“Okay, I’m up. But please, can we tone down the looks for today? For the first time in my life, I’d really like to fit in.”
“I’ve got news for you, Carolyn. You’re never going to fit in. And that’s okay. In fact, it's great.”
I scrunched up my face as I inspected her two final choices for my costume for the day. She’d kept the rich green sweater dress that reminded me of Christmas and the scent of pine and picked up an all-black number made up mostly of lace and laces. Both were beautiful, but way too daring for me right now. I ached to pull the button-up and sensible skirt out from the bottom of my bed, where it had been banished my first morning here by Kyra. “Why won’t I fit in?”
“Maybe it’s because the whole school knows about you and Anatole. Which is why we are not going to back down from our wardrobe choices.”
“What about me and Anatole?” I practically screeched. Sure, the Elven Girl Gang had mentioned something about word getting out, but I’d assumed they were lying or trying to get into my head. I didn’t think they actually meant it.
“Just that someone found you two canoodling by the lake.”
“There was no canoodling!” This time, I really did screech. The last thing I needed was the entire school thinking I’d jumped into bed with the Elf Prince less than a day after arriving in Velkin.
Kyra scoffed. “Oh, you don’t have to deny it. I’m not mad at you like the rest of the magical girls are. I mean, it kind of hurts my feelings that you didn’t tell me about it, but unlike the rest of the brain-dead girls around here, I’m not interested in Anatole.”
Ugh, another bad mistake come back to haunt me. I hadn’t wanted to tell her because I was humiliated, not because I didn’t want to tell her. “I didn’t tell you because there’s nothing to tell. I went on a walk, we crossed paths and he was an asshole. That’s the end of the story. I promise.”
“All the more reason to look good. Gotta let the prince know he messed with the wrong girl.”
✽✽✽
The first day of school in Velkin was basically like the first day of school anywhere else I’d ever been in my entire life. If I’d wanted to be a sociologist, it probably would have made a good case study, comparing the social habits of humans versus magic folk, but then again, they were so similar it almost felt unfair to compare the two. Magic and an entire universe separated us, but still, it was astounding how fast high school kids—whether centaur, human, pixie, elf, or otherwise—segmented themselves into tiny cliques and decided to declare war on everyone who wasn’t part of their little designated in-crowd.
I don’t know if it’s because we were late for breakfast or what, but by the time we’d arrived in the Dining Quarter to scarf down a few pastries and some sausage—vegetarian sausage for Kyra; Pixies didn’t eat meat—everyone had already drawn the lines of those groups in permanent marker, and there was no room for us to squeeze in anywhere.
Not that I really cared... Okay, I cared a little. But only a little. I guess there was still some stupid part of me that clung on to the stupid hope that things would be different here. That I wouldn’t be a social outcast and pariah. That I would find the friends in Velkin that I’d never been able to find in real life. And that hope partially came true. Having one friend in Kyra was more than I’d ever managed to find on Earth. But still, sitting alone with her at the lunch table didn’t feel any less mortifying than it had back home. It was just more bearable because, finally, I had someone to share the mortification with.
A mortification that only got worse when Ariedre and her little posse strolled up to our table, their perfect hair and shimmering lipstick glinting like the edges of swords as they approached. No matter how much I prayed to every god that was out there, I didn’t disappear into the table, so she had me and Kyra as prime targets for her catty diatribe.
“Oh, look. How cute. The little pixie finally found a friend. How fitting that the worst student in Velkin would only be able to convince a stupid human to bear her presence.”
The group of girls let out a tittering of laughter, to which Kyra only responded by widening her smile and ducking her head down so they couldn’t really see her face. I’d never seen Kyra hide before. Not once. A wave of righteous anger pushed me to my feet.
“Leave her alone. Leave us alone.”
“Why? Who’s going to stop us?”
I could sense that the attention of the entire Dining Quarter was focused directly on us. The scraping of silverware had stopped, the chitter-chatter of friends and enemies had come to a halt, and though I couldn’t see him, I felt Anatole’s cold stare painting icicles up and down my back. I lifted my chin, defiantly. And more bravely than I felt.
“I will.”
“You really think you could get in a fight with me and win, little human?”
I didn’t answer that. I already knew the answer to that. I’d tried once and failed. Both of us knew how a confrontation like this one would play out.
Tut, tut, tut. Like an animal toying with her prey, Ariedre moved in closer, swinging her perfect hips as the attention of the room gave her the confidence to strut. “You don’t, do you? You know you’d lose to me. You just think that your precious little prince is going to save you.” She lowered her voice, whispering now, a whisper that chilled me down to my very soul as I remembered the cold dismissal Anatole had dealt me when last we spoke, when she’d tried to hurt me the first time. “Well, I wouldn’t count on it. He told me himself what he’s going to do to you, and none of his plans include a rescue.”
A booming, jovial voice cracked out from behind me. A voice I hadn’t heard before, but one that commanded my attention all the same.
“What seems to be the trouble here?”
Spinning on my heel, I came nose-to-chest with a giant of a man. Not literally a giant, though there were plenty of those in Velkin, but a man so tall and so broad and rippling with so many muscles that I knew he’d be worshipped as a god if he ever made the jump from Velkin to Earth. Long, blonde hair braided back behind his ears gave him a light, airy feel to him, and his smirk was all at once polite and sharp-edged. Very regal.
Ariedre’s attitude changed on a dime. All smiles now, she dipped into a curtsy. Her voice became a purr.
“Prince Tormin. Your highness. I was just talking to our newest human friend here.”
Oh, so this was Prince Tormin, the Queen’s youngest son who had an affinity for Earth’s culture. I’d seen him before, walking around campus with a gaggle of admirers, but I hadn’t realized this blonde-haired Adonis belonged to the same family as The Queen...And Anatole. I couldn’t imagine two brothers more different, not in looks or in temperament.
For one thing, Tormin was, you know, actually nice and seemed at least capable of smiling and basic human interaction, all skills in which Anatole was sorely lacking. Tilting his head as though Ariedre had just said something terribly curious, Tormin plopped himself beside Kyra on the dining table bench, and began helping himself to a handful of plump fruit that looked like grapes, if grapes had been a blue, translucent color. The Velkin magic had done a good job of bringing human food and Velkin cuisine to the table, and Tormin began alternating between bites of andouille sausage and the weird grapes. From the relaxed posture of his shoulders, and the way he sat slightly too close to Kyra for two people who didn’t seem to know each other all that well, I could tell that he both knew and reveled the fact that everyone in the room was now watching him with keen interest.
“And what was the topic of discussion? I love discussions with you humans. Always so fascinating.” His broad, warm smile that he definitely got from his mother nearly blinded me. I only just managed to shake his hand. “I’m Tormin, by the way.”
“Carolyn Connors,” I said, wondering if it was possible for someone to crush your hand during a handshake...His was very firm.
“Carolyn Connors? Gods, my mother was just talking about you! Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
This interaction
did not sit well with Ariedre, who looked about a second away from stomping her foot and throwing a temper tantrum. She hissed: “Tormin, what are you doing?”
Just like that, his face fell. His voice grew deadly low. “Prince Tormin. You will address me as Prince Tormin.”
I didn’t miss the way he’d introduced himself to me as simply Tormin. Neither did Ariedre. She shot me a stone-cold look before turning back to him, her voice sweet enough to drown a whole colony of flies.
“Of course. Prince Tormin, would you like to join us for a walk during luncheon? The views by the lake can be very...” She paused then, all the better for us to read into her meaning. Apparently, she didn't just have her eyes set on Anatole, but his younger brother, too. “Scenic.”
“I’m afraid I’ll be otherwise engaged. And so will my brother, so don’t go sniffing around him, either.”
Then, as if we weren’t there, Ariedre touched his arm with a desperation I couldn’t quite place. Probably because I’d never wanted any guy—not in my universe or this one—to pay me attention as badly as she seemed to want the royal brothers to pay her attention. “My prince, I would advise caution. You have no idea what these humans are capable of. I think that one might have a disease from hanging around that pixie girl.”
“I can assure you that the humans have had all of their shots. I’m more afraid of picking up something dangerous from you than from them. Now, run along before you ruin my appetite.”
That was not a request, but a command from her prince. She knew it. We knew it. And she obeyed, her head hanging with every storming step she took out of the room. As she left, I glanced at Kyra, who stared into her lap with a small, secretive smile that I couldn’t quite decode.
Finally, when we were alone and the rest of the chamber had almost entirely gone back to their food and conversation, now armed with fresh gossip, I spoke up. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I’m a prince of Velkin and you are under my protection. Of course I had to do it.”
“She’s not worth it,” Kyra said, practically talking to her hands because she refused to look away from them. Tormin turned slightly to her, his gaze intense, but his voice light as it had been just a moment ago.
“Perhaps not. But you most certainly are.”
Interesting. There was something there between Kyra and Tormin, something she wasn’t telling me. But I didn’t have time to question it, because he seemed to share her gift of gab.
“Say, my family will be dining here this evening as we discuss preparations for a great welcoming feast later this week. Would you two be so good as to attend?”
“With you?” Kyra practically choked before I had the chance to accept.
“You’re certainly welcome to attend on your own,” he said, a teasing note lifting his voice and his lips into a smile. “But I don’t think the guards would let you through without me.”
Kyra looked at me, her expression unreadable. My stomach twisted. It was clear there was something going on between them, but I didn’t know what. Did she want me to turn him down for her or did she want me to accept so she didn’t have to seem overeager?
Crap. This is what happens when you don’t have friends for your entire life You become absolutely terrible at reading social cues.
Without any help from Kyra, I decided I could only speak for myself. That seemed the most safe course of action.
“I don’t know. Your brother and I...we’re not on the best terms, really. Arguing with him all night doesn’t really seem like my idea of a good time.”
“You’re in luck because my brother is not invited.”
I tried to read his face for any sign of double-dealing or trickery. The left side of his lip twitched, but I didn’t see anything else that resembled a tell.
“Really?”
“I swear it on my scout’s honor.”
I chuckled, unable to help myself. He may have been a prince, but if Kyra liked him, then I couldn’t imagine he was the kind who would have me executed for daring to chuckle in his presence. “Well, if you’re going to hang out with me, I’ll have to fix some of your human phrases first. But yes, I’d like to go with you.”
“Great.” He glanced at Kyra; his smile only grew. “Then, we shall call it a date.”
“You just say it’s a date,” she replied, ducking her head shyly.
“You do have much to teach me!”
They went on then, chattering as they ate breakfast, but my attention drifted as a crystal glass shattered across the room. When I looked up, I realized it was Anatole who’d dropped it. And he was now storming out of the room, red rage streaked across his face.
Chapter Ten
Anatole
I didn’t care. Not in the slightest. There were no words in any language of Velkin, nor any language of Earth that could describe how little I cared about the sight of my brother rushing to the defense of Carolyn Connors. Seeing her offer him an easy smile and a laugh didn’t affect my life in the slightest. Watching Tormin dismiss Ariedre, a royal friend of our family for nearly a thousand years, without so much as a second glance didn’t change this world or rock my universe on its side.
I couldn’t have cared less about if my brother decided to sully his hands with a human and I couldn’t have cared less if that human he happened to choose was Carolyn.
She could do what he wanted. He could do what he wanted. The little goings-on of their lives didn’t matter to me. So...So why did looking at them together, situated at the far end of the Dining Quarter, make me feel as if someone had replaced all of my blood with liquid fire? And why now, hours later, as I adjusted my clothes for tonight’s dinner in the mirror, was I still thinking about it, still picking apart every glance and every word too quiet for me to hear?
If I didn’t care, then why did every part of my body feel like I cared?
The day had been an endless parade of pointless lectures and small conflicts between the humans and the magic folk in their midst, so it made sense that that I would conjure up the memory of Carolyn as a way to distract myself from the real Carolyn sharing classroom after classroom with me. Then, I could tell myself that she was a way to stave off boredom, to think of anything else but the beginner’s lessons that always seemed to populate the beginning of a new school year.
But now that I was alone, now that I had anything else in Velkin to occupy my thoughts—most notably, my lack of progress in the hunt down the humans initiative—why couldn’t I shake her?
Tonight, the Velkin royalty marked my father’s birthday, a momentous occasion that usually only called for the highest of celebrations. His official, State birthday would be celebrated near the midwinter festival, but tonight was the actual night of his birth, which meant a night of feasting and dancing and drinking, the kind of festivity I usually enjoyed, even if only to help distract me from the rest of my life for a little while. There were usually a few beautiful elven maidens seeking my attention, a few too many goblets of wine poured, and a few too many dances danced. Tonight, though, as I strode into the Mirrored Ballroom of the Royal Palace, I found myself dreading it all. I couldn’t drink and dance and revel and enjoy the company of the upper echelons of Velkin society while the threats from Earth were just a stone’s throw away, when they were so close I could smell their human skin from halfway across the city.
Perhaps Adric had a point. Perhaps killing them was better than all this worry. My mind flickered to the armory down in the catacombs of the castle, filled with magical instruments of war of every size and description, then back to the crowded ballroom around me, where the magic folk gathered to drink and dance as they awaited my father’s arrival. Would they join my call to arms if I made it now?
Before I could follow that line of thought any further, my mother’s familiar voice hummed out behind me.
“Son, I’m glad you could join us.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
I tried not to stiffen at the sound of her voice, or the way she pre
ssed her hand lovingly between my shoulder blades. My mother was such a warm, effusive person, precisely the kind of Queen who was a mother to her nation as well as their leader. I’d always hoped—secretly, of course—that the woman who became my Queen would be like her. My parents loved each other with a kind of eternal desperation, a kind of loving friendship I always envied. They weren’t just co-rulers and political allies, but lovers and friends. I wanted that, but hadn’t ever found it.
And now that my father had decided my fate for me, if I didn’t expose the humans for what they truly were, then I never would find it. My mother’s love, the way it poured out of her, only reminded me of something I’d now be eternally denied. Not to mention the fact that she could only have one reason for approaching me now...discussing Miss Carolyn Connors.
“I hope there won’t be any repeats of last night’s fireworks,” my mother said, gently brushing a lock of stray hair from my forehead.
“If Father doesn’t start anything, I won’t have to finish it.”
My muscles coiled, waiting for the inevitable. As it turned out, it only took two sentences for her to arrive at her real purpose for seeking me out. She sniffed. “And what about your human? Miss Carolyn Connors? I was hoping you’d be here with her tonight or that you’d stay home so you could spend some time with her. Have you made any progress on that front?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Tormin?”
Mother’s brow furrowed, and her bone-glass tiara slid slightly down her forehead from the weight of her expression. “What about Tormin?”
“He’s the one who’s gotten close to her. Before I even had the...”
Just at that moment, my entire universe shifted under my feet. My gaze slipped past my mother’s face, across the room, and towards the grand staircase leading from the upper halls of the palace down here to the Mirrored Ballroom, where the entire crowd stood, hushed, as they watched Carolyn Connors descend the staircase.
Magic Exchange: A Supernatural Academy Romance (The Velkin Royal Academy Series Book 1) Page 7
