by S. W. Clarke
“Normal human beings don’t hold lessons at six in the morning,” I went on. “For us night owls, it’s totally abnormal. Unconscionable. Cruel and inhumane.”
His eyes darted around the empty library. “Can you really tell?” he whispered.
I had just been joking. I was about to tease him about how he wore his uniform, but this was real concern on his face. He was sincerely worried.
My eyes dropped to the red birthmark on the side of his neck. It had reddened as his blood pressure had risen.
He noticed me looking at it; one hand went up to cover his neck, the elbow resting on the table in what I quickly understood was his best attempt at looking casual when he wanted to cover the birthmark.
“Aiden,” I said.
“What?”
I could have pointed out his obviousness. I could have pried. I wanted to do both of those things, but something stopped me.
Maybe because both of those things would have been mean.
Maybe because I knew he had agreed to tutor me when many others wouldn’t have.
He was one of the few people who didn’t seem to care that I was a witch.
So I said, “I was just joking.”
His eyes flitted up to mine, and he relaxed a bit. His hand slid down to the table. “I knew that.”
I nodded once. “But don’t call me pupil. I was serious about that.”
“Fair enough.” He grabbed one of the books off the pile, opening it up. “How about we get started? We’ll begin with a brief overview of ancient history.”
I reached into my bag and pulled out my notebook and pen Eva had given me. When I opened it up and set pen to page, Aiden regarded my studiousness with impressed eyes overtop his book.
“What?” I said, glancing up.
“Nothing.” He returned to the reading. “Here’s what you need to know: we don’t know when the first fae-human encounter occurred, but it was around the time human civilization began—somewhere in the realm of 4000 B.C.E.”
I glanced up from my writing. “Why don’t we know?”
“All the records are vague before the Battle of the Ages. Most were destroyed in a conflagration during the war.”
The Battle of the Ages had only taken place five hundred years ago. “So mage history really only extends as far back as the 1500s?”
He gave a slow, sad nod. “More or less.”
I tapped the book written in Old Faerish. “So what’s this, then?”
He winced as I tapped. “That’s a five-hundred-year-old book I got from the Room of the Ancients. Be gentle with it.”
My hand fell away. In my country, our oldest documents were half this age, and kept under glass. “You said the first fae-human encounter happened six thousand years ago. What does that mean?”
Aiden smiled, back in his element. “From what the fae have told us, that was when the portal between their realm and ours first opened. It remained so for the next several thousand years, until the Battle of the Ages. And it was because of the fae that we mages came about.”
“Because they taught us to use magic?” I asked.
“‘Taught’ isn’t really the word,” Aiden began. “It’s more like—”
“You stole it,” a low voice cut in. “From us.”
Across the room, Liara the fae sat with steely black eyes, staring at me. Another fae sat with her, the two of them like straight-backed beauty queens, their hair falling almost to their waists.
I hadn’t even noticed them enter, but there they were, killing me softly with their eyes.
“That’s not clear,” Aiden said, doing his best to keep the peace. “It’s unknown how humans developed magic, except that it only emerged when the fae arrived.”
Liara’s eyes didn’t leave me. “Surely you’ve studied human history, witch.”
I shrugged. “What’s your point?”
“You know, then—your kind takes what it covets. You ravage the world for your selfishness. No life is sacred, not even a fellow human’s.”
Well, we actually agreed on that point. Human beings were historically a ruthless race.
“But you only have eyes for me, Liara,” I said, nodding at Aiden. “Because I’m a witch, right?”
Her black eyes narrowed. “If humanity is a scourge, witches are the delicate instrument of death in its hand. The world was better when you were swept from its surface.”
I pointed my pen at my missing eyebrows. “Hey, you burned my eyebrows off. Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough?”
The fae with Liara snickered, but Liara managed to keep her death glare strong. “I would do more than that,” she said. “And I will when you turn, witch.”
She’d said when I turned.
Not if—when.
Aiden decided to end our first history lesson early. As we left the library, I felt Liara’s eyes on me, scrutinizing my back.
Outside, he and I walked slowly along the path in the still-early morning.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said.
I waved a hand. “Don’t be. That’s her problem, not mine.”
Well, and everyone else who hates witches. Which was a lot of people here, as it turned out.
He eyed me, sensing I wasn’t being entirely truthful. “Are you sure you’re fine?”
I kept my face straight ahead. “Hey, is that Eva?”
Coming toward us down the path was none other than one lavender-winged fae. When she spotted us, her wings fluttered, and she leapt like a cat, coming to a graceful landing directly in front of us. “Why hello.”
“Done with your morning meditation?” I asked.
She gave a peaceful smile. “Quite.” As she gazed at me, a shadow crossed her face. “What is it?”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“There’s something wrong.”
I’d always had a good poker face—I had made sure of it early on. Not to mention I was trying extra hard not to let anything Liara had said bother me.
“Liara harassed her in the library,” Aiden said before I could come up with a good deflection.
I shot Aiden a look, and he raised his palms in a peacemaking gesture.
Eva glanced between us, her eyes narrowing. “She didn’t.”
Aiden sighed. “You know how the Youngbloods speak their minds.”
“Guys, it didn’t bother me,” I said with emphasis. “Really.”
Aiden’s eyes shifted to me. “Eva’s very good at reading body language. An expert, really. It might even be subconscious on your part, but she’ll catch it.”
Eva came to my side, sliding her arm through the crook of mine as she had done yesterday at breakfast. “Where are you two headed?”
“Dining hall,” Aiden said. “We cut our history lesson short.”
“Nope,” she said, turning me around. “We’re going to one of my favorite places.”
Aiden turned with us as Eva started me walking. “This isn’t a good idea, Eva. We’re supposed to get permission.”
We weren’t asking permission to do something? This was a side of Eva I liked.
I relished the thought of getting away from all the glares and whispered words, and I especially liked the note of confident mystery in Eva’s voice. “Where are we going?”
“The best place in the world,” Eva said to me. She glanced past me to Aiden. “She hasn’t had a proper welcome yet. I’m going to give her one.”
“It’s dangerous,” Aiden said in a low voice.
“It’s seven in the morning.” Eva set a finger to her chin. “And eight where we’re going. Broad daylight, and the witching hour is still nineteen hours off.”
“She’ll leave a trace,” Aiden said. “She’s not trained like us.”
A trace.
I sensed what Aiden meant—my presence out in the world would leave behind a trace of myself, just like I had done when I’d lost my pendant that night in DC. It was what had allowed them to find me.
I reached into my shirt, pulled the chain out and
allowed the pendant to dangle. “Not if I’m wearing this.”
As the moonstone turned a slow circle, Eva and Aiden both stopped and stared.
“Where did you get that?” he whispered.
The fae’s eyes were wide enough to show the sclera at top and bottom. “Oh, what a beauty. I never thought I’d see one in person.”
“So you know what this is,” I said to the two of them. “And you know what it does.”
“But where did you get it?” Aiden repeated.
“My mother.” I slipped the pendant back into my shirt.
Aiden and Eva stared at one another, though I couldn’t make out what they were thinking.
I stepped ahead, turning around and walking backward. “So let’s go to this favorite place.”
Eva nodded, fluttering to catch up with me. Aiden stayed where he was.
“You coming?” I said back to him.
He shook his head, unmoving. And then he half-turned, but angled back toward us. “Gods, you’re going to need me if there’s any trouble.” He started after us. “One hour. That’s all.”
Eva grinned. “One hour.”
We headed down the path leading into the forest I had entered the grounds by, the way Aiden had brought me two days ago.
Had it really only been two days ago?
“Hey!” a voice called from behind us.
Loki.
I stopped and turned as he came bounding up.
“Thought you were going somewhere without me?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes, as was our way. But I was secretly glad he’d come chasing after me. “Absolutely not. I knew you would come.”
He trotted alongside me. “You did not. You forgot about me.”
Eva reached down to stroke him as we walked. “You’re welcome to come along, Loki.”
“He’s already invited himself,” I told her. “And anyway, you can’t stop this cat when he’s determined. He’ll find a way.”
As we passed deeper into the woods, I found the chill not nearly as bad as when I’d come. Now I wore heavy shoes and wool socks, a thick skirt and jacket keeping me warm. I realized that these were our winter uniforms, designed specifically for this purpose.
Once we’d walked some twenty minutes, Eva brought us to a halt in an unremarkable spot in the forest. “Would you like to do it, or should I?” she said to Aiden.
“You have more experience,” Aiden said.
As they talked, I surveyed the area. This looked…familiar.
“This is where we landed,” Loki said up to me. “Well, I landed. You splatted.”
I smirked down at him. “Your memory’s going. I was way more graceful than that.”
A soft cutting sound ended any further conversation. When I looked up, Eva’s flat hand had sliced through the air, creating a vertical, knifelike incision three feet tall in the space before her. She knelt in the leaves, the air shimmering where it had been sliced.
She glanced back at me. “Let’s go.”
And without another word, she pressed the air aside like a curtain, which gave me a glimpse of a sprawling city, and snuck through.
Chapter Seventeen
Aiden stood by. “All right, Clem, now just crawl—”
Before he could finish, I’d picked up Loki, ducked low, and made my way through the curtain the way Eva had done.
When I straightened, I stood at the end of a beautiful, empty road in the middle of a European city, shops lining the street on left and right. Above us, the sky was as empty of clouds as as a clear blue marble.
Far off, pedestrians walked up and down the street. None seemed to have noticed me step out from thin air.
Before me, Eva stood with clasped hands and a huge grin. “Welcome to my home.”
“My gods,” Loki said. “It’s Vienna. I haven’t been here in ages.”
I stared down at the cat in my arms. “You’ve been to Europe?”
Aiden appeared beside me. “Well, Clem got the hang of it real quick.”
I set a wriggling Loki down, and he struck immediately for a shop window to peer inside at a window full of pastries. “So you two can do this any time you like,” I said to Aiden and Eva. “Just travel anywhere you want with leylines.”
“How’d you know it was a leyline?” Aiden said.
“I pay attention when people talk,” I said offhandedly, now staring at Eva’s wings—or lack thereof. “Hey, fae, where’d your fluttery bits go?”
Eva glanced over one shoulder. “Oh, I’ve hidden them.”
“Do you just fold them up and stick them in your pocket?”
She chuckled. “No, they’re just invisible. It’s part of keeping our worlds separate, you know.”
“From regular humans.” I pointed at my chest. “Like I used to be until two days ago.”
She gave a single, approving nod. “Yes, like you used to be.” When she came to my side, she pointed me toward the window Loki stood before. “Your familiar has good taste. That’s where we’re going.”
“Can Loki come inside?”
Eva gestured to my satchel. “If he rides inside. The Viennese are fine with such things if you show some propriety.”
I knelt next to Loki on the sidewalk, unclipping my satchel. “Want a ride? You can sit on my lap, and I might share food with you if you purr loud enough.”
To my surprise, he climbed in without any snark. When I lifted him, he said, “I want the cream one. You know which I mean.”
And, with one glance in the window, I did. It looked like a bready clamshell, and inside was an enormous puff of delicate cream.
The three of us came into the coffee house to the low hum of voices speaking in German. A waiter crossed by with a tray of coffee and basket of breads, and the whole place had the soft, low-key feel of what I’d always imagined a European coffee house to be: people seated alone with their newspapers and their coffees; two older women having breakfast together; a couple gazing out the window from opposite one another.
We seated ourselves at a far booth in the corner, from which we could overlook the street.
“What will you have?” Eva asked me, standing before the table. “It’s my treat.”
Aiden wanted an espresso, and I got a latte and the cream puff for Loki, who sat purring in my lap, wholly in the sun through the window.
When the waiter brought our drinks and treats and a small tray of bread, I just shook my head, watching him go. “Nobody noticed us appear in the middle of the street.”
“It’s the leyline,” Eva said after a sip of her cappuccino. “They can’t look straight at it.”
I shot her a look to indicate I didn’t entirely follow.
“Think of it this way,” Aiden said. “Even if they were looking straight on at the spot we stepped through, they wouldn’t be able to look at the leyline. It would be like looking at the sun, and they would squint or look elsewhere.”
“What we mean to say,” Eva added, “is that a regular human’s eyes can’t stare at a line of condensed magic.”
I gestured through the window. “But there was no magic when we stepped through the veil. We were in the forest, and then we were here.”
Eva and Aiden met eyes.
Beside me, Aiden set his fingers on my shoulder. “You can’t see the magic properly yet. You will, once you harness your power.”
Eva lightly clapped her hands. “Anyway, the point of this isn’t to overwhelm you, Clementine. It’s to welcome you. This is my favorite place in the whole world.”
I picked up the cream puff, passing it to Loki, who began licking the cream away from the inside out. “You grew up in Vienna?”
If she had told me, I had forgotten. It was hard to imagine a fae living in a regular human place.
She nodded, eyes bright; she clearly loved this city. “My family still lives here. Would you like to come stay with us over winter recess?”
“Winter recess? I—” I was about to give an excuse about winter recess being so far off,
but then I realized: it was the end of November. And I couldn’t very well return to my old apartment.
With a start, I realized anew that this was my life now.
I wasn’t going back to the old Clementine.
My life in DC was done.
“That would be nice,” I said idly, a strange mixture of sadness and uncertainty brewing in me. I forced myself to meet Eva’s eyes. “I would like that.”
I didn’t know if that was true, but I did know one thing: if I had any potential friends in this place, they were seated around me.
Her smile widened. “I’ll tell my family. Oh, they’ll be so pleased to see a witch.”
“They will?” I asked, taking a sip of latte. This coffee was amazing—better than amazing, even. It was downright smooth.
“Yes. Long ago, a witch oversaw my birth.” Eva broke off a piece of strudel. “Oh, you’ll surely be placed into Whisper. Won’t she, Aiden?”
Aiden didn’t seem to mind listening. He’d been doing so while drinking his espresso. Now he set his cup down. “I don’t know about that. Something tells me she’ll be in Spark.” A small, competitive smirk touched his lips.
“No way.” Eva shook her head. “She’s a witch, Aiden. The boggan will see it clear as day—witches favor air magic.”
Aiden’s expression told me a thought had crossed his mind he wasn’t voicing. A small silence fell over the table, and I broke it.
“What’s the boggan?” I said.
“Oh,” Eva said with wide, unconcerned eyes. “It’s the monster you must battle to determine which house you belong to.”
I stared at her over the rim of my latte. When I lowered it, her gaze had already fixed on a couple in the corner.
“Aren’t they adorable?” Eva chirped. “I love limerence.”
I turned to Aiden. “Tell me I misheard. She just said I have to fight a monster.”
He shrugged, clasping his espresso with both hands. “You didn’t. And you do.”
I stretched out my shoulders as though warming up. “And you two fought it?”
Aiden gave a nod. “Everyone does. It’s not terrible, Clem—it’s just a way of determining what element you’ll reach for in a tight spot.”
“Water, air, earth, or fire, right?”