by Sophia Shade
“He might try to, you know, make a pass at you if you made a bit of an effort with your hair,” Ella says in that sickly sweet voice that makes it sound like she isn’t picking on me, but is showering me with compliments instead.
“Hey, if a guy can’t love me no matter how I look, then he’s not worth my time.”
“That’s good,” Dannika says, “because he’s right over there.” She points over my shoulder with a carrot stick.
“Oh, gods, where?” I ask. I run my fingers through my hair and sit up straight.
Caleb and some of his friends walk by just then, and Caleb tosses me a wink. He doesn’t stop because they are on their way to a club meeting that I’m not a member of. Not that I stalk his schedule. Or anything I only know because we’ve hung out enough for him to tell me about his days.
After he passes, Dannika and Ella burst out laughing.
“Sure, nothing’s going on at all.” Ella rolls her eyes, still laughing.
“Is there anything I need to know?” I ask. “Like, he’s a prince. Is he just keeping it cool because he’s not allowed to date me or something?”
“I don’t think so,” Dannika answers. “I mean, there are no laws against you two dating, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t know his family. Maybe they are really strict about who they bring into the fold.”
“Hey, ladies,” Erick says, approaching our table. “How’s it going?”
“Fine,” Ella says. “No new attacks recently, so that’s good.”
“Great.” He squeezes in next to Dannika. “Our kilcross practice was cancelled today. Two of our lead players are sick.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say, poking at the vegetable pie with my fork. “It’s not like you’d want to hear anything I have to say on the matter.”
“Dannika,” he says, turning to her. “Can you talk some sense into your friend?”
“She’s your student.” She shrugs. “I’m not getting involved in whatever you two have going on.”
“We don’t have anything going on,” I say, perhaps a bit too forcefully.
Ella reaches out and puts her hand on mine, then offers a warm smile. “I’m interested in what you have to say,” she says.
“Aww, thanks,” I reply. “I don’t really have any ideas,” I concede to Erick. “And maybe they aren’t related, but I still think we should look into both issues: the attacks and the illnesses.”
“Looking into a bunch of people playing hooky is a waste of time,” Erick says.
“Do you really think that’s all it is?” I ask. “Would your teammates really be missing practice without a good reason?”
He leans back in his seat, but doesn’t reply.
“And as you’re always so quick to point out, you’ve been here longer than any of us. You know better than I do how things work around here. Have you ever seen such high numbers of sick students? Have you ever had a professor cancel classes before?”
He sighs. “Sure. Maybe you are right, and there’s something to this illness. But what of it? I’m not a doctor.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “They could be two completely unrelated problems that need to be dealt with, or they could be related and we need to find the link. Other than the sheer number of sick students, is there anything tying them together?”
“I don’t think so,” he says. “They are a mixture of students from all houses.”
“And they are from different years,” Dannika says.
“But they are all from the same court,” Ella says. “They are all Seelie court.”
Erick and Dannika are quiet for a moment as they think about this.
“You’re right, Ella,” Dannika says, then she levels her gaze at me and snaps her fingers. “Gotta give you props, Imogen. You get us to think outside the box and make new connections.”
“Yeah,” Erick says. “The sick Fae all being from Seelie court is odd. But I still don’t see what it has to do with the attacks.”
“I don’t either,” I say. “But it’s a place to start.”
“Class,” Professor Silvers says as we take our seats in Fae Court Politics. “We have a…very…special guest.” It’s as though it actually hurts her to get the words out. “Lord Ralnor, a noble from the Unseelie court. Let’s give him a round of applause.”
Lord Ralnor enters the room, his dark robes casting ominous shadows across his absurdly pale skin. His robes aren’t any darker than Professor Silvers, yet something about Lord Ralnor gives me a bad feeling.
“This should be good,” Caleb whispers to me.
Over the last couple of weeks, he’s been sitting next to me in class instead of behind me. Dannika sits on my other side.
My understanding so far of the Seelie and Unseelie courts, from what I’ve gleaned from class, is that the world is almost perfectly divided, number-wise, between the two courts. And here at Callador, people from both courts are welcome, but there is a clear bias toward the Seelie court. Seelie Fae make up about two-thirds of the student body. Of the professors, only about a fourth of them are Unseelie courtiers. And among the Seelie professors, there is an obvious disdain for all things Unseelie.
I appreciate Lord Ralnor’s visit, since none of my professors this year are Unseelie court members, so I think my education on this topic is a little one-sided. Most of what I know about it comes from Caleb, though he is admittedly biased in the other direction, being a prince and all. I don’t really know who to believe. But since the only sick students are Seelie, it would stand to reason that an Unseelie might be behind the illness. Maybe I can draw some sort of information about this out of our special guest speaker.
“Fall is upon us, dear students,” Lord Ralnor says. “‘That time of year thou mayst in me behold; When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang; Upon those boughs which shake against the cold; Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.’
“When describing the loveliest time of year, who could compete with the words of the Bard himself? Who certainly was influenced by a ‘Dark Lady’ from the Unseelie Court?”
Several of my Unseelie classmates chuckle at that. Shakespeare comes up a lot around here.
“Perhaps I should just open the floor to questions,” he says. “I’m sure your education on the Unseelie court is lacking. There must be many things you want to know.”
I raise my hand, along with several others, but he calls on a student named Blazyn, an Unseelie fire elemental.
“Thank you, my lord,” she says. “The Unseelie king recently announced that Prince Grant would be Lord of the Season. What do you think about that?”
“Wonderful choice,” Lord Ralnor says. “Prince Grant will be the perfect person to oversee the fall festivities. Anyone else? Yes, you in the back.” He points to Aidan, an Unseelie air elemental.
“What do you think about the recent trade agreement between the goblins and the dwarves?”
“This agreement has been a long time in the making, and I think it will be quite profitable for both sides and bring prosperity to the mountain region,” he says in a response the most seasoned human politician would envy. “Yes, young lady in the front.”
Glisten, a water elemental from—surprise! the Unseelie court—speaks up. This is getting ridiculous.
“Yes, as a water elemental, I’m a little concerned about the coming winter months. I don’t have good control of ice. What can I do to enjoy the cold weather?”
Oh my God. What is with these lame questions?
“Make close friends with a fire elemental, I suppose.” It’s said with a bit of a lascivious chuckle that makes my skin crawl. The other Unseelie seem to find him hilarious, though.
“I have a question,” I interject, not waiting on him to call on me.
“Oh? Do you?” he asks, cutting his gaze to me. His friendly demeanor has dropped. “Go on.”
“Why do you think the Unseelie court has such a negative reputation
, in both this world and the human one?”
The class goes so silent a pin drop could be heard. I can sense that even Caleb is a bit shocked at my question.
“Hmm, and what exactly do you know about Unseelie in the human realm, Miss…?”
“Flareburn,” I say. “Imogen Flareburn. I was raised in the human realm. And while I don’t know a lot of the truths about the Fae, I do remember from studying Shakespeare that the Unseelie court is considered dark or evil. Since I’ve come here, that reputation doesn’t seem much different.”
“Flareburn,” he mumbles. “So, raised in the human realm, were you? Just a halfling, are you?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m just a halfling—”
“I really wouldn’t expect you to understand the complex inner workings of the Fae courts,” he says patronizingly. “Light and dark—good and evil. Good enough explanations for the most simple-minded of people, but only a small fraction of a much larger puzzle. The Seelie court originated for Fae of spring and summer while the Unseelie is for those of a more autumn or winter persuasion. Is spring truly good and winter evil? Does the sun not shine all year round? Is there a more beautiful sight than that of a snowflake delicately landing on the rosy cheek of an innocent child?”
“I wouldn’t say one is more or less naturally worse than the other,” I say. “But the reputation, that had to originate somewhere. I’m just wondering if there is any truth to the legend?”
Lord Ralnor laughs. “You want to know if there is any truth to the myth that Unseelies are evil?”
“Would an Unseelie court member go so far as to harm Seelie students?” I ask point blank.
“Imogen!” Caleb says harshly, pulling on my arm. “What are you doing?”
“I think this discussion has gotten quite lively,” Professor Silvers cuts in.
“Silence!” Lord Ralnor’s gaze has gone icy. “I can handle this impudent spark.”
Spark? I think that was an insult, so I glare at him.
“I think there is much more to your question than you are asking,” he says. “You aren’t speaking in generalities, are you? You think Unseelie court members are up to something nefarious. Well, let me tell you, halfling, if me or a member of my court was up to something, you would never know it. We might not be evil, but we are friendly with shadows. You’d never see us coming, little girl.”
The room feels darker as his gaze narrows in on me. Lord Ralnor might think he is intimidating me, but I’m just getting warmed up.
Eleven
The rest of class continues not much better than the first half. Lord Ralnor moves on as if our conversation never happened, and I’m stuck listening to meaningless surface chatter. Normally I love Professor Silvers’ class, but I’ve never been happier than when the wind chimes signal the end of the lesson.
I gather my books, and start stuffing them into my bag. This is not the end. Lord Ralnor is hiding something. And I intend to find out what that is.
Caleb grabs my arm, pulling my attention to him. “What the hell was that?”
“What was what?”
His expression looks a little hurt. “All those anti-Unseelie questions. Is that what you think of me?”
My heart sinks. I hadn’t thought about how my questions would affect him. I’d been too focused on trying to figure out what was going on. “It wasn’t personal,” I say, hoping he won’t take it that way. “I wanted to see what Lord Ralnor would say. How he would react.”
“Yeah? Well, how about this for a reaction?” With a glare, he walks out the door and slams it behind him.
Although his behavior seems a little melodramatic, I still feel the sticky weight of guilt for having hurt him to the point of acting that way. I knew as soon as I started suspecting it was an Unseelie making the Seelie students sick that I was going to step on a few toes. It hadn’t even crossed my mind I’d end up on Caleb’s bad side, though, or so quickly.
As I head for the door, Dannika opens it for me.
“You screwed that up,” she says as we step into the hall.
“Yeah, I guess I did,” I say, glancing back at her. “But maybe if he would give me a chance to explain—”
“I don’t know, Imogen. You know I love ya, but that was kind of rough.”
I grimace. She’s right. “It really had nothing to do with him. I don’t care if he’s Unseelie. But if an Unseelie is behind the illnesses, is like poisoning some of the students, then we need to get to the bottom of it, right?”
“I guess,” Dannika says as other students pile out of Professor Silvers’ room, hustling past us to their next destination. “But Erick wants us to focus on the attacks. If we find out the cause of the illness at the same time, that’s great. But it isn’t what we are supposed to be doing.”
“Why does Erick care so much anyway?” I shrug the weight of my bag to ease the strain already settling in my shoulders from the heavy book load. “And who made him boss of what we’re supposed to focus on? Shouldn’t the school administrators be the ones figuring all this out anyway?”
“Erick is the hall champion,” she says, starting down the hall. “That practically makes him a member of the faculty. He’s in charge of all the fire students. If a fire elemental is attacking other Fae, he is kind of responsible for that.”
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” I mutter.
“You do know your Shakespeare,” she says. “I’ll give you that much.”
I glance at the sea of students ahead of us. I have a long way to go. “Yeah, well, at least there’s something both worlds share.”
As we head to Elemental Application, neither of us say another word about what happened. Maybe Dannika can tell I feel bad enough as it is. Or maybe she notices I’m not paying attention to her. I’m too messed up internally, both from the guilt of hurting Caleb and from the inexplicable butterflies I get every time I know I’m about to see Erick again.
We drop our bags off in the locker room and change into our training clothes before heading out to class. When we reach the practice field, Erick’s waiting for us. He storms over, his glare pinned on me. Now I’m feeling nervous for an entirely different reason.
“What the hell happened in your last class?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
He crosses his arms. “Don’t play stupid. It doesn’t suit you.”
His glare hardens, and I feel sick. I’m not afraid of Erick, but I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to gain his approval in training; I know what his disproval feels like, and I don’t like it. Not when we’re training, and not now.
“Caleb said he’s taking a break from the group,” Erick continues. “That he needs some space. And he said you would know why.”
Ugh. Was this catching up with me already?
“It was just a misunderstanding,” I mumble.
“I can’t tell you who you can and can’t date,” he starts.
“Damn straight,” I say firmly, stopping him right there. That statement is enough to shoot me from defense to offense. Why would he even bring that up right now?
“But I can tell you that you need to keep your personal life in order,” he says. “You can’t go around fighting with Unseelie courtiers if you think they are behind the problems. How are you, or any of us, supposed to make any headway if they think we are out to get them? And if you are going to date Caleb, you better make sure your relationship problems don’t cause a problem for the group.”
Oh. I sigh. As much as I hate to admit it, Erick’s right. Caleb probably wouldn’t have been so hurt if he wasn’t into me. Whatever we had going on between us…fighting, or whatever—was hurting the group. And that was no good for our mission.
“Fine,” I admit reluctantly. “You’re right. I was too eager, I guess. But it’s not like an Unseelie noble does a Q&A in class every day. I had to take the opportunity. And this isn’t a relationship problem,” I add, because it’s true. There’s something between Caleb and me, but he’s not my boyfri
end. “Caleb and I are not together.”
“Whatever,” Erick says. He turns to join the rest of the class. “Just be more subtle in the future, got it?”
“Yeah, okay” I mutter as he trots off.
I’m more worried about how I upset Caleb than Lord Ralnor, but I’m sure gossip travels just as fast in the Fae world as the human one—maybe faster. It won’t be long before other Unseelie hear about how I went at Lord Ralnor and refuse to have anything to do with me.
“Okay, class,” Coach Thorne calls. “Everyone grab a practice sword and a partner. We are going to go through a few motions.”
“Hey…” Dannika nudges me. “Look over there.”
My body shifts toward the direction she’s indicating. Over by the practice swords, a few Unseelie students have gathered. They are talking low among themselves. I wonder if they’re talking about what happened in Professor Silvers’ class.
“You may be right about the Unseelie being behind something,” she says.
I’m not sure about that since it’s not uncommon for people of the same court to band together. But as I watch, I see a girl who isn’t in our class slip onto the field when Coach Thorne isn’t watching. She is dressed in gym clothes, as if she’s trying to blend in, but I know she’s not in this period. She’s a water elemental. I can tell because I can see little glimmer of water droplets around her. She must have used her powers recently.
She slips a piece of paper to a girl with curly blonde hair with streaks of orange, then walks back out the way she came.
I need to get that note. It could be our only clue.
“Well, better to get to practicing,” I say to Dannika in a hurry.
“Sure, do you want to—”
Running over, I grab a practice sword before she can finish her sentence. I don’t want to tell her no to sparring if that’s what she was going to ask, but I need to get closer to the girl with the note. I stand next to the blonde just as she’s slipping the piece of paper into her pocket.