by May Dawson
She’s definitely on team Bastard.
In the afternoon, I have math and chem lab. After, I stay in the library, reading until my head aches, copying notes into my notebook. Occasionally, I reach into the backpack and run my fingers over Mycroft’s wand. I’m still surprised that anyone would give me something so valuable. Maybe it’s a loan. Maybe I should offer it back to him, once I’ve gotten my hands on a new wand.
“You’re a pain in the ass to find.” Cax slides into the seat across from me.
“Most people would leave off the last two words.”
He grins as easily as his sister. He has a nice smile, broad and warm, revealing perfect white teeth. If there were commercials here, he would be the perfect model for selling toothpaste.
“Glad to see you’re studying.” He reaches out to tap two fingers against the open page of my book. His hands are broad and masculine, although his wrists have a narrow taper below a muscular forearm; he’s more slender than Mycroft’s big-shouldered, powerful frame or Airren’s leanly muscled, fighter’s body. “We were talking about you.”
I look back down at the page, even though I can’t concentrate anymore. I don’t need to ask who.
His fingers brush against mine. I straighten in surprise, but he’s taking the book out of my hands. He pulls it across the table to himself. “It’s been a long time since Casting 101.”
I need an upperclassman to watch me while I practice. My lips part and close again. I don’t want to ask.
“Get your wand,” he says.
“Are you offering to tutor me?” I make my voice light.
“Not really.”
My heart falls as he looks back at me, expressionless. Then his eyes crinkle at the corners, giving him away before his lips widen in that grin again.
“I’m telling you,” he says. “I’m going to tutor you. You clearly need the help.”
“Thanks a lot.” My voice is tart.
“You’re welcome.” He reaches into his own bag, pulling out his wand. “Well?”
When I pull Mycroft’s wand out of my bag, his gaze sharpens. He recognizes it. But for once, Cax doesn’t say anything.
“Shouldn’t we go to one of the dark corrals?” The corrals in the basement have the same electromagnetic buffers as in the Arts building.
His grin returns, a quick flash across his handsome face. “Trust me, I can deal with any trouble you might raise, Tera.”
“I doubt that very much,” I shoot back. “I’m pretty good at finding trouble.”
With my luck, I’d be the one to raise a demon. And no one would think it was an accident.
“Good.” He pushes the book back across the wood table toward me. “I do detest being bored. Let’s start with the call to wood, page thirty-nine.”
I smirk as I flip through the pages to read the spell again. The call to wood is an advanced version of spoon magic, recalling your wand to your hand. It’s a useful spell, especially if you drop things a lot… or tend to find trouble. In our children’s fairy tales, princes and princesses and knights tend to find themselves hung upside down over a witch’s cauldron, calling their wands at the last minute to save themselves.
When my eyes flicker up from the page, I study the amused cast of his lips. I wondered if Stelly would be mad if I kissed him, back when I wanted to piss her off, and suddenly my stomach tightens. I can’t kiss Cax, not ever; I don’t want to ruin my fledgling friendship with Stelly. It’s tenuous enough already.
Once we begin practicing, Cax becomes serious. He adjusts my hands when they’re off. Every time he touches me, I feel a spark I try to ignore. He’s intent on teaching me, and he sure doesn’t seem to feel anything. Maybe he never would.
I’m nervous at first, clumsy, and the looming memories don’t help. But Cax is kind and patient, correcting me over and over in the same mellow, matter-of-fact tone of voice. Some of my nerves ebb by the time we’ve spent an hour practicing.
“I’m a little disappointed,” he says, checking his watch, and my heart drops. He looks up at me again with mischief lighting his eyes. “You didn’t summon any demons for me to fight.”
I groan. “Please. It’ll already be a miracle if I last a semester.”
“You’ll be fine.” He sounds so confident. Maybe he’s confident enough for the both of us. “When do your classes end tomorrow? Meet again here?”
I lean forward, propping my chin on my hand. “You really want to give up your afternoons to teach me?”
“Ask anyone. I never do my own homework. I might as well do freshman homework for the first time.”
“Why’s that?”
“There’s always something more interesting to study than whatever else I’m supposed to.” He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter if I get A’s or C’s as long as I pass. So why do more than I have to?”
“What kind of tutor are you?” Airren sounds exasperated as he rounds the shelves of books. “That’s the worst motivational message ever.”
“The worst?” Cax purses his lips to one side as if he’s considering this a challenge. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Airren groans. “How’s it going, Tera?”
“Good.” I stuff my books back into my bag. I can feel his gaze on me.
“See you tomorrow.” Cax claps his hand on my shoulder as he passes by. The brief touch makes my spine stiffen. Even after his hand slides away from my shoulder, I can still lingering warmth.
“I’ll walk you back to the dorm,” Airren tells me.
“Why?”
“We’re going in the same direction.”
“Why are you here, though?”
“Unlike my miscreant friend, I actually do study.” He jerks his head in the direction of the door.
I sling my backpack over my shoulder and follow him.
It’s twilight when we head out of the library, and my bag bounces against my back as I head down the library steps. The day is still warm, but a cool breeze drifts across campus, smelling of honeysuckle and lilac. Late summer in Avalon is beautiful. It makes me think of Stelly throwing up her arms about exceptional landscaping, and for a second I feel a quick flash of joy.
I want to see the garden behind Arts for myself, when the night is so pretty. I want to believe what she said about the world.
“I want to walk around the back,” I say. “You can come with me or not.”
“You know there’s two ways to say everything,” Airren tells me matter-of-factly.
“Didn’t you already lecture me enough yesterday?”
“It’s a new day,” he says.
“So the counter resets?” I tease.
The teasing sound in my voice surprises me. It sounds like I’m comfortable with Airren.
“You clearly need a lot of lecturing.” We reach the end of the building, and he jerks his head to the left. Together, we walk around the corner towards the garden.
“Oh? Well, let’s get today’s over with.”
“Your tone sucks. You could give people a chance to be kind to you.” He delivers this bit without any rancor at all. “Be a little bit brave, Tera.”
“I’m brave,” I assure him, suddenly heated all over again.
“Show me, then.”
I shake my head, even though I’m not refusing. “It would help if I understood why. Look around, Airren. Most people don’t want to be my friend.”
“Why do you act like you think they’re right?”
I face him, stubborn and frustrated. “I know you want something from me. I just don’t know what it is yet.”
He stares back at me, his blue eyes soft.
“I don’t know who really invited me to come to this school,” I say. “I don’t know why I was pardoned. I don’t know who’s paying my tuition or delivered my books to my door.”
“I can answer one of those mysteries.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, which makes his shoulders hunch slightly. That hunch is pretty damn cute.
“Yeah?”
He nods. “I noticed your bookcase was bare. Your suitcase didn’t roll right. Your sheets don’t fit your bed. Your wardrobe is…” He paused, blowing a whistling sound through his pursed lips that ends in the sound of an explosion. “Well.”
“Are you going to insult me all night?”
“Probably,” he deadpans. “So I had Mycroft send me your class list and I bought your books.”
I shake my head.
“I know, I know,” he says. “The terrible things I do that show you that you can’t trust me.”
When he says it like that, it sounds ridiculous.
“The rest of your mysteries, I can’t explain,” he says. “But I can help you find out.”
“Seriously?” I ask.
“I’m resourceful,” he promises me.
“I don’t doubt that. I’m stuck again on why.”
He shrugs one of those big shoulders. “I’m an RA. It is literally my job to save dumb freshmen from themselves.”
“I’m getting a little tired of the dumb freshman line.”
“But you act so much like one.”
I reach out and smack his arm. His bicep is hard, and my palm stings, and I flush the second after I’ve done it. That was a familiar way to touch a guy I barely know.
He glances down at my bicep and then at my stinging palm. He grins like he sees right through me as I fold my arms. I can’t shake my hand out to cool the sting, not in front of him, but I wish I could.
“Come on.” He heads around the corner of the Arts building. And of course, I follow.
Dusk is falling fast now, and the fading light casts shadows from the gray stone remnants of a building. Given how old the Arts building is, I can’t imagine when this house fell. A lush carpet of deep green grass leads towards the ruins, but then the world turns wild. Vines wrap around the ruins, dripping enormous blossoms in a rainbow of jewel hues.
“There are wild strawberries.” Airren’s fingers brush against mine as we step in toward each other, though it must be an accident. He heads toward the ruins I’m still gawking at. “Let’s see if they’re still blooming.”
I follow him toward a series of arches left standing though much of the walls between them has crumbled away; wisteria creeps over the weathered gray stone. Airren kneels at the base of one of the arches, raking carefully through wild green leaves and tiny white flowers, before he stands with a triumphant grin. Two bright red strawberries are in his palm. He holds one up in front of my lips, and I raise my eyebrow at him. I’m not eating out of the man’s hand.
There’s a wild flutter in my stomach. Stelly wasn’t wrong; Airren’s playfulness, the sweet scent of the strawberry, and the beauty of the wildflowers climbing over ravaged rock leave me feeling like I’m really home. Like home was worth fighting for.
Airren shrugs and pops that strawberry into his mouth. His lips curl up as he chews the strawberry, and when he holds the second one out, I part my lips. It’s a juicy burst in my mouth, sweet as candy with a hint of sour.
“They’re the same color as your lips.” His eyes are on my mouth, and for a second, I think he’s going to close the small distance between us and kiss me. Then he turns and holds his hand out to me. “Come on. Let’s find more.”
We’re together when we step inside the ruins, into what must have been a courtyard, ringed as it is by four partial walls. In the center is an enormous old sun dial, cracked in half.
Sprawled across the sun dial is a corpse.
14
“Go for help,” Airren tells me. He’s already running across the courtyard towards the man, but it’s pointless; I can tell from the slack-turned-stiff way the man dangles across the sundial that he’s long dead.
I’ve seen a few corpses in my time.
I want to say that, but the words freeze on my tongue. I take a step in the direction Airren pointed and then stop. This one is marked the same way my father and his people would cut apart a body for their dark magic. There’s only one thing magic can’t do, and that’s turn a dead thing alive. I know, because I tried once.
Airren looks back over his shoulder, annoyed. “Tera.”
I should go. I should go find help. But somehow I feel sure that if I walk out of Airren’s sight, the same dark things that took this man will take me. And why not? Of all the people dark magic could steal and cut, it should be me. I already belonged to the darkness.
Airren stands up and takes a few quick steps to me. He’s frustrated, I can feel it, and I back away.
“Holy hell, Tera,” he says, but this time he doesn’t sound angry.
He puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me into his side. For a second, my arm hangs limply between us, pinned between my body and his hard, warm side. And then finally, like a human being, I slip my arm around his waist.
He brushes his thumb over my temple. “May I?”
I stiffen. Magic to soothe and calm is simple enough. It doesn’t twist your thoughts, it softens emotion. But I don’t like anyone’s fingers brushing against my mind.
“Okay, don’t worry.” He turns his face in toward me, his lips hovering near my forehead. “Don’t worry. Come on, we’ve got to get the police. I don’t want anyone finding you here.”
I don’t understand what he means until we’ve walked together up the steep green hill to the side of the building and back to the wide brick walking trail that carves through this part of campus. It’s only when he’s squeezed my shoulder and left me standing on the steps of the Arts building so he can sprint to get help that I realize, oh, I shouldn’t be seen near a dead body because someone will think I was involved. Because once upon a time, sometimes I was.
But I was twelve. I was just twelve.
I sit heavily on the step. Dusk has faded to dark—how did that happen—and the spires of the various buildings jut out into the cool deep blue of the sky. The first stars are starting to blink to life. I wish Airren hadn’t left me here. I have to get it together. I don’t know why I can’t stop my thoughts from spiraling.
I feel someone watching me. I keep staring around, but the campus is quiet now. I can hear the shouts and thuds of a lacrosse game on a field I can’t see, and occasionally someone walks by from the library toward the dorms, where dinner will be ready.
The prickle in my spine becomes too determined to ignore. I’d rather listen to my instincts than find myself gutted on the Arts building steps. I turn to head toward the door, my heart pounding.
Airren jogs down the steps. “Mycroft is meeting us at the dorm so you won’t be alone. Come on.”
“You think I shouldn’t be alone.” My voice sounds out dull, even to my ears.
He doesn’t answer me. He just tucks me back under his arm again, our bodies close together. This time, my arm closes around his waist automatically. The two of us hurry across campus. Airren’s head is on a swivel, those clear eyes of his constantly searching, as if he thinks we might be attacked.
When we get close to Rawl House, Mycroft is already standing on the steps. With his big arms folded, he looks like a bodyguard. I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.
“I don’t want you to be alone when you just saw something awful,” Airren tells me, resting his hands on my shoulders. “I’ve got to get back there. Mycroft will stay with you.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I’m a much better fighter than he is,” Mycroft tells me.
Airren rolls his eyes.
“No.” This is another piece in the complicated puzzle, and I catch Airren’s thick forearm in my hand so he can’t walk away from me.
He stares down at me in surprise.
“Why does a RA need to be there for the body?”
“To give my testimony,” he says, lightly. “So they don’t try to drag you in as a witness.”
“You’re lying to me,” I say. “Telling me I should trust you and lying to me.”
Airren squeezes my shoulders gently. “I’ve got to go, T. We’ll talk later.”
/> “We damn sure will,” I shoot back.
Airren has been looking at me with this worry in his deep eyes that makes me feel rattled, but now his lips quirk up. He squeezes my shoulders again before his big hands fall away. Then he turns and runs back across the field, heading for the academic buildings; he has a long, loping stride that gives away his athleticism.
“Let’s get inside.” Mycroft takes a step back, gesturing me ahead of him.
I stop to look back over my shoulder at the night descending now. The brass street lamps give off a soft glow, pushing away the vast deepness of the starless night overhead. But they can only hold the dark at bay so much.
I don’t see anyone watching me, but I would gamble on someone being out in that night. Watching.
Someone who belongs to the dark, just like me.
15
I take two steps up the stairs to the third floor before Mycroft’s hard forearm slides around my waist. He pulls me against his chest as his other arm slides under my knees, pulling me close against his body. My back arches and I grab a fistful of his t-shirt to catch myself, fighting my impulse to struggle. His eyes widen and after a heartbeat’s pause, he rocks me back and forth. It’s an awkward, perfunctory attempt at comfort; I don’t think babying anyone is Mycroft’s strong suit.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand. I breathe in the spicy scent of his cologne, which reminds me of cinnamon cookies and cloves. My body presses against his chest, which is rock-hard, although the warmth of his body against mine is very human.
“You’re going the wrong way. We’re going to my room.”
“I can walk.” But I want to lean my exhausted head against his shoulder.
“I said your name twice.” His voice is low, a warm, husky rumble. “You’re acting lost.”
I am lost. “I’m fine.”
He doesn’t bother to respond. He carries me down the hall. Since I know struggling to escape his arms is going to be futile—and frankly, I like being close to him—I twine my arms around his neck. His warm, gold-specked eyes meet mine, and his lips widen as if he’s on the verge of smiling.
