Smoke and Mist (The Academy Book 1)

by Kate Hall

  He makes it to his car, and the engine starts on the first try. He weaves through the Friday night traffic, his car groaning against the effort of going the speed limit. When it comes time for him to take the exit off the interstate toward his friend’s party, though, he keeps going.

  He loves St. Merlin’s. It’s filled with opportunities that he wouldn’t get anywhere in Kansas, and he has friends he wouldn’t trade for the world. David and Kendall are like the siblings he never had.

  Some nights, though, when he’s sitting in his tiny dorm room and contemplating being here for the next two years, he wants to scream. Staying in one place that long feels like an eternity.

  To release this feeling, he drives.

  He passes through downtown St. Louis, ogling at the lights of the city, and he can’t help but be awed at the masterpiece that is the arch. The one time he went up it was with his parents, and he had to quell a panic attack in the elevator. When they got to the top, the view was worth the fear. The city glistened in the late morning sunlight, and he pressed his face right against the glass while Dad pointed out the different sights.

  When you’re a giant, everything else feels so small.

  He passes the arch, and Cardinals stadium, and his car makes its way through downtown and out the other side to Illinois. Almost as soon as he’s on the other side of the river, the city disappears and turns into fields of wheat, lit only by the stars and the half-moon. He could drive into the middle of one and lie on his roof, sleeping with the stars as his guardian until morning, when he’d probably go back to St. Merlin’s.

  He keeps driving.

  He drives until his preset stations don’t play music anymore, and then he just changes the stations and keeps going. A faerie hums through the speakers, her song springing tears to his eyes. The thrum of magic should, logically, be higher in the city, amplified by the thousands upon thousands of users. In the country, though, on a dark interstate under the night sky, he feels so alive.

  He stops off at an exit to fill up the Taurus’s nearly empty gas tank, and he picks up a few snacks while he’s inside to pay. A faerie boy is working the front counter, his eyes dark with rectangular pupils like a deer, his face freckled. He has messy brown hair, and moss is hanging gently off his antlers, swaying just a little when a breeze comes through the door. Alex considers asking if the moss is natural or just an accessory, but it’s probably rude to ask.

  “Drive safe,” the boy says, his voice a melody that Alex almost remembers, like a song he heard once on the radio when he was little but never learned the words to. He’s tempted to pull himself on the counter and kiss the faerie until the sun comes up over the horizon, but that’s just the draw the fae have on humans. He learned to quell those types of feelings long ago.

  Alex grew up in one of the few communities that is equal parts faerie and human, the two groups interacting as equals rather than dancing along the boundary between the two worlds. This town, wherever he is, must be another one of those.

  “Have a good night,” the boy says, half waving as Alex walks out with his bag of snacks and bottled water.

  It’s incredibly late, and he is not tired. How could he ever get tired when the night is so alive, calling louder with every mile under his tires?

  Eventually, the call is too loud, too electric, for him to go any further. He takes an exit, and the call pulls him along, down back roads and hidden highways. He parks his car in the middle of a field, and he understands.

  He digs through his center console for a bracelet Mom made for him before he moved away. It’s simple, just a few pieces of yarn and a strand of iron woven together, tying in the middle. “Not all faeries are like the ones you know,” she warned, pressing the bracelet into his hand.

  He ties it around his right wrist and makes sure that he doesn’t have anything with his name on it in his pockets. He’s glad to find a small salt packet hidden in one pocket. Then, he finds the entrance to the faerie party.

  A faerie party is fluid. It does not belong in just one place, through the doorway of a collapsing barn in a field in Illinois. It could be anywhere and everywhere. He knows this, so he takes note of the entrance he’s come through and casts the easiest tracking spell he can on it. No matter how tonight goes, he has to be able to find his way home. With that, he takes a breath and heads into the crowd.

  Chapter Eight

  Sarah

  THE NIGHT IN THIS CITY IS ALIVE. SARAH CAN feel it with every breath she takes.

  Breathe in. The wind dances gleefully around the puzzle pieces that make up her new home, taunting her. It can’t get past the iron fence, though.

  Breathe out. A song cradles her, taking her by the wrist and leading her to the window.

  In. There are lights dancing through the woods. They twirl like fireflies, but she knows better. Far away, the revelry of the fae teases her ears.

  Out. She climbs out her window, careful not to rip the screen as she removes it, to join the party.

  The walk to the party takes no time at all, and the sound is coming from a dilapidated castle, something that shouldn’t be in the middle of a forest in Missouri. Still, there is no party. Not that she can see, anyway. The breeze is warm and comforting as it pulls her inside. Her mind is a fog; she’s still half asleep, although she should be wide awake by now. The pine needles along the forest floor don’t prick her feet like they should, and her hands don’t sting with the scrape of bark and thorns as her fingers reach through the brush to find her way in the dark half-moon night.

  As soon as she steps over the stone threshold, everything changes. One moment, she’s in deep blackness, and the next, she’s bathed in the color-changing strobes of the party. It’s as though a curtain has been lifted—her drowsiness floats away, and her senses return.

  Before she can get distracted by the sudden pain in her hands and feet, a beautiful faerie boy with green cat eyes and curled ram horns pulls her into a dance, his body tempting hers as he presses against her to the tune of the music. He grins as he feeds her a plump red strawberry. There’s something wicked about him, but his body distracts her, and she runs her hands along his chest, and then down, down, dow—

  “Sarah,” a voice shouts in her ear before she can continue.

  Annoyed, she turns to Alex, who is standing much closer than expected. The heat of his breath is on her cheeks, and she tries to look into his eyes, but he’s not looking at her.

  “Mind if I take her for a dance?” Before the faerie boy can protest, Alex wraps his hand around Sarah’s and pulls her away.

  Fury rises in her, hot and sudden. She wants to go back to that boy, to kiss him and touch him and lie with him until the sun rises. “How dare y-”

  “Did you eat something?” he interrupts, his eyes finally finding hers.

  She scoffs. “So what if I did? You’re not the boss of me.” She tugs her hand out of his grasp, but before she can spin around to get away, he runs a thumb gently over her bottom lip. The touch is electric, and, without thinking, she bites him.

  He jerks his hand away, but not before the taste of salt clears her mind. The rage dissipates, and her body hurts. How long had she been out there, pressed against that boy?

  “Oh my god,” she moans, crouching to the floor where she stands, in the middle of the dance floor surrounded by faeries and lured humans. She should be more concerned about getting kicked in the face, but at the moment, she’s too nauseous to care. How naive does she have to be to fall under a faerie spell so easily? The lights and music pound through her skull, the sound amplifying as she takes shallow breaths and the figures close around her.

  “Hey,” a gentle voice says in her ear, cutting through all the sound. Alex is kneeling beside her, concern flooding his beautiful dark eyes. She can hardly stand to look at him. “Are you gonna be okay?”

  She sucks in a lungful of air and lets it out slowly, bracing one hand on his shoulder to keep from losing her balance.

  “Let’s get you out of
here,” he says, helping her to her feet like a newborn foal. Her legs are a bit shaky, but at least her head has stopped spinning. So long as she’s looking into Alex’s eyes, it’ll be alright.

  “Can we go sit down?” she finds herself asking, the words trembling out of her mouth before she can stop them. He nods and pulls her to the side, through the other partygoers until they find a fallen stone wall just the right height for sitting.

  He waves his hand and a plastic convenience store bag appears. “Water?” he offers, pulling out a new bottle, the seal unbroken.

  “Thanks,” Sarah says, taking a long swig. The icy drink is invigorating, clearing some of the remaining fog from her mind. She watches the forms writhing around them to the beat, and she’s glad to be sitting on the side. For now.

  “What brings you out here?” Alex asks after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

  Sarah shrugs. “Just felt like I should. You know?”

  He nods and takes another swig of his own water. A drop trickles from his lips and down his chin, and, before she can stop herself, Sarah reaches up and brushes it away. The contact with his skin is electric, and she doesn’t remove her hand.

  His eyes dart down to her lips for just a split second, but it’s enough for her to lean forward, her heart racing. He rests his spindly fingers ever-so-gently on hers, and a breath catches in her throat.

  A frigid wind rips through the castle, shaking her out of her stupor. She yanks her hand back and looks away from him and toward the party. “So why’d your parents send you to St. Merlin’s?”

  She can feel his gaze prodding her, but she keeps her eyes on a couple of human boys that are dancing twenty feet away.

  “I got a scholarship, and it’s about a thousand times better than the high school in my town,” he says. She turns to him in surprise.

  “So you’re not rich, then.” It isn’t a question. It makes sense, of course. Rich people don’t talk reverently about tractors being ridden to school, and they probably have better things to do on a Friday night than attend a faerie party. Like run for office or something.

  “Nah.” He drops his empty water bottle back into the plastic bag, and she follows suit. The instant he dematerializes it—she has to learn that spell—the song changes from an unbearably mournful solo to a more upbeat pop song that’s been on the radio all month. “Wanna dance?” Alex asks, helping her back to her feet.

  She’s more sure of herself now. Oriented. Her head is clear. The grass within the castle walls is gentle on her stinging feet, grounding her. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  They walk side by side to the dance floor, his hand hot against the cold sweat on her back as he guides her to an open space.

  He holds his hand out, and she takes it, her face warming incrementally.

  The air is sucked out of her in a laugh as they careen back and forth, earning a dirty look from a pixie girl with violet and magenta skin. Sarah goes out in a dramatic twirl before Alex pulls her back into a dip. She tilts her head back and absorbs the moment, her eyes on the stars that shine clear as ever despite the flashing party lights.

  When she jolts back to standing, Alex has a goofy grin on his face. Before she can think too hard on it, she moves closer to him so that their lips are mere inches away.

  “I’d like a kiss,” she suggests, taunting him. Daring him. He closes the gap without hesitating, and her mind explodes into a thousand stars brighter than anything in the sky. Their lips are desperate as they press together—it’s the type of passion that could be misinterpreted for hate or love. Her veins burn dry with his fire, and she licks his bottom lip to feel the almost campfire taste of him.

  She is absolutely absorbed in this magic, a sparkling electricity that wraps around them both, and it isn’t hard at all to imagine falling for him.

  She pulls away, a contented sigh falling out of her before she can catch it. They’re the only two not dancing, and she bites her bottom lip.

  “Looks like your vision came true,” she says, her voice husky.

  “What?” His eyebrows are just starting to bunch together in confusion when a redheaded woman catches Sarah’s attention just behind him—she’s the only other being not moving. The woman begins to turn toward them as if in slow motion, and Sarah’s blood goes cold. Before the woman’s face appears, Sarah runs. It’s all instinct, an iciness that runs through her veins and keeps her moving. All she can picture are black eyes and bloody hands. There’s something wrong with the red-haired woman’s face. She knows it. Her body carries her away as fast as possible.

  She can’t be sure, but it sounds like Alex’s voice is calling for her as she goes.

  Chapter Nine

  Alex

  THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH ALEX.

  Not in the “I just made out with a girl I met this week” sort of way, although that is unusual for him. No, this is something else entirely.

  He vaguely remembers the party—the kiss with Sarah is the only crystal clear moment, but after that, everything is indistinct. After she’d run off, something had prick in his arm, like a bee sting, and then a heaviness had fallen over him.

  Now, he’s lying on his back in the grass, and when his mind returns to him, he’s lying half beneath his Ford. He has a serious case of cotton-mouth, and he can’t salivate enough to fix it.

  When the feeling starts to come back to his limbs, he slowly drags himself out from under the car, the prickly grass scraping at his bare skin, giving him pause.

  He sits up slowly, his head spinning and the sun stabbing his eyes out. He tries to summon his convenience store bag, but the spell isn’t taking, so he has to stand up. Pins and needles stab through his legs and feet, but at least he can stand. He brushes what feels like dirt off his chest, but when he looks at himself, he finds that he’s covered in blue and gold glitter.

  Please don’t be drugs.

  He takes the last water bottle out of the trunk and chugs half of it in one go before dropping into the driver’s seat, mourning the disappearance of his favorite shirt. His car takes a few tries to start, but after some prompting, the engine wails to life. He digs around the glove compartment for his phone, but the battery is dead. He plugs it in to the cigarette lighter and, once he’s determined that he’s not inebriated, directs his car to the interstate.

  He stops for gas on the outskirts of the city, taking a few extra minutes to go to the restroom and wash up after tossing on the hoodie that was squished under the passenger seat. His face still looks like a wreck, but at least he’s no longer covered in faerie powder. He’s fairly certain the streaks aren’t drugs, but it’s better for him to be cautious about the whole situation.

  It’s mid-afternoon by the time he gets back, and David is just walking through the parking lot toward their dorm when Alex pulls in to his spot. He was hoping to come back unnoticed, but it seems like this is going to be unavoidable as David stops and lifts his arm in a half-wave.

  Alex cuts the engine at the same time as opening the door, and David’s eyebrows shoot up. “You look like hell,” he says after a quick appraisal. “Where were you last night?”

  He could lie. There’s a good chance that whatever happened to him won’t have any lasting effects. It won’t matter in another hour when he’s taken a hot shower and changed into clean clothes.

  “I think,” he says slowly, “I messed up.”

  David walks him up to their floor and even makes sure the coast is clear of Phillip before waving Alex over to their bedroom door. Just as Alex is about to step over the threshold, though, he hears a booming, accented voice.

  “Locklear,” Phillip calls. “My office.” Alex groans and turns toward him. Phillip doesn’t have an actual office—that’s just what he calls his apartment living room. There are four staff apartments, one for each floor of the building so that the residents are monitored properly.

  “Where have you been?” says Phillip. He switches on one of the many antique lamps sitting on the cluttered coffee ta
ble, and takes a closer look at Alex’s face in the light.

  “I’m sorry,” Alex whispers, pretending to be fascinated by the paperweights on Phillip’s ancient roll-top desk to avoid eye contact. He picks up a mail opener and fidgets with it, looking anywhere but at Phillip.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that.” Phillip fumbles over his words, and that’s how Alex can tell he’s upset. Usually, his English is impeccable.

  The only clean thing in the room is the floral eighties couch, and that’s because, otherwise, it would have to be cleared off every time a student enters the apartment, which is often. Alex trips over a stack of newspapers that’s at least a decade old, and, although the stack doesn’t budge, he’s confident that he’s going to have a bruise on his calf. He collapses on the couch, pressing his hands into his eyes, and a dull throb knocks in his head, he hopes from mild dehydration and not whatever substances he can’t remember consuming.

  “You were gone overnight. I figured you were out on one of your....things.... But now you come back looking like shit, and I don’t know what to think.”

  Phillip doesn’t curse. Alex sits up slowly, his entire body protesting. Now that he’s laid down for a moment, his muscles don’t want to move ever again. “I didn’t mean to. I just...”

  He could get kicked out of St. Merlin’s if he took anything. He’s seen it happen with more privileged students than himself—rich boys whose parents have endless pockets to save their asses. Alex, though, is an investment, and the school wouldn’t hesitate to drop him at the slightest mishap.

  “I was at a faerie party,” he says, his voice rough. He feels his chest tighten, and tears make their way into his eyes. He doesn’t usually cry easily, but he hasn’t slept since Thursday night. “I think I may have been drugged. Or taken something. I can’t remember anything, but I was careful. I don’t know what happened. I’m sorry.”