by Sofia Daniel
The teacher continued. “Magic users are adept at reaching a twilight state—it’s that part of reality where whatever is possible in your dreams is also possible in the waking world.”
“Let’s have a demonstration, then.” Florensis leaned back in her seat with her arms folded and glowered at Helen.
“We’ll all do an exercise together.” Mr. Whittaker strode in front of Florensis, blocking the girls’ views of each other. “Everybody close your eyes and focus on the patterns behind their lids. See what comes out of the darkness and imagine it into the waking world. Practicing that every day will make your magic stronger!”
Groans filled the room. Ignoring everyone else’s pessimism, I sat straighter in my seat and closed my eyes.
My mind jumped to the clearing and the sight of Sicily surrounded by those dark faeries with membranous wings. In my mind, I reached out to grab my sister, but she turned into mist, which swirled around my body and surged into my chest.
Panic flashed behind my eyelids, as white as sheet lightning and bright enough to burn my retinas. Clenching my teeth, I kept my eyes closed and reminded myself that this was just a class exercise.
“Eunice?” said a distant voice.
The bright light cleared, and Prince Rory’s smug face filled my vision. Except he was shirtless and flexing prominent pectoral muscles. The faerie’s orange wings were fully retracted and glowing like the midday sun. My gaze trailed down his pecs, over a defined six-pack and to a huge erection protruding from a thatch of pubes that matched his russet hair.
My breathing became ragged, and heat flooded my core. What kind of dream walking was this?
Giggles filled the classroom, and my eyes snapped open. Everyone was staring at me.
Mr. Whittaker’s cheeks were pink. “Miss Quayle, may I ask what you were thinking about?”
“Nothing, much,” I muttered.
Florensis leaned forward, amusement dancing in her purple eyes. “Your wings are smoldering.”
“At least she has wings,” snapped Helen. “You’re just bitter because you’ve been in this class for ten years and never made an inch of progress.”
A hushed silence spread across the large classroom, and I glanced around at all the faces. Some of the students clapped their hands over their mouths, as though Helen had uttered the unspeakable, while others just stared down at their desks.
I swallowed hard. Was remedial class a disposal space for the useless offspring of the fae nobility?
Mr. Whittaker frowned but remained silent, making me wonder if anyone ever graduated from his lessons. After several moments, he coughed into his fist. “Let’s go to the gymnasium for flying practice.”
We all piled out of the class and down a narrow, stone hallway, which opened up into a room larger than Doolish Town Square. Gossamer nets hung ten feet above us, which I assumed were to catch people jumping from one of the two-dozen diving boards that lined one wall. At the far end of the room was a swimming pool with spring diving boards down one side.
Mr. Whittaker stood in the middle of the room and spread his arms wide. “Everybody, get into pairs and practice flapping your wings.”
“This is pointless,” Florensis snapped.
“Those of you without wings should flap them in your imagination,” he said as though accustomed to the girl’s attitude.
I turned to Helen and smiled. “Should we pair up?”
A smile broke out across her features, which made her chestnut eyes sparkle. “I’d love to.”
I turned around and glared at my wings, which fluttered as though they had a mind of their own. “Do you know how to control them?”
Helen closed her eyes, and white wings sprouted out from her back. “They’re just like any other appendage, I suppose.”
“I thought your wings would match your hair.”
Her smile faded, and her shoulders drooped with defeat. “They will when my magic returns.”
“What do you mean?”
Her lips twisted into a rueful smile. “I used to have magic like every other faerie, but I lost it all the day I turned eighteen.”
My eyes bulged. “To a curse?”
“Nobody knows why.” She rubbed the back of her neck and turned her gaze to the diving board. “My father’s keeping me here until I’m fit to return to polite society.”
“Oh.” My insides twisted into awkward knots, and I snatched my gaze away from her blank wings, not knowing where to look. Losing one’s magic was probably like losing one of the senses like sight, but humans helped their relatives when misfortune struck, they didn’t throw them away like trash.
“Can you fly?” I asked.
“Fortunately, I didn’t lose that ability,” she said with a tiny smile.
A slither of relief relaxed my insides, and I clapped my hands together like Mr. Whittaker. It was probably a nervous habit in the face of such hopelessness. “Do you want to show me how it’s done?”
“I’ll take care of this,” said a snide, male voice.
Prince Caulden stepped between us, his nose wrinkled with disgust. Helen bobbed into a curtsey and backed away with an apologetic grimace. The rest of the class fell into silence, and everyone stopped flapping their wings to watch.
“Let’s take a look at you.” He swept his gaze up and down my form. “You’re far sturdier than my fated mate. What did you do before you joined the academy, pull plows?”
Nervous laughter echoed across the room.
Cringing, I pictured Lady Salix, the willowy faerie with the green hair. I probably didn’t conform to his standards if that was his taste. Still, the comment sent irritation bristling across my nerves. Things were different now. I was the fifth fated mate, and I would be damned if I would stand here and allow this royal asshole to compare me to an ox.
Smoothing my hands down my trim waist, I murmured, “It takes a strong male to handle all this, I suppose.”
Prince Caulden narrowed his eyes. “Have you been handled much? I hear that some discarded halflings who can’t survive the brothels come pretending to learn magic.”
I reared back. “What kind of gentleman makes comments like that?”
“One who doesn’t care for a former prostitute infiltrating her way to the Fae Courts.”
Heat flared across my cheeks, and I sucked in a deep breath. What I had done with Elijah didn’t count as prostitution. Boyfriends brought their girlfriends gifts all the time, and if he had thought our relationship was transactional, it didn’t reflect on my morals.
“What do you want?” I snapped.
“To warn you to leave this academy before you get hurt.”
“I’m supposed to believe you care about my wellbeing?”
He raised a shoulder. “What occurs in your mind is of no consequence, but you are making a mockery of the fates with your insistence on mating with one of us.”
I bared my teeth. “But I didn’t choose this!”
His gaze skimmed my wings. “Each time you so much as think of us, your wings become incandescent. It’s desperate and unseemly.” He sniffed. “Next, you’ll trigger your own heat and present yourself to us on your hands and knees. Anything to entrap one of us into becoming your mate.”
“What?” I choked on thin air.
“Ah, yes.” His smile turned cold. “Apparently, you have no memory of your life as a half-blood and no memory of how you cheated fate.”
My mouth dropped open. Not because of the implication that I’d done something dishonest—Prince Rory had already made that accusation and threatened me with beheading—but at the notion that faeries went into heat. Like fucking animals.
Prince Caulden walked a slow circle around my body. “Flying classes won’t work on a girl like you.”
“Why?”
“You have an imbalance in your wing-to-bodyweight ratio.”
“Is that your way of telling me I’m fat?” I placed my hands on my hips.
Chuckles broke out across the gymnasium, and Prince
Caulden smirked. “You’re not the most svelte of females.” He waved his fingers over my breasts, which Elijah had always described as perfect C’s. “Your wings are dreading carrying all that excess weight.”
I clenched my teeth. This was total bullshit. Very few humans on the Isle of Fae had the opportunity to become overweight, as we didn’t have as much access to luxuries from the outside world. A tiny plan hatched in the back of my mind. It was pathetic, but it would put this ice prince in his place.
Shaking my head, I walked across the room toward the pool at the other end. If Prince Caulden was the kind of petty bully I suspected, he would follow.
“Don’t turn your back on me,” he snapped.
“Walk faster if you can’t handle the sight of a girl with a real ass,” I snapped back.
Prince Caulden strode at my side, his icy glare freezing the side of my face. “What are you doing?”
“You’ve just given me an idea for training my wings.”
“What?” he said.
“They need more strengthening than anyone else’s, right?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he frowned down at me as though I’d asked him a trick question. What a dick. He could dish out the insults, but at the first sign of making a twat out of himself, he turned mute.
Everyone gaped as we passed. Helen walked on my left, her presence giving me moral support. I’d only just met the girl, but the fact that one high faerie in this academy had offered the hand of friendship had meant a great deal.
At the edge of the pool, I shouldered off my blazer and let it fall to the floor.
His gray eyes gleamed. “Is there any purpose to this charade?”
“You implied my wings wouldn’t support my bodyweight. I’m going to train them in the water.”
“What?”
Mr. Whittaker approached from behind and cleared his throat. “Swimming with wings is a common technique for those who have sustained flying-related injuries, Your Highness.”
Prince Caulden didn’t acknowledge the teacher. He was too busy staring at my hands as I unbuttoned my shirt. His nostrils flared, and his chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. I suppressed the urge to smirk. Beneath all that pomp and bluster and frigidness, this asshole was as hot and horny as the next guy.
“I knew it,” he said, still transfixed.
“Is this another half-baked theory, Your Highness?”
His gaze didn’t once rise from my fingers, which unfastened the button that would give him a glimpse of my cleavage. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “You are a creature of loose morals.”
“Why?” I tilted my head to the side. “For listening to your suggestions?”
“Nobody told you to take off your clothes, you lascivious, little minx,” he said in an urgent whisper.
I dropped my hands to my sides. “You’re right.”
“What?” His features fell.
“You didn’t tell me to take off my clothes.” I shook my head.
“But I thought you were going to swim,” he said with a disappointed whine in his voice.
Triumph flared through my chest, making it swell. All that talk about me being too fat was bullshit. Right now, Prince Caulden’s eyes had turned molten silver, and he looked ready to tear off my shirt if I didn’t continue stripping.
“It’s as you say, Your Highness,” I said, making sure to inject as much mockery in my voice. “I wouldn’t want anyone to think I had loose morals, so I’ll wait until later to practice the water exercises.”
His features twisted into a rictus of rage. Perhaps it was because my smile became smug, or maybe it was because everyone had seen him disparage my figure one minute and lust for a sight of it the next. I didn’t care. He could take his nasty comments, freeze them into a popsicle and stick them up his tight ass.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, halfling!” he snarled.
Tilting my head to the side, I gave him a few innocent blinks. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I came to warn you about an impending attack but now, I’ll watch you suffer.” He spun around and stormed out of the room with his shoulders around his ears.
Helen sidled up to me and whispered, “You were amazing!”
“Yeah.” All traces of smugness vanished, replaced with the gnawing worry that I’d missed the opportunity to discover another assassination attempt. Perhaps Prince Caulden’s initial insults had been designed to make me leave the Royal Fae Academy in a huff and save me from a painful death.
A sigh heaved out from my lungs. Now, I’d have to leave my chances of survival up to fate.
Chapter 11
After the gymnasium door clicked shut behind Prince Caulden, Mr. Whittaker called the remedial class to attention and reminded us to practice flapping our wings. While I couldn’t get mine to obey my commands, about a quarter of my classmates stood around doing nothing but chatting. I guessed they were like Florensis and hadn’t yet expressed enough magic to summon wings.
Helen stood opposite me, frowning at my pathetic attempts to control my new appendages. “Do you want to try jumping off the diving board? That will force your wings to fly.”
I glanced at the white nets hanging over our heads and grimaced, my stomach still unsettled from that hair-raising fall from the headmistress’s tower. The nets were as thin as spider webs and didn’t look strong enough to trap a fruit fly.
“Maybe I’ll try that after I learn which muscles control the flapping motion,” I said.
She blew out a breath. “Mr. Whittaker means well, but he doesn’t know what it’s like to be born with wings.”
“What do you mean?”
“Flying isn’t something you learn in a classroom. It’s an instinct. Most fae newborns fly before they can walk because wings are part of our magic.” She swept her arm toward the high diving board. “Your wings would take over if you fell from a height.”
My throat dried, and I gulped several times. That might have been true if I had actually been born a half-blood, but considering the faerie who cursed me with these wings had blamed me for his death, I didn’t have much faith that they would flap to my rescue. The wretched things had glowed at the most inopportune moment and now made me the target of four angry princes and their fated mates.
“Flying is the least of my worries right now,” I said.
Helen grimaced. “Are you thinking about Prince Caulden?”
“All of them.” I pulled Helen to one side and told her about my encounter with Prince Rory.
Throughout my story, her jaw went slack. When I finished, she leaned into me and whispered, “Fate doesn’t mean true love. I bet he’s glad for the opportunity to get rid of Gala, but I can’t believe he would threaten you with death.”
My stomach tightened. “You think he’s serious?”
“The mere accusation of dark magic can get a person imprisoned without trial. If it came from one of the princes, and they were the target of a dark attack, I would expect an execution or worse.”
Goosebumps pimpled across my skin. “I’d better do as he asks, then.”
Someone screamed. It was a younger boy jumping from the diving board. He flapped his arms once before gravity pulled him down to the nets and made him bounce twelve feet.
The rest of the class broke into a round of mocking applause.
Helen shook her head. “Jumping won’t make him sprout wings.”
Remembering what she had said about faerie babies knowing how to fly, I gave her a sympathetic smile. “This class must be incredibly boring. What kind of things would you be learning in a regular lessons?”
“Advanced magic, the outside world, and court politics.” She walked to a box on the side of the wall and pulled off its lid, revealing a stack of hula hoops.
“What’s that?”
Helen selected an orange hoop. “Court politics is a study of etiquette, magical history, and ways not to offend upper royalty. Every faerie in the regular classes will serve at court one day. The cla
sses here teach us how to represent our noble houses and the people we protect.”
“Oh.” I knew faeries held balls and went to court every day, but I’d never heard of them protecting anyone but themselves.
Maybe in the days of Queen Maeve, they did more for lesser beings. Nowadays, there was nothing to stop humans from becoming faerie prey, except for the protective magic King Oberon set up as part of his United Nations negotiations.
I reached into the box and pulled out a yellow hula hoop. “What do these do?”
“They’re children’s toys,” she said with a wistful sigh. “You’re supposed to manipulate them with your magic.”
“How?”
Helen threw the orange hoop at the far end of the gymnasium. It flew toward the pool and through the pairs of students doing their wing practice. Just before it reached the water, the hoop paused in mid-air and floated back toward us.
Mr. Whittaker walked over and beamed. “That’s wonderful, Lady Helenium! Can you make it glow?”
“Lady Helenium?” I whispered.
She grimaced. “My father is the Duke of Medietas, but I’m a ward of the academy until I regain my magic.”
The remedial teacher turned to me. “I think the calling hoop might be a little advanced for a newcomer. How’s your wing practice coming along?”
I flicked my head toward the appendages and scowled. “They have a mind of their own.”
“Give it time,” he said with a sad smile. “It took me several months before I could gain control of my wings.”
“Sir?” I asked.
“Call me Josiah,” he replied. “We don’t hold formalities in the remedial class.”
“Master Gladiolus told me you had human memories. Did you ever—”
He raised his palm, pain flashing across his features. “If you’re asking whether I looked for my human family, I did.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing. The people I thought were my mother and father never existed.” He shook his head. “They were just names on a tombstone from three hundred years ago. I was supposed to have grown up in Balley Chashtal, but when I got there, I recognized nobody.”
