“It is! I just,” I reach out and run my fingertips across some of the tattoos that mark his own wrists and hands. “Not tonight. I want my first one to be special. I want to plan it, together.”
And with that, I cover his hand with my own and squeeze. He looks me in the eye, and then he gives me that wry smile. But still, something about how me looks at me seems a little off. I try to write it off as just exhaustion, or nerves.
He stands up. “So long as you promise to let me be the one to do it,” he says. “I’d like to be your first time.”
My mind wanders to a dirty place. I’m sure that is exactly what he intended. But when I reach for him, expecting an embrace, he takes a step back.
“There’s still a lot to prepare,” he says. “Plenty of time for that tonight.”
“Still working on the ritual?” I ask.
“That’s all...finished,” he says. “What did you think, I was going to go to the dance in this?” He motions down at his ripped jeans and leather jacket.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
He’s back to his old self now. He gives me a final once-over and runs off to...wherever it is Draven is always running off to. I check my phone and swear. I am already almost out of time.
To see Draven anxious like that brings out my own worst fears. I dart back upstairs, fully prepared to hyperventilate into my closet until the feelings pass, but then I take one more look at the finished dress. Somehow, no matter how dumb it sounds, it makes me believe that everything is going to be okay.
31
Octavia
They are all waiting for me on the front steps when I emerge, some forty-five minutes later, completely transformed.
Cedric, Draven, Flynn, and Kendall; each is dressed in a variation of a black tux. Kendall spots me first and freezes where he is attaching a fresh silver corsage to the lapel of Cedric’s jacket. Then the rest of them turn to face me. Each one in turn takes a moment to look me over.
I feel color rising in my cheeks.
The dress that Cedric’s tailor made for me is something out of a fairytale. The soft blush-colored silk is tastefully embellished with lace, and long layers of chiffon float down from my hips to the ground. It isn’t overly tight but still follows the contours of my body, gifting me with an exaggerated hourglass silhouette. It’s a long shot from the version of me that they have been graced with all week.
“Come on now,” I say, carefully stepping down the first couple of steps. “Pick your jaws up off the floor and take me to this dance.”
Flynn is the first one by my side. “Are you ready?”
Of course, that would be his main concern. I nod and he takes me gently by my forearm. He guides me down the rest of the steps with surprising grace. Cedric opens the door for me and waits while Kendall steps up to pin a matching silver flower into my hair.
“I know you have never been a fan of, what do you call corsages again, ‘cheap flower bracelets’?”
I giggle and wait while he finishes adjusting it into my hair. “Much better,” he says.
Draven squeezes in front of the rest of us and climbs headfirst into the limo. He pauses halfway in and glances back at me, a hungry look in his eyes.
“Hop on in, princess, we’ve got a show to put on.”
We arrive late. The school rented a banquet hall in the middle of the city, at the top of a building overlooking central park.
I am not scheduled to do my demonstration until halfway through the evening, so I am surprised when the elevator doors open and everyone turns to watch us enter. The party is already in full-swing. Lights have been strung overhead and elegant, though maybe a little stuffy, classical music plays from a string quartet.
“What’s going on?” I whisper to Cedric, who appears at my side. He guides the four of us around the outside edge of the dance floor towards an empty space by the windows. The entire wall here looks out on the park. Small white carriages trundle by far below; little specks of light in a vast sea of dark waving trees.
“You just arrived with four dates. Everyone knows you are supposed to be choosing one of us tonight...I am sure they are wondering which one of us is going home with you.”
I blush even deeper. I would have thought by now my body wouldn’t be so prone to turning tomato-red quite so frequently. But no, it keeps surprising me. “None of you is going home with me tonight.”
“Technically, all of us except for Cedric is going home with you tonight,” Flynn says. “Since he doesn’t live in the dorms.”
Somehow Draven has already procured a couple drinks from one of the waiters passing by. At first I don’t accept, holding up a hand to refuse what I am sure is Salamander Brandy.
“Don’t worry,” he says, continuing to hold it out for me to take. “It’s just a Cosmo. Nothing more than a little vodka and lime juice.”
“Oh, thank god.” This time I snatch the drink gladly. A little liquid courage will go a long way. “Do mages not have a legal drinking age?”
Flynn steps up and takes the other glass from Draven, even though it is clearly not meant for him. I am surprised to see him take a sip. “Most mages believe that if you are old enough to cast a spell, you are old enough to have a drink.”
“Well good. There is one thing we can agree on.” I take a sip of the drink. It is mostly lime juice, but I’m not complaining. The very last thing I need is to get drunk before our ritual even starts.
Some of the others have already begun. Most of the first year mages put on simple displays, like making feathers float or a wine glass shatter simply by looking at it. That one causes a moment of cleanup, but it is nothing compared to the one unpaired Ritual Mage. She utters one of the words wrong and rather than possessing the spirit of a small frog, the frog explodes and drenches her in more blood than I would have thought possible.
The band strikes up to quickly divert attention, but I can’t help but feel my own jitters increase. These spells are so much smaller than the one we are trying to pull off. I finish my Cosmo and reach for another as the waiter passes by.
As I do so, I catch a flurry of movement out of the corner of my eye the moment before Camilla shoves Cedric out of the way. She gets up too close to me and points her finger in my face.
“This is your fault!” she says. “Because of you, Wednesday spent all afternoon crying in her room and refused to come out when I knocked.”
Cedric regains his balance and steps back up to gently nudge Camilla away. “I’m sure Octavia did no such thing.”
I look at him guiltily. “I actually may have. She told people about what we were going to do tonight,” I admit. “I don’t know how much she told them, but it was enough that she could have ruined everything.”
Camilla keeps shaking her head. “No, she didn’t. I only just found out now, from Whitney of all people, what you were so upset about earlier.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I think you should go,” Draven says, stepping up beside Camilla and looking down at her with an expression I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of.
“This is your fault,” she reiterates before she goes, taking the half-finished drink out of my hand as some sort of final gesture. Fine, let her have it. It’s not as if there aren’t a dozen waiters walking around with more of them.
As soon as Camilla leaves, I notice how close all four of the boys are standing. It isn’t just Cedric and Draven; Kendall and Flynn have stepped up beside me as well. Flynn’s eyes are scanning the crowd, looking for something.
After a moment he says, “I don’t think anyone knows too much about what we plan to do. Hopefully the principal and the board have dismissed anything they might have heard as just a rumor.”
“Good.”
I feel a soft touch as Kendall slips his hand into mine. He doesn’t say anything, but I feel better immediately.
Draven goes off to get us some food as the next round of demonstrations commence. The band continues to
play, but quietly so as not to disrupt the students’ concentration. There isn’t exactly any dancing yet, but Kendall taps his pinky finger against the side of my hand as he squeezes it.
After a little while, and even with food, I begin to grow antsy. I glance over at Flynn and he steps up beside me. A single hair falls out of place across his forehead, brushing mine as he leans in close enough to hear me speak.
“Aren’t we supposed to be starting already?”
I glance around for a clock, but don’t see one. I didn’t have anywhere to put my phone in this dress, so I just left it back at the dorms.
“Let me go check.”
Flynn leaves us for barely a minute before he comes back. “We have been moved to the very last act,” he says. Cedric frowns and steps forward, his neck craning as he looks for something in the crowd.
Draven returns just now, a second plate of food in his hand which he has already delved into.
“What’s going on?”
“We’ve been moved to the very last act,” Cedric says.
“That won’t work.” Flynn steps forward again. “The powdered St John’s Wart has to be fresh. That could be hours from now. We can’t wait that long.”
“I’ll go see what I can do.” Cedric straightens his tie and disappears into the crowd.
Draven takes a bit of skewered meat and chews it loudly. It may be just me, but the Cosmos might actually be getting to him a little. I’d have thought just the sheer size of him would make intoxication a chore at best but then again...I glance over at the food table and see several waiters hovering nearby with empty trays. That explains a lot.
We’d better get along with this demonstration before I lose one of my boys. I’ve only had one drink and already I’m feeling a little more buzzed than usual. The swirl of emotions inside me make for a bad mixer.
Before any of us can say anything else, Cedric pushes his way back to us. He waves at us frantically, and as soon as he gets to my side he grabs my arm and tugs me forward. “Come on. We’re on now.”
“This is it?” I pass the plate of food back to whoever is standing closest to me, which happens to be Draven. He balances it on top of the other plate in his hand.
Cedric nods, plants a quick kiss on my cheek, and then pushes me forward to the center of the demonstration area.
“This is it.”
32
Octavia
The first face I see is that of Cedric’s father. He glowers at me from his considerable height—one more thing that he passed on to his son. I recognize several other faces from dinner the other night. This must be the rest of the school board.
“Could we have silence please?” Draven shouts before jogging up beside me. When the band does not immediately stop, he cups his hands in front of his mouth and shouts, “Silence!”
The players screech to a halt and Draven offers them the smallest of bows. “Thank you. Our ritual requires very careful concentration.”
I can tell immediately that Cedric’s father thinks he’s won. Pleasure and surprise ripple across his face at my choice of the Ritual Mage. I glance at the other board members. It is a sentiment that seems to be shared by all. Well then, I guess for once I am glad I am about to disappoint.
The floor has been cleared and sterilized since the last incident. Draven hands me chalk and I get to my knees as gracefully as I can in this dress. We start marking out the complex patterns and runes as well as we can in the low light. Draven does the majority of it. I see faces leaning over, whispering, and pointing. I see more than one confused face dart between us and the three others standing at the edge of our circle.
We set out candles and three different kinds of carefully engraved precious stones. I try to avoid looking up at the principal and the rest of the board, but I can see them growing antsy. It takes us nearly a quarter hour just to draw the lines. I have certainly developed a high respect for the hard work of Ritual Mages over this last week. Psychic Magic and Earth Magic feel like child’s play, fun even, compared to this. This is work.
The board grows more and more restless with each passing minute that Draven and I meticulously scatter ash and bone to the outer corners of the circle. I just wish we had more time. I catch a flurry of motion out of the corner of my eye and it briefly distracts me. One of the board members is checking his phone. It takes me a second to recognize him as the man, Charles, who insulted me at Cedric’s dinner party. He puts his phone in his pocket, yawns, and starts heading toward the door.
It can’t be time for them to leave already. We’re almost finished with the first part.
We just need more time.
Draven grimaces as he sets down the last of the bones.
“That potion didn’t help as much as you thought it would, did it?” I whisper as we huddle in the center. Draven freezes, a ceremonial knife pressed to his skin. He is supposed to scatter his blood in the circle next. I don’t know why he is hesitating, he’s never shown any aversion to blood before.
“Oh god,” he whispers. “That’s it. The untainted blood of a virgin.” He swivels to look me in the eyes. He grabs my hand in his, and with a small cry, slices into my palm from end to end. Blood splatters out and onto the floor, onto my dress, onto Draven. Tiny pinpricks of red freckle his face as I process what just happened.
“Wait, you’re a virgin?”
Draven presses a finger to his lips, takes out a carefully folded slip of paper, and utters a series of near unintelligible grunts.
Immediately, the runes we have drawn on the ground light up. Along with it, so do the brands on my arms. All four of them flash with a light so bright I can’t stand to look directly at them.
A faint humming sound swells all around us.
Charles stops dead in his tracks. Like all the other onlookers, he is frozen in surprise as the five of us move to stand at even intervals around the circle.
I wince as I take Kendall’s hand in my bloody left, and then Flynn’s to my right. My two Earth Mages. I feel the spark of electricity between my breasts where Cedric’s gift remains hidden even under the plunging neckline of my gown. It contains all the materials we need for this next part.
An image appears in the air, hovering above the circle. It is the Ice artifact. It fades and is replaced by another. The Orb. It too fades, and in its place is the Spindle.
That is Flynn’s doing. He found a way to replace the old symbols with images of the artifacts we use here, at this school. Each time the symbol fades, the light from it goes to rest on each of those gifted with that affinity. By the time the last one dissipates, my very skin shines nearly as bright as the brands on my arms.
The ancient ritual has identified our affinities. I am sure the principal is seething with anger right now, but it would disturb my concentration to check.
Now, for the hard part. Something swells inside me. I feel power drawn from my four paired mages until it’s like I am a vessel about to burst. I am afraid I will explode if I don’t let it out.
Like Cedric said. This is it. So I let it out.
Tiny seedlings begin to sprout from the ashes on the ground. I feel Kendall’s fingers dig into my palm and Flynn’s grip grow tighter. The seedlings shoot up into tiny saplings and then grow in a spiraling pattern higher and higher, bigger and bigger, until a single massive tree fills the space between us—a culmination of many smaller trees all interwoven.
Their roots spread out like tentacles on the floor, making girls shriek and jump to avoid getting knocked over in their teetering heels.
I make eye contact with Cedric from across the circle, and then glance at Flynn. Time for the second phase.
I close my eyes and start pushing against the minds of the mages all around us. I sense Cedric and Flynn doing the same. Invisible walls surround us, some denser and more fortified than others. But that doesn’t matter. Wherever I meet a wall I push back, and I push back hard.
I know when the illusion takes hold, because there is a collective gasp all arou
nd the room. The humming sound grows louder. I feel a pressure pushing back against the inside of my own head, but I don’t give in. I just have to hold this a little longer.
I open my eyes. Painted all around us is the illusion of a deep, dark forest. I risk a tiny glance over towards the board. From the looks on their faces, it is working. They are seeing it. And so is Cedric’s father.
I look away and concentrate on holding the spell.
While I do, the tree continues to grow. Kendall to my left draws power from me and pours it into the tree. Large exotic flowers burst out of buds at the ends of the branches, and an overwhelmingly sweet smell fills the air. It is intoxicating.
The humming intensifies. I look to each of my boys, unable to keep a smile from creeping onto my face. We’ve done it. I can control these powers, and together, the five of us can do great things. The true power of it isn’t the illusion itself, it’s getting it into the minds of those usually powerful enough to resist us.
It is time for the third act.
And then someone pushes past Cedric and Draven across from me and reaches towards one of the flowers. It is Whitney.
Fury has turned her face into a hideous mask. It doesn’t matter how beautiful she looks, or how her dress makes even mine look like something off the clearance rack...the look on her face is pure, unadulterated rage.
She reaches towards one of the flowers, plucks it, and then crumples it up in her hand with a scoff. “All of that,” she says, “And all you did was grow a couple of flowers?”
The illusion wavers around us as a couple members of the audience snicker.
Her rage threatens to overtake me next. I can feel the creeping sensation of the alcohol numbing my senses, making it more difficult to concentrate. The illusion of the forest flickers again. I will myself harder to hold it.
Absorb: Book One of the Forgotten Affinities Series Page 18