by LJ Rivers
“Good.”
“What do you mean, good?”
“We don’t need you having even more magic powers. You’re already a Fae goddess with to-die-for locks of hair. Leave some of the spotlight to the rest of us, will you?” She gave me a nudge.
“Half Fae.” I laughed.
Two
I stared at Brendan in the darkness of the cinema. The last glare from the credits flickered on the screen, casting streaks of shadows and light on his skin, enhancing the features of his face—his chiselled jawline, the slight stubble on his defined cheeks, and the one dimple, which appeared when he caught me looking. His hand went over the armrest, his fingers tracing my arm and my almost healed wrist, finally finding my hand and knitting his carefully in mine.
I smiled and turned back to pretend to look at the credits. A girl named Wendy Cho was ‘Best boy grip’. I bet she got a few ‘who's a good boy’ comments when she told her friends about it.
“I think we can leave now,” Brendan whispered in my ear.
I nodded. My shift was over, this was the last screening of the night, and we were the only ones left apart from Nick, who had promised to finish the last sweep of popcorn and clean the stands. All I had to do was turn off the lights and lock up. The job itself was nothing short of boring, but it had its perks, with free films and getting to hang out with Brendan while being paid at the same time. Or simply a quiet couple of hours to catch up on my studies or write something for the Whisper.
Nick had started growing on me, as well. The first encounter I’d had with him had not placed him in my corner. He had been loud, drunk and trashing Mags to his friends at the Old Willow pub. Like Brendan, he didn’t know that I was one of the Mags he had said ‘were not people’.
We stood, easing out between the seat rows and back up the stairs into the empty foyer. Nick had apparently left already. Most of the lights were off, and he had done a surprisingly good job cleaning. He had even emptied all the bins before he left. In the ticket booth, his playing cards lay spread out on the table—most likely a half-finished solitaire game left for tomorrow. “I like how real the cards feel in my hands,” he had said when I asked why he didn’t play on his laptop instead.
Sober Nick was much nicer than drunken Nick. Besides, he wasn’t alone in his thoughts about Mags. Being half Fae, I had learned to deal with that kind of prejudice regularly.
Brendan turned off the last light switch with one hand, giving me a gentle squeeze with the other. I smiled at him, well aware that he had similar thoughts to Nick’s where Mags were concerned. He wasn’t loud about it, but seeing as his sister ran off with a Mag who had played mind tricks on their parents and conned them into cleaning out their bank accounts, I could understand where he was coming from. I just wished one Mag didn’t speak for all of us.
I didn’t like that word—Mag—but it was the one society had taken to, as an umbrella term for all Magicals, no matter the level of purity in our blood. There were other names used for those like me, and Mag was hardly the worst of the bunch. On the tube, one would invariably pass graffiti with ‘Go home, Maggers’. I seriously doubted any of the spray painters knew about Avalon, so what they meant by ‘home’ was beyond me. Only a week before our film night, I overheard a student who mentioned “those Maggots” when the BBC news anchor on one of Brady’s TV screens used what had become the more politically correct term: ‘the M-word’.
I turned the key and punched in the code for the alarm before we started towards the bus stop. There were lots of people all around us, dressed up for a Saturday night out. I zipped up my jacket and buried my chin underneath the collar. The air sent chills across my skin, but it didn’t seem to bother any of the girls wearing miniskirts and tank tops.
“You can have my jacket if you want,” Brendan said, eyeing me gently.
“I’m all right,” I replied and snuggled closer to him. “Especially if you hold me.” I never had to ask him twice, and though we had yet to put a label on our relationship, there was an undeniable spark between us.
We sat on the bench at the bus stop, the warmth from his body making the cold stay off my skin. Somehow I had to tell him about me, but the fear of losing him still kept the words from coming out. I already had one bad experience of keeping the truth from my first real boyfriend, Zack, and I never wanted to relive that moment of someone looking at me like he had. A look of ice-cold fear.
Zack never told anyone about me, perhaps because I told him I would turn him into a toad if he did. He seemed to believe that not only was I capable of such a thing, but that I would actually do it. Instead, he spread nasty rumours about how I was supposedly a slut and had cheated on him, and for a whole year, I had to eat lunch at Blacon High School by myself, walk home alone, and was ignored by my classmates. A high price to pay to keep my secret, but one I accepted, if not gladly. That was before I immersed myself with work at the local newspaper as an intern journalist, catching the eye of my creepy editor, Logan.
I sighed at the memories, wriggling out of Brendan’s embrace.
He frowned at me. “Are we good?”
“I’m just warm enough now,” I lied.
His next words were muffled by the shriek of sirens. Three police cars whooshed by at full speed, and an ambulance passed moments later before the bus finally arrived, and we stepped inside. I put my Oyster card down on the registration panel, and we found a couple of seats in front on the second level. As the bus drove off, I watched the beams of blue lights pan across the river while the sirens faded away.
Brendan leaned forward, clearly watching the same thing I was. “There’s been a lot of sirens lately.”
“This is London,” I murmured, while the Harvester from this morning weighed on my mind.
“I know, but it feels like a lot more than usual. Crime rates are up in this part of London, too.”
I tilted my head at him.
He shrugged. “I checked. As a future detective, I need to stay alert.”
“So, how high are we talking?”
He breathed deeply, then leaned back in his seat. “Very. And not only that, but there’s been an increase in the number of casualties, too. People seem to be attacking the coppers, and they respond to the violence with bullets. I don’t know what has got everyone so riled up, though I have my suspicions.”
I was afraid to ask as I had suspicions of my own, but I couldn’t help myself. “Which are?”
“MagX. There’s a lot of it on the market now, and when people take it, thinking they become invincible, they go on a complete bender, no longer in control at all.”
What he said made sense. MagX was a dangerous drug for humans to take, more so than any other drug on the market. Charlie had once said it made people feel like superheroes. That might very well be true, but not long after she said that I’d had to save her from an overdose of a bad strip of blood. She would have died from a heart attack if I didn’t have my healing power. Possible loss of life was a bad trade for a few hours of superpowers.
“I’ve never known people to become especially aggressive on MagX, though,” I blurted, allowing my thoughts to spill out. Me and my mouth. This wasn’t the kind of topic I had wanted us to discuss, yet here I was, encouraging him.
“It’s not been a big issue, no, but who knows? If there’s a bad batch of blood somewhere, the effects could very well cause violence. I think the dealers dilute the stuff to make more money, and then it gets tainted and really dangerous.”
To my relief, the bus screen showed White Willow University as the next stop, and we found our way down to the first level. I stumbled as the bus hurried over a speed bump, falling into Brendan’s arms.
“Well, well, Milady Morgan.” He gave me a smouldering look, taking my hand, then arched my back over his arm. He bent down, gazing deeply into my eyes. He was so close. His breath smelled of butter and caramel popcorn as his lips parted. A few strands of his chestnut-coloured hair tickled my forehead. I lifted my chin, and he closed his eyes.
The bus screeched to a stop, and we both toppled over. Entangled on the bus floor, we burst out laughing.
“Getting off?” the bus driver called, an annoyed tone in her voice.
“Yep,” replied Brendan.
“Get off then.”
We scrambled to our feet, rushed outside and entered the gates to campus. The air was misty, a thin sheet of fog forming over the large lake. It was going to rain again soon.
“I’ve had fun, Ruby.” Brendan cleared his throat. “I was kind of hoping the evening wouldn’t end just yet.”
Crap! What was I going to say? I didn’t want it to end either, but I knew all too well what would happen if I went back to his place after the evening we’d just had. And I could not live with myself if I hurt him.
“That would be great,” I said. “But I’m already way behind on a story for The Whispering Willow. Rae will kill me if I don’t have it ready by the morning. Then there’s the task for my Source Criticism class I need to finish.”
He put his hands in his jeans pockets, and never mentioned that tomorrow was Sunday as he swayed a little on his feet before motioning towards Craydon Court.
“Least I can do is walk the lady home.”
“I’d like that.”
Brendan followed me all the way to the front door, where we said our goodbyes. I had killed the mood already, so he didn’t attempt another kiss. I wanted him to, though. By the powers of magic, I wanted it so bad. But I couldn’t. I had to find some way to tell him what I was without scaring him off. But how?
Tiptoeing down the hallway, I had almost reached the door to my room when someone cleared their throat behind me.
“Honestly, Ru. You think you can get away from me grilling you about your date?” Charlie said, tapping her foot. Her small frame did not detract from her authoritative nature.
“Someone say date?” Jen stuck her head out of her room, then stepped into the hallway to stand more than a head taller than Charlie.
I threw my hands up in mock surrender. There was no way they would let me off the hook. “Very well. My room, if you want me to tell.”
They nodded and joined me. I feigned annoyance, but it didn’t last long. These were my friends, and it was unbelievably good to have them on my side. Though I didn’t think I had much to tell, they listened.
“And that’s pretty much it,” I said, ending my recount of the night.
“Oh, dude! Still no kiss?” Charlie pouted.
“Good.” Jen sat on the windowsill, painting her toenails. “Make him work for it, woman. Who says we have to give anything before we decide we’re ready? Kissing is an intimate affair. We shouldn’t hand ourselves out to every man who looks our way.”
Charlie gave Jen a sideways glance, and Jen smirked.
“It doesn’t mean we can’t give ourselves to every man who looks our way either.” She winked at me. “It’s called freedom of choice.”
Charlie smiled then, and we laughed and chatted for a while longer before I turned my laptop on.
“Now, I actually do have a story to write for The Whisper. Granted, the deadline is tomorrow evening, but I’d like to get a head start.”
We said goodnight, and I turned to the screen. Instead of opening Word to write my story, I browsed the news headlines going back a few months. Brendan was right. There was definitely an unusual spike of violence against police officers. Did my pursuer from the park have anything to do with this? If so, why? The stories were vague at best. DCI Davies was about the only one making statements. I remembered him well from the time when Jen was kidnapped. He had been friendly toward me. The same could not be said about his colleague, PC Paddock.
I had worried a lot for the first weeks after those horrid events, about whether the blood-harvesting janitor would blow the whistle on me and tell the police what I had done. He had seen me essentially become a magical bomb.
And then he had killed himself in his cell. It made headlines across all the national newspapers. The Willow murderer commits suicide. Some said the world was better off, though quite a few people seemed to be sorry he was gone. There had been a massive amount of roses and candles placed outside the prison in his memory. Me? I was glad he was dead. He could never hurt anyone ever again. I was firmly against the death penalty, but as he did this to himself, I would not shed a tear for that monster.
My eyes drooped. I would have to finish my article the next day, after all.
As I slid under the covers, my phone lit up. Squinting, I brought the phone under the duvet and ducked down to read the message.
I know you’re busy tomorrow. But may I court you again on Monday?
I tapped my finger on the screen to reply.
You may try, milord.
Moments later, he answered again.
Then I shall call it a date if that’s all right by you. Say eight? I’ll meet you by the gates.
My stomach somersaulted.
It’s a date!
Sleep well, milady.
You too, milord.
Smiling, I closed my eyes and slept.
Three
I was dripping wet—again—both from the sweat on my skin and the light drizzle of rain after my run. I had stayed on campus this morning, running laps around the lake. Yesterday was the first time I had strayed from my routine. I did have a lot to work on, and there was always plenty of time to run, so I ended up convincing myself to do the whole lazy Sunday routine instead. Sweatpants, t-shirt, legs on the table, laptop, and about half a dozen cups of green tea. All part of a subconscious—or rather deliberate, if I was being honest with myself—plan to stay away from the park. In fact, there was no way I would return to Richmond Park for my runs any time soon. At least not in this kind of weather. I had to find another route, though. If not for anything else than for sheer motivation, as the laps around the campus lake were beginning to feel tedious already.
I glanced at the water, half expecting to see a shadowy figure somewhere, but everything seemed normal. Between school and work, I had hardly thought about the shadow at all for the past few weeks—not until it spoke to me on Saturday. It had to be the shadow, warning me about the Harvester.
And I had yet to see Mum, so we hadn’t even had a chance to talk about it. It wasn’t an issue suited for a phone call, it had to be face to face. She had promised to tell me what it was and warned me to stay away. But it didn’t feel dangerous. Rather it felt like, whatever it was, it wanted to protect me. Mum would just have to tell me what she knew when I went home for Christmas. If I could wait that long. I didn’t like being kept in the dark.
I ran past the white willow and back to Craydon to get ready for class, and an hour later, I had found a seat in the lecture hall. Showered and clean, ready to soak up all the knowledge I could.
“Confirm your sources. Check and check again. We are not fiction writers, we are truth seekers, and your job will be to tell the world about the things that move in the shadows.” Mr Zhang, my lecturer on journalistic criticism, clearly had a thousand ways to explain the exact same topic, and the takeaway was always the same: be critical, check your sources, find the truth, and whatever you do, tell the real story because the people deserve to know. He had been playing the same tune since the first lecture I attended with him in September, and though it was repetitive, I appreciated his firm persuasion for the truth.
“How can you tell?” Frank, Mr Zhang’s self-appointed technical assistant, had his hand up but spoke before he was given the word.
“You can’t.” Mr Zhang dipped his head at Frank. “And I would appreciate it if you did not speak out of turn again. If I was back teaching in China, this would be completely unacceptable, Mr Hanson. Rudeness aside, your question has merit. How can we tell truth from lies?”
A few hands shot up throughout the room. I rarely raised my hand in Mr Zhang’s class, however. He would always prod for more than I was willing to give, and sometimes more than I knew how to answer at all.
“Miss Morgan,�
�� Mr Zhang said. “Any thoughts?”
Crap! Really? “I guess—” I turned my ring around my finger, contemplating what to say. “I guess, as you said, you can’t ever know for sure. What you can do is gather as much information as possible, check it against each other, and see if the pattern fits.”
He gave me a stiff smile, the kind that never reached his eyes. “A fair assessment. How do you say? If it walks like a kitten and runs like a cat?”
Vicky, who sat next to me, snorted, then called out, “If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”
“Precisely. Very good, Miss Jenkins.”
Although I wanted to say something about how Jenkins forgot about “if it swims like a duck”, my mind was on the subject of discussion. My hand rose, and Mr Zhang tilted his head at me to speak.
“While I agree that people should know the truth, what about the truth that can hurt people, should we also tell those kinds of truths?” My mouth was blabbing away again. “And how about the ethical aspect of it all? It’s not like everyone wants their secrets told to the world, it might even be dangerous to expose certain things. I mean, don’t we have a responsibility to protect and serve—I know, wrong profession, but still?”
The lecturer smiled at me then, a genuine kind of smile I had not seen from him before. “Well, Miss Morgan. Those are excellent questions. Sounds to me like you’re on the right trail.”
“Track,” Vicky muttered into her coffee can.
Mr Zhang ignored her and stepped behind his desk. “In fact, I want you all to do a task on these exact questions. Find three main predicaments you might come across as a journalist, then reflect on these issues and make ethical and professional arguments on how to handle them. The task will be on the course page under assignments, and I expect you to deliver it on time as per the deadline stated. That will be all for today.”
