by P. C. Cast
“That is an interesting answer, Rephaim. Perhaps if you kept your mind more on the book and less on other things, your answers would go from interesting to incredible,” she remarked in a dry, matter-of-fact voice.
“Th-thank you,” Rephaim stuttered, his face feeling warm.
Penthasilea nodded her head slightly in acknowledgment before turning to a student sitting more toward the front of the class and asking, “What about her final question to him in this scene: ‘Are you happy?’ What significance does that have?”
“Good job,” Damien whispered from his desk beside Rephaim.
Rephaim couldn’t speak. He only nodded and tried to understand the sudden lightness of spirit he felt.
“You know what happens to her? This special girl?” The whisper came from the fledgling sitting directly in front of Rephaim. He was a short, muscular male with a strong profile. Rephaim could easily see the disdain in his face as he glanced at him over his shoulder.
Rephaim shook his head. No, he did not know.
“She’s killed because of him.”
Rephaim felt as if he’d been kicked in his gut.
“Drew, did you have a comment about Clarisse?” the professor asked, raising her brows again.
Drew slumped nonchalantly forward and lifted one shoulder. “No, ma’am. I was just givin’ the birdboy some insight to the future.” He paused and glanced over his shoulder before saying, “The future of the book, that is.”
“Rephaim.” The professor spoke his name in a voice that had gone hard. Rephaim was surprised to feel the power of it against his skin. “In my classroom all fledglings are equal. All are called by their correct names. His is Rephaim.”
“Professor P, he’s no fledgling,” Drew said.
The professor’s hand came down on the top of her podium and the entire room vibrated with sound and energy. “He is here. As long as he’s here, in my classroom, he will be treated as any other fledgling.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Drew said, bowing his head respectfully.
“Good. Now that that is straight let’s discuss the creative project you’ll be doing for me. I want you to bring alive your choice of one of the many symbolic elements Bradbury uses in this wonderful book…”
Rephaim held very still as the class’s attention was pulled from him and the Drew fledgling back to the book. She’s killed because of him was playing round and round inside his mind. Drew’s meaning was clear. He hadn’t been speaking of a character in a book. He’d meant Stevie Rae—that she was going to be killed because of him.
Never. Not as long as he drew breath would he allow anything or anyone to harm his Stevie Rae.
When the bell rang to release them from class, Drew met Rephaim’s gaze with unflinching hatred.
Rephaim had to hold himself back from attacking him. Enemy! his old nature shrieked. Destroy him! But Rephaim ground his jaw and returned Drew’s gaze without blinking as the fledgling brushed roughly past him.
And it wasn’t just Drew’s eyes that stared at him with hatred. All of them were sending him glances that ranged from hostile to horrified to frightened.
“Hey,” Damien said, walking out of the classroom with him. “Don’t let Drew bother you. He used to have a thing for Stevie Rae. He’s just jealous.”
Rephaim nodded and waited until they were outside and had drawn beyond hearing distance of the rest of the students. Then, quietly, he said, “It isn’t just Drew. It’s all of them. They hate me.”
Damien motioned for him to follow him a little way off the path, then he stopped and said, “You knew it wouldn’t be easy.”
“That is true. I just—” Rephaim stopped himself and shook his head. “No. It is simply true. I knew it would be a difficult thing for others to accept me.” He met Damien’s gaze. The fledgling looked haggard. Grief had aged him. His eyes were red and puffy. He’d lost the love of his life, yet here he was showing Rephaim kindness. “Thank you, Damien,” he said.
Damien almost smiled. “For telling you this wouldn’t be easy?”
“No, for showing me kindness.”
“Stevie Rae is my friend. The kindness I show is for her.”
“Then you are a remarkable friend,” Rephaim said.
“If you really are the boy Stevie Rae thinks you are, you’ll find that when you’re on the side of the Goddess, you’ll make a lot of remarkable friends.”
“I am on the side of the Goddess,” Rephaim said.
“Rephaim, if I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t be helping you, no matter how much I care about Stevie Rae,” Damien said.
Rephaim nodded. “That’s fair.”
“Hey, Damien!” One of the red fledglings, an unusually small boy, hurried up to them, giving Rephaim a look, then adding a quick, “Hey, Rephaim.”
“Hi, Ant,” Damien said.
Rephaim nodded, uncomfortable with the whole greeting process.
“I heard you had fencing this hour. Me, too!”
“I do,” Damien said. “Rephaim and I were just—” He paused and Rephaim watched several emotions pass his face, ending with embarrassed. He sighed heavily before saying, “Um, Rephaim, Dragon Lankford is the fencing professor.”
Then Rephaim understood.
“That’s, uh, not good,” Ant said.
“He may still be at the school Council Meeting,” Damien said hopefully.
“I think it best that I stay here, whether Dragon is absent or not. If I come with you it will only cause…” Rephaim’s voice ran out because all he could think of were words like: chaos, trouble, and disaster.
“Unpleasantness.” Damien filled in the silence for him. “It would probably cause unpleasantness. Maybe you should skip fencing for today.”
“Sounds smart,” Ant said.
“I’ll wait for you.” Rephaim motioned vaguely to the tree-filled area around them. They weren’t far from one of the school walls where, just inside the stone façade there was a particularly large oak under which sat a wrought iron bench. “I’ll be sitting there.”
“Okay, I’ll come by and get you after class. The next hour is Spanish. Professor Garmy is nice. You’ll like her,” Damien said as he and Ant started toward the field house.
Rephaim nodded and waved and made himself smile because Damien kept glancing worriedly over his shoulder at him. When the two fledglings were finally out of sight, Rephaim walked to the bench and sat heavily down.
He was glad for the time alone, when he could be unguarded—could let his shoulders slump and not worry about having others stare at him. He felt like such an outlander! What had he been thinking when he’d said he wanted to be normal, to go to school like everyone else? He wasn’t like everyone else.
But she loves me. Me. Just as I am, Rephaim reminded himself, and thinking it made him feel a little better—a little lighter of spirit.
Then, because he was alone, he said it aloud.
“I am Rephaim, and Stevie Rae loves me just the way I am.”
“Rephaim! No!”
The whispery, semi-human voice came from the branches of the oak. With a terrible sense of dread Rephaim looked up to see three Raven Mockers, three of his brothers, perched there staring down at him in shock and disbelief.
CHAPTER FOUR
Zoey
Okay, I know I’m a teenager and all, but I suck at using Skype. Actually, I’m kinda moronic about technology in general. Casting a circle—yep. Communing with any of the five elements—definitely. Figuring out how to synch my iPhone with a new computer—uh, probably not. Just thinking about tweeting gave me a headache and made me really miss Jack.
“Here, it ain’t that hard. You just gotta click that.” Kramisha reached over my shoulder and snagged the magic mouse. “And then that, and that’s it. We’s all on Skype and the camera’s workin’ now.”
I looked up to see Stevie Rae and everyone else, including Dragon, Lenobia, and Erik all gawking at me.
Stevie Rae, at least, grinned and mouthed a quick, “Easy-
peasy.”
“What exactly is the point behind—” Dragon began, but Neferet’s entrance to the Council Room cut him off. And, thankfully, it was at that moment that the commanding voice of the Leader of the Vampyre High Council carried clear and strong through Damien’s computer.
“Merry meet, Zoey Redbird,” Duantia said. “I am pleased to speak with you again.”
I fisted my hand over my heart and bowed respectfully. “Merry meet, Duantia. Thank you for making time for this call.”
“Merry meet, Duantia,” Neferet said, stepping up beside me and bowing formally. I saw her shoot a quick, questioning look at Dragon before she smiled silkily and continued. “I must apologize. I knew nothing about this call. I was only expecting a simple school Council Meeting.” Then she skewered me with her emerald eyes. “Are you responsible for this, Zoey?”
“Yeah, definitely. I would have told you earlier, but you just now got here,” I said, smiling and sounding super cheerful. Before Neferet could respond I turned my attention to Duantia. “I wanted to make sure the High Council heard all the details about Nyx’s amazing appearance at the school yesterday and,” I paused, nodding to Neferet as if I was including her, “I knew Neferet would be eager to share with you as well.”
“Actually, we know very little, which is one of the reasons I was looking forward to this call.” Duantia looked from me to Neferet. “I tried to contact you during the day, after I instructed Dragon to allow the red fledglings and Zoey’s group to begin attending classes today, but I could not reach you, High Priestess.”
I could feel Neferet bristle, but she only said, “I was secluded in deep prayer.”
“All the more reason for this call,” Duantia said.
“What Nyx did was a miracle.” I gestured for Stevie Rae to come into camera range. “This is Stevie Rae, the first Red High Priestess.”
Stevie Rae fisted her hand over her heart and bowed deeply. “I’m real pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
“Merry meet, Stevie Rae. I have heard much of you and the red fledglings. And, of course, I have already met the Red Warrior, Stark. Nyx is, indeed, generous with her miracles.”
“Um, thank you, but, well, us bein’ red and all isn’t the miracle.” Stevie Rae glanced at me and added, “Well, at least it’s not the miracle Zoey’s talkin’ ’bout.” She cleared her throat and then said, “Nyx’s miracle has to do with my Consort, Rephaim.”
Duantia’s eyes widened. “Is that not the name of one of the creatures called Raven Mocker?”
“Yes.” Dragon’s voice was as hard as his face. “It is the name of the creature who killed my Anastasia.”
“I do not understand,” Duantia said. “How could that abomination be called Consort?”
Quickly, before Neferet could chime in something awful I started babbling, “Rephaim used to be a Raven Mocker, and Dragon is right, back then he did kill Anastasia.” I glanced up at Dragon, but it was real hard to meet his eyes. “Rephaim asked Nyx’s forgiveness for that.”
“And for everything bad he’d done when he was Kalona’s son,” Stevie Rae added.
“Blanket forgiveness is—”
Neferet began, but I cut her off saying, “Blanket forgiveness is a gift that can be given by our Goddess, which is exactly what she did last night,” I said. Then I looked at Stevie Rae. “Tell the High Council Leader what you did.”
Stevie Rae nodded and swallowed hard, then she said, “A few weeks ago I found Rephaim almost dead. He’d been shot from the sky. I didn’t turn him in.” She looked from the computer screen and Duantia up to Dragon and said pleadingly, “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone or do anythin’ wrong.”
“That abomination killed my mate,” Dragon said. “The same night he was shot from the sky and should have died.”
“Professor Lankford, please allow the Red High Priestess to continue her confession,” Duantia said.
I saw Dragon’s jaw clench and his lip lift slightly in a sneer, but Stevie Rae’s words drew my attention back to her.
“Dragon’s right. Rephaim would have died that night if I hadn’t saved him. I didn’t tell anyone about him. Well, except my momma, and that was later. Anyway, I took care of him instead. I saved his life. And then he saved my life in return—twice. Once from the white bull of Darkness.”
“He faced Darkness for you?” Duantia sounded shocked.
“Yes.”
“Actually, he turned away from Darkness for her.” I took up the story. “And last night he asked forgiveness from Nyx and pledged himself to her path.”
“Then the Goddess made him a boy!” Stevie Rae said with such enthusiasm that even Duantia’s lips twitched up in a smile.
“Only from sunset to sunrise,” Neferet added, in a throw-cold-water-on-the-moment voice. “During the day he is condemned to be a raven—a beast—with no memory of his humanity.”
“That was his consequence for the bad stuff in his past,” Stevie Rae explained.
“And now, during the time he’s a boy, Rephaim wants to come to school like any other fledgling,” I said.
“Remarkable,” Duantia said.
“The creature does not belong at this school,” Dragon said.
“The creature isn’t at this school,” I said. “The boy is. The same boy Nyx forgave. The same boy Stevie Rae has chosen as her Consort. The same boy who tried to swear himself into your service.”
“Dragon, you rejected him?” Duantia asked.
“I did,” Dragon said tightly.
“And that is why I expelled them all,” Neferet said in a calm, reasonable, adult voice. “My Sword Master cannot tolerate his presence, and rightly so. When Zoey’s group decided to turn their allegiance from us to Stevie Rae and the Raven Mocker I saw no choice except that they all had to go.”
“He isn’t a Raven Mocker anymore.” Stevie Rae sounded totally pissed-off.
“And yet he is still the being who murdered my mate.” Dragon’s voice was a lash.
“Hold!” Duantia’s command shot from the computer. Even from thousands of miles away and through Skype, the power in her voice was a tangible presence in the room. “Neferet, let me be certain that I am absolutely clear about last night’s events. Our Goddess, Nyx, appeared at your House of Night and forgave the Raven Mocker, Rephaim, and then gifted him with the form of a human boy during the night, and as penance cursed him with a bestial form of a raven during the day?”
“Yes,” Neferet said.
Duantia shook her head slowly. “Neferet, there is a part of me—the remnants of a very young me, mind you—that understands your response to such unusual events, though you were mistaken. Simply put, you cannot expel a group of fledglings who have done nothing more than stand by their friends. Especially not this group of fledglings,” Duantia said. “This group has been far too goddess-touched to be cast away.”
“That kinda brings up the second thing I need to talk to you about,” I said. “Because of the differences between red fledglings and regular fledglings, it’s really better that they were expelled.” I frowned. “Wait, that didn’t come out right.”
“What she means is we can’t rest right unless we’re underground,” Stevie Rae explained for me. “And there isn’t much underground here.”
“So during daylight they’d like to stay in the tunnels under the Tulsa depot, and at night during the week they’d like to be bussed here for classes. There aren’t very many red fledglings in Stevie Rae’s group, and except for me no blue fledglings left the school at all, so I’m thinking between me, a Red High Priestess, and two Changed Warriors, we should be able to handle ourselves okay over there.” I fixed my face into a giant smile and beamed up at Neferet. “And I know Neferet is such an awesome High Priestess that she’ll be able to handle all the changes going on over here.”
There was a long silence during which Neferet and I locked gazes. Finally Duantia said, “Neferet, what say you?”
I caught a glimpse of smugness in her expression before Nefer
et turned to the camera. “After listening to your wisdom, Duantia, I do see that I made my decision too hastily last night. As someone who is, myself, newly forgiven by Nyx, I can only strive to emulate the Goddess’s benevolence. She clearly has special plans for Zoey and her group. Perhaps a resting place separate from us would be best. Of course they must still abide by the rules of this House of Night, and acknowledge me as their rightful High Priestess.”
“Uh, not necessarily,” I said, ignoring Neferet’s piercing look and concentrating on Duantia. “The time I spent on Skye with Queen Sgiach really meant a lot to me. She and I got close. Sgiach even said she’d like me to mentor under her, that she would start opening up Skye to the modern world. Right now I can’t be on Skye with her, but I’d still like to follow in her footsteps.” I drew a deep breath and finished in a rush, “So, I want to officially declare the Tulsa Depot outside of the jurisdiction of the House of Night, like Sgiach has declared Skye.” I looked directly at Neferet. “And just like Sgiach, I won’t get in your business if you don’t get in mine.”
“You dare declare yourself a queen?” Neferet sounded stunned.
“Well, I didn’t. But Sgiach did and so did her Guardian. Plus, Stark has been accepted as a Guardian. In the Otherworld he had the sword and everything. He’s my Warrior, so kinda by default that means I’m being declared a queen. A little one, though,” I added.
“This does not feel right to me,” Neferet said.
“I agree with Neferet,” Dragon said.
I stared at him, trying to telegraph: Really? Are you really saying you agree with Neferet after all you know about her? But Dragon looked past me as if he couldn’t see me.
“I must consult the High Council on this matter, Zoey Redbird. We do not support the idea of vampyre queens. Vampyres are Priestesses and Warriors and Professors, and the various life paths that spring from those callings. That has long been our tradition.”
“But Sgiach is a queen,” I insisted. “She has been for centuries. That has to be long enough to be a tradition, too.”
“Not a vampyre tradition!” Duantia’s raised voice made the little hairs on my arms lift. The Leader of the High Council drew a deep breath, obviously steadying herself, before she continued in a calmer tone. “Sgiach is barely considered vampyre. She has maintained her existence separate from us for many centuries. We have an uneasy truce with her by default. We cannot enter her isle. She will not leave it.” Duantia paused and lifted a brow. “Has that changed, Zoey? Is Sgiach planning on leaving Skye?”
