by Sophia Shade
“Okay, everyone,” the kilcross coach yells. “Hit the showers.”
I make my way to the side of the field where Erick is toweling off.
“Good game,” I say, insides squirming. I so don’t want to do this.
“Thanks,” he says. “There’s a ladies’ varsity team if you are interested in trying out.”
“Oh, no thanks,” I say. “Sports aren’t my thing. I have a hard enough time in PE, I mean, Elemental Application.”
“Mmhmm,” he says. “I’ve noticed.”
“Yeah, so that’s kind of why I’m here,” I say. I dig my foot against the grass, hating I need to have this conversation with him. “According to Lady Shadowburn, I could get, like, bound and banned if I don’t improve.”
“That’s true,” he says.
He heads over toward a table that has full cups of water on it—weirdly, they are glass, not paper like the ones used in sports in the human realm—and I follow him, waiting until he downs half a cup. As he places it back on the table, he looks at me like he’s surprised I’m still standing there, but I pretend I don’t notice and just keep talking.
“Yeah, so they said I need a tutor. Someone who, you know, won’t die if I blow them up and is experienced enough to help me. So…how ‘bout it?”
“How ‘bout what?” he asks coolly, picking his drink back up and taking a sip. Jeez, he isn’t going to make this easy.
“How about being my tutor?” I grit between my teeth, trying not to sound as annoyed as I feel.
“So now you want my help, huh?” he asks. “I seem to recall you thinking my method wasn’t very helpful, and turning to someone else.”
“Yeah, well…” I almost blurt out he wasn’t my first choice, and that I would have gone with Caleb if Lady Shadowburn would have let me. But that won’t win him over to my side. “Yeah, well, I now see the error of my ways and think you might be the best person to help me.”
Erick laughs. “Bullshit. You need me, that’s all there is to it. Well, what’s in it for me? What do I get for wasting an hour a day on you?”
“A classmate who won’t blow up the school?” I offer cheekily.
“I can get that if they bound your magic and ban you. With a whole lot less effort, I might add. It’s not enough.”
“What is enough, then?” I’m starting to slide straight passed annoyed into pissed.
He levels his gaze at me. “You know what I want.”
“Not really,” I say, having no idea what he’s getting at.
“My plan,” he says. “To find out who’s behind the attacks at Ohdows.”
“Oh. That.” I sigh. “Fine. I’ll be your bait or your dumb newbie or whatever.”
“Great,” he says. “Let me take a quick shower and then we’ll get started.”
As much as I hate Erick’s attitude, the visual of him taking a shower makes me blush. Why’d he have to say that?
I swallow around the lump forming in my throat. “Yeah, great,” I stammer. “I mean, the part about starting after.”
Shut up, Imogen!
“Well, catch you later. Bye.”
I say the words so fast they’re practically one syllable. Then I walk away as quickly as possible, horrified I’ll have to face him for training every day for gods knows how long.
And practice we do. I don’t want to be bound and banned. As much as I am starting to miss Mom, I won’t give up. The others keep saying I belong here. If that’s true, then I don’t want to be cast out. I must find a way to stay.
After two days watching me blow myself up, Erick is already sick of me.
“This can’t keep up.” He sounds exasperated, and I can’t even blame him.
“I know!” I spread my arms. “But that’s why you’re here, right? Help me.”
“Chill,” he says. “Okay, so when you are calling up the fire, what is your actual thought process?”
“I take a deep breath,” I say. “I think about control and breathing and moving slow…”
“And in your mind?” he asks. “The actual thought you use to summon the fire?”
“How angry my life makes me,” I answer.
“What?” he asks, looking and sounding taken aback.
“You know, anger…” I say. “I think about something that makes me really mad, and then the fire comes.”
“Why the hell do you do that?” His face is almost comical in his confusion, eyebrows scrunched and eyes puzzled.
“That’s what Caleb told me to do,” I say defensively.
“Did he now?” Erick crosses his arms. I don’t like the way he’s looking down at me, both literally and metaphorically. “Is that what he actually told you?”
I pause, thinking back to the first time I exploded. Well, before I turned into a fireball, when Caleb was running his fingers down my arm.
“No, I guess not. Not exactly,” I say. “He told me to remember the first time I felt the tingling in my fingers. It was this one time my mom made me furious. I wanted to replicate it—the tingling—so I just called up that feeling of anger. Caleb said it can be a very powerful force.”
“True,” he agrees. “For some Fae, they might think it is the only force worth using. But it’s not. There are other feelings, other emotions you can use. Other desires.”
When he stresses the last word, it makes me shiver, though I’m not sure why.
Walking around me, he places a hand on my back to hold me in place when I start to turn around to see his face. Awash in confusion, I stare straight ahead, acutely aware of him behind me, of the heat of his palm through my shirt. “Close your eyes and think about someone you care deeply about,” he murmurs, entirely too close to me for comfort. “Someone you love.”
There are so few people in my life who I would say I love. I want to say Cassie, but I don’t know what she looks like, so I think of Mom. I nod.
“Imagine that person is outside, and it’s snowing,” he continues. “They are cold. Freezing. They are bundled up in a coat, but are still shivering. You worry about them, are afraid this person you love more than anyone else might freeze to death. You would do anything to help them. You reach out with your hand, and gently caress their face with the warmth from your fingertips. It makes them smile, and you can tell just your touch has warmed them up.”
I can see Mom’s face so clearly it’s as if she is standing right there. As she smiles, I feel a tear fall down my cheek. I miss her so much.
“Open your eyes,” Erick whispers.
When I do, I see that my fingers are glowing. Just like they should be.
Damn, he’s a good teacher.
As my heart starts to race in my chest at how close his body is to mine, I quickly take a step forward and turn. What’s my problem? I have a crush on Caleb. Caleb, not Erick. Caleb is one hundred percent perfect for me. And I thought I was one hundred percent into him. But now…
I’m not so sure.
Ten
The alarm sounds again—the same one I heard when I first arrived at the welcome party—waking us up from a deep sleep.
Dannika quickly springs into action, grabbing her robe and throwing it on. She grabs my arm. “Come on! Into the closet.”
She locks the door to our room, and we huddle in the closet. The alarm stops, and the lights dim. Once again, we are plunged into a quiet darkness.
“What’s going on?” I whisper.
She shushes me, so I wait, hearing nothing except the pulsing in my ears.
“All clear!” someone in the hallway yells.
When we emerge from our cocoon, I take a peek into the hallway. Several other students have also popped their heads out of their doors. But there’s nothing to see. Pyralis Hall is as ordinary as ever.
“Okay, tell me what is going on,” I demand, tired of being in the dark on this matter.
“You know the attacks on Ohdows?” Dannika asks.
I nod.
“There must have just been another one.”
“So
why are we on lockdown?” I climb back into bed, burrowing into my covers.
“Just to keep us safe, I suppose,” she offers. “In case they start attacking other halls. Or maybe to catch whoever is behind it.”
“But it’s not working. The attacks are still going on.”
“Yeah.” Dannika sits down on her own bed, but she doesn’t lie back down right away. “They started at the end of last year, supposedly. This probably the third one.”
“And they were all fire attacks on Ohdows?”
“Yup.”
“They should just round up all the fire elementals and interrogate them,” I say.
“That wouldn’t go over very well,” Dannika says. She lays down, her head on the pillow and face pointed at the ceiling. “Nothing gets a Fae’s hackles up like being accused of something.”
“Maybe some security cameras wouldn’t go amiss.” I yawn.
“You might be right about that…”
Neither of us say anything else, and before long, I suspect Dannika has already drifted back off to sleep.
My mind is so wired, I expect I’ll be up for the rest of the night. But after only a moment, I feel my eyelids getting heavy.
Damn cicada rhythms.
After nearly blowing Erick up again, he yells, “Careful! Where’s your head! We’ve been at this for weeks now. This shouldn’t still be happening.”
I drop my hands at my sides and sigh. “I’m getting better.”
Immediately, Erick softens. “You are. I just…I don’t understand why your powers are expressing stronger than you can control still. Are you sure you’re harnessing the right emotions?”
I head over to the break table and take a swig of water. “Kindness. Protection. Happiness. Nothing negative, I promise.”
Erick takes a tip of his own water, then leans half-sitting against the table, staring out at the training field, nodding to himself. I copy his stance, wondering what he’s thinking. Probably not the same things I am.
What I haven’t told Erick is the other things I’m feeling when I train with him. Things I shouldn’t be feeling. Like attraction, and lust. Even now, looking at him leaning back against the table, I can’t help but notice that he’s, well…hot.
“Okay.” He nods more assuredly this time. “I mean, there’s been progress for sure. We can almost get through a training session without you blowing us up. You just need to…calm down.”
Right. My magic is like an untamed stallion that still needs to be broken, and I should simply calm down. Calmly ride that beast like it’s not trying to buck me into next Sunday. Because that’s how things work.
Sarcasm probably isn’t the kind of emotion I should be targeting, but before I can try to redirect that, Erick is standing right in front of me, his face inches from my own, his hands on my shoulders and then sliding slowly down my arms.
“Relax,” he says.
Oh! He means this to be soothing. He doesn’t realize that having him stand this close to me, with his hair falling in wisps around his forehead, does anything but calm me down. My stomach flutters, my heart beats faster, and worse, I know he can tell, because a sly smirk starts to overtake his features.
“You okay, Imogen? You look flushed.”
There’s a gleam in his eyes, as if he’s teasing me, but he can’t possibly know how I feel just by looking at me. Can he? I swallow around the lump forming in my throat, and duck away from him.
“Yeah, sorry, all this fire magic has me heating up.”
Truth is, Erick has me heating up, and that doesn’t make any sense. I go to take another sip of water, but end up chugging it to buy some time before I need to speak to him again. His gaze is like a burning fire on my back.
He’s been nicer to me lately. I’d even dare say we are becoming friends. He’s less of a jerk, even if he still has that haughty attitude that doesn’t sit right with me. And all this is—all this warmth and heat and attraction—is confusing. But I can’t help this feeling inside that wants something more, and that’s something that will never work.
I’m running out of water, trying to meditate through the last few sips. I am not interested in Erick. My body just fails to understand I can like someone as a friend and think they are handsome without it meaning we are destined for romance.
My meditation doesn’t make it any easier, and I’m out of water and out of time.
Erick claps his hands. “Okay, break time’s over. Time to train.”
What I want to do in that moment is run away. Instead, I push my attraction for Erick down. Way down. I shouldn’t even be thinking about this anyway. Caleb and I could be good together. We grab lunch together almost every day. He’s laid back, but really passionate about the Unseelie Court. I mean, he’s a prince! A real prince who wants to spend time with me. It doesn’t get any cooler than that. If we actually hook up, I’ll be like the Princess Kate of the Fae world, which is so much better than being a princess of England.
I focus on that as I step back onto the training field. My next few attempts go well. The fire is controlled. I’m making progress. The look of pride on Erick’s face makes my heart soar and my stomach do flip flops. And that smile of his…it could melt me where I stand.
Gods, he’s hot. I’d be fooling myself to pretend otherwise.
“Imogen,” he yells.
The look of pride is gone, and by time I realize why he’s yelled my name, it’s too late. The magic has spiraled out of control, and moments later, I’ve blown us up.
Again.
It hadn’t taken long for me to notice that all the food in the Fae realm is vegetarian. It’s not quite vegan because they do use eggs, honey, and some dairy products, but when I asked about that the reasoning, I found out that anything from animals is harvested in a cruelty-free, organic environment, which is really cool. The food is delicious, and my body feels so amazing I quickly forget I’m not eating meat.
After today’s tutoring with Erick, I’m more than ready to dig into dinner. I plop down unceremoniously across from Dannika with my tray of fresh fruits and warm vegetable pie, and take a bite before giving her a small wave.
“Girl,” she says, popping the top on her can of dragon fruit juice, “you look like a hot mess!”
“Rude,” I say. “We can’t all have perfect hair, makeup, and skin all the time.”
“You think this happens by accident?” She smooths her satiny hair. “I know not everyone has the time and patience to look as fab as moi, but have you heard of a hairbrush?”
I pick up a spoon, studying my reflection. Yeah, I look pretty bad. My hair is frizzy, there are bags under my eyes, and my clothes are dingy with soot. I cringe, realizing this is the lasting impression I’d left Erick with today.
Not that it matters. You’re not into him, I remind myself. You like Caleb.
“Maybe you have a point,” I acquiesce as I dig into my pie. “I’m just working so hard to get my powers under control, you know?”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed you’ve made a lot of progress,” she says. “You’ve stopped almost killing people, so that’s a plus for everyone. You might just pass the trials at the end of the year after all.”
“I know, right? It’s just been a lot. That on top of my regular studies, which I also feel like I have to work harder at than anyone else since I came here with no background at all, makes me feel like I’m running all the time.”
“Are you sleeping okay?” she asks.
“Too good,” I say. “Damn arcadian rhythms…”
“Circadian,” she corrects.
“Whatever they are.” I sigh. “I need more hours in the day, or at least to be able to stay up late studying when there are fewer distractions. But it seems like as soon as the lights dim, I just pass out.”
Dannika nods, stabbing at her salad with her fork. “Yeah, some people have issues with it. They want more control over their sleep patterns. There are ways around it, but it takes training, special potions, or help from a light Fae. But
the professors really discourage it since it’s unnatural, and we need our sleep.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” I say. “In the human realm, it seems like we never get enough sleep.”
“Hey, girls. How are…what is wrong with your face?” Ella recoils after she walks up to us. She looks worried.
“Nothing,” I say emphatically. “I’ve been working really hard, and I just came from a training session with Erick.”
“Oh,” she says. She sits next to me, elbow on the table, chin in hand. “How is that going?”
“Pretty good,” I say. “I am able to control my powers better…most of the time.” I don’t mention how my attraction to Erick seems to be one of my triggers for blowing myself up. “But it takes a lot of work, a lot of energy. It really drains me.”
“Have the professors noticed?” she asks.
“I’m no longer on the straighten-up-or-get-expelled list, but I know they are still watching me pretty closely,” I say. “Hey, what is the deal with Damon? Mr. Clawfire? He is supposed to be our mentor, right?”
“Yeah,” Dannika says. “Why do you ask?”
I shrug. “It’s like he wanted to toss me out on my ass instead of helping me.”
“I don’t really know him,” Ella says. “Each house has their own mentor.”
“I’m not sure.” Dannika looks thoughtful. “He’s always seemed pretty helpful in the past. Maybe he’s just got something else going on.”
For a moment, I wonder if that “something else” could have anything to do with the attacks on Ohdows Hall. I immediately want to dismiss my concerns. Surely a professor, a house mentor no less, wouldn’t be behind them. But the thought niggles its way in the back of my head, and I can’t quite tamp it down.
“So…” Ella gives me a gentle elbow in my side. “How are things with you and Caleb?”
I blush even though I try not to. “It’s going, I guess. Nothing serious. Just hanging out.”
“So you guys aren’t a couple yet?” Dannika asks, a gleam in her eyes.
“Nope. At least, I don’t think so?” And if we are, I’m the worst girlfriend ever, because I’ve been lusting after my tutor. “We haven’t talked about anything like that, or even held hands,” I say instead. “Much less kissed or anything. I don’t know. I guess I just don’t know how things work over here. Heck, who am I kidding? I never had a boyfriend on the other side, either. I was never in one place long enough to get to know a guy that well.”