Faeling for Them: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book One

by Akeroyd, Serena

  Good.

  So, the notepad that should have been full was empty, and I carried it over to the patio doors I opened up so I could sit down on the tiny balcony and do something else I hadn’t done in a while—draw.

  I’d never been the kind of person who could just draw for the sake of drawing. I wasn’t a doodler. I liked to draw with a purpose. I always had something in mind, and that was why fashion design and me went well together. I’d never wanted to draw a sunset before, but tonight was different.

  Something about watching Peli’s drawings come to life, her surety that there was balance in all things, irritated me. More than usual. It made me need an outlet that didn’t involve Gaia’s Temple or another spot I’d come to appreciate—the library.

  So I drew. It wasn’t the best thing I’d ever created. Especially not in gray scale. How could it be when the sky was alight with a thousand colors and I could only differentiate between them with a range of grays?

  Still, the sunset I drew was semi-decent, and I felt calmer as I worked.

  As I focused on the ripples of different colors in the sky, the tones of apricot and mauve, the bright gold and the deep purples, I saw the balance that Peli had just mocked, albeit unknowingly, in her class.

  Where there was light, there was shadow. I tried to find comfort in that, but how could I when my people were enslaved to the Fae?

  The fact that there was nothing I could do pissed me off all the more.

  I was voiceless.

  Alone.

  And every day, I was reminded of that fact here.

  I couldn’t go to the Conclave because I was unlicensed. There were financial punishments I couldn’t afford for unlicensed witches past the age of twenty-one. Not only that, they’d think I was lying about the Fae because I was bitter or something—I was certain Jeanien would be more than willing to talk smack about me. I’d pissed her off more times than I could count during my private sessions, after all.

  My jaw clenched as my brain whirred and my hand moved over the page. As darkness fell, I turned on the lights behind me with a push of wind to the light switch, and finally picked up my sandwich as I stared at the image I’d created hours ago but had been touching up ever since.

  It was pretty. But it was moody.

  Just like me.

  Twisting around, I sought a visual on my phone on the bedside table. They weren’t allowed in the Forums so I usually left mine next to my bed, and though I wasn’t averse to rebellion, punishment here tended to involve laps of flying around the field—my idea of hell. I’d prefer to be without my phone than endure that fate.

  Shuddering at the prospect, I cast more wind to the cellphone and drew it to me. I longed to find a message on it, a joke from one of my brothers, or even a lecture. Sol, I’d even have welcomed that.

  My family had always been poor. Moving from Cuba to Miami hadn’t helped our fortunes all that much. The de Santos del Sol women weren’t destined to be wealthy with cash, but with family? That was another matter entirely. As a result, I had eight brothers. Eight. Yeah. That was a lot of mouths to feed. As the only girl, it was tough being around all boys, but what had been tougher was the fact that in our line, only girls were gifted with Gaia’s Way.

  In some families, both sexes could receive the Way. Others, it was the boys. In ours, it was the girls.

  Magic came with a cost to be sure, but it also gave—working for the Conclave, in a licensed job, paid well, but we had to hide from them and couldn’t work in a magical position. When my magic had revealed itself to be flawed, my mother wanted to bear a second daughter to pass on the Way. She’d given up after having my hermancito, Alejandro, when I was eighteen and just about to move out and head to college.

  Most kids looked forward to college for freedom and parties. A chance to get out from under their parents’ roof.

  Me?

  I’d just been relieved I wouldn’t have to change any more diapers.

  The thought made me wince, especially since I’d have killed to speak with my family today. Even though they drove me crazy most of the time, none of them were talking to me. Alejandro and Marco probably would, but they were too young to have cellphones of their own, which meant I had to call my mama or papa or one of my other brothers and they’d just cut the call.

  When I scrolled down my messages, saw nothing from any of my brothers, I mentally said, ‘Fuck it.’

  Finding my eldest brother’s number, I dialed it and waited for Enrique to cut the call. When he did, I fought hard not to toss my cell against the wall, and instead, dumped my notepad down on the floor, raised my knees to my chest, and huddled up tight in a ball.

  It didn’t make me feel better, didn’t make me feel less alone, but with my chin propped on my knees, at least I got to see the fairies flying around. Funny how I could hate most of them, but still got a kick out of watching them.

  They were all oversized Tinkerbells, with gold dust sparkling around them in the air, and that was never more evident than at night. Through the day, the fine particles, unless they were clustered together, were pretty hard to see. At night? Every single speck was evident.

  It was a beautiful sight to behold.

  The thousands of stars overhead, the night sky not marred by any light pollution at all because Eight Wings was in the middle of fucking nowhere as everyone came here by wing—me, I’d been the odd one out and had to pay a fortune to get a cab to a place I hadn’t wanted to come to in the first place.

  Grunting at the memory, I tried to appreciate what was ahead of me.

  I’d be here for the foreseeable. When the time for exams came, I’d be flunking that bad boy so hard, I’d be out of here and hopefully back to my old life.

  But, and it was a sad and miserable truth, I’d never trust my family again. To be fair, I’d always believed they wouldn’t have my back. It was why I’d hid my wings from them. I’d known my mother would take it as another sign that I was bringing down the family name, and I’d known that they’d all look at me like I was a freak.

  But after this exile?

  There was no way I’d ever rely on them for anything.

  They thought they hadn’t seen me for dust once I’d left Miami and headed to LA for school? Well, that was nothing compared to now.

  Of course, that resolve didn’t take away the aching bite of loneliness that tore at me. I came from a large family, after all. I was used to having people up in my business, even if I was on another coast.

  With their absence, with my time here and the isolation the Fae were treating me to, I was starting to feel a bit like a prisoner. It didn’t help that we weren’t allowed off campus until we were either tossed out after failing their SATs or graduated at the end of the year.

  The self-piteous thought had me cringing deep inside because there were a billion people out there who were much worse off than me. But that didn’t stop the tears from burning as they drenched my eyes.

  The view ahead of me blurred, and I let it.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Sol, the rest of my time here was going to be the epitome of long and lonely, and that was just something I had to get used to.

  ❖

  To say my head was aching was an understatement of grand proportions. I’d known I’d pay for casting a few small spells last night, but this migraine was a doozy.

  Not even laughing gas would get me laughing today that was for sure. It was also why I was hiding out in the library.

  Nobody came here. Ever.

  It was another refuge I’d found, albeit a bit later in my stay here. The Temple was always my first port of call after my bedroom, but I was sick of being in both places, and here was nice and quiet. There was also a lot to learn about my culture.

  The Fae library contained a surprising number of books from both human and witches too. I figured that was why it wasn’t all that busy here. Most of this stuff, I reckoned Fae kids learned during their schooling years, either that, or they didn�
�t give a Sol about learning the history that was recounted within these epic tomes from all sides. For myself, I found it interesting to read things that had always been denied me as a child.

  My grandmother had brought me books to read, but after she’d died, and my mom had swept our lives clean of magic, I’d had no choice but to follow a truly human path. And because my magic wasn’t that great anyway, I’d never really had cause to argue.

  It wasn’t like I was a Conclave councilor in the making. If I had been, maybe I’d have spoken up. But, to be fair, I highly doubted I’d have had to do even that. One of the reasons my mom had an issue with me was because she thought I brought shame on the family name by not being as powerful a witch as I should be.

  Things would have turned out differently if I’d been as strong as her, or even stronger still—like my abuela.

  Not even what I was reading took my mind off the doozy of a headache I was suffering through, though. Learning how the Second World War had split the Assembly right down the middle, one side helping the Allies and the other side helping the Axis powers, was a fascinating insight into how they treated the losers in wars that weren’t of their own making.

  The Assemblymen who’d supported Germany had been shunned. They’d lost their family homes, their ancestral might, and had been denied any of the magic due to them in the quarterly tithe. Some of them were still in exile, their families unable to bounce back from the shame of—get this—not what they did or what they supported, but of picking the losing side.

  The mind boggled, right?

  I swore the shit the Fae thought was decent was beyond disgusting. Learning from their own tomes gave a fascinating insight into how they worked on the regular, and what I was learning made me like them even less.

  Another reason why I enjoyed being in here—it gave me more ammunition to get the Sol out of the Academy.

  Rubbing my temple again, I thought about a spell my abuela had once taught me. Around my period, I’d gotten headaches that were so bad, they’d brought me out in nosebleeds. She’d shown me how to help ease the pain. It involved calling on the wind to lighten the load on my shoulders, and on fire to heat me up from the inside. It sounded weird, I knew. Boiling me from the inside out while blowing my head off with a gale? Yup. Great treatment. But it worked.

  Only trouble was, it only worked when she’d cast the spell, and I wasn’t the caster she was.

  I bit my lip as the temptation to mimic the spell hit me. My head was paining me something terrible, and the Fae were, I was certain, sadistic masochists. They didn’t dispense pain medication from their infirmary. Pain relief wasn’t something they ‘believed’ in.

  I mean, what the Sol was there to believe in?

  All I knew was that on my first day here, when they’d assigned me a room, they’d gone through all my stuff and had removed things that they deemed were contraband. That included my migraine meds, which I’d been relying on since my grandmother’s death.

  No amount of arguing had made them concede defeat, either.

  Bastards.

  Knowing the library was dead and that I was alone—they didn’t even have a librarian here, spells saw to the books not a person—I decided to practice. It was probably stupid as fuck to do it here, but I was desperate enough to just cast a few small spells, to see if I had some more control over my magic than before.

  Last night, I’d called on the wind and hadn’t started a hurricane, so that had to account for something, no?

  Only difference was, of course, that last night I hadn’t had a migraine.

  I’d have to be doubly careful today.

  Wincing at the thought, I did as my female relatives had taught me—tapped into that part of myself that was at one with the magic inherent in the universe. As I closed my eyes, I blew out a breath to stir the wind into motion. When I felt it being caught up, my breath tugged from me like my grandmother had shown me all those years ago when I’d never been able to kickstart my magic, I smiled and opened my eyes.

  Focusing on the small wind, I let it drive forward toward the bookcase. When the entire piece of furniture began rocking, my eyes widened in alarm.

  Was the whole goddamn thing about to drop to the ground?

  Splatting me under it?

  Sol, I’d wanted to cure my headache, not do away with my head all together.

  Gulping, I drew my fingers back, calling on the magic. This was the difference between the Fae and witches. The Fae needed those bewitched house bands to cast magic. The witches were connected to it in a way that the Fae weren’t. It was like we were tapped into it somehow. By being grounded to the Earth, Gaia charged us with her power.

  Almost like we were plugged into a socket.

  Huh.

  We were the WiFi of all the species.

  Lips twitching, I manipulated the wind. My brow puckered in an attempt to invert it, to draw it back toward me with a book from the shelf. I didn’t really care which one, just wanted one as an exercise. This was the equivalent of stretching before working up to the main event.

  With one ear on the library to make sure I was alone, I focused my magic on the book.

  In all honestly, it was times like this one where I understood my mother’s shame.

  She’d have grabbed the book and probably dusted the shelves while she was at it. Maybe even stored the damn books in alphabetical order as she worked.

  Me?

  I was sweating as I strained to grab a single, Sol-damned book.

  By the time it slipped off the shelf, it was more of a momentum thing than a purpose-driven movement. The wind had knocked it back on its spine, and it almost tumbled down to the floor before I caught it up and had it flowing toward me.

  As I sweated and panted, I noticed something a little unusual.

  Maybe it was because the shadows here were more prevalent than in my room thanks to the super high cases and the darkened spaces in between the rows where there were tables you could work, but there was a definite pink glow to the wind carrying the book toward me.

  The sound of footsteps had my heart pretty much stalling in my chest, and my magic faded with my panic, the book tumbling to the table in response. I managed to catch it before it could clatter, but even as I waited, terror making my lungs burn as I couldn’t breathe, the steps moved on and away.

  Sol, I’d been stupid to practice that here, but, and it was crazy, I already felt a lightness in my head. Maybe, like with the body, when your muscles were hurting after a workout, you had to get back into the gym for another workout… Or, in this case, cast a few more spells to lessen the mental discomfort that came with magic.

  All I knew was that I didn’t feel like death warmed over, but with my heart still clattering as it reverted to its natural beat, I decided against practicing any more in the library.

  Later, though, when I was in my quarters, I’d try.

  That was all I could do.

  But reconnecting with my magic would reconnect me with the people who I longed to belong to. My wings made me Fae, but I was born a witch, and it was they who I chose to ally myself with.

  To my mind, allegiance wasn’t something that could be forced, nor was it something that was granted simply because of a twist of fate.

  The Fae didn’t deserve my loyalty, nor would they get it.

  But that meant getting my magic into some semblance of order which wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

  Still, I could try, and that was what I’d do. Try my best and see if I could make magic on my own. Maybe, without my mother breathing down my neck each time I failed, I’d get better.

  Only time would tell, and at least I had a purpose now. A small one to be sure, but that would make the time pass faster, wouldn’t it?

  I could only hope so.

  4

  Gabriella

  In just under eight months of torture at this damn Academy, there was one constant.

  Or, should I say, there were three constants.

  Each
of those constants had a penis, as well as a very beautifully defined chest.

  I’d believed there’d be four continued irritations—an inability to do a press up. I’d achieved that feat, however, in my first semester at the Academy. I could do twenty now without too much complaining, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed them.

  Perving over muscles so delineated they looked like cut outs? Drooling over washboard abs and bright white and cream wings? Yup, that was a far more pleasurable task than press ups, and as much as I skipped the group flying classes, the one joy was getting to see Matthew, Daniel, and Joseph naked from the waist up.

  As Summer approached, the heat was on my side. Most of the men trained shirtless now, but only those three were the ones who held my attention.

  And when I said ‘held my attention,’ I meant, I was transfixed by their beauty.

  I had a notepad full of sketches that depicted them in various positions and poses, all secretly drawn, of course. The last thing I wanted was for them to know I had a little obsession with them, one that had me pinning drawings all over my bedroom walls of them in different stages of undress.

  It was starting to look like something a serial killer would collect on a potential victim, but my interest in them wasn’t dangerous to their health. Just my own.

  My tongue was thick in my mouth as I stared at Daniel as he surged forward, his sword raised overhead as he leaped into the fray of a fight between two swordsmen.

  He had a natural affinity with a sword, and I knew I’d be drawing that later—his arm high, the muscles in his biceps and the left side of his body delineated as he threw his weight into the move. I could study the play of light and shadow on his body for days, but before I could, Instructor Jeanien hissed at me, “What are you doing here?”

  I blinked. “Huh?”

  “What are you doing here?” she repeated. “You were due in the Hall twenty minutes ago.”

  Considering I was going to fail the exam, it didn’t exactly matter if I was punctual or not, did it?