by Maria Amor
“I’m working on a plan,” Julia told her friend. “It just happens that all this blew up in the past year—and I’m a freaking kid! You are too.”
“I’m a kid but I know that sometimes you have to go along, Jules,” Keegan said. “Right Dylan? Back me up here. Sometimes you have to do what other people want you to do.”
“I’m not getting between the two of you on this,” Dylan said.
“You want to take Julia’s side because you’re into her—I don’t care what you say, it’s true—but you know I’m right,” Keegan insisted.
“Dylan isn’t into me and I’m not into him,” Julia told her friend hotly. “And you of everyone in this school should know better!”
“Well what am I supposed to think? You complain about having to meet guys who want to bond to you, you complain about having everyone fawning over you, wanting to get your attention, and you’re with Dylan as much as humanly possible.”
“Dylan is supposed to be by my side,” Julia said. “And I certainly haven’t seen you offering to help me with the power surges, offering to find a way to mitigate the way they make me feel.” All around her, Julia felt the wind rising. Birds—scattered around the campus—began to gather in the courtyard, chirping inquisitive comments, looking at Julia.
“Julia,” Dylan said, quietly but firmly, “you need to calm down.”
“If they can’t handle the energy output, they designed the school wrong,” Julia told her friend. “And you—Keegan—if you have a problem with me venting to you, why even talk to me?” She crossed her arms over her chest, knowing that she was being unreasonable but not able—for the moment, at least—to make herself take the steps to regain control.
“Miss Beval.” Julia looked up to see Dean Guthrie standing on the third floor balcony of the building that housed the administrative offices, looking down at her in the courtyard. “You will regain control over yourself, or you will return to the dorms.” Julia clenched her teeth and took a deep breath through her nose. She closed her eyes for a moment, pushing her will out. She whistled out a distinctive, intricate call to dismiss the birds, even as the wind began to die down. Good job, Jules, she thought wryly. That’s definitely the way to get people to stop fussing over you and start treating you just like anyone else.
By the time she opened her eyes, the dean had left the balcony. Julia could see that the few people still in the courtyard were trying hard not to look like they were looking at her, Keegan, and Dylan. “Well? Go back to what you were doing! There’s nothing left to see,” Julia called out, feeling irritable still.
“Maybe we should go inside,” Dylan suggested. “Get some of Ruth’s potion into you.”
“Maybe Keegan should leave me the hell alone and stop antagonizing me,” Julia told her other friend pointedly.
“You know what? I will,” Keegan told her. The other girl stood, turned her back on Julia and Dylan, and left them both, not even looking back as she headed towards the school’s media center.
*
Dylan watched as Julia danced with an earth-aligned Guardian, moving gracefully across the floor in stark contrast to the other Guardian’s plodding steps. Why do they even bother trying to dance with her? Dylan resisted the urge to grin to himself. It just makes them look boring. But he knew: the boys that tried to get Julia to dance with them at the events Ruth still insisted on sending Julia to were hoping to get her alone long enough to chat her up—especially now that there seemed to be some hope of attracting her enough to get her to start a relationship.
He had to admit that the closer that Julia got to achieving her full abilities, the better she handled the onslaught of attention—at least in certain respects. She was having more than one power surge per day, and her birthday was still more than a month away; it would be the worst in the two weeks leading up to her birthday, and the potions that Ruth was able to concoct for her no longer did very much. Dylan was starting to get worried, and he knew that both Julia’s parents and her grandmother were just as concerned.
But at the same time, when she wasn’t dealing with the surges, Julia had almost seemed to find her sense of proportion, of humor regarding how much attention people paid to her. She wasn’t letting it go to her head—instead she treated the whole thing as the best possible joke in a hundred years.
As soon as they’d arrived at the party there had nearly been a line of young, single earth-aligned Guardians interested in chatting Julia up; the week before, she’d been mobbed by air-aligned Guardians at another event, and spent the whole time chattering and flirting, never quite giving any of the guys satisfaction—just enough to lead them on.
Dylan knew that things hadn’t gotten much better between Julia and Keegan since their fight, but Julia had insisted that Keegan be invited to her birthday nonetheless. Dylan wasn’t sure if it was for the chance to flaunt her amusement at how seriously everyone took her—or because Julia couldn’t let herself be so rude as to snub someone who’d been her friend even when Dylan himself had been absent from her life; and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to the question.
“Why aren’t you dancing, Dylan?” Dylan looked away from Julia’s sprightly, light-footed form to see the girl who’d come up to him. Alexandra Marchand, who had been at Sandrine for several years only to move on to another school in Italy, stood next to him, dressed in a red, sleeveless cocktail dress decorated with gold and ruby sequins. She looked every inch her alignment: red hair that almost looked unnatural, bright blue-gray eyes, and bright—there was no other word for it—skin that glowed with a supernatural heat. Dylan thought that if he touched her hand, it might actually scald him.
“Just never been much of a dancer,” Dylan replied with a shrug. “You?”
“I’m taking a break,” Alexandra said. “These earth-aligned folks aren’t that great at it, and if another guy steps on my toes I’m going to scream—but they seem to be able to keep going for hours.” She shook her head.
“Stamina is one of their traits,” Dylan said, letting Alexandra decide for herself whether to accept it as a regular comment or as a double entendre. The fire-aligned Guardian snickered.
“Maybe that’s why your girl seems to be willing to let them try and court her,” Alexandra said.
“She’s just playing the politics game,” Dylan told her, his tone dismissive.
“So you do like her—that’s interesting,” Alexandra countered. Dylan frowned.
“She’s my friend,” Dylan said. “I care about her.”
“I think you like her more than that,” Alexandra insisted, though she smiled when she said it. “Careful, Dylan, there are some power players way above your pay grade who won’t take kindly to the kind of competition you represent.”
“Whoever she chooses, that’s up to her,” Dylan told the other Guardian. “I don’t even want to have a claim on her—that’s how little it bothers me.”
“But you want her to make the best possible political choice, right?” Alexandra raised an eyebrow. “So many people seem to think that air and fire aligned Guardians do so well together.”
“If she chooses a fire-aligned Guardian, and he makes her happy, then I’ll be glad,” Dylan said. “If she chooses an earth-aligned Guardian, or another air-aligned Guardian, and she’s happy, I’m glad.”
“But not another water-aligned Guardian,” Alexandra pointed out.
“I’d be fine with that, too,” Dylan insisted. “Whoever makes her happy—that’s what I want.”
“The council is likely to want someone who will keep her stable,” Alexandra said. “You know how they are. Those of us who are a little less than stable need to be controlled—especially if we have any real power to speak of.” She stepped a little closer to him and Dylan could feel the heat of her energy, brushing against him. “Is it true she’s showing signs of having the power of compulsion?” Dylan shrugged.
“No one can say at this point,” he told her. He wasn’t about to tell a relative stranger—eve
n a beautiful one—something he hadn’t told Julia herself. You need to get her alone before the end of the night and tell her about the lessons from Ruth. “She hasn’t come into her full abilities; so no one knows for sure.”
“But there are signs,” Alexandra pressed.
“She’s very persuasive,” Dylan countered. “But most air-aligned people are. There’s no proof one way or the other, and it’ll be a month or more before we know for sure.”
“But of all the people in her life, you probably know better than anyone where her talents really are.” Dylan shrugged.
“She’s not really there yet,” Dylan said. “Did you have a point or are you just here to pick my brain about Julia? You know, you could talk to her.”
“I’m more interested in feeling you out,” Alexandra said. “I mean, you’re kind of a mystery.”
“Not really.” Dylan stepped towards the refreshment table and looked at what was available. It was a wholesome selection: beer and wine for the adults—no hard liquor—and non-alcoholic ciders for the underage partygoers. He plucked a bottle of pear cider from its tub of ice and opened it without looking at Alexandra.
“You’re the most mysterious person at this party at least,” Alexandra insisted. Dylan rolled his eyes.
“You don’t think Julia’s mysterious?”
“Not right now, at least,” Alexandra said, lifting one shoulder in a half-shrug. “She’s all glitter and glam, all show.”
“Coming from someone in red and gold sequins, that’s pretty funny,” Dylan told Alexandra.
“I’m just saying—at this point in her transition, she’s following the course that’s been set for her,” Alexandra said. “But the guy who left the Guardian world, and then came back—maybe not on your own terms, but at least with some of your own conditions—that’s way more interesting even than some overpowered air-aligned blowhard.”
“She isn’t a blowhard,” Dylan countered.
“No, but she will be,” Alexandra said, shrugging again. She chose a cherry cider and sipped it. “They’re grooming her to be a power player in Guardian politics just like her grandmother. Predictable, boring.”
“She doesn’t want to be in politics,” Dylan told Alexandra. “She wants to do her own thing.”
“But that will go away once she starts getting all that reward for doing what Ruth wants, what her parents want,” Alexandra insisted. “She’s mostly interesting right now to people who are looking for a prize.”
“And you’re not?” Alexandra snorted.
“She’s not really my type. I’m into guys.”
“I hope you’re not saying that I’m your type,” Dylan said. Alexandra smirked.
“Not my type, but definitely interesting,” Alexandra said. “How did Ruth entice you back into the world?” Dylan flipped the cap from his bottle of cider and caught it.
“She didn’t entice me,” Dylan said, honestly enough. “I was more or less forced to come back, and then...she sort of got me out of trouble. In exchange for helping manage Julia’s transition.”
“So she’s an unstable Guardian then,” Alexandra said sharply.
“She can’t be—not yet,” Dylan countered. “She doesn’t even have her full abilities, and even once she has them, they’re going to have to wait and see if she stabilizes.”
“She’s too powerful already,” Alexandra said. “She needs someone who can lock her down, who can complement her abilities.”
“So who have you set her up with, then?” Dylan set his bottle down and crossed his arms over his chest.
“No one—but I think it’s fair to say that she’s probably best off with someone earth-aligned or fire-aligned, the way things are with her family.”
“Why?” Dylan was curious. “Why not a water-aligned Guardian or an air-aligned Guardian?”
“Another air-aligned person would just magnify her instability,” Alexandra pointed out. “And a water-aligned Guardian…” she made a face. “With only a few exceptions, you guys tend to make the unstable more volatile.” Shows how much you know, Dylan thought with amusement. He picked up his bottle and took another sip. The pear cider was a little too sweet, but he liked it all right. Alexandra’s cider was staining her lips redder than before—it was a little alluring, but Dylan was turned off by her probing, impertinent questions.
“Dyl! Which of these is least likely to set my teeth on edge?” Dylan turned away from Alexandra at the sound of Julia’s voice.
“The cherry is pretty tart,” Alexandra said from behind him, and Dylan barely glanced at the fire-aligned Guardian, just enough to see her give Julia a polite smile and then turn away.
“What did she want?” Dylan shrugged.
“She wanted to ask a bunch of questions that even if they had good answers, I wouldn’t tell her,” Dylan replied.
“Everyone’s on that tack these days,” Julia remarked. She plucked one of the bottles of cherry cider from a bucket and opened it with an effort.
“How was your dance partner?” Julia raised one eyebrow and met his gaze with a look that communicated everything more clearly than any words could.
“He was very earthy,” Julia said, her voice as dry as a desert. “And determined to get every last second out of the dance that he could.” She dropped her voice lower. “Do these guys know that they can’t dance? Because they can’t.” Dylan snorted.
“They want to get you alone,” he pointed out. “They think dancing is the best way to do that.”
“It also happens to be the best way to make a fool out of themselves,” Julia said, before sipping her cider. “So, the fire camp is after you for intel on me?”
“Alexandra was, anyway,” Dylan admitted. “I didn’t tell her anything that she couldn’t have really figured out from general gossip.” He felt nervous in spite of that—it wasn’t entirely true; he’d admitted a few things to Alexandra that he hadn’t entirely intended to. But he’d revealed far less than he’d known. “I need to talk to you, though,” Dylan said. “Is there anywhere we can be private here, or do I have to wait until we go home?” Julia glanced around the room.
“I think we can find a spot—a closet or something.” Dylan shook his head.
“A closet, if someone finds us there...it’ll just make the rumors go wild again,” he pointed out. Why was he having such trouble telling her about something he was convinced she needed to know? Why was it so hard?
“You want private but not so private that it’ll look like we were trying to get away to make out,” Julia observed. She pressed her lips together. “The balcony?” She gestured. “Then at least we’d be in sight—obviously not kissing—but you could talk to me.”
“That’ll work,” Dylan said, nodding hastily. “I just want to get this off of my chest before the night is out—and now...before anyone else grabs you.”
He hadn’t mentioned it to Alexandra, and he hadn’t called Julia’s attention to it, but with the help of Ruth’s and Mistral’s lessons, Dylan had managed to avoid the compulsion that Julia had unconsciously tried to work on him on a few different occasions since they’d gone back to Sandrine, weeks before. The “attacks” had been instinctive, and he knew it—but he also knew that if he hadn’t had the lessons, he might have followed through on the compulsions, and it would have not only changed things between the two of them, but also brought more attention to Julia’s rapidly-developing abilities.
Julia followed Dylan through the main area where the party was going on, breezing past the different guests, and Dylan tried to keep a neutral-positive look on his face as he made his way to the door leading out onto the balcony.
Before he knew it, Dylan had the door closed behind them, leaving them alone in the cool night air. “There’s something you need to know,” he said. “About Ruth, about your transition.”
“What’s up?” Julia frowned, looking somehow even prettier than she had with her polite, social smile on her face.
“Ruth noticed something about you,�
� Dylan said. “When you and she had the fight over summer, when you found out about the rumors.”
“What about it?” Julia’s confusion deepened, and for just a moment, Dylan nearly decided not to tell her.
“She felt something like the compulsion ability in you,” Dylan told her flatly. “So she got a fae to help me learn how to fight it.” He took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. “I wanted to tell you, but I just…” he shrugged.
“You didn’t have the time—or weren’t comfortable—or whatever,” Julia said. Dylan held her gaze for a long moment, not certain that she was as understanding as she was acting.
“I felt weird about it,” Dylan said. “But I thought that you needed to know.” He licked his lips. “Especially since the people are so interested in you.”
“You—and Ruth—think that I’m going to have this ability?” Julia looked briefly thrilled and then terrified. “Oh—oh god, have I…”
“There have been a couple of times when I felt your will pushing against mine,” Dylan admitted. “Not often, and I’ve never thought that you’ve done it purposely.”
“But I’ve done it,” Julia said.
“Sort of,” Dylan replied, nodding. “You’ve sort of done it. Never with the kind of force that would make it harder for me to resist, and obviously not on purpose.”
“Shit,” Julia said, looking out over the balcony. “This is—that’s serious. That’s something that will make the council watch me even more.”
“Only if it manifests, and only if they can prove you have it,” Dylan pointed out. “Until then, it’s just an inclination. Just an extension of your normal abilities.”
“And then…” Julia shook her head and then took a deep breath, composing herself. “Thank you. For telling me, I mean.” She looked at him. “Shit.”
“Just remember that it’s a thing that you’re potentially capable of doing without realizing it,” Dylan suggested. “And try not to.”