I chugged out a breath. “Just don’t, I don’t know, read my face anymore.”
“I guess I can try to avoid it.”
“Thanks. I’m Fleur by the way.”
“Knew that already.”
I grimaced. “Let me guess. It was written on my face.”
“Nope. I just knew. Like I said, I was looking for you.”
“You were? Why?”
“Because.”
A long silence followed.
“Still not understanding,” I growled out.
“I knew you were coming to the Academy.”
“Oh.” My shoulders slumped. I guessed I’d wanted him to have found me through magic, which was stupid. “Someone told you.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
If a dragonfly could sound evasive, this one did.
“But, hey—” Alex suddenly darted sideways then spun around to face me. “While it was nice getting to know you, I’ve got to fly.”
Literally.
“You said it,” Alex said.
“I did not!” Ugh.
“You almost did.”
“Why do you have to fly? I mean go?” I’d just met him. I kind of wanted to keep talking to him for a while.
“Someone’s…Look.” Alex dipped a wing, pointing behind me.
Through the bushes, I watched as Alys and Moira settled on the bench I’d been using not long ago. They faced the fountain.
“I’ll see you around then, Alex,” I whispered as I turned back to the courtyard.
No Alex.
I swore, if everyone kept disappearing whenever I turned away, I was going to get a complex.
Sighing, I settled my chin on the stone bench. Funny how I missed the little bugger already. It had been nice making a new friend.
“I’m afraid,” Alys said, her voice reaching through the vegetation between us.
I pivoted back to face them. Couldn’t help it. I had to listen after that statement.
They leaned back on the bench, making the wood creak.
“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Moira said firmly. “While everyone says Stone Selection is scary, I’ve also heard it can be exciting. The best challenge of your life. Enlightening even.”
“For you, that’s how it’ll be. Not for me.” Alys’s shoulders lifted and fell, and she propped her elbow on the back of the bench. “They say you face your worst fear in the arena. You already know what mine is.”
“Your dad can only hurt you if you let him.”
“I don’t know how to stop myself from letting him.” Alys sounded so lost and alone even I had sympathy for her.
Moira’s arms linked on her chest, she turned to fully face Alys. “You stop him by telling him it’s not your fault, that he was wrong to blame you all these years.”
“But it is my fault. I drained her. Killed her.” Cowering forward, Alys buried her face in her hands.
While rubbing Alys’s back, Moira said, “You were a newborn. You didn’t know what you were doing.”
Alys tilted her head to look up at Moira. “What if I did? What if this—me…What if there’s something dark inside me that’s eager to harm others?”
“That’s not true! You’re a good person.”
Shaking her head, Alys snorted. “Sometimes, I feel like, inside, I’m turning into the person I present to the world.”
“You control your actions,” Moira said fiercely. “Don’t be that way if you don’t like it.”
“You think it’s that easy?”
“It’s a front. You use it for protection.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you give people a reason to reject you—the trope mean girl, that is—then you can tell yourself they’re rejecting her, not you. The façade. It protects your inner squishy.”
Alys grunted but her lips quirked up on one side. She wiped her eyes. “Squishy, huh?”
Moira’s giggle slipped out. “You are squishy!”
Moira foisted a hug on Alys, who might’ve struggled but also might’ve, secretly, accepted her friend’s warmth.
“Sometimes, I hate you,” Alys said against Moira’s hair.
They pulled apart and laughed.
“How come you’re not afraid of Stone Selection?” Alys asked Moira.
“Because it’s waiting for me.”
“Your worst nightmare?” Humor shone in Alys’s voice.
“My stone is waiting for me.”
Alys tilted her head, and her words sounded wistful. “What do you wish you’ll find?”
“Not a moonstone because I know you want that for yourself.”
My breath caught. Moonstone…
I was sucked back to the past, to a memory from when I was four or five years old.
Mom took me to the park. While she sat with friends in the shade, I ran to the playground equipment, squealing with joy.
Monkey bars, slides, and the jungle gym. I played on them all. Then the swings. My eyes closed, I glided so high I could touch the sky with my toes. In my own mind, at least.
Dragging my heels in the soft sand, I slowly stopped.
When I opened my eyes, a man stood not far away from me. He pulled something from his pocket and held it out in his clasped hand. A finger on his other hand crooked my way.
Creepy dude alert. No way would I fall for the, ‘want to see my kitty, little girl?’ ploy. I was savvier than that.
But he didn’t look my way again or try to get me to come closer. He sat on the grass and held out his hand, opening his fingers to reveal what he’d pulled from his pocket.
Sunlight touched it and it winked like a billion stars falling across an indigo sky.
Leaving the swings, I crept closer. Closer still. My heart fluttered like a hummingbird caged in my chest. My feet continued forward until I left the sandpit and ventured onto the grass. I stopped in front of him, my eyes sucked into the depths of the flat stone. About two inches across, it was a perfect circle only a pinky’s width thick. Tiny flashes of blue, pink, and purple shot from the milky white surface, reaching toward me.
The beams spoke of secrets. I needed to touch them. Be engulfed by them.
I reached for it…only to have the man clamp his fingers around the stone and thrust it back into his pocket.
He gazed up at me with eyes blacker than an endless, dusky abyss. Light reflected blue off his thick, shaggy black hair. His nose, bumpy and crooked off to one side, hung above his thin lips that twitched up on both corners. The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, though. It made me shiver.
The wind picked up, flapping my hair around my face. Like a vacuum had been thrust close to my face, all the air was pulled from my lungs. Only when I could see the stone again would I be able to breathe.
“What is it?” I finally asked.
“Moonstone.”
I repeated the word aloud and tucked the name deep inside where I’d never forget.
“Can I see it again?” I asked.
“It’s already yours.”
I held out my trembling hand, grimy from play and sticky from the lollypop I’d eaten as we walked to the park.
“Not yet, Fleur. If you want what it can give you,” he said softly, the words almost grating from his throat. “You’ll have to capture it.” He rose to his feet, towering over me.
For some reason, I wasn’t scared. I knew deep down that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—hurt me.
Mom called my name, startling me, and I turned to yell, “Coming!”
When I looked back, the man was walking away. I watched as he left the park and continued down the street.
I stared until he disappeared from view. Until Mom called again.
While I’d forgotten about the man until this moment, I’d never forgotten the stone.
Moonstone.
“You don’t want a moonstone, huh?” Alys said, jolting me all the way back to the present. Dropping my chin onto my hand I’d propped on the back of the bench, I watched them t
hrough the bushes. “Who wouldn’t want the most powerful stone?”
“Sometimes, it’s better not to capture that much power.” Moira shrugged. “I’ll be happy if I find a ruby.”
“Beautiful stone and a great choice, since it’s second only to moonstone. Better to grab the heir rather than reach for the throne.”
Moira wiggled her eyebrows and laughter stole into her voice. “Heirs get to have more fun.”
“You’d know more about that than me,” Alys said. Her fingers tiptoed along the back of the bench and she watched their movement.
I slunk down behind the bushes, barely peeking, hoping she wouldn’t turn her head and catch me spying.
“I’m twelfth in line for the throne,” Moira said. “Donovan’s first. He’d know more about thrones than me.”
Dark Princeling?
I’d been joking about the meaning of his name. But he was actually a prince?
“Donovan,” Alys sighed out, turning to slouch against the bench as if all the energy had been sucked from her bones. “I wish…”
“I know.” Moira put her arm around Alys’s shoulders. “If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.”
“And if it’s not?”
“I’ll introduce you to the next in line. He’s cute, too.”
Turning, Alys grinned. “Deal.”
“It’s getting late. We should have lunch. And I need to put those books away before something worse happens.”
“I’ll help.”
They rose and strolled past the fountain, heading toward the Academy.
Staring through the vegetation, my gaze was caught by the dragon. Had its head moved to watch them pass? That was impossible.
I jumped when someone grabbed my shoulders.
Chapter 15
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Donovan released my shoulders and dropped down onto the stone slab beside me, facing the satyrs.
Like the other times I’d interacted with Donovan, I was immediately drawn into his web. Caught up in the energy he emitted just by existing. I tilted my head to look up at him and told my heart to stop leaping around in my chest. He’d startled me. I wasn’t short of breath because I was excited to see him.
Just keep telling yourself that, Fleur.
“Why didn’t you call?” I asked, mostly as a joke.
He turned to face me, lifting his leg up onto the bench between us. “I pinged you but you didn’t answer.”
My lips curved down. “Because I’m mindspeakless. Powerless. Skaptiless. And probably also totally useless. Essentially, everything that makes up an outling.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Outlings are cool. And no one expects you to know how to do elemental magic your first week at the Academy. But I’ll teach you a few things if you want.”
“You, huh?”
He tapped his chest. “Yes, me.”
I tried to ignore how my pulse picked up at the thought of private lessons with Donovan. “Why do you think outlings are cool?”
“While a lot of Elites, unfortunately, hold a different opinion—my family included—I know you have a ton of potential.”
Me or outlings in general?
Moira had said his family didn’t approve of outlings… I wasn’t surprised. After my encounter with Ashton and then Alys, it was clear outlings were essentially outcasts. We had to prove ourselves worthy. Sounded like the story of my life.
“What do you mean by a ton of potential?” I had to admit, I was intrigued to hear his thoughts.
“You know nothing.”
Scowling, I slumped against the bench. “I’m not thinking that’s a good thing.”
“Just the opposite. You have no preconceived ideas for how things should be in the magical world. You don’t have a single obstacle to learning. You’re essentially a clean slate.”
“You planning to write on me?”
Reaching out, he teased a strand of my hair, and his voice deepened. “If you let me.”
My heart flipped, and my face overheated.
“Would you be willing to go somewhere with me?” he asked in a husky tone. Standing, he held out his hand.
“Sure.” Independent as I was, I brushed aside his hand and rose under my own steam.
His blue eyes sparkled. “I don’t have fleas.”
“Never thought you did.”
He waved toward the courtyard. “Let’s go this way. There’s a path on the other side, beyond the last satyr.”
I followed Donovan as he strode down the path—not checking out his butt too much, though it was as cute as the rest of him. The trail took a corner and curved up, heading toward the western side of the Academy. Overhead, bright blue birds swooped through the treetops, their sharp cheeps protesting our passage. The wind stirred the upper branches of the willows around us, and the leaves whispered secrets. The ancient wood creaked and groaned, the trees resisting the movement.
“Please tell me we’re not going to the forest.” I swiped away a mosquito before it landed and bit me. Where was Alex when I needed him?
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he said over his shoulder. “This time.”
“Any time.” My voice came out firm, but my gaze was drawn to the dense woods I could just make out to our left. A compelling need to bury myself in the cool darkness nearly overcame me, and I could swear I heard someone—something—calling, come again. Crimping my lower lip between my teeth, I suppressed the urge to give in to the call.
What mysteries waited for me in the forest?
“No forest, huh?” he said. “Don’t you like to have fun? To embrace danger?” A dare came through in his voice.
Grunting, I pushed back a branch before it poked my side and continued to stomp up the path. “The Headmistress said the forest is forbidden. I’m not interested in being kicked out of school.”
“Fair enough. Me, either.”
“Yet you implied you go into the forest.”
“I do.” He chuckled as he kept striding forward ahead of me.
“Why?”
“I have to.”
Another vague answer. I could press for more but I had a feeling he’d be as evasive as he was about jumping off the roof.
We left the path and the woods behind and walked out onto a mown lawn with the Academy looming ahead on our right. A tiny bridge rose up and over the moat, ending at a smaller side entrance with an intricately forged steel door.
“I go into the forest whenever I can sneak away,” he said almost reluctantly. “It’s peaceful. Welcoming.”
“I’ve felt that, too,” I said with a hushed voice and my own version of reluctance. I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about the voice calling to me, let alone my overwhelming urge to sink myself into the endless darkness.
His half-smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, as if he remained guarded, sharing only a fraction of himself while holding back the best parts. More secrets? “This may sound strange, but I can be myself in the forest.”
“Why not here?” We walked up and over the tiny bridge and approached the steel door.
“Expectations.”
“Of what, Dark Princeling?”
“Someone’s been talking.”
“Only stating a fact, right?”
Turning to face the forest, he leaned his forearms against the iron rail spanning this side of the moat. To his right, a narrow dirt path curved around the outside of the Academy. “My family…Well, they have my life mapped out for me already.”
“Awesome if you agree with the plan.”
“That’s just it.” He turned stormy blue eyes my way before he shot them toward the forest again. “I have other things I’d like to do instead.”
“Are you talking about abdicating your claim to the throne?”
“Kind of, though not really.”
More vagueness.
“If there’s something you want to do in life and it’s within your power, you should just do it. The hell with what your family wants.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Nothing in life is.” While no one had expectations for my future, I had my own dreams. Impossible dreams, maybe, but if I didn’t try, there was no chance they’d come true.
“No matter what, I know I don’t want the throne.”
I propped my hip against the rail and faced Donovan, pretending to gape at him in horror. Deep inside, however, I shared an inkling of understanding. While I ached to harness endless power, it scared me. A kingdom could be the same. “Who’d turn down a throne?”
“It belongs to my older brother.” Turning, he reached for the door and pulled it open. “Fae willing, he’ll hold onto it for the rest of my life.”
“While you’ll…”
His grin sunk through my skin, making me tingle. “Play with weather.”
We stepped inside and I paused to note landmarks. Classrooms on the right, administration wing on the left.
“Let’s grab something to eat,” he said. “We can take it with us.”
At my nod, we went to the coffee shop near the classrooms and got sandwiches and water, and Donovan tossed them into his backpack. We returned to the side entrance where he stopped.
“Where do you want to eat?” While I was enjoying this adventure, I couldn’t beat back my curiosity. Despite my determination to keep Donovan at arm’s length, he kept nudging his way past my barriers.
“We’re going up.” Striding forward, he opened the door marked Stairwell. “All the way to the top.”
“You prefer stairs over elevators?” My legs were protesting already.
“Going down? Sure. Climbing? Let’s see.”
I darted past him. “Race ’ya!”
We flew together, laughing as we did it. Up one flight. A second. Gasping and grunting and elbowing each other playfully. Until we reached the top where I stalled on the third-floor landing and braced my palms on my knees, my sides heaving, my heart more furious than a lion snarling inside my chest.
“I won,” I said as he staggered up the top step and stood beside me.
“You did…not.”
I smacked his shoulder. “Did so.”
Straightening, he said, “Let’s go.”
I peered over the iron rail. “Back down? That was…fun?”
“Outside.” He pointed at one of two doors. The one on my right said Third Floor, and the other said…
Crystal Wing Academy: Book One: Outling Page 12
