“It’s not too much,” he assured me. “Isaac, come and get a look at this.”
Isaac stumbled out from behind the door of his narrow wardrobe, shoving his foot into a shoe, just about matching Lucas in his fitted tux. When he looked up, he stepped wrong and nearly lost his balance. “Good gods,” he said, slack-jawed. “Amelia, you’re… I mean, you’re always… but this…”
“Okay,” I grumbled as I touched my neck self-consciously. “You’ve both done your duty. It’s a nice dress, we’re all on the same page. Are you almost ready?”
“I am,” Lucas said as he stepped back and spread his arms to show off his tux. His didn’t have tails like Isaac’s. Instead, he’d opted for a jacket that was nearly a bolero, buttoned to show off the shape of his muscular torso. His dress pants hugged his hips and did obscene things to his ass, which I saw as he gave a turn and a hint of a teasing wiggle. “Not bad, hm?”
“You clean up all right,” I admitted, and indulged in the hungry look he gave me as he got closer and pulled me into a kiss.
He murmured against my lips. “The only thing that could make any of this look better, is if it was all piled up at the foot of a bed. Or maybe just scattered around the floor, hanging off a lamp…”
“Careful,” I whispered back as I felt him stirring against my hip. “We do have a whole party to get through.”
Isaac managed to get his final shoe on and button his coat. “There,” he breathed. “I hate these sorts of things.”
“You didn’t have to get all dressed up,” Lucas said, rolling his eyes. “I did tell you the slacks and shirt looked fine.”
Isaac came to us and gave me a hungry kiss before he responded. “And I know you only said that so you could be the shining star. Vanity, thy name is Lucas Turner.”
Lucas only gave a lopsided grin, shrugging. There was no use denying it, and he knew it. I stepped back to look at them both.
“I don’t say this often enough,” I said quietly as Lucas put an arm over Isaac’s shoulder and put his other hand in his pocket, while Isaac struck something of a pose with one hand in his jacket Napoleon-style, “but I am a lucky girl to have two painfully handsome men on my arms.”
I held both arms out toward them, smiling wide as they broke form and each crooked an elbow for me to hook my arms into. “Off to the ball, then?”
“The word ‘ball’ makes it sound a lot more fun than it is,” Isaac said. “But, it’s a well-deserved night to relax, I suppose. Ah, did you hear from Hunter?”
Serena and Pete were already down the hallway so we fell into an easy walk in that direction. Based on the other student’s gowns, everyone had wanted to go all out. Even the freshmen were dressed in their best. “Mm, I didn’t hear from him today,” I said. “But he did say he might be there.”
“And Nathan?” Lucas wondered.
I shrugged. “No idea, but Hunter didn’t think so. He’s been okay at our lessons, but I’m a little excited for a break. I was… thinking of maybe going back to Cambridge for the rest of the break after this. I mean, I don’t really have anything to do there, but… beats sticking around here. I assume you two are going home this year?”
“Yes,” Isaac said, drawing the word out like there was more.
“We were planning to go back to Isaac’s family for the holiday,” Lucas said. “But… we wondered if you would want to come? Meet his parents. Maybe over the summer, you could meet mine if you don’t mind putting up with the Turner Family Intrigues, which is what we do when we’re all together. You know, lie, backstab, steal secrets, interrogate one another. That sort of thing.”
“Sounds like so much fun,” I said nervously. “Um… family. That’s… yeah, I mean, I guess it should happen at some point, right? If we’re… I mean, are we?”
“Are we…?” Isaac urged.
“Ready for things like meeting family,” I clarified. “Not that I think we’re not, but just… well… I’m just a little worried about what kind of impression I might make if I happen to wake up screaming and casting spells out of a nightmare…”
Lucas chuckled as he stopped us just shy of the stairwell down to the dining hall, which had been converted for the summit party. He stepped in front of me, and tucked a lock of stray hair behind my ear. “You may have a point,” he said, “for now. But Isaac and I have talked about it at length. I’d be proud to take you home to meet my family. Slightly worried about what you’ll think of me after but… proud to show you off.”
“Me too,” Isaac said as he nudged me with his shoulder and kissed the top of my head. “My parents are going to love you. But, we can always wait until you’re ready.”
It was pretty rare that it hit me anymore. It had been over a year, after all, but at that particular moment, I thought of Laura, and what she would think about me bringing home two boyfriends. Or three, for that matter…
And all at once, my throat was a little tight. My eyes burned a bit. I started to say that I’d like to meet their families, but the words got stuck.
“Hey,” Lucas said as he and Isaac slipped arms around me. “We know.”
“You don’t,” I croaked, and held them tight.
“We do,” Isaac insisted. “We won’t get the chance to meet Laura.”
I tried to compose myself, swallow the knot, and clear my eyes. “Sorry,” I breathed, “I know… it’s um… I shouldn’t get like this anymore. It hasn’t hit me since I cleaned out the attic.”
Isaac wiped my tears with a thumb, his eyes soft as he searched mine. “Don’t apologize for missing your godmother.”
Lucas glanced at the stairway. “You know, if you’d rather skip the party, we don’t have to—”
“No,” I said, as I wiped my eyes with my palms and was incredibly grateful that my makeup was illusory. Thank you, Serena. “I want to go. I didn’t wear this dress just for you two, whatever you think. Come on. Let’s go down. I want to show the two of you off. I expect drinks, and dancing, and to meet at least one vampire.”
They laughed as I hooked my arms back into theirs and tugged them toward the stairwell.
Maybe Laura wouldn’t get a chance to meet them. But I was confident that if she did, she’d tell me I’d made good choices. That was enough for me, for now.
Amelia
After the madness that was the preterm party each year, I wasn’t sure what I expected from the Academy Summit Ball.
It was not this.
The opulence of the dining hall, still very classy on its own, was almost blinding. A crystal arrangement hung in the air near the ceiling, hundreds and hundreds of perfectly clear crystals in dozens of shapes that did a slow, coordinated dance as they threw off prismatic lights from the colored globes hiding inside the arrangement. Tables lined the walls, where the constructs that served drinks were as much decoration as they were functional.
One of them was a tall, lithe cheetah on two legs, equipped with opposable thumbs to serve drinks. Another was some take on a bird of paradise, with an almost ethereal crest of feathers on its head and along its arms. All of the constructs were some take on a beautiful animal. Some of them milled around among the guests and students with butterfly or dragonfly wings twitching and throwing off motes of light that would fade away like fireworks.
We were not the most elaborately dressed people in the room by a long shot. Some of the outfits were studded with enchantments that made accessories hover in the air around them, orbiting a wrist or floating over a head like a halo here and there. Those were mostly faculty, I decided, as they all looked a bit older.
“Welcome to a magician’s ball,” Isaac murmured in my ear.
“Yeah,” I said softly as I let the room awe me. Rosewilde, for all its little magical quirks, was rarely ostentatious with it. But as the foremost school for high magic, I supposed there was no time like a big summit meeting to show off.
Isaac pointed into the crowd. “You wanted to meet a vampire?”
I nodded, still dazzled, and looked wher
e he was pointing. I couldn’t tell who he was pointing at, though. Then again, I didn’t know what a vampire was supposed to look like. Other than… like anyone.
“Come on,” Isaac said, and drew both of us into the crowd. On the way there, we passed a construct who looked like a bigger, more sparkly version of Tinkerbell carrying a tray of drinks. Lucas grabbed a flute for each of us. It was something sweet and fizzy with a series of aftertastes that delivered a different fruit with enough force that it was like taking a bit of apple, strawberry, cherries, and passionfruit.
“Callin,” Isaac called when we neared a small clump of students wearing elaborate coats embroidered in gold, silver, and white like something out of a high budget period drama about French royalty.
One among them looked up, a pale skinned, red-eyed man who looked about fourteen years old. When he spoke, his voice was too deep for his body, and he smiled to reveal canines that were normally sized but had wickedly sharp points. “Isaac,” he crooned. “I thought I’d see you here. Well met, my friend. It’s a pleasure to see you. Lucas.”
There was enough of a stiffness in Callin’s tone when he said Lucas’s name that I wondered if there was some kind of baggage there. If there was, Lucas was either oblivious or over it. “Good to see you, Callin.”
Callin gave a nod and then looked me over slowly. “And who is this morsel?”
“Amelia Cresswin,” I said. I stuck a hand out to shake.
However old Callin looked, either he was a lot older or vampires were all a little old-fashioned. He took my fingers, lifted my knuckles to his lips, and gave a polite, short kiss. “Enchanté, Amelia. Cresswin, was it?”
Did everyone know my family name? I nodded.
“I believe I knew your grandmother,” he said.
Isaac cleared his throat. “Ah, Callin is an instructor at Bludhaven.”
“Do vampires… need school?” I asked. “I mean, no offense, I just figured… if you’re going to live forever…”
Callin raised a hand to dismiss the potential stumble. “No offense taken,” he said. “We train our students to identify their particular talents and hone them, as well as some more basic skills that help them blend in among humans. It is trickier than many imagine. And of course, economics. Forever is a long time to be poor.”
“If you want investment advice,” Isaac said, “you can’t have a better advisor than a vampire.”
“Vampire financial advisors,” I muttered. “I never would have guessed.”
Callin gave a small bow and produced a business card possibly from nowhere. “Please, keep me in mind. I can connect you to specialists in virtually every area of investment.”
I didn’t have a pocket in this dress, but I took the card anyway and used the same spell for storing a textbook to send it just out of phase. I rarely used the spell, and hoped the card came back out in one piece. It did make sense, vampires as accountants and advisors—I supposed they must live long enough to get the bird’s eye view of a market.
“Well as exciting as this conversation is,” Lucas said, smiling as he held a hand out for me, “I think a dance is called for.”
Above and all around us, the music changed. I recognized the timing as a waltz and grimaced at him as he tugged on my hand. “Oh… I don’t… I mean, I can shake a leg if I’ve had enough booze but I can’t waltz, Lucas, I’ll be all—”
He came close and slipped an arm around my waist. “Let me lead, and I promise you’ll do fine.”
With our bodies pressed together, I let him sweep me into the crowd of people starting to turn and waltz in pairs and gave Isaac a pleading look as Lucas turned us both. Isaac only smiled and raised his glass in a silent, sympathetic toast.
“They’ll have some catching up to do,” Lucas murmured as he led me into what turned out to be a relatively simple dance.
My feet moved automatically with his lead, and in the first few moments of concentration I managed to only step on his foot once before I got the general hang of it, enough that I could ask what was on my mind. “Callin doesn’t seem to like you.”
“We have an equitable relationship,” Lucas said. “But vampires hold grudges for a long, long time. He thinks I stole Isaac from him.”
I caught sight of Callin again. From a distance, no one would mistake him for an adult. “He and Isaac were…?”
“No,” Lucas chuckled. “That’s the whole issue. Callin’s family—such as it is—has history with Isaac’s. Isaac grew up with him and even had a crush on him for a long time. But Callin is over a hundred years old.”
“So Isaac was too young for him,” I guessed.
Lucas stepped back, held my hand, and pulled me close again in time with the music. Dancing was never quite my thing, but I did get a bit of a flutter in my stomach from it. Especially when we were hip to hip again. “He wanted to wait until Isaac was old enough,” he went on. “But of course, by the time that happened…”
I couldn’t help but feel a little sympathy for Callin. The outcome of that was pretty obvious. “He didn’t look old enough for Isaac.”
“Imagine taking a century-old lover who looks like he’s twelve,” Lucas said with a quirk of an eyebrow. “It’s unfortunate. There are rules about making vampires too young for that very reason. They always end up lonely. It wasn’t that way when Callin was first made, I imagine.”
We stepped up the complexity of dance, Lucas grinning wide as he added an extra move to our feet. “One, two, three-and… there, see? You’re a natural.”
“It’s sad,” I said after I learned the new pattern. “I mean, he’s not really a kid. I can’t imagine how that must suck.”
Lucas gave a quiet snort and laughed softly.
I rolled my eyes and ‘accidentally’ stepped on his toe. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” he insisted. “But I agree. They’re still friends, but Callin will always see me as the man who stole Isaac away.”
“Wonder what he must think of me, then,” I muttered.
He stepped, back again, our arms outstretched and linked at the hands as he made a twirling motion with his other fingers. I took the direction and spun, letting him pull me in again as he lifted my hand and I made a single whirl beneath it that ended with me in his arms. “Isaac’s headed this way,” he said. “Don’t tell him I told you. He considers the whole affair embarrassing.”
“I won’t,” I promised, as he turned me again and this time let me spin right around into Isaac’s open arms and hands.
“There you are,” he murmured softly against my ear. “Lucas was telling you all my dirty secrets, I imagine.”
“Secrets?” I asked innocently as we turned in the simpler, safer waltz that Lucas and I had started out with. I moved my hand over his shoulder to tease his neck with my fingertips.
Isaac gave me a critical look but didn’t press. “You’ve got quite the natural talent for this,” he said instead, and gave me a twirl like Lucas had. His, though, ended in a single spin as we pressed tightly together. “We should dance more often.”
“I wouldn’t mind learning more,” I admitted. “Though I don’t know the next time we’ll be at a genuine ball.”
He winked at me. “Oh, you might be surprised. Supernaturals as a whole enjoy very little more than an aristocratic event to display their ludicrous wealth. There are balls all year long at one or another estate. My own family throws one every few years. Lucas’s family does as well, and they’re always unbelievably ostentatious. We’ll have to go next time.”
“You two aren’t going to let this go, are you?” I wondered as we swept between two other pairs.
“Whatever you may think of yourself,” he said, “you are the type of person one takes home to one’s parents.”
“Sure they’d want to mingle with a Cresswin?” I asked.
Isaac shrugged. “My family? Sure. Lucas’s might be a different story, but he just needs an excuse to avoid holidays with them anyway. You’d be doing him a favo
r if they just couldn’t take it.”
It made me think of Hunter, wondering what his family was like. Accepting like Isaac’s, or above it all like Lucas’s family sounded? I scanned the room for him.
“Looking for Hunter?” Isaac asked when he spotted my gaze wandering.
I bit my lip and shrugged a shoulder. “Just curious. He said he might be here, that he had some friends from Goldhaven coming.”
“Makes sense,” he said, and turned us both all the way around once, and then again but only halfway. “Ten o’clock, by the fairy with the red and silver butterfly wings. He brought company.”
The splash of red was impossible to miss, and I saw not only Hunter in his plain suit, unbuttoned collar and loose tie, but his ‘date’ for the ball—Nathan, who belonged in a regency ballroom. I so rarely saw them from a distance that it was almost comical how much larger Hunter was than him.
The image Hunter presented would forever be imprinted in my memories. He wore his long hair with the front pulled back out of his face, and the rest of it was soft against his shoulders. I realized I had never actually known how long his hair was, since it was always up in a lazy knot. Coupled with his casual suit, he almost looked like a pagan Viking pulled from the past. My mouth went dry as I imagined him painted in blue runes, axe in hand, and yelling out a battle cry. Hunter was one of those men that would never look right polished and well-dressed. He was rugged, and I wanted to steal him away to the woods and just let him get his man on.
“Shall I get his attention?” Isaac asked.
I shook my head. “No, I… I’m enjoying myself. He knew I would be here. He can come find me for once.”
We danced a while longer, and Isaac taught me a few new variations before the waltz finally ended and the music changed to something less upbeat that lent itself naturally to conversation more so than a dance. Isaac led me back to where Lucas was chatting with a small clump of students I didn’t recognize.
“Well done,” Lucas said as he saw us getting close. “Here, let me introduce you. Sam, Mary, this is Amelia. Mine and Isaac’s girlfriend.”
A Spell for Shadows: Rosewilde Academy of Magical Arts Page 17