“Yeah, sure.” He rolled his eyes, getting up and stretching his long arms. “And they’re going to wake you before they kill you. Makes sense.”
The ballerina floated up to the pillow again, her glare venomous. Oh, she did not appreciate being woken up so rudely. She did not appreciate that at all.
“You are wrong, and I am right,” I said, breathing in deeply, trying to get my heart rate down. I knew I was on the brink of a panic attack. That was what happened when a random person shook you awake in the middle of the night. “What is it, Sebastian?”
“You and I are going somewhere.”
“Like hell we are,” I said, pulling my blanket back over me. The ballerina seemed content with the answer, as well.
He walked back toward the bed, grabbed the end of the blanket, and yanked it off me. “Get up, Little Red. Time’s a wastin’.”
“I could have been naked under that blanket,” I pointed out, tugging at my shorts to make sure they covered everything.
“The first rule about going to boarding school is to never sleep naked or half-naked. You never know when another student will try and prank you,” he said before heading over to my wardrobe. His phoenix lit up the contents as he rummaged through it.
“Hey, get away from there!”
He ignored me, picking up items of clothing, pulling a face, and then dropping them. He settled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, which he tossed toward me. It landed perfectly on the bed. “Get dressed.”
“I am not.”
“Listen, Red, I am not taking no for an answer. You either dress yourself or I dress you. Either way, you’re coming out with me tonight.”
“This sounds a lot like a kidnapping.”
“Kidnappings aren’t supposed to be enjoyed by the victim. I can assure you that you will be enjoying yourself with me tonight. So, no.” He grinned. “It’s not a kidnapping.”
I gave up arguing with him, then. I could have told him that I was tired, that I wanted sleep more than anything else, but at the same time, there was a feeling of anticipation in my stomach. I was excited to get out of the tower, away from all the drama at the school. I didn’t know where he was going to take me, as the nearest town was 30 miles north. Still, despite my exhaustion, despite the events that had occurred earlier that night still haunting me, I quietly grabbed the clothes headed into the bathroom.
Five minutes later, I emerged with brushed teeth and wearing the clothes he had given me. He nodded in approval before tossing me a pair of socks and sneakers.
“You know,” I said, pulling on my shoes, “this is the 21st century. Women have the right to choose what they wear.”
“Not when they’re as stubborn as you. If you had your way, you’d still be in your bed.”
“And happily so,” I confirmed.
“Stop your whining.” He pulled off his hoodie and tossed it toward me. I looked at it in confusion. “You only have bloody blazers. Wear that instead.”
I looked at the thin fabric of his long-sleeved T-shirt. It was freezing out. “What about you?”
“I’m hot enough. I don’t need it.”
This man. This arrogant male.
Perhaps it was a good thing that he was so confident in himself. It seemed like he got stuff done quickly and efficiently. I, on the other hand, had to overthink everything. I had to assess every situation, list my shortcomings, and work around them. Sebastian had the kind of attitude that told me he faced those issues head-on when he encountered them. There was no time to overthink it, in his mind.
I pulled the hoodie over my head without more argument. His scent overwhelmed me: sandalwood and leather, and something… something else. Something musky and a little sweet.
Once he was satisfied with my outfit, he walked to the window and held out his hand toward me. His smile widened. “Come on, Little Red. It’s time to take a leap.”
“You know, there are stairs.”
“Yes, but if you use the stairs, do you get to leap into the unknown? I didn’t think so,” he answered himself before I could say anything. I bit my lip, contemplating my options. “Do you trust me?”
I realized that I did. I did trust him. Against my better judgment, I trusted him. In fact, I probably trusted him more than anyone else at the academy. Including the headmistress—she’d sooner have me contained than let me run wild. I was free with Sebastian, and I felt confident he would make sure I stayed safe the entire time.
I took his hand and he pulled me close to him. He wrapped his arms around me, then launched us both out of my window.
Before I could scream, we were on the ground and he was grinning like the Cheshire cat. I looked around us, confused as to why we weren’t splattered on the dirt.
He sighed. “I’m going to have to give you my secret now, aren’t I?” He pointed toward the phoenix. “The familiars are pretty strong.”
“He carried us down?” I asked, and Sebastian nodded. I looked over at the ballerina, who was drowsily floating beside me.
“Don’t look at me.” She shrugged. “I’m not going to do that.”
I didn’t expect another statement from her, to be perfectly honest. I held the pocket of the hoodie open for her. She was just a little bigger than a Barbie doll, but I was sure she would fit. The sweatshirt reached below my butt, and the sleeves were too long for my arms. The large pocket matched the size of the hoodie.
“I don’t know how you are going to fit,” I warned, but she was already inside, curling herself up in a tight little ball. I could feel the heat she emitted against my belly. It was comforting.
When I was certain she was secure and only the very ends of her hair escaped the pocket, I turned to Sebastian. “So, where are we going?”
“Hiking.”
“Hiking?” I echoed.
“Hiking,” he confirmed.
Oh boy.
***
We walked through the forest that I have walked through countless times before. But it was different at night, magical. It was as if someone had taken all the character it had during the day and multiplied it by ten once the sun went down. I could hear the owls hooting. There were a few of them, some big, some small. I could tell by the pitches of their calls. I wished I could see them. I wished I could climb up the trees and pet them. But I very much liked my fingers on my hands and not bitten off, so I kept close to Sebastian instead.
The nocturnal flowers had me gaping. They were brilliantly colored and they shone in the dark. They reminded me of the stars on my ceiling as a child; those stars I used to look at and wish for a normal life. The flowers had me in awe.
“Come on, then,” Sebastian called out to me when I fell a little behind. “We’re nearly there.”
There was a small clearing with a blanket on the grass smack in the middle. A picnic basket sat next to it, and when Sebastian turned to me, I knew that he had set it up beforehand.
“Before you say anything, hear me out. Your room is depressing. The view is great, but as soon as you turn away from the window, I want to stab myself in the eyes. I figured this was a good place to meet up at. You know? Plan and stuff? It’s small enough so no one can really find it, and—”
“It’s perfect,” I interrupted.
“Yeah?” There was a childlike excitement on his face that I wanted to bottle and keep on a shelf, to preserve it forever. It made my heart melt. “You think so?”
“I do.”
“Awesome,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the blanket. “Now, usually I snipe food from the academy’s kitchen, but the leftovers looked horrendous, so I had to improvise.”
He had me sit down on the blanket before he opened the little basket, revealing the contents inside. There were a few buns, some lunch meat scraps, a few grapes, and a handful of grated cheese in a freezer bag. It was from Cook Magna’s personal stash. On cue, my stomach grumbled—the offensive dinner hadn’t been nearly enough to satisfy my appetite, and we spent the next half-hour eating.
Sebastien’s smile deflated. “Well, yes,” he admitted.
“Why?”
“Well, I need to be close to the academy to keep an eye on you. I can’t have you being assassinated in your sleep, now can I? We have an adventure to go on. This is the perfect spot. I can watch the stars at night, and I have a perfect view of your tower to see anyone slip in or out of the window. Also, I would see a circus of flames if you had to fight someone off.”
“What if it rains?”
He shrugged. “It’s been raining most nights this week. I like the rain.”
“So do I,” I said, popping a grape in my mouth. “But I don’t want to sleep in it.”
“The trees over there make a good canopy. It stops most of the rain.”
It was then that an idea formed in my head. It was a stupid idea, an idea that was going to get me into a lot of trouble if anyone found out about it.
“I have a bathtub...” I began.
He made a face. “Weird flex, but okay.”
I chuckled. “No, you idiot. What I meant was that you can sleep in my room, if you want. We can make you a bed in the bathtub and I’m sure it’ll be more comfortable than this arrangement.”
“You would get into a lot of trouble if you got caught,” he pointed out logically.
I nodded. “Yes, but you are very sneaky. You can come in after lights-out and leave again before anyone wakes up. Besides, if someone attacked me, I wouldn’t have the chance to defend myself if I’m half asleep. It took me a good few minutes to realize what was going on when you woke me up earlier.”
“I’m not going to turn down your offer, Cornelia, but are you sure? I mean, it’ll be really hard to resist me when we’re in such close quarters.”
I whacked his chest with the back of my hand. “Slow down there, Hemsworth.”
He chuckled. “Thank you, Cornelia. I will take you up on the offer.”
“Lia,” I said, as an afterthought.
“What?”
“My friends call me Lia,” I explained.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lia.”
Chapter 23: A Look at the Past
“The headmistress thinks that you are out of control.” Fiona was floating in the doorway to my bathroom, her arms crossed over her chest.
I rolled my eyes. “It would seem so,” I said, stuffing my bag with the books I needed for the day. I didn’t need to hear this from Fiona. The headmistress had already told me how she felt, and it was clear that she did not approve of my actions.
“Lia, I want to show you something.” She came closer to me and I turned around to face her.
“What is it?”
“I’m going to touch you, and you’ll be able to see my past, okay?”
Wait, what? I took a step back, unsure of how to respond.
She moved closer. “You wanted to know what happened to me, right? This is finally the time.”
And then she touched my arm, and the world turned to black around me.
***
I was falling down, down, down into a black abyss. The darkness was too black, too thick. It threatened to swallow me up and forget about me. This was the sort of place where things went missing and never emerged again—where dreams came to die, where hope was destroyed, and lives were lost. It was both everything and nothing all at once. It was a cavern, a well, a slide into the unknown, but at the same time; it was emptiness. It was what I imagined nothing would look like if we were able to see it.
And then the blackness shifted, turning into an image covered with inky black spots. Soon, they disappeared, leaving me in a clear classroom filled with students. For a moment, I thought I was back in my own classroom. Did I black out somehow and end up here? I reached out to the person nearest to me, but my hand faded through him. He didn’t seven know I was there.
I wasn’t in my classroom at all—I was in Fiona’s classroom, fifty years ago.
I turned to study the classroom. It still had stone walls like the west wing. Was this before the renovations? It must have been. There were teenagers all over the classroom, littered in groups of two or three. Except for one person.
She was sitting at her desk, a girl with snow-white hair and eyes the color of a night sky. She was beautiful, easily the most beautiful girl in the classroom. There was a crowd huddled around her, cheering as she summoned and vanquished flame after flame, letting it roll over her hands like a tennis ball. Her face lit up whenever someone complimented her fire, telling her that she was the most talented witch at the academy. She was rare, the only one of her kind.
But there was a feeling in her stomach, something that she didn’t realize was there until it was too late. I could sense that uncertainty from the other side of the room, and it grew more intense the closer I got to her. I realized I was feeling all of her emotions; I could hear her thoughts as loud as I heard the other kids talking and cheering. She was proud of what she was, but she was also afraid. Afraid of her own power.
“It’s all a load of dramatics if you ask me,” a boy at the front of the class said, his arms draped over the back of his chair. “What can you do that the rest of us can’t?”
She glared at the boy, but there was pain written across her face. She liked him, but it was apparent that he did not feel the same way about her. Every mean comment, every rude whisper to his friends broke her heart a little more each time. I could see the hurt on her face. I could hear the hurt in her mind, feel the hurt in her chest. The boy reminded me a lot of Damien. He was overly confident, but there was something else. Something buried deep within. It was malice, I realized. Hidden far, far below what the eye could see, there was malice. I had noticed it little by little in Damien lately, but I’d thought it was merely the ballerina’s warning that was getting to my head. The ballerina…
I tried to find her in the classroom, but she wasn’t there. She was still close by, though; I could feel her. She must still be with my physical body.
“Don’t listen to him,” said a brunette next to the white-haired girl I assumed was Fiona, glaring at the boy. She was short and plump and had flowers braided into her air. I could sense her magic even now. She was an elemental; she was earth. “He’s just jealous because he doesn’t have a date to the formal yet.”
Laura; her name was Laura.
The boy rolled his eyes, turning back around to look in front of him. The excitement died down after he stole it away from the crowd, and Fiona was left alone with the brunette. She turned to her friend. “Why would he be jealous?”
“Because you’ve gotten at least five offers just now and no one has asked him yet?”
“Then maybe he should ask someone,” Fiona huffed, crossing her arms. “It’s not my fault I’m actually likeable.”
The scene changed then. The colors bled together until another image was formed. We were at the fountain in the courtyard. It had been abandoned for years, but I recognized it immediately. It was beautiful, and the flowers around it made it look like a fairy tale. It was broken down now, overgrown with flora that hid the intricate details in the stones, and was rumored to be haunted. It was rumored to bring nothing but misery and suffering. Not even I dared to get too close. I wasn’t superstitious, but something about it made me uneasy.
Fiona sat on the edge of the fountain, reading a book. I couldn’t tell what the title was, but I could tell that she was intrigued. She bit her lip as she read, turning the flesh white around her teeth.
“Fiona!” Someone called her name and when she looked up, her face fell. It was the boy from the earlier scene.
“What do you want, Tristan?” she asked, putting her book away and getting to her feet. She wasn’t going to stick around to listen to his mean comments.
“You don’t have to leave,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just came over to ask if you wanted t
o go to the formal with me.”
Fiona laughed in disbelief. “Excuse me?”
“Do you want to go to the formal with me?” he repeated, and Fiona took a step back, her eyebrows furrowed.
“You’re kidding me, right? Why would you ask me? You hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” he confessed with a shrug. “I actually really like you.”
Fiona shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m already going with Jeremy.”
“Do you really want to go with him?”
Fiona sighed, turning away from him. “Goodbye, Tristan.”
“No.” He reached out toward her, grabbing her wrist to hold her back. She turned to face him. “Blow Jeremy off. Come with me. I swear I will make it worth your while.”
“I’m not like you.” Fiona yanked her wrist free of his grasp. “I can’t just blow someone off like that.”
Tristan sighed. “I’ll prove to you that I’m not as bad as you think I am. Come with me. If I prove you right, what did you lose? And if I prove you wrong, well, we’ll see where it goes from there.”
Fiona considered the offer. I wanted to reach out, to tell her that she shouldn’t listen to him. But I couldn’t. I was rooted to the spot, forced to watch her make a big mistake.
The scene changed again, and we were in a ballroom. It didn’t look like any ballroom I knew. It looked like it was a part of the west wing, but I knew that section of the academy better than anyone. This must have been before the renovations were made. Was the new part of the school really that new?
I couldn’t see Fiona anywhere, but then my feet moved, and I realized that I was Fiona. I fought against the movement but couldn’t break free. I could feel what she felt, see what she saw, and smell what she smelled. The ballroom was decorated with snowflakes and glitter. It was breathtakingly gorgeous. Music played, tracks I recognized from the 1970s, and the entire ballroom was dancing to the tunes.
Everyone except for Fiona.
Tristan had never bothered to meet her at the fountain like he’d promised, and when she made her way to the ballroom, she saw him… He was dancing with Laura, her best friend. The short brunette laughed as he twirled her around. Fiona’s heart dropped to her stomach and she was on the brink of tears. He had convinced her to blow off her date, so he could take another girl. No, not some other girl. Laura—the one person Fiona was certain had her back through thick and thin.
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