by Sophia Shade
I’m once again feeling like I’m missing something. “Wouldn’t her last name be Oshae?”
“Because she Nurse Oshae’s daughter?” Dannika asks. “That assumes Nurse Oshae is Fae. Oshae isn’t a Fae name either. She’s a not a Fae; she’s a druid healer. That’s how Myra ended with Flareburn. Well, at first.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I didn’t know I could change that name, or that I should! I had no idea Flareburn was some kind of…what? Bastard label?”
“Hey! Calm down,” Dannika says, rubbing my arm. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me!” I say. “My whole life was a lie. I thought I was on the way to finding out who I was when I learned my dad was Fae and I came here. And now I learn that the new identity I thought I was forming is a lie, too? What. The. F—”
Fire shoots out of my hands, setting the tree in front of me ablaze. I don’t care. I want it to burn. I want this whole place to burn.
“Imogen!” Dannika says, but the name comes out like an echo. Her own right beside me, and another voice—male—in the distance.
I turn around, and see Erick running toward the tree I set on fire. He waves his arms, absorbing some of the heat so it doesn’t get out of control.
“What happened?” he asks, looking at me with wide eyes.
“Nothing,” Dannika says. “Imogen just learned something distressing, something I thought she knew, and it freaked her out. It was my fault. I should have been more tactful.”
“No,” I say. “Don’t take any of this on yourself. At least someone finally told me.” I’m still so mad. I raise my hands, intent on destroying another tree.
“Hey now.” Erick takes my wrists in his hands, and gently lowers them. Immediately, I feel cooler, calmer, like he’s sucking the heat—and the pain—right out me. “It will be okay. Whatever it is, we can work through it.”
I feel much calmer now. No longer full of rage, but still upset by what I’ve learned.
“Yeah,” I say. “Everything is just peachy keen.”
Dannika whirls toward Erick. “What are you doing here? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you showed up when you did, but…”
“I heard that Myra was missing. I came to help search.”
“Have they found her yet?” I ask.
“Yeah, just a few minutes ago,” he says. “I guess you didn’t hear the all clear.”
“I was a little distracted,” I say. “So now what?”
“Now we head back before they send out a search team for you two,” he says.
Dannika grins. “There’s also going to be a bonfire and drinks. Let’s go join them. We need a little fun.”
I shake my head. “I don’t really feel like partying. I’m kind of drained after my little outburst. I think I just want to go back to the room.”
“Need someone to go with you?” Erick asks, settling his hand on my arm again. It feels nice, but then I remember Caleb and shrug him off.
“No, I know the way back.” I turn to Dannika. “Can you tell Ella, Driftblossom, and Caleb that I turned in early?”
“As long as you are sure you don’t need someone to go with you?” she asks.
“I’m fine, really. I just want to lay down.”
They seem hesitant to leave me, so I turn and head back to the school before they can ask me any more questions.
What a fine mess this turned out to be. I don’t know why I’m so upset. I don’t know anything about my dad. I haven’t bothered trying to look for him. I guess I just wasn’t ready, but since I knew his name, I figured he would be there when I decided to look for him. Now, I’ll never find him. I wonder if there is some sort of Fae DNA test I could take to track him down.
As I enter the school, a woman’s voice echoes from down the hall. “This is terrible!”
“Shh! We can’t let the students find out,” another woman says. “They’ll be terrified.”
The words ‘terrible’ and ‘terrified’ grab my attention. I can hear whoever is speaking coming my way, so I duck behind a tapestry hanging on the wall and hope they don’t see me.
“I think we should tell them,” Professor Silvers says. “They have noticed that many of their classmates are sick. It could alleviate their fears.”
“Until they find out what is happening to them,” the other woman replies. It’s Nurse Oshae. “Then they will be horrified!”
“What exactly is happening?” a third voice asks. I immediately recognize it as Headmistress Shadowburn.
“They are returning to the earth,” Nurse Oshae says. “They are sprouting mushrooms, their limbs turning wooden, their hair changing to moss.”
“Is it fatal?” Lady Shadowburn asks.
“It will be,” Nurse Oshae says. “If we don’t find out the cause and a cure, they will simply…become earth.”
I slap my hand over my mouth before a gasp can escape. I can’t believe it. The sick students are dying!
The teachers all stop speaking. I freeze and hold my breath. Did they hear me? Or are they just as shocked as I am by what Nurse Oshae just said?
“What do you think we should do?” Professor Silvers finally asks the others.
“I need to keep doing research,” Nurse Oshae says. “I need to find out how to save the students.”
“We need to tell the others,” Miss Silvers says. “The students need to protect themselves.”
“That will cause a panic,” Nurse Oshae insists. “We absolutely cannot do that.”
“That’s enough,” Lady Shadowburn hisses. “For now, we keep this to ourselves. But I want to know every development. Every cough, every cold, and every remedy you try.”
“Yes, Headmistress,” they both say.
All of them turn down the next hall, and I am once again alone. I wait a few moments to make sure they don’t come back before I sneak out of my hiding spot and head for my room.
The illness is much worse than I thought. I had no idea it was deadly. This is serious. I need to tell Erick. He needs to know immediately this is more important than the attacks on Ohdows. At least no one died in the attacks. I still have no idea if the two things are related, but I was right to worry more about the illness.
But what about the others? Should I tell Dannika, or Ella, or Caleb? Everyone? No one? Is Nurse Oshae right? Will everyone panic?
Erick’s going to want more than an overheard conversation, though. What’s the connection between Ohdows Hall and the sick students?
I freeze as realization slams into me. The original attacks were on Ohdows Hall—the hall for the earth students.
And where did Nurse Oshae say the sick students were returning to?
Earth.
Erick wanted a connection, and now, I’m going to give it to him.
Fourteen
The next day, I meet up with Ella in the library. I’ve decided it’s probably best if I speak to her first, before going to Erick. In the past, he’s been dismissive of my ideas, and I want to have at least one person on my side before I tell him. He might blow Dannika off as just supporting me because we’re roomies, but Ella is a full earth elemental and she lives in Ohdows Hall. If Erick is going to listen to anyone, it’s her.
The problem is first I need to convince Ella.
“What are you saying?” she asks after I tell her what I heard. “That the other students are going to die? How can you be sure?”
“Shh! Keep it down.” I put my hands up and then slowly lower them, signaling for her to bring it down a few notches. I look peek through a gap of books on the shelves to check if anyone is paying attention to us. “I don’t want everyone to know. If Lady Shadowburn finds out I was eavesdropping…”
“Then you might find out why her name is Shadowburn,” Ella jokes.
We dip out of that row of books, and climb the stairs to one of the upper levels.
“Should I be worried?” I ask. “Is she a hard ass?”
“I don’t think so,” Ella says as we slip into another row o
f books. “I don’t really know her. She is usually busy with court issues. But I don’t think she puts up with much.”
“She seems to command respect.”
“That’s a good way to explain her.” Ella runs her fingers along a row of book spines, but doesn’t look at any of them. Her attention is focused solely on me. “So why are you telling me all this? What can I do?”
“I don’t know exactly, other than get Erick on board,” I admit, shrugging one of my shoulders. “But you’re an earth Fae, and you said your mom is a botanist. Can you think of anything we could use as a cure? That’s what Nurse Oshae said they needed. I feel like finding a cure takes precedence over figuring out who’s doing this.”
“I’m only a first-year student like you,” Ella says. “I doubt I know anything that Nurse Oshae doesn’t.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask. “She’s a nurse. Your mom is a botanist. I’d think that would be more helpful to something like this.”
“Well, first of all,” Ella says, “we still don’t know what ‘this’ is. And second, Nurse Oshae is a druid healer.”
“So?”
“So she calls on the magic of the earth. Like energies for healing and other spells and benefits. Healing people is literally her specialty. If she can’t figure this out, I’m not sure anyone can.”
“I don’t accept that,” I say, picking up another book from the library shelf. I flip through the pages, then stick it back between the others when I don’t see anything that can help. “The type of healing you do is different, right? If Nurse Oshae’s magic isn’t the right kind of healing magic, maybe yours is.”
“What I do is different,” Ella admits. “I use magic, but I also work with herbs to create different kinds of potions and tinctures. But Nurse Oshae would have access to that and to other Fae like me.”
“Unless she’s not telling other Fae like you. Remember, they’re trying to keep this a secret.”
Ella follows me around as I burn through book after book looking for answers, but she seems more resistant than I expected. I thought Ella was going to be the easy one to win over. Now I’m wondering if I should have just gone straight to Erick after all.
“You’re going to figure it out,” Ella says as I shove another book back into its place. “You’re on the right track.”
I whirl toward her. “How do you know? Maybe I’m on the completed wrong track? It’s all so complicated!”
“It’s all interconnected,” she says with a smile. “We’ll get it sorted out.”
“We?” I ask, feeling my first twinge of hope that’s she’s actually going to help me.
“We,” she repeats. “But first things first, you really need to brush up on your research skills. You’re looking in the completely wrong section.”
“I am?”
Ella takes the most recent book from my hands, putting it back on the shelf, then takes me by the arm and leads me out of the main area.
“If we’re looking for books about earth hexes or anti-curses, we need to go this way,” she says.
She leads me to the fourth floor and toward the back. There’s a sign that says ‘No Students Allowed’.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to go back here,” I whisper, looking around to see if anyone is watching us. “What if someone sees?”
Ella waves me off. “We’ll just tell them we’re looking for something for extra credit.”
“And that makes ignoring the sign back there okay?”
As if I hadn’t said anything at all, Ella forges forward, weaving into rows of books that stretch out endlessly in either direction. We’re already here, so I might as well make the most of it until we get caught.
The leather binding on these books are more worn than the ones downstairs, so I figure they might have older information—and maybe that’s exactly what we need.
I look over a few of the titles, but many of them I can’t read, and the ones I can don’t make much sense.
“This might be harder that I thought,” I say, turning one of the books over in my hands. I sneeze, wiping some dust off that hasn’t been disturbed in years.
Ella shrugs. “You got this far,” she says as she picks up a book and opens it.
“What do you mean?”
“No one else was interested in following up on the sick students. Everyone told you to forget it.”
“Only one person was telling me to forget it,” I say. “Erick.”
“Well, he can be a bossypants,” she says. She turns toward me, placing both of her hands on one hip as she juts it to the side. “He thinks he knows what is right and expects everyone else to just fall in line.”
“You seem to know him pretty well,” I say.
“I guess.” She drops her hands back at her sides. “Our families are friends, so we kind of grew up together.”
Maybe Ella and Erick had a history together, once upon a time. That’s none of my business, though. Besides, I have feelings for Caleb. I’m only interested in the situation with Erick because of how it affects this mission to save the school.
“Is there…you know, a personal history there?” I ask, trying to joke, setting down another book. But suddenly, I realize I’m really wondering.
“Yuck,” she says. “Kissing Erick would be like kissing my brother. Besides, he’s an ass. There’s no denying that, no matter how well you get to know him.”
“I don’t know,” I say, feeling the sudden and inexplicable urge to defend him. “We’ve been talking a lot, while he’s been tutoring me. There’s…more, I think, than meets the eye.”
“Like what?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.
“Like…well, let’s just say he really loves his family.”
“You think so?” Ella asks. “After his mom ran out on them, their relationship never recovered. She’s incredibly selfish, even after his dad took her back.”
“Well, maybe not his mom.”
“Then who?” she asks.
I sigh, since I’ve kind of backed myself into a corner. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s my place to say.”
“You two have gotten awfully close if he is telling you secrets you think even I don’t know.”
Damn it. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. Now I feel like I have to choose between hurting Ella’s feelings or risking Erick’s faith in me.
“I just wouldn’t want to break his trust,” I say finally, hoping that will be enough for her.
“Sure, I get that,” she says. Her green eyes are glimmering with an emotion I can’t quite pinpoint, but the whole conversation has unease filling my stomach. “I’m just surprised. I thought things were going well with you and Caleb.”
“Oh, things are going great with Caleb,” I say quickly. The last thing I need is some rumor going around that I’m getting buddy buddy with my tutor while I’m pursuing a relationship with an Unseelie prince. “The other night, at the faèdahunt, things got really interesting.”
“Oh?” she asks, cocking an eyebrow. “Interesting how?”
“Hey, I’m not one to kiss and tell,” I say, followed by an idiotic giggle I am powerless to suppress.
Letting that out of the bag makes me feel better. Maybe sharing this with Ella will make her feel like I’m not completely shutting her out, and then she won’t be so upset I didn’t tell her what I know about Erick.
“Oh my gosh!” Ella’s mossy green eyes grow wide. “No way.”
“Yes way,” I say. “And it was really good!”
“That’s great,” she says. “I’m so happy for you! Are you a couple now?”
“I have no idea.” I leave off the part that he might have only done it to capture my flag. I mean, it’s true he kissed me and that it was a good kiss. But I don’t know if it meant something one way or another to reveal otherwise. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him since then.”
“So, what does this mean with you and Erick?” she asks, taking a book off the shelf without really looking at it. “I
mean, if things are going well with Caleb?”
“Nothing is going on with Erick,” I stress. “We’re just friends. Nothing more. That’s all it was ever going to be.”
“Hmm,” she says, turning away. She pretends to look at the book in her hands, but I can tell she’s not reading it. It’s upside down.
“What does that mean?” I ask suspiciously, taking it from her.
Her gaze flickers to mine. “Nothing,” she says. “I’m sure you’re right.”
“What?” I ask. “What aren’t you saying?”
She glances around, as if looking to see if anyone is coming, and I get the sense that maybe she was hoping we’d be interrupted. When that doesn’t turn out to be the case, she returns her gaze to mine.
“Well, when you were talking about Erick, you should have seen your face,” she explains almost timidly. “You were so…happy. Excited even.”
“More than when I talk about Caleb?” I ask, not sure I want to know.
“I don’t know,” she says, shrugging. “I’m sure I’m just reading into something that isn’t actually there. Just…be careful. You know what they say about playing with fire.”
I want to tell her that she’s definitely wrong. That she is misreading things. But for whatever reason, I don’t. I just hand the book back and start picking through the stacks, trying to bury my thoughts about Caleb and Erick with my concerns about the students at Callador.
It doesn’t work, though. And when a professor I don’t recognize walks up the stairs to this floor, and Ella and I have to duck into a storage closet to keep from being caught, I’m stuck with nothing to distract me from my thoughts.
I’m sitting huddled with Ella between a broom and a stack of boxes. We’re both holding our breath until the professor leaves, trying not to make a sound. Suddenly, there in the darkness, I’m overwhelmed by my thoughts, feeling almost defensive, even with myself.
There is nothing going on between Erick and me. Erick is just becoming a friend. What’s so wrong about that? Caleb is great. He’s considerate, unlike Erick. He’s funny, unlike Erick. He likes me, unlike Erick.