Damn, they didn’t even present me flashy gifts like that.
The box unfolded to reveal the largest tiramisu my dad had ever created, a multi-layered masterpiece of epic proportions. My mouth watered as the aroma of fine Italian espresso spiked with Marsala wafted off it.
We ate like gluttons. Between the paella and the tiramisu, Gabriel curled up on the couch and passed out. I covered him with a blanket then settled on the other half of the sectional.
“You should sleep, too,” Lia said on her way upstairs with Ama. “Big day tomorrow.”
“I will. Gonna crash here on the couch with Gabe.”
“All right then. Goodnight.”
“Night, Lia.”
I played on my phone instead, because the excitement buzzing through my veins wouldn’t allow my overactive mind to rest. Tomorrow, I’d be embarking on a three-day hike into Tir na Nog.
“Sky, take your ass to bed.”
“I can’t sleep.”
Gabriel muttered something drowsily into one of Pilar’s decorative pillows and promptly passed out again. I envied his ability to do that when the best weekend of our college lives loomed before us.
30
Music on the Wind
Gabriel woke me before dawn. We took turns in the shower—not that it helped me wake up at all—then shouldered our packs and met with everyone else at the boundary line. Rodrigo looked wide awake, eyes bright and body thrumming with energy. Meanwhile, I regretted not going to sleep earlier.
Big mistake.
Justin ambled up and passed me a steaming cup of coffee from a huge thermos. Across the way, I noticed Julien passing out the same to other members as they arrived.
“Thanks, man.”
The bearded wolf winked and moved on. Stark took his place a few seconds later with a donut box in hand.
“You guys ready for this?”
Part of me wanted to punch Stark in his pointy nose for being so chipper so early. “We don’t even know where we’re going yet. How are you so excited?”
“That’s half the fun, girl. We never know who won and where they’re gonna pick until we’re ready to go.”
“Club tradition,” Gabriel said solemnly.
I grumbled, much to their amusement.
It took a few more minutes for the other hikers to arrive, Sebastian included. He and Simon approached together, and it took my fuzzy mind a few seconds to realize the latter wasn’t wearing his usual trenchcoat. It was so foreign—so alien—that I wasn’t the only one staring.
“You coming, too, Simon?” Rodrigo asked.
“I thought I’d finally tag along, if that’s all right with the rest of you.”
Sebastian grinned and elbowed his partner in the ribs. “I told him he needed some fresh air away from campus.”
“Sweet.”
The whole club echoed Rodrigo’s sentiments.
Once we’d all been properly caffeinated and dosed with sugared pastries, Rodrigo called us to order for the year-end results. The final tallies came in at a near tie, with Kitania beating out Jada by one point. Even though I knew it was petty, I whooped and cheered extra loud for my fellow fae. Totally worth the dirty look Jada aimed my way.
“Where are we going for our campout, Kit?” Rodrigo asked.
“Windsong Peak.”
Rodrigo let out a low whistle and glanced to his left at Sebastian. The older sentinel shrugged his shoulder, but a grin spread across his face. “Ballsy choice, but totally doable,” he said.
“All right then.” Rodrigo rubbed his hands together. “Looks like we’re going to make a long trek and finish by mountain climbing. Everyone got what they need?”
Unanimous cheers went up from everyone. Since we fae had the Neverspace, we stashed away everyone’s gear and all the food supplies. The campus cafeteria had provided us with enough to make sure no one went hungry if the pickings were slim, but I didn’t think we’d get around to eating it all, because most of the guys wanted to hunt rare faerie game—non-sentient but delicious creatures, of course—while we explored the wilderness.
Our day-long trek took us through places both familiar and new. Once beyond the Twilight Meadow, we crossed the silver bridge spanning the Crystal Gorge and passed into the Garden of Embers.
The sky overhead transformed from star-studded indigo to swirling magenta streaked with golden and purple clouds.
“Watch out for the flowers,” Simon warned.
“Is it true they explode?” Anji asked.
Stark gave her a playful leer and bumped into her gently, nudging her a few steps to the left, toward a crystalline cluster. The red blossoms sparkled like rubies. “Do you wanna get close enough to find out?”
“Ass.”
“Wuss,” he countered.
The flowers didn’t explode, but they shone with an inner light and some emitted puffs of glowing embers into the sky. The delicate sparks floated upward on gentle wind currents, reminding me of fireflies.
My necklace warmed—not in a burning sort of way, but more of a comforting heat. My fingers raised to the glamoured stones, each of them the same deep red as the blooming crystal flowers.
“Whatcha thinking so hard about?” Gabriel asked.
“Huh?”
“You have that look you get, and the little crease right here.” His fingertip skimmed down between my brows. “Means you’re thinking deep thoughts.”
“I think the stones in the necklace came from here. I get this sense of… peace. Like I’m home or something.”
Rather than dismissing my random epiphany, Gabe wandered closer to the nearest flower cluster for a better look. After a minute, he moved back to my side. “Could be. Did you know there’s a tale claiming the Garden of Embers is the birthplace of the first phoenix?”
Both my brows shot up. “Look at you, Mister Lore Nerd. Been reading up on Tir na Nog or something?”
He glanced away and chuckled in the soft, abashed sort of way that told me I’d caught him at something. “I may have been motivated to learn more about the fae. You know, since I’m dating one.”
I leaned in and kissed his cheek.
“All right, break time’s over, kiddos,” Rodrigo hollered out from the front of the group. “We’re gonna have to pick up the pace if we want to reach camp before end of day.”
Leaving the stunning gardens behind us, we ran through golden fields under a pink sky. Stark and Gabriel shifted to their avian forms, so I joined them in the air. We passed over Simon and Anji, but a few seconds later, I spotted Simon jogging alongside Sebastian farther ahead. Then Rodrigo burst into a sprint against Kitania and Catlyn, all three of them racing ahead of the group, only for them to end their sprint at a tree where Simon was leaning.
What the hell?
“Dude, no fair using magic,” Rodrigo grumbled as he took his human shape again. Simon only doubled over and laughed.
The rest of us caught up, Sebastian going from wolf to man and straight into loud bellows of laughter. “Damn, I’ve been waiting for him to pull that trick on you guys all day.”
“Remember how much it used to piss you off when I did it in Central Park?”
One day, I imagined Ben and Holly would be pulling the same stunt with short range teleportation spells.
Eventually, we went from fields to dense forest with a canopy so thick we couldn’t see the sky. Between my wings and Simon’s staff, we had enough light to make our way through. Emerald hills greeted us beyond the tree line, and towering in the distance, Windsong Peak stretched toward the sky like the pale bones of the faerie realm.
The mountain shone like an opal, light pink with cool glints of green, blue, violet, and gold sparkling from the rocky crests. The sky appeared to dance, a perpetual aura borealis shimmering above us.
But more beautiful than that was the music carrying on the breeze.
Celestial harmonies ebbed and flowed, muffled at first but louder the closer we drew to the mountain. Each time the wind picked up, more
notes joined the melody. The music called to me.
And then some poor creature screamed in the distance behind us, absolutely ruining the moment. Sebastian and a gang of the shifters had diverged from the main group while Rodrigo carried the rest of us ahead.
I glanced over my shoulder toward the sound. “Are they all right, you think?”
“Sounded like a cerbul de aur,” Julien said as he moved up to join Gabriel and me. “Good eating, but they scream like a horror movie heroine when they die.”
“Right, ’cause that’s not disturbing at all.”
Gabriel laughed and bumped his shoulder into mine. “You’ll get used to it. Stark and I are hunting leaf-tail rabbits tomorrow from the mountain top.”
“But they’re cute.”
“And delicious,” Julien said. He and Gabriel high-fived.
Boys.
The hunting party caught up to us not long after. One of the bears carried the golden stag they’d taken down draped across his enormous back, while the energetic wolf pack raced back to us.
“We bagged dinner, y’all!” Blaire shouted as he came out of a shift onto two legs.
A small grove near the narrow stream at the mountain’s base became our camp. A couple students raised tents, but most of us stretched sleeping bags beneath the open sky. Gabriel and I claimed a spot on a thick patch of clover.
While the others salivated over their kill, Simon and I ate sandwiches from our supplies.
Tomorrow, we’d climb the third-highest peak in all of Tir na Nog, but for now, our group had earned the night of rest.
* * *
Gabriel abandoned me to hunt with the pack, so I enjoyed eggs and bacon for breakfast alongside Simon. Even Catlyn and Kitania had gotten into the groove by shooting some kind of waterfowl out of the sky with a spike of earth magic, and Julien had wandered off to fish in the stream trickling down from the mountain.
Once the gang was all fed, we packed our camp and approached the daunting mountain. The bears began the ascent in their animal forms, since their clawed feet resembled hands, but the ravens and werewolves remained human for the climb. Catlyn and Kitania struck up a bet to race each other to the top in their feline forms, so I stood back for a few moments and watched the girls leap and dash over the rocks, their black bodies flashes of ebony beneath the tranquil blue and violet sky.
What I loved about the Wild Hunt Club was that our time together over the school year had made us more of a family than an actual club. Skilled climbers like Gabriel, Rodrigo, and Justin helped the rest of us by lending a hand when we were stuck, while Simon pointed out gentle slopes without steep walls. I hiked uphill every chance I had.
“C’mon, Sky, reach. You can do this.” Gabriel crouched above me on the ledge with one hand out, but he may as well have been a mile away. With faith in my legs and all the strength-training I’d put them through, I pushed my thigh muscles to the limit and jumped for him. Our fingers met, and he pulled me up to safety onto a shelf two-hundred feet above the rest of Tir na Nog.
Sure, I could have flown to the mountaintop, but that would have been taking the easy way out. I wanted to climb with the others and test my strength, all with the comfort of knowing that if I slipped, I wouldn’t plummet to my doom.
Rodrigo passed us in his bear form when Julien and I stopped for a break, joined by Sebastian and Simon. Gabriel and Stark took off after each other with a few other ravens in a game of tag, the group of them diving and floating on the wind currents, looking majestic as hell while I poured sweat and guzzled water alongside my fellow fae.
“They look good out there,” Julien muttered. “Meanwhile, I am dying.”
“It’ll all be worth it when you make it to the Mirror Pools,” Sebastian said. “There’s a cave near the mountaintop with the best whitefish in all of Tir na Nog.”
“Are we there yet?” Catlyn whined. Amalia and Jada looked equally as tired.
“Almost,” Sebastian said. “C’mon, guys, this is the last stretch. All we gotta do is get up this final bit here and then you can relax or explore to your heart’s content.”
As far as I could tell, there was no quick way up.
Justin crossed his arms over his chest and peered up at the mountain. “After you, boss.”
Sebastian eyed the steep wall for a few moments before shifting. He charged toward the mountainside, and then jumped at a wide chimney in the cliff face. Somehow, he bounded back and forth between the two walls, making his way up with nimble agility.
At the top, he jumped onto the next outcropping, twisted on his hind legs, and made a death-defying, impossible leap onto a jutting shelf. The group of us watched with our mouths hanging open.
“No way am I gonna be able to do that,” Anji said.
“Yeah… Not even sure if I could,” Blaire agreed. He cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered up at the black wolf looking down at us from above. “Yo! You’re crazy, man!”
A few wolves tried to make the same ascent, but no one made it more than halfway up. Anji didn’t even try, not that I could blame her. Sebastian was just a badass, and by the way Simon puffed out his chest and grinned up at his partner, he felt exactly the same way.
Another two hours of climbing took us to our goal, and even though my arms ached and my legs felt like jelly, I was damned proud of myself for making the climb the hard way.
Pity that cellphones didn’t work in the magical realm. I’d have loved to snap pictures to commemorate the moment, but maybe… maybe I’d learn to paint. Or see if an old-fashioned camera with film would work, which meant returning some day with Gabriel or our friends again.
Gabriel moved up to my side and passed me a water bottle. “Did you want to fish or explore some?”
“Explore.”
He helped me up from my sprawl across a smooth boulder, and together we ventured across the spacious plateau. Small silver flowers grew from cracks in the pale stone, but little else. Sprites whizzed back and forth above us, bright specks of jeweled color against the perpetually twilit sky. Hand in hand, Gabe and I moved farther away from our companions.
The melody in the wind drew me onward.
Hollow channels through the mountain peaks created the various notes for the haunting symphony drifting on the perfumed breeze, much like a pipe organ in a church, but prettier.
“It’s so beautiful from up here,” I murmured after a few minutes of introspective silence.
“Yeah, the view is great.”
Except, a glance at my boyfriend revealed he wasn’t looking out over the colorful landscape of Tir na Nog. He was watching me.
31
Summer is the Next Great Adventure
A lot of our friends and fellow classmates had older siblings graduating in this year’s senior class. I sat in the audience with Anji, since her sister Suzie would be receiving her diploma too. Gabriel lent me his camera—with promises of shunning me forever if I damaged it—to take photos after giving me a two-hour-long primer on how to take shots that weren’t crap.
Despite all the bullshit and stress he’d endured beside me for the past two years, Gabriel graduated summa cum laude. It took all my control to retain my composure and not scream and shout from the audience when he shook hands with the provost. As the rest of the senior class crossed the stage, I realized how many friends I’d be losing—Rodrigo, Amalia, Radha, and Julien chief among them—but I’d also be rid of my rival. Jada graduated with honors too, and I clapped so enthusiastically that Anji snickered and pulled my hands down.
After the seniors filed outside with their diploma cases in hand, I scrambled from my seat to meet Gabriel.
His family would be here. They’d been somewhere in the audience on the upper balcony watching.
The family who no doubt hated me. I took calming breaths, put steel in my spine, and strode from the auditorium to meet them.
Gabriel and Rodrigo weren’t far from the entrance, surrounded by a gang of people on one of the campus paths, though
his mother and father stood out in the crowd like a classy power couple. The raven shifter patriarch towered over his wife, a flawless Latina in a white pantsuit and gold ballet flats.
While I debated whether or not to interrupt, a breeze tousled my hair. Gabe sniffed and glanced toward me, prompting both of his parents to turn too. His older brother—I assumed the guy was his brother, as they had the same glossy, blue-black hair and pale brown eyes—scoped me out. His younger sister appeared to be in high school, and his little brother couldn’t have been more than ten.
I’d have a little brother soon. My own little brother.
When Mrs. Fujimoto and I made eye contact, she spun an abrupt about-face and walked away to speak with the family gathered around Rodrigo.
Gabriel’s shoulders dropped an inch, making me want to shake some sense into her, because her son should have mattered more than snubbing me, whether I deserved it or not.
I dragged in a breath and reached them just as Mr. Fujimoto hugged Gabriel tight and whispered something in his son’s ear.
“But Mom—”
“Needs a reminder,” the elder Fujimoto said, this time speaking loud enough for me to hear. His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. He and Gabriel looked so alike that it was like a glimpse in the future at the ridiculously hot man he’d become when he hit his fifties. “Soon, she’ll remember that you haven’t done anything to forgive.”
“Thanks, Dad.” He straightened and offered his hand to me. I took it and moved to his side, relaxing. “I’d like you all to meet Skylar.”
Gabe’s older brother grinned. “So, this is the troublemaker? Kinda pretty. I see why you dropped Jada like a bad habit.”
“Samuel,” Gabriel gritted out between his teeth.
Heat spread to my cheeks. “I’m not that bad.”
The Scary Godmother: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 2 Page 33
