“It’s nothing. He was just trying to follow his father’s orders. We still hate each other.”
“Fine. If you’re going to keep secrets, then so am I.” She halted in front of a vaulted door decorated with inlaid stained glass, all while staring at the floor. “This is your stop.”
“Kyra—”
“I’ll see you when it’s over. Maybe you’ll be in the mood to talk to me then.”
Just like that, she disappeared into the crowd, leaving me totally alone to face the wolves. See, this seminar wasn’t like any of the other lectures I’d endured here on Velkin. This was something quite different. Here, we weren’t learning runes or tarot or history or advanced mathematics. Instead, we were here to see if any of us were any good for Prince Anatole.
Nothing to it but to do it. Gathering my courage, I pushed into the room, a large, wood-paneled hall that I’d come to expect from the eccentric castle, only this time, instead of tables and desks for the students, the room was set up almost like a fancy parlor or a den, with comfortable chairs set up for lounging.
I was the last one to arrive. All of my other human companions—girls, boys, and non-binary kids alike—were all sprawled out across the room, glued to my every move as I took the first chair I could find.
Their whispering, which had stopped when I entered the room, now started back up again in earnest. They were all talking about me. Opening one of the many books I’d brought from Earth, I buried my nose in the text. Maybe if I pretended that the gossip didn’t bother me for long enough, it would actually be true.
I didn’t have long to wait, though, because I’d only managed to skim about three pages when the door in the back of the room slammed against the wall, announcing the presence of our “professor,” a short dwarf woman in flowing robes and silken scarves. I’d never seen a production of Shakespeare in the Park and I’d never been to a hokey fortune teller, but the way she delivered her little greeting spiel and waved her hands with every word made me feel as though I was stuck right in the middle of such an experience.
“Students! Oh, you precious students. What a wonderful time this is for you. What a honor to have you here. What an honor for you to be here! My name is Madame Dede, and I am Velkin’s foremost expert in the magic of love for nearly three hundred years. “
In two nearby chairs, an impossibly skinny girl with jet-black hair and a sleek human outfit of jeans and a t-shirt that probably cost more than I’d ever make in an entire lifetime and her friend with loose, blonde beach waves muttered to themselves, apparently unaware or just not caring that most of the room could hear them loud and clear.
“She looks good for her age.”
“I’ll have to ask who does her Botox.”
“Ah. Two chatty girls in my powder blue armchairs.” With a snap of her magical fingers, a scroll of parchment and a quill appeared in Madame Dede’s hands. “I’ll have to make a note of that.”
The girl who’d made the Botox comment’s jaw dropped, sending her lazy curls dancing around her skeletal cheeks. “But how were we supposed to know—”
Eccentric and strange though she was, Madame Dede turned on a dime, her whimsical nature shifting to acknowledge the gravity of our current situation. “I am here to help find the prince his most compatible human mate. There are no tests in this class because everything is a test. Your very existence is a test in which the only prize is finding eternal happiness. Through a series of trials and interviews and magical assessments, I will make my recommendation for the prince’s best match. Be yourself. Don’t perform. And trust the process. Now, I want all of you to go around the circle and introduce yourselves, just to give us an idea of who you are.”
Slowly, we moved around the room, with everyone introducing themselves. Children of dignitaries. And emperors and princesses and...The more people who spoke and gave their lengthy introductions, the more my stomach soured. I really was a nobody when compared to these people. When it was finally my turn, I didn’t even bother to stand up.
“My name is Carolyn Connors. I’m just kind of a normal American, I guess. Nothing special.”
“Nothing special but the way she opens her legs,” black-haired girl grumbled.
A flush overtook my cheeks; the heat stained me like an admission of guilt. A small tittering of chuckles bopped around the room as the joke made its way through the crowd. Madame Dede’s lips thinned into a line so flat it almost disappeared.
“You. What’s your name?”
Black Hair rose to her feet, graceful and lithe and so full of herself. Though, to be fair, if I was as beautiful and undoubtedly rich as she was, I’d probably be full of myself too. “My name is Beatrice Amelia Highmore. Of the Manhattan Highmores.” She glanced around the room, waiting for everyone to realize what a Big Deal she was. Then, she settled on me, folding her arms across her chest as she lorded above me. “And I intend to win the prince’s heart without having to slut around for it.”
“Interesting, Miss Highmore.” Madame Dede disappeared her parchment and quill, her face completely devoid of amusement. “I do think now is the appropriate time to inform all of you that while romantic magic and compatibility magic are my strengths, I’m also fairly adept at transfigurative magic. So anyone who speaks out of turn can very easily find themselves spending our time together with their mouth magicked away. Are we understood?”
Had a teacher just threatened to turn a student into a mouthless blob? Badass. Warmth blossomed in my chest. Back home, people didn’t usually stand up for me, especially not teachers against the rich and powerful students. Beatrice collapsed back in her seat. Her friend leaned over to commiserate, stretching out a sympathetic hand as she whispered what I guess were supposed to be words of comfort.
“Great. She’s a total wackjob.”
“Oh, like the rest of our professors aren’t wackjobs?”
“Today, I will be taking each and every one of you into a private session, where you will be interviewed. No, don’t think of it as an interview, but a conversation. Just a chat between friends, alright?”
There was a smattering of yeahs and yes m’ams, but I was frozen to my seat. She wanted to chat? About me? About Anatole? If I’d been a bad liar in front of Kyra, then there was no way I would escape this without confessing something to her. Dread leadened my bones. Even if she did call on me, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get up. Maybe she’d forget about me. Maybe we’d run out of time before our next seminar was to begin. Maybe—
“Miss Connors. Let’s see you first. Please, follow me.”
Dammit. Of course she called me first. I could never be so lucky as to escape that easily. Whispering gossip erupted, rising in volume as I walked farther and farther away from them, and closer and closer to the small office from which Madame Dede was conducting these little interviews.
It was an adorable little room, decorated with nothing more than hand-done paintings lacquered directly onto the stone walls of the office. But when the door closed, it wasn’t the artwork that I was appreciating. It was how totally soundproof the room was. I didn’t have a chance of hearing whatever garbage they were all spewing about me out there, and they wouldn’t be able to hear...well, whatever it was that Madame Dede wanted to discuss with me..
“There. That’s better. Tea? Oh, you’re an American, aren't you? Please, accept my apologies. I was told to offer your people Diet Coke or something called a Pepsi?”
“Tea is fine, thanks.”
A small smile tugged at my lips. Coming to Velkin was certainly a culture shock, mostly because they didn’t seem to actually understand much about human culture at all. Madame Dede handed me a steaming teacup, and then offered me a plate of small quarter-moon cookies that filled the tiny closet of an office with the scent of caramelized sugar and lemon.
“And a cookie?”
“Thanks.”
I took two and scarfed them down. Nervous snacking had always been a habit of mine.
“Now, just relax as I
prepare the room,” Madame Dede intoned. Then, the lights in the room blew out. A panic rose up in me, one I tried to fight off as best as I could. It only slightly subsided as bright, luminous, multicolored smokes began to dance, breaking up the darkness with clouds of illuminated color that swirled around us like ghosts.
“What is all of this?”
“It’s sensation smoke. It’s a great mood-setter, but it also clears the celestial space. Helps me to better see the future, your aura, things like that.”
The future? What if she saw something in my future that tipped her off to mine and Anatole’s plans? Glancing town at my tea, new terrors totally different from all the ones that had come before it settled int.
“There’s no truth serum or anything in this tea, is there?”
"Great Demon's Ghost! What a question.” Madame Dede cackled and picked up her tea cup, taking a long, deliberate sip to show me it was safe. “No, there’s no truth serum, but is telling the truth something you’re concerned about being able to do?”
“No, it’s just that I don’t...I mean...I don’t want to have to tell the truth. I want to tell the truth on my own.”
She raised a pierced eyebrow. She knew I was lying. “Interesting. Then, let’s begin.”
Questions flew like bullets in a war zone, so fast and so direct that I barely had time to consider my words before I answered. Where are you from? A little bit of everywhere in America. My mom never knew how to keep down a job so we were always moving. And your father? What was he like? I never knew him. Why did you apply to come to school here in Velkin? Can I pass that question? No. But this is a confidential assessment. No one outside of these walls will ever hear what you’ve said to me. My mother was an angry woman and she liked to take that anger out on me. I figured the only way to get away from her was to get into a good college that would pay my way, and I figured the best way to get that was to be one of the first humans n Velkin. I needed to escape. That’s all. I see. Is that the only reason? Yeah. What other reason would there be? What makes you special? Nothing. I’m not special. That isn’t true. Everyone is special. Not me.
I expected her to drop it then, to move onto something else. Or maybe that was wishful thinking on my part. Maybe I’d just wanted to believe that she wouldn’t press me on it, since every time I reiterated that I wasn’t special, my mother’s voice that used to scream those words at me now had a counterpoint, from Queen Freia and Anatole and Kyra and Madame Dede.
They believed I was special. They didn’t think I was nothing. Two of them at least thought I had the power to save the world. But I couldn’t confess that. Not just because I’d promised Anatole I wouldn’t, but because I still didn’t really believe it.
I’d spent years of my life being told, over and over again, that I wasn’t special. That no one cared about me. That I was alone in this great, big universe. Suddenly believing the opposite felt like I was setting myself up for failure, for someone to come along and rip the rug out from under me. Believing that I was worth something just gave the world an opportunity to remind me how very wrong that belief was.
Madame Dede pursed her lips. “Carolyn. These sessions won’t fulfill their purpose if you don’t tell the absolute truth. Don’t you want to know if you and the prince could be a match?”
“No,” I answered immediately. My heart went off to the races.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“And why don’t you want to know?”
The answer to that question was obvious and clear, like the fact that two plus two equaled four. If I found out that he and I were compatible, then I’d have to actually own up to the way he made me feel. I’d have to face the possibility that we were actually, possibly, maybe, good for each other and that I wasn’t some kind of unlovable nothing like my mother always told me I was. I shot up from my chair. The fight part of fight or flight definitely wasn’t an option when the person you were fighting or flighting from was your professor.
“...I need to go.”
“We aren’t finished here, young lady.”
“I have to go!”
As I sprinted from the classroom as fast as my feet would carry me, hot tears of embarrassment filling my eyes, I tuned out her calling my name as I went. I didn’t want to think about her. I didn’t want to think about what she’d said. I didn’t want to think about her mysterious eyes staring me down as though she knew something that I didn’t.
I knew one thing. And one thing only. I needed to learn how to lie. And I needed to learn quick.
Chapter Fourteen
Anatole
“You want to do what?”
Looking back on it, I probably shouldn’t have selected one of the most romantic rooms in all of Castle Bloc for our secret rendezvous point. But the rickety old lighthouse on the far Eastern end of the lake was so remote that not even the most desperate of lovers made their way out here, which meant that it was abandoned and therefore, the perfect place for us to meet in secret.
Still, as Carolyn stood by the window in a shaft of silvered moonlight, her wide eyes catching every light and sparkling like rare, precious gemstones, I regretted the decision. It was too easy to picture me pinning her to the wall behind her and moving my lips against hers in the moonlight, capturing her body with mine and dissolving into the night as our bodies became one with the evening.
I shifted uncomfortably in the dusty, oversized armchair beneath me, crossing my legs. I did not want her to see the physical evidence of my rush of daydreams.
“I want to learn how to lie,” she repeated, separating the words so that there could be no misunderstanding on this point.
“You’re a human. All humans are good at lying.”
A wry, self-deprecating smile pulled at her pink lips. I tried to look at anything but them, but they drew my eyes no matter how hard I fought to avoid them. “Not this human."
“Really? You don’t have a single secret that you’ve hidden away in that little heart of yours?”
“...No.”
It was, without a doubt, the worst lie I’d ever seen someone attempt to tell. Her eyes widened. Her breath sped up. She looked too closely at me and then very pointedly away.
“Oh, Hells, you really are a terrible liar.”
“See? And I need your help.”
“Why my help?”
“Because you’re a very good liar. Anyone can see that.”
Interesting perspective. I didn’t believe it for a second. “Would you really be able to tell if a good liar was a good liar, though? It seems to me a good liar would always seem like he was telling the truth.”
“Okay, Smart ass. It’s because you’re a jerk and I figured most jerks would be pretty good at lying. Was I right about that?”
The little human was perceptive, I had to give her that. She saw in me what very few people ever even tried to. I always supposed that most of my future subjects wanted to believe the best in their future king, so it was easier for them to close their eyes to the person I really was: a liar, a scoundrel, a dark heart. Shrugging, I tried to downplay how right she really was.
“I have a certain talent for bending the truth into submission. You’re not entirely wrong in that regard.”
“Good. Then you’ll help me.”
Helping her meant spending more time with her, and spending any time with her was already more than I could handle. She was a temptress, a distraction, and I couldn’t allow myself to fall under her spell. Grinding my jaw tight, I tried to keep my voice even and diplomatic. “We are only supposed to be meeting under dire circumstances or when we have information to exchange. I didn’t come all the way out here to tutor you in something most children learn right after they gain the power of speech.”
“I’m in Madame Dede’s Compatibility Seminar. She’s asking all kinds of questions about me and my past. I need to know how to get around her just in case she ever asks about you or us or anything that could give us away. Teaching me to lie
is only going to help you out in the long-run.”
As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. This scheme of ours would only work if we maintained strict discipline with the truth, a discipline we couldn’t maintain if she had no...What did the humans call it? Poker face. She needed a good poker face if we were going to succeed in stopping the war before it began.
“Oh, fine. But I’m only doing this—”
“For the good of your people. Yeah. I know.”
For the good of my people. That’s why I was doing this, why I was indulging this...wasn’t I? Only, as she laughed and rolled her eyes, a realization struck me like a blow straight to the heart. If she was a terrible liar...that could only mean one thing. I’d been wrong about her from the very first.
“You really aren’t here to destroy Velkin, are you?”
She sniffed. “What finally clued you in?”
“You’re too bad a liar to ever pull off such a scheme.”
“Guilty as charged.”
My heart and my mind battled out for supremacy at this new information. I no longer had any excuse to hate her. There was no off-chance that she was actually a human monster. There was only the truth, and that truth was that she was a normal human, a terrible liar, and the only person in the entire universe who could help me save it.
She was also beautiful. And bewitching. And smart. And funny. And brave. And vulnerable...and thoroughly vexing.
Filing away that particular line of thought for later study, I pointed to another dusty chair across from me, offering it to her.
“Let’s begin, then. Pull up a chair.”
She did as she was told, but the chair was too far away. I reached out, placed my arms on either sides of her thighs, and dragged her closer, until her knees were nestled in between mine. I had her trapped now. A flicker of fear flashed in her gaze, but she bit her lip and swallowed, a sure tell that she was struggling against the feeling.
She wasn’t a good liar. And she wasn’t terribly good at hiding her emotions, at least where I was concerned. Teaching her to play the game we found ourselves in would be quite the task.
Magic Exchange: A Supernatural Academy Romance (The Velkin Royal Academy Series Book 1) Page 11
