She smiled broadly. “So does mine.”
I hesitated then said, “Do you want to come to my tea party on Sunday? Just you, not fifty other people.”
I tensed while I waited for her answer. She walked, focusing on the marble floor beneath our feet. “Will Drake be there?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes.”
“Zach?”
“No.”
“Viney?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Tea parties aren’t her thing.”
“So, just you and Drake?” She looked up at me with something suggestive in her eyes that made me blush for some reason.
“Not if you came.”
She shook her head. “Maybe another time.”
Before the tourney, Zach threw a bundle of black fabric at my head when he came into Lilac Stories. I pulled the leathery, smooth fabric off, the black a shocking statement on the lilac and eggplant floral couch.
“What is this?”
“Not a tea party outfit.”
I stretched the thick fabric and it snapped back impressively. “Are these pants?”
He sighed deeply. “They’ll probably make your butt look huge. Some sacrifices must be made for the sake of function.”
I put the pants to the side, examined the black tank then unfolded the cloak. It was thick, interlined with heating cables so I would stay toasty warm. I looked up at Zach where he stood, leaning against the couch “Why do you want me to go to the tourney and to wear this stuff? I suppose you have shoes somewhere.”
He kicked a box I hadn’t noticed at the base of the couch. “Boots. They’re your size.”
“Okay, here’s the thing. The rich jerk guy is supposed to give the girl some ridiculous ballgown, not black pants and a tank top. A tank top? In November? It’s not even like leather corset and elbow length opera gloves.”
“There are arm length gloves with the boots.”
I stared at him. “Seriously?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
He shifted before he dropped to the couch beside me. “Viney’s trying to be friends with you, but she’s not good at friendship. She’s good at tourneys. You can go and be supportive and she’ll feel like you care about her.”
“So this is all for Viney? Do you have a thing for her?” I punched him in the shoulder and he didn’t even wince. “It’s her, isn’t it? Your secret girlfriend. Are you trying to impress her with your clothier skills? You are. She’d be all, ‘Oh, Zach, eight directional stretch with instantaneous recovery.’ And you could say, ‘For you, I’d scour the earth for the perfect combination of tensile strength and supple mobility.’ And she would say, ‘you’re so delicious I’m going to gobble you up,’ and then you wouldn’t say anything because you’d be dead. Your fantasies are so stupid.”
He made a face at me before he got up and walked off. “You should own black clothes that you didn’t get from Wit.”
“If I wanted black clothes, I know how to use dye. Hey, I’m not done talking to you. You’re giving these to me, not her. She doesn’t do tourneys anymore. Hey, get back here. What time are we leaving?”
He didn’t answer, only slammed his door closed leaving me in a puddle of the most incredible fabric I’d ever touched. I sat there, running my fingers over the pants, thick, soft, warm, flexible, the sleeveless top more of a breastplate with its firm yet flexible material. Pitch would be impressed. I’d made more tourney clothing for Poppy and Pitch than I cared to admit, and this was fabulous. It wasn’t serious performance costume, not when part of the shoulders would be visible.
I dove into the box. I ran my hands over the tall, supple, beautiful boots made out of the same fabric of the pants only a little heavier. They were incredibly practical boots, tourney boots. For a moment I thought I heard the sound of rustling in the wind before I got up and carried the gear into my room. I had some work to do if they were going to be up to the standards of Penny Macaroon Lane.
“Ruffles?”
“Sh!” I focused on the tourney. It wasn’t anything like I’d feared it would be. There weren’t a lot of sound effects, and the fighting was incredibly amateur. I was used to attending pro tourneys and all the madness that entailed.
“It’s just…ruffles? On the boots?”
I elbowed Zach. “Be quiet. What is that girl doing? She’s wide open. Isn’t she going to duck? Nope. That wasn’t even a hard lob. These guys are terrible.” I grinned at him then noticed the way Oscar was looking at me where he sat on the metal bleacher past Zach. “Oscar! Have you seen Viney perform before? I bet she’s awesome.”
He gave me a slight nod. “I admire her skills.”
“Yeah? When are you going to ask her out?” I stood and threw my arms up in disgust. The girl had just stood there, letting the other girl light her on fire. “Don’t run! Stop, drop, roll! And maybe, I don’t know, stop sucking!”
Zach grabbed me and pulled me back down to the bench. “Are you trying to get lynched?”
I blinked up at him innocently. “What? Isn’t that appropriate? People are always screaming at the tourneys.”
“Pitch tourneys, sure, but that’s different.”
I leaned close so I could whisper in his ear. “No kidding. Please tell me that Viney doesn’t completely blow.”
He turned so his nose brushed mine and I pulled back, startled at the contact. “She’s good.” He smiled suddenly. “The beginners make her look particularly good in contrast.”
I nodded and sat back, focusing once more on the mess of a tourney below. Suddenly, the girl on fire whirled around, making the fire all tornado until it exploded out in a little puff that knocked the other witch down, her legs sticking in the air. I giggled and Zach nudged me.
“Show some respect, otherwise they’ll put you out there.”
I giggled again. “My hair would go up like a wick.”
He pulled my hood down lower on my forehead. “Naw, it’s flame resistant.”
“I bet it is.” I turned and stared at him. “It feels like armor, casual Friday armor.”
He shrugged and studied the girl out on the field. “That was really awful. Did you see her completely miss her target?”
I looked down and focused on the tourney for the rest of the evening. It got better. Much better, particularly when Viney came out in a serious tourney cloak with a flaming skull on the back. Tourney cloaks were more armored tank than clothing. The body would be packed with your personal special effects. Apparently Viney’s was mostly fire.
“Woo! Go Viney! Viney! You’re so cool!” I yelled then reached past Zach to pat Oscar on his shoulder. “Isn’t she cool? I bet you really want to date her. You should ask her out. She loves to, uh, do stuff.”
Zach pulled me back down and whispered, “Do stuff? Seriously, stop talking. Viney doesn’t like distractions. You’re going to piss her off.”
I nodded and beamed at him. “Sure,” I whispered. “Not another word.”
Viney fought three girls and it was very pretty, swirls of cloaks mixing with dark red smoke, and very flashy hurters with delayed timers and multiple fuses. It was really quiet except for the exploding hurters, the screams of witches, and every once in a while, Viney’s cackling laughter. She made a particularly beautiful throw and I broke into spontaneous applause. She whirled to glare at me, the weight of her stare beneath the rim of her low pulled hood very ominous.
“Penny, that’s her warning. You need to stop.”
I turned to smile at Zach. “Do I? I suppose that depends how you define need.” I stood up and cupped my hands around my mouth. “Throw the ball, hurl the ball, soooo far! Light it up, burn it down, tooooo the ground!” Zach was yanking on me, but it seemed to be from far away. “Who’s the best witch around, it’s Viney, Viney! Up the stairs, down the hall, she’ll make you, fall, fall, fall!”
Viney screamed and moved in this rapid whirlwind, ending the fight too quickly to really build up well. She crouched on the last girl, staring at me with dark, dark eyes
. I could feel the darkness in them. It called me to come and play. I hadn’t played in so long.
Zach stepped in front of me, meeting my eyes with his. “Penny, I’m carrying you out now.” He threw me over his shoulder, gouging my stomach with his bony joint. He moved fast, trailing through the black-cloaked witches until we were out of the tourney stadium and out on the field. He set me down and stalked off towards the school, leaving me standing there, clenching and unclenching my fists.
I started after him but hadn’t taken three steps before he whirled around to face me. “How can you be afraid of cars, but not of Viney? She would have ripped you apart.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I thought you wanted me to go so you could see what happens when you throw a penny into a barrel of witches. After all, if I’m threatened, maybe someone dark and dangerous will come and rescue me, and you can ask her to autograph your heart.”
He grabbed my arm. “And what would happen to Viney?”
I blinked at him. “You should have thought that through. I didn’t want to go.”
“But you did, and then you heckled all the players. Your behavior is irrational.”
I laughed and dodged around him, heading home. “You have no idea.”
That night, after I got to my room, I stood in front of my mirror, staring at my reflection. I’d put a row of ruffles down the center of the shirt, and little pink bows on the knuckles of the gloves, as well as ruffling the seams of the boots, but still, it wasn’t me. Was it? Sometimes it was hard to remember exactly who I was. I took off the exquisitely crafted clothing, put it in a pail and lit it on fire. I watched it burn. Poppy liked to watch fire until it turned to ashes and blew away. I rifled in my trunk for the little cask tucked in the corner and threw a few pinches of pink powder in the pail. It made the smoke swirl pink and silver with splashes of gold. So pretty.
Pitch wouldn’t like me burning such a beautiful suit.
The next morning, I went to breakfast in the dining room, but no sooner had I sat down with my stacks of pancakes, bacon, sausages, and everything else fatty, unhealthy and full of calories, than Zach sat down and ate a slice of bacon. Off my plate.
I snarled at him, my fork in my fist. I would stab his face if he did that again, forget about his hand. His face already had a slash across it that was still raw and angry red. As I watched, it faded into smooth skin. I swallowed hard and focused back on my hash browns. Suddenly, they didn’t look so appetizing. I ate anyway, determined to make a dent, like the dent Pitch had put in Zach.
She’d been angry about the suit. That’s what he wanted, a Pitch reaction. Zach got what he wanted. It didn’t have anything to do with me. I never should have accepted the outfit, but hello, it was cool clothes, and I’m a girl and I like clothes. A lot. I ate steadily while Zach sat there, staring at me.
“You burned it?” His voice was low, deceptively soft.
“That’s not who I am.”
“But, you burned it?”
I smiled sweetly as I stabbed his hand with my fork. He winced in surprise, looked down at my tines, not quite breaking the skin. “Your crush is super cute, but I want you to stop using me to flirt with her. I have my own issues. If you give me clothes, it had better be because you think I’d like them, not because she would.”
He studied me for a minute. “You did like them.”
I pulled away and stood, abandoning the rest of my breakfast. “You’ve spoiled my appetite.”
He grabbed my wrist and leaned close, whispering in my ear. “You’re not so different from her.”
I froze before I twisted out of his grip and left the room, hands shaking. I was halfway to Lilac Stories when Viney found me and linked her arm with mine.
“We’re going to the gym and you are going to work out until you can’t walk.”
“Excuse me? Why?”
She gave me her fiercest glare, the short girl with a pixie cut looking super scary and tough girl. “Because you’re an idiot and you’re going to get yourself killed. You have no sense of self-preservation. I would have challenged you if Zach hadn’t dragged you out.”
“I would have respectfully declined.”
Her eyes widened and she stopped for a moment. “You can’t decline.”
“Respectfully decline. I can.”
“But… but it’s humiliating!”
“So is life in general. Zach is trying to starve me to death. He’s been stealing all my bacon. I’m going to investigate turning him into a newt. Or a puppy. Which do you think would irritate him more? A puppy would be super cute, but Señor Mort would kill it.”
She shook her head. “You’re impossible. You missed the chance to see Witley go up against your friend, Rhoda.”
“Who?” I frowned at her.
She rolled her eyes, angrily smeared with black kohl. “Your little fangirl. Blond hair, weird shirts, that one. She didn’t used to be so weird, but apparently you’re influence is spreading.”
“Oh, the chem girl. She thinks I’m dating Drake. She thinks the Zach thing is weird.” It was weird. He shouldn’t be giving me clothes and I shouldn’t be wearing them. I shouldn’t be on pretend dates with him and clinging to him during horror movies. I should be doing that with my future husband.
My stomach clenched at the idea of dating another mage. I stopped walking and wrapped my arms around my waist. I had to stop putting my stress there. Where else should I put it? I shook my head and walked after Viney.
She worked me until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t walk then kept me working after that. When she finally got tired of torturing me, I was lying in the sauna, limp and aching, when a girl in a towel came in through the heavy wood and glass door, dumped a cup of water on the hot rocks and sat down beside me in the swirls of rising steam.
“I saw you last night.”
I groaned. “Was I awesome, or what?”
“You were clearly challenging Viney.”
I turned my head because I knew that voice. The girl was the ballet girl, the one with the neat bun. Her dark hair was not a neat bun, but down in wet strands on her shoulders.
I shrugged, sort of, but since I was lying on the warm wood slats, I wasn’t really in a position to shrug. “I was just excited to see her play.”
“Play? Haven’t you ever gone to a tourney before?”
I stared at her for a long time. Her posture, her form, she had to be one of the girls in the heavy tourney cloaks who Viney had freaked out on thanks to my cheering. “Did you fight Viney last night? Why were there three girls against her? It doesn’t seem fair.”
She frowned. “Viney is a really excellent competitor.”
“That wasn’t a competition.” I sat up and wiped a drop of water off my chin. “Viney doesn’t need more opponents, but better ones. Why didn’t she fight Wit?”
She perched on the edge of the bench and smoothed down her towel. “Witley doesn’t challenge Viney.”
“But for the sake of improvement, the best competitors must fight each other. That’s the purpose of having competition, so that you can improve, push yourself to that next level of excellence. It’s not fair for you to fight three on one with two other witches instead of fighting your own battle, one-on-one to develop your skills. You’re only a freshman, and you’re already quite good, so you should be pushing yourself so that by the time you’re a Señor, you can be serious. Do any witches ever go pro from here?”
She stared at me, her face blank and confused like she wasn’t used to being blank or confused. “A professional tourney player from Rosewood? I don’t know. A lot of them keep their identity private.”
I closed my eyes. “Whatever. Tourneys aren’t my thing. I think Viney is punishing me for being so loud and proud. I’m not going to be able to walk tomorrow.”
She made a noncommittal sound and I drifted, kind of dozing, mostly daydreaming about Drake. I was going to go see him tonight, watch him steal the show, see him in nothing but green lights.
&nbs
p; I shouldn’t have burned the black clothes. I was supposed to be a ninja, and all I had was Witley’s thin, black silk cloak, Viney’s old skirt, and a black scarf that I wrapped over my pink camisole like a shirt, securing it with black ribbons.
I went to Viney’s room and knocked on the door. She opened it in a violent rush then stared at me, her own outfit all black jeans and black sweater with a burning skull on it.
“Did your mom knit that? It’s really nice.”
She glared at me. “We can’t spy on Drake in the locker room. The starter’s changing room is unimaginably hard to get into.”
“Hm. I actually would rather watch the tourney. Do you want to go with me?”
She stood there then nodded. “I’m going to cheer for Oscar.”
I grabbed her arm. “Really? That’s wonderful!” I threw my arms around her and gave her a hug. I pulled away while she was still stuck frozen in place, before she could shove me off her. “Do you mind if I cheer for Drake?”
Her eyes went dark and fathomless before she shrugged. “No. You should cheer for him. It will throw him off. I heard that you’re having a tea party with just him tomorrow.”
“It’s not a date.”
She cocked her head. “Why not?”
“It’s a tea party. I’m inviting him for tea. That’s not a date.”
She patted my shoulder. “So incredibly stupid sometimes. You’re going to hurt yourself one of these days.”
Too late for that.
Chapter 30
Mage
I stood beneath the stage, listening to the thumps as bodies hit the wood tourney floor above me. The music throbbed, the beat in time with my heart. Would she really be watching me? I’d missed the Makiss tourney thanks to a group of Chess players and my own temper, but I’d heard all about it from Oscar.
Oscar wasn’t the most voluble mage, but Pete knew how to pester information out of people, and I knew how to listen to their conversation in the lab while I struggled to get a colored light that was the precise shade of luminous green I wanted.
I smiled at Oscar where he stood in the long shadows beneath the stage with me. A flash of gold through the stage’s cracks announced Ian’s arrival to the adoring students of Rosewood. The roar of the crowd joined the throbbing bass until I was filled with the sound, vibrating molecules that were as magic to me as anything else.
Dread Delight: Rosewood Academy for Witches and Mages (Darkly Sweet Book 2) Page 28
