It seemed that whenever he came over to the bench where Abby was working, Spiridon’s wings gleamed and flashed especially brightly, and he oozed sexuality. It wasn’t an obvious and repulsive display. There was nothing blatant in his demeanor that one could call creepy or inappropriate, but it had not been lost on Radella that, in Spiridon’s eyes, there was no brighter light in his class than Abby Hall. A fae never really got the chance to date – or, more accurately, have sex with – a human, so Spiridon saw Abby not just as a pretty young woman, but also as a pretty novelty.
On Abby’s part, Spiridon was interesting in that he was the first male fae that she had seen up close and been able to interact with. He was undeniably attractive – his natural good looks accentuated, in Abby’s eyes, by his keen mind and ready wit – but Abby could only appreciate that as far as it went. With the loss she was currently feeling for Drake she had no room in her head to look at Spiridon sexually. Not yet, at least.
Radella, intent on not being outdone or overlooked in any way by Abby, was flirting outrageously with Master Spiridon at every turn. She had taken to dressing as provocatively as she could without exciting comment; short skirts, stockings, and low-cut tops were par for the course. She would ask him questions, call him over to her bench to look at her work, giggle and fawn at every witticism he made, come up with excuses to compliment what he was wearing and even touch his wings – the fae equivalent of a tap on the ass.
Radella, noticing within the first couple of lessons that Abby was exerting some strange pull over Master Spiridon, had countered in the only way that she knew: doing everything within her power to embarrass and shame Abby. So far, this had included walking into Abby just before class and ‘accidentally’ spilling a cup of specially brewed coffee over her, which had made her smell like the ass-end of a dead donkey for the rest of the day. Master Spiridon, on entering the classroom, had gagged in disgust at the horrid stench, which had the same sort of effect on Radella’s demeanor as finding out that she had just won the lottery. However, Radella’s victory had been short-lived. Abby, in a stony voice devoid of even a hint of anger or distress, had countered by telling Master Spiridon the truth – something that Radella had not contemplated she’d do. She hadn’t pointed the finger at Radella, hadn’t said that the other girl had clearly brewed up a rank coffee and then purposefully poured it down Abby’s front to make her smell like an open sewer, but the facts would’ve made the situation clear to even the meanest intelligence. Spiridon had given Radella a riled look and then told Abby to go and bathe and take the rest of the morning off.
“Radella, you’ve been reading too many ridiculous novels in which the antagonist embarrasses the protagonist in such a way and the protagonist – feeling bound by some moronic notion of pride – keeps their mouth zipped and suffers in silence,” Spiridon had said as Abby left the room. “But that usually isn’t how things go down in the real world. Consider yourself warned that this sort of juvenile shenanigans won’t be tolerated in my class.”
Another aspect of the students’ lives that had changed was that they were now getting practical experience in being baristas in the foyer of the S.B.A. That is to say, the trainees were getting to go back through the portal that divided the Academy proper from Ravencharm above. Everyone was getting a chance to head up top for a breath of fresh air.
Everyone but Abby.
For some reason that Miss Hightide would not divulge, Abby was not allowed to go to Ravencharm to help as a barista in the café. When Abby asked her why, the mystical leader of the S.B.A. would answer, “There are unknown threats and dangers that make you going up there a risk not worth taking, Abby,” in a thoroughly irritating and enigmatic tone.
Abby was starting to get the impression that somehow she had done something to displease Miss Hightide. Usually, this wouldn’t bother her, but the fact that the leader of the Supernatural Barista Academy wouldn’t tell her what it was that she had done was something that Abby found extremely frustrating.
One day, Abby was moping about in one of the empty classrooms practicing a couple of new recipes – the Fainting Flat White in particular – that Master Spiridon had taught in their last spells class.
Abruptly, the door to the classroom opened and Master Spiridon himself strode briskly into the room with two cups of coffee.
“Ah, Miss Hall!” he said beaming. “Just the woman I was looking for!”
“How’re you doing, Spiridon – Master Spiridon, I mean?” Abby replied.
Spiridon waved his free hand at her. “Don’t worry about the courtesies, Abby. Life is too short and serious as it is. Spiridon is fine.” He pulled up a chair to the bench where she was working and put a coffee down in front of her.
“Would you like a drink? I got this for a colleague, but they had to leave,” he said, sliding the mug over to her.
“Thanks,” Abby said. She needed a little pick-me-up, she realized. She’d been staring at the same paragraph in her textbook for the past ten minutes without taking in a single word. She picked up the mug and took a sip. “Mmm! This is delicious,” she said. “What is it?”
“Just a little blend of my own,” Spiridon said, smiling happily at her reaction. “The chief ingredient is rose petal liquor, but don’t tell anyone.”
Abby took another sip and said, “So what is it you wanted me for?”
“Oh, um, just wanted to see how you were doing with the classes, don’t you know? I haven’t had a chance to tell you this before, but you’re probably the most promising student that I’ve ever taught. You aren’t finding the work too easy, are you?”
“To be honest, I think it’s the perfect level for me,” Abby told him. “It’s nice to be doing something vaguely scientific again.”
“Ah yes, of course.” Spiridon nodded, taking a swig from his mug.
After a moment of silence and some contemplative sipping, Abby said, “Spiridon, I was wondering if you could do me a favor?”
Spiridon, like every sentient male humanoid over the age of fourteen who has ever liked a girl, pricked up his ears at this potential way in which he could perform some service for Abby.
“Of course,” he said. “What is it?”
“It’s just that, for whatever reason, Miss Hightide has decided that I can’t go up top and work as a barista. Do you know why? And, um, do you think that there’s any chance that I could go up there if, you know, you said I could go – even if it’s just for an hour or something?”
Spiridon looked at her levelly for a few seconds, his eyes flicking over her face in an appraising manner, as if the fae were weighing her words. Then he gave her a small smile and looked away.
“No, Abby, I’m afraid I can’t do that. To countermand Miss Hightide’s explicit orders would be a gross overstepping of my authority. As much as I wish to help you, this would be too great a transgression, I’m afraid.”
Abby sighed and her eyes dropped to the desktop, but she tried to keep the bitterness in her voice to a minimum. It wasn’t like it was Spiridon’s fault that Miss Hightide was so weirdly protective. “That’s fine, I guess, but it means that I can’t send a letter to my sister Casey. I was hoping that, perhaps, you could do me a solid and next time you’re out and about in Ravencharm drop this off? Miss Hightide assured me she would let me know when Casey located. I’ve asked repeatedly, but she doesn’t have any new information. And frankly, I’m worried. Plus, I’m positive Casey would also be concerned about my whereabouts. I’m hoping my letter will somehow make its way to her and let her know I’m alright.”
Abby handed over a sealed envelope with Casey’s address in Rotwood Harbor printed on it.
Spiridon took the letter and said, “Abby, I’m sorry, but I cannot do you this favor either. Gods, I’m sorry. You must think me quite useless and spineless to boot!”
He slid the letter slowly back across the desk to her.
“But why?” Abby asked. She felt a welling frustration bubble up from somewhere inside her chest. “W
hy can’t I send my sister one measly letter?”
Spiridon sighed. His hand raised from the desktop and moved, as if he might set it down on Abby’s hand that lay on the letter that he couldn’t post, but then had thought better of it.
“It’s against the rules of the Supernatural Barista Academy for students to send any form of communication to the outside world.”
“What the hell? Why?”
“It’s just that, at this time –” Spiridon began, but cut himself short with a shake of his head. “It’s better that you just know that letters to the outside are forbidden.” He spun his cup of coffee around distractedly.
Abby snorted derisively. “Rules, rules, rules,” she said. “I mean, I get that we’re novices here, and learning a bunch of gnarly new supernatural abilities and what not – but just because the food is good, the people are nice, and the work is interesting doesn’t mean that some people might look at this place as a prison, you know? Like a freaking gilded cage type of thing.”
Spiridon looked awkwardly into his coffee and gave a short little nod.
“Is it some weird prison?”
Spiridon looked at her and shook his head. “No, this place is no prison, Abby. Nothing like that.”
“And I’m not a prisoner?”
“No. You’re not a prisoner. It’s just that you have to understand that the S.B.A. has to deal with, and keep track of, many foul and unsavory things – things that you’re not ready or adequately trained enough to yet know about – and this requires the rules on outside interaction to be monitored quite stringently.”
They continued to drink in silence. Abby found herself staring at Spiridon as he sat sipping his mug of coffee. He was very good looking. Not at all like Drake, who gave the impression of having a heart of gold, but was also capable of crushing you like a grape should you get on the wrong side of him. Spiridon was more refined and elegant, but she thought that he could be just as dangerous as Drake. And there was no denying that the male fae had charisma coming out of his ears.
Abby sighed heavily through her nose and stared morosely into the dregs of her coffee.
Spiridon cocked his handsome head at her, his wings twitching thoughtfully. Abruptly, he stood up, knocked back the last of his brew and said, “You need cheering up, taken out of yourself for an hour or so.”
“What, like a tiny vacation within these walls?”
“In a way.”
Abby raised an eyebrow, and her curiosity piqued despite the sour mood that Spiridon’s double denial of her requests had put her in. “Oh yeah?” she said. “What have you got in mind? Is there a theme park or something down here that I haven't seen?”
Spiridon held out his hand.
“Let me show you,” he said.
There were many corridors and twisting hallways to be navigated in the underground warren that was the Supernatural Barista Academy. As many things as Abby had seen since she had arrived, she had yet to travel farther down than the subterranean lake where she had watched Drake row away, out of the Academy and out of her life. Even that underground waterway, though, had only involved going down a slight slope to get there.
Wherever Spiridon was leading her now was quite a lot farther down than that. He walked her along passages that spiraled down, down, down, until Abby had some idea of how an ant must feel if it set out to walk down one of those potato spirals – the unraveled potatoes on a stick – that she was always seeing food vendors selling on the streets of Rotwood.
These corridors were even more rough-hewn than the ones in the main body of the Academy and, instead of being lit by the warm radiance of many lanterns as the caverns above were, these narrow, rocky halls were illuminated by the fluttering phosphorescent luminosity of dozens and dozens of little –
“Glow bats,” Spiridon told her when she asked what the little creatures were.
“They’re not dangerous, are they?” Abby asked. “They’re not all going to swoop down at any moment and suck all my blood out so that I look like some giant human raisin, are they?”
Spiridon laughed. For a man who spent much of his time looking down his nose at students, he had a nice laugh.
“No,” he said. “I enjoy your company, Miss Hall, but not enough to expose myself to the sort of wrath I’d bring down on my head if I were to take you back as a giant raisin.”
After a twenty-minute descent in which her ears popped, Spiridon suddenly pulled up and turned around so sharply that Abby nearly ran into him. Abby could see in the dim, flickering light cast by the glow bats that Spiridon’s eyes were sparkling with excitement.
“Would it be too hackneyed to ask you to close your eyes and take my hand?” he asked.
Abby narrowed her eyes at him in mock suspicion. “As long as the next thing I hear isn’t your zipper opening,” she said.
Even in the low light of the cute little bats above, Abby thought that Spiridon flushed. She laughed and closed her eyes and held out her hand.
“Excellent,” the fae said. “The revelation is half the fun, you see.”
Spiridon led her down the last bend and they emerged out into a great space – even with her eyes closed, Abby was aware of suddenly stepping out into a void, the sensation of which almost made her stagger.
She felt Spiridon’s fingers under her chin and her head was gently tilted back.
“Okay, Miss Hall, you may open your eyes now.”
“I better be dazzled after all that,” Abby said and opened her eyes.
Her mouth followed suit a moment later.
“Holy goddamn raven-testicles,” she breathed.
Spiridon chuckled. “It is a bit like that the first time you see it.”
They stood in a vast cave that stretched up and out into unseen heights above them, opening out in a massive funnel so Abby felt as if she was standing at the base of an enormous stone tornado.
The cave itself was impressive; however, it was what adorned the walls that left her completely awestruck.
They were covered entirely in waving, pulsating iridescent plants and flowers and shrubs in vast colorful swathes of electric orange and neon green, poisonous red and mesmerizing blue. Trees as thick around as ancient oaks, but throbbing in shades of midnight purple and soothing magenta sprouted from the rocky ramparts like the huge heads of dragons. Smaller globular growths, which looked like almost like cartoon toadstools to Abby’s eyes, pulsated like maraschino-red zits in some crevices, while intricate yet random patterns of interweaving grasses ran across the stony faces like horizontal lawns.
“It’s wonderful,” Abby said, eyes wide, reflecting the myriad colors. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” It was true too. She felt like she’d stepped suddenly into some subterranean coral reef.
“Yes, it’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it?” said Spiridon with a touch of his usual scholarly air. “But if you’ll allow me to, I’d like to show you the best parts.”
“Of course!”
“Excellent. If you’ll just put your arms around my shoulders, then?”
Abby did so without conscious thought as to what she was doing, still drinking in the floral spectacle around her.
And then, without warning, she was flying.
The cavern’s floor dropped away from her, and Spiridon rose as smoothly as if he’d been hauled into the air by a wire.
“Holy fucking shit, what’re you doing?” she screamed as her hair whipped around her face.
“Relax,” Spiridon said. “You practically weigh nothing and I must show you the golden bowers on the topmost shelf.”
Looking down between her feet at the shadowy ground that had quickly dissolved, Abby managed to squeak, “What?”
“The golden bowers – plants,” Spiridon said. “You’ll see.”
They flew smoothly upward, the world of alien flora glittering and shimmering about them, some of the plants retracting like sea anemones as Spiridon zipped past.
Abby had been trying to surreptitious
ly hide her face in Spiridon’s chest without actually snuggling into him, but she looked up when, as swooping past a rocky outcrop, they were suddenly bathed in a golden radiance.
“The golden bowers,” Spiridon said.
They were the most beautiful trees that Abby had ever laid eyes on, sinuous and graceful, as if they’d been drawn by an artistic hand in the air – and golden, with leaves that looked like they were made of fireflies.
And, as Abby watched, she realized that they were moving, undulating ever so slightly so that you could only really see them doing so out of the corner of your eye.
“They’re my favorites,” Spiridon said, and Abby looked up into his face and saw him gazing with a rapt expression.
Before Abby could look away, the fae had turned to her and his gaze held her. She seemed to be floating – she was floating, she supposed. Behind Spiridon’s head, his wings flickered, whirring imperceptibly.
“So you’re glad you came, Miss Hall?” Spiridon asked.
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem so scared now.”
Oh, I’m scared. Just not about the height.
Spiridon’s face moved slowly toward her, the light of the golden bowers giving his skin a healthy, vital glow.
And then a question seemed to blurt out of Abby, bypassing her brain en route to her mouth.
“Spiridon, what happened to Drake?”
Spiridon’s face stopped a couple of inches from hers. He looked at her, a blend of reproach and avoidance in his eyes.
“I—I can’t say, Abby,” he said.
“Please?”
“I’m sorry.”
“C’mon, Spiridon. You brought me here to this special place. You must like me enough to be truthful with me?”
“I do like you. Very much.”
“Then tell me what happened to Drake! Please?”
Slowly, Abby and Spiridon started to descend to the floor of the cavern.
The date – if that’s what it had been – seemed to be over.
“I’m sorry, Abby,” Spiridon said again.
Caffeinated Magic: Supernatural Barista Academy Page 12
