by Wendi Wilson
“December,” Cris called out in a warning tone as he stalked toward me.
I shook my head at him before refocusing on the crowd. I had to tell them. I couldn’t live like this anymore. I looked down at my friends. They stayed where they were, looking around in high alert and ready to have my back at the slightest threat.
“But, he was wrong,” I said, continuing my impromptu speech. “When Queen Sebille attacked our school and took King Finn hostage, I confronted her alone. I defeated her, ejected her from this place, but not before she told me something very important.”
I took a deep breath, ready to spill my guts.
“You don’t have to do this.”
I looked down at Cris, who had come to stand beside Easton.
“Yes, I do,” I said. Then I looked back up, meeting as many eyes as possible, and said, “I am half-Sylph. I am also half-Zephyr.”
For about two-point-five seconds, the room was completely silent. Not even a breath could be heard. Then someone shouted and the room erupted into cries of denial and angry bellows. The roar of the crowd grated against my ears, blending together into an unbearable cacophony that was impossible to decipher.
Then fingers slipped through mine, and I looked over to see Easton standing beside me on the table top. I gave him a tight-lipped smile, appreciative of his support, but worried about how his association with me would affect him.
My other hand was taken, and when I glanced to my left, Shaela stood there, shoulders thrown back in defiance. Charles jumped up to take her other hand, and together we stood, united amidst a sea of angry shouts, pumped fists, and snarling faces.
All that was missing were the pitchforks and torches.
“That’s enough!”
Finn moved into the room, his voice echoing off the walls as every mouth in the room snapped shut, almost in unison. I wasn’t sure if he was using his kingly power to control them, since it didn’t affect me, or if it was just the respect he garnered. Either way, the resulting silence was a blessing.
“Sit down,” he ordered as he made his way to where my friends and I still stood on the table.
They climbed down at once, taking their seats along with everyone else, so I hopped to the floor to do the same. Finn placed a hand on my shoulder, pulling me to stand beside him as he spoke.
“I do not generally become involved in the ever-revolving dramas of the students at this school. You are young, and are expected to make mistakes, errors in judgment, and bad choices, but I also expect you to learn from them. What we have here is one of these learning experiences.”
I watched the faces of those around us as he spoke, and while most remained skeptical, a few students’ faces turned thoughtful, like they were really considering what he was saying.
“December Thorne,” he continued, “is, indeed, half-Zephyr. I know that may concern you, being raised with such hatred and intolerance toward the dark Fae. But let me pose a question—one that I know has been discussed in your classes as of late. Does having Zephyr blood make a person inherently evil?”
There were some nods and a couple of shouted yeses, but for the most part, the students remained intensely quiet. Once the comments died out, Finn spoke again.
“December has lost control of her powers a few times, that much is true, but has she done anything besides protect herself and those she loves? She ousted Sebille from my office, saving my life and this school. She eliminated a Zephyr that threatened her, my grandson, other students and a teacher. Her elemental magic may have bruised a few of your egos,” he said, and my eyes unwittingly traveled to Tiana, “but has she ever really hurt any of you? Think about that before you decide a lynch mob is the answer.”
And with one last squeeze of my shoulder, he turned and left the room. Cris jerked his head toward the exit, silently begging me to follow him out, but I hesitated. I stood stock-still, mulling over Finn’s words like everyone else the room.
I could only come to one conclusion—Finn was right. Having Zephyr blood didn’t make me evil. A little unpredictable, yes, but I had to have faith that I’d eventually get that under control. I tried to be a good person, a loyal friend, a loving girlfriend, and a model student.
That’s all any of us could do. Try. And it didn’t matter what our DNA told us about ourselves. We were who we were because of the choices we made. We just had to try to make good ones.
I wasn’t a monster. I was a girl carving out a place for herself in the world.
Chapter 32
I walked into Cris’s office a few days later, worry eating away at me as I started pacing back and forth in front of the desk he sat behind.
“What’s wrong? Are the other students bothering you?”
I dismissed his questions with a wave of my hand. “Most people are still avoiding me like I single-handedly caused the Great Famine, but it’s fine. Little by little they’re coming around, realizing I’m not the threat Tiana and Aubrey have been campaigning against. You know they started a petition to get me expelled?”
Cris barked out a laugh, but sobered quickly. I didn’t blame him. It was pretty funny, seeing the two girls walking around with clipboards, damning my presence and handing out flyers that read, “Don’t ever trust a Zephyr.”
So much for the lessons on tolerance and not judging a person by their blood.
“I’m worried about Sebille,” I said, bringing us back on topic.
“What do you mean?” he asked, a slight edge to his voice.
I stopped pacing and looked at him, propping my fists on my hips.
“We…sorry, I killed the commander of her army. It’s been almost two weeks and she hasn’t retaliated. Nothing, not even a threatening note. I don’t like it, Cris. She’s up to something. I can feel it in here,” I said, slapping a palm against my chest.
“Knock, knock.”
Shaela poke her head in through the doorway, and I waved her inside.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I asked the others to meet me here. We need to talk this through. All of us, together. I feel like we should do something proactive before Sebille can enact another strike against us. We might not be so lucky if she catches us by surprise again.”
“I agree with December,” Easton said as he walked into the room, coming over to peck his lips against mine. “You saw how crafty Sebille is. She made herself very visible, visiting with humans, making out of character promises and handing out food to the poor. She even targeted her good will toward foster parents to make us think she was trying to get information on December. While we were watching her, Elias snuck right into Alvaro Forest and took one of our own with none of us the wiser.”
“We don’t know that she wasn’t trying to get to the Holts and get information on me,” I countered, “but you’re right. Her flamboyant public appearances did serve other purposes. She distracted us so Elias could get in, and she has also endeared herself further to the humans. If this comes to war, we don’t know whose side they’ll be on.”
“What did I miss?” Charles asked as he came in, walking over to take Shaela’s hand.
Cris scrubbed a hand across his face with a groan. “You guys are just kids. You should be hanging out and having fun like teenagers, not planning to take on the biggest, baddest Zephyr of all time.”
“Um, pretty sure that would be December. She kicked Sebille’s ass last time they faced off.”
My head snapped around to look at Charles, but there was no malice in his expression—just respect and, maybe, a little awe. It was the first time one of my friends referred to me as a Zephyr, and though it was a little bit of a shock, he wasn’t wrong. I was a Zephyr.
And I had kicked Sebille’s ass.
“Cris, please. You have to help us. I know you somehow knew Elias, which means you know way more than we do about Sebille’s headquarters in the city.”
“Wait, you knew Elias?” Easton asked, his eyes flashing from me to Cris and back again.
I started to apologize for keepi
ng the secret, but Cris cut me off.
“I did know him. I admitted that much to December when she noticed some…uncharacteristic behavior on my part the night we went up against him. I gave her no details and asked her not to tell anyone, as it could put my job, and maybe even my life, on the line.”
Easton closed his mouth and nodded. I shot him an apologetic look but he waved it off. My keeping Cris’s secret wasn’t important. The secret itself, however, was.
“Maybe you should tell us how you know him,” Easton said to Cris, his voice ringing with the authority of a future king.
I actually felt that little wobble in my center of gravity, the same one I felt that day Finn had used his authority to make everyone leave the school. I looked at Shaela, and her eyes were wide as saucers. She’d felt it, too.
“Easton,” I said, my voice firm. “What are you doing?”
He shook his head as if to clear it before glancing back at Cris.
“Sorry,” he said, cutting his eyes toward me. “Sorry. The older I get, the more that particular talent tries to make itself known. I don’t do it on purpose—I won’t until I’m actually king—but sometimes when things get too intense, it’ll come through without my permission.”
I looked at Cris, who hadn’t spoken. Easton’s royal ability must not have been strong enough yet, because it appeared to have zero impact on my mentor.
“At this point,” I said, “how Cris knew Elias is irrelevant. What’s important is if he has any knowledge of Sebille that can help us. Will you help us?”
I gave him an imploring look with that last question. He stood firm with eyes narrowed for a few moments, then rolled his eyes as his shoulders slumped.
“Of course, I’ll help you,” he said. “But only because I know you’ll just head off and do it on your own if I don’t.”
He knew me so well.
“Let’s do this,” Charles said, pumping a fist in the air before leaning over to kiss Shaela full on the mouth.
I laughed, unable to help myself despite the seriousness of the situation. Easton’s fingers tugged on mine and I looked at him, still smiling. He smiled back, and my heart throbbed in my chest.
I couldn’t believe we were actually going to do this.
We were actually doing this.
I caught the black, long-sleeved thermal shirt Shaela tossed at me in one hand and a pair of black leggings in the other. I held them up, my eyes travelling between them before focusing on my best friend with an arched brow.
“What?” she asked defensively. “I know it’s cliché, but the dark colors will help you stay hidden. And if someone sees you, you’ll blend right in. Don’t Zephyrs wear black all the time?”
“No,” I said with a laugh, pushing a burst of wind in her direction, just hard enough to tangle her hair.
“Hey,” she said, smoothing it back down.
Then, with a devilish smirk, she shot her palm out, and the floor beneath me rocked hard enough to send me flying back. I landed on my bed with an oomph. Shaela quickly followed, using her wings to lift herself up so she landed squarely on top of me. She straddled my waist and pinned my wrists to the bed above my head before I could blink.
“Do you yield?” she asked, her voice overly dramatic.
“I yield! I yield!”
With a triumphant whoop, she rolled off of me and onto her back. I laughed with her, and it felt good to have a little fun in the midst of all the angst and drama we’d been surrounded by the last several weeks.
“Who knew you were such a badass?” I teased.
“I did,” she said, her voice smug.
“And Charles? Do you tackle him to the bed like that, too?” I asked, waggling my eyebrows.
She blushed and shoved at my shoulder, telling me to shut up before rolling away and hopping to her feet. Something was happening between them, I could tell. And I didn’t miss her facial tick when Charles declared her his girlfriend in the dining hall the day of the big reveal. She was surprised—pleasantly so—but tried to hide it like it was no big deal.
I felt bad, because I’d been so wrapped up in my own drama, I totally forgot to ask her about it. Some bestie I was.
“Hey,” I said, drawing her attention, “when all this is over, let’s have a girls’ day. Just you and me, okay?”
“That sounds great,” she said, smiling. “I’d love that.”
“Me, too.”
“Are you guys ready, yet?”
Charles stuck his head through the door, one hand clamped over his eyes in case we weren’t decent. He immediately ruined the effect by spreading a large gap between his fingers and peering around the room. At the sight of both of us fully clothed, he dropped his hand with a sigh.
“Damn,” he murmured.
“Get out, so we can change,” I hollered, laughing.
As soon as his head was clear, I used wind to slam the door shut. Shaela giggled as she whipped her uniform off, changing into an outfit much like the one she loaned me. I followed suit, getting changed as quickly as possible and pulling my black hair up into a ponytail.
I smiled at how our nervous energy was manifesting as silliness. There were definitely worse ways to feel when preparing for battle. I’d take silly over scared shitless any day of the week.
Once we were ready, Shaela met my eyes, and any fun that we’d been having leeched from the room.
“You ready to do this?” she asked, holding out a fist to me.
“We got this,” I said, bumping my own fist against hers.
I just hoped I was right, and that no one would get hurt. Or worse.
Chapter 33
The large, black vehicle with dark-tinted windows cruised at a high speed down an old dirt road, but the ride was surprisingly smooth. We somehow missed every bump, every hole, and every rock in the road. Must have been magic.
I looked over at Cris, who sat beside me behind the wheel. He seemed to be concentrating heavily on the dirt-packed earth shining in the headlights before his eyes flicked left then right to the wastelands on either side of the road. We were away from the academy and Alvaro forest, so there were no trees to hide behind, or anything else to use as natural coverage.
If the Zephyrs saw us coming, we’d see them, too.
“Does Finn know we’re doing this?” I asked, breaking the tense silence inside the car.
Cris’s eyes flashed to me before turning back to the road. “I didn’t tell him,” he said.
“I didn’t either,” Easton said from the back seat where he sat behind Cris. “I knew he could force me to tell him if he got suspicious, so I stayed away from him. I didn’t say goodbye.”
“Hey,” Shaela said as she elbowed him in the ribs, “none of that. We are gonna be fine. We’ll get in, do what we need to do, and get out. Then we’ll go home and no one will be the wiser. Not even Finn.”
“Yeah,” Charles said, leaning forward to look around Shaela at Easton, “and we have D, the biggest badass there is, on our side. We’re golden.”
I was glad for the dark interior of the car when I felt my face heat up at Charles’s words. It still felt weird, having people be proud of what I was instead of fearful.
“Let’s go over the plan again,” Cris said.
I half-expected sighs of impatience to ring out from the backseat. We’d already gone over the plan a-hundred-and-one times, as it was. But no one complained. We needed this to go off without a hitch.
“When we reach the city, we dump the car and fly the rest of the way, keeping to the shadows,” I said, starting at the beginning. “The car is too conspicuous, since no one drives, and we want to remain hidden.”
“Once we reach The Tower, we let December do the talking,” Shaela added.
We had to get inside for the plan to work, and the best idea we could come up with was for me to use Glamour to make my eyes black. The rest of me already looked like a Zephyr, so it wouldn’t be too hard. I’d bring in the rest of them, telling the guards I’d found four
Sylphid spies lurking around my house that I needed to hand over to Sebille. Cris had assured us that nothing less would gain us an audience with the queen.
Of course, once she saw me, the jig would be up and we’d have to act fast.
I would use my magic to hold her while the others used magic-infused cords to tie her up. I wasn’t so sure that would work—she was the freaking queen, the strongest Zephyr alive—but Cris seemed so sure it would. I just hoped he was right.
“We grab Sebille and take her back to the academy so Finn can deal with her,” Charles added.
I exchanged a look with Easton. The whole plan was sketchy, at best, with each part’s success depending on everything falling into place perfectly. The others were certain that if we took Sebille and delivered her to Finn, he’d know exactly what to do to neutralize her and save the school. And the humans. And the planet.
It seemed like a longshot to me, but I kept the negativity to myself after discussing it with Easton. He’d agreed that is was risky, but what else could we do? Short of killing her?
And I wasn’t going to do that. Never again would I take a life.
As silence descended once again, I watched Cris’s profile in the dim glow of the dashboard lights. I’d gone to him, alone, after we formulated this insane plan and asked him why he was agreeing to it. Why he was helping us instead of turning us over to Finn to be put on lockdown so we couldn’t put ourselves in the path of danger.
I wasn’t really buying the whole “I know you’ll do it anyway” excuse.
“Why are you really helping us, Cris?” I asked.
He met my eyes, his expression fierce.
“Because I agree with you. I think we have to make a move before she does, or she’ll catch us unawares and won’t be so easily defeated as she was last time. Finn wants to wait her out, to see what she’ll do. I think that’s a mistake. So, we’ll force his hand.”