by April White
I nodded. “Got it.”
“So, I’ll try to answer as a teacher might answer a student and hope I can keep politics out of it.” Miss Simpson took a sip of her tea and sat back in her chair. “You’re familiar with the original Immortals?”
“I’ve seen a painting at Elian Manor.”
“Ah yes, the Jera painting. It’s beautiful, is it not?”
I considered my answer for a moment. Miss Simpson noticed the hesitation. “The Immortals are beautiful, but the painting isn’t.”
She looked intrigued. “Indeed? Why not?”
“Because the composition is wrong. There’s a gap where something is missing and it throws off the balance.”
Miss Simpson considered me for a long moment. “I believe I must pay Millicent a visit soon and entice her to show me that painting again. It’s been years since I’ve seen it.”
“She’s totally clueless. She doesn’t notice there’s anything wrong in it.”
“And yet you do. Fascinating.” Miss Simpson continued. “The stories of the Immortals are very old and have almost passed completely into legend by now. But a few of those stories continue to shape our relationships in unfortunate ways. There is a story that tells of Nature’s love for Time. The legend says that Goran pursued Jera and was determined that she should feel the same passion for him that he did for her. He courted her, charmed and delighted her, and finally he seduced her until last of her resistance melted away.”
“My own ancestor, Aislin, the Immortal Fate, tried to stop the relationship before it could start. Jera and Goran each had their own powers and responsibilities, and Aislin felt that a coupling of Time and Nature could potentially bring chaos to their carefully ordered world. Of course the Warrior, Duncan was heavily in favor of chaos, so he did all he could to encourage the relationship.”
“And Death? Where did he land on the whole issue?”
“Aeron was in love with Jera. He couldn’t bear the idea of anyone having her if it wasn’t himself.”
“How did Jera feel about Aeron?”
Miss Simpson gave a delicate shrug of her shoulders. “How does Time feel about Death?” Time resists Death with every fiber of its being. And yet in the end, Death inevitably wins.
“So Aeron got Jera?”
“In a manner of speaking. They are immortal, so Death could never fully claim Time. But he could take what was most precious to her. The very thing Fate feared would cause chaos and undermine the Immortals’ powers.” Miss Simpson paused to drink her tea and her eyes had a far-away look in them. “Jera was pregnant with Goran’s child, and because its parents were immortal, it too would have been. War suddenly realized the potential danger to his own influence if a child of Nature and Time was allowed to come into power, and Death couldn’t bear the idea of this child’s existence.”
“So it would have been a sixth Immortal?”
“If the child had lived, yes.”
“What happened?”
Miss Simpson sighed. “This is where legend fails us. The Arman Family histories record that Fate told Time to hide the child so Death and War could never find it. I believe that the Clans tell of a great battle between Nature and Death, with only War’s treachery finally allowing Death to win and take the life of the child.”
“And my family? What does Jera’s history say?”
“Only that she wept for her child, denounced all the other Immortals, and remains in mourning to this day.” Miss Simpson finished her tea and set down her cup. “And to this day, the wedge between all the Families runs deep and destructive. Very strict laws were made to keep descendants from intermarrying, and after Jera’s child was lost, the Immortals never again loved each other. They created their family lines with Ungifteds so there would be no threat of a new Immortal. And it is strictly forbidden for their Descendants to breed with other Families.”
I stared at Miss Simpson with a feeling of dread. “So a Clocker, for example, could never marry a Shifter?”
Miss Simpson looked directly at me. “Or a Seer, or, God-forbid, a Monger. The marriage would never be allowed because any children from such a union would be killed.”
I was horrified. “By who?”
Miss Simpson sighed. “The Descendants of War have taken the policing duties on themselves. It is said they once kept a secret Genealogy to keep track of all the families. But since that kind of book would be tantamount to a blacklist, it was never sanctioned by the other Families.”
“Have they ever done it? Have the Mongers ever killed a mixed kid?”
Miss Simpson’s gaze never left mine. “To my knowledge, there’s never been one.” If she knew, she wasn’t saying. And I didn’t want to think about the fact that I apparently had Shifter hair. Miss Simpson continued speaking. “The Families remain at war: Sometimes with uneasy truces between them, but never fully at peace.”
I took a deep breath. “Wow. The whole thing stinks.”
Miss Simpson smiled sadly. “Indeed it does.”
I finished my tea and carefully set the fragile china cup and saucer on the desk. “I’m looking for other people in my family. Cousins or anyone else who can travel in time. Do you know if there’s anyone besides Millicent, my mom and me?”
Miss Simpson got up and rummaged around in her bookcase for a moment. She finally pulled down a book and flipped through it until she found a page of photographs. It looked like a yearbook of teenagers, but the style looked like the sixties or seventies.
“My first year at St. Brigid’s I taught a young man named Doran Vane.” She pointed to a picture of a guy who looked a little like a Hippie, or maybe like the California surfer version of Jesus. “I believe he was distantly related to the Elians, but he seemed to have many of your family’s skills.”
“Doran.”
“You know of him?”
I smiled. “I’ve seen his work.”
Miss Simpson’s attention was caught by students talking in the main library outside her office. “I’m sorry, Miss Elian, but I need to cut our meeting short. I understand you’ve become friendly with Ava and Adam Arman? Would you mind shadowing them to their classes for another day?”
“No problem.” I got up to leave. She had given me a boatload of stuff to process and I wished I could have much more time with her. Morning tea with Miss Simpson had been very enlightening.
I was on my second helping of sausage and potatoes when Adam walked into the dining room with a couple other decent-looking guys. All the girls’ heads turned to follow him as the group made their way through the food line and to their table.
Adam had an easy way about him that spoke of total confidence. Some of the guys he was with were clearly trying to be studly, but next to him, they just looked like posers. I smirked and kept eating.
I stood up to clear my plate and suddenly, Adam was standing in front of me. “What’s up, Clocker?” His grin was infectious but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of smiling.
“Hey Floyd.”
His cocky grin faded just a tiny bit and I bit back my own grin.
“Got any classes yet?”
“Depends.”
He raised a quizzical eyebrow and I could see female eyes all around the room riveted on our conversation. “On what?”
“On whether any of yours are interesting.”
He laughed and his fan club visibly sagged. Poor girls. Didn’t they know how dumb it was to fall for the handsome ones? Guys like Adam had it way too easy in their lives. They got lazy when it came to girls because they’d never had to work for them. And with Adam it was probably worse, since he could sense who was a sure thing before she ever batted her eyelashes.
“We’ve got study hall in the library first up.”
I raised an eyebrow with an evil little smile. “Then we’re going running.”
“Give me a minute to ditch my mates and you’re on.”
I chuckled as I cleared my plate. Annie caught my eye from the buffet and I grinned at her. S
he nodded toward Adam with raised eyebrows. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. She nodded once and went back to filling the sausage platter. A whole conversation had just happened without a word. That must be what it was like to have friends. Crazy.
Adam met me in the hall outside the dining room. “So, back outside?”
I shook my head. “When does the first class start?”
He checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”
“Come on.” I took off running.
I made a point of taking hallways at full sprint, staircases on the silent sides of treads, leaping over the bottom of banisters, and sliding down rails where I could. Adam did a fair job of keeping up with me, and though we startled a couple of students in the halls, we didn’t run into any teachers. Probably the grins on our faces kept us from getting yelled at too.
We traveled up two flights and back down, through the least traveled areas of the school, until we made it back to the solarium. Half of it had been cleared of benches and some students in fencing gear were warming up. I raised an eyebrow and Adam laughed.
“Gym class for Mongers.”
Of course. Why wouldn’t they work out with weapons? I couldn’t see anyone’s face under their helmets so I pretended they couldn’t see us.
Adam was out of breath but he had done pretty well. I gave him a minute to catch his breath, then pointed to the far side of the solarium where the benches were still set up.
“Pick the straightest line to the podium.”
He scanned the room for a moment then shrugged. “It’s through benches.”
“Or over them.” I took off, up and over the tops of benches, balancing on the backs of them for barely a second before leaping to the next. The benches were like pews in a church and were solid enough to hold my weight, but it was a lot like skipping across stones in a stream, and just as fun. I was laughing by the time I made it to the other side, and I called to him. “Now you!”
His mouth was set in a line of determination when he first started across the backs of the benches, and I was afraid he’d wipe out from trying so hard. But then he stumbled, teetered, and after a ballet-style pirouette, regained his balance. Suddenly a smile lit across his face and the last half of the room was like tap dancing for him. Fun, energetic and noisy.
Adam was grinning when he jumped down off the last bench. He grabbed me for a huge hug in his giddiness. “That was awesome!”
His tall, rangy body wrapped around me like a blanket and it felt good to be in his arms. Good but weird. And the instant I stiffened it got awkward and he let go like I had burned him.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hug you.”
“Who knew you had some ballet dancer in you?”
He laughed. “I was hot for one once, does that count?”
“I don’t even want to know how you got your moves then.” I rolled my eyes at him and he laughed harder.
I glanced across the Solarium where the fencers had stopped to watch us. One group was off to one side, and from the annoyed pose of one girl I was guessing Raven was somewhere under the mask. I could feel the hatred rolling off her in waves and it was making me tense. I wondered if Adam’s little display of affection was getting noted in some little black book somewhere under “Mixed Bloodlines Alert!” The whole thing seemed worse than the prejudices against interracial couples and I couldn’t believe these people just accepted it.
A bell rang in the hallway and Adam looked at his watch. “First classes start.”
“Okay, where can we go that’s off the main floor? I want to show you some climbing techniques.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Want to explore?”
“Only if we can look for secret passages.”
“You’d like to find someplace hidden with me, wouldn’t you?”
I hit him in shoulder, hard. “Don’t wreck a good thing.”
“Oh ye of little faith.” He tried leering at me but was laughing too hard to pull it off. We left the Solarium and the fencers behind, and instantly the oppressiveness lightened from my body. Adam followed, contrite but still laughing. “Okay, okay, I’ll lay off. It’s a habit I have no control over.”
“Bad pick-up lines and cheesy comments are a habit worth breaking.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
I rolled my eyes. “Show me another old Headmaster office.”
He went a little unfocused in that way I was beginning to learn was his sight going clear. Then he was back, with all trace of laughter gone from his face. He looked at me a little quizzically.
“What?” The sound of my voice seemed to bring him back to himself. He grabbed my hand and led me down the hall at a run.
“Come on. You’re going to want to see this.” Adam seemed to realize he was holding my hand when we were about halfway up a back staircase. He dropped it and then covered the moment by pointing out a built-in cupboard hidden in the paneling.
“Cupboards like those are empty now, but back when the school was full the housekeepers used them for supplies. Now they mostly just hold notes about secret meetings and rendezvous between students.”
“So where’s your stash?”
He grinned. “I dare you to find it.”
“I never take dares. Only bets.”
“Okay, then a bet. I’ll leave a note for you somewhere in the school—“
“Not fair, it has to be a stash cupboard someplace public.”
“Okay, fine. You have a week to find my note.”
“Or what?”
“Or… you owe me a kiss.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with?”
“We could go bigger if you want, but I figured I’d just need an opening move and you’d be begging for more.”
I looked sideways at him. “Aren’t you breaking about a million Family rules even pretending to flirt with me?”
Adam suddenly scowled. “You’re talking about the mixed bloodlines bollocks? There’s no way some filthy Mongrel is going to tell me who I can or can’t date. They tried it once—“
He suddenly shut up as if he’d said too much.
I didn’t let it go. “Who tried?”
He hesitated, but anger and injustice won. “Shaw and the Rothbitch. They sent Alex away.” Alex? “The shite thing was she agreed to go. Couldn’t take the heat apparently. Not worth my effort if she didn’t care enough to stand up to them.” Adam was bitter and heading down a dark path. I figured I should deflect with humor.
“So, you think one kiss from you will rock my world, huh?
Adam shrugged. “Why pretend otherwise when I know how it ends up?”
I looked sharply at him. “What are you saying? Have you seen something you’re not telling me?” He smirked and I glared at him, hands on my hips. “Okay, fine. Here’s the bet. If I find your note within a week you tell me every vision or insight you’ve had about me, and any you have in the future. You hold nothing back, no matter what it is. Deal?”
I suddenly got his attention and his eyes narrowed. “That’s not always a great idea, Saira.”
“I don’t care. I want to hear it – all. Do we have a bet?”
“Then I want a kiss and a grope.”
“Not a chance. A kiss is all you’ll get and not even that if I find your stash. But you have to be honorable about it. Hide it today and don’t touch it again until a week is up.”
He regarded me for a long moment, then nodded and held out his hand to shake. “Deal.” His grip was warm and firm and he didn’t let go of my hand right away. “Now, do you want to see this, or don’t you?”
“Lead the way.” We went up another flight of stairs, down a long hall, and then into a corridor that seemed to lead to another tower. I looked out the window to see if I could get my bearings. “North Tower?”
“Very good. Now let’s see if they’ve locked us out.” He tried the handle of the large door but it wouldn’t budge. Adam looked confused. “But I saw us in there.”
I
stepped in front of him and swept my hand across the door lintel. Nope. There was an old wall clock hanging about four feet away. It was the wind-up kind and had clearly been stopped for a long time, judging by the dust. I opened the pendulum door and pulled out an old iron key.
“Maybe this?”
Adam fitted the key into the lock and after jiggling it a couple of times, got it to turn. “Impressive. How did you know it would be there?”
“Common sense. Lazy people and confident people hide their keys close to the lock.” The door creaked open when he pushed it. The room was dim with only a couple of narrow shafts of light beaming through heavy velvet curtains. There was so much dust in the place that little clouds seemed to raise at our feet with every step.
A massive desk dominated the center of the room, round, just like the tower itself. In fact, most of the shapes around the room were circles. A chandelier, a chair, an end table, even the carpet was round. The iron curtain rods conformed to the circular shape of the room and even the hems of the curtains were rounded. Clocks hung from every wall and all had stopped at different times. The room was silent now, but I imagined that when all the clocks were wound it would sound like a heartbeat.
“What is this place?” I was fascinated. It looked like it had been closed up for a very long time.
“I have no idea.”
I looked at him. “But your vision told you to find it?”
“More or less.” He walked to an expanse of closed drapes.
“There’s no window there.” It was completely dark between the velvet panels and it seemed like an inside wall.
“Exactly.” Adam grabbed hold of one of the drapes and flung it open. Hanging on the brick wall behind was a large painting in an elaborate gold frame. It was a landscape of an old bridge crossing what looked like the Thames in London. The painting was nice, but it was more than just a painting.
Swirled through the paint, in intricate brushstrokes that covered the whole canvas, was a time-traveler’s spiral.
“Oh my God.” I thought I whispered, but Adam was by my side in an instant.
“What is it?” Adam reached out a finger to trace the spiral. “Wow!”
I knocked his hand away. “Don’t touch it!”