by Chloe Garner
It was that he was capable of making people feel comfortable and liked and familiar. Exactly the way he’d done it to her.
“You run a pretty good game,” Valerie said to him.
“What?” he asked. “Throwing a party?”
“I don’t believe anyone actually showed up,” she said. “But that’s not it. You laid down some serious game, the first night we met, and you haven’t let up ever since.”
He looked directly at her, eyes playful.
“You have a problem with game?” he asked.
“Only if it’s a lie,” she answered, holding his gaze. He shook his head slowly.
“I’ve been running the same circles my entire life,” he said. “They’re big circles, but they’re all the same. You are a breath of fresh air, Valerie, and I’ve never met anyone I want to spend time with more than you.”
She raised her chin a fraction, then nodded.
“That is an acceptable answer.”
He grinned.
“You ought to go spend some time with your friend,” he said. “He came all this way to see you. Don’t want you to ditch him for my party.”
“Oh, I’m not ditching him,” Valerie answered. “I’m giving them space.”
He raised an eyebrow, lifting up on his toes to find where Hanson was leaning against a wall talking to Sasha.
“Well, well,” Ethan said. “Now that’s a match I wouldn’t have called.”
“Yup,” Valerie said. “But he’s a nice guy and she’s a nice girl, and maybe they actually deserve each other.”
“Are you saying that I’m not a nice guy?” Ethan asked in mock-hurt.
“And that I’m not a nice girl,” Valerie answered with an easy grin. “Own it, wear it.”
He grinned.
“As long as you’re giving them space, then, you want to give them a little more space?”
“What does that mean?” Valerie asked.
He jerked his chin toward the door, and she frowned, considering.
She hadn’t really had her heart set on dancing, and kids continued to wander down from the dorm as they caught wind of the fact that going to Valerie’s birthday party wasn’t social suicide.
Fear of missing out was beginning to come into play, and the party was threatening to spill out into the common area.
“I don’t want Hanson getting banned,” Valerie said.
Ethan raised a hand and waved Shack over.
“You’re the bouncer,” Ethan yelled to his friend. “Anyone starts acting up, place gets too crowded, send people back up to the main building. Keep us under the radar.”
Shack nodded, then winked at Valerie.
“Happy birthday,” he said, and she smiled, then hugged him.
“Thank you,” she said. “For actually meaning that.”
He shrugged, then frowned as the front door opened again.
“We’re going to have the entire dorm try to pack in here, aren’t we?” he asked.
“Yup,” Ethan asked. “And you’re the one who gets to say who stays and who goes.”
Shack grinned, and Ethan took Valerie’s arm, weaving her through to the front door and ducking through before it closed again.
“Is he going to make people mad?” Valerie asked. “I don’t want anyone coming after Hanson because they got snubbed.”
“They know better than to go against Shack,” Ethan said. “First because he’s capable of planting them face-first into the wall, and second of all because his mom is the second-most powerful person on the Council.”
“After your dad?” Valerie asked, and he nodded.
“After my dad.”
“Is that a contentious relationship?” Valerie asked, and he shook his head.
“Not always. Usually, it’s more like me and Shack. Elvis is going to take over the council, someday, if everything goes to plan, and Shack has two older brothers who actually want it, but I actually think everyone would be a lot better off it was us two leading it, in ten years.”
“Only ten?” Valerie asked. He grinned.
“Maybe twenty. My dad has a lot of fight left in him.”
The stars were out in force, now. Mostly nights in this part of the country were cloudy, or at least muggy enough that the sky wasn’t open, but tonight it was, the Milky Way sprawling across overhead, bright enough that they didn’t need a moon to see.
“How much do you tell your dad?” Valerie asked.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“About stuff,” she said. “Do you have a cell phone that you can text him or do you e-mail or anything?”
“Cell phones don’t work here,” he said. “And I’m not allowed to have internet any more than anyone else is.”
“Do you talk to him?” Valerie asked.
He slid his arm down to wrap his hand around hers, walking with an aimlessness that still had intent to it.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m supposed to tell him about anyone I see at the school that the Council should recruit.”
“But they don’t recruit students,” she said. “So you’re just looking at seniors, right?”
He shrugged, turning his face up to the sky.
“You could drop out of school and not be a student anymore,” he said.
“So they recruit students to drop out of school as the way of avoiding the rule?” Valerie asked.
“Look, it’s the Council. I just tell my dad the things that he specifically asks about.”
“Have you told him about me?” Valerie asked.
He paused for another moment, then looked over at her.
“Yes.”
“What have you told him?” Valerie pressed.
“That you’re good,” he said. “Better than anyone gives you credit for. And that you’re working with Mr. Tannis on something, and no one knows what. That you were able to stop the silverthorn the night that the demons attacked, and that a bunch of the girls say that you saved their lives, holding a door against a demon.”
Valerie swallowed.
“I don’t like you talking to anyone about me,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t like it, every time I did it. But he’s my dad, and it’s my job. My whole life, he’s had Elvis, and Elvis was going to do all the big things, and then there was me, and he didn’t ever know what he was going to do with me. He doesn’t have much spare time, and he put it all into my brother. There was a time that he thought that he might not even send me to a magic academy at all.”
“You know that’s not an excuse,” Valerie said. “You spied on me for your dad.”
“I did,” he said. “And that’s not even the half of it.”
She stopped walking.
“Tell me everything,” she said. “Right now. I trust you, no matter what Sasha or anyone else tells me about you, but if you lie to me right now and I find out about it later, I will never trust you again. Tell me anything you want, I can forgive you, but don’t lie to me.”
He drew a slow breath and caught her other hand, standing in front of her with calm, serious eyes.
“My father didn’t bring me to Europe to expose me to diplomatic contacts over there,” he said. “He took me to Europe at the last minute to have an excuse to keep me out of school so that he could figure out who you were and give me a head start, getting close to you. My brother was supposed to, but he blew it because he thinks that you’re below us and aren’t worth our time. So my dad got a bunch of other information about you and gave it to me, so that you would like me from the beginning.”
“Wow,” Valerie said. “I’ve rattled him that bad?”
He laughed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a wildcard. Your mom just goes off-grid and does whatever it is she does, and you’re here at school, and… He knows how all of the rest of the kids are, because he’s been checking up on them at least once a year since the last war. He’s known there would be a second war sinc
e the end of the last one, and he says that we’re going to be the ones to fight it. So he’s been…” Ethan sighed. “He’s basically been staffing an army of kids since the last war ended. And he knew that you could be powerful, given who your parents were, but that you would also probably be hard to control, so he needed somebody close to you…”
“And that would be you,” Valerie said. He nodded.
“And I jumped, because it gave me something to do that he thought was important. I wanted to prove to him that I could do it.”
“So you showed up that first night in the library intending to hit on me,” Valerie said, some of the sparkle going out of the evening. “It wasn’t serendipity.”
“I had your picture from your sophomore year book,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He paused and Valerie started to say something else, but he cut in again. “No. I’m not. I don’t care that it was my dad’s idea that I came to find you and get to know you. I did find you, and I did get to know you, and I wouldn’t have done anything different, if I had known from the beginning who you were. That’s the truth.”
“What if I asked you to stop talking about me to him?” Valerie asked. “Would you do it?”
He considered this, taking a step closer and looking her full in the face.
“I don’t know if I can,” he said.
“I can’t talk to you if I can’t trust that you won’t pass everything on,” Valerie said.
He nodded.
“I get that. And if you can still trust me… What if I just told him the things that I could see, and nothing that you actually tell me?”
The cottage was out of sight, from here, and the main building was just a silhouette in the stars behind her. They were alone and he was holding both of her hands.
“You could be the world’s best liar,” she said.
“I could if I tried,” he agreed.
Gemma.
Gemma could have told her if he meant it or not.
Quite abruptly Valerie realized the value of a woman like that standing behind you.
“I don’t tell you everything,” Valerie said softly after a moment, turning her face down to look at her shoes. “I actually have lots of secrets.”
He kissed her forehead.
“Then all I can hope is that someday I’m the person who knows all of them,” he said. “But I live with the head of the Council. It’s not like I’m going to begrudge you secrets.”
She looked at him again.
“I swear to you, if you’re keeping anything from me, I will find a way to make you regret it.”
“Most effective way would be for you to never speak to me again,” he said, giving her a half a smile, almost sad. “I spend all day… knowing when the next time I’m going to talk to you is.”
She nodded.
She did, too.
“I like you,” she said. “And I trust you. I may be the stupidest person on the earth, but it’s the truth. I want to say that you should have told me before now… that really is how I feel… but it’s only been about a month since we first met. And we don’t really get to sit and talk very much. I don’t know when you would have told me, before now.”
He nodded.
“I really didn’t want to, because I thought you’d dump me on the spot, but I had to tell you. I really like you, too.”
“I can’t dump you,” Valerie said. “We aren’t going out.”
“Can I fix that?” he asked, a sparkle in his eyes again. He dropped one of her hands, taking a step back and kneeling. “Valerie Blake, will you go out with me?”
She pulled him back up to his feet.
“Yes,” she said. “Idiot. You look stupid like that.”
He came up onto his feet, but he didn’t stop there. It was all one motion, from on one knee to putting his hand into her hair and kissing her.
She was stunned just for a moment, then she kissed him back, letting go of his hand and wrapping her arms around him.
There were techniques to kissing. Tactics and methods that she and her girlfriends had discussed at the lunch table for years.
Ethan Trent knew none of them.
He was still the best kisser she’d ever kissed.
He kissed her slow and deep for a long time, she lost track, and then he put both hands into her hair and rested his forehead against hers.
“Happy birthday, Valerie,” he said.
“Thank you,” she whispered back.
They stood for a moment, quiet in the dark, then Valerie startled and checked her watch.
It did not light up, and the stars weren’t strong enough to see it by. Ethan offered her his watch. It was nearly midnight.
“I need to get back,” she said. “The curfew.”
“As long as Hanson is in the cottage, they’re complying,” Ethan said. “It’s mostly so that the teachers have a few hours when they can move things around without worrying about the visitors seeing them.”
“Still,” Valerie said. “I need to get back.”
“To the party or the dorm?” Ethan asked, taking her hand and starting off.
“Dorm,” she said.
They walked back to the school and quiet through the hallways, stopping at the point where the girls’ dorm hallway started.
He wasn’t allowed past there; they both knew it.
“Thank you for my party,” Valerie said. He kissed her knuckles and looked down the hallway.
“Sleep well,” he answered. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Night,” she said, going to her door and opening it. She watched as he turned away, going to find the stairs that would take him up to the boys’ dorm rooms, then Valerie stepped into her room and closed the door, leaning with her forehead against it for several moments, just relishing everything.
Everything.
“You need to be careful,” a voice said.
Valerie jumped, almost screaming, and spun to find her mother sitting on her bed.
“Mom,” she said. “You scared me to death. What are you doing here?”
“I came to warn you that you need to be careful of Hanson,” she said.
“I what?” Valerie asked, dropping her chin. “You mean Ethan.”
“Ethan who?” Susan asked. “I’m talking about your best friend.”
“Why would I need to be careful of Hanson?” Valerie asked.
“His mom disappeared. When he came here, she should have come with, but she didn’t, and I went to go see why, and I ended up going through their apartment. She is a magic user, and he may be, as well.”
“What?” Valerie demanded. “No. He doesn’t have any clue what’s going on here. She had some big thing come up so she couldn’t come, and he convinced her to let him come. Case closed. Where have you been?”
“Valerie,” Susan said. “The reason she didn’t come is because she attended Survival School. I just looked it up in Lady Harrington’s office. She’s changed her name, but she went here.”
“You mean your mom’s office,” Valerie said, sitting down in her chair. Susan tipped her head to the side, surprised, then stood, putting her hands out. With a quick motion, she pulled something from off of her belt and went to stand at the door.
“I’m impressed with this, by the way,” she said, marking the outer edge of the door with the thing from her belt.
“Mom, they have me inventing spells to kill people. I have so much I want to talk to you about, and Hanson really isn’t it.”
“Your father was here,” Susan said. “He’s the one who told you about Lady Harrington, isn’t he?”
“He told me a lot of stuff,” Valerie said. “Please come and sit and talk to me. You just dump me off here and disappear and leave me to figure out for myself that magic is actually real and I’m good at it…”
“I knew you would be,” Susan said, taking a step back, then looking at her. “I can’t stay. I shouldn’t be here at all, but I needed to warn you.”
“Warn me what? That Hanson’s mom abandoned magi
c the same way you did?”
“She didn’t,” Susan said. “She’s very good at disguising it, but once I got digging, I found all of it. She’s been spying on us your entire life, and she’s been using Hanson to do it probably for as long as he’s been able to keep the secret. You need to be careful what you tell him.”
“What would I tell him?” Valerie asked. “I don’t know anything.”
“You know everything,” Susan said. “You know your dad is alive, you know what I do, you know that I’ve been here, and you know what Lady Harrington is up to. You might be the only person alive who knows all of those things, except that you told me.”
“Mom, I don’t want to be an assassin,” Valerie said.
“Is that what they told you I am?” Susan asked.
“Mrs. Reynolds danced around the word a lot,” Valerie said slowly. “But Dad never said it was wrong.”
“Debbie Reynolds is a good woman,” Susan said. “Just never got her head in the game.”
“That’s not an answer, Mom,” Valerie said. “Where have you been?”
“All over, never the same place two nights in a row. And I need to get going. I know he’s your friend, but just be aware that every word you say could reveal a secret that has life-or-death importance to it.”
“Mom,” Valerie said again, finally getting her mother’s attention. “I need to talk to you. I don’t understand.”
Susan Blake came and knelt in front of her daughter, putting her hands on either side of Valerie’s face, such a familiar touch.
“I know,” Susan said. “And I’m still… I wish that I had told you everything you needed to know, brought you up in it, but I thought there was a chance we could stay out, and I took it. It would have been so much better if you could have grown up normal.”
“Mom, I cast something designed to kill someone. Are you an assassin?”
“I’m tactical,” Susan answered, looking over her shoulder and rising slowly, like a cat uncoiling. “They followed me. They knew I would try to come and they’ve been waiting. I thought if I got in and out quickly…”
“Mom?” Valerie asked.
“At least the party got most of the students out of the building,” Susan said. “So we’ve got that going for us.”
“Mom,” Valerie said. Susan glanced back at her, then waved.
