She turned back to Teagan. “Whatever you think happened between our families, I was a child, just as innocent as either of you. And I am not my father or mother.”
“Are you trying again?” Teagan asked. “You are very stupid for a princess who someday wants to assume the throne.”
Darby could feel her skin heating up. “Time will tell,” she said, repeating a line that Flynn used the night before. “You will never say that I did not offer you peace.”
She stepped forward as Professor Keoni Kane, a gruff gnome earth faerie, assumed the front of the class. “Today we will assess your abilities as earth faeries to…”
“Stay away from my brother,” Teagan warned in hushed tone from behind her.
Darby glanced back for a split-second, startled.
“He told me about the nightclub too. Slut.”
Anger pounded through Darby’s body until her hands were shaking with fury.
Slut?
Slut?!
She had half a mind to turn around right then, in the middle of the class, assessments be damned. Through the haze of her fuming, she tried to focus, not on her wants, not even on her needs, but merely on her survival.
She had to secure her spot in the appropriate classes. She had to win over Professor Wu. She had to stop provoking the Cormacs. If she failed at even one of these things, she could cost her entire family their lives. She could cost her household their lives.
Survival, she said to herself.
This word alone was the only thing that could calm her insides. She repeated it to herself several times, until she could hear Professor Kane’s words again. And good thing, too, as he was giving crucial instructions for how the rest of the day would go.
The assessment thankfully continued without unpleasantness. Professor Kane first created a workspace for each of them, filled with critical supplies, like trellises, dirt, greenery and stones. Then, he led them through assessments on physical strength, tuning into animals, plant growth, and manipulating soil, terrains, stones, and other earthlie elements.
Unfortunately, Flynn scored the highest marks of any of the earth faeries across the board, aside from plant manipulation, for which he scored surprisingly low. However, at twenty years old, he had several years on most of the students, just like Griffin, who had the added benefit of already having attended the school for a year. She kept telling herself this to keep from panicking. Not only did Flynn have a claim to her throne, he also had the natural talent to rally important and powerful people to his cause and taken from her.
As Professor Kane walked past her grouping of students, he commented appreciatively on her talents and efforts across all assessments. She could tell she had scored high marks as well, and checking out the rest of the students’ work, she guessed she sat in the top ten or twenty percent of the class.
She also happily noted that Teagan Cormac struggled through nearly all of the assessments, aside from a strong ability to turn stones into beautiful, symmetrical gems and crystals. Other than that, she seemed to be a fairly average faerie of unremarkable ability. Professor Kane often corrected her movements during her assessments, while lapping praise on Darby’s efforts. It did not go unnoticed by either of them, and by the end of the assessments, Teagan glowered with frustration.
She is nothing, Darby thought to herself happily. After watching her assessments, she saw Teagan’s earlier words, calling her a slut, as almost laughable.
Her brother, on the other hand, had proven himself more formidable than Darby wanted.
On the other side of the hall, the spirit faeries were running through their own assessments specific to their element, led by Professor Wu. The spirit faeries weren’t as interesting to watch as the earth faeries, as many of their natural talents lied in casting illusions, manipulating dreams, creating confusion in the mind, and controlling energy that wasn’t easily seen. Much of it looked like the majority of the class standing around, while the singled out student attempted to confuddle Professor Wu.
Mei Li stood among them and seemed to receive quite a bit of praise from Professor Wu, as well as admiration from the students around her.
The earth faeries finished before the spirit faeries. When both groups had finished, Professor Wu and Professor Kane both turned to the earth faeries to allow for a second evaluation across assessments.
Professor Kane walked them through all the assessments once more, while Professor Wu walked around. The professor commented positively on Flynn’s efforts, while staying silent or offering polite critique on nearly all of the other students.
As he rounded toward her group, she felt determined to impress him. Flynn was on the other side of the room, so he wouldn’t be a distraction, and she already knew she compared favorably to Teagan and several of the other students in her group.
Teagan had her chance but got nervous at Professor Wu’s eyes on her. She failed to bring her plant back to life and even made it wilt more. Darby tried to hold back a laugh. She redeemed herself, though, as she turned an ugly brown stone into a beautiful and large rose quartz gem. Professor Wu glanced at Darby as he told Teagan she had impressed him.
This spurred Darby’s determination even more. When it was her turn, she expertly wrapped her vines around the trellis in front of her, sure that should earn her some sort of positive reaction from Professor Wu.
He looked at her oddly, though, as students around her began to snicker.
She fell, her legs pulled out from under her. When she looked down, she saw nothing that could have caused her fall, though she felt invisible cords snaking up her leg.
Now, all the students were laughing at her, including the spirit faeries, Mei Li’s laugh ringing out the loudest.
Professor Kane called out to her. “Darby, you’re going to strangle yourself.” He moved toward her, though she didn’t understand what he meant.
She tried to stand up, making it about halfway, before she got yanked down again. She could now feel cords tightening around her body. She felt lightheaded.
Several of the students were still laughing, though many had stopped and looked at her, concerned.
Both Griffin and Professor Kane reached her at the same time and began pulling at the invisible cords that she could feel suffocating her.
“Darby, you have to stop growing the vines,” Griffin begged as his head floated above hers.
She tried to reply, “I’m not,” but she couldn’t speak anymore. She just shook her head, hoping he understood that she didn’t know what was happening.
“Professor Wu!” Professor Kane barked. “Get control of your class.”
Professor Wu slowly bent down until he was hovering over her face. He lazily held his hand above her face and snapped.
Immediately, she looked down and realized what she had done. The vines were nowhere near the trellis—she had instead grown them toward her, grown them up her body and across her limbs.
She gasped as she recoiled the vines, forcing them to wrap around the trellis.
Griffin fell to her side, cradling her head in his hands. “You can breathe again?” he asked her.
“I’m fine,” she grumbled, her face heating up. Sixty students stared at her in silence as she stood up, rubbing her raw, imprinted skin. Across her legs and arms, she had scratches and smeared blood where the thorns on the vines had pricked her.
Griffin stood back from her, glaring at Professor Wu. “One of your students attacked her. I’ll be filing a report with the Dean.”
“She attacked herself, actually,” Professor Wu said, observing Darby down the straight of his nose.
Professor Kane stepped toward the spirit faeries. “Which of you did this?”
No surprise, not a single person stepped forward, though at least none of them were laughing at her anymore.
She caught Flynn’s eye, noting that he had moved several students closer to her, as if he had intended to run to her aid but stopped himself.
She turned away from him and stoo
d up straight. “And my trellis?” she asked Professor Wu. “Do you have any feedback on it?”
Professor Wu looked at her perfectly dressed trellis, which she had still managed to perform even after being attacked.
He observed it, but made no comment.
He cannot find criticism for it, she thought to herself. And yet, he had no positive feedback for her either.
He looked back at her. “Unfortunately, a dressed trellis has no use if you are dead, your royal highness. Party tricks will not help you in a real battle. You should have realized immediately that you’d had an illusion cast over you. You should have quickly recoiled your vines and shaken through the illusion. Very poor job.”
Darby glowered at him, arguments forming on the tip of her tongue. Since when was the assessment a battleground where other students could attack you while you were performing? Not a single other student had had a prank performed on them. And he was a professor—shouldn’t he have protected her?
“Alright, alright,” Professor Kane called out before she could say something she regretted. “Let’s take a break. Please meet back in fifteen minutes, and we will finish the assessments.”
Darby exhaled as the class broke, inadvertently glanced over to where Flynn had been standing. He had disappeared though.
She didn’t see Flynn in the hallways during break, either, though she did see Mei Li with her younger sister and Teagan Cormac. She didn’t think the younger sister was old enough to be enrolled at the school, though perhaps she had come there as part of the household. The three girls were whispering rapidly amongst themselves, speaking Chinese to each other—which of course Darby couldn’t understand.
She had no friends of her own at the break. Brielle had opted to take several fashion and party hosting assessments, while Quinn, whose father was a Duke in her parents’ court, had opted for public appearances and advisoring assessments.
“Don’t,” Griffin said, coming up behind her.
“Don’t what?” Darby asked innocently, still watching Mei Li.
Griffin smirked. “Kerr told you not to provoke them.”
“That Asian tramp made me look like a fool in front of everyone,” Darby growled.
“You don’t know it was her.”
She glared at him, made a decision, and walked toward them.
“Mei Li,” Darby said with fake enthusiasm.
The three girls went dead silent immediately, looking suspicious, as if they had been caught.
Darby put on her cheeriest voice. “Teagan and I met earlier and she told me all about you, and I just knew I had to come over and meet you.”
Mei Li stared sharply at Teagan, like a viper. Teagan looked at her with bewilderment and a slight shake of the head.
Mei Li’s eyes moved to Darby’s, locking to her. “Nice to meet you, Darby Fitzgerald,” she said coolly.
“I think you’ve met my lady-in-waiting, Fiona Torrey?” Darby continued, bulldozing forward. Her voice carried, and now several students were staring at their confrontation.
Mei Li tilted her head, pursing her lips. “No, doesn’t ring a bell.”
“She’s in the hospital ward actually,” Darby said. “Something about a poison?” She laughed, waving her hand in the air dismissively. “I mean, a harmless prank, really, except that she had a terrible reaction to it, and now she’s going to miss all of her assessments.”
Mei Li seemed surprised to hear this news. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said in an overly sweet voice. Teagan looked fearful and kept glancing at Mei Li for direction.
“Are you?” Darby asked. “See, I was thinking, who would want to poison my lady-in-waiting on the first day of orientation? But then I realized, I was the real target. If the poison had reached me instead of my lady, I probably wouldn’t have made it to the presenting ceremony at all.” She tapped her face mockingly. “And then who would that leave to represent the leprechauns?” She turned to Teagan. “I guess just you and your brother, right?”
Mei Li straightened her back, though she was still much shorter than Darby. She stepped closer to Darby until they were only centimeters apart. She smiled sweetly. “If someone had poisoned someone in my household, I’d probably want some proof before I started hurtling accusations in the middles of hallways.”
“Maybe I only need a motivation,” Darby retorted.
“Let me ask you a question,” Mei Li said, still in that sickeningly sweet voice, and with the tilted head that she must have thought made her look cute. “Why would any of us poison you when all my spirit faerie peers have seen how well I can cast illusions?” Mei Li stepped even closer. “I wouldn’t need a brew to keep you from the presenting ceremony. And I could have cast an illusion on you at any moment while you were standing up there.”
Darby took a step back. She hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe you didn’t want to get caught,” she said, stumbling through her words. “Maybe it was just too risky in front of all those people.”
Mei Li scoffed. “Everyone here has just witnessed how susceptible you are to the most obvious of illusions. Trust me, if I had wanted to embarrass you during the presenting ceremony, I wouldn’t have gotten caught.”
Darby glared at her, hearing snickers from students behind her. “I know it was you,” she whispered. “Both the brew and the vines.”
Mei Li smiled, stepping past her. “Prove it,” she whispered back.
Darby glared as the other two girls stepped past her as well, following Mei Li back into the hall. She spun around furiously, only to be rushed by Griffin, who wrapped his arms around her, pinning her own rising arms to her body.
“I’m going to kill her,” Darby declared, so only he could hear.
“Calm down, tigress,” he said, holding her back. “Remember what Kerr said. Less provocation is better.”
She relaxed her muscles, falling easily into his arms. For the first time, she noticed how much stronger he had gotten through his training. She looked up at him, for what felt like the first time.
“You didn’t agree with me confronting her,” she said. “But you didn’t stop me. Why?”
He shrugged. “I serve you. I advise you. I support your choices.”
She nodded, understanding him perfectly, while also wondering how challenging that probably was for him.
They joined the other students in moving back into the hall.
Professor Wu started right away, even though there were still people filtering in. She spotted Teagan and made a point to sit far away from her. Then, she looked around and noted that Flynn hadn’t rejoined them at all in class.
The spirit faeries scrambled into place as Professor Kane and Professor Wu made their way around the room. This time Professor Wu led the assessments, while Professor Kane observed and took notes. This process, unfortunately, was tedious compared to the earth faerie assessment. Professor Kane had to observe each student individually, one at a time.
Ming Mei Li watched the other students haughtily and impatiently as she waited for her turn. After what she had pulled earlier, all Darby wanted to do was get her back.
She noticed several open windows in the room, and as a bright green blue-fronted Amazon bird flew by, she had an idea.
She closed her eyes and called in one of the birds, who perched on the window sill. She used her thoughts to send communication to the bird, and a few seconds later, it flew high into the rafters of the hall—but not before landing a small spot of bird poop on the back of Mei Li’s jet black hair.
She didn’t seem to notice—she had been watching the other students on her side intensely as Professor Wu led them through their assessments, and Professor Kane offered comments and feedback.
Darby’s bird had joined several others perched on the rafters, so she decided to make it a game. She sent 1, 2, 3 more birds over Mei Li’s head, each dropping a dirty surprise, before Mei Li finally felt it.
She reached up to her head, pulled away a hand streaked with white and brown, and narrowed h
er eyes in on Darby.
“Professor Wu!” she yelled. “Darby Fitzgerald is pelting bird’s poop at me!”
The entire hall burst out in laughter at her words.
Professor Wu spun around, unamused. He zeroed in on Darby just as one of the birds perched on her shoulder and rubbed her cheek with its head, a show of affection.
“Your royal highness,” he said, looking directly at her. “You’re excused from the remainder of the assessment.” He looked around at the others on the earth faerie side. “You will all behave yourselves, or suffer the same consequence as Ms. Fitzgerald—lowered assessment scores.”
“Professor—” Darby began to protest, but the look on his face told her that she would be better off accepting her consequence and leaving the room.
He turned to Mei Li. “Ms. Ming, please clean yourself up—quickly—and rejoin us before your turn.”
As both of them made their way to the exit, glaring at each other, Professor Wu added, “And you are not to speak to each other in the hallways, or I will personally give you both zeros on your assessment, and I will encourage Professor Kane to do the same.”
Mei Li looked scandalized by this. Darby smirked at her, walking silently past her in the hallway, headed back to her household.
She wondered if she had made the right decision. Professor Wu intended to lower her assessment score, which would hurt her. Then again, she had impressed Professor Kane, her primary assessor, and Professor Wu had disliked her anyway...
Griffin followed silently behind her.
“Do you think I did the right thing?” she asked.
He smiled kindly at her. “I’m here to serve.”
5
“Oh, come on,” Darby said, exasperated as they sat around the dining hall that night, eating supper. “No one actually believes her little victim act, do they?”
Ming Mei Li sat on her dining hall table with her feet planted in a chair, facing another table and surrounded by chairs of admirers, all listening captively as she told the story of what happened with Darby earlier that day.
Meanwhile, Darby, Quinn, and Griffin sat at a table by themselves. Despite the length of the tables, not a single faerie had joined them.
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