Chapter 12

12

He lit me on fire.

Another inch and his lips would be on mine. His eyes became a brand on me and at once the room became too small. Too hot and stifling.

If only I had the nerve to close the distance between us. To kiss Mike…it would be a dream come true. It would mean everything to me.

His gaze stayed on my mouth and everything inside of me stilled. Frozen with anticipation. Waiting for something I desperately wanted and only dreamed about receiving.

I listened to him whisper a word. Something I couldn’t be sure I really heard. A slight buzz flew past my ears and when I looked down, the pen was back where it should have been. Where I’d first put it down.

“You did it!” I exclaimed.

“Maybe I had to have the right incentive.” Mike shifted away from me, still smiling. As though he’d never been worried about it. As though he were utterly confident, with no trace of his former nerves present.

“Oh, sure. The right incentive,” I repeated stupidly. What could I say? Hey man, why didn’t you kiss me? I want your tongue in my mouth.

He did a little happy dance in his seat. And the smile…wide and without restraint. No one had ever smiled at me like that. Certainly not Jason, the wolf in my pack I’d been flirting with before Uncle Will dropped the “fated mate” anvil on me. Jason never made my breath catch the way Mike did.

“Give me something, Tavi,” he demanded happily. “Give me a spell to try and I’ll do it.”

Another night and another almost-kiss, I thought, scrambling to focus through the fried-brain feeling. If he and I kept tiptoeing around each other like this then I would slowly go mad. No, forget slowly. I’d crossed over into dangerous territory already.

I didn’t need another added level of anxiety to think about, to worry over.

But not a day went by after that when I didn’t think about Mike and how I felt about him. How it would be to finally have those lips pressed against mine. The clutch at my heart when I thought about it told me—although I’d tried hard to fight it—I’d given everything away to him.

I was a goner.

* * *

Another few weeks went by, and our first test of this semester loomed mere days ahead, another test designed to cull the student body yet again. Professor Marsh told me it would be a test involving proof that we’d begun to master our innate skills, formulated to our specific powers. I wasn’t sure what she meant but nodded at her anyway despite the sickness creeping up my throat.

A test on our powers already?

It meant I’d be grouped with the few other students who also manifested cognitive manipulation and not only see what I could do, but do better than the rest of them. Let the competition begin.

Passing through the auditorium door, I surveyed the rest of the first-year students who’d gathered. Much fewer than when we’d originally arrived. And there would be fewer still after today.

Since my power was relatively rare, there were only three other students who shared it with me. Not as rare as I’d thought at first, obviously, and I didn’t know them too well, but seeing us all gathered together drove the point home. They were my biggest competition, not the other boys and girls in the assembly. Those three students—Cassady, Ryan, and Tyler—would be the ones to beat to keep my place here at the school.

If I could manifest my power better than they did, not only pass this test but ace it, then it would go a long way toward soothing my mind.

I wasn’t too worried, though. I’d gotten top spot last semester for a reason, although I hadn’t thought so at the time. I worked hard and I practiced. Yet there wasn’t any room to leave to chance, or to get cocky. That’s when mistakes were made. If my Uncle Will taught me anything in life, it was to be prepared no matter the cost.

Preparation was the only way to control the outcome.

The first-year class huddled together in the front rows of the auditorium, ready to be called when our power came up for testing. Alphabetically. The four of us waited only a short time before we were called into a small room down the hallway in front of a panel of teachers.

I tried not to fiddle with my hair—kept in place with a braid—or my skirt. Or my shoes. Or anything my hands could reach.

“Don’t be nervous,” Cassady told me. Short and adorable, she had a wide smile showing a gap in her front teeth.

“Thank you.” I tried to shoot her a grin of equal caliber and failed. I didn’t know Cassady on a personal level but she’d always been kind to me. It mattered. “Same to you.”

She shrugged. “I’ve been practicing on my own. I’m not the best, of course, but I’m happy to have this power.”

“You’re actually happy about it?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s a rare gift, which will make anyone who asks about me sit up and listen, and it could come in handy with any future jobs.” The smile was back in place, the gap in her teeth quite distracting.

Jobs? I hadn’t really thought about working. I was stuck on the actual getting to Faerie and hadn’t a clue what I would do when I actually got there.

IfI got there.

Thoughts for another day when I had cleared some of the debris from my mind. At the moment, navigating in there was like trying to traverse a packed minefield. In a Jeep. Without a windshield.

The boys stuck together behind us and didn’t seem too interested in conversation. Fine, because I wasn’t either. I knew I should have been more appreciative for Cassady’s attempt at being friendly but the nerves battling each other in my stomach left me little room for gratitude.

“I mean, I heard from my mentor, Pepper, how the teacher panel for the initial test will generally go easy on us during this round,” Cassady continued. She took a step closer to me and spoke in a hush. As though we were sharing covert information, too sensitive for anyone else’s ears. “She said not to think about a thing because the more you think about failing, the worse it will be. She said she started to imagine how badly they were judging her and nearly choked. You have to keep your mind clear.”

It seemed pretty generic advice but I nodded anyway. More for Cassady’s benefit than out of any real understanding. “How have you been doing with your magic?” I wanted to know.

We stood outside the room waiting to be called inside. A little procession of terrified ducklings in matching jackets. “I try. It’s a slow process. I just tell myself there’s time to learn and no one expects me to be perfect right away. It’s why we’re here at the school. Right? To learn.”

Pretty much the same thing I’d told Mike. “Good advice.”

Afterwards, our chatter pretty much stopped, the four of us shuffling our feet as our anxiety grew with every passing second. I wasn’t sure if it would be a one on one test or if the three behind me would have to watch as I fumbled my way through.

Either way, I didn’t like it. Nausea tore at me in a way it hadn’t since the last lottery. I placed a hand against my belly to keep it from speaking up and saying something stupid. This wasn’t the time. Rarely was it the time to say something stupid and still I couldn’t help myself in most circumstances.

Finally, the door opened and we whipped around in unison toward the professor standing there, the same one in charge of charms. Professor Nitliffe.

She beckoned for us to come forward. “Come on in, all of you.”

Okay, as a group, then. I’d have an audience. Sweat began to drip from my hairline and I stowed my clammy palms in my pockets.

Three additional teachers sat behind a long low table with their hands folded in front of them. One I recognized and the others I didn’t. They must be upper-class professors, ones I hadn’t had a chance to meet yet. At least they would be impartial. And have a better idea of what to look for in terms of a manifestation of power.

Nitliffe pointed to a spot on the floor and we all stopped there. The desks in the classroom had been pushed to the outside walls to make a large open space in the center of the room. I wondered how the other students were faring today in their own gatherings.

“Alderidge, Tavi,” she said, reading from a sheet.

Great, alphabetically I was first again.

Those butterflies went on attack mode and shredded their way out of my stomach. Not literally, but I was pretty sure I went green around the gills. None of the teachers made any comment about it. Surely they were used to looking at terrified students.

Maybe they secretly liked it.

The professor in the middle—older than the rest with curling white hair in a cascade down to her shoulders and a kind expression—offered a hand to me. Not to shake, but to help me advance to the spot where Nitliffe still pointed. I hadn’t actually moved.

Swallowing over a desert-dry throat, I stepped forward and stopped in front of them, trying not to quake under their scrutiny. “Miss Alderidge,” the white-haired lady said, “the test today is very straightforward. You must make the four of us see something incredible. Not only incredible, but we must trust what we see with absolute certainty. There are criteria upon which you will be judged while your peers watch on. The strength of the image, for one. Believability. And your ability to maintain the illusion.”

“What do you want to see?” I asked.

The professor on the end, wearing a black felt fedora over his ears, spoke for the first time. “Anything. It is entirely up to you. However, the one stipulation we require is that it has to be fantastic. Nothing ordinary. This is a test to see how your studies have been coming along coupled with your natural abilities.”

I wrung my hands in front of me, nodding at them. Why hadn’t I prepared something? I should have realized what they’d want, based on the core principles of my power. Something incredible, huh?

I could show them Mike and me making out, because the two of us together would be pretty frickin’ incredible. Something no one would ever believe, the Crown Prince of Faerie and a nobody like me. I had to suppress a smile at the thought.

What to show them…?

There were four gazes staring expectantly at me from in front and three behind me. I hated going first. Going first was literally the worst and I hated the attention.

I racked my brain for something to show them and finally settled on an outlandish and somewhat strange sight.

Pointing to a desk pressed against the wall on the opposite side of the room, I muttered a spell under my breath. Something designed to hone my focus. I held a picture of what I wanted to see in my head, down to the very tiniest of details. Sight, smells, sounds, textures. I had to take all those things into consideration if I wanted them to see.

Then I reached out for their minds, tapping into the energy of the four professors, but not the monitor who still held the sheet of paper with our names on it. I blocked out the rest of the room, uncaring what Cassady, Ryan, and Tyler made of this. I debated briefly reaching for their minds as well and decided against it. For this first trick, I wanted the bulk of the power to be on the people who mattered.

And boy, would they appreciate this.

Thanks to the spell, I saw their energy signatures clearly, pulsing in rainbow-like auras around their bodies. Then I grabbed their minds, accompanying it with a pulse of magic.

“Those desks?” I said to the teachers finally. Closing my eyes. “The ones pushed against the far wall? They are actually transfigured lions. They’re prowling around the classroom with large fangs and angry eyes. Saliva dripping from their jaws, claws clicking against the floor. Large manes and large paws. They’re hungry.” Another push. They had to be afraid for this to be believable. “You should be careful. They have you in their sights.”

I didn’t see the lions myself—at least, not in reality—but what I saw didn’t matter. The teachers had to believe what I told them. They had to perceive what I told them to be true.

“Watch out for the lions! They are going on the attack!” At last I opened my eyes and focused on the middle teacher, the one with the kind expression and white hair. And watched as her own eyes widened in terror.

The professor next to her went so far as to scramble up onto the table, his arms around his knees, staring at the desks in abject horror. Nitliffe screeched.

“Someone do something!” the teacher on the far left screamed.

Another push, I told myself, sending a wave of magic against their minds. There were no barriers for me to encounter. Nothing to keep me out. Then again, the teachers didn’t want to keep me out. They were open books. I could have pressed further if I wanted to—

I wasn’t equipped for it and stopped at the sudden drain in my energy. I kept my intrusion to a minimum as the magic seeped out of me. Holding four minds at once…

“Lions,” I said again with a gasp.

All four professors were screaming now, from wailing sobs to keening shrieks, backing away toward the other end of the room and Nitliffe edging for the door.

Good. Yes.

But Nitliffe…oops. I hadn’t meant to include her in the demonstration. I hoped she wouldn’t hold this against me in class.

Behind me, my peers scrutinized what I’d done. I swiveled around to see Cassady dividing her attention between the desks and the teachers preparing to bolt.

Bloodthirsty lions? Maybe I should have gone for wolves.

No, wolves would hit a little too close to home for me and I couldn’t chance my own feelings introducing any doubt in others. I wasn’t sure it would work but one should not take unnecessary risks.

Nitliffe stood by the door, with a ward sizzling in the air around her head. Something to block the effects of my magic on the way out of the room, no doubt. The fear seeped out of her. Turning to me, she inclined her head, the clinical mask back in place. Then she snapped her fingers and the rest of her coworkers settled down.

The desks were desks again.

I took her snap as a signal and released the last of the magic, allowing the image in my mind to scatter to nothing. At once the breath whooshed out of me, my head began to ache, and my legs nearly buckled. I bent over at the waist, resting my hands on my knees and working to re-inflate my lungs.

“Good job, Miss Alderidge,” Nitliffe stated. “It’s going to take me a bit of time to get everyone to calm down. You did well. Very well. I’d say you passed with flying colors. You’re a natural.”

I shuffled to the rear of the room to watch Cassady and the boys take their turns, my heart beating fast. I’d passed. Not only passed, but did well enough to earn the little note of awe I’d heard in the monitor’s voice.

Turned out I was insanely good at manipulation. It hadn’t even cost me much energy, or much magic, although I’d have to work on how much I expended and how to control and pace and maintain.

Yet…I wasn’t sure I was okay with being so good.

* * *

The next day, Headmaster Leaves called an assembly after lunch to announce the results of the first round of testing for our class. As though it were a huge and momentous occasion.

Another lottery down and who knew how many were left.

“Stop it!” Melia hissed. “You’re going to give me bruises. You’re too strong for your own good.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized immediately. But I didn’t lift my hand, didn’t stop my fingers from digging into her arm as we waited for the news.

I’d made it into the top five. Which was a relief and a definite weight off of my shoulders. Mike, on the other hand…I wasn’t sure how he’d fared. He hadn’t told me about his test. No matter what I said or did he preferred to keep me in the dark. Almost like it was a joke to him.

Maybe he felt that way, but I needed to know. Had our study sessions paid off?

I worried for him.

Strange how I was almost going crazier waiting for his news than I’d been waiting for my own.

Holding my breath, I waited to see where Mike would fall in the lineup. He’d better make it through. He must. I didn’t want to do this without him, especially not with Melia leaving for Faerie in a few short months. Mike would remain as my only close friend and confidant, no matter the difference in our statuses. What would I do if he left and I was alone?

Probably focus much better on your studies, a snide voice in my head whispered.

I told it to shut up.

“You’re hurting me,” Melia whispered again, glancing down at where I still held her arm.

“I’m sorry! I can’t help myself.”

“It’s not such a big deal, Tavi,” Mike said from my other side. Very uncomfortable with my level of worry. “Don’t get worked up about me. I’ll be fine.”

I didn’t answer him. Because to me it was a huge deal. I stuck my tongue out at him instead.

Mike was down the line thanks to his last name, and when they called him, I let out an audible sigh of relief.

He and I shared a smile.

“You made it!” I exclaimed.

“Because of you. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

Oh goodness, if he kept talking to me, I was going to lose it. As it was, a hysterical chuckle rose inside of me and I felt my cheeks warm.

“Stop. This is because you put in the time and the work. You earned it,” I told him.

He needed to stop smiling at me. If he kept it up—

Mike shook his head until those golden strands of hair fell over his eyes. “And modest, too.”

“Totally not true, but thanks.”

I brushed off his praise and ignored the heat curling low in my stomach. I finally released my hold on Melia, leaving her free to congratulate Mike as well.

Headmaster Leaves continued with the assembly as he called out the rest of the names of the students who won the lottery. Cries and screams accompanied his announcement, those students who’d reached the end of the first-year line at the Fae Academy for Halflings.

Until one voice rose above the others.

“I’m not surprised you’re in the top, Chase. After all, you do nothing but kiss the teachers’ asses, and it must really pay off for you. Maybe I should try it myself.”

My ears pricked toward the sound, coming from the middle of the assembly. No one else seemed to pay the taunts and teases any mind no matter the violence I recognized in the words.

When I followed the sound, I saw a group of older boys crowding around a guy from my class. They were right; Chase was another top student. He’d managed to snag the number two spot so far this term, and deservedly so.

I noted the way the four boys crowded around him, Chase trying to remain seated and harmless while the others crept closer and closer. Mocking him. Leering at him and high-fiving each other.

A growl began low in my throat. I knew their kind. I’d seen it too many times in my shifter pack: teens who decided it was better to be predatory and set up their alpha order early. The easiest way they accomplished this was by being nasty to each other.

Except where I’d come from, the teens usually ended up bloodied and with broken bones. Most if not all of them, actually. I’d been in the midst of it too many times and although no one had ever questioned my place in the pack—Uncle Will being the alpha—I’d had friends caught in the fray, coming back with black eyes, missing fingers. My kind healed quickly, true, but it always seemed unnecessary and ridiculous.

Plus you couldn’t re-grow a whole limb.

I’d always refused to give in to the predatory behavior even when I couldn’t open my mouth to admonish them because I had secrets to hide. Then too, I’d had to push down one-half of my bloodline to survive.

The boys continued to harass Chase, going so far as to slap his glasses to the ground and laugh when he stumbled to look for them.

I’d seen enough.

“I’ll be right back,” I whispered to Melia and Mike.

Both of them stared at me with utter confusion painted on their faces. “You going to the bathroom?” Melia asked. I didn’t answer.

I crept to the end of the row and stalked silently toward the boys. They might not have had to raise their voices for me to overhear them, but I wondered why none of the teachers intervened. This kind of behavior shouldn’t be tolerated, not here.

The moment I was within earshot, I hissed, “You guys need to leave Chase alone. Right now.”

The four boys turned to me in unison, pointed ears sticking straight out, and although I knew I should be intimidated, I was not. They were older than me, taller. Definitely thought they were better than me.

One of them, the boy standing closest to me, laughed outright. It fueled my anger. “What are you going to do?” he hissed back. “Are you going to kick my ass? A tiny little thing like you? I doubt you have enough strength to knock me over.”

I might be tiny but I don’t need a full moon to show you my teeth, boy.

My head tilted to the side. “If the situation warrants, then yes. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a bully, and I don’t think what you’re doing is right,” I said.

The one who spoke—he seemed to be the ringleader of this little group of bullies—straightened as though to make sure I saw his height, his weight, the muscles pressing against the school blazer he wore. “Walk away,” he told me. “This doesn’t concern you.” His friends behind him snickered.

“I say it does.” My gaze flicked to Chase. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said with a hasty nod. He’d found his glasses and they sat askew on his nose.

“What’s going on?” Finally, a teacher decided to show. He marched closer and leaned over the chairs to stare at us. “Isn’t someone going to answer me?”

I stared at the lead boy. Or at least the only one who opened his mouth more than the others. “Aren’t you going to tell him?” I goaded.

Sudden, naked rage flashed in his expression, there and gone in an instant.

Then the boy shrugged and I watched a mask slip over his features, going from openly hostile to neutral with a hint of simper. “Nothing, Professor Reeds. We’re here minding our own business and this first-year decided she had something to say to us.”

Luckily, Professor Reeds, my water magic teacher, decided he knew enough about the boy not to believe any of the lies he was dropping. “The bullying has to end, Xander. How many times do I have to tell you? We don’t stand for this behavior at the academy, and you and your cronies have a bad habit of continuing even after you’ve been warned to stop. This is the last time I’ll say it to you.”

I narrowly avoided sticking my tongue out at the quartet. Then Professor Reeds turned his attention to me.

“Miss Alderidge, back to your seat. Now.”

Bowing my head, I did as he asked and made my way back up the aisle toward Mike and Melia. But I heard the whispered warnings.

“Detention, four o’clock in the usual room,” Professor Reeds stated in a hush. “And you’d better not be late. If I see you picking on someone again, I’ll write you up, and you know the drill. Three write-ups and you’re gone. I know you’ve all been written up at least once, so you’d better toe the line. You are already down a few hundred points apiece. I’d hate to have to take more from you.”

Yes, exactly, I thought. Actions like theirs had to have consequences, and dire ones. Bullying couldn’t be tolerated in any instance, and sadly I’d seen enough of it in my life. It was the one thing I could not and would not tolerate.

Hopefully those four—Xander included—would think twice before bothering Chase or anyone else again.