Light Fae Academy: Year One

by Nala Kingsley

  And now that I’m experiencing my first taste of real freedom, I’ll just have to see if Bay’s right, if it is as intoxicating as she claims.

  I glance over my schedule again. The worst part or maybe the best part is that I have exactly zero classes with Bay. I’ll be able to be myself, and everyone will know who I am. I won’t have to feel as if people will be wondering which is which since all of our classes are different, either at different times or we have some different classes entirely.

  As it turns out, Potions is in a cottage-type building. It reminds me of the cottage Bay and I had been brought to when we took our entrance exam. They wanted to test our magical prowess and, I assume, figure out which course load to assign us given that we haven’t had any formal education yet.

  With a gulp, I head inside. There are rows of desks, but no one is sitting in them. Everyone is flying about, and I do the same. I want to fit in, and I don’t want to be the odd fairy out.

  Today is going to turn around. It’s going to be great.

  I hope.

  Chapter 3

  Potions class is a little boring. I mean, it’s not all that hard to make potions. It’s basically the same as following a recipe. Of course, it’s not that simple. You do have to infuse magic into it, but still. Boring.

  Maybe Counterspells will be better.

  Or not. I've been flying around for five minutes now, and I can't find the building. My next class is going to start soon, and I'm going to be late. The teacher is going to think I'm a slacker, and I hate that that'll be his or her first impression of me. First impressions are everything.

  That’s when I see him.

  The hottest fairy I’ve ever seen.

  Slight stubble. Longish brown hair. Green eyes that are like pools I could fall into.

  I don’t know who he is, but I want to fly right up to him and talk to him.

  And say what? I’ll probably get too tongue-tied and make a fool of myself. His skin is darker than mine, a golden tan color, and that just sets off his eye coloring even more.

  Our gazes meet, and I suck in a breath. He’s hovering in the air not that far from me, but he would have to talk loudly for me to hear him.

  Instead, he keeps looking around himself and then flies off.

  Awesome. Way to go. You didn’t make a move at all, and you certainly didn’t do anything to stand out in his mind.

  I touch the crescent moon on the necklace, and instantly, I feel much calmer. My mind clears some. It’s probably mind over matter because there’s no way Bay would’ve given me a magical necklace. I mean, crystals and all gemstones can contain magic, but Bay would’ve kept it if she needed it.

  Or… maybe she knew I needed it more than she did. Every so often, she would do something to surprise me. Every year on our birthdays, I would always give her a gift. Most of the time, she would have nothing for me, but at random times throughout the year, she might give me a little something. It’s often a hand-me-down, but I don’t mind. She loves me in her own way.

  Rubbing the moon, I glance around and finally find the spot for my next class. With a grin, I race over and enter just before the professor does. Score!

  Counterspells should be all about countering spells, right?

  Wrong.

  The professor just drones on and on about spells in general, and I stare out the window, not listening. Spells are simple enough. If the course is just on spells, it should be a breeze.

  And speaking of breeze, as soon as the class is finished, I'm breezing out of there. Not far away is him. The fairy of my dreams.

  A girl with pink wings flies up and hovers beside me. She follows my gaze. “That’s Sage,” she says.

  “Oh. I-I wasn’t—”

  “He lives in the tree over from me.”

  “Is he your…” I wave my hand.

  “No.” She laughs. “He’s like a brother to me.”

  I gape at her. Who would want to put a guy like him in the brother category?

  “Do you want me to introduce you to him?” she asks.

  I open my mouth, but no words come out, and I quickly shake my head. As much as I want to, I just can’t bring myself to talk to him.

  The fairy shrugs and flies off.

  Way to go, Rosemary. Not only are you incapable of talking to him, but you also could’ve made a friend, and you didn’t even get her name or tell her yours.

  Why am I so shy today? Normally, I talk all the time to the point that Bay will ask me to shut up.

  Next up is the Magic of Music. We're allowed to play any of the four instruments in the front of the room—piano, harp, flute, and violin. I, of course, head straight for the piano. I've been playing since I was three years old.

  Each of us is able to lend magic in some way to that instrument, but then the professor, a beautiful witch with rainbow-colored hair and wings named Fern Stone, instructs us to not go near that instrument again the rest of the class.

  “To learn the magic of music is to not learn only one type of music but to learn all,” she says with a wave of her hand.

  She then assigns each of us a new instrument. Some even get drums. The professor takes one look at me and smiles. "The harp."

  My heart swells at that until she’s finished assigning instruments, and I realize I’m the only one she gave the harp to.

  Once the class is finished, I fly up to her. "Hi. I'm Rosemary."

  “The future harpist.” She smiles at me and flutters her fingers toward the harp. A few notes ring out.

  “Why did you give me the harp? And only me? If it’s all right to ask.”

  “You seem to be one of the lightest fairies I’ve ever met.”

  Light. Dark. White. Black. Good. Bad.

  Sometimes, I think it’s possible to be too good.

  My twin thinks good is boring. Maybe it is. Maybe I don’t know any better because I’ve always been such a rule-follower.

  Why not enjoy some freedom and experiment a little?

  “…welcome to have access to my harp at any time,” the professor is saying.

  “Thank you,” I murmur. “I appreciate that. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I fly out of there. It’s lunchtime, and it’s not hard to spy the fairies all flocking to a massive grass hill. Fairies are everywhere, on the grass, in the air, eating food, playing around.

  Bay isn’t anywhere in sight, and it seems as if my eyes are glued to a certain fairy because I can easily pick Sage out from the crowd.

  Here’s my chance.

  Forcing myself to talk to him, I fly over and clear my throat. “Hi.”

  A stellar opening to any conversation, right? Except he isn’t looking at me, and he’s talking to someone else, so I hover nearby, not close enough to eavesdrop or to appear stalkerish but close enough that I can easily talk to him next.

  The guy Sage is conversing with finally flies away, and I go to fly over when a cake soars through the air straight toward me. Shocked, I zoom out of the way and bump into a girl, whose drink sprays all over the guy next to her. That guy jerks back into another guy, who tumbles toward the ground, recovers, and flies so fast that a girl’s hat flies off her head and into another person’s soup.

  In short, it’s a mess.

  As for the cake, that’s a mess too because it falls to the ground and smashes into pieces.

  Everyone looks at everyone else, and fingers start to get pointed until the cake-thrower comes over.

  “What are you, human?” he shouts at Sage. “You didn’t catch it?”

  “Only humans throw food,” Sage counters calmly.

  The cake-thrower laughs. “You owe me.”

  “Sure I do.” Sage lifts his chin, and he looks my way.

  I smile and bite my lower lip. I brush my hair back with my fingers.

  My wet hair.

  Some of that girl’s drink got all over me.

  I glance down. My normally white strands are all brown and matted and gross. I have to look like a drowned rat.<
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  Worse, I’m sure I look like a fool and not just to Sage. To that girl and everyone else who was entangled in the mess I created.

  Well, that the cake-thrower created.

  Don’t freak out. Don’t sweat it. Just remain calm and say something funny.

  “Who knows? A food fight might be a human thing to do, but it might be fun,” I say.

  Sage blinks once. “Why be like a human when you can just be a fairy?” he asks, and he flies off.

  The one fairy lifts the hat from his soup. “Don’t humans have a saying about eating their hats? No thanks.”

  "Give me that," the hat's owner says. "It's ruined!"

  “Yeah, ruined,” I mumble as I fly off in the hopes of finding a spot to get cleaned up. “My life is ruined.”

  Chapter 4

  Once my hair is finally all washed and cleaned and dried, I venture back out to the hill to eat. Thankfully, we’re given an entire hour for lunch, so I still have plenty of time to recover. No more Sage for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, I can try again or maybe not. It might be better to focus on my grades and—

  No. Grades are important, but so are fairies and making connections. There’s no reason why I can’t try to do well in my classes and also work up the nerve to talk to the guy.

  Who probably thinks I'm one of those lame fairies who wishes she were a human. There are some fairies like that. They go out of their way to hide their wings and pretend that they're changelings and need to get back to their human families. They're sick, twisted in the head. Humans aren't the only ones to have issues.

  Because of the meal plan, I’m able to get what I want. I just grab a salad and roll and pastry. I’m not that hungry, not after everything this morning. It’s interesting to me that there are so many options here, from foods that more typically make up a fairy’s diet such as berries and milk with honey and the like, and the more human options like the salad and spaghetti and meatballs and tacos.

  A few of the fairies from the incident earlier are still there, so I opt to fly over to another hill. This one has a few benches at the summit.

  Sitting on top of one is Bay. She has her legs crossed, and you can almost see up to her ass. She has her hands perched on her top knee, and she looks like she belongs on a magazine covers.

  No less than five guys are fluttering around her, circling her, clearly devoting their entire lives to her. I roll my eyes. It's honestly pathetic the way they're fawning over her. Why would they degrade themselves like that? It's not as if they even know her to want to go and—

  Yep. One’s flying off toward the food tent. I’m sure she mentioned some kind of food or drink, and he’s off to go and fetch it for her like a loyal pup. Disgusting.

  Mom so wouldn’t be happy at me if she could see me right now. “Don’t be jealous of your sister.”

  Dad? The one he would be furious with is Bay, not me. He often asks her why she can’t be more like me. Nothing sets her off as much as that does, and honestly, I don’t like it much either. We’re twins, but we aren’t the same person split into two. Why can’t people see us for ourselves? Even our parents compare us all the time.

  The fairy zooms back to Bay and hands her a goblet. A goblet. What in the world? My drink—raspberry cordial—is in a regular glass.

  Bay looks at it and shakes her head. The guy flies off.

  The others all crowd her even more now, as if they think that one doesn’t have a shot with her, but she laughingly turns away from one and then the other. One by one, she’s clearly turning them all down.

  If I were her, I wouldn’t just play with them. I wouldn’t act as if they’re nothing or less than nothing, good only to fetch me this or that. No, I would get to know them, befriend them, and…

  Oh, give it a rest, Rosemary. You might look like Bay, but you don’t act like her. That’s why they flock to her and not you. They won’t ever.

  And that’s fine. I don’t want guys to fawn over me.

  Well, maybe just one guy. Not a horde of them because already other guys are starting to fly around Bay and coming back to her as if she's made of fairy dust, a drug that makes fairies high or something like that. I honestly never paid much attention when our parents told us the dangers about it because I knew I would never try the stuff.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a girl fairy draw up and hover in place near me. She’s scowling, hand on hip, staring at the table my sister is still perched on.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her.

  “Elm. Look at him. He’s such a…”

  “They’re almost like puppy dogs,” I say.

  She laughs. “They really are. It’s disgraceful, really.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  The fairy’s too busy staring at my twin to look at me. I hate this. Sometimes, besides Bay, I feel invisible.

  “Is Elm the fairy you like?” I ask.

  She laughs and laughs. "Oh, no. Elm's my brother. He's a first-year this year, and he's such an embarrassment already. I wish he didn't have to come here, but it's the best school for fairies, you know?"

  I nod. The other academies are heavily influenced by the courts, while this one is the school for free-thinking fairies. It’s good to be around like-minded fairies, or at least it would be if I could get the others to actually notice me.

  She barely glances over at me. “You better eat fast,” she says. “The professors really don’t appreciate tardiness, and teleportation is punishable here.”

  “We can’t teleport? Why not?” I ask, baffled.

  “Too many students. It would be impossible to keep track of us all. Plus, there was an incident a few years ago, before I started here.”

  “What happened?” I ask, enthralled.

  “A girl didn’t know how to properly teleport, and she ended up poof-ing into another student. The boy managed to survive because of fairy healing, but the girl who teleported wasn’t so lucky.”

  I gasp. “I didn’t realize teleportation could be so dangerous.”

  She shrugs. “Almost any magic can be dangerous if misused or misunderstood. That’s why we go here.”

  “Of course,” I murmur.

  The fairy shakes her head one last time, makes a disgusted sound, and flies off.

  Her thoughts distract me from my sister and my jealousy. Sure, we all can learn about magic from our parents, but not all fairies are created equal. Now all of us have the same magical abilities. Schooling is important.

  Does Bay realize that? I can't help being worried about her. She is the daredevil out of the two of us, and she's always been one to experiment with her magic. Of the two of us, she's the one who will try untested, unlearned magic, and I can see her trying to impress someone and doing something reckless and even dangerous just for attention.

  I shove in my food right there in the air, which isn’t the easiest considering I have to hold my tray with one hand. The salad is delicious, although it’s coated in dressing far more than I prefer.

  My sister’s laugh drifts over to me, and I fly away. I should be happy that she’s making friends so easily, but is she really? Is she just using people? I hope that’s not the case. One of my first friends after Bay had been a girl who used me. She didn’t want to be my friend. She actually wanted to be Bay’s friend. Bay never did become friends with her. Thorna had been her name, and I always thought it fitting.

  Despite the disastrous start to my lunch, I’m able to be on time for my next class. Alchemy. It’s the first class I have with Sage. Fairies don’t believe in love at first sight. There’s no destiny or fate when it comes to love. Still, I seem to have a heightened awareness where Sage is concerned, and I sit up taller in my seat. For whatever reason, more students are sitting at desks for this class than any of my previous ones, so I took a seat myself.

  The seats in front of me and to my left are available, but Sage doesn't sit in either. He's one of the only ones to remain flying. So is the fairy who had flown back and forth for
Bay. The two of them are whispering, and I wish I could hear what they were saying. Not that it's any of my business, but I can't help being curious. It's not as if I think they're talking about me. Why would they?

  I sneak a glance upward. The Bay-flyer is looking at me.

  Quickly, I drop my gaze. Are they talking about me after all?

  Unable to help myself, I look up again. Sage lifts his chin in greeting.

  A slow smile crosses my face. It's such a little thing, barely a nod, but it's acknowledgment.

  I leave it at that, just the slow smile. It’s good to play hard to get, right? Better than trying too hard and falling flat on my wings, which, knowing my luck, I might actually do at some point.

  Chapter 5

  All in all, I wouldn’t say that my first day is a complete and utter disaster, and I hang around by the front gate, waiting for Bay. Mom made us promise that we would fly home together, so I know she hasn’t gone on ahead and left me behind.

  Although she did lie earlier… Our last year, she claimed.

  Then again, I guess it’s not a lie. Our last year of being under our parents’ thumbs for schooling. It’s not the correct answer to that fairy’s question, but fairies do love to twist words around as much as possible so we can basically lie. Some of the strongest fairies who ever lived can tell what humans refer to as little white lies, but there’s no way Bay is that powerful.

  Speaking of Bay, where is she? I fly up high. Hundreds of fairies fly toward me, but I can’t see Bay anywhere.

  Finally, I give up. No, I don’t fly home by myself. I resign myself to the fact that Bay has to be found. Swiftly, I turn this way and that, spinning around, twisting between fairies and break through the crowd.

  Bay still isn’t anywhere in sight.

  Onward, I keep flying, soaring above the moss-draped buildings. Eventually, I come to the area where the fairies eat lunch. There aren’t any fairies here. Hmm. I really thought she might’ve come back here. Where else might she be?