It took me a moment to realize I was procrastinating going in because I was afraid. I’d been a few days without a beating and already I’d become soft. I promised myself I’d never let fear stop me, but I stood frozen with my hand on the door. My heart raced. My breath became shallow. What is happening? My legs began to shake and buckle beneath me when I realized I was caught in someone’s gift. I looked around, but the courtyard was abandoned mere seconds before the bell. No one but Oden had touched me recently, I’d even worn my gloves today to be sure. Anger tore through me. I would not be a victim, not again.
I ripped open the door to the combat zone, ready to face my attacker. When I saw her, my knees gave out and I toppled to the ground still caught in the wake of her gift.
Yemoja Roux stood at the center of the entrance, hands on hips, a victorious grin, and her unique magenta hair streaming to the side despite the virtually windless dome.
I gasped. “Yemoja Roux. I… I love you.”
She winced. “I’ve been getting that one a lot today.”
She walked over and held out her gloved hand. I took it, unable to believe my good luck that I happened to be assigned to this exact spot for my independent study.
“Good work overcoming my gift to come in here. You have spirit. I’ve released it now. Can you stand?”
I gawked as I scrambled to get my feet under me. “Yemoja Roux, I can’t believe it’s you.”
“You’re Reina Bennett.”
I shook my head. “No. I mean yes, but it doesn’t sound cool like Yemoja Roux.”
She leaned in and winked. “They let you change it when you become Fae.”
“Right,” I sputtered, “Of course.” The bell sounded and I looked around for combat zone one. It was to the far left, a silver one above a door to a smaller dome that encased some kind of jungle.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have an independent study that I’m late for.”
She flipped her gorgeous hair. “Class is already in session, honey.”
My heart stopped in my chest. “You’re going to teach… me?”
She furrowed her magenta eyebrows. “They didn’t put my name on your schedule? Heh, they probably didn’t want this place swarming with curious students.” She slapped her hands together, startling me. “Anyway, we’re wasting time. Tell me about your gift.”
I gulped, uneager to deliver the bad news. “I’m not sure I have one. Well… I made this one girl say weird things, I think. Veranda Yarrow seems to think we have something in common… which is crazy. I mean, obviously I don’t have anything in common with you, you’re like a goddess and I like—”
“I was chosen to mentor you for that exact reason. You see, both your gift and mine can be cast without touch.”
My body numbed.
“It’s probably why you know so little about your ability. Since it works differently than ordinary gifts, casting it by touching someone wouldn’t have yielded results. Can you identify what my gift does based on what you felt before you entered?””
“Make people dizzy?”
“Want to try again?”
I took a deep breath and replayed the moment in my head. I felt weak, uneasy, and ultimately, “Fear,” I said. “But… your gift can’t be fear. I’ve seen you use it to strike an enemy, even block attacks. You can’t block an attack with fear.”
“You’d be surprised how crippling fear can be if you learn to understand and wield it.”
I nodded. “Okay. So how do I get from here to there?”
She sat down on the ground and patted the spongy turf beside her.
I looked around. “Here?”
She closed her eyes. “We have the place to ourselves.”
I sat down, mimicking her posture and closing my eyes.
“Take a deep breath,” she said in a voice that was smooth like a glazed sunrise. “Meditation is essential regardless of your gift, but more so for ours. This type of ability requires an understanding of the gift itself in order to control it.”
I’m off to a great start.
“Banish those negative thoughts. Now I want you to take ten deep breaths and, as you do, reach inside and differentiate your body from your gift.”
“How will I know what to look for?”
“You’ll find what it is you’re searching for.”
I cursed the school for not letting me get a selfie with Yemoja Roux, like anyone would believe this. Focus, Reina. I wanted to learn from the best, and who would know better about this stuff than Yemoja Roux? I took my first three breaths and felt a tingling sensation in my arms and fingertips. I wiggled my toes and took another.
“That’s it,” she said. “When you find it, assign it a color in your mind. Visualize it spreading through your body.”
Nothing. That’s what I felt, but it didn’t matter. I was sitting beside my lifelong hero. I’d gotten into the school of my dreams and suddenly everything seemed possible. Then I saw it, a fleck of light in the darkness. It grew and I thought it looked like a pale purple glowing white as it ran through my body like sand over my skin. Its shape was fluid, and I saw the currents push through my extremities. It ran down my neck, shoulders, chest, stomach, legs then out the bottoms of my feet to the center of the earth, only to swirl back into my body. I blinked through closed eyes as the purple glow hung above me like luminous stars. Each breath strengthened the light, the image burning more clearly in my mind.
Excitement overtook me and I opened my eyes, whipping to Yemoja to explain what I saw. I froze. Yemoja gaped at me, her trembling hand covering her mouth, tears sliding down her beautiful face. She stood quickly and I tried to follow but lost my balance and crashed back to the floor. “Wh-what’s wrong? What happened?” I asked.
“That’s enough for today,” she said. “You did well.” Without another word, she left and all I could do was wonder if that beautiful light I saw inside me somehow hurt the world's most powerful Fae.
36
Kaito
I hung out in the hedge mazes across from the Blue House. Every now and then I peeked over a prickly hedge to see Miranda pass far too many times, no doubt hoping to run into me. I owed her an explanation, but that wasn’t a conversation I was ready to have. If I was being honest, I wasn’t so much as hiding from her as looking for Zane. Unless I’d somehow missed him, he’d been in the headmistress’ office all day.
The sun began to hang low, giving everything an orange tint and dropping the temperature low enough for me to see my breath. Finally, I saw him headed down the stairs from the front office, no sign in his gait that he’d been the least bit shaken by the interaction. Based on his speed, I calculated how long it would take for him to get to Blue House and timed it so our paths would cross.
His glasses glinted as he turned to me, an air of delight in his charmed smile.
“I see you didn’t get arrested,” I said, hoping to purge a real reaction.
“No thanks to you,” he said, but if he was upset, there was no sign of it on his face.
“I just said what everyone was thinking.”
“Look,” he said with an easy hand gesture. “You can go and be brainwashed by the media about the Fae or whatever, but don’t fault me for criticizing the entire hypocritical system.”
“Why are you here if you don’t like or believe in the Fae?”
“To change it.”
I gulped. It reminded me a bit of something Carter had said a few nights ago.
He continued. “If the only way to have my voice heard is to become Fae, so be it. I’m just not surprised that someone else discovered a way to do it.”
Another way to have their voice heard? Is that what he thought these murders were? “They’re killing Fae.”
“And what do you think will happen to The Fallen if the Fae find them?”
“If? You honestly think the terrorists have a chance?”
He shrugged. “The Fallen are 7 and 0.”
“Six.”
He nodded, a ha
lf smile on his face. “My mistake.”
I shuddered. This guy knew something. Why then did the headmistress let him off? Surely one of the professors had a gift that could purge it out of him. The seer, perhaps. I shook my head. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? The Fallen.”
“Look,” he said, “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. Do you want to grab a coffee at the student center? It’s cold as balls out here and I imagine you’ve been waiting for me for a while.”
Damn. I wasn’t nearly as slick as I thought. Still, it was a peaceful gesture. It couldn’t hurt to hear the guy out.
Zane said very little to me on our walk to the student center. It wasn’t until we grabbed coffee and took a seat in a corner away from the bulk of the foot traffic that he began to talk.
He took in a deep breath, the only sign of apprehension I’d seen him give all day. “My family’s really poor,” he said flatly. “My parents are both Commons and their wages are minuscule. There just aren’t any options for the Commons or Serfs, no opportunity to rise up. The only people who have a shot of making something of themselves are the Elites.” He exhaled slowly and I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for a response.
I sipped my coffee to fill his pause.
“Somehow, my parents got it in their head that if they had enough kids, eventually one might be born Elite and be able to deliver the rest of us out of poverty. Can you imagine? The Fae’s pay being so unequal that they lounge in mansions and make their talk show appearances while the rest of us starve.” The last word was a hiss through gritted teeth, his free hand balled into a fist on the arm of his chair.
I had no response. I’d always had money, a legacy of wealth left from a Fae who died five generations ago. All these years later, we still lived off his earnings and I hadn’t given much thought to the unfairness of that situation until now.
He took a sharp breath in. “I have eleven brothers and sisters. I had thirteen, but two didn’t make it. I guess my parents’ plan worked, though, because I was born Elite and was accepted into GFA. If I can become Fae, I can help them.” He looked up to me. “Maybe I can help more than just them.” He gestured to the state-of-the-art student center, his voice cracking with emotion. “There’s more than enough wealth to go around.”
I nodded, my thoughts racing through his story.
“Everyday I lived in fear that my parents would call and tell me another one of my siblings died. And I knew when the call came, it would be my fault for not becoming Fae sooner.”
“So what happened?” I asked. “How’d you make the leap from desperate to become Fae to hating them?”
His glasses glinted, hiding his eyes. “My parents called.”
My stomach sank and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the rest.
“They received a donation. The only indication of who sent it was a downward arrow. Inside the parcel was ten years of my parents’ salary, clothes, and possessions, all of which were the stolen property of Will Citrine.”
I gaped at him. “So you’re saying the—”
“The Fallen saved my family, and who knows how many others. They kill the greedy, media-hungry Fae and help those who weren’t lucky enough to be born Elite.”
The lines had blurred and Zane kept talking.
“I used to use my shield gift to sneak cafeteria food to my family out through the school’s barrier and a gap in the wall, but they don’t need it anymore.”
He looked down at his hands. “I imagined I’d be relieved, but now it’s been a while since I’ve seen my family.” He smiled at me. “Go figure.”
“Zane, I… I should have known you had a good reason to—”
“Don’t sweat it.”
“Seriously, I misjudged you.”
He sipped his coffee. “Do me a favor and don’t spread any of this around. My confrontation with Yemoja Roux has given me a reputation as a badass and I’d like to uh… cash in on it for a bit.”
I held out my fist and he bumped it with his. “You got it, man.”
37
Reina
I walked back toward Pink House feeling deflated. In one day, I’d gone from Serf to gifted like Yemoja Roux, and then to someone who unintentionally attacked my most admired idol. Her face was plastered in my head. I hurt her. GFA was so much more intense than I imagined and, after one day of classes, I was drained. But where I expected to be physically exhausted, I found myself emotionally so. I wanted to call my parents, to tell them what happened. I wanted to hear their voices—to listen to their comforting words.
The campus seemed deserted, as everyone was still in class. I headed straight into Pink House to my room, with the thought that if I made it there, nothing else could hurt me and I couldn’t hurt anyone else.
When I awoke, the sunlight that was streaming in when I’d fallen asleep was replaced with the dark of night. I was confused and disoriented, unsure how long I’d been asleep. Briara’s bed was empty, but I saw a piece of paper on my desk that told me she had been to our room at some point during my nap. Her note read:
I didn’t want to wake you, but I went to the library.
-Bri
My stomach twisted. Ugh. I missed dinner. I couldn’t think of anything worse but then my mind drifted back to my afternoon with Yemoja Roux.
How was I supposed to use my gift after that? I sighed and pulled myself out of bed and headed for the student center to see if I could grab something before the cafeteria closed.
The outside air bit my skin through my blazer. I’d vastly underestimated how cold it was. Why couldn’t the rest of the campus always be warm like the fort?
The student center had groups of students clumped together. One group was playing cards and laughing so loudly that I couldn’t help but smile as I passed. I spotted the fishbowl, the glass cafeteria that had a few scattered students hunched over books, half the lights on that it normally did, and no obvious staff. I walked to the buffet line and was relieved to find a few leftover burgers wrapped up like they were from a fast food restaurant. I took two and eyed the third one that was leftover in the heated tray. “Yep, doing this.” I grabbed the burger and had to balance it against my chest on the other two. When I got to the scanner, I couldn’t reach my student ID.
I heard a laugh behind me. “Tough day?”
My gaze snapped up to Kai who reached for the ID card that hung from the lanyard around my neck and held it to the scanner.
“Thanks,” I said shyly.
He took a burger and led me to a table. I wasn’t following him, I was following my burger, and I didn’t give much thought to him as he took a seat beside me.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I unwrapped the paper around my first burger and took a huge bite. I didn’t even wait to swallow it before the words flew out between chews. “There was this terrible girl and she was being mean and stuff and all of a sudden she started saying weird stuff.” I took another bite, and Kai flashed an amused smirk. “And then the teacher was mad that I used my gift on her.”
He leaned forward. “So you do have a gift? It makes people weird. Nice.”
I shook my head. “It’s not nice. Because I was sad I didn’t see Yemoja Roux and then she was my mentor and my gift was purple, and she told me to use it and she cried.”
“That barely made any sense at all… Wait, what? You made Yemoja Roux cry?”
“And now I don’t want to use my gift ever again because I can’t get her face out of my head.”
He reached out and rubbed my back. “Don’t feel bad. It’s not like Yemoja Roux is a saint or anything.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, polishing off my first burger and unwrapping my second.
“I mean, she has hurt plenty of people in her time. Not to mention, she’s the richest person in the world.”
What did that have to do with anything? I wanted to argue or at least ask what the connection was, but I didn’t want him to stop rubbing my back with those calming circles.
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“I’ve missed you, Rei,” he said, and I froze mid-bite.
He raised his hands defensively. “I know you’re with Oden and stuff, but does it mean that we can’t hang out from time to time?”
“Isn’t that going to freak your girlfriend out?” I asked. I was obviously fishing, but I wanted to hear him confirm or deny it himself.
“I won’t tell her if you won’t.”
So it was true. I knew it. That settled that. I needed to make an escape immediately. Kai leaned in and his devilish smile brought me right back to our kiss in the courtyard. My budding romance with Oden was a spark, but whether from years of suppressed feelings or shared history, my feelings for Kaito were a raging inferno. I was a moth to the flame and I always got burned. I felt dizzy. So dizzy that I put down my burger and stared into Kai’s dark eyes. Maybe if he wasn’t so messed up. Maybe in a different life we could—
My thoughts were cut short as Kai put his forehead to mine. “Reina,” he whispered. “I can’t seem to—”
“Kaito,” a voice called from across the fishbowl. We looked up to see a blue-haired boy waving him over. “Are you ready?” the boy called.
“Is that Zane Blaque?” I asked.
He nodded, his gaze dropping back to me. “Yes.”
“Why are you hanging out with him?” I asked. “Did you say he was somehow connected to Raphael Mazarin’s death?”
Kai said, “I should go. See you around?”
I nodded and, to my dismay, he grabbed my third burger off the table before following his new friend out of the cafeteria.
38
Kaito
I leaned back in my chair, pulling on my hair in hopes that the pain might drown out the sound of Quan bouncing a tennis ball off the wall, or of Enzo trying to snatch it between bounces by running across the room at super speed. I groaned, turning to Finn. “Why does Oden even call these meetings if he never shows up?”
The Fae & The Fallen: Gifted Fae Academy - Year One Page 13