I stared at him, begging, pleading with my eyes. Please, no. Don’t leave me with her. Do. Not. Go. Not yet. Pretty please?
He narrowed his eyes at Sabine and sighed. “We were going to—”
“Good”—she pushed at his shoulder—“Lord.” Another gentler push coupled with a sassy smirk. “You can breathe without each other for a change. Je—sus. No one likes a clingy couple.”
Damn it, she wouldn’t even let him finish what was probably a lie to save me. Couple. Would he deny that label? I watched him instead of facing her. And clingy? I turned to her. You and Leo are experimenting with human adhesion!
“Says the girl who’s got her tongue down some senior’s throat every minute of the day?” Flynn countered. Yet he released my hand. I fisted it shut.
“Don’t worry about me.” She slid her arm around mine, locking me in a link. I stumbled back and resisted her pull. “I’ll borrow her.” Another attempt to tug me closer. “For.” Once more, plus a grunt at her effort. “A minute.” This time when she wrangled me to step away from Flynn, I yanked my arm from her grip and she shot back to fall on her butt.
“Another time, Sabine.” I quirked a brow at her sitting on the sidewalk. Her ruby-glossed lips set in a firm line and her nostrils flared.
“Now, Layla.” She rushed to her feet and wiped at the back of her hiked-up, short skirt.
“I don’t answer to you—”
“Please!” She stamped her foot to the pavement. Like a damn child. Another tantrum when it looked like she couldn’t get her way. Only…that wasn’t the only juvenile feature about her at the moment. Her eyes held fear. Uncertainty. As though I might help her with her troubles.
I ground my teeth and tried to resist. I had to refuse. My sympathy for her would only be proof that she was an expert at manipulating people. She didn’t need me. Or my help with anything. She didn’t deserve a second of my time, especially when she demanded like this. All she wanted were answers to satisfy her own agenda—whatever that was now. Gossip, most likely, because I was the source of…well, the excitement of the day.
“Please.” She repeated it again. Softer. Like it might have killed a little bit of her cold, dark soul to be nice.
“Fine.” I turned to Flynn and sighed. “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”
He’d already started backpedaling toward the Green House when I’d agreed. A simple wave and an easy smile were his parting gestures.
Before silence could take root, Sabine snorted. “So, has he kissed you yet?”
Heat blazed across my face as my jaw dropped. I spun to face her, sputtering sounds that I wanted to be fiery words.
She rolled her eyes, dug into her messenger bag, and pulled something out. Then she slapped it in my hand.
I shut my mouth and frowned at whatever she’d given me—
“Con—” I resumed the guppy-out-of-water act. My stammers even choked me, or maybe it was the furious blush I couldn’t hope to control.
“Con—doms,” she enunciated like a teacher. “You do know how to use them, right?” Her smug smirk would have annoyed me if I wasn’t so shocked.
“I’m only sixteen!” As are you— “He’s— We’re—” I shoved the strip of packages back at her. “We’re not kiss— We’re not doing it!”
She shoved them back at me. “Yet.”
I managed to keep my lips shut instead of gaping at her this time. “We’re not… He’s just my friend.” Another refusal of the condoms.
“And friends can turn into more,” she insisted. She took the strip, and instead of handing them to me, she reached for my bag and thrusted them inside.
I shook my head, bewildered. Did she really just want to talk girl stuff with me here? Maybe she was actually concerned about her “lame” sister and wanted to preach safe sex—which wasn’t anywhere on my radar. Yet. I held in a groan at the word she’d stuck in my head.
I mean… Someday. Way, way into the future. After I graduate. And get into vet school. And meet a decent guy who respects me. Which, Flynn does. I think. Yes, he does. And he gets me. But that’s not the point. I’m not ready—
“Doesn’t hurt to have them handy. Looks like sex ed isn’t until third quarter this year in gym, but still.” She shrugged one shoulder.
“That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?”
She huffed. “No. Just crossed my mind when I saw you two together. Again.”
“Like you should talk.”
Her lips curved in a slow smile.
“You’ve sewn yourself to Leo’s hip.”
“He’s such…an attentive sweetheart.” She hugged herself. “I’ve never met another boy who’s so interested in me. Probably because he’s older.”
Right, because commitment grew with age? I doubted it. “And you guys are…” I rolled my hand, too embarrassed to speak it.
“Doing it?” She made a crude gesture with her fingers and my face flamed again. Was she ever not crass? Around her laughter, she shook her head. “No, we’re not. Not yet.”
I straightened, surprised she’d held off. I assumed she was dying to give up her V-card and likely wouldn’t care who she gave it to. Not that I’d call her a slut or promiscuous, but—
Sabine huffed. “Enough about them. What happened at gym?”
No twang. No laughs. No teasing. No contraceptives. Straight-up, direct Sabine on the hunt for gossip.
I bit my lip and scraped my pointer fingernail back and forth over a few seams of my bag’s strap. I couldn’t tell her. One, she’d never believe me. Two, she’d, well, she’d never believe me. She hadn’t believed me about the sea monster before kindergarten. She hadn’t believed me at the end of year one…
Actually, I lied to her about that. I despised the frown on my face and I scrambled for a blank mask.
“Layla…”
I winced. “It’s…complicated.”
“Oh, I bet it is.”
I broke eye contact with her and studied the bird sitting on a low branch in the dogwood tree near the walkway. It blinked and hopped a few feet closer to us, cocking its head at me.
Birds. Under my wing. Glorian had to be associated to the Airine powers of birds. Could she use them as spies? I scowled harder at the idea. Would I be assuming all animals were working for someone now? Just as I was already immediately wondering what other elves were capable of? Was this going to be my new stereotyping obsession?
“Layla.”
I met Sabine’s gaze again and didn’t open my mouth.
“Does it… Do they ever burn?” She held out her forearms. The blank, unblemished flesh where I’d seen long, angry gashes bleeding from the sea monster’s grip. All healed, courtesy of elven healing meds.
Hugging myself, I refused to show her my arms. I nodded. “Sometimes.”
“It wasn’t from the rocks.”
I remained silent.
“Claws, Layla. Every night I have dreams—nightmares—about claws.”
Swallowing hard, I refused to give in to the glossiness building in her eyes. I wasn’t equipped with how to handle this, how to comfort her on this particular woe. When I’d woken up screaming from night terrors from facing that same monster when we were five, she’d had no sympathy for me. Neither did Dad. They had no clue what to say to me when I’d insist, every single time, that the claws were coming for me from under the surface.
“Something was in the water. Right?”
Still, I refused to tell her. She didn’t believe in elves, in ancient species. When I’d tried to tell her and Dad what happened in that watering hole in Coltin, I’d initiated the start of her hating me, the beginning of her loathing me. Maybe fearing me.
“I know what I felt. What I see in my dreams.”
I laughed then, a harsh bark of a breath. “Welcome to my world,” I muttered.
She slumped in her slouch. “Layla, you can’t be serious…”
“What, that you’re jumping on the crazy train with me? Sure sounds like it. They
said you were cut from rocks. Not talons.” Hey, we’d finally found something in common. Sea monster incidents. I doubted it’d bond us.
“They said. I want to hear it from you.” She jabbed a finger at me. “And I didn’t say talons, I said claws.”
“That’s basically the same thing.”
She groaned. “You can’t actually believe it.”
I deadpanned at her.
“Elves?” She slanted me her don’t even face. “You’re really buying it? That crap Paige was talking about last year?”
Her tone wasn’t a scoffing dismissal, like she’d heard something outlandish. More like she needed to double-check the possibility of something so far out there.
I don’t have to buy anything. How could I not believe in elves when I’ve had my powers my whole life?
“Leo’s mentioned…” She shook her head and looked away.
“What?” He was an upperclassman. He knew about Olde Earth and elves. He’d passed his elven date, yet he was spending all his time with Sabine, an outsider who would—should—still be clueless about this hidden reality. “What has he told you?”
“Making a big deal about my birthday. Not the one we had, but some anniversary of it in the winter. And these…” She flung her arms up to the air. “I don’t know what to call them. Clubs.”
“Clubs.”
“People with the same interests. How students get separated after sophomore year according to their ‘passions.’” Her shiny nail polish shone with her air quotes.
“He called them clubs?” Was he watering down a way of referring to powers? Airine, Terraine, Aquine?
“No. That’s my best way to explain them. He makes them sound like groups of— I don’t know! I don’t know!”
Which clearly pissed her off. God forbid Sabine ever be in the dark about something. I gnawed on my cheek. I couldn’t answer for Leo teasing her about the powers, giving her hints about her future at the Academy and her approaching elven date. I could probably fill her in on quite a bit because my abilities refused to let me be an ignorant outsider student.
But if Leo was holding back on fully telling Sabine she was part-elf, should I?
A knowledge-is-power kind of thing.
Last year, Lorcan hinted that the Academy kept so many secrets as a way of holding power over us. Was I doing the same? And why?
I stared at Sabine watching me and I didn’t need a half-hour to analyze my silence with her. I never shared with Sabine because she’d never proven herself trustworthy. Not of my trust, at least.
“He asks about what I like,” Sabine went on when I refused to speak, shocking me that she was so free with her words. She must be that desperate for answers that she’d give a little.
“As the perfect boyfriend,” I mocked.
She huffed, no longer presenting this I-have-the-best-boyfriend-in-the-world pride. “I don’t think so. There’s nosy and then there’s probing.”
Alarm ratcheted up my spine, clicking nerves on fire. “What does he ask you?”
“What I like, what I fear. If I hate the taste of certain foods?” She mocked a what the hell gape. “What kind of perfumes I favor. If I like flying.”
It was another stab at that questionnaire. He was trying to figure out what power she’d have. Which sect she’d be from. I gulped a hard swallow.
And he had been assigned to “tutor” her by Glorian.
I tugged at my earlobe.
She didn’t miss my move, narrowing her gaze at my nervous tick. “Yeah, I don’t care for his over-attentiveness either. Not like this. Too nosy. And he asks about you, too.”
I froze, my nail digging a crescent into the flesh of my ear. “Me?”
She nodded and crossed her arms. “And I don’t really want to talk about you.”
Thanks, brat.
“But if he’s trying to weasel some information out of me, about me, I want to know what the hell is going on. I want to know about all your craziness now, because he sure as hell is making me feel like I should be counting on some of the same.”
Yet, I doubted it. I’d had my powers my whole life. She had none. If we were twins, it made no sense how our bloodlines would be so different.
“Am I going to be an elf?” she asked me, leaning forward like it was the most insane idea she would ever speak. Fear. It was back in her eyes, in the slant of her brows.
“I don’t think so.” I stepped back, eager for reasons why I should feel that way. “But I’ll…ask.”
She rushed after me. “No!” Shaking her head, she grabbed my arm. “They…dammit, Layla. There’s too many questions. I don’t want you asking Paige and her mom and being all obvious that I want to know.”
“Suthering can help—”
“The headmaster?” She grunted. “Never mind. I don’t want you being obvious and going around asking on my behalf.” With a harsh fling, she released my arm and stalked off. “Just… Just never mind. Forget I said anything. I’ll figure it out on my own.”
Chapter Eleven
“I’ll figure it out on my own.”
The next morning, on my run, I slowed to a stop and sat on a fallen tree log in the woods. Sabine’s confusion, fear, and sass had kept me from a decent sleep the night before and she still bothered me on my run. The one time of the day I kept for me, to shrink myself to sanity. Or at least try to.
I slumped over, my elbows on my thighs, and watched my breath puff out in the cooler air. A lit-up butterfly floated toward me, this one with pale-lavender horns for its antennae. The horns spiraled up and lacked a curve, like tiny, glittering cones of soft-serve ice cream.
“I bet she will,” I told it as it landed on my outstretched finger. Wings flapped and sent out a wisp of luminescent dust to the forest mist.
Sabine would figure out her elven powers, or lack of. Come her elven date, it’d be clear. Maybe not like an instant revelation, since Paige had said it wasn’t like a switch was turned on overnight. But I figured Sabine would know somehow. Yet my confidence that she would gain her own answers didn’t abate the uneasiness that she probably would be powerless.
How I could be a Pure and she might be a…nothing? It made no sense. We were twins. Same DNA, same blood. For all I didn’t know about our otherworldly differences, I knew this one would drive an irreparable wedge between us. We weren’t close as sisters, but now, it’d seem like we weren’t even related as a species.
“Heck, maybe this will be perfect,” I whispered to the butterfly. Another flapping of its wings for a reply.
Sabine had never been kind about my…uniqueness. Perhaps knowing she wasn’t at all like me in the elven sense would make her even happier. And if she wasn’t elven…why would she have a reason to stay at Olde Earth?
We had less than a month before our elven dates, but I wanted answers now. I needed to be prepared, for the first time in my life. And if I needed some guidance, Suthering had called himself the man I was supposed to depend on.
No. I depend on me. But the headmaster was going to be the first person to ask some of my long-overdue and direct questions. Ethel was too busy in the library. Paige wasn’t exactly an authority of knowledge, even though I felt more comfortable talking to her—when she was in our room, that was. Damn her boy-craziness for taking time away from our friendship. Last night, for example, she’d been with Marcus until the last possible minute before curfew, and I’d already been asleep by then. The adrenaline of the griffins at the stables and the council meeting had worn me out.
Suthering, though. He’d have to answer my questions. I wasn’t at my date yet, but he knew I had powers, so it wasn’t as though he had to fear overwhelming the outsider newbie. This veil of mystique couldn’t go on. Heck, Flynn and I proved we were powerful with the griffins. I had every right to demand some damn answers. Screw this hiding and beating around the bush.
I shoved to my feet and the butterfly took flight.
I hadn’t meant to startle it with my abrupt move. “Sorry,” I whisp
ered to the air. It hovered over my head and then began on the path toward the dorm. Almost as though it was egging me on.
Yeah, I was determined. To gather the courage to seek answers. Approach Suthering and figure out what to expect, what Sabine might expect. My feet fell to the ground as I resumed my run, bringing me closer to the dorms to get ready for the day, taking me further away from the land where I missed my longma.
I’ll find you, buddy. I will.
I’d head to class, then I’d need to report to Otis for my “work”, then more classes… Crap. Those three tests on Friday. Okay, I’d plan to go to Suthering’s office after I studied some in the cafeteria with Paige. We’d already agreed to review the notes together, and she understood that last chapter from Latin better than me. Double crap. Flynn. He and I were supposed to discuss our reports for Biology that we’d partnered up for, for Chan’s quarterly exam…
I grunted as I ran. I was too full. My schedule was. No matter what, I refused to accept the lack of answers and direction in my life. I’d find time to demand information from Suthering.
I have to.
Because wallowing in this mess of questions was only going to pull me from my grades and my longma even longer.
As Suthering had explained, Flynn and I would receive our “orders” in an email that day. His means of communicating with us peeved me. I was bound and determined to talk to the man who’d be able to actually guide me with my elven coming-of-age ordeal. And here he was resorting to or depending on the least personable means of communication possible.
Via a damn email. A message that stated Marcy would be waiting for us in an electric cart at the Main Hall side door to deliver us to our “work.” She’d drop me off at the stable to meet with Otis and then take Flynn to the greenhouse. According to Marcy’s explanation at the dorms last night, it was a setup that most upperclassmen endured—less classroom time and more hands-on education on campus.
Flynn and I hardly had time to talk around the conversations that took precedence with our peers. Quarterlies were coming up and the rush to study and cram was the language we spoke.
Discovery: Olde Earth Academy: Year Two Page 10