“Molting?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you notice the ragged feathers?”
“They’re not that bad.”
His quiet and throaty raven chuckles still sounded like his human laughter. “Shit’s been going on forever this time. I’ll be glad to have them all back again.”
“Here.” I scratched my thumbnail against another pin feather beside his beak. His eyes closed, and he sighed quietly. I couldn’t imagine how good it must have felt to him. “Is that better?”
“Yeah, it’s great.”
Settling in the grass, I placed Gabriel on my lap then searched along his ribs and down his sides, prompting him to raise both wings. He wiggled and made a little chortling sound. I paused. “Did you just giggle?”
“No.”
“Bullshit. You’re ticklish.”
“I am not.”
My fingers returned beneath his wings. He shuffled again and nipped my fingers when I touched near his belly. “You are!”
Gabe grunted and settled. “It’s just… a sensitive area.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
“You’re getting really close to the jewels.” When I jerked my fingers back, he cackled and hopped. “Nah, just kidding. You weren’t anywhere close.”
“You’re awful, you know that? Now you can get those pin feathers yourself.”
His head bumped beneath my hand. “Aw, c’mon, I was only teasing.”
“Nope, you ruined it.”
He made a quiet sound, a little warble, and rubbed his feathered cheek against my fingers. I held out for maybe thirty seconds. Then I laughed and scratched the spot against his beak.
After that, he hopped off and returned to his human body, hands in the pockets of his jeans and a boyish smile on his handsome face. “Lunch after your ethics class?”
“Only if it’s pizza at your place.”
“Deal.”
17
Midterms are Murder
I crashed for a few hours after our group lesson with Dain and paid a late evening visit to Sharon with Gabriel. Once again, I saw a black thumb print on her aura, but I wiped it off and hugged her extra tight from the Twilight, because whenever I embraced her, she glowed like a Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.
Gabriel made a report that we thought the Scary Godmother might have taken a shot at my charge, and Sebastian warned us to be on our guard. She’d gotten two other charges over the weekend, though no one but Yasmina had died as a result of her meddling.
A call of my name stopped me as I entered the sentinel compound along the way to Surveillance and Subterfuge. Anji trotted up with her backpack slung over one shoulder, a friendly smile on her face. “Hey. What’d you score on yesterday’s Magical Ethics quiz?”
“I only missed his trick question about iron stakes.”
“What’d you put?”
“That it kills darkling fae.”
“Girl, you put an iron stake through almost anybody’s heart and they’re going to die. Even vampires. Humans, vampires, and technically even liches.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I know that. I just wasn’t thinking at the time. Not gonna sweat it, since it’s only one question. But he did give me an extra-credit point for adding that driving it through a lich’s chest won’t kill them since their heart isn’t actually there.”
A shudder ran down my spine. While it was rare, when magicians went bad, they went real bad, often choosing the path of necromancy by sealing their vital life essence into an unholy reliquary. The little container held their heart and small keepsakes from their mortal life, used to bind their soul in this mortal plane no matter how many times sentinel squads destroyed their bodies.
Because the first step to becoming a lich was for the wizard to cut the heart from his own chest, there was nothing there to pierce with an iron shard, wooden stake, or any other weapon.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect to see any mage questions, since he was all about telling us faerie stuff recently.”
Anji snorted. “You should know better. It was in the reading assignment list.”
“But we skipped talking about it in class,” I grumbled. School had become an intimidating balancing act, and I’d let my reading for Magical Ethics fall aside in favor of putting more study time into Channeling. Everything early in the semester had been about turning cotton to silk and making designer clothes out of rags.
Now we had to turn garden mice into henchmen.
There was nothing more disconcerting than turning a mouse into an incredibly dumb man and knowing my grade might one day hinge on him following orders.
“You know what’s weird?” Anji asked, yanking my attention back to the present.
“What?”
“So, they issued iron stakes to all of the sentinels assigned to protect fae students. Nothing to anyone else. It’s almost like the Scary Godmother doesn’t care about magician charges. She’s only going after the ones with fae caretakers.”
“Yeah, I noticed. I swear, I think she’s been around Sharon twice.”
“Good thing you’ve put so much love into Sharon already. It’ll be ridiculously hard for her to sway Sharon into doing dumb shit. How’s Pilar doing? I haven’t seen her around school much.”
Pilar had met her new charge this week, a young doctor destined to perfect fetal surgery and improve survival rates for children requiring life-saving measures in the womb. She had to help him get through his general surgery residency at a local hospital, and since Liadan’s ward also worked at the hospital, they carpooled together with their sentinels. They were both putting in lots of extra hours to catch Pilar up, and neither Sai, Holly, nor Holden minded. Pilar had a great sentinel.
“She’s great and totally adores her new charge. He’s an awesome guy. You know, you can always come over and hang with us, right? You never come to our place.”
“I know… I just wasn’t sure Pilar was okay with the rest of us, you know? You know how people are nice to your face, but when you’re gone...”
“Oh, Anji, no. I mean, she was sort of uppity about stuff last year, but… a lot of that crap was her doing what she thought was expected of her. I, uh, actually told her to get over herself and be who she wanted to be, not the person her folks wanted. It’s not like they’re standing over her shoulder now.”
“Good to know. But what is she going to do if they spontaneously show up and see she’s cool with non-fae?”
My brows squished together. “I dunno. Never thought of it.”
“I wonder what they thought about her losing a charge.”
I paused in my tracks, uncomfortable with discussing Pilar behind her back, but even more disturbed that she hadn’t mentioned her parents once. “I don’t know. I mean… she hasn’t mentioned it.”
Pilar had taken me and Liadan home with her to Madrid over spring break a few months ago, but her father hadn’t been there. The three of us spent the entire week checking out the tourist sites, museums, and dining on amazing Spanish cuisine.
Her parents hadn’t been part of the picture. Now I wondered how often they ever were.
Probably not at all. As far as I knew, they hadn’t even called after she lost her charge.
“Why the sudden interest in Pilar anyway?”
Anji shrugged. “People say things, so I was curious. Anyway, I just didn’t want to like… make trouble by showing up at your place if she doesn’t like shifters. I do want to hang with you guys more, I just…”
“I get it.” A bunch of students passed us by, filtering into the training room for our next class. “Hey, I have an awesome idea. I’ll talk to Lia and maybe we can all get together Saturday for dinner at our place.”
Anji’s eyes brightened. “Yeah?”
“Sure, why not? We’re long overdue for a get-together. I’ll even cook.” She stared at me. “Fine, I’ll ask Lia to cook, if she’s willing.”
“All right, I’m in. Just shoot me a text when you detail it all out, okay?”
“Great, will do
.”
The idea of bringing my closest friends together for something other than studying brought a smile to my face and a pleasant buzz. Happy, that’s what I was. A shame a fae couldn’t gather up faerie dust from themselves, because if we could, I’d have a pile to add to my Dream Box.
With my mind set on how best to approach Lia with my idea, I followed Anji into class.
Professor Atkins, a scrawny little battlemage who didn’t seem capable of firing a shotgun without being blown away like a dandelion seed, taught our surveillance course alongside Coach Willis. The room we used resembled a warehouse—a huge empty space with high ceilings and lots of catwalks. They could change the room on a whim using illusion magic and what I could only describe as Hollywood movie sets. Last week, we worked on sneaking through a “house” while the occupants watched television. And the week before that, it had been set up to mimic a mall. We learned to tail someone through a crowd.
Tonight, the huge space had been covered with an illusion of a highway in miniature. Professor Atkins ushered everyone in and gathered us to either side of the track.
“Today, we will talk about mobile surveillance. As sentinels, you will be put in all sorts of situations. Sometimes you might be asked to follow a target.” He snapped his fingers and a car on the diorama glowed blue. “This is our target. This car back here will be our tail.”
One by one, we took turns controlling the tail vehicle. It reminded me of playing with remote control cars as a kid.
“You want to keep distance between you and your quarry. It’s a delicate balance when in town. You need to stay far enough back to remain unnoticed, but close enough not to lose them through a light.”
“But our fae wards can glamour the car,” someone said.
Coach Willis crossed his arms over his chest. “You won’t always have a fae with you, or a mage with the power to cloak a car long term, which is why you need to learn this method.”
It made sense to me. My turn came up, and I took control of the car. Professor Atkins changed the illusion from a highway to a city block and ran me through a few drills.
“No, no, wait until the car is farther up the block before you pull out,” the mage chided.
Outside, the clocktower chimed the one-o’clock hour. Our professors finished up with a short lecture, and twenty minutes later, class dismissed.
“Ugh, I’m starving.” Anji shifted her backpack up on her shoulder and steered us down the path toward the student center. “I hope they have burgers on the line today. I could eat, like, three.”
“Psst. Hey, Anji, did you hear about Sheldon?”
Anji and I both swiveled our heads toward our fellow classmate, a raven named Cole. He moved to keep step between us.
“Sheldon… Wolf, right? I haven’t seen him this year,” Anji said.
The name rang a bell, and then it hit me. Sheldon had been one of the students at the Hidden Court meeting last year.
“That’s because he was one of the students who was Bound end of last year after the Carmilla thing.” Cole’s gaze flicked to me, and then he continued, “Anyway, I heard from my sister that he was found this past weekend out in Rockford, dead.”
“Damn,” I said. “Accident?”
“That’s the thing, no one knows. They got it down as unknown causes, because they can’t figure it out. He was at some farmstead and—get this—there were three bodies there with him. All of ’em ravaged. Police thought it was bath salts until the coroner ID’d him and he popped up in their system as a Talentless.”
Anji whistled. “Wow. How’d your sister find out?”
“She’s working at the field office out there.”
“And you’re just offering this juicy tidbit for free?” It didn’t sound like good raven politics to me.
Cole huffed. “Yeah, well, I owe Anji a favor.”
“More than one.” Anji grinned, leaned in, and kissed his cheek. From the way Cole’s cheeks flushed and his eyes brightened, I had a feeling he’d have given her the information for free. “You’re the best, Cole. Catch you later for a pool rematch?”
“You’re on.”
I waited until he moved off before sidling in close enough to bump our hips together. “What was that?”
“Nothing. We’re just pals.”
“Uh-huh. And pigs fly.”
“Shut up. Anyway, what do you think of Sheldon’s death? Sort of weird circumstances, isn’t it? I mean, once you’re Talentless, you can’t shift, so it’s weird that he died while…” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “So gross.”
“There has to be more to the story, because nothing about that makes any sense. Do any of the shifter senses remain after they’re Bound?”
Anji shook her head. “Once you go Talentless, you lose your sense of smell, your taste for hunting fresh meat, everything.”
“So, if he was no better than a human, what the hell made him resort to cannibalism?”
The question sent a cold trickle of dread down my spine and lingered with me throughout the morning long after our breakfast hour.
* * *
By the time I finished my International Magical Policy midterm, I wanted to crawl into bed and never get back out, but there was still history to deal with. Taking a written exam after a long night of sentinel classes sucked. My essay portion of the exam was mostly me babbling in written form.
“Let’s get some coffee,” Lia suggested.
“A small one for me, or I’ll never get to sleep afterward.”
Pilar, coffee snob that she was, wrinkled her nose. “You two go on ahead. I’m going to sit in the library and go over my notes.”
Normally, I might have suggested our townhome as a compromise so she could brew up the fancy stuff, but I needed her gone to lay out my dinner ideas with Lia. So I gave her a wave and waited until we split ways on the path. Liadan gave me a curious glance but, bless her, waited to ask questions until after we grabbed our caramel lattes.
“Something on your mind, Skylar?”
“Yeah, actually. How do you feel about a surprise dinner party for our friends this weekend? I thought maybe you and I could go halfsies on some stuff and maybe you could whip us up an Irish feast. I’d help, of course.”
“I think it’s a lovely idea. You don’t want Pilar to know?”
“I know the ball cheered her up, but I thought this would be a way for us to kinda add to that. Plus, we could feed our shifter pals without her muttering about people eating the stuff she makes.”
Liadan’s warm laughter lifted my spirits way better than coffee. “How many people are you thinking?”
“Anji, Ben, Gabe, Holly, Rodrigo, Radha, and anyone else you can think of. Uh, a lot, I guess.”
“Well then, we’ll be needing lots of meat and potatoes to feed shifters. Do you trust me with the menu?”
“Absolutely. I trust you with anything.”
“Then I’ll text Sai and ask if he’ll drive me to the grocery store tomorrow evening. May as well let him in on the secret and pass an invitation his way, right?”
Thrilled with our top-secret plan, we hurried to catch up to Pilar at the library and found she was none the wiser.
Operation Gang Banquet was on.
18
Becoming a Guardian Angel
The scent of burning meat and singed hair woke me from a nap on the living room couch. I tasted rum in my mouth. Even though I hadn’t had anything to drink, the flavor was as fresh as it would be if I’d been guzzling it in my sleep.
When I dragged in a few panicked breaths, the odor faded, replaced by the corned beef and cabbage Liadan was making in the kitchen since I’d asked her to make something stereotypically Irish.
Was something on fire?
Jolting up to my feet, I spun to face the kitchen behind the couch. “Lia!” My chest heaved, anxiety sending sparks of discomfort down my spine and raising the hairs on my arms, reminding me of back when I used to have nightmares as a kid after Dad let me stay up to
watch scary movies with him.
Lia crossed the room to me in a step. One moment, she was stirring food—the next, she had a hand on my shoulder and a spoon in the other. “Sky, are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Yeah. Bad dream, I think. I woke up thinking there was a fire in here.”
“Ah, grand. I finally cook something for you all and now you’re having nightmares.”
I laughed off the lingering unease and rubbed my face. Pilar’s old grandfather clock said it was just a little after six, and the sky beyond the windows was painted in the watercolor hues of dusk.
Everything was right on time for our big, friendly, Saturday dinner. The pot on the stove was large enough to serve a dozen people. Anji had done me a solid and lured Pilar out of the townhome earlier in the afternoon with a request to help with her wardrobe—and we all knew Pilar couldn’t resist offering up her fashion advice.
“Is it almost done? I’m starving.”
Lia laughed. “About thirty more minutes. I just put the shepherd’s pie in the oven to brown, so you’re welcome to call everyone together.”
“All right. I don’t have Sai’s number. Was he gonna come too?”
“I invited him, but he had plans already. He sent his regrets and hopes we have the opportunity again.”
“Sounds like a plan. Hopefully this goes well.” After digging my phone out of the couch cushions, I sent a group text to Anji, Ben, Pilar, Gabriel, and Radha. Dinner’s on me and almost ready. Come on over.
My phone chirped two seconds later with a text from Radha. Say what?
Lia cooked for everyone. We both paid for it and want all of you to join us.
Ben replied next. Seriously? What’s on the menu? Can I bring a friend?
I grinned. We’d anticipated that. Of course. Gabe can bring Rodrigo with him too.
The Scary Godmother: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 2 Page 17
