I won’t.
“We should probably run through the house rules.”
“Oh. Sure,” I said, letting out a breath of relief that also held some disappointment.
“Same as always, really,” he went on. “If you have any trouble, go next door. I’ve told the Richardsons that I’m going to be away and they’ve given you an open invitation for dinner and to come and see them if you need anything. I’ll call you every night. At different times”—he gave me the I-was-a-teenager-once-too look—“on the home phone, and no overnight guests other than Steph. I’ll be checking with the doorman. Okay?”
I gave Dad a military nod. “Yes, sir.”
“Very funny. Just look after yourself.”
But actually, it was funny. It was going to be harder to do whatever I wanted while he was away than when he was at home.
Yeah, we’re a totally functional family.
“I always do,” I said, finishing the longest conversation I’d had with Dad in about three weeks. He didn’t even realize this, of course, which made it even harder. I wanted to be mad at him, tell him to pay attention, but I knew deep down, now that I was a Grigori, it was for the best.
• • •
The airport was packed with early-morning travelers.
Who’d want to go anywhere at this time of day?
All I wanted was to crawl back into my bed and pass out for a week, maybe more.
At least Lincoln will be here.
I looked at the information screen. The flight in from JFK had already landed. I headed toward the arrivals area, keeping an eye out for Lincoln, but there were too many people. In the end, I gave up and just looked for our link, our bond as partners. I can always feel him when I try. It’s like searching out something that shines brighter than anything else.
But before I had a chance to zero in on Lincoln, I got a kind of flash of the whole airport. It reminded me of looking at one of Dad’s blueprints, but instead, it was driven by the senses. Somehow, the shades of morning and evening were drawing me a map, and then a buzzing energy focused in on some areas. It was just a glimpse, and I didn’t have any idea how I did it or how to do it again. The strangest part was, I sensed something that I couldn’t put my finger on. The taste of apple was there, but it was faint, more like a memory stimulating the flavor. I smelled flowers, but again they seemed distant. It felt like an exile, or exiles, but it also made me feel numb, like my insides had gone to sleep. I had no clue what it meant.
Maybe that I’m seriously not getting enough sleep!
I pushed the senses aside, unable to draw any rational conclusion. I found Lincoln quickly after that—could feel him—and started in his direction.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw him. I should have guessed; he was buying coffee.
“Good morning,” he chirped, passing me a fresh cup as soon as the barista had put them on the counter. He looked exactly like the man of your dreams is supposed to look first thing in the morning—white shirt, sleeves rolled up neatly, blue jeans faded just enough. His light brown hair was ruffled, the streaks of sun-bleached blond haphazardly thrown about. The only noticeable sign of a particularly early morning was that he hadn’t shaved. I had to work hard not to stare, wide-eyed, and was grateful for my hot drink keeping my hands firmly engaged, preventing me from reaching out to touch the stubble, which made the perfect accessory.
“Good timing,” I said, my voice telltale catchy. “Are they here yet?”
“Just getting their bags. Should be out in a few minutes.” He put his hand on the curve of my lower back, guiding me closer to the arrivals gate.
Just breathe, you idiot.
But the problem was every touch, every moment with Lincoln was so intensified that his hand on the small of my back was all I could concentrate on.
Which is probably exactly why Grigori are never meant to be together!
“Hey, do you know if there have been any exiles returned around here lately?” I asked after we took up a spot near a sidewall.
His eyebrows lifted. “No, not that I know of, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been. Why?” He started looking around, unsure if he should be on the alert.
“It’s probably nothing. I just feel a bit off this morning,” I reassured him as I leaned against the wall and blew on my scalding coffee. I hate it when they make them too hot. I slumped a little as I let my head hang back and decided to wait until we were outside the airport, then I would try again to see what I could sense.
“Not much sleep?” Lincoln asked.
“No. You?”
“Enough.” He shrugged.
I stood up straighter. I wasn’t going to come off as a wimp; if he could be tough, so could I.
“Where’s Griffin?” I asked, ignoring the smirk he was giving me.
“Right there.” He pointed through the crowd, and sure enough, Griffin was walking toward us.
“Good morning,” Griffin said, narrowly avoiding two peroxide-blond girls maneuvering backpacks that were bigger than they were. I couldn’t hold back the giggle when one of them spun around and he had to duck.
Griffin gave them a foul look before redirecting his attention to me. “I hear you had an unexpected end to last night.”
“Yeah, did Linc tell you about Onyx?”
“Yes, and I’m amazed he’s resurfaced. I’ll give it some thought. Maybe we can get him to a halfway house or something.”
“What do you normally do?” I asked, blowing through the little mouthpiece on the lid of my coffee cup. There must be some kind of plan in place for these things.
“Violet,” Griffin said, raising his eyebrows, “Onyx is the first exile I know who has become human and then resurfaced.”
“What? I…I don’t understand. Surely others have chosen to be made human along the way?”
He just gave his head a little shake. “There have been a few, but they never reappear afterward. We’ll talk about it later. Your new tutors should be out in a minute and I need to brief you.”
“Okay,” I said, not entirely sure I could concentrate.
Was being human really that bad?
I remembered only a month ago when I would have given almost anything to keep my boring human existence.
“Right,” he said, kicking back beside us like any ordinary twenty-five-year-old—something he rarely managed to pull off. “So, Nyla and Rudyard are the tutors. They’re both old friends of mine and they’ve been partners for almost four hundred years. Actually—”
“Hang on!” I butted in. “Four hundred years!”
Yeah, just kicking back, talking about his four-hundred-year-old buddies.
“Yes, almost. Probably closer to three hundred and eighty-five, but when you get up that high, I believe it is acceptable to round up to the nearest fifty. Don’t you think?” he asked, smiling.
Lincoln laughed.
“Ha ha, very funny. I’m glad you find me so amusing. I mean, I know you said we would live for hundreds of lifetimes, but it’s different when you start, you know, meeting people that will soon be celebrating a quad-centenary.”
“Technically, they’re over four hundred and two years old. They weren’t always Grigori,” Lincoln said, enjoying himself as well.
“What about the other ones? They’re my age, aren’t they?” Suddenly, I was freaked out that I was about to be surrounded by a crew of ancients.
“Yes, give or take a year or two. I believe they’re bringing three with them. A partner set and one in waiting. I don’t know their names,” Griffin explained.
“In waiting?”
“Partner hasn’t come of age yet,” Lincoln said, his tone flat.
“Oh,” was all I could muster.
Lincoln hitched one shoulder and looked around casually, even though it wasn’t casual at all—not for him. He’d had to
wait nine years for me, which was a long time for Grigori. Mostly, partners only have to wait months or maybe a year for each other. No one knew why Lincoln had had to wait so long for his, but I knew it mustn’t have been easy for him during that time. Even Grigori who lose their partners are usually offered a new one within a year, and even though some refuse—choosing instead to help in other ways, like the cleanup crew, or some just opting for retirement, though apparently that rarely panned out well—at least they have a say in the matter.
Griffin was watching the flow of people coming through arrivals. It seemed obvious when the wave of New Yorkers started. They didn’t seem to notice the people standing beside them, or in front of them for that matter; they just walked at their own pace, which was faster.
I nudged Lincoln. “I wonder what they’ll look like?” I whispered.
When someone is more than four hundred years old, they would have to look weird, right?
I didn’t have to wait long, and when the group of five came over to where we were standing and two of them started hugging Griffin, I was shocked.
The people, whom I was assuming were Nyla and Rudyard, looked no older than Griffin. I mean, maybe a year or two, but there was nothing to it. Their skin was rosy and youthful and they were wearing normal, young-people clothes. Their jeans and T-shirt selections were more “in” than any of Griffin’s, who only occasionally ventured away from his reliable navy-blue button-down shirts.
The three standing behind them were obviously the students. They all looked about my age. They stood back while the reunions took place. I felt their eyes burning several holes in me. I started fidgeting, unsure where to look, until I felt a hand smoothly brush my back—in one brief touch, support, confidence, and power that could only come from my Grigori partner.
Only from Lincoln.
Once the hugging and amusing “You haven’t changed a bit” comments were finished—I mean, they probably hadn’t seen each other in decades—Griffin turned to us.
“Lincoln and Violet, this is Nyla and Rudyard.”
We all started to shake hands. I greeted Nyla first. She was beautiful. She looked a bit Egyptian, with black hair cut short around her face Cleopatra style, bronze skin, and a tall slim figure that made her look strong and athletic, rather than fashionable or skinny. When I said hello, she lit up with a beautiful, warm smile showing perfect teeth framed by deep currant-colored lips. I liked her instantly.
Rudyard seemed more reserved. He took my hand but didn’t shake. He smiled briefly out of courtesy and inspected me with well-mannered eyes. I could see he wasn’t sure of me.
Then I felt a twinge, first at the back of my neck, but then it stretched out like an electric current, both up into my head and down into my body.
I yanked my hand back, but he didn’t let go. It didn’t hurt, but it was really uncomfortable. Something was pushing against my power from inside—something that wasn’t me.
My eyes, urgent, flickered to Griffin. He seemed to be watching me with interest, not alarm.
Damn it. They’re doing something to me. Testing me.
I fought off the urge to shudder at the unwelcome intrusion and instead started trying to put up the barriers around my power, protecting it and myself. It reminded me of when I had done the same thing with Phoenix not so long ago.
It took a lot of concentration, and I lost control a few times and had to start again. I was still tired from the last couple of days, and by the time I was getting command of the situation, I was more angry than anything else.
Once I had my power protected, I pushed what I realized was Rudyard’s invasive power out from within me. I didn’t bother with being polite.
He released my hand and stumbled back a few steps. Nyla had her arm out to steady him before he even moved. When he looked up at me, his eyes glistened with wonder and he smiled so widely it almost touched his ears.
“Impressive,” he said with a nod as he looked to Nyla again, who also gave a small nod. I watched as their hands automatically linked, fingers intertwining delicately as if the grooves between them had been molded to each other over time.
What the…?
Both Rudyard and Nyla seemed overly interested in something as their eyes went back and forth between Lincoln and me. Strangely, it didn’t seem as if they were looking at us as much as the space between us. I was feeling exhausted and increasingly uncomfortable as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and was on the verge of a toilet excuse when Rudyard just snapped out of it. He gave Griffin a slap on the back, at which point I was free to deliver a death stare to both Griffin and Lincoln, neither of whom had stepped in to help me at any point.
“I’m glad you called us, old friend,” Rudyard said, hoisting a bag onto his shoulder.
Griffin beamed. I was glad he was happy while I was still panting like an idiot.
Lincoln put his arm around me to help me stay upright. I shrugged him off and shot him a look. He knew better—especially in front of the newbies.
Nyla raised a hand apologetically. “Violet, I am sorry for Rudyard’s intrusion into your power base, but sometimes exploring the first impressions between one power and another is the best way to gauge strength. Not always the best icebreaker, mind you…but efficient in its own way. He did not mean you any harm, and we give you our word: such an intrusion will not happen again without your consent,” she said softly.
I didn’t say what I wanted to, just made a mental note: No way is that consent ever coming from me, lady! First impressions had been made on both sides.
Lincoln shook hands with Nyla and Rudyard, and we all said hello to the three students, who up until that point had remained silent.
Probably part of the “check out her power” sabotage.
There were two guys. Salvatore was an Italian who didn’t seem to speak much English but looked very kind, with his thick curls of dark brown hair, bushy eyebrows, and broad shoulders. The other guy, Spence, shook hands vigorously, his sandy-blond hair flopping forward over his face and green eyes darting everywhere. They were a nice green, but no match for Lincoln’s. He seemed happy to meet everyone—everyone but me, that is. Lincoln told me I was being paranoid when I whispered as much to him, but I definitely sensed the negative vibe when Spence glared at me.
Great to have new friends.
The girl’s name was Zoe and she seemed…pissed. She had that emo look that I don’t really get. I mean, does it mean you’re gothic or emotional? I don’t know. She was tall, though she slouched, and under her short, spiky brown hair with peroxide tips, her eyes were heavily rimmed in midnight-blue eyeliner. But the thing that struck me the most about Zoe was that she was completely comfortable in her own skin. Standing there in a dark gray, tight T-shirt, black pleated short skirt, and army boots, she didn’t care who had a problem with it. I envied her. All I had seen of her so far consisted of her picking up her bag and slamming it down on the ground again with a huff on a number of occasions. I wondered if she had been dragged along and would rather still be in New York. She probably already hates me.
But when we were finally introduced, she explained right off the bat.
“Hi, I’m Zoe. I take it you’ve met my idiot partner, Salvatore.”
I looked over at Salvatore, who was standing next to Spence. Compared to the icy welcome I’d received from Spence, Salvatore seemed positively welcoming.
“He can’t speak English, so don’t even bother talking to him,” Zoe went on. “Can you believe it? Stuck with the mentally challenged for like, ever.” She looked at me, genuinely horrified. Obviously this partnership was very new and obviously no one had ever explained to her that, just because someone didn’t speak fluent English, that did not make him mentally challenged.
I stifled a laugh and shook her hand. “I’m sure it’ll get better with time,” I consoled.
She rolled her eyes.
When we left the airport, I remembered that I wanted to see what else I could sense once we got outside, but in the end, I was just too tired from Rudyard’s games.
“In all the chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”
Carl Jung
Steph was waiting for me, pacing near the top of the school steps when I jumped out of the taxi. As soon as I saw her face, I could see something was plaguing her.
“Hey. You didn’t need to wait, you know. I could have met you in class.”
We turned and walked up the last few steps and into the school hallway together.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I was hoping you wouldn’t make it, so we could skip it altogether,” she lied, flicking her hair at the same time so she could look in the other direction. I stuck to best friend code and didn’t say anything else. “You look like crap, by the way.”
Yep, friends for life!
“No wonder you haven’t managed to wriggle your way into Lincoln’s arms yet. Girls aren’t the only ones who look at someone and imagine what kind of kids they would produce.” She waved her hand up and down at me.
“That’s not the reason we aren’t together, Steph.”
She raised her eyebrows. Okay, so she was right to a point. I’d barely brushed my hair this morning, and my school uniform, which was unflattering enough on its own, had been taken straight off my floor and hadn’t come close to an iron.
“Seriously,” Steph said, giving a deliberate nod. She rummaged in her bag as we walked toward our first class. “Here.” She passed me her pint-sized makeup bag. I knew from experience that it held absolutely everything a girl could possibly want from a cosmetics standpoint in miniature form. “You’re going to need this.”
“Thanks,” I said sheepishly as we headed into history at a brisk pace. We were only a couple of minutes late, but Mr. Burke had a particularly nasty reputation for locking kids out of the classroom if they were more than five minutes late. You’d think that it would actually encourage kids to do just that and avoid class altogether, but perversely, when threatened with losing the right to the education they usually feel forced into, kids flock.
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