by Brea Viragh
A snap of her fingers and the wings disappeared in a whiff of smoke. Another snap and they appeared again.
I thought of Barbara, the unorthodox apocalypse-prepping witch with her snapping fingers. Asking her for a potion like mine seemed small in comparison to finding a way to change the color of your skin. What had Nurse Julie or her mother promised to get the spell?
“How did you get here? I mean—” I cut myself off, shaking my head and instantly regretting it. I really shouldn’t be moving.
Nurse Julie smiled at me. Kindly. Openly. “It’s not prying, really. I came from a pack in Iowa. Most packs operate on an old, outdated traditional patriarchy. There are too many rules oppressing women and no one willing to make the necessary changes. Especially for those of us who are seen as less than because of our bloodline. And women. Don’t get me started. And they all hate halflings, whether you’re half human or half something else, anything else. You want to hear my story?”
“Yes, please,” I managed.
She finished addressing the cuts and abrasions on my free arm. They would more than likely heal in a few hours. “I’ll share mine if you share yours, young lady. My only request, if you will. But…let’s see if I can sum this up for you.” Julie slapped her knees, her attention turning inward, then said, “My mother wanted the best for me, truly, but the decision wasn’t hers to make. Once I reached a certain age, my alpha made a match he thought would benefit both me and the pack. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know about me, about my dual nature. My mother made sure to keep my half-Fae nature a secret otherwise I would have been killed on the spot. The prejudice extends to both sides, you see.”
“Yeah, so I’ve learned.”
She paused, drawing in a breath. “I didn’t want the match. Why would I want to tie myself to a man who, if he knew the truth of who I was, would hate me? Would make it his business to ruin my life and maybe even kill me? I was desperate to get out. I would have attacked anyone who came at me. I ran. I ran until I realized. I didn’t know where I was going and I had no other options available to me. I didn’t even say goodbye to my family.”
“You found yourself here,” I supplied.
I watched her gather the dressings for my broken arm, keeping it contained to a soft cast until the bone could reset on its own.
“It seems most who are lost eventually find themselves on the doorstep of the Halflings Academy. Out in the open, we are sitting ducks. There are too many weapons pointed at us. Now, I wish I’d slowed down enough to think it through. I haven’t seen my family in many, many years and I miss them greatly. But if I go back, I would not be welcome. Odds are good I’d still be killed on the spot.”
“You’ve never gone back?” I asked. “Not even once to see your mom?”
“No, I haven’t. I miss my mother dearly but I never want to go back. I imagine you did the same thing I did.” Nurse Julie shot me a look from under her brows. “You packed up and you bolted, for whatever reason I’m sure you’ll tell me about. I live at the academy and I love my life here. I’ve managed to work the magic to completely suppress my shifter side while I’m here. I’m sure you will find your new life too, in time.”
We sat in silence for a moment, her staring at me and me staring at my hands. She had found a way to suppress her shifter side fully? I wondered how she did it. If maybe her distinct Fae heritage gave her some kind of edge the rest of us hadn’t discovered yet.
I told Nurse Julie the barest minimum about my story, an eerily similar echo to the one she’d told me. I kept Kendrick’s name out of it in case she’d heard of him. And when we were done, she stood, gathering up the IV and tapping the vein in my arm. The needle slipped through the skin and she wrapped it with gauze and tape to keep it in place.
“Your fated mate doesn’t know where you are?” she asked.
I shook my head, the movement tiny. “No. And if I do everything right, he never will.” Then swallowed a scream when she jostled the soft cast.
“Sweetheart, your arm is broken. You landed pretty hard on it and the radius is snapped in the middle. There are some cuts from the scuffle and I treated those, set the arm. While you’re here, no one will be able to come in and see you. Let your wolf nature heal the rest. Bones take a little bit longer to heal without magic.”
“Yes, I know. Thank you.”
“There’s more.” Her eyes darted around, looking everywhere but my face. “It’s disturbing. I wasn’t sure I should tell you—”
“What’s the matter?” I interrupted. “What is it?”
“You have bites on your body. Werewolf bites.”
26
A wolf had bitten me, one of my own kind. Nurse Julie thought she was delivering some kind of terrible news to me. But I already knew and had made tentative peace with the knowledge.
“It’s okay. I had a feeling he was one of our own when he chased me down the hallway the other day. Have they found the man responsible?” I wanted to know.
Nurse Julie bit the inside of her lip and I had my answer. “The students saw you fall but no one saw who attacked you. If they did, no one has said anything to me. Then again, I rushed you right over here once I realized…you know…what you are. I didn’t want anyone else to figure it out and the more time you spent in the open, the more likely the outcome became.”
“He was on the balcony with me. Pushed me right over the edge because he knew I was going to wallop him with a spell. You’re right: he’s a wolf.” I shifted and ground my teeth to keep from crying out from the pain.
Healing abilities, sure, but this kind of damage would take me a bit of time to repair. I knew for a fact the school had a policy about broken bones. Another one of those lessons to make us strong. The nurses could treat our superficial wounds but not with magic. Any serious damage had to heal on its own or we would have to find a way to heal ourselves.
Advanced magic, I remembered Roman saying. Something they didn’t start teaching until the upper years.
What if Kendrick’s pack had found me and this wasn’t the school’s killer but a new attack? Surely my fated mate had dispatched his cronies to search for me once they discovered I had vanished. What if one of them had actually tracked me down to the academy?
Or what if they were killing students to get revenge for me running away?”
“Tavi, whatever you’re thinking, stop. It isn’t going to help you.” Julie reached out a hand and pushed the hair away from my face in an oddly maternal gesture despite the blue skin. Her fingertips were soft and warm. “I know about wolf culture. The boys might be petty but they wouldn’t harm innocents for no reason, even if they are Fae. And there are two other dead students in this case. Let’s sit here and try to use our heads. Okay? Who else would want to kill you?”
I shivered. “Well, I just got the top spot. The last two students who died…they were in line for the top as well,” I told her, sharing the idea that had plagued me.
She stared at me through wide eyes and I read the shock in them. She clearly hadn’t considered it, thinking the two deaths random. “Are you sure?”
“I think I’m sure. How much longer is this going to take?” I used my chin to gesture to the IV. “I need to go.” I wasn’t going to let this stop me, and I certainly wasn’t going to let the man get away with hurting anyone else.
“Sweetie, you need to relax. This isn’t a game. You have a serious injury. Someone pushed you off a balcony. You need fluids, and your arm is going to take a long time to heal. Not to mention—”
She tried to push me back down. I understood where she was coming from, but I didn’t have the time to waste. And my wolf had taken enough shit lately.
I growled, ripping the IV out of my arm with a flash of gold-tinted eyes. It felt good to be whole again. “I’m leaving now.”
My voice wasn’t my own. It belonged to her, my wolf. She was pissed off. She’d been silenced for too long, pushed around, thrown into situations where she hadn’t had a choice, and eventually s
ilenced entirely thanks to the potions. She wasn’t about to let anyone else tell her what to do.
Nurse Julie fixed me with a stern look, the tension in her brow melting into frustration, and I knew if she had a choice her wolf would have risen as well. To challenge mine. “Well, fine, if you’re going to act snarly, then at least give me a minute to get you set up with a new potion. You can’t leave like this, Miss Wolf. Someone is going to see you for who you are and then we’ll both be in hot water.”
“I have one more potion vial in my dorm,” I retorted.
“Then give me a minute to get it for you. You can’t risk someone seeing you right now. Especially when you appear to have a little trouble controlling yourself. Get those canines in check, missy.”
Did I have a choice in trusting her? No. Not even a hint of a choice. I ran my tongue along the length of my sharpened canines before willing them to return to normal.
Julie left me alone while she went to my dorm for the last vial.
It just didn’t make sense to me, I mused, tapping the fingers of my good arm against the edge of the table. An attack on me, I understood. But then the odds were clearly in the attacker’s favor. Coming after me during a party, when I was surrounded by people? Out in the open?
It was almost like he’d been desperate.
It would have been better, smarter, to wait until I was alone or on my way back from the party. The hallways were starting to empty out with the purgings, so it was certainly less crowded now.
And why bite me? Then again, the man didn’t know I was a wolf and his bites would leave me unaffected. Had he thought to inflict extra damage?
I winced. Once I left the city and my family behind, I’d thought heading down this unfamiliar road and hiding at the academy would be the least of my worries. I didn’t think I’d have to deal with a murderer on campus.
Who would have guessed?
Nurse Julie returned with the last vial and I guzzled it without hesitation. The familiar burn began low in my chest and stretched along to my extremities. My vision went blurry and for a moment I thought I would faint. Then everything disappeared, the movement under my skin calming and the familiar spell setting in, dulling my senses and pushing my wolf back into the darkness. I felt the caress of her claws on the inside of my mind, not too kindly, before a familiar kind of numbness set in.
“There you are,” Julie said proudly. Her wings flickered once before lying still against her back. “You’re as good as new. Your arm will follow suit shortly enough.”
Wincing and cradling my broken arm to my chest within the sling, I walked slowly to my dorm and found the place empty. I guessed the party was still in full swing. Not much time had gone by between the fall and my visit to the nurse’s office. I wondered who had found me, and whether they would come forward to make themselves known. I’d like to thank them.
I didn’t want to even try to climb the ladder up to my bed and instead moved to the seats near the window, avoiding the moonlight. Avoiding moonlight, mirrors, garlic, everything.
“Hello hello?” The familiar voice called out from the doorway seconds before a wild brown head popped around the corner. “There you are!”
“Meli?”
I couldn’t stand up to greet her even if I wanted to. The exhaustion had set in and once I sat down, my body decided it had had enough.
Melia stalked forward with her tongue clucking and her index finger raised and wagging at me. “Where did you go?” she teased. “I turned around and you were gone! I looked everywhere for you and then figured you came back here. Looks like my hunch was right.” She sighed. “And not like Barry was making any kind of move on me.”
I gestured toward the sling. “I had a little accident.”
Her smile dropped in an instant and only then did I realize she’d forced it into place. “Yeah, I know.” She sighed again. “I’m sorry. I went to the nurse’s office and must have missed you by seconds. I was just trying to be positive.”
She’d come looking for me? I’d made the best kind of friend, I realized then. One who would stay by my side.
“I’m glad you’re okay. I can’t believe you fell off the balcony.”
“I didn’t fall. I was pushed,” I told her. “A hooded man attacked me and tried to kill me.”
“What?”
Her screech would have caused birds to fly from trees. Luckily, we were alone. Luckily, she believed me without question.
“The man bit me.” I kept the werewolf part to myself. “I tried to get inside to the safety of the party but the doors wouldn’t open. He tossed me over the balcony like I weighed nothing at all.”
“He bit you?” Melia leaned back on her heels and stared at me for the longest time. “If he bit you, then you might be able to find out who he is.”
“Huh? Wh-what do you mean?”
“I mean, the odds are good even after the nurse cleaned the wounds, there is a trace amount of his DNA still left in your body where his teeth sank in. And if we can access it, then maybe we can glean some information about him by using divination,” she said, her eyes sparkling.
I knew she’d had as much to drink as I had, or more, but damn, Melia had a good head on her shoulders.
“I can’t touch crystal balls. I have…an allergy to quartz,” I protested.
“But you’re so good at divination.” Um, no, I wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to burst her bubble. “Even without the crystal ball—which happens to be the best way to find out—you might be able to see the man in visions. I doubt Tarot would work, and neither will runes or the pendulum because they don’t operate the same way. They are definitely more interpretive than accurate because those tools are only as good as the interpreter.”
As she went on, I gave some thought to it. Did I want to know? Did I want to see the face of the man who had attacked me and tried to end my life? Yes. And no. I was terrified the face I’d see looking back at me would belong to Kendrick Grimaldi. What if he’d found me? He would never let me go. He would certainly rather see me dead than live with knowing I’d run from him.
“We should get to the divination lab,” I said, struggling to stand. “Immediately. I can sleep later.”
“Hold on now, not so fast.” Melia reached out a hand to stop me. “You’re in no condition to be breaking into the divination lab. You do need to get some sleep because you look like body snatchers just dug you out of a fresh grave.”
“Gee, thanks for the pick-me-up, Mel. But no deal. We need to use whatever DNA is left before it’s too late. We don’t exactly have a lot of time to sit around and relax.”
We stood facing each other, my shoulders hunched with fatigue and taking precious inches away from my height until I stared at her collarbone instead of her face. She sighed. “Okay, I know better than to leave you because you most certainly won’t relax no matter how badly you need to. But you’re not going alone, either. I’m going to come with you because two heads are better than one. I can’t risk another attack on your life. The guy is probably still out there and you’re the top student now.”
“Fine.” I just wouldn’t touch the crystal ball. I could try and make the spell work without the physical contact.
“Do you need help?” Melia looked ready to scoop me into her arms and carry me toward the divination lab herself. She might have been able to, as well. The Fae were very strong.
I chuckled though it sounded more like asthmatic wheezing. “I’m okay. Thank you, though.”
I grabbed a hoodie and slung it over my shoulders as best I could. We walked side by side down the darkened halls, each of my steps strategically placed to avoid the shafts of moonlight coming through the windows. If Melia noticed anything strange about the way I moved she didn’t say so. I knew she could never understand why I avoided the moonlight without telling her everything.
The party felt like it had happened years ago. How much difference a few hours made. Broken bones and new revelations.
It didn’t take lon
g for us to reach the door of the divination lab and I pushed it open with a creak of wood, inhaling the familiar scents of tea and bergamot.
If I could move past my fear and do this correctly, then I might have a solid lead tonight. And this would be over. I’d made sure to slip the detective’s business card into the pocket of my hoodie. Once I had a face, I could give the information to Wilson and let him handle the rest. He might not believe me but I had the sling and the bites to prove I’d been attacked. The rest would be up to him.
Then it would be done. No one else would be hurt and I’d be safe.
My arm ached and I tried to move past the pain. It will be over soon.
“Let’s go to my workstation,” I told Melia. I’d feel more comfortable there.
She looked smaller in the shadowed hush of the room. As though she’d shrunk in on herself instead of standing tall, the way I always expected her to look. “Do you have your crystal?”
“Yes. It’s in the drawer with the rest of my things. I haven’t touched it since the first day when it was covered with velvet.” We moved up the risers toward the second tier where Mike and Roman and I worked on a normal day.
Melia did the honors, removing the crystal ball from the drawer and balancing it on its pedestal. Finally, she removed the velvet cloth. The crystal ball gleamed with an inner light. I sat down and moved my free hand toward it, close but making sure to keep from contacting the surface.
“Clear your mind,” Melia reminded me as she settled at my side. “The energy connections are already there. Think about the bites, think about the attack, the way the man moved and the sensations he gave you.”
“The will to live,” I muttered. “I’ve never felt more like I had to fight for my life.” Okay, maybe I could think of one other time.
