I flipped the coin and it landed on heads.
"Ha!" Leon pointed at me, his golden eyes glittering mischievously. "You did miss me."
"The coin hasn't synced with me," I snarled as I showed him my true answer on my Atlas.
"Psh. Next question. Did you think about me over the summer?" He wiggled his eyebrows and I glowered at him.
I wrote down the answer yes on my Atlas, because I couldn't exactly deny that one. I flipped the coin and it landed on heads again.
Leon chuckled as I showed him my answer.
"I thought about you because you took away the one girl that I-" I started, then swallowed my words, breaking his gaze as I bit down on my tongue. "Next question."
"Gabriel," he said gently like he wanted to discuss that further.
"Next. Question," I demanded.
He sighed. "Okay. Would you ever fancy...hanging out with me and Elise sometime?"
I glared at him, getting sick of this. "Do all of your questions have to be about you and Elise?"
He flipped his coin and it landed on heads, showing a furry little monster on it. "Yes," he grinned, showing off all his pearly white teeth. His damn hair was so shiny and his muscles so bulky and his fucking face was just too pretty for a guy. Fuck him.
"Fuck this," I muttered, moving to get up and see if I could convince someone to swap with me. But Leon caught my sleeve and tugged me back down.
"I promise the next question won't be about either of us, dude," he said and I considered him for a moment before yanking my sleeve out of his grip and lowering back down.
I wrote my answer to his last question on my Atlas which was a solid no and flipped my coin. Tails.
Leon pouted as I showed him my answer which matched up with the coin's. "Alright. Do you want kids?"
"What kind of question is that?" I balked.
"A simple one." He grinned. "Do you or do you not want kids, Gabriel Nox?"
I clenched my jaw, hunting for the reason behind that question, but fuck if I could see one. Why couldn't he just ask me whether I liked poptarts or not? And for the record, no I did not. Despite the fact the Cafeateria stocked every flavour and you could get them at every section of the buffet, day or night.
I picked up my Atlas, writing out my answer and flipping the coin. Heads.
His eyebrows arched as I showed him the screen.
"You’d better drop the grumps if you wanna be a papa then," he taunted and my eyes narrowed. “No one wants an angry daddy.”
"Did you ever consider that I have good reason to be fucking angry?"
He thought about that for a second then flipped his coin. Tails. "No, I haven’t," he agreed with it. "So, are you angry at me?"
I didn't bother to write down my answer, flipping the coin and it landed on tails. No.
"Oooh." His expression brightened and he gave me the Puss-in-boots eyes. "So we could be friends?"
I flipped the coin. Tails. No.
"Oh." His face fell and his eyes bored into mine for far longer than I was comfortable with.
I cleared my throat, looking away from him and my gaze fell on Elise instead. She was laughing at something Dante said, slapping his arm playfully and he stared at her with a longing in his eyes I knew as well as my own pulse. My throat was too tight and I didn't want to be here anymore. I felt trapped in this chamber, the weight of the lake seeming to press down on me from above.
"Do you love her?" Leon asked softly and something about the way he said it didn't make me want to tear my way out of this classroom and refuse to come back. I wanted to answer. Maybe I needed to admit it to myself. Maybe I just wanted to say it one time so I could accept it was true and start getting over it.
I flipped the coin, my eyes still on her. I didn't even bother to look when it landed. I knew what it would be.
Leon was suddenly in my personal space, nuzzling the side of my face and purring his head off.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I shoved him back, but he kept coming, trying to climb on top of me and push me down onto the floor. "Leon!"
“Shh.” He pressed a finger to my lips as he tried to straddle me and I slammed my hands into his chest in alarm.
Before I had to use magic, I forced him off and he fell back onto his ass on his cushion, blinking hard like he was coming out of some trance.
"Sorry bro." He shook his head in confusion. "Lion instincts."
"Right," I clipped, shifting a good few inches back from him as I grabbed my coin.
I couldn't exactly judge him, I knew the different Orders had all kinds of urges I'd never understand. I had my own as a Harpy. I'd always be too protective of those I cared about to the point that it would probably drive them insane. But as I only had two people in the world I cared for anyway and one of them was Elysian Mates with this asshole, it was only Bill who had to worry about me circling his house like a guard dog if he ever came under threat. Though even as I thought that, my instincts screamed at me, telling me I'd be there for Elise no matter what. Unless I could get her out my system, but how the fuck was I supposed to manage that?
Mystice drew our attention back to the front of the class and Leon disbanded the silencing bubble around us as our professor explained the next part of the lesson. My eyes unfocused as I listened and I felt the stars tugging at the corners of my mind. I drifted into their embrace and suddenly I was standing before King, their face changing a thousand times, becoming everyone I knew and plenty of Fae I didn't. My heart beat furiously in my chest even though I could feel myself smiling at him.
"Welcome, loyal one," he said, his voice gravelly and male in that moment. The edges of the vision were blurred but we were in what appeared to be an underground cave, the place carved by earth magic to create a large living space. There were soft ottomans around the place and a long table with piles of paper on it.
King cupped my cheek and their touch was warm, cold, soft, rough. "Bow to your master."
I bent my knees as I did as they asked and as I turned to look over my shoulder, I found endless members of the Black Card behind me with their hoods pulled up. They stretched back far into the tunnel lit by Faelights hovering above them in the air and lighting them in amber tones.
My heart juddered as my gaze locked on the girl just behind me. A girl I recognised from Aurora, her black hair cropped short and a metal ring in her nose. Karla Blackthorn. She smiled at me like she knew me well and I felt myself smile back.
The vision changed and I was looking down at a book with a black leather binding and the ominous ring of dark magic resounding from it all the way to my heart. On the cover were the words Magicae Mortuorum. I opened it, unable to see anything beyond it as my gaze raked over words I couldn’t understand, the language unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I felt the deepest pull in my gut that told me I needed to find this book, had to decipher the words staring back at me from its enchanted pages. If I didn’t, all would be lost.
I was yanked back out of the vision, finding Leon waving his hand in front of my eyes.
"Woah, you totally spaced out. Did you see something?" he asked and I frowned, trying to process what the stars had shown me. "You can trust me,” he whispered seriously.
I shook my head, sealing my lips. I wasn't going to share my visions with him. But as I thought over what I'd seen, I realised how important this was. After everything we'd dealt with at the end of last term, fighting King, using the Shroud against them and finding out how strong they really were, I knew Leon had a right to know about this. But then again...I'd seen myself as one of the Black Card, bowing to King. I couldn't tell him that.
My heart was pounding as the lesson continued and I could barely concentrate as I made some half-hearted attempts at asking the coin for real guidance. Leon kept frowning at me like he wanted to push me for more information, but thankfully he kept his mouth shut. When the class ended, I lingered behind, needing to speak with Mystice.
The professor smiled at me as the last of the class he
aded out and he cast a silencing bubble to give us more privacy.
"How are you, Gabriel?" he asked, a frown on his face that said maybe he had some inkling of what was going on with me. And as he was adept at Arcane Arts, he probably did. Which was why I never bothered lying to him.
"Terrible," I admitted. "But I have some good news. I finally got access to my gifts of The Sight. The block on my gifts is gone." I'd considered emailing him over the summer, but that would have led to me seeing him for some guidance and I hadn’t wanted that back then. After eight weeks off, I was finally ready to deal with it and work with Mystice to gain more control of this power.
"That's wonderful," he said, but with no surprise, like he was aware of this already.
"I'm struggling to control it. I can't keep some visions out while others I can barely hold onto for even a second. I don't know how to wield it. Sometimes, if I focus, I can get small insight into those I know well enough, but otherwise..." I shook my head. After my night at Serpens, I'd spent the last week of summer with Bill and he'd let me practice on him, but every vision that came to me slipped away like water running through my fingers. Unless the stars wanted to show me Elise and Leon fucking, apparently, or the world going to hell when it came to King. But I couldn’t decide what I was shown no matter how hard I tried.
Mystice nodded, reaching out to rest his thumbs on my temples. As a Cyclops, he was able to see into other people's minds, but he never needed to probe into my head with his gifts, he used the art of fortune telling to find what he needed. And I was glad of that because it was far less uncomfortable than Cyclops invasion.
"Your aura is very heavy," he said with a crease forming on his brow. "You can't control anything if you can't control your emotions, Gabriel." He dropped his hands. "But I understand how hard that is, especially with what has happened between Mr Night and Miss Callisto."
My throat tightened and I nodded.
"You care for her very much," he said like it was a fact, not a question. "The air is full of it when you're in the same room."
I cleared my throat, glancing away from him. I didn't want to talk about Elise, I wanted to focus on The Sight.
"If you can't release some of this uncomfortable energy, you will find it very hard to focus on anything else but visions of her."
"I have seen some other visions but I...I don't understand what I'm seeing. It doesn't make sense. I saw-"
He gasped suddenly, shaking his head. "Do not tell me the details of what you saw."
"Why not?" I frowned.
"Because, Mr Nox, fate is a very temperamental creature. Everything you see is a possibility, that is all. Nothing is set in stone. Not ever. A Seer senses what could come to pass because of the paths that are possible at the very moment they are gifted the vision. That is all. If you share the intimate details of that possibility with another Fae, it could change everything."
"But what if someone's in danger and they need to be warned?" I asked, the thought making my gut fill with dread.
"If you tell them outright, fate will rewrite itself. Their actions will change, which may or may not save them from the danger. But what I know of the stars is that if danger is coming, it cannot be stopped, it can only be altered. It is up to you whether your role as a Seer is purely observational or if you wish to change fate. But if you choose the latter, you must do so in subtle ways that work with the stars. Nudges here and there. Offering pieces of your visions which may help the subject, but anything more could be catastrophic. Being in tune with the stars can help you learn how to act when each vision comes to you."
"What do you mean?" I felt a little overwhelmed as he guided me to a couple of cushions and we sat down opposite one another.
"It means, you will have to learn every form of Arcane Arts to the best of your ability. Astrology is key too. You must learn the movements of the planets, the stars. And you must understand how those stars affect those you love. Their star charts will guide you in how to act, depending on how the planets are affecting them, which celestial beings are in their favour and which are against them at that time."
"Okay..." I said slowly. "So what do I do if I see something bad that's coming?"
"The stars will give you clues of what to do, they are never your enemy," he said seriously and I clucked my tongue. "Gabriel, this is important. Everything that has happened to you, good or bad, is neither of those things. You decide on the stars’ intentions based on the life you have lived so far, but you aren't considering the life you haven't yet lived."
"The life I haven't lived?" I was trying my best to understand, but it was hard.
"The future holds every potential, every outcome, every moment you could possibly experience," Mystice breathed and the hairs prickled to attention on the back of my neck. "The stars are always guiding you towards your higher purpose, your higher self. You must have faith in them no matter how much pain they might have caused you up until now. Everything in life is about balance. Without pain, we cannot know pleasure, without sadness, we cannot appreciate joy. These equilibriums are what make the universe move forever forward. Without them, life would be static."
"So how do I know what the right choices are to make?"
Mystice reached out and pressed his palm to my heart. "Your inner guidance. Your instincts, Gabriel. If you have seen something bad coming this way, then examine what exactly the stars showed you, this will give you the answers you seek. The answers that tell you which steps to take from here. And always remember that if the stars have gifted you a vision, then perhaps they want fate to change too."
I nodded slowly as he took his hand back and smiled serenely at me.
"Fate can be nudged one way or the other, but every action you take creates new paths, so as you learn to navigate your way, remember to reflect and ask the stars for more answers."
"Okay. So how do I look for certain visions? And how do I stop others from coming in?" I begged of him, needing a way to block out visions of Elise and Leon together.
He considered that for a moment. "Once you start working with the stars, the stars will start working for you. And to answer your second question, Gabriel...if the stars are showing you something you don't want to see, you really must ask yourself why they want you to see it at all. Remember, they are not out to hurt you. They are not malicious or cruel, they are just stars, divine beings who work far beyond the realms of good and evil. But they will punish those who thwart them, and they will reward those who embrace them. I assure you that if you place your faith in them, you will not regret it."
His words gave me some comfort, though I wasn't any clearer on why the stars wanted me to see Elise and Leon together. The only reason that made sense to me was to drive me insane with heartache. But Mystice knew his craft better than anyone, and I trusted him. So I would try and understand the stars, even when they were being little bastards.
***
After a day of reflection and introspection, I came to the only conclusion about the visions I'd seen of King that made sense to me. I needed to join the Black Card, get close to King and find out the importance of the book I'd seen too. I didn't see the benefit of it yet, but I was working hard to place my trust in the stars and not curse every one of them for the continued visions of Elise and Leon while I lay in bed at night.
I'd messaged Orion to ask if he knew anything about the Magicae Mortuorum book and he'd said he would look into it for me. After that, my next step was befriending Karla who was in some of my classes. And who I'd seen behind me in the vision with King. She was obviously in the Black Card even though she never mentioned it, she always wanted to talk about the latest miserable news story. But I was making some progress with her. And as I sat beside her in Numerology for the second time this week, she finally started paying me a bit more attention.
"Do you think crows are the souls of the dead?" she mused, running the top of her pen over her dark purple lips.
I smiled like that intrigued me then nodded. "They cou
ld be. I mean, do you think all souls deserve to be crows? What about killers?"
She smiled darkly. "Especially them. That's why they call it a murder of crows when there's a group of them."
"Miss Blackthorn, Mr Nox," Professor Forktail said sharply, his grey brows pulling sharply together. "Pay attention."
Elise turned around in her seat beside Leon a couple of desks ahead of us, glancing between me and Karla before hurriedly looking away again.
As Forktail went on with his lesson on the number eleven and its divine meaning, I wrote out a note to Karla on my Atlas and pushed it towards her.
Lunch?
She glanced at me, narrowing her eyelinered eyes. She was pretty under all of that ashen white make-up she wore and dark lipstick, but there was only one reason I was getting close to her. Not that I’d ever let her know that.
She nodded her agreement and I smirked, making her flutter her lashes at me before she returned to watching a video on her Atlas about freak magical accidents, using headphones to listen to it. There was a guy who had a nose on his forehead that wouldn't stop bleeding and another man who had a tree forever growing out of his ass which he'd hired a gardener to tend to bi-weekly. I felt like there had to be a healer in Solaria who could fix that shit, but maybe they just wanted the attention from shows like this. Didn't think I'd ever be inclined to let a tree grow out of my ass for fame or money though...
"Bing bong!" Principal Greyshine's cheery voice came over the tannoy. "I have an important announceroo this morning. The Acrux Courtyard will be closed today for cleaning after there was a slight incidento where a Griffin who-shall-not-be-named so we'll call him Mr R, or no actually let's call him R. Castle,-" Ryan Castle groaned across the room, hiding his face in his hands "-had an unfortunate case of the P.O.O.P.S. and has covered the courtyard in the volatile excrement of his Order. An unfortunate bystander was in the courtyard at the time and is being treated for a full body rash as we speak. But not to worry, he just had a little dip-" He started chuckling "-and he'll no doubt be re-joining classes in no time. Have a wonderfic day. Cheery bye!"
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