by Mana Sol
She shook her head and dropped into her seat on the couch. “He had a boner,” she repeated. “And you couldn’t get out of a damn closet.”
“I did.”
“Yeah, after a nice party in his pants!” She slapped a hand over her forehead and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. We should take you to the infirmary then or something. Nurse is fae, so whatever they did to you, she better be able to reverse it.”
“I have to wait until it wears off. Human skin reacts to fae magic like this. They won’t have a remedy that’s worth it unless I’m okay going to class for three weeks rubbed raw and looking like a tomato. Which I’m not.”
“So you’re going to go looking like a graffiti board.”
“Leaving it alone will make it last all of three days at the most. It’ll fade on its own.”
“How do you even know this? How many times have you gotten tattooed with fae magic?”
“I haven’t. But I know a few people who were protesting the Arcane Institute integration some years back. They got the branding treatment.”
She made a face. “Fucking fae. Aren’t the professors going to do anything? Let’s go tell Olisanna.”
“I would, but then she would stop me from getting payback.” I examined my nails. “I’m not going to give her the chance to protect them. She doesn’t like us.”
“Easy fix. Genie, come on, let’s go set their dorms on fire.”
“Okay -”
“Sit down, both of you,” I said sharply. “All you’d be doing is giving them more excuses to get us kicked out.”
“Huh. Sounds like you want to stay.”
“I want to know what’s really going on. Also, who says we’ll have any peace after we fail out? They could easily make our lives miserable. And I came here so I could have a future and provide for my family. I don’t know about you two, but I’m not burning all my bridges over one incident.”
Genie pulled in her lips and glanced between us from the floor. “But we’re not going to just let them get away with it, are we?”
I sent her a pointed look. She’d been awfully quiet while Addy and I had been arguing about Zedekiel, but now that we were on the subject of the other students again, she was easing herself back in so easily. “Sometimes,” I said, “we have to let things slide. For now. It’s better to let them gloat and think they’ve won. Reacting without thinking is going to just make more trouble for us down the road.”
“Oh, big talk for someone who was plotting to suck someone into the closet and beat the hell out of them. Until the plan freaking failed.”
I glared at Addy. “I was in a position to -”
“Oh, get off it. You always act so hoity-toity but only after you’ve done everything you want to do first. You’re literally worse than the two of us combined. And Genie’s set someone on fire.”
I blinked hard. “You punched a Nephilim and fractured your finger!”
“And you had the idea to set the woods on fire this weekend!”
“Because I knew he wasn’t going to let it get that far -”
“Stop it!”
At Genie’s warning bark, we shut up simultaneously and sulked in our respective silences. It was still Addy’s fault for picking a fight, I told myself. I’d done nothing wrong. Maybe. Maybe a little, but she wasn’t the one who’d been sat on by half a dozen students who’d put their hands all over my body and taken away all my autonomy. I clenched my teeth and flexed the fingers of my left hand. The back of it was still tender from when one of their knees had dug into it so hard. What I wouldn’t give for five minutes alone with just one of them, any of them… But thinking like that was only admitting Addy was right. Which I refused to do.
“Are we gonna tell Olisanna?” Genie asked finally. “Or what are we gonna do?”
Addy wasn’t going to say anything, that much was clear. Pouting too much. I sighed and shrugged. “Do as you normally do. We might not have a choice since I’m assuming the faculty is going to ask what happened once these marks get dark enough to see. That or Olisanna is going to want to talk to us about this past weekend, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing for us. So just…wait, for now. We need to know where we stand before we rock the boat again.”
“I can still burn something if you want me to.”
“No. Genie, promise me you won’t.”
“I dunno. Was he feeling you up? That guy?”
I cringed. I’d thought she was talking about the fae posse, why did she have to turn the topic back to - “It wasn’t Zedekiel’s fault, so just let it go. I am.”
“You see that, Genie? She’s defending him.”
“I’m not -!”
“Blah, blah, blah.” Addy flapped her fingers against her thumb in a mocking gesture. “I should have known you weren’t over him. All that tough talk but as soon as you’re in a dark space with him, it’s ‘ooh, baby, please touch me there, ooh -’”
I was going to kill her. Friends, who? I shot up from my chair and stomped out of the common room, hard. If either of them wanted help with their homework, they could handle it themselves.
The argument was far from forgotten when we all rose early the next morning to get our breakfast from the dining hall, Genie as sleepy-faced as ever. But for what it was worth, we still ate together in the common room, no matter how sullen the silence. It would pass. It always did. I sighed and opened my mouth, ready to be the bigger person and break the frigid atmosphere, when an abrupt knock at the doors interrupted me. I looked up just as they opened, and Deputy Headmistress Olisanna stepped through, as stern-faced and stony as usual.
Ah. Here it was. I stood up from my chair, already prepared. Whatever punishment she gave, I would take full responsibility, and Zedekiel would no doubt have told her I was the main one to blame, anyway -
“Miss Genie Watts,” Olisanna announced. “Come with me, please.”
29
We waited as long as we could, but Genie never returned. I drummed the armrest of my chair while Addy paced back and forth, neither of us saying anything because we didn’t know what to think. Had Olisanna taken Genie because she blamed her for the incident with Zedekiel this weekend? A flurry of anger rippled through me like an ice shard slipping through still water. He’d better not have. He knew damn well I was to blame. If he was going to hold it against Genie because she had fire, if he was doing this to spite me… I didn’t know what I’d do. I scratched my nails against the armrest.
“We have to go,” I said. “They’ve probably just taken her to the infirmary again.”
“We should have gone with her. They’re doing something they’re not supposed to be doing.”
“Which is the reason she wouldn’t let us come with, probably,” I agreed. “But we can’t do anything now. We need to get to class, and they should be done with her before morning session is over. We’ll all meet up and see what’s going on during our lunch break.”
“They’ve never come to take her like this before.”
“I know.”
“We should just go over there.”
“And risk them taking Genie somewhere harder to get to?” I raised my eyebrows. “We don’t want to put them on guard. But…we should slip by the infirmary on the way just in case we catch sight of something.”
“Right.”
“But we’re not going to do anything stupid.”
She gave me a meaningful look. “You sure you shouldn’t be talking to yourself?”
“What I do is always controlled. I know the limits of what I can do and where I need to stop so I don’t hurt myself. You punched a Nephilim and cracked a bone in your hand.”
“Oh, my God. When are you going to let that go.”
“Never. Come on. Let’s head out.”
We took a coincidental detour that had us wandering down the hallway that intersected the one that led to the infirmary. With a quick exchange of looks, we skirted toward the door and stopped short just before walking past the threshold. Addy tried to lean
past me and peek around the doorway, but I quietly slapped her arm to warn her off. She was too conspicuous. Tall, blonde, and beautiful, not to mention terrible at the art of subtlety, she would draw eyes in an instant. I was the safer option. Besides, if Nurse Willat caught me peeking, I could blame it on my current ‘condition’ and say I’d come this way to see if she could do anything about the etchings on my skin.
But I had nothing to worry about. I looked in and found no one at all inside. The nurse’s office, then? I stepped through the doorway and craned my neck, then ducked backward in a swift movement. With my hand clamped around Addy’s arm - she had followed me in despite my silent warning not to - I dragged her back out into the hallway.
“What!” she hissed. “We didn’t get to see -”
“She’s not in there. Nurse is doing papers at her desk. Her door was wide open.”
“Then where’s Genie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, what the hell, we have to go find her!”
“Don’t be dumb.” I reached up and gave one of her locks an impatient tug. “We need to stay low so they keep their guard down. The more trouble we make, the more secretive they’ll be. Come on.” I pulled her along behind me before she could raise her voice and expose us. I was frustrated, too. But what were our options? Raise hell and demand to get our way? It wouldn’t work. We had too much to lose. Throwing down an ultimatum and refusing to cooperate unless they folded would only prove we were hopeless to begin with.
“See you later,” I said when we parted ways. “Both of you.”
“Yeah.”
My attempt at comforting her was futile, but that was fair. Nothing she said would have gotten rid of the ominous weight in my stomach, either. I didn’t even care about the etchings branded on my skin anymore, or the pink-swollen knot on my cheek from where it had banged into the floor too many times. They could giggle and stare all they wanted from their desks - I had more important things to worry about now.
Suddenly, all the simmering fury I’d felt yesterday seemed so small now. I’d plotted a dozen crafty ways to get my vengeance, first in small doses, then bigger ones, but I could hardly remember any of them as I walked into class, staring straight ahead just as Pompey prepared to take attendance.
“Ah, Miss Blair - oh.”
I took my seat, too wound up to care that she’d just seen the marks all over my face, hands, and legs. If I’d pulled up my skirt and taken off my blazer, she would have seen a lot more, but lucky for her, she was spared the sight. Some of those idiots at their desks, though, didn’t have to see them to know they were there. I could already guess which ones were personally responsible by the wide, razor-sharp smiles leering my way…but a single fleeting thought of Genie killed any desire to make a scene.
I sat down. Would Pompey do anything? She was looking at me, staring at the magic burned all over my skin, neither speaking nor moving. Would she ask what happened? Would she pull me outside and demand I tell her? If she were one of the other professors who were more obvious about their distaste for humans, I might have believed she would even find a way to blame me for coming to class this way. But Professor Pompey was one of the friendly ones, the welcoming and supportive ones… What would she do?
When her eyes darted to the row of students on the other side of the room, the ones gathered near Zedekiel, I saw a flash of surreptitious recognition in her eyes. She might not have proof of who’d done this to me, but the fae had always been more vindictive and territorial than the cool, sophisticated vampires who kept to themselves and only involved themselves with humans when they needed more blood.
Though - what did she think of Zedekiel? The only Nephilim in this class, constantly mobbed by adoring fae, the representative of the entire Form though it seemed the title was little more than a sparkling ornament…
“I’ll take roll now. Asyena? Excellent. Brimori -?”
I almost pursed my lips but stopped myself just in time. The others would be watching me closely; any reaction I let slip was a victory for them. And yet it was so hard to keep the bitterness from surging up when halfway through the class during our break, I realized Pompey was going to say and do - nothing. Nothing at all. She had avoided my eyes as she lectured and avoided me even still as she did something at her desk. Ah. So it was going to be like that. I wondered if Octavius would do the same thing if he saw me like this, pretend nothing was wrong.
Not that I cared. I’d already warned myself I had no friends here, no allies, except the girls. I shouldn’t be so disappointed. And yet I was. I could already tell that the rest of the morning would yield nothing fruitful, and I’d been the stupid one for even entertaining the possibility that anyone would intervene. Students. Professors. Didn’t matter. This was Jupiter Gate, and we were on our own. When Pompey dismissed us, I picked up my books and headed straight for the door, not even bothering to say goodbye to her. Just as well. She still wasn’t looking at me when I left.
I gave myself thirty seconds before they swarmed me once I was in the hallway. Maybe that was too generous. Twenty? Or perhaps they would yank on the back of my blazer the second they poured out the door behind me, not caring whether Pompey saw what they did. Why would they? She didn’t.
So I was ready for the hand that came down on my shoulder. I whirled around, hand reaching for a throat, any throat as long as it belonged to fae, too pissed for anything but violence while my other hand etched a combustive spell because why not -
But the hand that caught mine was stronger than I was, not weaker, and I stood staring into too-familiar blue eyes.
“Let’s not,” I said. “We don’t have any business with each other.”
“When did all of that happen?” Zedekiel ignored my ice-cold dismissal and nodded at my face. Or at everything, rather, as his gaze dropped to my legs then back up again. “Was it after we met?”
Met. What a pleasant word to substitute for the absolute disaster that had been our encounter yesterday. “No. It happened before. Why, did you want in on it? Miss your chance?”
“I’m not a child. I don’t draw on things that shouldn’t be drawn on.”
“Then why are you asking?”
“Because I needed to know.”
“Know what?”
“That it wasn’t after I told them to stay away from you.”
It was almost sweet…if it weren’t for the mistrustful flash in his eyes that I caught just then. I smiled. “You can warn them, but I’m still coming to collect for everything they’ve already done.”
“They’ll leave you alone. Don’t make any more trouble.” He drew close and spoke in a murmur now, and I knew why. The others had followed him out by now, and although they kept a respectful distance from their beloved paragon, they were lingering close enough that they could catch what we said if we didn’t watch our volume. And poor Zedekiel - he wouldn’t want any of them to know he was wary of me. Me, Blair Kaine, downtrodden charity case. I would have laughed if not for the sharp-sweet scent that rose from him when he came close. I discreetly held my breath, not wanting to step back and lose face. I couldn’t show how his aura affected me. Couldn’t show that despite my casual facade, I was still thinking about the way he’d pressed against me in the darkness and how warm he’d been. Because he might be the reason something happened to Genie - and maybe, so was I. I’d never forgive either of us.
“Forget your friends,” I said. “What did you tell Olisanna about Saturday?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“They took Genie but left me alone. What, did you tell them she was unstable? Where are they keeping her?”
Instead of answering me, he turned his gaze on the growing gaggle of eavesdroppers pretending to examine their notes in the middle of the hallway as close to us as they dared. Really? He was trying to keep this a secret?
“Whatever you said to Olisanna, you didn’t tell your friends what actually happened, I’m sure,” I said, and his eyes slid back to m
e when I raised my voice the slightest bit. Not enough for the others to hear but treading dangerous ground. “What did you tell them, then? You still have a little blue under your eye. You have to have come up with some crazy story for that -”
“We’ll talk later,” he said shortly. “I don’t know about your friend, but don’t try to start something here.”
“Did you tell them you let us get in one lucky hit, and then you gave it back to us ten times worse? You felt sorry for us, so you let Addy leave that bruise on you? I want to know. I want to know what you told everyone.”
“Blair -”
“Whatever you told them, or didn’t tell them, it had a lot to do with them suddenly being brave enough to come and get a piece of me yesterday. That’s your fault. I’m not expecting you to feel sorry for me. I’m saying that whatever happens, you’re responsible for at least some of it. Including whatever’s happening to Genie now.”
“Later,” he said again, more forcefully. His voice was still low, a murmur of a breath fluttering against my face. “I won’t tell you again. Don’t cause a scene.”
“All right. I need to get to class anyway.” I angled my head away and closed my eyes. “You can punch me if you want on the way out. Give them a show. Big, tough Nephilim who would never lose to a human. Seriously, I’m dying to know what they think happened on Saturday.”
“I’m not going to hit you.”
“The easier you go on me, the nastier they are instead.” I smiled. “If you don’t want more scenes like this” - I gestured subtly at my face, at the markings marring it - “you could put in a little effort. One punch. Come on. I can take it.”
“I said I’m not hitting you.”
“Then stop putting your hands on me, period.” I held his stare as I brushed off my shoulder where he’d grabbed me only moments ago, and I knew he saw, too, a glimpse of the silvery handprint that peeked out of my blazer’s sleeve. “We’ll talk later if you know something about Genie, but I’ll get out of your way for now. Your friends look concerned.”