“Oh.” Ashton blinked. Patty and I shared raised-eyebrow looks, enjoying the unexpected shutdown. “You’re going to a different party, then?” Said as if he couldn’t imagine anyone going to a party other than his. “If you change your mind, which I know you will, we’re in—”
“I won’t.” She flicked her finger in his direction. “Go.”
His face smoothed, and his eyes dulled. “Go.” The word came out in a monotone. “Yes. Go.” He took a quick step backward as if his feet had been burned. Turning, he stumbled toward the main entrance to the cafeteria.
Tria pouted. “Irritating ass, isn’t he?”
“Awesome,” Patty breathed. “Never seen anything like that before.”
Someone not bowled over by Ashton? How was this possible? Wait…
“Is that an elemental magic spell?” I asked. “Please tell me it is and show me how to do it!”
“What do you mean?” Tria asked in all innocence.
“You made Ashton leave mid-boast.”
“I just gave him a suggestion. Nothing magical, I’m afraid.”
My shoulders deflated. “Bummer. There are a few people I’d love to send somewhere permanent.”
“Sorry. Nothing exciting like that.”
But for some reason, Tria wouldn’t meet my eye.
Chapter 21
“Okay, students,” Professor Trarion said. “I and a few of your other professors will be your chaperones for your trip to Grathe today.”
Patty, Jenny, and I stood in the center of the gardens, the three Covens around us.
“Wait, wait!”
I turned and watched Ashton, Vik, and Eben—the nasty trio—hurrying down the path from Wind Coven. Out of breath and with ruddy faces, they joined our group.
“Ugh,” Jenny hissed out. She leaned closer to me. “Couldn’t Ashton flit by himself? Thought Second Year students didn’t need chaperones.”
“Maybe he’s here for Vik?” I shrugged and focused on Professor Trarion, who was explaining what to expect today. Once a month, Academy students were allowed to flit to the mall to hang out, shop, whatever. Today was the first time the incoming First Year class was being allowed to go.
“Once we arrive,” Professor Trarion said, her long, deep purple robe swaying around her legging-clad ankles. “We ask that you remain in groups of at least two students and not leave the mall. Disobeying Academy rules during a field trip such as this will result in detention upon your return.”
“Detention?” I asked Patty out of the corner of my mouth. What would that entail? I only vaguely remembered the concept from when I lived with my mom. “Do we sit in a classroom staring at other kids?”
“That would be easy.” Patty winced. “They make you babysit vrilla toddlers.”
“Vrillas have babies?” I wanted to smack myself. Of course, they would. It wasn’t as if they stepped out of newly opened flowers. Although, maybe they did.
Or toadstools, since they were into frogs…
Universally gorgeous mountain nymphs, vrillas spent much of their time dancing in the moonlight. They also enjoyed playing jokes. I’d first met them when they tricked the gardener into turning away long enough for them to pick every flower in one of his beds. He’d chased them through the lobby of the Academy with a rake on my first day here. Their high-pitched, tinkling laughter as they evaded him still rang in my mind.
“Believe me, students,” Professor Trarion said. “Some of you may laugh about doing detention like this, but babysitting vrilla children is considered torture in some parts of the parallel universe.”
“If you’re not paying attention, they’ll make your clothing invisible,” Patty said. “Nothing beats standing around in nothing but your skin while they snicker.”
My mouth dropped open. “No way!”
“Something else they savor is convincing you to eat bugs.”
“Lots of people eat bugs.” Coated in chocolate or ranch dressing. Not me, but…some people.
She tipped her head. “Do they eat them while they’re still alive?”
It wasn’t hard to picture beetles wiggling down my throat. Gulping, I shuddered. “I hope not.”
“They love to find big, crunchy, crawly—”
“Got it. Let’s avoid detention.” Forever.
“Detention will not be your sole punishment,” Professor Trarion said. “Mess up, and you will be forbidden from flitting to the city for two months.” She held up her finger. “Oh, and one final thing. As always, remember when you’re in public, you represent the school. Let’s leave a good impression, shall we?” Smiling, she clapped her hands. “It’s time to depart. Gather on one of the rings.” Three large stone circles had been placed centered in the courtyard. Students started drifting toward them.
I was walking with Patty toward a circle with Professor Kreat standing in the middle when something—no, someone standing in the gazebo among a group of people caught my eye.
Donovan.
Niles, too, but I just scowled at him.
Patty tugged on my sleeve. “What are you…” She peered in that direction. “Oh. It’s D. You going to go get him?”
Maybe. Would that be considered making him choose?
I lifted my hand. “Donovan!”
His gaze met mine and he frowned.
Okay. I didn’t like how uneasy that frown made me feel.
Niles tapped his arm.
Sorry for jumping in again without pinging first, he mindspoke. I don’t have much time.
At least you’re not calling from the bathroom.
Silence suggested my joke fell flat.
My stomach churned, and I regretted eating my oatmeal.
I take it this is a no to going to Grathe? I said.
Seems sorry is becoming my go-to word.
Why had his voice gone dull, deadened?
I’d never had to push for normal between us, but I did now. You can make it up to me.
How?
Where was the creative guy I’d gotten to know so well over the past few months?
We can…Look, I’ve got to go. He started to lift his hand but Niles stepped between us, bracing Donovan’s arms at his sides.
Air stretched between us, gaping like an endless cavern.
Turning, they strolled side-by-side toward the entrance to the library.
Donovan didn’t look back. Maybe just as well. He would’ve read the fear in my eyes.
“Where’s he going?” Patty asked. “It’s almost time to leave.”
“He’s not going to Grathe.” Now I was the one with the dead-sounding voice. Frost crept through me, freezing me solid. “You know what it’s like. Family.”
“Fleur.” She waved her hand in front of my face.
I’d shared some of what happened with Patty, though just falling in the moat and then stabbing Niles. Not the room beneath the Academy. I hadn’t wanted to say anything until I’d had a chance to talk about it first with Donovan.
It scared me to think that opportunity might never come.
I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t…be afraid. He wasn’t my mother. He wouldn’t ditch me.
I needed to hold strong and believe in him. In us.
Because this was nowhere near over.
Patty glared in their direction before taking a deep breath and growling out the air. She gave me a quick hug. “Hey. It’s going to be okay. Niles will leave and everything will return to how it was before. This is just a glitch.” Her arm linked through mine. “We’ll have fun today. Forget about Donovan for now.”
She was right. I’d been looking forward today and nothing was going to keep me from enjoying every moment.
If only my chest didn’t ache so bad.
We joined one of the emptier circles. Jenny waved from where she stood opposite us with a couple other girls.
“Pay attention, now,” Professor Kreat said. “The instructions are simple but must be followed explicitly.” A sketar witch like Ester, Professor Kreat stood about mi
ne and Patty’s height. Her long black hair with sparkling threads of silver swished across her low back. Today, she’d dressed in a buttoned-up Academy jacket and plaid pants. “I’ll group ping the location to you all,” she said. “Both a visual and a physical address. If you don’t receive it, please inform me immediately.”
Like I’d opened to a knock on the door, the coordinates came through.
“A group flit can be challenging,” Professor Kreat said, spinning in a slow circle while making eye contact with each of us. “That’s why you’ll have an experienced guide with you for this trip.” Her thumb poked toward her chest. “Me. If one of you loses the location mid-flit, I’ll ensure you arrive safely.”
Jenny shook her head. “I didn’t get the ping.”
“You didn’t?” Professor Kreat strode toward my friend. “All you need to do is…”
“Let’s hope we arrive with all of our parts,” Alys said from the other side of Patty. She leaned around my friend and smirked at me. “Let’s hope Elites arrive with all of their parts, that is.”
Ugh. Couldn’t she have picked a different group to flit with?
“Outlings are on their own.”
She never could let a moment pass without adding another slam. Usually, I could shrug it off but today, I’d been weakened.
“Nice to see you in your usual mean-girl form, Alys,” I said, though my tone held no kick.
Moira waved at me and rolled her eyes at Alys. Moira trying to rein in Alys was the second constant in my life, though she’d had next to no success. Mean Girl was embedded in Alys’ skin.
Ashton, Vik, and Eben stood in an adjacent circle with their heads close together. What were they up to now? So odd to see them together, especially after what happened the other night. Ashton had made it clear the day I met him that outlings were on his shit list. Why spend time with Eben, then?
“Will we always need to group-flit for longer distances?” I asked Patty. It sounded restricting.
“For some students, sure. Others, with practice, will be allowed to flit alone, once we’ve shown we can handle travel without winding up lost or…” She winced. “You know. The best at flitting are Council members. And Seekers. They can flit anywhere both here and into the parallel universe, while most Elites…and outlings, usually stick to traveling to their jobs and short distances like the park or supermarket.”
“Seekers can flit anywhere? Cool.”
“Not so cool.”
Professor Kreat still spoke with Jenny, who was cupping her temples while the girl next to her patted her back.
“From what Alys and Moira said, the fae court is on everyone’s wish list,” I said.
Patty grimaced. “Not for me.”
Personally, I hadn’t thought about where I’d work once I graduated—probably because I still hadn’t solidified a skapti. Finding a job at the fae court had lingered in the back of my mind, however, because it sounded exciting. “Why don’t you want to work there?”
“I’m going to start a dating service.”
I blinked. “That’s a career opportunity?” Leave it to Patty to provide an awesome distraction. She was right. We were going to have fun today. I wasn’t letting anything—especially a boy—stand in my way.
“For someone with a divination skapti? Sure. Better than any old…ARP. Is that the word? ARP?”
ARP. It took a minute for me to figure out what she meant, and it was all I could do to hold my face straight. “You mean an app?”
“Yes, that. Customers will come to me for help in finding their perfect mate instead of using their…computers. Pherophones.”
I blinked before my laughter burst out. “Telephones. Or just phones.”
“Yeah, that.”
“So, you’d work with outlings as well as Elites.”
“Yup.”
“They’d sign up for your service and you’d, I guess, note down their preferences but instead of running a program, you’d use your skapti to find them dates?”
“Not just that. I’d also be able to tell them where they would meet their soulmates.”
That actually sounded like fun. Major envy, here. Hopefully, my final skapti would reveal itself and point me to a career like Patty’s.
“Have you thought more about a job or major?” Patty asked. “I know your skapti’s being elusive. Pain in the butt thing. But it’ll be clear soon. I know it.”
“Yes,” Alys said. “Perhaps you’ll discover another trick you can use for performing?”
“Hold hands, students,” Professor Kreat said, breaking Alys off before she could add more snark to her first. “It’s almost time to leave. If it helps, close your eyes, though it’s not necessary.”
I’d pinched my eyes shut when the Headmistress flitted me to Ester’s. Now, I wanted to watch.
Professor Kreat stood in the center of the circle, her arms outstretched at shoulder height. “Think of the location students, and on three…two…one…”
The world closed in fast, spinning and, like when I was ten, the wind picked up my hair and slapped it in my face. My legs shuddered as if I weighed a thousand pounds, barely holding me on my feet. Weightlessness replaced the heavy feeling, and I drifted through air, nothing holding me steady but my hand clenched with Patty’s. Nausea cramped my belly, and acid rose in the back of my throat. My heart fluttered, and I clamped my lips together to hold back my scream.
My sneakers slammed on the ground and everything around me burst into focus.
I stood in the center of a large indoor courtyard in a mall with stores stretching off in multiple corridors around us. Bright lights lit up the area, and excited chatter and lilting music sunk into my pores, making my head spin like when I’d had too much verdeen.
Even better, magic surrounded me.
We stood in an area made up of a smooth, gleaming tiled surface with three flit rings like at the Academy, called the Flit Hub, from what Patty had told me. A small, milky white dome soared overhead, and sunlight filtered through the opaque glass, hitting prisms dangling underneath. Prisms or…They were insects! Some sort of beetle buzzing in an erratic back and forth pattern as if drunk on the light. Rainbows flickered around us as the beams arced off their mirrored wings.
Like spokes on a bike wheel, six corridors lined with stores stretched away from the central Hub.
“And I told him to leaf off,” a slender birch tree in a big pot nearby said in a high-pitched voice. At least, I think it was the tree speaking, complaining to the bush sitting in a wooden planter beside it.
“Did he?” the bush said, its small leaves rustling. “Or did he try to sink his roots into you like he did with Felicia? Not that Felicia protested. That witch.”
“You know evergreens,” the birch tree said dryly. “Everyone thinks they’re eternal, but I’m here to tell you they’ll drop their pine cones in any meadow available.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
The only mall I’d visited with Ester had sported a modern, gleaming appearance. The store facades in this mall looked like they belonged in 1400s Europe, like stone alleys, but instead of the signs I’d expect to find in the ancient setting, like Ye Olde Apothecary, chain store names blinked, tugging my gaze in every direction. I recognized a few store names from when I was a kid, even Mom’s favorite coffee place. Except many names were different…
Academies R Us looked like it offered a variety of plaid skirts, jackets, and winter coats emblazoned with school names. Matching scarves and mittens. Definitely wanted to check out Magical Pets—Not Your Average Painted Rocks. Were we allowed to keep pets in our Coven rooms?
Three centaurs dressed in striped jeggings and matching tunic tops trotted past, and a mother cyclops pushed a stroller with twin cyclops babies asleep inside.
I’d never been anywhere like this in my entire life.
“Remember, everyone,” Professor Kreat said, drawing my attention away from a leprechaun leaping up to grab bits of insect-created rainbows. She stuffed t
hem into her basket. “I’d like you to meet back here in four hours and don’t wander off on your own. Remember. Stay in groups!”
“Where to first?” Patty asked as Jenny came over to stand with us. Patty’s shoes fidgeted on the gleaming marble tiles and her head kept spinning around to take everything in.
“You guys don’t mind if I tag along, do you?” Jenny asked.
“Welcome!” Patty said.
“I have a few things I’d like to pick up, but I’m open to whatever,” I said. My gaze was drawn up again, caught by a steady stream of movement. Snake-like creatures undulated along the edge and a few feet below the high ceiling. Their pointed, bright blue wings flicked faster than a hummingbird’s, propelling them along through the air in concise order, as if they flew on an invisible road. Their barbed tails flicked in the faces of the sleek, scaled heads of the ones behind. Each had a shopping bag hanging from the middle of its body, bowing it down.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing.
“We don’t want to lug our purchases around all day,” Patty said. “Wyleens carry them to the Transport Center where they’re ported directly to our rooms.”
“Cool,” Jenny breathed.
“I know, right?” Patty said with a grin.
The wyleens slithered and glided above us, seemingly oblivious to everything going on below them.
Something…A prickle of unease traveled down my spine, as if someone was watching me.
Pivoting sharply, I looked around but didn’t see anything unusual. Probably just someone pointing at the outlings. Imagine! Two of us standing together!
“Who does the porting?” I asked. I’d had limited success with transporting things but I kept getting practice in Cloven’s private classes. Could porting be a future job for me in the Transport Center? Like working at the post office, only magical.
Patty’s brow knit together. “No clue. Never thought about it, actually.” Staring past me, her face smoothed and excitement lit her eyes. “Time’s a wastin’.”
Living with Ester from the age of ten meant I hadn’t developed an itch for shopping.
To put my plan with Sirra into place, however, I needed… “Is there a drug store here?” Ye Olde Apothecary, assuming it existed, would be a great place to start.
Crystal Wing Academy- The Complete Series Page 38
