I just wished he didn’t always have to be so practical.
On the floor to the women’s dormitories, he shadowed me, so close the tweed of his jacket whispered against my arm. As I reached for the door to my room, his arm stretched past me and rapped on it loudly. He grabbed me by the elbow, not roughly, but unnecessarily firmly, like I was going to bolt.
The door swung open.
Vega sat on the bed, dressed in a sequined flapper dress. She showed off a scandalous amount of leg for a school teacher. Then again, the dress rested just above her knees, which wasn’t actually that high. She was just tall and resembled a fashion model with a tremendous amount of leg.
She stood and straightened her dress. “It’s about time.”
Thatch shoved me forward. “I told you it wasn’t necessary for you to wait.” He stepped into the room, just inside the door, something I’d never seen him do before. He was such a stickler for school rules, it caught me off guard.
Vega gazed at me with the kind of bedroom eyes that would have made Marilyn Monroe jealous. “Why is your hair wet?”
I looked to Thatch, afraid he might hex my lips closed if I answered. He didn’t intervene.
“I was showering?” It came out as a question.
His hair at least was dry. I should have asked him to use his hair-dryer spell on me.
Vega looked me up and down, her scrutiny equal to that of a lion about to take down a gazelle. “No, you weren’t. I checked the showers an hour ago.”
“Did you check forty-five minutes ago? Half an hour ago?” Thatch asked coolly.
He was so smooth, I didn’t know how anyone could tell when he was lying. It made me wonder about all those times I had hoped he was telling me the truth. I still didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t, regarding his past.
Vega lifted her chin at him. “What are you still doing here?”
“I came to offer my services for your troubles. Do you wish me to create a safe portal for you to leave by?” he asked.
She rotated her wrist, and a slender wand appeared in her hand. It was twisted and black like her soul. “I’m perfectly capable of making my own portal.”
I crossed my arms. “Why is she allowed to break the rules but I’m not?”
“Hush.” He didn’t shift his gaze from her eyes. “I know you are quite capable. I was simply being . . . chivalrous. If you’re going dancing, transportation will use up energy you might otherwise prefer to spend seducing mortals and stealing their souls. Or whatever it is you do with your Morties.”
“Dance. I just dance with humans. God! What is wrong with you? I don’t know why they thought you were intelligent enough to be department head. I reserve seducing for Witchkin and Fae.” She waved her wand in an arc that sparkled like diamonds. Inside the oval she created, the air wavered and warbled. The shimmering frame expanded.
I stepped back.
Her irritation melted away as she gazed into the portal. She looked as pleased as a Venus flytrap that had swallowed a canary. “And as it happens, I have a very full evening of seduction ahead of me. If you’ll excuse me. . . .”
Not once in all the time that I had known Vega had she ever mentioned an interest in a living man, Witchkin or Fae. She’d shown me dead bodies in the crypt that she found attractive. She’d obsessed over her supposed soul mate from a past life, forcing me to pore over his photographs in the yearbooks with her. Several times she’d alluded to going on dates with Elric, but I didn’t believe she had any interest in him. She was just letting him try to make me jealous—which hadn’t worked—because he’d taken her dancing.
The portal stretched large enough for Vega to step through without ducking. Within, a smoky bar was filled with people dancing, though no sound traveled beyond the fabric of that other place.
I edged around the hole in time and space, wanting to catch sight of her date. I wondered if he was a zombie or a vampire or something undead. The people in the swing club looked normal, aside from their outdated fashion tastes.
“What time do you intend to return?” Thatch asked.
“Whatever fucking time I want.” She picked up a beaded purse from the bed and tucked her wand inside.
Thatch lifted his chin. “It isn’t safe to leave a portal open like this for hours in Miss Lawrence’s room with the Raven Court and all sundry of Fae wishing to kidnap her. I will close it after you leave and erase all residue so that no one will be able to penetrate any cracks in our wards—”
“Whatever.” Vega glided through, flipping the bird at him before she disappeared. The portal snapped closed behind her, clicking and whirring like a camera shutter.
Thatch poked at the air with his wand, uttering incantations. I smelled his magic more than saw it: starlight and the taste of piano music confusing my senses. Purple flashes of light framed his hands as he worked. I sank onto my bed, watching in awe.
He was winded when he was through.
“Wow,” I said. “That looked like a lot of work.”
“Only because you took up so much of my stored energy earlier.”
I grinned. “Want to cuddle before you go back to your room?”
“You may like to live dangerously, Miss Lawrence, but I do not.” He dipped his head, a sardonic smile on his face. “Good night.”
He left and closed the door behind him without giving me so much as a kiss. My shoulders sank.
Felix Thatch was back to his terse and proper self. How disappointing. For a few hours he had been friendly and playful. I could have believed he loved me. It was one thing to adopt a pretense of being grumpy when Vega was present, it was another to be brusque and snappy when it was only the two of us.
It appeared it took more than kisses and orgasms to break Prince Charming’s curse. I squared my shoulders. I was up for the challenge.
CHAPTER FOUR
Flowers to Die For
On Monday, after a clandestine weekend of sneaking around to spend time with Felix Thatch, I was in the middle of third-period Beginning Art, giving instructions on a line-and-shape assignment when one of the new students in the back whispered with the volume that teenagers probably thought was quiet, “Look, it’s Mr. Thatch.”
I turned and smiled at him. He stood in the open doorway of the back stairwell that led to my closet, his arms crossed, looking sulky.
His gaze flickered to the bouquet of flowers that I had found on my desk that morning. Accents of white lilies contrasted with the green of the devil’s ivy and the pink of the foxglove and oleander. Even the stars of the nightshade were more pink than purple, and I wondered if the flowers had been enchanted to my favorite color. I had never pegged Thatch as the hopeless romantic who would woo a woman with flowers, but I liked this side of him.
“To what do we owe the honor of this visit?” I asked.
Thatch held up a box of chalk. “I needed more chalk so I decided to steal some from your closet.” His lips formed a tight smile, but the seriousness of his eyes didn’t match the expression.
I took it he was in a bad mood about something—or overcompensating so students wouldn’t suspect us of being together.
“Sure, anytime,” I said.
“You might live to regret that statement,” he said.
I laughed. Students glanced at each other warily. He tended to have that effect on people.
“Miss Lawrence, I can’t do this,” Tracey Johannes said in a screechy whine no other freshman could rival. “Do you have a compass or something round I can use to trace?”
Thatch lifted up his nose with an air of indignation. “True artists do not trace.”
“I’m not an artist. I just needed an easy class,” Tracey said with an equal amount of disdain.
I went over to assist the group of freshmen struggling with the simple shapes exercise they were supposed to be practicing. It always surprised me how many fourteen-year-olds didn’t know how to use a ruler, weren’t able to draw basic
shapes or perform other tasks I had taken for granted that they had been taught in elementary school. I could understand the students with educations in the Unseen Realm might have been lacking, but I was baffled by those who had gone to public school.
When I looked up from the group, I found Thatch at the bouquet on my desk. “Who is this from?” The way he kept his expression perfectly neutral, one might have mistaken his lack of expression for indifference.
“Miss Lawrence has a boyfriend,” one of the students whispered.
“Oh, does she?” Thatch asked.
“Yeah, he’s that fairy prince,” a teenager with horns whispered.
“They don’t like to be called fairies. They’re Fae,” someone corrected.
“He isn’t my boyfriend,” I said. “Not anymore.”
Thatch leaned down, examining each flower. “Apparently, he doesn’t realize that. Unless this is from . . . a different suitor?”
I turned away so the students wouldn’t see my inability to hold in my smile. He was a mischievous one, that Mr. Thatch!
He untucked his wand from his pocket and muttered a familiar incantation. The purple light was a poison-detection spell. I’d seen him use it before.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You can never be too careful. One should always closely examine gifts they receive, especially if one suspects a Fae.”
I crossed my arms. Surely this had to be his newest method of teasing me. Or perhaps it was simply his way of ensuring no student suspected him as my boyfriend.
Grogda, or Greenie as she liked to be called, left her seat and came over to my desk beside Thatch. She was my assistant in the class for the semester and seemed to enjoy being a peer tutor in the lower-level classes and taking the advanced classes with her friends in the afternoon.
Greenie pushed aside a leaf growing in her viridian hair. “Those flowers are pretty, but everything in there already is poison, so that spell isn’t going to help.”
Now that she mentioned it, I realized she was correct. Every flower, from the foxglove, to the belladonna to the lilies, were all poisonous to humans, and I assumed Witchkin as well. Thatch was a peculiar one.
“I guess it’s fortunate I’m not planning on eating these flowers,” I said.
Greenie giggled. “And out of all my teachers, I think you’re the least likely to use those to try to poison your students.” She mouthed the words, “Miss Bloodmire would.”
Thatch continued muttering under his breath. A few other curious students gathered around.
“Thanks for checking for poison, but it really isn’t necessary,” I told Thatch. I tried to shoo my students away. “There’s nothing special to see here. Go back to your assignment.”
“I’m not looking for poison. I’m looking for hexes and curses,” Thatch said.
Purple light shimmered across the bouquet. A flat square glittered, nestled in the frills of ferns. I hadn’t seen that there before, but as Thatch worked, the shape grew more solid and opaque. The square turned to creamy paper, my name written on an envelope.
“Oh! Is that a love note?” Greenie asked, reaching out for it.
I smacked her hand away. “Not yours.”
Thatch plucked it up from the bouquet and crossed to the other side of my desk, slipping the note out of the envelope. “Shall I read this in front of the class and embarrass Miss Lawrence?”
Some of the students squealed with laughter. “Yes! Read it!”
I giggled uncomfortably. I wasn’t sure what game he was playing. Surely he would be embarrassed by making the note public more than I would. I came around to the other side to see.
He kept walking, evading me. His eyes scanned the note as he strode to the other side of the desk as if he were actually reading it for the first time. “Just as I thought, something too scandalous to repeat.” He tucked the note into the pocket of his tweed jacket. “We wouldn’t want students getting ahold of private notes only meant for your eyes.”
He strode back off toward the closet, ignoring students who called out to him.
I ran around the horseshoe arrangement of tables, unable to keep up with his long legs. He threw back the door to the back stairwell and descended into the gloom.
“Hey!” I said. “Are you going to let me read that note later?”
“We’ll see if you earn the privilege.”
Students laughed.
Luke Heller howled with laughter. “That means no!”
Felix Thatch was the most peculiar man I knew. I stared into the darkness after him, wondering if I should follow. Any other man probably would have asked me to step into the closet in the stairwell under the pretense of discussing a student grade, in order to sneak a kiss.
Did he want me to kiss him passionately to earn the privilege of learning what the note said? Or was it something else? The entire situation just felt off. I wanted to understand him.
There were plenty of times I had stepped outside the classroom to talk to other teachers and students. Thatch had even “kidnapped” me from class for hours when we’d gone to save Maddy from being snatched by Fae. Theoretically it wouldn’t be a problem if I stepped out for one minute.
I further convinced myself it was perfectly safe by the fact that Hailey Achilles wasn’t present, so I could trust that no fires would spontaneously combust my classroom. Maddy Jennings was in the library under Gertrude Periwinkle’s mentorship, so I didn’t have to worry about boys trying to kiss her while I was gone.
I pointed to Greenie. “You’re in charge. Everyone keep working.”
Greenie’s eyes went wide momentarily before she stood taller and turned to the class. “Trevor, stop eating that pencil.”
I rushed down the stairs past my closet, a tangle of spiderwebs catching me in the face. I used my fireball spell to light my way as a flashlight. The flame floating above my palm incinerated webs stretched across the walls. One would have thought Thatch’s tall frame would clear the path, but I managed to find every web he hadn’t broken.
The stairs led past Vega’s closet and room to a short corridor between his office and private room. I found him in his office, leaned over his desk. He removed the envelope from his pocket and placed it in his drawing journal inside the top drawer of his desk. His gaze lifted to me as I stepped into the room.
“Miss Lawrence, go to class.”
“For real? You aren’t going to read me the note?” An uncertain smile tugged at my lips. “Even if I do whatever I need to for earning that privilege?”
“No.” He slammed the drawer closed. “Go teach your class before Mr. Khaba finds you have left your students unattended for no good reason other than to read love notes.” He emphasized the word love in such a sarcastic way that it made me wonder if it had contained anything warm and fuzzy at all.
I ran back to class, out of breath when I arrived through the door of the back stairwell. The room was chaos. Students crumpled up my nice drawing paper and threw it at each other. Two students rolled on the ground, hitting each other. Another student was looking through the drawers of my desk.
At least Trevor had the sense to spit the crayons out of his mouth when he spotted me.
Greenie stood in the middle of the classroom, tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I tried.”
It took half an hour to undo three minutes of neglect.
As the day wore on I kept thinking about how strangely Thatch had behaved. I started to wonder if the flowers and note had not been from him after all. But if that was the case, who else would send them and why? I remembered that creeping sensation I’d felt as though someone had been watching me—not once, but twice—and couldn’t help wondering if it might be related to the gift of poisonous flowers.
I would have liked to confide in Josie, but I didn’t suppose Thatch would like that. She would just tell me he was a weirdo anyway.
I went to her after school, needing a friend. I was uncert
ain how she would feel about seeing me so soon after the spider incident. She started when she saw me in her doorway. Already that seemed like a bad sign.
“Clarissa! Oh, hi!” She stepped back. “Nice to see you. What are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to say hello.” I remained in the doorway, uncertain whether I should come closer or if that would make her uncomfortable so soon after she had turned into a giant spider and tried to eat me.
“Great. Hello.” Her words didn’t match the horror in her eyes. I wondered if she knew that it was my fault she’d turned into a horny monster.
“Um. . . .” I said with my usual social gregariousness.
“Well, it was nice to see you. Thanks for stopping in. Lots of work to do. See you later.”
I got the hint. I left. Her rejection hurt. I tried to tell myself she needed time to process what had happened. I needed to be an understanding friend and be there for her when she was ready to talk. Patience had never been my strength.
When I went to the cafeteria at dinner, I spotted Josie sitting with the students. I waved to her. She waved, a smile plastered across her face. As I approached her, she stood up and hurried out, not even finishing her dinner.
A giant shadow fell over me. The musky smell of animal and forest wafted toward me. I turned to find Pinky’s shaggy frame next to mine.
His voice came out nasally and high. “Just give her some time.”
I nodded.
“Ever since that incident on the roof, she’s had a hard time . . . controlling herself.” Pinky said. “It’s going to take her a while to get over what she did. Seeing you reminds her of her failures.”
Or seeing me drew out her affinity.
“She’s afraid you might see her differently now.”
“I don’t,” I said quickly. “We’re best friends.”
He stooped to bring himself closer to my ear, his voice quiet. “You just saw your best friend kill the principal of your school.”
“He was evil. He’d killed people. He would have killed me.” All that time I had believed Jeb was a patient and understanding grandfather wizard looking out for my best interests. It was only his dealings with the Silver Court that had started to clue me in that he wasn’t as kind and wise as he seemed. Even so, I had never suspected what a wicked wizard he was, nor that he had been instrumental in ensuring my biological mother’s death.
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