by W. J. May
“You sound like you don’t miss it.”
“I do miss it,” he answered lightly. “Going over the reading, trying to find ways to get students engaged...there are few things more rewarding than shaping young minds.”
She smiled in spite of herself, wondering if she was allowed a cup of coffee. “You sound like my Uncle Luke. He teaches history, too.”
It took Dorian a second to place him, then he smiled. “I met him this morning. He’s a good man.”
She nodded affectionately, then stiffened ever so slightly. “He was pretty upset with me this afternoon.”
“Well, that’s because you shouldn’t freeze your teachers,” Dorian said matter-of-factly. “Even if you disagree with what they say.” His eyes twinkled as they rested on her blushing face. “But I have a feeling you know that already, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then there’s nothing more to say,” he announced abruptly. “Get yourself some coffee or a drink, Aria. I suspect we’re going to be here quite a while.”
FOR THE NEXT FEW HOURS Aria and Dorian worked side by side, making their way steadily through the piles of disorderly papers stacked around the floor. It was slow-going at times, but not entirely unpleasant. The man had modern taste in music, was just as addicted to coffee as the rest of them, and regaled her for hours on end with stories of his travels around the world.
At times, she found herself in peals of laughter. Other times, she was listening with bated breath. There seemed no limit to the places he’d been, to the adventures he’d had.
...only to end up teaching school in Sussex.
“So what made you come back to England?” she asked when things started winding down.
They had finally finished with the files and were standing on the second story loft. She watched as Dorian locked the forbidden door behind him, then flipped off the espresso machine.
“My mother,” he said simply. “She fell ill and I came back to take care of her. My father and older sister were already gone, so the task fell to me.”
Aria studied him curiously. The man reveled in the joys of teaching apathetic teenagers, but taking care of his aged mother he described as a chore.
“You didn’t get along?” she guessed.
He glanced up sharply, and for a moment she was worried she’d stepped over the line. But his face smoothed a moment later, leaving him looking a little sad.
“We had...different opinions. Different ways of looking at the world.” His lips pursed for a moment, then turned down in a faint frown. “You could say she was a little old-fashioned.”
She wanted to press further. After spending hours listening to the man speak, she found herself highly interested in everything he had to say. But one look at his face warned her not to.
Instead, she gestured down to a pile of books on one of the tables. “Why do you have books like these?”
He glanced over his shoulder, pouring himself one final cup. “Books like what?”
She looked down at the table, trailing a finger along their spines.
Acts of Barbarism During the Spanish Inquisition; The Arsonist’s Cookbook; Basic Rules of Interrogation, Volume One. It was a virtual table of red flags. Her mother would have thrown a fit.
He followed her gaze, then glanced up in surprise.
“You think it’s not important to understand those things? The very things this agency is fighting against?” His lips quirked up in a little grin. “Know thy enemy as well as you know thyself. I think that’s carved on a wall somewhere around here.”
She picked up something labeled The Art of Making Poison.
“Yeah, but this?”
“You think an agent who’d been given a foreign substance wouldn’t want to know the poison, wouldn’t want to be familiar with the cure?”
He had a way of doing that, of turning around the question and reframing it in a way that crumbled old certainties and made her pause. He probably would have made a brilliant teacher.
“Some of these things can be prevented, some of them can’t.” He picked up a random book then tossed it back down on the pile. “Our side has all the magic. Our side has all the power. But the most important thing is knowledge. You must study your opponents. That’s how you win.”
She stared at him a long moment.
“That’s not how you were talking before,” she said quietly. “You made it seem like such a bad thing. Like if you didn’t want to kill people, there wasn’t a place for you in the supernatural world. Like if you’re not some kind of pacifist, you’re morally inferior.”
He laughed under his breath, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Pacifist—you say it like it’s a dirty word.”
“I don’t think it is,” she replied quickly. “I think aspiring to peace is vital in the fight to maintain it. I just-I just think there’s always going to be a fight.”
“Interesting.” His eyes sparkled as they stared down into hers. “And you think the Privy Council shares your point of view? Do you know any pacifists?”
She thought about it for a moment, then answered with perfect confidence. “My Uncle Julian.”
The psychic was a particularly dangerous enemy to make, but he went farther out of his way than all the others combined to avoid bloodshed. Perhaps he’d simply seen too many futures where too many people died. Perhaps it was that he was deeply, empathetically kind. But the man placed an extremely high premium on the value of human life.
“Julian Decker.” Dorian nodded slowly, staring into her eyes. “Your Uncle Julian once killed more than a hundred people in a split-second decision that burned them all to death on a bridge. In the years that followed, he killed dozens more. You’d call him a pacifist?”
Her eyes cooled ever so slightly as she tilted up her chin.
“I’d say he’s willing to sacrifice anything necessary for the greater good.”
Dorian chuckled, glancing down at his books.
“Ah yes, the greater good...another term they program into you kids.” He stared at Aria thoughtfully, giving her the same appraising look as Luke had in his office just hours before. “The problem is, that’s a bit relative, isn’t it? What one person considers to be the greater good may be seen completely differently by someone else. Pretty high stakes when not everyone can agree.”
Aria started nodding, then froze.
Wait, but...that’s not right, is it? The greater good is one of those primal fundamentals. A ‘you know it when you see it’ sort of thing. It’s not the kind of thing up that’s for interpretation.
He watched her thinking for a moment, then laughed—clapping her on the back.
“These are the questions I struggled with when I was young. It’s one of the reasons I got all these books. To know both sides for myself. To make an informed decision.”
He gestured to the stairs, following behind her to the ground floor.
“The point is that it’s good to ask questions, Aria. It’s good to challenge the status quo. It keeps people accountable, keeps them honest.”
He paused a moment before adding.:
“And for the record, I don’t know your Uncle Julian personally but I’ve read about him just like everyone else. He’s one of the wisest, fairest men I’ve ever seen. A true force for good.”
She brightened slightly, picking up her bag and heading to the door. “Well, at least I’ve got the asking questions part down—”
“But not the rest,” he interrupted sharply. Their eyes met across the room. “Aria, my first day here Aaron Dorf gave me a tour. He helped carry in my luggage. He’s a good man. Questions are one thing, what you did is another. You should apologize to him.”
She swallowed hard, then nodded.
Maybe I’ll go do that right now...
“You know,” she paused suddenly on her way out, “it’s a shame you’re stuck all the way out here in the library. This place is a ghost town. We’ll never run into each other.”
His face
stilled for a moment, then he flashed a quick smile. “In that case, you’ll have to come back and visit me sometime.”
ARIA WALKED SLOWLY across the grassy lawn on her way back to the dorms, trailing her shoes through the dew, thinking absentmindedly how it was the strangest detention she’d ever had.
The moon was up, the stars were out, and her head was a thousand miles away. She wasn’t paying attention to much going on around her. She didn’t even see the shadowy figure sneaking up behind her, until he flew forward and grabbed her around the waist.
“Wh—”
She was about to scream when a cool hand clamped over her mouth suddenly. A second later, the arms vanished and she was staring up into a pair of twinkling blue eyes.
“Jason?” she gasped, still out of breath.
She’d been using telekinesis in the library to help sort through the piles, and didn’t have her usual heightened senses. She quickly switched back to the fox, trying to get her bearings.
“It isn’t often I can surprise you,” he replied, looking terribly pleased with himself. “I should prowl about in the darkness more often.”
She caught her breath with a grin, smoothing down her hair. “Actually, you’ve been surprising me a lot lately.”
Their eyes met ever so briefly then she hurried to change the subject.
“What are you doing out here? Didn’t the bell ring for lights out?”
He shrugged casually as they made their way across the lawn. “I wanted to make sure your detention went okay.”
Her eyes shot to him and she suppressed a little smile. “And you didn’t hear me screaming for help inside?”
There was a hitch in his step as he looked down in surprise.
“What—”
“I’m kidding.”
He gave her a playful shove as they continued walking, occasionally glancing up at the stars.
One of the best things about Jason was that he didn’t feel the need to fill every quiet second with talking. He was perfectly comfortable with long silences, especially when they were outside. Especially when they were with someone like her. The two of them used to lie on her roof for hours, passing back and forth a thermos of hot chocolate, reveling in the silence as they stared at the moon.
“I really missed you this summer, Arie.”
She glanced up in surprise, but he kept his eyes on the grass. Walking slowly with his hands in his pockets, messy waves of hair glowing silver in the moonlight.
“I missed you, too. I was angry for a while,” she admitted. “I didn’t understand why you’d left. But more than anything...I just missed you. I’m sorry things have been weird—”
“Are you?” he interrupted with the trace of a smile. “Because I’m not entirely sorry things have been weird.”
She thought back to that fleeting moment in the cafeteria. Their legs pressed together, that mischievous twinkle in his eyes. No, she wasn’t sorry either. In fact, she was rather liking the weird.
A secret smile warmed her face, hidden behind long waves of raven hair.
“Well, you’ve always been inconsiderate,” she sniffed delicately. “Doing whatever you could to make things unsettling for the people around you. It’s a miracle you have any friends—”
He kissed her.
On the lips.
At first she froze, stunned with shock. Then her lips parted slowly and she closed her eyes.
It was unlike anything she could have imagined. His body, always so familiar, felt brand new beneath her hands. His lean muscles contracting against her. The tips of her fingers feeling the heat of his skin. He tasted sweet. And he was gentle, so very gentle. And a little rough at the same time.
It wasn’t how she would have planned it. Fresh from detention. Wearing Benji’s sweater.
...but it was perfect.
After a few seconds he pulled an inch or so back, staring down at her in the darkness. Tracing his thumbs along the line of her cheekbones as he tried to catch his breath.
“Please tell me that’s okay...”
She stared breathlessly up at him, fingers still knotted in his shirt.
“Yeah, it’s—”
“Well, for the girl’s sake, I’d hope it was a little better than okay.”
The two friends jumped at the same time, still holding onto each other as a tall man swept silently out of the dark. He was wearing a leather jacket and a wicked grin, one that deepened considerably as he looked the pair of them up and down.
“Otherwise, she might start looking somewhere else.”
Aria lifted a hand to her chest, trying to slow her skyrocketing pulse.
“Alexander? What the hell are you doing out here?” Jason ground his teeth together, looking like he had several things he wanted to add.
The shifter pulled something silver from his pocket, waving it in the air before tossing it her way. “You left this in the cafeteria.”
She looked down to see her phone, glancing back up in alarm.
“I didn’t leave it,” she exclaimed, piecing it together, “you left before I did. You took it.”
He flashed a shameless smile. “How else was I going to program in my number?”
That was the end of Jason’s patience. He took a step towards him, eyes glittering with anger, but when he spoke his voice was a dangerous calm. “Dude...leave. Now.”
Alexander cocked his head to the side.
“What’s the matter, Alden?” he quipped, stressing Jason’s last name in a way that made him stiffen with rage. “Am I spoiling your big moment?”
Jason’s eyes flashed, but he didn’t rise to the bait.
“No, that comes later. But you’re upsetting my friend.” He took a step closer, inadvertently shielding Aria from view. “I’m not known for reacting well to things like that. Leave.”
Judging by his look of surprise, the great Alexander wasn’t used to people being quite so direct. But it didn’t seem to bother him. Quite the contrary, he chuckled softly before flashing Aria another unapologetic grin.
“Check your phone,” he called, backing away into the dark. “I’ll be waiting for a return text.”
He was gone a second later, leaving a heavy silence in his wake.
Neither Jason nor Aria knew how to break it. As it stood, they were finding it impossible to meet each other’s eyes. Then she glanced up at him with a mischievous smile.
“That comes later?” she quoted with an inquisitive tilt of her head.
He flushed deep red, staring down at her in horror. “Arie, I didn’t mean—”
“Hey, guys! What are you going out here so late?”
The friends jumped again, this time in the opposite direction, as yet another man walked towards them out of the trees. This one was more familiar, but just as unwelcome.
Jason tilted his head back to the sky.
“This can’t be happening...”
Aria bit her lip to hide a grin as Oliver joined them on the grass.
“Was that Alexander you were talking to?”
Jason let out a breath, then flashed a tight smile.
“Sure was.”
Oliver shook his head, looking surprisingly upset.
“What is wrong with that guy?” he muttered, glancing back towards the student parking lot. “He came out of nowhere just now; I almost hit him with my car.”
Jason murmured something like, “Next time, try harder,” while Aria glanced at the lot with open curiosity. “What were you doing out so late?”
Oliver froze, then flushed. “Nothing.”
The friends stared at each other.
“What are you doing out so late?” he returned defensively.
“I just got out of detention,” she replied.
“Oh yeah,” he said vaguely, running a hand back through his hair, “that makes sense.” His eyes shot to the school a second later, tight with nerves. “Well, I’d better get inside. Don’t want to get caught breaking curfew.”
“’Night, Ollie.”
<
br /> “Always a pleasure, man.”
He disappeared a moment later, leaving a slightly more comical silence than before. It only went on for a few seconds, then Aria and Jason made the mistake of locking eyes.
Then they were laughing.
“Anyone else?” Jason called, rotating around. “We’re wide open.”
Aria valiantly tried to stop giggling long enough to catch her breath.
“What do you mean? This was the fairytale. A kiss under the stars...twice interrupted by two of my least favorite people on campus. All we need now is for the sprinklers to come on.”
Jason laughed quietly, but he’d sobered significantly at the word kiss. His bright eyes met hers, looking uncertain for the first time. “That was all right with you? I could have stopped—”
“I know,” she said softly. “I didn’t want you to stop.” There was a little pause, then she hesitantly added, “I didn’t want to stop either.”
His eyes glowed with a smile that he kept carefully off his face. Instead he offered his arm, cocking his head up towards the school.
“Walk you back to your dorm?”
She started to reach for him then pulled back suddenly, glancing in the other direction.
“Actually, there’s something I have to do first.” She paused awkwardly, heart hammering away in her chest. “But I’ll see you tomorrow?”
His eyes twinkled as he backed away into the dark.
“Sweet dreams.”
ARIA’S HEAD WAS SPINNING as she headed inside the history building, speed-walking through the darkened halls. She might have been too distracted to notice, but she was doing the very last thing you want to do when breaking curfew. She was looking for a teacher.
What the heck just happened?
The unlikeliest of smiles lit her face as she whipped around corners, searching for the correct door. For one of the first times ever, she didn’t need her ink to remember every moment with perfect clarity. The look in his eyes right before he closed them. The feeling of his lips against hers—
She put on a burst of speed, stopping suddenly outside a classroom.
I can obsess over it all in just a minute. Just one thing I have to do first.
