by S McPherson
The headmaster purses his dry lips and taps his clasped hands against his chin.
‘Close the door,’ he grumbles at last. Jude obliges. ‘Sit,’ the man snarls.
Steadily, we slip into the chairs.
‘Your faces,’ and he prods a finger in our direction; ‘I don’t know them.’
‘We came for a tour.’ I tug my torn sleeve back over my shoulder, pretending not to notice as Jude leans forward to rest his hands on the desk. ‘The tour guide wasn’t here when we came—’
‘So you thought you’d show yourselves around,’ he scoffs, ‘and then fornicate on college grounds?’
Ice creeps across the desk, spreading from Jude’s fingertips like an infection.
‘We sort of lost our heads,’ I simper.
‘You lost more than your heads,’ and Headmaster Burns slams his fist down on the desk, and I hope he keeps it there. For this plan to work, for Jude to freeze him, the Headmaster has to stay in contact with the desk. ‘Well, you’ve lost any chance you might have had of coming here. You’re lucky I don’t telephone every bloody college in the area and tell them about you two. You…’ He gawks at his hand, eyes wide, as ice creeps over his fist and solidifies. He tries to pull it away, gritting his teeth, veins bulging in his neck, but he’s trapped. I think he might scream but he only gapes at Jude in open-mouthed horror. ‘Coltis,’ he breathes, and for a second I’m stunned to hear that word coming from his lips.
Then it occurs to me that Headmaster Burns was around in the glory days of Counterpart Conventions and trading. He must have witnessed it all, magic on earth. I swallow a stab of envy and longing. Perhaps Headmaster Burns could become an ally in all this, and clearly Jude must be thinking the same, for he remains seated, warily watching the man.
‘Your kind aren’t supposed to be here anymore,’ Headmaster Burns marvels, his eyes staying fixed on Jude. He tries to appear at ease but I note how his Adam’s apple shudders when he gulps. Still unsure about the man, we simply wait for him to go on. ‘There are laws and people put in place to keep you out.’ His voice rises slightly and Jude perches on the edge of his seat, as if preparing to leap out of it at any second. ‘Your kind’s not natural. Demonic they told us. Evil.’ With each accusation, Headmaster Burns’s voice grows louder and louder. Before he can alert anyone, Jude lunges across the desk.
‘Sorry about this,’ he says as he grips the headmaster’s arm. Just as the man opens his mouth to yell, he freezes, a statue of ice locked in a silent scream.
I release a trembling breath. Jude looks over his shoulder at me from where he’s sprawled across the desk.
‘Shall we?’
Eager to get this over with, I slip out of my seat in one fluid motion and am at those gleaming cabinets, the ones that have been demanding my attention from the moment I sat down. I twist the key in the first draw and slide it open. Grey folders and white tabs greet me, a different name listed on each. I pull one out as Jude locks the office door.
The first sheet in the folder contains details: name, birthdate, siblings and such, and to which an up to date photograph has been paper-clipped. I grin at Jude. ‘The motherload.’
I don’t know how long we sit there, rifling through the folders, but my eyes eventually glaze over, my neck feeling sore from having stared down for so long. Then Headmaster Burns starts to thaw.
I study the list of names I’ve scrawled on a piece of paper; about thirty. Jude has a similar list of his own, if not longer.
Stretching, I say, ‘Let’s go.’
‘Weary-eyed already?’ Jude teases through a yawn.
I slip the folder I’d been struggling through back into its spot in the drawer and get to my feet. Jude does the same, and together we leave the office.
The receptionist jumps, seeming to have forgotten we were in there, then frowns.
‘He thought it better we do detention with him,’ I say, in way of explanation.
‘Boring as anything,’ Jude gripes.
The receptionist nods, seemingly satisfied with our misery, and we take that as our dismissal, quickly leaving for the courtyard.
It’s empty when we get there, save for two student imposters: Sakiya and Nathaniel.
‘Finally,’ Nathaniel exclaims, getting to his feet. ‘Did you get their names?’
I nod, my gaze searching the vacant grounds and peering through the windows. ‘Where did they all go?’
‘Class,’ Nathaniel shrugs.
‘Interesting,’ Jude muses. ‘I didn’t think this lot actually went to class.’
‘Getting them out isn’t going to be easy,’ I say.
‘We don’t have to get them out,’ Nathaniel states simply. ‘They’ve invited us to join them tonight for a bit of poker,’ and he waggles his eyebrows at me.
‘You genius.’
‘Eight o’clock at Bongos. The whole gang will be there.’
TELL OF ME
Milo stalks around his new bed chamber, though it may as well be his prison for all the freedom the Meriamtess has offered him. Merely poking his head into the corridor led to her snarling and ushering him back inside.
Milo sighs and returns to pacing. The room is sparsely decorated, made up mostly of shells, rock and vines. The walls are fashioned from soft pink coral and the bed is a slab of weathered grey stone that appears to have a fossilised octopus as its pillow. Milo shudders. If he was unsure before, he’s now certain he’ll not be staying the night. One dance with the creature at this ball, maybe two, and then he’ll be gone like a grain of sand in the wind.
His eyes find his reflection in the pearlescent shimmer of a large scallop shell propped against a wall. Wispy green plants drape over it, spilling down its sides and trailing across the sandy floor. He tugs at the suit the Meriamtess thrust at him, one she seemed to have tucked away for such an occasion. He guesses it’s a traditional ensemble of the Rijora and what Rijjletons wear to these sorts of events. It’s made of thin fabric that billows with the touch of water. The shirt is cream with small shells as buttons and an ostentatious sea urchin puffs from one shoulder. The trousers are also a pale shade of cream, elastic at the ankles and slit along both sides, wafting freely to give frequent flashes of his bulging calves and thighs.
He frowns at not only the ridiculous attire but at how his body has changed, muscles sprouting all over him like fungus. He’s briefly reminded of his father, the way his body favours chiselled boulders, but shakes the memory from his mind. Now is not the time. If Milo has his way, the time will never be. His father is in his past, and the longer he stays there, the better.
There is a clinking clatter as the Meriamtess who he learnt is named Pessa, pushes her way through the curtains of shells acting as a doorway to the chamber.
Pessa stops, her eyes roving from his head to his toes.
‘Perfect,’ she hisses, and her sapphire teeth shine. She’s pulled her thin strands of red hair into a sparse bun on top of her head, held in place with the same flamboyant sort of urchin that hangs from Milo’s shirt. Two knobs are her ears, like the knotted ends of balloons, studded with gleaming stones. She’s hung a necklace of weed around her throat and a canary-coloured seahorse dangles from it like a jewel, comfortably between her cleavage, and over each breast she’s pressed a pattern of chartreuse petals. Her new arm is clad in bangles fashioned from twisted coral, sodden weeds and who knows what else, winding all the way up. She twirls flirtatiously. ‘How do I look?’
‘Ready to go?’ Milo says. She pouts and shimmies over, her tail dancing, and loops her arm with his. Milo scowls when she snuggles closer.
‘Ready.’
Milo can make out the mammoth castle they’re going to long before they reach it. It stands proud atop a mound of white sand, a vast collection of coral spires, arches and rock pillars. Beams of vibrant light stream from it, slicing through the water like coloured daggers. An immense line of eager partygoers stretches from it, many of the male Rijjletons dressed like Milo, as he’d suspecte
d, only their suits vary in a rainbow of colours from palest cream to fluorescent pinks.
‘The Rijalem Palace,’ Pessa announces. ‘Home to our erlings and fulings.’ She must have noted Milo’s bemused expression for she adds, ‘Those from the earliest of our beginnings and those of the future to our end.’
The path leading up to Rijalem Palace is a winding scope of flat sand that glistens like tumbled glitter. Along its edges runs a multi-coloured vista of sea whip and grass. The Meriamtess have done themselves up for the night, but Milo discovers that his own date is one of the less fortunate looking ones. Some have various shades of pale or olive skin, smooth and inviting. Their smiles are bright and their hair falls in rivulets down their spines. Their wings, though small in width, are strong and flutter behind them like those of pixies. And they have male escorts, equally as handsome despite their swirling rainbow eyes.
‘Wouldn’t you have rather come with one of your own kind?’ Milo asks with genuine curiosity.
His date scoffs. ‘I am far above a Meriamton. They do not yearn for the joys I know we are missing.’ As if to emphasise this, she runs her fingers down the length of Milo’s arm. He shifts uncomfortably and she cackles, ‘What use is a goal if one does not aim for it? Mine is to touch. Such a wonderful sensation.’ And at last her fingers slither from his skin.
Milo thinks to retort, gritting his teeth on the insults slaking his tongue, but she has the gethadrox, he reminds himself.
The line seems endless. Milo cricks his neck as they shuffle along at a snail’s pace. His feet start to cramp in the funny narrow shoes and the longer they wait the more curious Pessa’s new hand becomes. She runs it through his hair, then over her own, comparing the textures. Then she prods at the shells on his shirt, wincing at the stab of their points but then delighting in the pain. When she asks how to undo his buttons, Milo firmly grips her by the wrist and slides her hand back to her side.
‘I am not your pet,’ he cautions. His tone is even and he looks straight at her. He feels hot, as though flames writhe inside him, and takes a steadying breath before gruffly turning away. He wonders if his savage rage is as a result of the Meriamtess’s advances or of his father. I am not my father, he tells himself. He remembers his father’s visit not long before, to Blade Upon Blade, and knows all too well what the man had thought he might find. He had come to see if his son had turned out like him.
Pessa doesn’t seem to notice or simply doesn’t care about Milo’s agitation. Instead, she squeals as they near the towering arch of blushing coral. Flags marked with the tail of a Meriamtess and the torso and head of a Rijjleton swing from its apex. Shreds of music, light and tinkling, sail down to them as softly as snowflakes. Milo tenses but Pessa simply sways, her tail whipping in time to the tune.
An array of eyes, belonging to both the Meriamtess and the Rijjletons, take Milo in as he passes through the archway and enters a world of dazzling jewels and haunting melodies. He gasps when he steps into the ballroom, an impressive structure, boasting a floor of polished sandstone and walls of abalone, creating a pattern of drizzling greens, purples, silvers, and golds. Striking Fibonacci spiral shells twirl from the ceiling with orbs of light tucked into their pockets, illuminating the chamber in a glow as soft as daffodils. At the far end, he spies a band of well-dressed Rijjletons as they strum and blow on instruments made of shell and reeds, a crowd dancing before them.
Pessa leads him further within, where Meriamtess and Meriamton, draped in gossamer fabrics of peach and mauve, swim through the gathered guests, balancing trays on their heads upon which are carried pastries or flutes with a butterscotch liquid bubbling inside them.
Pessa swipes one from a passing Meriamton who gasps at the sight of her arm and flitters away, though he constantly gapes back at her over his wing. She takes a gracious swig of the drink then holds it out to Milo. He shakes his head.
‘I used to have to drink and eat like an animal,’ and she glares at her fellow Meriamtess and Meriamton, who lap at their flutes and peck at their pastries suspended in the air by magic. ‘Humiliating.’
‘It is natural for your kind,’ Milo points out.
Her eyes flash as she turns them on him, and her feathers ruffle. ‘It is not natural for me. Drink.’ She thrusts the flute at Milo. Again, he shakes his head. She slips closer, her lips a hairsbreadth from his. ‘Drink. Or I shall put something else in your mouth.’ Her tongue skirts along her teeth and she seems disappointed when Milo whisks the glass from her grip and downs its contents.
It’s a thick, fiery liquid that globs down his throat like spiced honey. Immediately, he feels the effects, standing straighter, his mind clear and senses heightened. Pessa clutches his hand and Milo becomes awestruck at the sensation now ripping through him. Her new skin is inexplicably soft and he can feel every line on her hand like a thread. She sighs and closes her eyes.
‘The Kizar fluid enhances one’s senses,’ Pessa explains, running her fingers along his, her eyes still closed. Milo cannot bring himself to move, her touch too intoxicating. ‘It makes the sound of music slip into our veins and flow with the fluidity of our blood.’
Milo closes his own eyes, gasping as his veins throb, swelling with the onslaught of cresting notes and preening tunes.
‘The pastries and puddings taste like gifts from a far-off paradise, and we Meriamtess and Meriamton feel our wings as if they were shields of flames at our backs. And when we fly…we are unattainable. A Rijjleton smells scents ordinarily masked, and when they touch,’ Pessa grips Milo’s bicep, his eyes shooting open at the rush that thrills through him, ‘they feel everything as if for the first time, exploring and rediscovering the delights of something soft,’ and then then she tangles her fingers in his hair, ‘or hard.’ She pushes her rock-solid body against his, but Milo doesn’t miss the firm pressure of her chest, softer than the rest of her, sinking in against him. ‘Hot or cold.’
Another Meriamton swims past and Pessa snatches yet another flute. This time Milo doesn’t notice if this Meriamton also gapes at Pessa’s newly acquired limb. He’s too intoxicated by the harrowing melody sating his veins, the smells filling his nostrils and burrowing into his chest. The sights of the ballroom grip him: the colours, and the laughter of the guests rippling from them like tangible strips of ribbon. But most of all, he’s consumed by touch: the way Pessa fingers his palm or slides herself across him as they dance—when he started dancing, he couldn’t say—and the way the water cocoons him, patting and caressing him into euphoria.
‘Drink,’ Pessa purrs, pressing the second flute to his lips, and this time he does, desperate to maintain this intoxicating state. He glugs down the Kizar and Pessa releases the flute. They watch as it floats away, trailing a stream of frothing bubbles and refracting the lights in the room like wisps of coloured smoke.
Milo laughs and takes another flute from a passing tray. ‘Drink,’ he growls, holding the glass to her mouth. He notes how cool and slight the glass feels in his grip, then watches, fascinated, as Pessa drinks, the liquid seeming brighter as it drizzles into her mouth. He can almost hear the liquid slap against her cheeks and slip down her throat. She giggles and the sound rings through him like a gong. He throws his arms around her waist, crushing her to him, and then they’re spinning, iridescent grains of sand seeming to shower around them as her tail whips wildly at the floor. Milo is lost, seeing nothing clearly but feeling everything perfectly, like a child: amazed and encumbered by this new reality.
Pessa throws her head back and he burrows his face in her neck, but then scowls and snatches his face away. She smells…wrong. Like something half-formed and parasitic. No doubt noting his hesitation, Pessa tiptoes her fingers inside the slits of his trousers. He sighs, and before he can react, she pours another flute of Kizar down his throat. Milo furrows his brow, feeling as if he’s swallowed himself, but something niggles at the edges of the frenzy the drink has created.
Being human, and a handsome one at that, it isn’t long before Mi
lo’s attention is robbed of him, dragged from Pessa to Rijjleton maids and other eager Meriamtess. Pessa glowers and tries to bat them away but Milo dances with them all willingly, relieved to be free of Pessa’s clutch though he cannot fully understand why. He has forgotten something, that he knows, but he does not know what.
Another flute of Kizar seems to appear in his hand and smirking at the much fairer Meriamtess before him, Milo brings it to his lips.
‘Don’t drink,’ someone whispers from a distance, but Milo hears it as if they were right beside him. He pauses, the rim of the glass at his mouth. He’s stopped dancing now but still sinks into this well of explicit bliss. His eyes find Pessa’s and she’s glaring at him, but she isn’t the one who spoke.
‘Put the glass down,’ the hoarse voice instructs.
Milo blinks and allows the Meriamtess in front of him to lap from the flute he holds. She nudges at him to join her as she dances. She doesn’t smell wrong but something about her leaves him hollow. Milo lets the drink glide from his fingers, the Meriamtess looking disappointed, and Milo wonders at his own desire to be free of all these gawking females. What has he forgotten? As he pushes through the crowd, searching for the one who spoke, he knows he’s forgotten something important.
‘By the band,’ the same voice murmurs. Milo’s gaze jolts that way, and through the sea of gaiety he spies the source of the voice, a face he knows quite well: Boonov, a guard from Thornton High. Though his other senses fade, dulling back to being ordinary, Milo’s common-sense returns and he rushes over to Boonov before Pessa notices where he’s gone.
‘What are you doing here?’ Boonov hisses once Milo’s beside him.
‘Long story,’ Milo grumbles. ‘Can you get me out of here?’ and he glances around, surveying the hall for Pessa, but can’t seem to see her.
‘I can’t. Only Rijora can travel without Tranzuta’s device. And my guess is that yours is with that wench who ploughed you with Kizar.’
