The door to the sorcery classroom swung open at a touch, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I closed it behind me and looked around—I’d never really been in there before.
Most of the furniture was the same as what was in the rest of the school: shelves of books along the wall, the teacher’s desk at the head of the room, tables and chairs for students in the middle. If there was any specialized equipment that they needed for their magic, it must have been locked up in the big cabinets at the back. Posters on the wall showed strange runes and diagrams that I could not decipher, but there were also the usual motivational sayings: “The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach,” said a poster with a mountain climber. Another showed a painter and the lines, “The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.”
I crossed to the bookshelves and scanned the contents. Most of them were reference texts on many different aspects of sorcery, similar to the ones that I’d seen in the castle library. But there was one shelf at the end with cubbies, each one labeled with a student’s name.
I stifled a laugh at the sight of the cubbies, just like the ones back in kindergarten, and found the one marked “Glen Byrnes” at the top. Sure enough, there was a composition notebook inside. I pulled it out and opened it to the first page.
“Glen Duncan Byrnes, Junior Year, Sorcery Elective,” the first page read in swoops and swirls. I wasn’t surprised to learn that his middle name came from his grandfather, but who’d think that a guy would write in such elaborate calligraphy, even a faeriekin?
I flipped through a few more pages to make sure that I was right about there being nothing dangerous in the book, but I couldn’t understand anything that I saw. The text was written in a strange cipher and peppered with little scribbled symbols. Well, I’d just have to trust the teacher Julie’s judgment.
The binding on the comp book didn’t want to stay open. I took it to the teacher’s desk and weighed down the sides with a stapler and a pencil cup. Then I turned on the desk lamp for extra lighting and carefully took pictures of each page.
I kept an eye on the clock between turning pages. The minutes were ticking by. I wanted to be finished and out of the room well before the first bell, so no one would see me. But there were a lot of pages in the notebook, and setting up each shot was taking time.
Fortunately, I found out that the book was less than half full, and I finished with time to spare. I rearranged the desk like I’d found it, slipped my camera inside my bag, and took the comp book back to Glen’s cubby.
I’d just slipped it into place and turned to go when the door swung open. I jumped, then tried to hide my scare.
Julie flipped the lights on and startled when she saw me. “Oh, Rosamunde.” She put a hand on the wall to steady herself. “You surprised me. What are you doing in here, dear?”
“So sorry to bother you,” I said with a sheepish smile. I waved back at Glen’s cubby. “He, uh, thought he left something in here, so I came to check for him. Must be somewhere else, though, because it’s not here.”
She relaxed into a friendly smile. “What’s he looking for? I can keep an eye out for it.”
I searched my mind frantically and then remembered our next class. “His science book.”
“Ah.” She looked up at the clock. “Well, if you don’t find it anywhere, he still has time to run to the library and borrow another copy for today. I came to organize a few things for this group later, but I’ll see you back in class soon.”
I nodded, inching closer to the door. “Thanks for the help, Julie. See you in a bit.”
She held the door open for me, and I walked out as fast as I could, trying not to let her see how nervous I still was.
20
Planning for Valentine's Day
Rosamunde
I usually developed my film and made prints at school, but that was time-consuming, and I was no longer sure if I could trust anyone who might see the pictures. So after school, I got Kai to drive me to San Andreas to drop off the film at a store, since there was no place in Madrone that did photos. Processing would take an hour, and it wasn’t worth driving back the half-hour home just to turn around and drive back again for the pick-up, so Kai and I looked for a place to hang out while we waited.
There was a busy coffee shop where the drinks just didn’t taste the same and the staff gave dirty looks to a couple of teenagers hanging around, so we went for a walk down the street. We peeked in the windows of little gift shops selling trinkets to tourists and used bookstores advertising local titles like Ghost Towns of Calaveras and History of the Gold Rush. I turned away from these in a hurry—I’d had more than my fill of history lessons from Glen, for all the good they’d done me. I wondered now how much of the Seelie Court’s official version of history was a lie.
Kai lingered in front of a jewelry store’s display. “What’s your favorite gemstone, Rosa?”
I shrugged, looking over the options, but the store didn’t have a lot of variety. “They all do different things, magically speaking. Like, hematite is good for absorbing negative energy, but it’s not used in jewelry settings a lot because it’s fragile.” I pointed at a basket of ring bands carved entirely of hematite, priced at only a few dollars apiece. “If you tried to wear that, it’d probably break in a week or two.”
He sighed. “I’m trying to talk about something other than magic for once. I mean, which kind do you like to wear just because it’s pretty? Blue’s your favorite color, so what about sapphire?”
I looked up at him. “Oh, are you trying to buy me a present?”
“Why not?” he said with a smile. He kissed me on the tip of my nose. “It’s our three month anniversary in just two days, and Valentine’s Day is coming up only two weeks later. I figured it was about time that I got you something nice.”
I blushed and looked down again. We’d agreed to exchange simple gifts for Christmas because our relationship was new: I’d given him a new CD from a band he liked, and he got me a pretty leather-bound journal to write poetry in. I wasn’t sure if we’d already advanced to the stage where fancy jewelry was appropriate.
“You could just get me flowers or something,” I said, taking him by the arm and trying to pull him away from the display. “Not roses. And I like chocolate, too. I’m an easy girl to shop for.”
He pulled me back and put his arm around me, trapping me in front of the jewelry store. “You still haven’t answered my question. If you had to pick one kind, what would it be?”
I frowned at the many glittering gems. “Well, diamonds are boring, because they don’t have any color,” I said quickly, drawing his gaze away from the most expensive part of the display. “But otherwise, I’ve never really thought about it. My birthstone is supposed to be pearl, but I don’t always like the way they look, and it’s not even a stone. The other option for June is moonstone, which is pretty.”
We looked over the entire display, but not a single piece had moonstone in it. “You’re not making this easy at all,” Kai said with a sigh of frustration. “Chocolate and flowers are nice, but I wanted to give you something that would last.”
I managed to finally pull him away. “Everything in that store looked too big and gaudy, anyway,” I said in a low tone. I didn’t want to insult the store publicly. “And besides, we’re not allowed to wear a lot of jewelry at school. That journal you got me for Christmas was nice.”
“Has it inspired you poetically?” He nuzzled my ear with his nose.
“Hey, that tickles!” I squealed, squirming away. “Yes, I’ve gotten some use out of it. It’s almost too pretty to write in, though. I don’t want to fill it up with a lot of half-finished poems.”
He sighed. “I’ll just have to think of something else on my own.”
I held up a finger. “Nothing too expensive. Dad’s still trying to sort out our finances, and I can’t afford to get you anything big
in return.”
“Stop worrying so much.” He pointed to another store down the street. “Look, that place sells nothing but wacky socks. Do you want a box of socks?”
I rolled my eyes. “From a fox? That’s so bad!”
He chuckled. “I have to make you laugh somehow.”
We walked on down the street together, and for a few hours, I forgot about my heap of problems.
I gave the pictures to Zil on Wednesday morning and hurried away before she could draw me into a conversation. If my feelings were simple around Kai, they were way too complicated around the pookha girl, and I didn’t want to think through the implications right now. I’d wait until she passed the information on.
Glen caught me alone in the hallway and called me aside. Weird, I’d never had a conversation with just him before. Ashleigh and I hung out as friends all of the time, but I never saw Glen without his betrothed. I could think of no reason why he’d suddenly need to speak with me on our own.
“Rosa,” he said in a light tone, but his eyes were studying me closely. “Do you remember a few weeks ago when you came by the library at the castle, and we all did that history research?”
I tried to laugh easily but only managed a small giggle. “Yeah, we were there all day, so I remember. Too bad we didn’t find out anything useful, huh? Still, it was really nice of you guys to try helping me like that.”
“Yeah,” he said with a faint smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “But hey, you found some herbalism books that you borrowed. Did you get any use out of those, at least?”
I kept wanting to look away from his staring, but I forced my gaze to stay fixed on him as if nothing was wrong. This conversation was getting uncomfortably close to a question that I didn’t want him to ask. “Yeah, I’ve skimmed through a couple of them. Not a lot in there that I didn’t already know, but the refresher is always good.” I nudged him with my elbow. “And I’m trying to take your advice, you know, to write down the stuff that I know and the spells that I cast so I won’t forget later. I think that’s helping more than anything.”
He gave me another fake smile. “That’s good.” The smile disappeared, and he glanced around the hallway. “Listen, though, I was at the library the other day and I discovered that a different book went missing. I was just wondering if maybe you’d picked up something else by mistake.”
There it was. I shook my head, not too emphatically. “All I have are two herbalism books, one on gemstones, and one on elemental correspondences. Do you want me to give them back? They’re at home, but I could bring them up to the castle later today.”
“No, Rosa, that’s okay,” he said smoothly. “This was something else. You can keep those books for now.”
I tilted my head to one side in what I hoped looked like only idle curiosity. “What book is missing?”
He glanced away and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Nothing to worry about. I just thought I’d ask in case you’d seen it.” He stepped back in the hall. “We’d better get to class.”
I nodded and followed him to our classroom, where I dropped my bag on a chair, but then I excused myself and went back out to the girls’ restroom.
I bent over the sink and took deep breaths, trying to calm my nerves. My heart was pounding so hard that I felt dizzy. He must have been talking about the sorcerer’s trial book. I couldn’t believe that he’d even thought to ask me about it. How much did he suspect?
I’d avoided telling a deliberate lie—I didn’t have the book anymore. But just as I knew that he was lying when he told me not to worry, even without the lie detecting charm heating up my pocket, he could probably figure out that I hadn’t told him the whole truth. And if he could guess that I took the book, would he also figure out who I’d given it to?
I should warn Zil. Maybe she could get the book back from Mom, and I could find a way to give it to Glen without him realizing where it had come from. No, if it mysteriously reappeared after he asked me about it, then that would just make him more suspicious. Was there some way I could turn his attention away from me? Not without implicating someone else.
I had a brief pang of jealousy: did they ask Heather if she took the book from the library? I could plant the book on her, and then the faeriekin would stop fawning all over her.
But a moment later, I felt guilty for even thinking that. Heather had never stopped being a true friend to me—I was the one who didn’t have time for her. No, the book would have to stay with my mother, and I’d just have to be careful that no one found out how it got there.
Hopefully, Zil would tell me about what I had to do to get Akasha back soon, and then I’d be able to come clean about my lies and warn the Seelie Court what Mom was capable of doing. I no longer trusted that Glen would protect me from getting punished for the laws I’d broken, but I couldn’t live with this guilt forever. Every lie I told seemed to multiply into five more, turning into a tangled web that held me trapped. There was only so much pressure that I could take before I was bound to crumble.
I just had to make sure that my sister was safe before that happened.
I got through the school day without any more uncomfortable conversations. Then Ashleigh invited me to come hang out with her for the afternoon. “If you don’t already have plans with Kai or someone else,” she said with a smile. “You’ve gotten so popular, Rosa, that you’re hard to get ahold of!”
Hoping that Glen hadn’t sent her after me with more questions, I agreed. I didn’t think that Ashleigh was capable of that kind of deception. She had Glen drive both of us over to her house—in the winter, it was too cold for them to ride horseback to school, so Glen drove his car like a normal teen boy. But once we got there, she sent him away again.
“I think we need an afternoon just for us girls,” she said, winking at me.
I smiled, sitting at the kitchen table while she made a pot of tea for us. “You didn’t want to ask Heather, too?”
She blinked and turned away to the kettle on the stove, but not before I saw a flicker of sadness cross over her face. “No, I wanted some time with just us. I think things have been a little weird between all of us lately, but especially you and Heather.” She looked back at me. “I’ve been trying to help fix things, but I don’t entirely understand the problem. Did something happen between you two?”
I shrugged and looked down at my hands, folded on the tabletop. “We used to be close, but I guess we just drifted apart. I probably let my relationship with Kai get in the way. And sometimes, I feel jealous, like she’s closer with you and Glen, and I don’t know how to handle that.”
She frowned. “We all have a different relationship with each other. The way she’s close to me isn’t the same as the way she’s close to you. It’s not all a competition about who is the best friend.”
The kettle began to whistle. Ashleigh turned off the heat and poured the boiling water into the teapot, then placed it on a tray with two mugs. “Would you like to take this upstairs?”
I followed her up to her room. When I was younger, I used to love Ashleigh’s bedroom, which looked like a tower fit for a fairytale princess—a pink canopy bed, a light-up mirror on her vanity, a window seat with flowing curtains framing either side. But it hadn’t changed since I met her, and now, looking around, I thought that it was childish for a sixteen-year-old girl. Yet it suited my image of her—a mixture of light-hearted innocence, caught up in parties and dressing up with her friends, while her elegant poise and fine manners made her seem much older. Like the Fae I called Louis in his most recent incarnation, she had an ageless quality that even the average faeriekin didn’t possess.
At her request, I pulled a little table over next to the window seat for her to set the tea tray down, and we both sat curled up on the cushions sipping our hot tea. Snow had started falling outside, so I watched it drift by the glass and didn’t say anything.
Ashleigh broke the silence with a little sigh. “I wanted to talk to you because Glen has been acting strange lately.�
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I raised my eyebrows, but I was careful to stay neutral. “In what way?”
“Oh, you know.” She looked down. “It’s probably just my silly imagination.”
I stayed still, waiting for her to continue, and then a minute later she cleared her throat and shook her head. “It’s just—Valentine’s Day is only two weeks away. And he hasn’t told me what the plan is yet.”
I laughed nervously. “Here I am trying to talk Kai out of making a big deal out of it. Did you want him to do something?”
She swirled the tea in the bottom of her mug and stared at it. “I don’t know. It’s not usually a big deal, but my birthday party was a disaster, and I just wanted something nice to happen.”
I leaned forward and put my hand on her arm. I couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for Ashleigh to have her own mother show up just to yell at her. “That party was amazing, Ash, and everyone loved it. Don’t dwell on the one bad thing. If you want something specific for Valentine’s Day, just ask him.”
“We don’t have that kind of relationship.” She took a deep breath. “Glen makes the reservations weeks in advance. Every year since we were thirteen, the year we were betrothed, he’s been so kind to me.” She looked up at me. “He’s such a gentleman.”
I chewed on my lip, trying to think of a way to put it diplomatically. “Yeah, he wants to do nice things for you, but you said that you can only think of him as a friend. Does it bother you?”
Ashleigh shook her head. “No, no, he’s always wonderful. But I knew that the reason behind it was he’s courting me—trying to win my affections. Even though I tell him that I think of him as a friend, that we’re forced into this marriage for political reasons and it’s good enough if we just get along, he still tries.” She turned to look out the window. “I thought that maybe when I was older, I might grow to love him. He’s so kind.”
Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set Page 41
