“Or I won’t see the content.”
“Yup.”
“Do magical words make it happen?”
“Damn it can fill in for just about anything.”
I pursed my lips but my laughter came out anyway. “What should I commit to memory?”
Sitting up, he unzipped his pack and pulled out a textbook. He opened it to a list of elf names. “How about this? I heard through the grapevine that you’ve got a big test coming up in history.”
I huffed out a breath, sending my bangs shooting upward. “They keep getting jumbled up in my mind. Ha’Foal…” I sighed. “Ha’Foal something is one. I can’t pronounce it, let alone memorize it.”
“The Ha’Foaláin Clan?”
“That’s the one.” I leaned into his side and stared down at the names. “Content storage will help with that?”
“With any test.”
“Awesome. So much easier than making flash cards and then reciting them over and over.”
He frowned. “Does anyone do that?”
“Obviously, not here.” Probably not anywhere. Ester had homeschooled me, which meant it had been years since I’d attended a real school. Who knew how kids studied today?
“All you need to do is stare at the page and think, flash.”
Huh. “That’s it?” Almost seemed too simple.
“Yup.”
“Once flashed.” I made air quotes. “I’ll be able to pull up the information during a test?”
“You will.”
Frowning, I tilted my head. “Isn’t that cheating?”
“How can it be when you’re using elemental magic?”
I shrugged.
Donovan dropped the open textbook onto my lap. “Give it a try.”
Staring down at the page, I thought, flash.
“Now pull up the list.”
I floundered through my mind but couldn’t find anything like the page in front of me.
“Does it work like a search engine?” I asked. “I think Elf List and it floats in front of my eyes?”
He frowned at search engine, making me heave out another breath. I needed to forget all the tech stuff I’d learned while living with my mom.
“It should be right there,” he said. “Just seek it.”
My growl of frustration puffed out when my brain only came up with the word “elf” but no data. “I can’t. It’s just not there.”
“Maybe you need to practice some more. Try again.”
I did. Three more times, without success. Definitely didn’t like my new pattern. After breezing through Orientation, I’d become complacent, confident I could do just about anything. I needed to crack down and study or failure loomed in my future.
“Keep trying,” he said. “You’ll get it.”
“Can everyone do this?” If so, I was going to get way behind in my classes.
“Only a few I know of.”
“Who taught you?”
“My father.”
“Your birth father?” I asked.
“I never met him. He died not long after I was born. I meant the royal consort. He was such a great guy. My mom was…strict. Not necessarily unfeeling but…busy, I guess you’d call it. But my dad always had time for me.”
“I’m sorry.” I dropped my head on his shoulder and stared out at the forest where I’d challenged my fears and helped defeat a killer a few weeks ago with Donovan by my side.
“That’s why…” Trailing off, he also stared forward. What did he see? The endless, mysterious woods, or memories?
“That’s why you felt bad she cheated with your birth father. You said he died not long after you were born?” Had he met Donovan? Sad to think a father never had the chance to know his son. Donovan was a great guy.
“When I found out the truth, I looked for my birth father. That’s when I learned he was dead.”
I slid my arm around the back of his waist and squeezed him close. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” he said. “I brought you up here…” Turning, his gaze dropped to my lips.
“To teach me content storage?”
“That, and…” His hand stuffed into his front pants pocket, and he pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I had this joke in mind that wasn’t quite a joke. I planned to bring you up here, have fun together teaching you content storage, then suggest you flash this.” He extended it toward me slowly, as if it was the most precious jewel in the world.
“Should I open it here?”
Grazing his lower lip with his teeth, he nodded.
When I read the words, my eyes filled.
I’m not—too—possessive, but I have to know…Do you want to be, like, an official couple?
No need to flash this into my mind. The question was committed to memory forever.
“Fleur?” he asked, nervousness edging into his voice.
I stared at the paper, my eyes stinging. “Yes. The answer is yes.”
He leaned toward me as I dropped onto my back on the roof.
“Cool,” he whispered. His mouth hovered over mine. “Yes, to this, too?”
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and breathed, “Yes.”
Chapter 5
That night, my belly full after scarfing down a Level Five Skapti mushroom and pepperoni pizza—made by magical chefs at the Academy, I sat in the library with Patty, studying. We’d trooped up to the third floor where it was quieter and staked out a sofa in the back corner, beyond a long row of stacks.
After trying at least ten times to store the list of elf names in my mind with elemental magic-infused content storage—something Patty hadn’t heard of but, once I explained, mastered in, like, three seconds—I gave up on the trick for now and pulled out a pad of paper and started writing down fae names. While this method was infinitely slower, I’d eventually memorize the list.
“Ill en Brech D’arthia,” I garbled out. Talk about a tongue-twister.
“That’s Ill,” Patty said without looking up from her textbook. “Pronounced like eel.”
“I only need to write the damn things, not pronounce them.”
The smile she shot me came out too sympathetic. “Sorry, but I think I heard the test is both oral and written.”
Why would Professor Kreat do that? To make me suffer, that was why. “Why do I need to be able to say them?” I slumped back in my chair, defeated. “They’re not spells.”
“It’s part of our history.” She stared at her book unblinking, then nodded. Lucky for her. Another page stored in her memory.
“They’re not part of my history.” As far as I knew. I’d wondered about my parentage, but my mom wasn’t magical, which meant I couldn’t be Elite. While she’d been elusive about my dad, none of the few details she’d shared when I was little suggested he had magic. It had to be a coincidence that Alex—a dragonfly and the original companion to the sixth family—had befriended me.
Sadly enough, I was a full-blooded outling. Might as well savor the fact. Enjoy it. I just needed to figure out how to do that.
“I know what. I can help you!” Patty said with excitement, pushing aside her book. A string of unpronounceable, let alone memorable, words spewed from her mouth before she waved my way. “Go ahead. Say it.”
“Ill—”
“Eeeel.” She dragged out the word but added a lilt to the end.
I mimicked her but her carefully schooled face made it clear I’d never be mistaken for a native fae.
A kid walking by, heading for the stacks for a book, snickered until I glared.
After I tried again, she giggled. “Okay, so…” Pinching my cheeks together, she said it again, very slowly. “Ill…en Brech…D’arthia.”
I fumbled it out.
“Exactly. That was perfect.” Her grin, as sunny as always, lightened my mood. When she looked like that, who could be grumpy with anything?
I said the name again, committing it to my mind. Sort of. “Eel en Brech D’arthia.”
Patty rubbed my shou
lder. “I’m proud of how quickly you’re picking this up! Some outlings…” She visibly bit off the words by crimpling her lips together, and I knew she was trying to be kind where other students hadn’t given a damn and spewed out hatred.
“Some outlings have a hard time,” I said. “Already heard.” From Ashton and the other kids in the Outling Club.
“If I didn’t know better,” she said. “I’d think you were Elite. Your use of power kind of blows me away.”
“Really?” I ignored the Elite comment. No direction I could go with it at the moment. Moira said outlings had a genetic mutation; that was why we could do magic. I’d just scooped up a big part of that gene pool before I was born.
Luck. That’s all it was.
Instead of whining, I needed to focus on my studying. Riding an aldakor. Memorizing a bunch of elf names. If I found time after all that, I could look into the sixth family. “But…What if I am Elite?”
“That would be so freakin’ cool!” She hopped in her seat but then frowned, her shoulders quickly falling. “But… That’s impossible, isn’t it?”
I slouched against the sofa cushions, staring across the loft. Below, on the main floor of the library, someone sneezed. “Sometimes, I don’t think I’ll fit in anywhere.”
“Aw, sweetie.” The hug she gave helped cheer me up. “I didn’t mean anything negative when I said it. Being an outling must be cool. You’re unique and special. But the Headmistress knows everyone’s background, and she would’ve told you if you were Elite. That was what I meant.”
“Is knowing everyone’s parentage another skapti on her part?” The woman juggled skaptis with more sophistication than a circus performer tossing flaming torches.
“She’s very powerful. That’s why parents trust her enough to send their kids to the Academy.”
Trust. What would Patty and her parents think if they knew what really happened to Drea? I didn’t like keeping secrets from my friend. It felt wrong. But I also didn’t want to anger the Headmistress. She’d indulged me a lot over the past few weeks. I wasn’t sure I dared test her further.
I returned to the list of elves, reciting them with Patty correcting my pronunciation. After going through the names a bajillion times, I pushed the book aside. Enough of that. I still had a week to practice before my test. My brain was blurring.
Patty stared forward a moment, her eyes glazing before she tucked her book into her backpack and scraped back her chair. “Gotta go.”
I squinted up at her. “Someone ping you?”
“Um, yeah.” Color outlined her high cheekbones, turning them almost as pink as her hair. Or, as pink as my hair. Using the concealer Ester had given me, I’d gone with a color matching my friend’s this morning. “I got a signal from… I’m gonna go hang out with Bryce.” Standing, she hefted her bag over her shoulder.
“Say hi for me?”
Her face crinkled, and I knew my comment made her happy. Bryce and I had started out rough when I’d mistakenly believed he was the slake draining Moira of her power, but he was a sweet guy. Perfect for Patty. And funny. He’d had me rolling on the floor more than once because of something he’d said.
“Don’t wait up for me!” she tossed my way. She strode toward the stairs with her bag smacking against her back.
Leaving the sofa, I crept downstairs and over to the front desk. Crept because…
“Do you have any books on magical horticulture I can look at?” I asked the librarian who was also the man who’d interrupted Professor Kreat before she could reveal details about the sixth family. The one she said was...Yeah, do not go there. Yuck.
“Sure do.” He stood. About my height and round, he had a beak-like nose and a bald head that reflected light from the overhead lamps. His bushy black eyebrows appeared alive, as if he’d glued on caterpillars. Extra ick thought. He waved toward the stairs. “Right this way.” With a jaunty stride, he led me to the second floor and then all the way to the end of the stacks, where he pointed to the last one before the cast iron railing. “This whole row is filled with books about magical horticulture, a delightful subject. What exactly are you looking for?”
“Any books about the night plant varieties? In particular, nightlace clusters?”
Pausing, he frowned and tapped a pencil on his lips. “I think we have something. Let me see…” Trailing his stubby fingertip along a row of books, he stopped at one in the middle. “Ah. Here it is.” He slid a book off the shelf and held it out to me. “Not many students express interest in atropia belladorra.” When I frowned, he added, “Nightlace vines, I mean. Atropia belladorra is the fae name for the species. In my experience, students avoid this variety of plant like the plague.”
After what happened with Drea, I could see why. But nightlace was featured in one of our classes. Other than a rogue vine, it couldn’t truly be dangerous, could it? Maybe I could get some details out of the librarian. “Why do kids avoid it?”
He grimaced and sliced his finger across his throat. “Something about the plant’s ability to wrap around their victims and hold on until they stop breathing.”
A shiver ripped through me. Was that how Drea died? But why carve a circle and number into her skin? There had to be more going on here than a cluster run rampant. Unless someone knew I’d find her and wanted to leave me a message. A magical, cryptic message that disappeared shortly after I saw it. But who?
I already knew why. Eight outlings and now there are seven. Clueless, I wasn’t.
“What else can you tell me about the plant?” I asked.
“Hmm.” He frowned. “They’re sentient to some extent.”
“They think and feel?”
“A bit. I believe they’re mostly driven by basic needs, however. Hunger, anger, that sort of thing.”
The Headmistress had suggested Drea irritated the plant in some way during class, that it had then stalked her and sought revenge. How in the world could someone piss off a plant?
“Anything else I can get you?” he asked in a cheery tone, his gaze wandering to the desk below where a couple of students stood staring around. Looking for him, I imagined.
“No, thanks.” No need to keep him longer. I should be able to learn everything I needed from these books.
“You think of anything? I’m Will. Will Zoriate, actually.” He tapped his temple. “Will to my students. Just ping me.”
“Okay. Thanks, Will.”
He left and I returned to the sofa on the third floor and sank into the cushions, curling my legs up underneath me while leaning on the arm.
Since I’d brought the pressed leaves I’d found near where Drea had been murdered, I pulled them out to make a comparison. The Headmistress had identified them in her office, but I wanted to be certain. Flicking through the book Will found, I located a short chapter about nightlace vines. The pictures of the leaves looked similar, confirming Justine’s assumption.
Lifting my gaze, I stared blurry-eyed at the far wall. Had Drea’s death been solely due to a rogue plant attack or was there something else going on here? Hoping to find clues, I scrolled through the chapter, whispering aloud as I read.
“Nightlace prefers to grow in shade, and they’re especially prolific in the fall. They’re most commonly found in the northeastern forest above Crystal Wing Academy and are the main staple of the Cerberus’s diet.”
The enormous, three-headed dog-ish guys I’d met in my magical creatures class ate nightlace? They lived in the eastern forest above the campus.
Hmm.
“While nightlace can uproot and travel, they remain out of the sun as they wither and die quickly in the heat.” I skimmed through the pages. “The easiest way to kill them—something that comes up on the rare occasion when a cluster goes rogue—is with Searing Shears, which burn them instantly. Chop off the limbs, and the vine loses its ability to function.”
On the last page, I found one final, interesting detail. “While sentient, nightlace vines can be controlled by rare wizards. Once bon
ded, they can be directed to act. However, a plant-controlling skapti is a rare skill and seen less than once in multiple generations.”
Bonded, huh? Where had I heard that term? Justine, Cloven, and Professor Mealor—slime—had warded the Academy to protect us from the slake, not realizing Professor Mealor was the slake draining students.
But bonds… Oh, yes. Bryce and every other slake admitted to the Academy was bonded to keep them from inadvertently pulling power from someone. How did bonds differ from wards, let alone bespellings? From what I’d seen so far, bespellings were permanent and could only be created by certain wizards. Wards and bonds seemed more common. Yet this book said only a few wizards could bond plants.
Had someone—a student or teacher—taken control of a nightlace cluster and directed it to kill Drea? A big leap on my part when the Headmistress felt the cluster had been a rare, random event, a rogue plant escaped from Professor Grim’s class, but…
Eight outlings and now, seven.
If someone wanted to eliminate outlings, something that wasn’t as unbelievable as I’d hoped, it would be easy to send a plant cluster to do it rather than be caught in the act themselves.
But who?
If only the Cerberus’s young weren’t hatching right now. Their babies were reported to be hungry and eager to take a bite out of curious wizards like me. Otherwise, I’d find the Cerberus, a three-headed dog-like beast the size of a small house. I’d met them during a Magical Creature’s Class. They’d know more about the vines and Gunner, the friendliest of the three heads, might be willing to chat. Even better, they might know of a wizard who could control a probably-not-random nightlace cluster.
There weren't any other interesting details in the book about nightlace, either because no one had bothered to write them down or because no one knew. After reading through the chapter again but discovering nothing exciting, I returned the book to the shelf and, slumping back on the sofa, pulled out the secret book I’d found here in the library a few weeks ago.
The Original Six. I could only assume the book was about the original six families. Since the pages had gone blank the moment I adopted it from the library, I might never know.
Crystal Wing Academy- The Complete Series Page 26
