“Come on, Calla, I need you to be there. I need moral support.”
“Moral support for what?” I raise my eyes to the board and continue copying the words.
Gemma leans closer, lowers her voice further, and says, “I asked Rick if he’d go with me, and he said yes!” She lets out an almost inaudible squeal.
I stop writing and look over at her. “You actually asked him?”
“Yes!” Her voice is a high-pitched hiss now. I can tell she’s ready to explode with excitement, but since we’re in the middle of a lesson, now probably isn’t the best time.
“Congratulations,” I whisper. “That’s wonderful. So you told him how you feel about him?”
“Well, not exactly.” Gemma ducks her head and doodles a pattern on the corner of her page. “I might have mentioned going as friends.”
“Gemma,” I scold, loud enough that Anise looks up from helping someone at the front of the room.
“Miss Alcourt. Miss Larkenwood,” she says. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not discussing the lesson?”
I snap my mouth shut, deciding the question is most likely of the rhetorical sort. “Um …” Gemma mumbles.
“Probably because they’re not,” Saskia says from behind us, loud enough for most of the class to hear.
Since most of the mentors seem to favor Saskia and eat up whatever she says, I expect this comment to land us in even more trouble. But Anise simply crosses her arms over her chest and says, “You’re no better, Miss Starkweather. I’ve heard the words ‘secret admirer’ at least three times during this lesson, and I have no doubt where they came from.”
Suppressed laughter comes from several desks around the room. On the left near the front, though, Blaze crosses his arms and slides further down into his seat with a thunderous expression on his face. Nobody who was in the dining hall for breakfast this morning could have missed his public break-up with Saskia. She kept going on and on about the secret admirer who’d left her a gift of jewelry in her locker yesterday afternoon, along with a note asking her to meet him at the ball tonight. Blaze stood up and shouted for everyone to hear that she could attend the ball without him if she was so intrigued with this secret admirer. I can’t say I blame him.
As Anise turns back to the board at the front of the room, Gemma leans over again and whispers, “Please, please, please come. If things get weird with Rick, I need you to rescue me. Besides, do you really want to miss this year’s theme? All creatures great and small. It’s going to be epic.”
“Why would things get weird?” I ask as I continue writing down potion instructions. “And it’s too late for me to find a date.”
“You don’t need a date. Lots of people don’t take dates.”
I look at her. “So you want me to be a third wheel to your just-friends date with Rick?”
“No, no. You can just … be near in case I need you.”
She looks so desperate, and she is my friend. I suppose I can make the effort to get dressed up and go to this ball if it’ll help her nerves in some way. Thank goodness I took a few minutes to venture into Raven’s cluttered design room last night to choose some items I could reach without having to climb into the mess. “Okay,” I say with a sigh. “I’ll come.”
“Yay!” Gemma squeezes my arm, then lowers her head and scribbles across her page as Anise looks back at us with a frown.
I give Anise an innocent smile. She looks away, and I cover my mouth as a wide yawn takes over. Dreams of my time locked up in Zell’s dungeon continue to disturb my sleep every night and it’s taking a toll. The dreams always vary slightly. Sometimes Chase is there, sometimes it’s the boy I pushed off the top of the chef school building. Last night it was Gaius in the shadows, calling my name in barely audible tones. He struggled against some invisible force, crying out to me again and again. It sends a chill across my skin just thinking about it.
I blink the memory away, then swat at a surveillance insect as it buzzes too close. Honestly, can’t they keep those things hovering around the ceiling instead of getting too close to a person’s mouth when she’s yawning? Do the people who have to watch all these recordings really need to see inside my mouth?
“Ow!” The bug bumps into the back of my hand and stings it before zooming away. I rub at the tiny red spot as Gemma and several other trainees look up.
“Miss Larkenwood?” Anise says. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, sorry, I’m fine.” I rub the red spot that’s already disappearing. “The bug just startled me, that’s all.” I guess it was a real one after all.
“At least it wasn’t a mischievous sprite,” Gemma whispers. “I was in second year when one of them blew laughing dust into my face during a lesson. I had to be escorted out because my giggling was totally out of control. So embarrassing.”
The remainder of the lesson passes without incident. For the next lesson, we all traipse down to the fifth-year lab on one of the lower levels to practice the potion we’ve just been taught. Our training sessions took place this morning, which means when our time in the lab is done, we’re finished for the day. Excited chattering fills the room as we gather our things and head out. Most of us stop by the lockers to grab our training bags, and at least half the class gathers around Saskia to see if she’s been gifted more jewelry by her secret admirer. I ignore them all and open my own locker. I reach for my bag, but my hand stills as I see a folded piece of paper on the top shelf. I hesitate, frowning, then pick it up and unfold it.
Calla,
Come to the ball tonight. Meet me beneath the stained glass clock at 9 pm.
Looking forward to a dance with you,
Your secret admirer
I almost burst out laughing. This is definitely a joke. I look around to see if anyone’s watching me, but all eyes are on Saskia as she hunts through her locker. She steps back and lets out a huff. I guess there’s no gift for her today. I look down at the note again, wondering if it’s the same as the one Saskia got yesterday. Is this the kind of thing that makes her giddy with excitement? If so, I don’t understand it. I find this note creepy, not romantic, and I plan to stay far away from any clock I see at the ball tonight.
I push the note into my bag, shut my locker, and wave goodbye to Gemma. “See you later,” I say, trying to sound enthusiastic. I turn and walk past my classmates. Instead of heading for the foyer, though, I walk in the opposite direction toward the training center. Everyone else is rushing off to get ready for the ball tonight, but Olive scheduled an extra hour of training for me. She probably thought she’d be ruining my ball-preparation plans by doing so. Little does she know I’d far rather spend my evening in the training center than in a ballroom.
* * *
I enjoy my workout, so I keep going for longer than an hour. But eventually I have to leave if I’m hoping to look half decent tonight. I don’t have much of an outfit yet—just a collection of materials I thought might look good together—and it’ll take some time to get the basic clothes casting spells I know to work together to produce something wearable.
I hurry along the corridor and out to the foyer. There’s no one else here except the faerie walking casually down the stairs with his hands in his pockets. Clearly he isn’t attending the ball tonight. Or if he is, he’s not worried about—
Hang on. I look closer, then freeze on the spot as the faerie reaches the bottom step and keeps walking. “Zed?” I whisper in horror. He looks my way. Panic crosses his face, and his steps falter slightly, but he keeps moving. Toward me. He stops beside me and smiles.
“Calla. What are you still doing here?” Up close, he doesn’t look nearly at ease. His shoulders are tense and his smile is strained.
“You … you’re the one who escaped?” I whisper, leaning closer to him. No one said a word today about someone escaping the detainment area, so I’d almost forgotten about it.
“Stop looking so shocked,” Zed says, never allowing his smile to fade. “If someone walks past, you’re going
to give me away.”
I straighten and look around before returning my gaze to Zed. “How the heck did you escape?”
Quietly, he says, “You’re not the only one with a Griffin Ability.”
My lips part, but I don’t know what to say. We never speak of Zed’s Griffin Ability, but I haven’t forgotten it. That strange, disturbing power of his. One touch, and he can make a person relive his or her nightmares. Trouble is, Zed gets to feel the same terror his ‘victim’ is experiencing. It’s not the most pleasant of Griffin Abilities.
“I thought … I thought you said you never wanted to use that power again.”
“I had to get out somehow. After I touched the guard, he was disoriented and scared enough that I was able to get the key from him.”
“And you? Weren’t you disoriented and scared?”
He looks away. “I … I was scared. But I wasn’t seeing the things he was seeing.”
I swallow. “So you’ve been hiding inside the Guild since you escaped?”
“Yes. All over the place. An empty lab, the library, the healing wing, a storage area. Wherever I had to. I’ve been waiting for a quiet moment to walk out of here without anyone noticing.” He looks toward the entrance room at the side of the foyer.
“And when you get in there?” I ask. “You’re going to do it again? Scare them, so you can get out without being scanned?”
“Yes.” He hesitates. “You’re not going to stop me, are you? You’ll let me go?”
I feel guilty about letting someone escape the Guild, but it’s Zed. He’s my friend, and he hasn’t done anything wrong. “You’re not a criminal,” I say. “Of course I’ll let you go.”
“Thank you,” he says with such sincerity that I know I’ve made the right decision. He looks around again—so do I, just to make sure there aren’t any surveillance bugs buzzing around—before grasping both my hands in his. “Come with me,” he says fervently.
“What?”
“Calla, these people … you don’t want to be one of them.”
“I do, Zed. That’s why I’m here.”
“There’s so much you’re not seeing,” he says with a slow shake of his head. “Guardians … the Guild … it’s all a very noble idea, but there’s so much wrong with the system. There are so many people to save every single day. How do they choose who’s worth it and who isn’t?”
“They save as many as they can.”
“They don’t. They abandoned us. Remember? So many of us. You got out, so you don’t know how bad it got after that. The Guild left us to that fate. These people you idolize.”
I want to tell him just how much I don’t idolize Olive and anyone else like her, but I need to stand by my commitment to the Guild. “I’m one of them, Zed. And if you hate them, you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Calla. That’s precisely why I’m begging you to come with me. This is your last chance to—”
“Go.” I pull my hands out of his and step back. “Just go before someone figures out that you’re the guy who escaped.”
His expression is tortured, as though he honestly believes he’s leaving me to a terrible fate here amongst the guardians he’s grown to hate. But he doesn’t see what I see. He doesn’t see all the good that comes out of this imperfect system. I know this is where I’m meant to be.
With a final nod, Zed turns and strolls away, pushing his hands back into his pockets, doing his best to look relaxed. I walk back to the training center and wait there for a while, giving him a chance to get away. Giving the guards a chance to recover from their waking nightmares. Giving myself time to smother my guilt.
CHAPTER
NINE
The ballroom is almost full by the time I arrive at Estellyn Tower. The Guilds host their Liberation Day celebrations at different venues every year—never at a Guild; that would pose too many security issues—and this year, the Creepy Hollow Guild has hired the ballroom on the second floor of Estellyn Tower. I remember what Olive said about there being far too much expense involved in celebrating Liberation Day, and I find I’m starting to agree with her. Or it could be the fact that I have negative associations with this place and I’d be happier if the ball were held pretty much anywhere else. Because all I can think of as I walk in here is the party I attended recently on the topmost level of this tower. The party Chase turned out to be at.
I find myself wishing, wishing with an intensity that hurts my chest that he was just a normal guy. Wishing that I could have invited him tonight, so that we might have walked in here together and admired the splendid decor and laughed at the outrageous costumes and danced until our feet hurt.
He is Draven, I remind myself. Draven. Not Chase.
I push aside my silly dreams and step into the ballroom. The decor enchantments have transformed the room into a jungle. Instead of walls, I see moss-covered trees and giant ferns and vines draped from one side of the room to the other. Mist creates a subtle haziness near the ceiling, adding to the mood along with the floating lanterns emanating yellow-green light. Musicians on a raised platform on one side of the room keep the music going, and the dance floor is already packed with couples spinning about.
People are dressed like creatures from all parts of the world, both human and fae. I run my hands self-consciously over my dress, hoping I look at least a little bit like a mermaid. That was the plan, but since I didn’t put much thought into it prior to this afternoon, it wasn’t exactly a detailed plan. My dress is a shimmering aquamarine color with a faint pattern of scales covering it, but the mermaid theme doesn’t extend much further than that. I tried to create a fishtail shape at the bottom of the dress, but it ended up being so tight I couldn’t move my legs. I also tried to create shoes that appeared to be made of water, but that proved to be far too complex as well. So in the end my dress is a simple style and my shoes are plain silver heels. I pulled my hair over my shoulder and braided it with blue-green ribbons. By that point I’d run out of time to construct a mask, so I finished off my blue eye makeup with some tiny crystals on my lashes and blue, green and purple sequins around my eyes and at the top of my cheekbones.
I look around for someone I recognize. Gemma told me she’d be late, so I don’t expect to see her here yet. Saskia is nearby, loudly showing off her new jewelry to a group of her friends. Whatever the jewelry is, I’m not close enough to see it. I get a good look at her outfit, though: a gorgeous red dress that shimmers like fiery coals, and a pair of leathery webbed wings. I think she’s meant to be a dragon.
I continue to look around, then twist my hands together as I start to feel awkward. I wonder if I should wait outside the ballroom, but then the current dance ends and Perry waltzes off the dance floor toward me. He looks ridiculous with butterfly wings protruding from his back and a mask the shape of a butterfly covering half his face. It’s definitely him, though—I can tell from his height and the green in his hair and, well, the fact that he looks absurd and proud of it. He does a twirl and a bow before reaching me, and I can’t help laughing as he straightens, takes my hand, and kisses it. “You’re making fun of this whole dress-up thing, aren’t you,” I say.
“Never,” he exclaims. “What makes you think that?”
“I wonder.” I reach up and flick his mask. “And were you dancing by yourself, or did I happen to miss your partner?”
“I was practicing,” he says, “for when the perfect partner comes along.”
“I see. Well, your outfit is extraordinary. I think you should win a prize for it.”
“Thank you.” Perry does another bow. “And may I say that you make a lovely fish, Calla.”
Indignant, I place my hands on my hips. “I’m not a fish. I’m a mermaid.”
“Oh, sorry, of course. My bad.” Perry laughs, but his smile falters as he focuses on something over my shoulder. “Is that Gemma?”
I turn and see a girl with a delicate silver filigreed mask covering the top part of her face. Her white feathered dress and the feather hai
r piece pinned into her dark hair make me think of a swan. The overall effect is stunning. “Yes, that is Gemma. And that—” my eyes move to the handsome guy on her arm “—is Mr. Perfect. Your competition.”
“That’s … whatever …” Perry splutters, but he pulls off his butterfly mask and stands a little straighter. Gemma and Rick walk over to us, and Gemma introduces him. She looks a little dazed, as though she’s just been handed all the riches of the Seelie Court and can’t quite believe it. Perry, on the other hand, can’t stop frowning. He greets Rick, then shoves both his hands into his pockets and remains silent. I realize it might be up to me to get the conversation going, but then Rick asks Gemma if she’d like to dance, and the two of them disappear into the crowd.
Beside me, Perry appears to deflate. I lean closer to him. “Still want to tell me it’s not obvious?”
He stares at his feet. “I suppose it is obvious. I only considered it recently, though, the night we came to that party here. I realized afterwards that of course I like her. Of course I don’t just want to be her friend. But it’s too late.” He jerks his head over his shoulder and adds, “How can I compete with that?”
“You don’t have to compete. Just be yourself and tell her how you really feel, and maybe it’ll turn out she feels the same way.”
He shrugs half-heartedly and lets out a loud sigh. He pushes his shoulders back and straightens. “Well, after rejection like that, all I have left are my dance moves. May I have this dance, Lady Calla?” He holds a hand out to me as I start laughing at him once more.
“Yes, I’d—” From the corner of my eye, I see Ryn, dressed for a regular day of work at the Guild, pushing past people and waving to me. “Um, in a minute. Looks like my brother needs me.”
“Ah, more rejection,” Perry says in anguished tones, pressing a hand dramatically against his chest. “My poor heart can barely stand it.”
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