“Yes!” I say without hesitating.
“Even though he’s blowing this out of proportion?”
"Is he, though?" I whisper.
“I guess that’s up to you to decide.” She pats my knee. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I think… I think I just want to be alone right now.”
“Sure. I can find something to do elsewhere.” She stands, but before she can move, I clear my throat.
“You’ve met Bay. What do you think about the differences between us?”
“You two are very different,” Orchid says slowly. “I haven’t spent a ton of time with Bay, though.”
“Do you want to?”
“No,” she says honestly.
“Why not?”
“Bay is… She’s self-assured, self-confident, yes, but she also wants everything her way. She’s a powerful fairy. I have a feeling that she can slightly alter the universe to be able to get what she wants.”
“To will what she wants to happen,” I murmur and shudder.
There have been a few other fairies with that power in the past. Most of them ended up becoming dictators. Horrible, wicked fairies, the worst of the worst. Hitler was the most well-known example of this, trying to wipe out as many humans as possible so that fairies didn’t have to hide any longer.
“You’re powerful too,” Orchid continues, “but in a different way.”
“The light.” I roll my eyes.
“Rosemary, Bay uses guys. You don’t. You make friends who you care deeply for. I’m not sure Bay cares about very many people at all, and that includes her friends. She loves you, that much is clear, but outside of you, she only seems to care about herself. That’s why I’m friends with you and not her. Although…” Orchid tilts her head to the side. “I wish you would come to me when you need help instead of pushing me away. That makes me want to yank on my wings, but I understand that. Sometimes, it’s not easy to talk about what’s wrong. It’s not always easy to face your problem. I don’t mean you personally. I mean a generic you.”
“You don’t’ talk about your problems much,” I point out.
“Aside from the talisman, I don’t have any problems. My life is rather smooth.” Her smile is small but visible. “Maybe I don’t need it.”
“Still, you should have what’s yours.”
“It is what it is.” Orchid gives me a hug. “Call me if you want me to come back home.”
“No, you stay here. I’ll go.”
Orchid’s already flying toward the door. “You’re allowed one night to mope, but then no more wallowing in misery, deal?”
“Deal.”
I flop back onto my bed as Orchid flies off. She’s right. I need to learn who I am and who I want to be before I can hope to make amends with Sage.
So… who am I, and who do I want to be? And will Sage like that fairy? Does it even matter what he thinks?
I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.
Chapter 20
The next few days, I go to classes and then return to the cottage. Other than my friends, I don’t talk to anyone else. I barely talk in class, and during Alchemy, I don’t look at Sage, and as far as I can tell, he pays me no attention. He’s not petty, though. He doesn’t talk to any of the other girls to try to make me jealous or mess with my head, but my head is such a mess that I don’t need that from him.
Who knows? Maybe he's as confused as I am, but for now at least, I'm going to give him space. If he wants to be with me, he'll come around. If he doesn't, well, then I guess he's not the perfect fairy for me after all. Or maybe he is the perfect fairy for me for all of the time, but he's not the fairy for me right now.
I refuse to think of us as being broken up. We might be, and maybe I’m in denial over it, but I’m not about to look at other guys. Lately, Wren has been trying to get Orchid to open up more and consider guys and rate them from one to ten, with one being utter perfection and ten being never in any of my reincarnated lives will I ever consider him. Orchid doesn’t appreciate that at all, but Delia will give numbers easily enough.
I don’t think Orchid has told the others what happened, and I haven’t just because I don’t want to rehash it all yet again. Delia, though, has been trying to get me to give numbers too. I won’t.
As for Wren, she’s been trying to flirt with one of the guards so that she can try to slip into the teachers’ lounge or some restricted area to check out our theory about an authority figure being involved in either the thefts or the arson. So far, she hasn’t gotten anywhere, but if there’s one word to describe Wren, it’s determined. Or obsessed. That works too. Unfortunately, she’s been having a lot of nightmares lately, even more so than immediately after the fire. Her stress is getting to her, and that’s something that magic can only help so much.
Hmm. Maybe I should bring the harp to the room and play it so she can maybe have a good night’s sleep.
It’s all I can do to keep together. Honestly, I wish I could go home. I won’t be able to admit everything to Mom, but she might listen and comfort me. Or she might freak out over my sleeping with someone. And on our first date too.
Daredevil.
The next day, we're assigned yet another project for Alchemy. This one, though, is meant to be done in pairs. Unfortunately, we don't get to pick partners, and Orchid is assigned to someone else. As more and more names are called out, I grow more and more worried that Sage and I will be stuck together, but he's assigned to Dew Windyvale, a girl who won't ever shut up and raises her hand all the time to ask questions or to answer questions and is almost always wrong. I'm partnered up with Thistle. Honestly, I didn't even realize he was in the class with me until now. He's a third-year, though, so why is he in a class with a bunch of first years?
For the rest of the class, we're allowed to get started on our assignment, which is to turn metal into gold. Even fairies can't accomplish that feat, not even magic can, but we're to get as close as we possibly can. A challenge to be sure and one I would have relished if just about anyone else would've been my partner.
“Why are you in this class?” I ask Thistle as soon as I fly up to him.
He regards me with his eyes, a much different shade of green than the avocado coloring of his hair. “Because I failed the first time around, and I need to pass so I can graduate in the spring.”
“Oh.” So far, this class has been relatively easy.
“I tended to snort most of the ingredients,” he explains my unasked question.
“Oh,” I repeat, drawing out the word.
“I would much rather not have to worry about this class,” He says, “so I’ll tell you what. You do this assignment for both of us, and I’ll hook you up.”
“Hook me up?”
“With anything you want,” he promises. “Fairy dust, I think you mentioned you like that wild wine, anything at all. You want to be off the grounds? I can smuggle you out so you won’t get in trouble.”
“What about when I would have to return?” I ask.
He grins and shakes a finger at me. “Nothing gets past you. Fine. I’ll arrange for you to get back on campus sage and sound too.”
“Sage?” I swallow hard. “Don’t you mean safe?”
“Did I say Sage?” His gaze lazily lands on the fairy in question. “I see what you see in him. He’s hot.”
I blink a few times.
"Don't look at me like that. I prefer women, the more, the better, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate a man's beauty, and he's a hunk."
“A hunk of what?” I ask.
Thistle sighs. “You don’t watch much human TV, and it shows.”
I shrug. “Sage and I…” I shrug again.
“If you want me to make him see the error of his ways, I can do that.” Thistle cracks his knuckles.
“No, no. That won’t be necessary.” I hesitate. “You really don’t want to help with the assignment at all?”
“If I touch it, it’ll drop our letter grade by
two.”
I lift my eyebrows.
“Maybe even three. Do you want that?”
"Might be worth it, so I don't have to do it all," I counter.
“Fine, so long as I have some dust first.”
I narrow my eyes. “Seriously?”
“What? It’s not illegal.”
True enough, but there were plenty of fairies who thought it should be.
“Fine, but you owe me.”
“Whatever you want,” he says. “If you want some of this to forget all about him…” He points to himself.
I roll my eyes. “Just… I’ll let you know.”
“Sounds good. I always knew you were as cool as Bay.”
At my sister’s name, I wince, and Sage glances over. We make eye contact for the first time since he flew away. His expression is completely blank, and I’m positive mine is not.
I look away first, whatever that means, but class is over half-a-minute later, and I wait until everyone else leaves.
Professor Jewel motions me forward, and I obediently fly up to her.
“I did not assign Thistle as your partner for you to do all of the work,” she says.
“Honestly, that would be easier.”
“I’m quite sure he even tried to convince you to do it.”
I debate not answering, shrug, and then nod.
“I figured as much.” She sighs. “He has potential, but he lacks drive and discipline. It’s not fair for me to ask you to try to drive him to do this assignment, but…”
“The assignment will be done.”
“Oh, I have no doubt of that. You would do all of it before you would let him sabotage your grade. Just know that your grade and his might not be the same.”
My eyes widen. “But…”
Professor Jewel purses her full lips, somehow making their plumpness disappear as her lips now look like a lipless line. “You are dismissed,” she says.
Almost everyone for her next class is already here, and even if I fly my swiftest, I’m going to be late for Divination, so I don’t bother to fly fast. I fly lazily, even doing a few sluggish loops, when something yellow and orange catches my eye and the scent of something burning sears my nose.
A fire.
Another building is on fire.
Chapter 21
For a second, I hesitate, frozen, paralyzed, but then I snap out of it and fly even faster than I thought possible. The building on fire isn’t just any building. It’s the mini castle that has a ton of classrooms in it, including Divination.
Unlike last time, people aren’t flying from all over toward the fire because the students are all in class like I’m supposed to be. Abruptly, students flood out of the building, darting in every which direction, and I have to duck and rise and dodge to avoid them, fighting against the aerial tide.
Eventually, I make my way through. Divination class is empty, but that doesn’t mean all of the other rooms are, and I fly from room to room, banging on doors, calling out until my voice grows hoarse from yelling.
This cottage is mostly made from wood with only a few stone parts, and the crackling of the fire and the snapping of the wood fills my ears even as dread fills my heart.
And then, I hear something else.
Cries.
From beneath me.
I didn’t realize there might be a floor underneath the ground level, but there must be. If only I could find the entrance!
The smoke is starting to get really thick, and I’m coughing and hacking up a lung. It’s not easy to breathe at all, but the shouts are both growing more frantic and quieter, which frightens me to the point of forgetting all about finding a door and opting to instead create one.
Wind. It’s elemental magic, the first and only element that I’ve been able to use. When we were seven or eight, Bay and I were playing hide and seek. I realized she was coming near my hiding spot, and I did not want to be found. I didn’t want to be found so badly that I used wind to knock her back, which, of course, caused her to realize exactly where I was.
Unfortunately, one of my courses isn’t on wind, and it’s not something I had much training with at home either, considering Dad has an affinity toward fire and Mom toward water.
Still, every time I’ve been able to use wind, I’ve been highly emotional, and I am so emotional right now. My hands face the ground, and the wind bursts out of me. The floorboards shake and then shatter, wooden shards scattering everywhere.
Six faces stare up at me before they all begin to fight to push their way out of there. I direct them to the nearest exit, a window, and move to follow them when something compels me to double-check.
At first, I don’t see anything at all down in the lower level, but then I hear a faint cough in the corner. There’s another room, and I fly up to it. The door’s jammed, the wood burning hot but not on fire. My wind makes short work of the door, and once the dust settles, and I can open my eyes from the cloud of dust and smoke, I spy another fairy. His leg is injured, blood staining his pants, and even more painful, one of his wings is bent.
I have to drag him out of there and then do the heavy lifting in order to help him fly out of there. My arms and my head ache, and so do my wings. My lungs, my everything, there’s pain everywhere.
Suddenly, the weight is lifted out of my arms. My vision is growing dark, or maybe I just don’t want to keep my eyes open any longer. I’m not even sure, but it’s getting so much harder to take a breath, so much harder…
Something scratches at my throat, and it takes me a moment to realize I’m clawing myself. I can’t breathe, and I open my mouth to try to suck down air, only I can’t. With my mouth still open, I hold a hand to my face, and I expel a tiny amount of wind. It’s just enough to clear my lungs, and just like that, I feel better, and my vision clears.
There are fairies around, so many, all trying to keep others at bay, to help the last stragglers—the last stragglers being me and the injured fairy. People are talking to me, but there’s a whining sound in my ears, a ringing, and I can’t make out the words. It’s easy enough to realize they’re asking if I’m all right?
I nod, but am I? I’m not even sure.
I can read one of the professor’s lips to realize that I’m cleared to go, that the lockdown is in place and that the rest of the class is canceled. I nod to show that I understand, but I don’t go to the dorm room. Instead, I chase after the fairies helping the one I saved to the infirmary.
It’s a crazy scene, the infirmary. Beds are filled with fairies whose faces are in various shades of gray. Magic should be able to save all of them no problem, but it’s the fairy who’s bleeding that I worry about the most.
Swiftly, I locate him but have to hang back. Fairies are checking him over and giving him potions, and their hands glow. Hopefully, they can help him. It would be so wonderful if he or one of the others spotted the arsonist.
Had this been the work of another arsonist? It’s sad that my mind went there immediately, but it did, and now, I’m furious, so irate that my head is pulsating, pounding.
Eventually, the fairies drift away from his bed to check over the other fairies. A few of the students are discharged, but the others are forced to stay for more observation. I move to talk to the ones allowed to leave but then spy that some of the fairy security guards are heading this way and intercept them to ask them questions. They take the discharged patients outside, though, so I can’t overhear any of the answers.
I go over to the injured fairy’s bed and hover beside it.
“He’s sleeping now,” a fairy healer says. “You can come back—”
“I’m not leaving.”
She purses her lips.
“I saved him,’ I say through gritted teeth. “I’m not leaving.”
“Very well, but do not wake him,” she instructs, and she hurries over to the next bed down.
The fairy is restless in his sleep, twisting to either side some, wincing occasionally. Finally, I can’t take another flinch
in his sleep, and I lift his shirt.
And discover burns that weren’t healed.
“Someone, anyone, come here!” I call, but the healers must not be within earshot.
Wildly, I glance all around, but I’m not even sure where they might be, and I’m not about to leave the patient by himself.
But the longer I hover by his side and then stand by his side and then drag a chair over so I can sit by his side, the more tired I feel. The rush of adrenaline from saving the others combined with using so much wind magic that I’m not used to has left me a ball of fatigue with next to no energy. Despite my best efforts, I succumb to sleep.
When I wake, my throat is dry. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, and I wave over a healer to ask for some water. She nods, rushes off, and brings me the water.
“Thank you,” I say after I gulp it all down.
“No, thank you,” she says, accepting back the cup. “What you did was so very brave.”
“Any fairy would have—”
“Do you know how many fled the building with no care or thought toward anyone else who might still be inside? You weren’t even in the building from the start, were you?”
“Oh, no,” I admit.
“You saved their lives.”
My gaze falls on the still-sleeping injured fairy. “Oh! Did you realize he has burns under his shirt?”
The healer eyes me and then his chest, which, upon looking at it more closely, I realize he has a bandage on underneath his chest.
"We had to worry about his breathing first and foremost, and then the breathing of the other patients brought in before we could return to him and address any other issues. You fell asleep with a hand on his shirt that was lifted to expose a burn, so you did notify us of it even if you fell asleep before you could tell us."
“I tried calling for someone to tell them, but no one came,” I mumble.
“You did more than enough. You’re a real hero.”
I shake my head. Not at all.”
“I’m sure he will think so.” She nods to the patient.
Who is waking up.
His eyes flutter open, and his body shakes like he’s coughing, but no sound comes out. He reaches for his throat, and his face starts to turn blue.
Light Fae Academy: Year One Page 10
