by W. J. May
Anything bad they did could never outweigh the good that had been done before. And anything good they did could never live up to it. Eventually, they’d given up trying. There were worse things to be than supernatural royalty, and they tried not to think about the rest.
That being said, they did enjoy testing the boundaries every now and again...
“Psst—Arie.”
She shot a backwards glance at the telekinetic sitting behind her. A boy with spiked violet hair who was making tiny origami cranes fly in a circle around his hand.
“Think you can do that in Nelson’s class to find out when he’s giving that pop quiz?”
Aria watched the birds for a moment, then plucked one out of the air with a little grin. “Stay tuned...”
Supernatural favors were like currency at Guilder—a place where most kids already had more than enough actual currency to go around. They were distributed and hoarded with a kind of meticulous fervor their teachers were constantly trying to redirect to their studies instead.
During finals the previous semester, a girl with the ability to mimic any sound let loose an air-raid siren that evacuated everyone to the basement for the better part of the morning, skipping right over a math exam for which no one was prepared. Two months before that, the purple-haired boy in question had floated a casket of formaldehyde-soaked frogs they were supposed to be dissecting straight into the sky. It had touched down somewhere in Kent, never to be seen again.
The student population owed him a great debt.
She’d find out about the quiz.
The teacher was still pacing, droning on about treaties that no longer existed and armies that had been dead for hundreds of years. He was trying to get the class revved up with historical battle cries. Something about once more onto the beach, dear friends, or cry panic and let’s kick the dogs of war.
...those didn’t sound right.
She let out a quiet sigh and ran her fingers around the edges of her textbook, wishing she was somewhere else. Why couldn’t she be training in the Oratory, or drag-racing with Benji, or testing out that new crossbow Uncle Gabriel picked up for her in Prague?
Why couldn’t she be off with Uncle Julian—learning how to see the future instead of sitting in history class, dwelling on the past? He always took her to the best places to practice. The Austrian Alps on a clear winter morning. The hills of Tuscany on a summer afternoon.
His reason on paper was that clairvoyance came best to a relaxed and open mind, but the two of them knew different. It was their special time. Since long before she turned sixteen.
And speaking of...
After a cursory glance to make sure the teacher was on the other side of the room Aria slipped her phone beneath the desk, fingers hovering over the keys. She could think of any of a number of things to write, but stopped herself with a secret smile.
There were better ways of getting her uncle’s attention...
Her eyes fluttered shut as she leaned back in her chair, a thousand bad decisions flashing through her mind. She imagined herself jumping off the roof, imagined herself setting her hair on fire. Imagined herself stealing Mr. Dorf’s car and flooring it into the pond. Imagined herself—
The phone buzzed in her hand.
Having trouble concentrating?
She grinned, and typed a hasty reply.
Made a wig joke about some old British commander. My teacher didn’t approve...
The conversation paused a few seconds as Julian turned his attention away from whatever he had been doing and centered it on his niece’s eleventh-grade history class instead.
Keep using your powers like that and they’re going to put inhibitors in the ceiling.
She rolled her eyes with a martyred grin.
It was impossible to hide anything from Uncle Julian. In a lot of ways, he was even worse than her mother. But Aria didn’t really mind. There were worse things to have in a dangerous world than a doting, prophetic uncle. And on that note...
Her fingers flew eagerly beneath the desk
Want to go to Paris? One of her favorite things to do was take long walks with her uncle along the banks of the Seine. I could be ready to go in five minutes.
There was a split second delay.
I’m in Bulgaria, sweetie.
She chewed her lip, staring down at the screen.
So, is that a no?
She could practically see him smile on the other end. Probably an ongoing interrogation raging in the background, but he stepped out to answer his bored niece’s texts.
Let’s go this weekend. I’ll be back on Saturday.
Of course he would. It didn’t matter what trouble was brewing in Bulgaria, nothing could keep Julian Decker out of London on Saturday. His only daughter was turning sixteen.
At that moment, the bell rang.
The classroom stupor exploded in a flurry of movement as a dozen kids pushed hastily to their feet, cramming their things into messenger bags and heading out to lunch. Aria was quick to follow, pausing only when she glanced down and saw her uncle’s last text.
Don’t forget your thermos.
She doubled back and grabbed it off her desk, flashing a sweet smile at Mr. Dorf as she swept outside to join the two boys waiting for her in the hall.
“Who were you texting?” Benji demanded the second they started moving, cutting straight through the center of the milling crowd. “You kept angling your phone and I couldn’t see.”
It would have been rude coming from anyone else, but the others seemed to expect nothing less. Aria tossed back a wave of raven hair, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder.
“It’s absolutely none of your business,” she replied loftily. “I have a life without you. It’s not like we know everything about each other—”
“She was texting Uncle Julian.” Jason’s blue eyes twinkled from behind twisted strands of hair. “I mean, I’m just guessing. The last thing I’d want is to overstep.”
Benji laughed aloud as Aria shot him a sideways grin.
The summer months had been good to Jason. He’d gotten a little taller, a little tanner, his blond hair was streaked with the sun. The guy had always been attractive, but lately it seemed to have soared to a different level. Maybe it was a natural part of growing up. Maybe it was that, for the first time in her entire life, Aria hadn’t seen him for a significant chunk of time.
No sooner had they completed their previous school year than Jason announced he was going backpacking for the summer with his dad. His mom was going to be away on her farewell tour with the Royal School of Ballet, and the second he’d suggested the idea Gabriel had promptly called up Carter and requested a leave of absence. He’d done it from the airport. Carter was not pleased.
The friends had been gutted, but forced smiles and wished him well. Not since he’d moved into the house across the park, almost thirteen years ago, had they been separated for more than a few days. They’d called constantly—ignoring time zones and leaving furious voicemails whenever his phone lost its charge.
Father and son had returned only a few days earlier, just in time for the start of school, and while the rest of them had slipped right back into their old groove there had been a layer of tension between Jason and Aria that she didn’t understand. A series of sideways glances and prolonged looks that left her utterly confused—wishing her old friend had come back, instead of this bronzed sparkly-eyed Adonis that had somehow taken his place.
What was worse, she wasn’t the only one to have noticed.
“Hey, Jason.”
The three friends glanced over to see Lisette Marcel, a pretty girl with mocha-colored skin and long dark braids, grinning coyly by her locker. She was a shifter—transforming into an otter, or a marmot, or some other entirely useless animal. She was nice, though.
Aria had actually liked her a great deal until that very day.
“Uh...hey.” Jason shifted his bag, caught off guard to have been singled out. They’d been friends since
they were kids. All of them.
Lisette grinned even wider, flashing every one of her pearly teeth. “You have a good summer? I heard you went camping or something.”
Aria glanced impatiently at the clock, while Benji raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah, or something.” Jason tilted his head towards the cafeteria, trying to get things back on track. “See you at lunch?”
She shut the door of her locker and flounced past him with a smile. “Count on it.”
The others froze in the middle of the hall, watching as she vanished into the crowd. None of them said a word, until Benji turned to look at the others.
“I thought she had a crush on me. Have I been getting that wrong?”
Jason snorted and kept walking as Aria clapped Benji on the back sympathetically.
“You can’t win them all.”
Benji frowned for a moment, then hurried after them. “I’m pretty sure I can...”
WITH THE CONFIDENT swagger of upperclassmen, the three friends breezed into the cafeteria and headed to their usual table in the very back. When the school had burned to the ground several years before, the table was one of the few things to have survived. That and the bathrooms. They’d taken it as a good omen and made it their lunchtime headquarters ever since.
Lily was already there, leaning over a book, ivory hair spilling down her arms. Despite the chaos around her, she was lost in her own world. There could be an earthquake and she wouldn’t notice. The building could catch fire and the girl would calmly mark her page before filing outside.
“Some things never change,” Jason said fondly.
Though they weren’t technically siblings the two had a decidedly brother-sister relationship, much like their parents before them. Hardly a day went by that they weren’t at each other’s houses, and the summer separation had been hard. While the others had crowded his backpacking trip with text messages and voicemails, Lily had written him letters. They were sitting on a shelf in his room.
“Hold this.” With a mischievous smile he handed his backpack to Benji, then snuck up behind her—crouching for a moment before lifting the entire chair off the floor. “Watch out!”
She dropped her book with a little gasp, staring around with wide eyes.
“I keep telling you not to do that,” she cried breathlessly as he set the chair back down. “You lost my page!”
Aria floated it back onto the table with a flick of her fingers.
“Give me a break, Lilybell.” He grinned and settled down beside her. “I’ve only got twenty-four more hours, then you’ll always be able to see me coming.”
No one knew exactly when ‘Lilybell’ had gotten started. Sometime when they were kids. By now, they couldn’t remember themselves. But it was reserved exclusively for Jason.
“How are you feeling about that?” Aria dropped her bag in the middle of the table, settling in her usual spot with Benji on the other side. “You ready?”
It was a serious question. In the supernatural community, birthdays weren’t to be taken lightly. And the day you turned sixteen was just about as serious as it got. That was the day your old life ended and your new life began. That was the day you got your tatù.
“I think so...” Lily murmured, dropping her eyes to the table. “I mean, I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve talked a lot with my parents. But I don’t know if you can ever be ready.”
Staring at her across the table, it was impossible not to feel protective. With her frosting-white hair, enormous dark eyes and exquisite fragile features, the girl looked like a wintery doll come to life. The fact that she was always carrying a book in her hand completed the image to perfection.
But the question went a bit deeper than that.
If there was one person who understood the extraordinary amount of pressure Aria felt to live up to the legacy of her parents, it was Lily Decker.
Her mother’s ability was one thing. Her father’s was another.
Unprecedented power. That’s the word people always used to describe it. An unprecedented gift.
Since Lily and Aria were just toddlers, swinging on the bars in the Oratory, they’d heard people say it. No one alive had ever possessed as much raw ability as Rae Kerrigan, and no one in history had ever come close to Julian Decker’s sight. Between the two of them, there was very little in the world they were unable to accomplish. They were the gifted amongst the gifted. Stars even amongst their group of friends—a ring of people who regularly had the word ‘unprecedented’ used about them, too. The ‘Kerrigan Gang’ wasn’t a term used lightly, and since the day the two girls were born the entire supernatural community had watched with bated breath to see what they could do.
The Kerrigan Kids, Aria thought sullenly. That’s what they’ll call us.
Like everything else in her life, it seemed like more of an afterthought. A well-intentioned epilogue to the flash and drama that had come before. It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful; the entire supernatural community was grateful for everything their parents had done.
But that was the problem...it was done already.
Thirteen years ago, the night Gabriel and Natasha came home from a crime scene in London with a five-year-old boy, the city itself had almost been destroyed. An army of darkness had risen up to challenge the reigning powers and the common world had been caught in the crosshairs.
It could have been the end. The people of London were running for their lives as the sky rained down ash and fire. It should have been the end.
But, thanks to their parents, it was only the beginning.
People still teared up when they spoke of it. Not with sadness, but with pride. It was a night that changed the course of history. A shining moment that eclipsed everything else to come. The funny thing was, it wasn’t the first time they’d done it. The magical world was filled to the brim with weathered, talented agents—but it was a group of teenagers that had saved them from the brink.
First from Cromfield. Then from Vivian. Then from themselves.
At the friends’ insistence, the once-exclusive institution threw open its doors to welcome any and all people with magic in their blood. Outdated laws and entrenched ideologies were abandoned to beckon in a new age of inclusion and hope. Hybrids came out into the open. Families were reunited. Secrets were shared. As if that wasn’t enough there were no longer restrictions on relationships, no limits on who you could love. By their parents’ example people with ink got married, started families, and ushered in a brand new generation. A new dawn of the magical world.
Just seven young friends, but they changed absolutely everything.
And then they had children...who would never get to do the same.
For the first time in hundreds of years, the PC had closed its doors. Not permanently, as they were always looking for new recruits. But with such a strong team already in place, and so many of the usual threats eliminated, they were no longer enlisting kids straight out of school. You graduated first, that was the rule. Then, if you were lucky, you’d get a glimpse at those sacred halls.
It wasn’t that Aria wasn’t grateful. She just wanted a chance. When you had delusions of grandeur, being born in a time of peace and prosperity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Where was her shining moment? Her page on the history books?
Why did it feel like she was sitting in a regular school?
“Hey, guys!”
The rest of them glanced up with a smile, but Aria sank lower in her chair.
Great, if there’s one thing that can cheer me up, it’s the arrival of my little brother.
The table used to be an exclusive place. It used to demand a degree of respect. Then her brother James turned thirteen and the doors of Guilder opened for him as well.
Way back in the day, he wouldn’t have been allowed inside. Couples usually passed the gene to just one child, and she’d already gotten it. But times had changed. Couples had changed as well, and so had the school. Tatù people couldn’t date,
let alone get married. That had changed too. Now, whether James received his ink or not, he was still welcome to attend. Families were kept together at all costs; there were no longer any secrets to drive them apart.
Yes, my extraordinary parents were responsible for that as well.
James reached over automatically to steal her crisps.
Lucky me...
“Smile, Arie.” He plopped down next to her with a bright grin. “You’re ugly when you sulk.”
He was saved her retaliation when Lily grabbed her smoking hand beneath the table, flashing a secret grin. The lovely girl had a great deal more patience with James than the others. Possibly because she didn’t have the privilege of having a little brother herself.
“So who’s going to start us off?” she asked routinely. “First week of school report.”
“Alden’s trying to usurp me,” Benji announced without pause. “He’s working his way through the varsity girls, one shifter at a time.”
Lily nodded seriously, making a valiant effort at keeping a straight face. While Aria rolled her eyes and started shredding her napkin into tiny smoldering pieces.
“In that case, I suggest you fight it out after school. Loser dies. Winner takes all.”
The girl might have been grown up with her head in a philosophy book, but she’d drunk the Kool-Aid just like the rest of them. And things were a bit more literal in the supernatural world.
“It must be cool to be a shifter,” James said suddenly, eyes glassed over in thought. Aside from his sister all the friends’ powers left them human, and Aria hadn’t yet been able to shift.
She shot Lisette a quick look before shrugging it off.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t she transform into a duck or something?”
Lily shot her a curious smile, while Benji and James burst out laughing. Only Jason stayed quiet, but those his eyes twinkled as they met hers across the table.
“No,” he said decisively. “She does not transform into a duck.”
Aria flushed, and pushed to her feet in a single movement. “Whatever. I’m going to get more crisps since someone stole mine.” She swatted her little brother upside the head before glancing at the rest of them. “You guys want anything?”
