered students would hear me casting. With my first tentative spell just to feel out his mood, the hum of my wards’ magic echoed back at me. Shit. They were going to deflect any spells I cast in that direction as much as they would anyone else’s.
Cressida had picked this set-up for more reasons than one. What better strategy than to cast her spell outside the wards and then send him behind them where he’d be harder to help.
But they were my wards, and they responded to my call. I could reach out to them quickly now after the practice I’d gotten. I extended my awareness to the one closest to me and murmured to it under my breath. Just a little opening, enough for me to send spells through without pulling down the defenses completely. Lord only knew what Cressida would do if I gave her that big an opening. Or her friends, if Victory or Sinclair were lurking around too.
With a gap opened in the wards’ magic, my insight spell found Benjamin’s mind. His thoughts were a storm of pain and shame, so fraught I could hardly focus on any one impression before it whirled away again.
“Calm,” I whispered, willing those emotions toward him. “Steady.”
He kept ranting, wobbling again on his feet. My attempts at soothing the desperate chaos Cressida had stirred up weren’t penetrating the haze. I frowned and made another attempt, but that magic didn’t have any noticeable impact either.
“Tricky situation.”
My head snapped around at the voice beside me, my concentration slipping from Benjamin. Jude had joined me, his coppery head cocked as he took in the scene, his mouth set in a flat line. “And here our fellow fearmancers are proving just how much the Naries need that clubhouse of yours, hmm?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I’d rather they didn’t end up proving it by having my guy break half the bones in his body.”
Jude nodded. “Understandable. What have you tried?”
“His mind’s all in turmoil. I tried to soothe it, to calm him down, but whatever spell is acting on him already, it’s stuck in there pretty tight.”
“You know… when a person’s caught up in a mental spell like that, sometimes you need to take their mind off the pattern it’s stuck in for a moment before you can get a real foothold. A brief distraction, not trying to change anything yet, just giving them a pause.” He glanced at me. “Can I try something?”
“Please,” I said. “As long as it doesn’t involve rampaging bears.”
He chuckled and lifted his chin toward the clubhouse. “I’ve got a lot more range than that. Be ready with your calming spell when he’s open to it.”
He made a subtle gesture with his hand by his side, speaking a few quiet words, and a form shimmered into being in the air just a few feet in front of us: a bright-feathered bluebird.
It fluttered its wings and flitted across the field, finding the gap I’d opened in the wards. With a cheerful chirp, it swooped around Benjamin.
Its colorful body caught his eye. His head turned, just slightly, following its path. The bird flew around him again and landed on the roof a few feet behind him. This time, Benjamin shifted around to study it with a puzzled look, probably wondering why it was being so friendly.
Well, puzzled was better than his previous state. I cast my calming spell again, finding his mind already less scattered when I touched it. I urged more magic from inside me to settle his thoughts, to wash away the hopeless gloom Cressida has filled his head with. He wavered and seemed to register where he was for the first time.
His hands shot out for balance. “I—what--?”
“Come back to the ladder,” one of the Naries below said. “Just walk carefully. We’re right here to help you.”
I eased closer as he picked his way across the shingles. The other students congregated around the base of the ladder. A couple of them reached to help steady him as he made his way down.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said. “Everything just felt so… dark for a second.” An embarrassed flush darkened his cheeks.
I cast more calm toward the rest of the students, willing acceptance and reassurance. I didn’t want this moment haunting Benjamin for the rest of his time here at school, tainting his friends’ opinion of him.
One of the girls pulled him into a hug, and then they all drifted away from the building. “Let’s go chill out for a bit,” someone else said. “You must be putting too much pressure on yourself.”
When I glanced Cressida’s way again, the other girl had vanished. So had Jude’s bluebird. He set his hands on his hips with a satisfied smile. “Nice job. Let’s see this clubhouse of yours.”
“It’s more theirs than mine,” I said as he ambled over to the doorway where no door had yet been attached. He stepped inside, his shoes echoing dully on the unfinished wood, and I trailed behind him.
The frame gave off a pungent pine smell that tickled my nose. Light streamed through the two raw windows. It was all one big open-concept room with a few cupboards where a fridge and microwave would be set up at one end and a built-in bench beneath one of the windows. Enough room for a couple dozen students to hang out here without it feeling crowded.
I hadn’t seen the inside since the walls had gone up. Looking around, I couldn’t help smiling.
Jude swiveled on his feet, taking the space in. “Nice job here too,” he said. �
�Just for the Naries, huh? I’m feeling a little left out.”
I smacked his arm. “Says the guy who has a whole basement entertainment room just for him and his three friends.”
He shrugged with a grin. “My three friends and my girl. The lounge is open to all scions.”
“Yeah, and I feel super welcome there,” I said with a healthy helping of sarcasm.
“We’ll work on that.” He caught the hand I’d swatted him with and twined his fingers with mine as he turned toward me. “We made a pretty good team out there, didn’t we?”
“We did.” And when he beamed down at me like that, it made me want even more with him. But I didn’t know—being with me meant so much to him—I couldn’t give him the escape he wanted so badly. Not yet, anyway.
As I gazed up at him, I felt the need to say something to that worry, though. “You know that even if I’m not ready to commit to a whole future together, I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure your parents don’t make you pay for their mistakes, right? If your dad’s going to try to hurt you, or worse, he’ll have to get through me first.”
A pleased glint lit in Jude’s eyes at the vehemence in my voice. He touched my cheek and drew his fingers along my jaw in a caress that sent tingles all through me. “He doesn’t stand a chance, then, does he?” he said, and kissed me.
It was the kind of kiss that swept every other sensation away. His lips branded mine and his spicy smell filled my lungs, and everywhere our bodies touched, mine started to melt. I tucked my hand around his neck and tugged him closer. He wrapped his arm around my back with a little groan. It felt like being worshipped and claimed all at once, and I was totally on board with both.
Nothing stirred inside me except heat and wanting. Not a single shred of fear flickered in my chest this time. Maybe I wasn’t ready to tie my life to this guy’s in a permanent way just yet, but I believed in him. I believed he’d be there for me the way I’d just promised to be there for him.
Jude released my lips to trail his mouth down to the side of my neck, and a sigh quivered out of me. He teased his fingers down over my shoulder toward my chest at the same time.
Things might have gotten a lot more interesting if voices hadn’t carried from outside. I tensed, and Jude lifted his head.
“Damned Naries coming to take back their damned clubhouse,” he muttered, but with enough amusement in his tone to diffuse the complaint. He kissed me again, quickly. “We’d better give it back to them.”
Benjamin wasn’t in the group that was strolling over to the clubhouse, but a couple of his friends were, and some of the other Naries, including Shelby. They gave us an uncertain look as we stepped through the doorway. Jude made a grand salute.
“The inspection is complete,” he said. “Continue onward.”
I bit back a giggle. The other students still looked apprehensive as we passed them, but Shelby’s voice reached my ears, bright and firm.
“You don’t have to worry about Rory. She’s okay—she’s my friend.”
I made a mental note to do something particularly nice for Shelby as soon as possible.
“Oh my god, this is seriously the best ice cream I’ve ever had.” Shelby took an enthusiastic swipe at her cone as she, Imogen, and I came out of the shop. “Why haven’t we ever gone in there before?”
“I think they just opened this year,” Imogen said with a smile at the other girl’s enthusiasm. “And I don’t know about you, but ice cream during a New York winter isn’t super appealing to me.”
“If it’s this good, maybe it’d be worth it.”
I laughed and took a nibble from my own chocolate-banana-almond scoop. It was pretty damn good ice cream, creamily sweet with just a hint of salt from the nuts. Although… “There was this amazing place near where I lived in California, where they made their own flavors with fresh fruit in custom combinations…”
I trailed off as a punch of homesickness and grief hit me. The painful loss of my old life, of my parents, had started to numb, but it came back without warning at random moments like this.
Imogen shot me a concerned glance. Shelby only looked curious. She had no idea of the history there.
“I forgot you’re from California. I guess it’s ice cream weather there pretty much all the time. Must be nice!”
“Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile of my own. “There’s a lot of nice stuff back there.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for this particular area of the world. Especially right now, when the two figures emerged from a car down the street and hustled over with expectant expressions. I stopped in my tracks.
“Persephone!” my grandmother chirped. “What a wonderful surprise. I’m so glad we happened to cross paths.”
My hackles had gone right up. No way was this a coincidental meeting. Why on earth would they have been hanging around in this town other than to see me?
First following Declan to his workplace, then catching me by surprise here—my grandparents were turning into total stalkers, weren’t they?
“Good to see you too,” I said stiffly. “We, ah, were actually just—”
My grandmother barrelled right over me. “These must be your friends from school! I don’t think we’ve met.” Her gaze took in Imogen and then Shelby, with a tightening of her mouth when it crossed the leaf pin on her blouse that marked her a Nary. “Well, it is wonderful to see you out enjoying yourselves. Stella Evergrist, and this is my husband Rupert.”
She held out her dainty hand to Imogen, who took the whole thing in stride with a shake, and then to Shelby. As she gripped the Nary girl’s fingers, I caught a movement of her lips with the intake of her breath.
A faint vibration shivered through the air—the impression of a spell deflected by the violin charm hanging from Shelby’s neck. The taste of it prickled over my tongue with a tinge of queasiness and the flavor of vomit. My whole body went rigid.
She’d tried to make Shelby sick, probably so the girl would leave and wouldn’t prevent us talking about any magic-related subjects. Fury rose up inside me so quickly I could barely contain it.
My grandmother’s brow knit as she let go of Shelby’s hand, realizing her spell hadn’t worked, and I snatched her wrist. “You know,” I said, fighting to keep my voice even, “there’s something I really need to talk to you about now that you’re here.” I looked to my friends. “Give me a couple minutes?”
“Of course,” Imogen said, frowning as she picked up on the tension. Shelby went back to her ice cream without the slightest idea she’d just been under attack.
I marched my grandmother several feet away, letting my grandfather trail behind us. When we reached their car, I stopped and spun on her.
“Don’t you ever cast magic on any of my friends again,” I said, quietly but sharply.
My grandmother’s eyes widened. “She was just—she’s a feeb. We can’t—”
“Shut up.” I dragged in a breath and got a hold of my temper. “She’s my friend. That’s all you need to know if you want any part in my life at all. Got it?”
“Your grandmother didn’t mean anything by it,” my grandfather said, in such a remorseless tone that I wanted to hex them both halfway across the country right then.
“It still happened, and I don’t want it happening again. And because it happened, I don’t really feel like spending any time with you right now. Go home—and please don’t drop in on me out of the blue like this again.”
“Now, Persephone,” my grandmother started.
“My name is Rory,” I gritted out. “Leave now.”
I spoke the last words with the heft of a persuasive spell. It cracked right through the mental barriers my grandmother had in place, and she reached for the car door automatically.
“You really didn’t have to go that far,” she sputtered as she got in.
My grandfather hustled around the car muttering something about respect for elders, but my grandmother was already shifting in the passenger seat as if
to move to the driver’s side if he didn’t get in there to fulfill my command quickly.
“I’ll let you know when I’m ready to see you again,” I said as he ducked inside, but as the rage continued to radiate through me, I wasn’t sure that’d ever happen in my lifetime.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rory
I’d been dreading my weekly sessions with my new mentor for most of the summer, and I didn’t think Professor Viceport had been all that enthusiastic about them either. Most of the concerns I had, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable bringing up with her anyway. I definitely wasn’t going to discuss the problems of trying to give the Naries a better footing at the university. So the mentoring sessions had tended to consist of a quick check-in and a perfunctory suggestion or two.
Today, though, I had an actual goal in mind. I settled into the chair across from Viceport’s desk, told myself the astringent whiff of herbs in the air was pleasant enough, and looked her straight in the eye. “I’d like to talk about my grandparents.”
The professor blinked, clearly startled, before regaining her cool composure. “That hardly seems like a subject related to your schooling.”
I shrugged. “Our magical abilities are partly inherited. It seems to me that finding out more about my heritage could be useful. And I got the impression that you know at least a little about them, from the way you acted when we bumped into you in town.”
Her jaw worked. “I still don’t think it’s entirely appropriate for me to discuss your relatives with you. If there’s something you’d like to know about them, surely you can ask them?”
“Yeah, somehow I suspect I’d only get the answers they want me to hear, not what’s actually true. They want something from me. Maybe lots of things. That much is obvious. It’d be really useful to know how much I need to worry about that. Like… am I in any actual danger from them if they don’t get what they want?”