by AC Washer
I chewed my lip, eyeing the phone.
There was a way I could find out if there was more to my dreams than I thought—if dream-Caleb was for real. And what could it hurt?
I grabbed the receiver and dialed Deena’s number.
On the third ring, she picked up. “Hello?”
“Hey, Deena, it’s Kella.”
“Hey, Kella. It’s late. What’s going on?”
“Um… nothing. Just a random—really random—question.” I swallowed, knowing how weird this was going to sound. “Do you knit?”
A moment of silence. “Well, yeah,” Deena said slowly. “But none of that grandma sweater stuff,” Deena said, talking faster. “I make handbags and sell them online. Well, most of them,” she amended. “Why’d you ask?”
I cleared my throat. “You knit…you knit handbags.”
“That’s what I said,” Deena said.
Caleb—dream-Caleb—had been right. Again. The whole nurse-named-Kate could have been a coincidence; Kate wasn’t an uncommon name. But Caleb had talked about Deena knitting a purse. There was no way my subconscious would have pegged Deena as a knitter. She didn’t look like the frail, sixty-year-old grandmas I’d always envisioned as the knitting type.
“So, why’d you call to ask that?”
“Um…” I said, my stomach dropping as Maeve walked into the kitchen, crossing her arms as she leaned against the counter.
“I was wondering if you could make me one.” I said the first thing that popped into my head.
“What—”
“Um, a small one. Maybe gray and—and purple.”
“Kella, you feeling okay?”
“Could you do that?”
“I could but…”
“Thanks—um—I’ll talk to you about it later.”
“I—”
“Bye.”
My fingers trembled so much that I fumbled the receiver, but I managed to hang up the phone anyway.
“What was that about?” Maeve asked.
“I was just asking Deena if she could knit me a purse.”
“Knit you a purse?”
“Yeah.”
Maeve’s brows raised. “The only reason you called Deena was to ask you if she could knit you a purse.”
When she asked that way… But I wasn’t about to tell her about my connection to Caleb. I didn’t know why, but my gut said that was a very, very bad idea. “Well, no.”
Maeve smiled grimly.
“I called Deena to ask he if she could knit and then I asked her to knit me a purse.”
Maeve stared at me.
“I…see.”
“Yep. Well, I need to go upstairs and study now, so…”
Maeve narrowed her eyes but nodded.
I barely made it into my room before I collapsed on the floor, my mind reeling. The Caleb from my dreams was real. He was real.
Caleb didn’t show up in my dreams that night. I was grouchy about it, but when Mickey wasn’t at breakfast to answer my questions the following morning, I felt full-on thwarted. I’d asked Maeve where he was, but she only shook her head and told me to be careful as I left the house.
I kicked several acorns on my walk to the bus, imagining Mickey’s face on each and every one. The goober promised me he’d answer my questions, and now? I knew he had “research” to do, but that didn’t stop me from wondering if he was avoiding me.
When I boarded the bus, I saw Bridgette in the back, her face beaming. She waved at me. “Over here.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, sitting next to her.
“Playing babysitter, of course. Now, little magicless one, let’s get you safely to first block before anyone attacks.”
My eyes swept around to the other two fae on the bus, neither one paying either of us much attention, thankfully. “The whole ‘no magic’ thing is kind of supposed to be a secret,” I muttered under my breath.
Bridgette’s mouth quirked up. “Nope. Not anymore. Half the school probably knows by now, and if not, they will by the end of the school day.”
Apprehension threaded through my body, making my fingers tingle.
“No one would really, you know, attack. Right?”
The smile Bridgette turned on me was not reassuring in the least. “Probably not,” she admitted. “But one can only hope.”
“What? You want me to get attacked?”
Bridgette’s smile widened just a bit. “It would break up the school day.”
“Well, I’m sure my death would definitely be a change of pace for you.”
“Why would you think you’d die?” Bridgette looked legitimately offended.
“Because rebels want to kill me?”
Bridgette shook her head. “Honestly, you can be so negative sometimes.”
“Whatever.” I dug through my backpack, making sure I had my English homework. Ms. Cochran was a beast of a teacher, and even I knew better than to tick her off.
“How many fae actually want me, you know, dead?” I asked as we headed to O’Faolain’s class. Bridgette insisted that she was going to sit in with me. I needed protection. But her? Yeah, she ruled with terror on the soccer field, but I wasn’t so sure how that skill set would help keep me alive.
Bridgette smiled. “Somewhere around half.”
I stilled. Bridgette’s smile turned to a grin. “Exciting, isn’t it?”
I swallowed. “I’m beginning to think you’ve got a serious imbalance going on.”
“Come on, we need to sit down.”
I didn’t complain when she led me to the far back corner of the room.
“Stay here.”
“Do you really think anyone would try anything at school? I mean, it’s school.”
“Kella, we’re in a school where half the student body doesn’t want you on the throne. What do you think?”
“Honestly, I don’t really want to be on the throne either.” I ignored a gasp from the girl in front of me. “I have other plans. And they involve getting out of here and back to my brother.”
“I think it’s already been established that Caleb is not your brother.”
I shook my head violently. “Not after what we’ve gone through. As far as I’m concerned, Caleb’s still the only family I’ve got.”
“You have a dad, though.”
“Yeah. A dad who abandoned me and won’t recognize me until I’m queen. Some dad.”
Bridgette shook her head, but her expression was amused. “There might be more there than you think."
I leaned back in my seat. “I doubt it. A lot.”
As we’d talked, students had continued filling in the seats. O’Faolain came in, his eyes bright, his smile bordering feral.
“Good morning, class.”
No one replied, as usual.
“Let’s start out with a very…magicless…” He turned to look directly at me. “Subject.”
A few titters followed as heat flooded my face.
“Our test next week will be on the following.” O’Faolain turned to write something on the board.
I leaned over to Bridgette. “I hate him. I really do.”
Bridgette’s smile had never completely left her face. “At least you have some sense.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure after you embarrassed him in public. He’s very influential, and getting on his bad side is kind of dumb.”
“But?”
“No buts. That was really stupid.”
“But you still think I have some sense because…”
“Because you hate O’Faolain. It shows you have good instincts.”
“Well, what other girl who had a teacher trick her into drooling over him wouldn’t hate him?”
Bridgette blinked. “I’ve known some. Desperate for any attention, usually—even the bad kind.”
“O-kay.” I said, totally not expecting a reasonable—yet disturbing—answer.
“Class,” Mr. O’Faolain said over the ri
sing din of whispered conversations. “A word problem to solve.” He cleared his throat. “If it is impossible for a fae to be born without at least a speck of magic, then where would that put her magic’s lower limit?”
A couple snickers.
A hand shot up. “Zero.”
O’Faolain smiled and nodded. “And if a fae appears to have zero magic, but obviously that can’t be completely true, then what would we say about her?”
“That she is approaching zero at negative infinity,” a girl with long, dark-brown hair answered.
At that, the entire class burst out in laughter. I sank down into my seat, gritting my teeth. None of them were scared of a magicless heir. But didn’t they realize I was going to get all the power at the investiture anyway? Was I missing something here?
Students continued to snicker as O’Faolain turned to the board to begin our lesson. Forty more minutes. I could survive forty minutes.
When the bell rang, I fled to the hallway. But whispers buzzed around me, seeming to keep pace no matter how fast I walked. I didn’t know that they were talking about me, but no one would meet my eyes.
I ground my teeth, too busy fuming to pay attention to a girl I vaguely recognized from English until she hooked my foot just as I was bringing it forward. I fell. Meaning I did one of those slow motion, through the air, sprawl out on my stomach kind of numbers.
I contemplated the hall floor for a long moment, noticing for the first time that it was actually marble, not tile. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a body slamming into a locker. And quiet. No one spoke a single word. I slowly twisted around, using my right arm for leverage even though my elbow still hurt from breaking my fall.
I expected Bridgette to be there, but I’d also expected her to be the one pinning the jerk from English class to the lockers, laws of physics aside. She wasn’t. Apparently, Edon had decided to be unexpected guardian number two and Bridgette stood back, watching the drama unfold, her brows an inch higher than usual.
Edon had the golden, curly-haired model pinned up against the lockers with his forearm. Goldilocks here might have looked like a damsel in distress—or at least like a mean girl in over her head—but only if you didn’t see the hatred in her eyes as she glared at me. If that wasn’t enough, the beast that her glamour hid—a thing with jagged teeth and reptilian eyes—ruined any possibility of her garnering sympathy from me. Edon leaned in and whispered something I couldn’t make out. From the way everyone in the hall leaned toward them, I wasn’t the only one having difficulty listening in.
“But she’s weak. She needs to be—” She cut off when Edon leaned in closer. A lock of dark hair stirred in front of his mouth, punctuating every word he whispered.
Goldilocks swallowed before nodding, and Edon abruptly let go of her, glaring after the model as she scurried away.
The frozen silence melted in an instant and everyone began moving around me as I climbed to my feet, no one so much as glancing at me. But the whispers returned full-force.
Edon turned toward me, the echoes of a scowl still lingering on his face. He reached for my hand but Bridgette stepped in, blocking him.
“No offense,” Bridgette said to Edon as he reached down toward me, “but while I’m glad you’re keeping your rebels in line, I don’t trust you.”
I grabbed her hand, and she pulled me up the rest of the way.
“I would be disappointed in you if you did,” Edon replied.
Bridgette snorted.
“Wait, so you’re one of them? A rebel?” I asked.
Edon smiled. “Allow me to properly introduce myself. Edon of the house MacCuill, resident rebel,” he said, hand outstretched.
I eyed it and looked over to Bridgette.
She shrugged. “It’s frowned upon to kill someone during a formal introduction.”
Well, he did just pin the girl who tripped me to the lockers. Feeling a bit weird, I placed my hand in his. I looked over to Bridgette for guidance.
“Your name,” Bridgette prompted.
“Huh? But he already knows it.”
Bridgette shook her head. “This is a formal introduction. First names don’t count.”
“Um, okay,” I said, very much aware that he was still holding my hand and that the amused little smirk he was doing an awful job at suppressing was making me blush. “Kella of the house James—”
“MacGreine,” Bridgette said.
“What?”
“Your house is MacGreine.”
“It is? Why am I just now—” She gave me a pointed look, I rolled my eyes. “Right.” I twisted back to Edon. “Kella of the House MacGreine. Resident heir,” I added for good measure.
“Well met,” Edon said.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of him as he lifted my hand to his lips, placing a featherlight kiss there that sent tingles racing up my arm.
Bridgette nudged me, making me realize I was staring at him like an idiot.
I flushed as I ducked my head, clearing my throat. “Uh, right. Well met.”
I was about to pull my hand away when I saw Mickey striding toward us, his eyes darkening when he noticed Edon. I almost snorted. Nice of him to show up after math and now decide to play the overprotective brother. I decided to keep my hand in Edon’s for a few more seconds to make a point: leave me alone with just Bridgette, and I’ll end up getting into situations like making introductions with rebel fae—or worse. Bottom line, just don’t leave me alone with Bridgette. Not when half the school wants to kill me and her charming personality is my only line of defense.
An amused smile flitted over Edon’s lips, his cheek dimpling before he smoothed his face out into cold indifference.
Mickey’s mouth was tight as he reached us. “What happened?” He glanced at our hands and his jaw clenched.
Point made.
But when I tried to take my hand back, it didn’t budge. Edon’s hand had tightened over mine just enough keep it in place. I frowned.
“Well, Mickey, it looks like I’m doing your job for you—reining in rebels and such.” Edon smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Ironic, isn’t it?”
Mickey glared at Edon and turned away from him, focusing on me instead. “What happened?” he repeated. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m fine.” I tugged my hand out of Edon’s and took a step toward Mickey.
“Someone tripped me in the hall and Edon…” I trailed off.
“I dealt with the someone,” Edon supplied.
“Where were you?” Mickey asked Bridgette.
“Watching the show. Don’t worry,” she said. “She was safe the whole time. Just a minor trip.”
“And you didn’t see it happening?”
Bridgette shrugged. “I figured it was for the best.”
“What? You let her trip me?”
“Of course. It took your mind off of O’Faolain’s class, didn’t it? Plus, you stopped running down the hall like a Banshee, and you got a nice reminder to keep your guard up—which you need to do now more than ever,” she said, her tone turning censuring.
“Speaking of which, I’m going ahead to scout out her next class,” Bridgette said, leaving without waiting for a response.
Mickey’s eyes bore into mine. “What happened in O’Faolain’s class?”
I looked away. “He was getting some payback in.”
“Payback for what?”
“My guess would be for publicly threatening to castrate him after she becomes queen,” Edon said, his eyes twinkling.
“You didn’t,” Mickey deadpanned.
“Well, after today, I might actually do it.”
Edon chuckled, the sound dancing up my arms, making my heart flip in a weirdly pleasant way. “You’d be doing the fae a favor. Little O’Faolains running around everywhere would be a nightmare.”
The image surprised me into a grimace.
His smile softened and after a few moments, I realized that I was standing there, staring up at him.
I qui
ckly looked back over to Mickey.
Mickey didn’t miss the exchange.
“We should probably get to class.” He looked pointedly at Edon as he went to grab my arm. What was this, a property dispute? Or just a belated sense of needing to be protective of the person he’d hung out to dry by being gone for over a day. Annoyed, I swatted Mickey’s hand away and started walking.
I heard a soft chuckle behind me.
“You’ve got a fiery one.”
Mickey ignored him. I ignored them both.
Mickey followed me all the way to English before he broke away. I slid into my seat right before the bell rang. Ms. Cochran was one of the few fae in school that looked normal. She looked like she was in her fifties with wiry, dark-brown hair and circular glasses perched atop her sharp, long nose. She stared at me. And kept staring. I tried not to fidget in my seat, holding firm to the fact that I was on time and Ms. Cochran, a stickler for the rules, could kiss my—
“Well, now,” she drawled, turning her back to the chalkboard. “It appears that Bridgette is late to class today.” Sure enough, she was right. Bridgette hadn’t been in her usual seat behind mine. Uneasiness wound its way through my gut. I was pretty sure she said she was checking out this class; she should have been here already.
Ms. Cochran wrote an Irish phrase on the whiteboard—one I couldn’t recognize. “What an interesting development.”
I heard the soft scrape of chairs against the floor and looked up.
Everyone within a desk-space of me had abandoned their chairs, many leaving the class altogether. I looked at the teacher, alarmed, but she was still writing on the board, the phrase turning into a paragraph.
And that’s when I saw Goldilocks stand up from her desk in the far right corner of the classroom.
“It’s nothing personal,” she said, her mouth twisting into a feral grin as she walked toward me, her hair springing up and down like gold slinkies. “I don’t hate you. Just how weak you are.”
I held up my hands, palms out, as I stumbled out of my chair. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m only going to be weak for a little bit longer and then I won’t be. So how about we focus on that when-I-won’t-be part.”