by Alicia Fabel
“You’re taking a class,” Sam whispered, rolling her eyes. “Not making a life-altering decision.”
That’s what she thought. Annessa wasn’t so sure.
The professor cleared his throat, and everyone finally faced the front. “Today, we are beginning a new unit: The history of tarot. Some of you will pursue this field once you graduate, but even if you do not, its impact on the guilded community has been immeasurable. In fact, tarot is one of the few ways our community can interact with normal society, without risking much in the way of retribution or suspicion.”
Yeah, because everyone out there thinks tarot readers are quacks.
A few students turned to glare at Annessa. Whoops. She quickly shielded her thoughts. One obviously-offended girl leaned over to whisper to a friend. Then that girl shot Annessa a dirty look too. Time to take notes and not think any more stupid thoughts. But when Annessa reached for her pencil, it rolled a few inches and she missed it. She tried again and the same thing happened. The two girls did not bother to hide their amusement. After the third attempt, Annessa knew one must be telekinetic. Except, what had Axton called them? Not telekinetics—that would be too easy. And they didn’t actually move things with their minds, they mesmerized elementals, which only they could see, and the little creatures would do anything they wanted. Ah, that was it—mesmers. One of the girls must be a mesmer.
Annessa’s next grab attempt resulted in the pencil flying off her desk, aimed right for the head of the girl who’d practically crawled into Elion’s lap during lunch a few days before. Annessa threw out a hand. Nooo.
The pencil stopped, but so did everything else in the room. Sam’s frozen eyes stared in dismay at Annessa’s pencil. Her own pencil had paused mid-letter. The professor balanced awkwardly on one foot. He’d been pacing back and forth across the front of the room while he lectured.
“What’s happening?” Annessa asked aloud.
“You’re happening,” rumbled a voice from a beam above. A gargoi with feline features peered down at her.
“Is Elion here?” Annessa swiveled to look behind her.
“Only you,” replied the gargoi pointedly.
Annessa scoffed. “Well, I didn’t freeze these people.”
“Freeze? No. You threw yourself out of the timeline,” corrected the creature. “They are still proceeding at a normal rate. You’re the one who’s not.”
Shoot. If the gargoi was right, that was really bad. “What about you?”
“I tagged along with you. I was curious.” It cocked its head. “I thought it would be more exciting than this.”
“How do I fix it and go back into time?”
“How would I know?” the gray beastie stretched.
Annessa waved a hand in front of Sam’s face. “Come on Sam, I need your help right about now.”
“Why did you feed my gargoi brother your meal?” the beastie asked abruptly.
“Huh?”
“You threw the best of your meal to him. Why?”
“Because I figured I’d rather him chew on that than my arm,” she said honestly.
“Gargoi don’t eat human flesh.” The beastie screwed up its face. “It’s disgusting.”
“Nice to know.”
“Now, we’ll chew it up for fun,” clarified the gargoi. “We just won’t swallow it.”
“Very reassuring,” Annessa said dryly.
“You shouldn’t be worried,” the gargoi told her. “My brother threatened to stone anyone who touches you.”
“You throw rocks at each other?”
“Not exactly.” The creature looked distinctly amused, which made Annessa feel like an idiot somehow. “When we die, we turn to stone. Humans used to leave our corpses on their buildings as a warning, should our kind trespass there. That was before your kind decided it was so fashionable to display our corpses that they started crafting false ones too. Now you can barely tell which are fake and which are real.”
“That’s terrible.”
The beastie yawned. “If you don’t get us out of here, I’m going to stone from boredom.”
“If I knew how, I would,” Annessa retorted.
“How did you get us here? Just do the opposite.”
That would make sense. Except all she’d done was want to stop the pencil from hitting the back of Territorial Barbie’s head. Really badly. And right now, she really badly wanted it to resume… Oh, but not the pencil. She snagged that out of the air. Please start. Play? Resume sesame? Ahhhh. Come on!
Annessa thumped back in her seat as she was flung back into the momentum of the room.
Well done.
When Annessa looked up, the beastie was gone. Sam frowned, looking back and forth between Annessa and the girl who should be rubbing her head.
Annessa shrugged. When she glanced at her tormentors, they wore identical looks of suspicion. If Annessa knew one thing, it was that having guilded folk look at you with suspicion was no bueno. Just ask any of the dead Phyton who’d been taken out, just for existing.
Elion inspected Ness for any sign that she was changing. He tried to do it without anyone noticing—most of all her.
“Zoom!” she called when she spotted Axton’s wisp attached to his hip. Right where he’d been ever since they’d pulled a knife from Axton’s chest. At Ness’s call, the wisp separated and slipped to her side. “Thank you for getting help. You are the best wisp in the world.”
Elion wandered if someone should tell Ness that people were staring. Meanwhile, she dug into her backpack and produced a Frisbee—Elion’s Frisbee. Apparently, she’d gone through his room, which was a terrifying thought. What else had she found? Ian looked up with a smirk, and Elion strengthened his shields. What was wrong with him? He hadn’t let his shields slip this much since he’d officially hit puberty. Annessa tossed the disk. Axton’s wisp caught the shadow and flung it back. Annessa cheered and called to the wisp like he was the smartest puppy in the world. Elion raised a brow at Axton.
His friend just shook his head. “Trust me, I understand it as much as you do. He won’t even respond to me now unless I call him Zoom.”
Elion’s lips trembled with laughter. “She named him?”
“And he likes it.”
“Have you ever seen a wisp interact with someone like that?” Elion asked.
“No. They follow orders and spy. But playing catch? It’s weird.”
“And we aren’t the only ones who think so.” Elion scanned all the people eating lunch in the quad. Students had stopped eating and talking to watch the new girl playing catch with someone else’s wisp. A fact that was evident now that a second shadow pooled around Annessa’s feet.
“You may want to stop the show. I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to have that much attention,” Quinn observed.
“Hey, Nessa,” Sam called immediately. “Let’s get our lunch. I’m starving.”
“Okay.” Annessa caught the disk, praised Zoom one last time, and then tucked the Frisbee into her bag. She seemed to notice the attention then. “What?”
“Nothing,” Elion said. “We just don’t get new students part-way through the year very often.”
“And everyone’s been stuck on campus for weeks now, so anything new is a novelty,” Ax added.
“Let’s hope my newness wears off fast,” Annessa muttered and trailed after Samara.
Elion silently echoed the sentiment. Zoom returned to Axton and resumed his place, as if he hadn’t just been playing fetch. Axton eyed his wisp like he didn’t recognize his own shadow anymore.
“She was supposed to be the normal one,” Quinn mumbled when the girls were out of earshot.
“I think she’s the least normal of all of us,” Ian said as if he approved.
“Does she know about the new conditions of her self-defense training?” Ax asked.
Ian started laughing. “Oh wow. That is not going to go over well.” He sobered. “She still thinks she can leave?”
“She can,” Elion gr
owled. “Get out of my head.”
“Don’t blame me. You’re the one who can’t keep your emotions in check lately. I’m starting to understand why your mother wanted to keep you two away from each other.”
Elion set down his fork. He wanted to argue, but the problem was, Ian wasn’t wrong.
“I remember how to get to the training field,” Annessa told Sam when the girl looked at her watch a third time. “You can go.”
“It’s fine. I have time.” Sam slid a side-eye to where Poppy was presumably accompanying them.
“Thanks for keeping me company the other day, Poppy,” Annessa said.
Sam startled. “You did? She did?”
“Yeah, when things were really bad, she stayed with me.” Annessa bit her lip. “It meant a lot.”
Sam promptly threw her arms around Poppy. It looked like she was hugging air. Afterward, Sam swiped tears from her face. Annessa turned her attention to the empty training field, swallowing hard herself.
“Where is everyone?”
Sam fidgeted. “Let’s go inside.”
The training center was a long building that looked like a hangar. Inside, there were mats, various weights, and along one wall, a crap-ton of weapons. From long sticks to crossbows. The only other person in the entire place was Elion.
“Did I get the time wrong?” Annessa asked.
“No,” Elion assured.
“Then I’m confused.” Annessa looked to Sam for answers. She did her very best to avoid making eye contact with Elion. Or look at him at all. Luckily, his thing for hoodies made that easier.
“Okay, well, have fun you two.” Sam backed toward the door.
Oh no. “Do not leave me here,” Annessa hissed.
Sam winced. “Sorry. Love you.”
And then the girl spun around and dashed away, leaving Annessa alone with Elion.
“Don’t be mad at her. We thought that if you knew the details, you wouldn’t come.”
“You thought right.”
Elion took a deep breath. “The thing is, you cannot train with anyone else until we know how or if having half of my shadow will affect you.”
Annessa stilled, keeping her thoughts carefully fuzzy. “What do you mean affect me?”
“I don’t know, that’s the problem. It might not mean anything. But something like that’s never happened before, so there’s no precedence. Do you feel different?”
The image of a pencil, frozen in mid-air, popped into her mind. Good thing Elion wasn’t a tapper. “No.”
“Then hopefully, nothing will happen, and you’ll be starting a new life before you know it.”
“Then why am I even training with you?” Annessa was grappling for any excuse to turn tail and run away from him.
“Because I thought you’d want to be able to defend yourself if you ever need to.”
“In case the Phyton find me again someday?”
“Or a human trafficker—you never know.”
“You never worried about me fending off bad guys before.” Annessa folded her arms and pinned her gaze to his shoes.
“Of course I did. Why do you think I talked you into running with me? And I was thrilled when you joined the basketball team, because I knew you’d get even faster and stronger.”
“It wouldn’t have helped if a Phyton thug decided to snatch me—to lure you out.”
“I know.” Elion pulled back, seeming to retreat into the shadow of his hood. “I should’ve walked away from you years ago. Before anyone started looking for me.”
“Why didn’t you?” Annessa asked coldly.
“What do you want me to say, Ness? That I’m a selfish prick? Because I am.”
“Yes, you are.” Annessa turned to leave.
“I’m a bastard, but I didn’t know you’d become chicken shit,” Elion threw at her retreating back.
She halted. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Elion taunted. “When did you start running away when you got scared?”
“I’m not scared of you.”
“Aren’t you?” Elion sauntered closer. Annessa clenched her teeth and glared at his chest. “I think you’re scared that if you stay, you won’t be able to control yourself around me. Because I’m irresistible to you.”
“Not anymore,” Annessa bit out.
“Prove it.”
It was like the wind being knocked from her sails. All her indignation fell away, replaced by uncertainty. Could she remain unaffected around him? The thing was, she didn’t know. And that was an unacceptable risk. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”
“Oh, but you just did.” Elion grabbed her by the wrists, anchoring them in one hand. Annessa tried to jerk back, but he held on and then used his free hand to loop a lock hair behind one ear. “You still want me.”
Annessa sneered. He had no idea who she was anymore. She rammed a knee upward, but he anticipated that, twisting away. When he did, she stomped down on his foot. He grunted and let go of her wrists. He could’ve held on if he’d wanted too, though, and she knew it.
“Good,” he said to her. “That was good. Now, let me show you how to do it better. So no one can ever put their hands on you if you don’t want them to.”
Annessa’s heart raced. Her muscles burned with the need to get away from him. It was almost as strong as the need to deck him. But she also wanted what he was offering—to be able to defend herself. Plus, she could make damn sure to prove him wrong. She didn’t want him. And he wouldn’t doubt that by the time she walked away from the Academy.
She set her bag on the floor. “Show me.”
Elion demonstrated how to rotate her wrists in his grasp and then yank them free. She kept her eyes trained on their hands, telling herself that she was just paying attention to what he was teaching her. It had nothing to do with avoiding looking at the young version of him—the version she’d crushed on years before. Then he made her do each move a hundred times. After that, he turned into a personal trainer, showing her exercises to strengthen her body. Things she would be able to do no matter where she went or what she had to work with. An hour later, Annessa lay on her back, catching her breath. She was dripping with sweat and exhausted, but she also finally felt like she’d reclaimed a shred of the power life had taken from her.
Elion sat beside her. His arms rested on his knees. “You did great.”
“We’re done?”
“For today.”
Thank goodness. Annessa didn’t think she’d be able to move ever again. Discreetly, she watched his throat bob as he tipped his head back to drain a water bottle. She swallowed hard with the urge to press her lips to the indention right at the base of his throat. “I’m not going to turn into Benjamina, am I?” she asked instead.
“Benjamina?”
“Button.” She fiddled with the lid of her bottle when he turned toward her. “You look like a toddler, by the way.” Just a little exaggeration, but she hoped it stung.
Elion’s shoulders shook slightly. Then he reached out suddenly and tipped her chin until she met his gaze. And oh. His hood must have fallen back while he drank. One side of his mouth arched up in a crooked smile that crinkled the corner of one dark eye. Annessa’s breath hitched in her throat at the same time her stomach did a little free fall. He was all grown up again. When had that happened?
“I missed that,” he said.
Annessa frowned with confusion.
“Having you look me in the eyes. You haven’t done that since you got here.”
Annessa looked away, face heating, and pushed to her feet.
“Same time tomorrow?” Elion asked as she slung her bag over her shoulder.
Annessa nodded and then fled.
16
Annessa was glad to see Ian waiting for her outside the training center. She hurried to escape whatever stupidity had been happening with Elion. It was like her body had betrayed her back there.
“Ready for your driving lesson?” Ian asked.
“We�
�re still doing this?”
Ian waved at himself. “Do you not see me standing right here?”
“Oh, I see you.” She made a point of scanning his face. “You look like crap.”
Ian touched his bruised cheek. “That’s not very nice after I used my face to protect you.”
“After you drove us into a trap,” she reminded.
“Touché. If it makes you feel better, my contacts now believe they’re belly dancers for an hour every day when the sun goes down.”
“You’re serious?”
“Uh, yeah.” He pointed to his cheek. “Do you see what happened to my face?”
“It could’ve been worse,” Annessa said. “What if they found out that you’re a…” Annessa sucked in a breath as a shroud draped over her mind.
“Careful. I have that tidbit of knowledge bundled up in your mind, where no one will find it. If you let it out, anyone might hear it.”
“What if one of those Phyton had figured it out?”
“Then things would’ve gone a bit differently, I’m sure.” Ian shrugged. “But they didn’t.”
“But they could’ve,” Annessa persisted.
“I feel like we’re speaking in circles.”
Annessa sighed. “I was scared. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
“Is that why you were working out with the boyfriend?” Ian pumped his brows.
Annessa’s cheeks warmed at the insinuation. “We were not working out.”
Ian grinned. “Oh really? What were you doing then, naughty girl?”
“You’re terrible.”
“I can’t help it that I’m a romantic.”
Annessa laughed. “You’re so full of crap.”
Ian shoved the helmet toward her. “We doing this?”
“Yes. But no leaving campus.”
