A Curse of Flames

by Sophia Shade

  “There are some people from the Ministry of Justice snooping about,” he says. “They want to find out what happened last year. Get to the root of it.”

  “What’s the Ministry of Justice?” I ask.

  “Men and women from both courts who work together to investigate issues,” he explains. “They usually deal with inappropriate use of powers in the human world, but in cases like this, they can also be called upon.”

  “Someone is actually looking into what happened with Myra?” I ask. “They think there’s more to it than just one messed-up girl, don’t they?”

  Myra had been behind the poisonings that left two students dead last year. After I discovered she was the guilty person, she killed herself. It was a terrible situation I haven’t been able to get over. There are still so many unanswered questions, but no one besides me wanted to find the answers.

  At least they didn’t until now.

  “What changed?” I ask. “Last year, everyone told me to just drop it. Even you.”

  He doesn’t reply, and we walk the rest of the way in silence.

  When we get to Callador, images from my vision flash in my mind. Blood on the floor. Someone injured. A silver symbol. I expect the school to be in flames and everyone dead. Damon’s words did not bring me comfort, and I imagine the worst.

  But as soon as I enter the school, I see that everything is…totally normal.

  Ella bounces up to me and gives me a big hug. “Imogen, you’re back.”

  “That I am, and so happy to be here. Is everything okay?”

  “Everything is great,” she says. “Dannika,” she out to our other friend.

  Dannika walks over on those gorgeous long legs of her, flashing her white smile. “Hey girl,” she says as she kisses me on both cheeks. “About time you got here. We were starting to worry you weren’t going to show up.”

  “Really?” I ask, a little concerned. Surely they know how much this place means to me.

  Ella shrugs. “Well, you were still so distraught over Myra when you left. We were afraid the stress would be too much, and you wouldn’t come back.”

  “I’ll always come back,” I say. “This is my home now.”

  They both hug me.

  “Aww,” Dannika says. “We are so happy you’re here!” As she pulls away, she sees something over my shoulder that makes her smile melt away.

  I turn around. Several men and women in dark robes walk through the room, following Headmistress Shadowburn. They’re speaking in hushed tones and pass by quickly. All the other students who are mingling have also gone quiet to watch. After the robed figures leave, everyone seems to sigh in relief.

  “Were they from the Ministry of Justice?” I ask.

  Ella raises her eyebrows. “How did you hear about them?”

  “Damon mentioned they were here on our walk over,” I explain. “But he didn’t say much more.”

  Dannika nods. “They arrived a few weeks ago. You seem to have gotten your wish that someone would keep looking into Myra’s death and motives.”

  “Can they be trusted, though?” I ask. “Will they actually find the truth?”

  “Who knows?” Ella adjust her hair, pushing the strands back over her shoulder. “We already had to rearrange the moon festival because of their arrival, so they are major buzzkills if nothing else.”

  “Moon festival?” I ask.

  Ella points to a carved symbol on the wall above the door. “Yeah, we have it every year.”

  I gasp. The bloody hand in my vision was wearing a bracelet with that symbol on it. It was hard for me to recall the details of it at the time, but now, it’s clear as day. The vision, it must have something to do with the moon festival!

  “Oh my God,” I say without thinking. “I wasn’t going to say anything in case, but I had a—”

  I stop. I’m so used to telling Ella and Dannika everything I almost spilled the details. But I hear my mom’s voice in the back of my head, her warning I shouldn’t tell anyone. I promised her I would be careful. Truthfully, I think she was either lying or overreacting, but I can’t just shrug her away. What if she’d been telling me the truth?

  “Had a what?” Dannika asks.

  “Had…a feeling…” I stammer. “I had a feeling something bad was going to happen. I knew this issue with Myra wasn’t going to go away.”

  Ella rubs my arm. “I’m sure it’s just the stress from everything that happened last year,” she says.

  “Yeah,” I say, knowing it’s not that. “I sure hope so.”

  Chapter 2

  “Have you seen Caleb?” I ask Ella.

  “Oh yeah,” she says. “I forgot to tell you. He’s on the kilcross field. He wanted to be here to meet you, but he couldn’t get away. You should go see him. I think you need to head to Elemental Application, anyway.”

  “Ugh, no time to even get settled in, huh?” I ask.

  “Come on, girl,” Dannika says as she takes my bag for me. “Time to flex those flames. You must be dying to let your fire loose after being in the human realm for so long.”

  We wave goodbye to Ella as we head toward the locker room.

  “I hadn’t really thought about it,” I say. “But I was feeling really tense and anxious these last few weeks. I was so quick to lose my temper. Like, I said things to my mom I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it. They just had to come out.”

  “Well, that could be your heat just needing to come out,” she says.

  “Could be?” I ask, starting to change my clothes. “What else could it be?”

  She smirks. “Could also be you’re just a jerk.”

  She’s joking, but it takes me back a bit. I feel guilty over the way I treated my mom before I left. I wish so much my phone worked, so I could send her a text letting her know I’m sorry. Even if I was irritable because I hadn’t released my fire in so long, that’s no excuse.

  “Hey,” Dannika says, touching my shoulder. “I was just kidding. I’m sure it was just you were full of fire that needed to be released.”

  I shrug. “It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have treated her that way.”

  “Most of us don’t spend that much time in the human world,” she says. “But when we do, we have to find safe ways to release our energy.”

  “That’s a good idea.” I finish pulling on my socks. Once I slide my shoes on, I start lacing them up tight. “You’ll have to help me come up with some ideas for how to do that before I go back next summer.”

  “Sure thing,” she says. “But first, let’s get you some release. Class is starting.”

  We head out onto the practice field just as the kilcross players are wrapping up. I put myself directly into Caleb’s path. He smiles when he sees me, his sweaty hair dripping onto his forehead. It’s sexy and gross at the same time.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he says after he runs up. He wraps his arms around me, pulling me in for a kiss.

  “Oh no!” I weakly struggle to get away from his sweaty face, but he manages to give me a few wet kisses on the cheeks. “You’re so gross.”

  “Miss me?” he asks after he lets me go.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t come see you in the human world like I planned,” he says, toweling his hair off. “Court business was crazy. It wasn’t a good time for me to leave.”

  I nod sympathetically. “Did it have anything to do with those creepy people from the Ministry of Justice I saw when I arrived?”

  “That was part of it,” he says. He picks up a cup, and then takes a drink. I get the feeling he doesn’t want to go into the topic further.

  “Are you coming back out for Elemental Application?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I just need to change and wipe myself down. I’ll be back soon.”

  As he runs off, I enjoy watching him leave in his tight kilcross pants. Caleb and I made things “official” toward the end of last year, but I’m still unsure where we stand. He’s hot, a prince of
the Unseelie court, and super sweet. Everything with him seems right.

  But I also feel like something is missing.

  It’s probably just me. I never lived anywhere long enough in the human world to have a boyfriend before, so I’m totally new to relationships in general, not to mention having one with a Fae. From what I was told about Fae culture, women take the lead in setting the pace of the relationship, but I have no idea what I’m doing. I want things to get more serious, more passionate. Want to kiss and touch and…more…but I have no idea how to initiate that stuff. I want him to do it, but it isn’t their way.

  Ugh. I need some serious help with this.

  I join Dannika, who gives me a goofy smile. I wish I could be more like her. Confident. A chameleon. When we met earlier, she had on stylish clothes. Her braids had been down and her makeup perfect. Now she has her braids in a ponytail, and just as flawlessly pulls off the look of a plain t-shirt and heather-grey cotton shorts. From chic to sporty, just like that.

  It’s kind of weird that, out of all my friends, I’m—the awkward outsider who knows nothing of boys—the only one with a boyfriend. Maybe I can help hook Dannika up with someone. But with her long legs and gorgeous dark skin that reflects gold in the sunlight, there are probably very few men who would dare to stand next to her.

  Erick enters the field and trots our way. My face goes hot, but I have no idea why. I’m surprised to see him. He’s a fifth-year student now, and he’s one of the most advanced fire wielders in the school. Last year, he was sort of an assistant coach to help the newbies. But we are in year two now, so I didn’t think he would be here.

  “Hey ladies,” he says. “You just get back?”

  “Yeah, a little bit ago,” I say. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be ‘protecting the baby Halflings’?” I tease, mocking some of the condescending language he used when he first assisted in our class last year.

  “I’m not sure, actually,” he said. “For some reason, I was assigned to help in this one instead. Am I still going to tutor you?”

  “If you want,” I say. “I didn’t practice at all over the summer, since I didn’t know anywhere I could safely do so.”

  He nods. “Yeah. And just so you know, Coach Volcanis is a bit of a hard-ass. He won’t go easy on you like Coach Thorne did.”

  “What happened to Coach Thorne?” I ask, suddenly worried.

  “He doesn’t teach this class,” he says. “Just the level-one class.”

  “Attention, everyone,” a voice says. The voice belongs to a man with long black hair and a mouth that’s set in a firm line. With his grim expression and dark robes, he’s more intimidating than Coach Thorne ever was.

  “Welcome to Elemental Application in Practice,” he says. “Last year, you learned many of the basics of your powers, but mostly only acted on your own—target practice and such. This year, we are going to spend a lot more time working in pairs and small groups.”

  I gulp. My powers are still so wild I hate working with other people. It seems like I never know what I’ll do. I might do the movements properly, or I might blow someone up. This is probably the exact practice I need, but it terrifies me.

  “Let’s start with some basic body and fire warmups,” he says. “Then we’ll team up.”

  We start with the yoga-like aspect of controlling our powers, regulating our breathing, moving slowly and deliberately. Then we create small flames between our hands, balls we hand back and forth, streams of fire we can wave like a ribbon. This is sort of like stretching before a workout for elemental Fae.

  “That’s enough,” the coach says. “Pair up. Dannika, you are with Erick. Finch, you work with Ferria. Imogen, pair up with Lucas. Everyone else, pick who you want to partner with.”

  When I glance at Erick and Dannika, they only shrug. I have no idea why I was put with this Lucas guy. I don’t know him. Everyone else seems to have been put with someone they’ve worked with before. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, though.

  I try to remember Lucas from last year, but all I remember is he’s pretty good. I’m blanking on anything else to help me “read” him.

  “Hi,” I say nervously after I go stand in front of him. “I’ll apologize now in case I accidently blow us up.”

  He rolls his eyes. Rude.

  “Whatever,” he says. “I won’t go easy on you, Halfling.”

  My jaw drops. I’m totally taken aback. “Have we even met before? Did I kick your puppy in a past life or something?”

  “Just get ready,” he says.

  “Um, o…kay,” I say, assuming a fighting stance. I have no intention of fighting this guy. It’s just practice, right? I survey the field, noting everyone else amicably working together.

  “Look, we just got back,” I say. “I’m really out of practice. We don’t need to be going all gladiator on day one.”

  He takes a deep breath in through his nose before building a ball of fire in front of him. It’s huge, like the size of a beach ball.

  “What are you doing?” I try to ask, but then he hurls the ball at me.

  I want to deflect, possibly absorb the flames, but I quickly realize that isn’t going to happen. It’s too big, and he threw it with too much power. The only way I’m not going to get fried is if I jump out of the way.

  I leap to the side and pretty much belly flop to the ground. The ball flies past me and smacks into Ferria, who had her back to us. She screams when the ball explodes on impact.

  “What the hell, guy?” I ask Lucas.

  He just shrugs. “Never turn your back.”

  Several people are helping Ferria off the ground. She looks in the direction the fireball came from and glares as me.

  “It wasn’t me,” I shout, but I hear Lucas gearing up for another attack behind me. I turn, seeing whips of fire coming in my direction. It slaps me across the face and chest. Even though I am a fire element and fire won’t do permanent damage to me, it hurts like hell at the time.

  Then, I get mad.

  The next time he lashes a fire whip at me, I raise my arm and let it wrap around my wrist. Taking a deep breath in, I absorb the heat and fire directly from Lucas’ body through the whip into me.

  His face shows a moment of fear, and his body takes on a blueish tint.

  With a mocking grin directed his way, I explode.

  I release the fire I had absorbed from Lucas, along with what I had pent up over the last several months, into a tornado of flame that hits Lucas square in the chest, sending him flying backward across the field.

  Everyone on the field stops and stares. I can feel their eyes on the back of me. I wheel around, my hands still full of flame, my eyes burning with hate.

  “Who’s next?” I growl.

  Some of the students visibly shrink back. Dannika has her hand over her mouth, as if unsure what she should do.

  But Erick runs toward me. “Hey,” he says calmly. “It’s okay. You beat him. Good job.”

  He bravely takes my hands in his, and my flames go out. He takes the heat and the anger from me, channeling it into himself and storing it away safely.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  Erick turns to the coach. “I think that’s enough for today. How about you?”

  Coach’s mouth is pressed tight and he’s glaring at me, but he nods. “Yes, that is enough for today. But be aware that before the middle of the semester is over, you will all be sparring with blades and magic at every class. No more baby gloves.”

  It feels as if he is saying this to me specifically, but everyone mumbles “Yes, Coach” before we head off the field.

  Dannika comes to my side and puts her arms around me, steering me toward the locker room. Caleb is only just now coming back onto the field.

  “Hey,” he says, confused. “What’s going on? What did I miss?”

  I just shake my head, unable to respond. He heads over to Erick. I’m sure he will explain what happened.

  After I have a cold shower and
put on some clean clothes, I decide it’s best to skip my next class to just go back to my room and chill for a bit. I have some unpacking to do. And some thinking, too.

  I have no idea what happened. It’s like this new coach and that guy had it out for me. But why?

  I think back to the end-of-the-year trial I had to go through. I thought it would be a simple abilities test, but it ended up being this big obstacle course I had to make it through or I risked getting expelled from the Fae realm and my powers bound. I passed, but just barely. The course was rigged against me, with lionwasps that were out to kill me. I only survived with the help of my friends.

  I didn’t know Coach Volcanis or Lucas then, but I’m getting the same feeling—like someone is out to get me.

  As I’m walking to my room, I see Nurse Kellyn Oshae ahead of me. She’s the school nurse and a half-Fae druid healer. She was also Myra’s mother.

  “Nurse Oshae,” I call with a wave, but she doesn’t seem to see or hear me.

  I’m not sure what I planned to say to her, anyway. I haven’t seen her since I saw her crying over the dead body of her daughter. A small stack of books is in her arms, and she has a faraway look on her face. She’s haggard, as if she hasn’t slept all summer. I don’t blame her. I can’t imagine the sorrow she must feel over losing her daughter.

  I don’t chase after her or try to call out again. I turn a corner and open the door to Pyralis Hall, the dorm for the fire Fae students. As I head toward the stairs, voices carry from down a hallway. Damon and another professor, a woman, are talking outside of his office. They don’t see me at first, and they must not expect any of the students to be here while classes are going on because they are talking in normal voices, not whispers.

  “Does she know?” the woman asks.

  “I don’t think so,” he replies.

  I can’t help but wonder what or who they are talking about. I linger a bit too long, and Damon raises his head and steadies his gaze in my direction. Surprise crosses his face before he grabs the woman by the arm and ushers her into his office.

  A thought pops into my head that feels too true in my gut.

  They were talking about me.