by W. J. May
The adults stared in comical silence, but Lily’s face lit up with delight.
“The penguin!” she cried. “I can’t believe you still have that!”
At this point Benji was shaking his head towards the heavens, while the rest of the kids did their very best not to laugh. Screw Queen Victoria’s jewels—just give the girl a plastic bird mask.
“He wore it to get into the movies,” she explained to the rest of them, still giggling at the thought. “It was the only way we could go without anyone knowing who he was.”
I bet Alfie loved that...
She slipped it onto her head, still beaming, as the prince gazed down with a tender smile. A second later, his eyes lifted to her impatient father and that smile was quick to fade.
“You staying for cake?” Devon asked brightly, shooting Julian a secret look—a reminder for manners. “Angel baked it herself.”
Under any other circumstances, that would have been deterrent enough. But the prince had also noticed the lascivious ice sculptures for the first time. His head tilted with a silent question, until Luke shifted ever so slightly—blocking them from view.
“No, I should get back.” He cocked his head nervously towards the door. “I didn’t exactly ask to borrow the motorcade.”
With a parting wave, he headed back to the door—playing it back in his mind, thinking of all the things he should have said instead. His hand was on the knob, then there was a tap on his arm.
“That was a beautiful bracelet.”
He sucked in a quick breath, gazing down at Lily, before fishing it out of his pocket. “You want it?”
She held out her wrist with a little grin. “It goes with the bells.”
With fumbling fingers, he clasped it around her wrist—lingering there for a moment before dropping his arms back to his sides.
“Thanks, Henry.”
Their eyes met with a shy smile.
“Happy birthday. Text me how it goes.”
She closed the door carefully behind him, staring down at her wrist for a moment before turning around with a little smile...only to see everyone watching.
The smile vanished as she turned the precise color of the pink cupcakes on the kitchen counter. There was a moment when she considered simply bolting from the room. Instead, her eyes shot to Aria’s in a secret cry for help. The girl nodded and leapt instantly to her feet.
“Let’s have cake!”
In hindsight, it wasn’t the most helpful suggestion...
THE FIVE YOUNG FRIENDS stood in the back yard, staring down at the cake. For whatever reason, it felt safer to move the thing outside, but now that they had they were at a loss for what came next.
“We could bury it in the grass,” Benji finally suggested, breaking the long silence. “A nice Christian burial. Make it a sign and everything.”
“It would come back,” Gabriel muttered. “They always come back.”
In a bizarre series of events, the cake had not only sunk in the middle but seemed to be somehow expanding—oozing chocolate sludge like a knife wound onto the lawn.
“You should try shocking it again.” Julian glared accusingly at Molly. “See if it helps.”
Molly folded her arms defensively.
“For the last times, Jules—me accidentally hitting the cake with lightning did nothing to diminish its design aesthetic.”
Aria stared without blinking, tightening her sweater around her arms. “...but you could bring it back to life.”
“Okay, that’s it.” Angel stepped forward impatiently and did what she always did when things got out of hand. “Rae, set it on fire.”
Usually, Rae would refuse. But in this case, she didn’t feel as though she had a choice. A wave of ice blue flames shot from her hands, and a second later the thing was engulfed.
They watched it burn for a while before Julian gave his daughter a kiss on the cheek.
“Make a wish.”
Aria watched as she closed her eyes, reflections of those blue flames dancing across her skin.
A girl who was about to see into different worlds. What did she wish for...
Chapter 4
I think I had a vision?
That was the text Aria opened her eyes to at three in the morning. She grinned, flipping onto her stomach and pulling the sheets up over her head to cover the light.
And what was this mysterious vision?
She waited a few seconds, then Lily replied.
I saw you coming over to my house.
The prophecy part might have been more believable if the two girls hadn’t texted each other the exact same thing since they were about twelve years old.
Silent as a mouse Aria rolled out of bed and dropped to the floor, slipping into a tatù to make sure she made not a whisper of sound. These little exploits had been significantly harder before she turned sixteen, but now all it took was a broken latch on the window, along with a handy bit of ink, and she was in the clear. Still, out of habit, she went through a list of precautions.
Stuff towel under crack in door. Turn on ceiling fan to create distracting hum. Conjure dark wig to drape strategically over the pillows before activating a slow breathing track she’d found online.
You’d do the same thing if Devon Wardell was sleeping down the hall.
Part of her wished they were in their dorms. The other part was glad she had the freedom, away from the teachers—at least for Lily’s birthday.
Three minutes after waking, she was dropping out the open window—still dressed in the same clothes she’d worn to the party. It wasn’t a long fall, just two stories, and she landed like a cat, gazing back up at the open window—half-expecting the faces of her parents to appear.
She’d been caught once, just once, the day after she turned thirteen. She’d taken all the necessary precautions, oiled her window for good measure, then painstakingly shimmied down the flowering honeysuckle that trailed up the wall of the house. It had taken her ten minutes to gather the courage to let go of the window frame. Another fifteen minutes to make it down the wall.
She’d thought she was so quiet. She’d thought she was so clever and brave. Then she landed in the precise spot where she was standing now, and turned to see her father sitting on the porch.
He hadn’t said a word. He’d just twirled his fingers and she’d started climbing back inside.
Even now, her eyes flickered reflexively to the house. If she saw him again, she’d feign sleepwalking and collapse where she stood. But tonight, the porch was empty. Tonight, her father slept soundly beside her mother. Tonight...the city was hers.
It was perfect timing. She had a birthday present to give.
One of the good things about having a flowering garden and domestically clueless parents, was that there were plenty of places to stash things if you happened to be sneaking out. A tiny backpack was extracted from a cluster of peonies, then Aria was striding across the park.
It wasn’t a park so much as a wide strip of shaded grass that ran through the center of the upscale residential block where her parents and all their friends had decided to buy homes.
When the kids were younger, they used it to play ‘wilderness games’. Streaking around with shields and sticks, trying to destroy the enemy camp. When they were older, they used it as an unofficial hangout. A place where they could lounge in the sun, away from the magical eyes of their parents, and dream about how things would change the day they got their ink.
Now, they seldom used it at all.
Each of the children spent the majority of their time living away from their parents in the dormitories of Guilder. Even James, the baby of the group, had moved out that very fall.
But Aria still knew exactly where Lily would be waiting to meet her. Beneath the twisted old oak tree where each of them had carved their names as children.
Sure enough, the second she got close enough she saw the glint of ivory hair.
“Boo!”
Lily jumped a mile, clutching her c
hest.
“You’re just as bad as Jason,” she complained. “Stop doing that!”
Never one to apologize, Aria straightened up with a grin.
“What did he get you anyway?” she asked with sudden curiosity. The guy was often cool and aloof, but he was truly spectacular at picking out gifts. “He said it was already up in your room.”
“Flowers,” Lily answered with a sweet smile. “He picked a bouquet on Mount Etna and carried it all the way back to London, pressed in a book of Irish poems.”
...of course he did.
“Well I hope he gave you the book, too,” Aria said lightly. “Otherwise he hiked over a lot of mountains just to bring you back a bunch of weeds.”
Lily started nodding automatically, then stopped with a sudden smile. “What is with you guys?”
Aria froze for a split second, her breath billowing out in front of her. “Nothing. Why... What do you mean?”
The girl might have been two years younger than the others, but she’d inherited that soft-spoken wisdom from her father. Along with a great deal more intuition than her headstrong friends.
“You two have been weird ever since he got back. First there was that thing in the cafeteria, then the moment on the living room couch—”
“I was not mad about Lisette in the cafeteria,” Aria insisted. “It’s just super annoying how we can’t go anywhere without tripping over somebody’s crush.”
Lily blinked. “I wasn’t talking about Lisette. I was talking about when Jason almost snapped Oliver’s arm off the second you left the room.”
...oh.
“And it started even earlier than that,” Lily insisted, picking up speed. “You should have seen him the day he got back, after that dinner at Benji’s. Mom and I went over to Uncle Gabriel’s afterwards and he barely said a word. He just sat by the window, staring at your house.”
There was a tiny fluttering in Aria’s stomach, but she pushed it back. “You’re imagining things,” she said with disdain, moving swiftly through the trees. “He’s probably just mad I didn’t shower him with phone calls and spam mail like the rest of you did this summer. At any rate, there’s nothing weird—everything’s cool.”
There was a beat of silence.
“...a bunch of weeds?”
Aria quickly moved forward, resisting the urge to shove her lovely friend into a tree.
“So in order to present you with my glorious present, we’re going to need to take a little drive.” The two girls traipsed through a trail of fallen leaves, one listening as the other planned. “I figure we can take one of my mom’s cars. She’ll never notice. She misplaces them enough as it is—”
“Or we could take mine,” Lily interrupted, holding up the silver key her parents had given her just hours before. Her eyes shone with a wicked sort of triumph as Aria stopped cold.
“Don’t tell me they gave you a car!”
It had been an ongoing war between the parents and the children. A war in which one side had dominated completely, while the other had gained very little ground. The five friends had been presented with every opportunity the world had to offer, gifted every whimsical extravagance that money could buy. But on this point, there was no compromise. None of them were allowed a car.
Call it a latent act of contrition—a karmic offering for all those luxury vehicles their parents had demolished themselves. Call it post-traumatic stress disorder—an inevitably useless attempt to protect the children by keeping them closer to home. Whatever the case, the rule had become law.
Until now.
“I don’t freaking believe it!” Aria threw up her hands, forgetting for a split second to lower her voice. “You’re younger than me! And way more immature! But you get a car?”
Lily raised her eyebrows delicately, obviously questioning the maturity of someone who’d baited her front porch every day for a month just to attract a pet raccoon, but preferred to gloat in silence. There was no reason to rub it in. She’d already won the game.
“An awesome car. A vintage Jaguar.”
Okay, maybe she gloated a little bit.
Aria froze where she stood, thinking fast, then offered her friend what she took to be her best diplomatic smile. “Well, I think the fair thing is that we share it.”
Lily’s lips turned up in a little grin. “Oh yeah? Kind of like a time-share?”
“Exactly like a time-share,” Aria replied, pleased that she’d caught on so quickly. “I’ll take it Monday through Fridays, probably the weekends, too...and you can have it on holidays.”
Lily twirled the keys around her finger. “Wow, really? You’ll let me drive it every holiday?”
“Some holidays,” Aria quickly amended. “Like Groundhog Day and Diwali. Maybe a few bank holidays if you really feel the need—”
“Let’s go see my awesome new car.”
IT WAS EVERYTHING ARIA had dreamed. Sleek, fast, and silver. Like a frozen bullet, just waiting to take flight. It was also conveniently parked a street over so they could slip away unnoticed.
“This is so unfair,” she muttered again, slipping into the passenger seat and watching with open jealousy as Lily slid the key into the ignition. “Can you even reach the pedals?”
“James is right—you’re ugly when you sulk.”
The doors slammed shut. The engine revved to life. They were right about to shoot down the street when a body flew out of nowhere, sliding across the hood.
Both girls screamed, then cursed at the same time.
“Benji!”
He lifted his hand in a playful salute.
“No, no, no!” Aria cried. There was a blur of crimson hair as he toppled back to the ground with a winning smile. “This is my present—go away!”
The door yanked open before she could push down the locks, and he slipped inside.
“You can’t possibly mean that,” he said cheerfully, quite pleased with his dramatic entrance. “I imagine you girls wouldn’t have any fun at all if it wasn’t for me.”
He, too, was jealous of the car. Aria could see it in the covert way his eyes flickered about the interior. But he was saving his complaints for the morning. It was still Lily’s birthday, after all.
“How did you even know we were leaving?” Aria demanded.
“James,” he replied simply.
She nodded, then froze at the same time.
“Wait, but that means—”
The door opened again and a head of dark hair slid inside.
“Hi guys,” James said brightly. “Where are we going?”
At this point Lily let out a burst of laughter, while Aria swiveled around with a glare.
“We aren’t going anywhere,” she snapped. “I am giving Lily her present. Now be gone!”
The boys glanced at each other before flashing the same obnoxious grin.
“It’s adorable how she thinks that’ll work,” Benji remarked.
“Not so adorable when you live with her,” James corrected with a sigh.
Aria stared at them for a moment before swiveling back to Lily in the front. “Tell me again why I can’t use my powers?”
The engine started up again as the girl recited automatically: “Omniscient uncle, pre-meditated homicide, consequences...”
Aria leaned back in her seat, silently cursing her luck. “Right.”
“This is an awesome car, Lily.” James smoothed his palms against the leather seats, glancing around in appreciation. “I can’t believe your parents caved.”
“Thanks!” She lit up, spinning around to see him. “It was actually my dad’s back when he first started at Guilder. They took it to this place in the city to restore—”
“NO ONE CARES!” Benji and Aria shouted at the same time before she finished in a milder voice, “I mean...we’re really happy for you.”
WITH A SMIRK, LILY threw the car into gear—handling the stick with the skill of a veteran. They shot away from the curb, sailing beneath the streetlamps into the very center of the r
oad.
“Should just be glad Jason didn’t wake up,” she murmured under her breath, checking the mirrors with the anxiety of a new driver. “He’d just kill me and take the car for himself—”
There was a piercing scream as she slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop just inches away from a shadowy figure standing in the middle of the road. There was a few seconds where nobody spoke, nobody moved. Then a handsome man stepped into the light, grinning from ear to ear.
“Did someone say my name?”
“THAT WAS A NASTY TRICK.”
While the nighttime outing had only been intended for the two girls it was a crowded car that left the streets of London that night, heading out into the country. The boys were having a fine time in the backseat, stretching out as much as possible for three teenagers with long legs, while the girls were still seething in the front. Lily glanced back occasionally, muttering at Jason.
“A nasty, nasty trick.”
He threw a candy bar wrapper at the back of her head. “Get over it, Lilybell. You were the one trying to ditch me.”
She extracted the wrapper from her hair with two delicate fingers. “Are you eating in my new car?”
A guilty pause.
“...no.”
“Turn here,” Aria interjected, pointing to a heavily-shaded exit, one that most cars never saw coming until it was already gone. Lily turned the wheel obediently, but glanced around in surprise.
“We’re going to school?”
Benji slumped back in the seat. “This sucks already. Let me out.”
“I’ve been trying to eject you for the last twenty miles,” Aria shot back with a toss of her long hair. “It’s too late now, we’re here. Besides,” she teased, her eyes glittering with sudden excitement, “I think you’re going to really enjoy what happens next...”
The others shared a quick grin in spite of themselves then turned their eyes to the windows, watching as the car sailed quietly down the familiar lane. The moonlit towers of Guilder University loomed up in the distance, peeking above the tops of the shadowy trees.