by Sarina Dorie
“Every time I try, Mrs. Keahi sends me away.”
“That sucks balls.”
“Julian Thistledown doesn’t have a copy of the book that Thatch hasn’t already censored. Thatch checked out a class set from the library, or that’s what the librarian said if they aren’t conspiring to keep me ignorant. Thatch is just … such a butthead.”
She twirled a lavender streak of hair around a finger, staring off into the distance. “I bet Jeb one. He has a copy of each textbook teachers use in his bookcase. You can ask him—if Mrs. Keahi ever lets you see him.”
Who knew how long that would take? My shoulders deflated. No, I wasn’t going to let this get me down. I had plans for the evening. I lifted my chin. “On the plus side, Julian asked if I wanted to go to the pub after dinner.”
“Oh, a date,” she said with a wink.
“Just as friends.”
She smirked. “Right.”
“But Julian isn’t a Celestor, so I don’t think Jeb would consider him powerful enough to ‘chaperone’ me off campus. I thought I would see if you and Khaba wanted to—”
“A double date!” she squealed. “Yay!” She jumped up and down in happiness. “I’ll go ask Khaba.” She ran off.
That poor girl. I had no idea how to break it to her Khaba would never be interested in her.
It wasn’t a date, I told myself. Still, I put on makeup and wore a green, lacy dress that showed a hint more cleavage than I would wear at work. I was only going out to learn more information.
Julian, Khaba, Josie, and I walked to Lachlan Falls after dinner. From the outside of the Devil’s Pint, the pub looked small and run-down, the sign advertising drinks above the door too faded to read except for the word “ale” that had been repainted. The inside was immense, like Mary Poppins’ purse, and crowded with people. Men in kilts with cracked skin that reminded me of tree bark laughed loudly from a table by the door. Tall, shaggy beasts that might have been sasquatches mingled with dwarves wearing tartan plaids and pixie-like women in leafy skirts.
I stared in awe at how inhuman people looked. Josie nudged me with an elbow, and I stopped gaping.
The music was somewhere in between Celtic fiddling and rock. Lines of dancers crowded the floor, twirling and kicking as fast as Michael Flatley in Riverdance. It was fun to watch, but too loud for conversation. I nursed a beer more out of politeness than enjoyment.
Every time I asked Julian a question about my biological mother’s history, he shouted, “What? Speak up.”
No way was I going to shout out all the questions I had about Loraline.
Julian tugged me to my feet. “Let’s see what you’ve got, twinkle toes.”
I’d never tried traditional ceilidh dancing before. Neither of us were very good at the reels, but it was fun and energetic. It reminded me of country-western line dancing with do-si-dos, twirls, and lines that shifted so each person took turns dancing with multiple partners.
While Julian linked arms with his corner partner, the two-headed woman in a plaid skirt ran her hand over Julian’s chest and winked at him. A twinge of jealousy spiked in me before I pushed it down. This wasn’t a date. I was here to get information out of him.
Still, part of me wanted it to be a date.
Julian looked from the woman to me with a sheepish smile as he returned to his place in the line across from me. More than a few women batted their eyes at him.
With his good looks and charm, Julian could have had any woman in the room. But he wanted to dance with me. I was flattered. And a little bit intimidated. Jeb had made the non-dating rule for a reason. He knew my past. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Julian.
Josie and Khaba partnered with us in the next dance.
Josie stood next to me clapping in time with the music as she stared at Khaba across from her. “Isn’t he the dreamiest man in the room?” she gushed.
“Who? Julian or Khaba?” I asked.
She shoved me playfully in the arm. A cloud of enigma and allure lingered around Khaba. Whether it was his unbuttoned shirt showing off his washboard abs, or the glow of Fae magic, he inspired longing from men and women alike. Still, I was more drawn to Julian’s subtle good looks.
I leaned toward her. “I think we’re dancing with the hottest men in the—”
Julian linked his arm through mine in a spin. I had missed the cue for my turn, and I laughed now in a whirlwind of delight.
At the end of the song, Khaba shouted to be heard over the clapping. “Now that all eyes in the room are on me, I can sit back and see who offers to buy me a drink.”
“I’ll buy you a drink,” Josie said.
“Aren’t you cute? Go ahead. Buy me a drink if you want.” Khaba pinched her cheek.
When I next glanced his way, Khaba lounged at our table, talking to a man at the table next to him.
As I danced, a creeping sensation wormed its way down my back. I felt someone watching me. I studied the faces in the room, but no one seemed particularly creepy with all-black eyes and midnight wings.
We finished another dance and Julian placed his hand on the small of my back, leaning in close. “I need another drink. Want anything?”
The gesture was intimate and familiar, probably too familiar, but I didn’t mind. I found myself leaning toward him, my hip touching his leg. “I’m fine.”
Longing throbbed inside me. Pangs of pain jolted through my core as he parted from me. I couldn’t tell if it was my magic or someone else’s. I scanned the room again.
On my way back to my seat, I dodged through the crowded tables, keeping to the perimeter where I could more easily maneuver through the loitering people. Even if I wasn’t getting any good gossip from Julian as I had originally planned, I was having such a good time, it was hard to stop smiling. I didn’t think anything could ruin the pleasure of this moment.
I was wrong.
Alone in the corner sat a figure in a tweed suit, stooped over his notebook. There to ruin the mood was Felix Thatch.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Professor Jerk-Face
Thatch looked up from his notebook the moment I attempted to retreat. I bumped into a satyr carrying drinks to a table behind me.
“Watch it!” she shouted.
Some of her ale splashed down the back of my dress. I squealed as the liquid drenched my back. I dodged forward and out of the way, putting me closer to my archnemesis.
Thatch’s voice rose above the roar of pub, his usual lack of enthusiasm evident. “Good evening, Miss Lawrence.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked. Two seconds later, I realized that probably wasn’t the best way to greet my magic teacher.
He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Contrary to popular belief, I do occasionally leave the dungeon.”
I glanced down at his notebook. Gesture drawings filled the page. He’d captured the poses of the dancers in quick, confident lines. So it was true. He was an artist. And a good one from the way he’d grasped such fleeting moments of people in movement with a few simple lines. The energy and body language of a woman reminded me of Josie, though I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Maybe he really did want my job. Anyone who could draw like him should be an art teacher. He made my drawings look amateur by comparison.
Thatch followed my gaze and snapped the book closed.
“So, um, you like to draw,” I said, lamely. I was so not good at small talk.
His disdainful glare didn’t help.
“You could be an art teacher. You’re a good artist.” I smiled, trying to find common ground that might make it easier to connect.
“I know.” He crossed his arms. “But administration feels anyone can teach an elective like art. Only someone as brilliant as myself can teach alchemy.”
Apparently, they didn’t need that person to be humble.
Julian laced his arm through mine. His smile grew strained. “Mr. Thatch,” he s
aid.
“Mr. Thistledown.” Thatch’s eyes narrowed.
“I trust I’m not interrupting anything,” Julian said.
“Not at all,” I said.
The tension in the air between them was so thick it could only have been cut with a lightsaber.
Julian tugged me toward our table where he set his drink next to mine. “Come on, it’s the fairy reel. You don’t want to miss this.” He cast a venomous glance over his shoulder.
“What was that about?” I asked.
He squeezed me to his side. “I don’t like how he looks at you. It’s the same way he looked at Agnes Padilla, and now she’s dead.”
I wanted more details about the previous art teacher. The music started up, drowning out the ability to gossip quietly. I didn’t know how Khaba flirted with the good-looking man next to him without shouting. Magic probably. It didn’t surprise me his newest beau wore a kilt.
Julian started toward the dance floor, but hesitated, eyeing the drinks on the table. He pushed them back from the edge and then turned to me with a wink. “Call it magic, but I had a premonition our drinks were going to get bumped.” He chuckled good-naturedly.
Common sense was more like it, but it was hard not to laugh with him. His good mood was infectious. He escorted me to the dance floor to start the next set. Josie danced with a man with bat wings.
I felt Thatch’s eyes on me when we danced, making my skin crawl. I tripped twice as Julian and I promenaded, which would have been embarrassing enough, but knowing someone I didn’t like had witnessed it made my humiliation even worse. Julian do-si-doed with his corner partner. I glanced at Thatch. He made no attempt to hide his staring.
When it was my turn with Julian again, I leaned in close. “What do you think about getting out of here after this song and going somewhere quiet where we can talk?”
He nodded his head like an eager puppy. “Sure!”
I spent the rest of the song separated from Julian, dancing with the women in the line.
As the dance ended, Julian stepped toward me, but the crowd filled in between us. Music started up almost immediately, the song slow. Couples partnered up on the dance floor. The next moment I caught sight of Julian, an elderly witch in a pointed hat took hold of his arm, saying something to him I couldn’t hear. She was so weathered and stooped she looked like she was a thousand years old. He crouched down to listen. When he glanced at me, his smile was apologetic. He held up his finger to me as if to say he’d be a minute. I thought the old crone meant to talk to him, but instead she took his hand, and they danced in a slow swaying shuffle.
I smiled, touched that he was willing to dance with the elderly woman. The gesture made me like him even more.
I made my way back to my table, avoiding Thatch’s area of the room. I passed Khaba where he stood against the wall now, flirting with one of his kilty pleasures. I couldn’t see Josie in the crowd. It was only when I made it around a group of especially tall spindly men and women who reminded me of trees that my table came into sight.
Thatch stood next to the table, looming over my drink and staring down into it. His lips moved, though I couldn’t hear the words. It looked like he was hexing my drink.
I was probably warier than most people about leaving drinks unattended. Plus, Thatch was the kind of villain anyone would have distrusted. Khaba was the worst chaperone ever.
I shouted to be heard over the music. “What are you doing?”
He straightened. “Nothing.”
“You put something in my drink, didn’t you?”
“What drink?” He extended his finger toward the cup and toppled it over. I jumped back, but not quick enough. Beer splattered across the front of my dress and down my legs.
“Oops,” he said with a smile.
Some people had a bogeyman in their closet. I had Thatch.
The morning after the undate with Julian, I sat at the desk in my classroom, reading the final book Thatch had given me. Mini Post-its color-coded the pages. I would have read in my dorm, but the room was small and there was only room for Vega. Or so she’d told me.
As I finished the last sentence of the last paragraph, the door to the stairwell that led to the closet creaked open. To my horror, Thatch skulked in like a shadow. I nearly jumped out of my striped socks.
I knew the stairs that led past the walk-in closet went somewhere, though I hadn’t ventured into the mess of spiderwebs. I prayed there wasn’t a secret passage from Thatch’s room to mine because that would be one more level of torture I didn’t deserve.
The possibility of a secret passage between the dungeon and the art room linked one more detail between him and the past art teachers who had all mysteriously died.
Thatch eyed my Post-it organization with disdain. “Did you finish your required reading?”
His timing was impeccable. How had he known? Had he been spying on me?
“Why did you tip over my drink last night?” I asked.
“Because I enjoy making people miserable. Is that the answer you were looking for?” He said it in his usual snotty way, but there was something else, a defensiveness I hadn’t seen a second before.
So long as he was answering questions, I figured I might as well ask another. “You’ve taught at this school a long time, haven’t you? Do you remember my friend, Derrick? The one with blue hair?”
“No.” His poker face remained blank.
“Yes, you do.” I knew he was lying. He’d met Derrick when we’d been in high school. “He was the one with the wind affinity. He blew away with the tornado. A long time ago, you told me he would be found and brought here. Did he go to Womby’s?”
“I can’t be troubled to remember every student who went here. In any case, I didn’t come here to discuss your past relationships. I wish you to return my books … if you haven’t defaced them all.”
“Tell me about Derrick. Did he graduate from here? I just want to talk to him, to see if he’s okay.”
“Remember what happened the last time the two of you grew too close?” He arched an eyebrow. I refused to let him make me feel guilty. “You would do better to focus on not killing people than romancing men. You’ll only draw out your magic by involving yourself with Derrick again.” A sinister smile flashed across his face. “However, if I can’t persuade you not to seek him out, I shall help you find him.”
I could hear the catch. “Yes?”
“After you allow me to drain your powers and turn you mortal.”
“No.”
He shrugged. “I had to try.”
So did I. “Why won’t you really tell me about Derrick?” Frustration welled up inside me, a dam about to burst. “And why don’t you want me to know about my biological mother—What are you doing?”
He stacked up the books on my desk and tucked them under one arm. His expression was infuriatingly apathetic.
“I’m not done with those,” I said, reaching for them.
He stepped back, out of my arm range. “Yes, you are. I cast a spell that alerted me when you finished, and you have.” He tossed the book on lucid dreaming back onto my desk.
Perhaps I still needed that one.
“Okay, I’m done with most of them, but I have questions about—”
“No questions allowed. Now that you’re done, this has absolved me of my duties to see to your education.”
I walked around the desk, my eyes on that pile of books. I wanted them back. “But you didn’t educate me. I want to know what my mother did. I want you to tell me why you’ve torn the pages from those books and what you’re hiding.”
He stepped out of my reach, closer to the closet door. “It’s none of your business,” he said coolly.
The frustration I’d been trying to hold back broke through the dam of self-control I’d constructed. “It is my business! She was my mother. I want to know what she did. What are you hiding?”
He dropped the indifferent monotone, v
enom lacing his words. “I’m not hiding anything.”
I stepped in front of him, blocking his escape. “You don’t want me to know something. Something you did. What is it? Were you her accomplice? Is that what the other art teachers found out? And it’s in those books you snuck into the woods behind the school when—”
“Were you following me?” Fury flashed in his eyes. “You’re a nosy, little sneak who should mind her own business.”
I caught the warning in his voice. I’d said too much. “No, I was jogging, and I happened to see—”
He shifted the books into one arm and whipped out his wand. It sizzled and fumed, shooting out white-hot sparks. I stumbled back.
“My obligation is fulfilled.” He said in an expressionless monotone, as though this was the least interesting conversation in the world. “For every question you ask, I’m going to punish you with a spell that will dull your curiosity and sedate you into complacency.”
I sealed my lips closed. More than ever, I loathed him. He thought he could scare me into disinterest? I would wait until my mom sent my lockpick set. Then I would break into his office or the school library at night, and I would find out what he was hiding.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
An A for Effort
The first day of school started on Tuesday after Labor Day, just like it did for public schools in the Morty Realm.
It wasn’t difficult to tell which high school students came from the Morty Realm via the bus stop outside Forks, Washington. Those were the sweaty kids with limp hair who had walked two miles through the forest in the heat. The ones coming from Camp Giggles, the coal mine summer program run by dwarves, sported sooty clothes and a vacant look in their eyes. Those from wealthy families, presumably who had been kicked out of their other schools, wore designer clothes, too much makeup, and Axe body spray. Upon first glance, the group resembled typical teens as they filtered in throughout the day.
While other teachers chaperoned and directed students from the bus stop in the Morty Realm into the woods to the school, I was assigned hall-monitor duty alongside seniors directing traffic outside the girls’ dormitory. Five minutes after students arrived, I smelled smoke coming from the student restroom. I ran in, colliding into a girl with long brown hair and pointed ears. I found the toilet paper on fire.
