Chapter 8

Felixa followed me for days after that. I mean, she quite literally trailed me around campus, even going so far as to track me into the campus bookstore and park herself in one of the reading chairs while Jasinda and I finished picking out the rest of our books.

No gems were ever exchanged on campus—it was a currency-free zone—but most of the books required for class were rare, magical tombs and there were only so many of them. We had to ‘check them out’, as if this were a library or something. So we ended up standing in a ridiculously long line with two wicker baskets full of supplies and two stacks of books on the floor at our feet. As the line moved forward, we kicked our piles along with booted feet. I’d have given them to one of my ghostly horde to hold, but I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that four of the ten ghosts in the building were mine.

“This is so boring,” Trubble complained, lying on his back next to the snaking curve of the line and staring up at the ceiling. Everyone else was staring at him, and no less than twelve girls and six boys had paused to ask if he was single and looking. I kid you not. “Aren’t there servants who can do these sorts of tasks for you?”

“Servants aren’t allowed on campus,” I told him, poking him in the side with my foot. I was still royally pissed off that he’d attached himself to me without consent. It was a sort of … gods, I didn’t want to say magical rape, it wasn’t that bad, but it was rude and thoughtless and annoying as flub. “Not even royalty brings servants with them.”

“What about scribe boy?” Trubble asked, rolling onto his side and propping his head up with one hand. I kept seeing professors and Royal College guards glancing oddly in his direction, but we had Professor Cross with us and nobody seemed willing to come and talk to Trubble when there was already another teacher close by.

“He’s not a servant,” Jasinda said, glancing back and catching Matz’ eye as he shelved a book and then looked quickly down at his supply list. “He’s a scribe and a scholar and a fifth-year. He’s just around to help with you-know-what, not with schoolwork.”

“And help with bedroom time, too, huh?” Trubble said, grinning and swishing his tails around. He had two fuzzy ears atop his head as well, just like Dyre, little furry triangle just begging for a pinch. I wondered if he could turn into a mask in this form as well? Might not be as cute, seeing a tall dude crawling over somebody’s head. “Because, clearly, he wants to fuck you.”

I turned toward Trubble in shock and smacked another student in the face with my wing, knocking her back into the boys behind her and spilling her books all over the floor. Oops. When I tried to go over to help her, I hit yet another student in the back of the neck and knocked him forward into a tangle of sixth-years.

Gods.

At that point, I just tucked my wings in close and mumbled a few apologies. It didn’t much look like any of them wanted my help anyway.

“What are you getting so worked up for? It’s just sex. Obviously, you’ve had it before.” Trubble picked at the buttons on his borrowed tunic and then sat up with a sigh. Personally, even though, he was a beautiful, beautiful man, I was already scheming ways to turn him back into a fox. I was curious, too, about those white wings. I preferred the ebony feathers I was born with, but it was an interesting idea to think I might be able to switch the color with magic if I wanted.

“I’m not getting worked up,” I said with an eyeroll, noticing one of Eli’s little ghost mice cowering near my feet. The man himself sauntered up in a lazy, boneless sort of way and gave my slightly-smaller-than-Jas’ stack of books a close look.

Ah, flub.

“A book on razor wolves?” he asked, absently stroking the ears of the ugly little spirit mutt he’d picked up in the city. “I don’t remember that being on the required reading list for first-years.”

“Maybe I have different classes than you did?” I said, folding my arms under my breasts as Eli quirked a brow at me.

“We’re both spirit whisperers, Brynn.” He leaned down and carefully sifted through the stack of books, pulling out the one in question as that little bee inside my belly started buzzing again. But this time, it wasn’t from jealousy, it was from nerves.

Of course I’d snuck a book on razor wolves into my stack when Jasinda was busy loading up on extra study guides and optional textbooks that neither of us really needed. I had to save Talon. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I couldn’t leave him like that.

Several nearby students gaped at the floating book—they couldn’t see Eli—and gave me and Jassy an even wider berth than before. So I was clumsy and surrounded by ghosts. At least I had plenty of them to act as friends because I wasn’t making any around here just yet. And these were people who were around spirt whisperers on a regular basis. Hellim’s balls, there were spirit whisperers in the line with us and they looked at me like I was crazy. Because none of them had a little ghost harem following them around, now did they?

“What are you planning on doing with this?” he asked, using every trick in the book to appear both solid and hold the tome in his hand at the same time. It didn’t last long, and he ended up tossing it back onto the stack before crossing his arms over his chest.

“I can’t leave Talon up there all alone,” I said as the line shuffled forward yet again and Jas and I kicked our book stacks forward.

“Brynn, you’re not actually thinking of going into the mountains, are you?” Jasinda asked, and now she, too, was looking at me like I was insane. I pursed my lips because she was supposed to be the one person who was on my side. After last week, and Monday and Tuesday of this one, I was getting tired of being looked at like there was nothing between my ears but fluff.

Professor Tiukka had made the decision to treat me as more than just a normal student in her class—and she so clearly disliked most of those—but also to openly hate me. Every time she glanced my way, there was ire seething in those brown eyes of hers. It was lunch hour now, too, so that meant as soon as the bells chimed … I’d have to see her again. Other than Felixa, she’d easily become my least favorite part of the day.

“I can’t leave Talon,” I repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. “I just can’t do it. He’s all I can think about now. It’s been a whole week since he went missing. A week spent in the dark gullet of a carnivore.”

“It’s awful, I know,” Jas said, curling her hand around my wrist and trying to grab my attention. “But you almost died and … you-know-who did die. It was awful up there. We can’t willingly put ourselves into that situation, no matter how bad you feel for Talon.”

I squinched my face up and bit my lower lip.

I’d had my first kiss with that guy and … even though he’d stolen the queen’s underwear, he was a good man. I liked him. And I couldn’t stand the thought of him suffering for two hundred years because of me.

“Let’s talk about this later,” I said, watching as Felixa rose from her chair and got into the much shorter line for food at the little snack bar in the corner. I guess she felt confident that I’d be trapped in this line long enough for her to grab a hot cocoa—heavy cream stirred with fresh vanilla and cocoa powder.

“You don’t look at all like you’ve changed your mind,” Eli said as Trubble surged to his feet and sniffed the air in a way that was totally and completely embarrassing. “Brynn …”

“This isn’t the best place to talk freely,” I continued, keeping my wings folded close and hoping I didn’t break anything else on the way out of here today. Air had already bet Jasinda before we even left the house this morning that I would break or knock over five distinct items in the bookstore.

Within seconds of walking in, I’d accidentally shattered a decorative crystal vase filled with roses and sent a display of Whisperer Cards—cheat sheets of all the whisperer categories written out on thin parchment—crashing onto the floor. If you added in Student Number One that I’d sent flying backward with my wings, and Student Number Two that I’d sent stumbling forward, then I was already at four. Jasinda had guessed three, so at this point, the two bum-holes were both wrong, but also sort of tied. If I could stay at this number, it would keep them both from gloating.

“Have you two mated already?” Trubble asked suddenly, drawing my attention over to him and his flop of purple hair, his bronze eyes, and his stupid face. He always seemed to be smirking or grinning or doing some other equally annoying thing with that full mouth of his. “I keep getting mixed symbols.”

“As if that’s any of your business,” Eli drawled, bending down to retrieve the mouse from between my feet. He stood back up and tucked the tiny thing into his pocket alongside another. I was so tempted to exorcise them, but I figured if he really wanted it done, he could also do it himself. Or else maybe he was concerned about getting pulled the rest of the way to the Otherside?

“So that’s a yes then, good to know. I’m interested in scoping out all my potential compeers.”

“Wait, what?!” I squealed, and then accidentally kicked over the wicker basket with all my supplies in it. I bent down to gather them up and Trubble followed me. “What is with all of you idiots and making weird statements about mates and marriage and sex and compeers. I am single as of right now. You hear me? Single.”

“In that case, do you wanna fuck?” Trubble asked, grinning mischievously in my direction. I almost punched him in the face. But then, it really was a handsome face and I didn’t want to get blood all over my nice, new white Royal College jacket.

Although if I did happen to accidentally spill something on the skirt well then, wouldn’t that be a shame that I’d have to start wearing pants? There were just places on the body that didn’t need to see breezes … except well, maybe the guy three people ahead of me in line might argue that point since he seemed to have no trouble rocking the black pleats. He’d even folded his waistband up twice to make his skirt shorter.

Huh.

Braver than me.

“If you don’t get the flub out of my face,” I growled, poking him in his way-too-solid-for-his-own-good chest, “then I swear on my wings that I’ll spend day and night researching some way to turn you back into a fox—permanently. I’ll even see if I can throw in getting that whole one day a year thing removed while I’m at it.” I gestured with a hand in the direction of the cocoa cart. “Go get us a drink or something, would you?”

Trubble sniffed the air again and sighed.

“We don’t have much cocoa in Vaenn,” he said, but he didn’t bother to acknowledge my refusal of his advance. Nah, this guy was too confident in himself to bother with that. He knew he had a flat, muscular chest and long lashes, almond-shaped eyes, and full luscious lips.

Ugh.

“Make it three hot cocoas,” Jasinda said as we shuffled forward yet again. At this rate, the bells were going to ring and we’d up being late to Professor Tiukka’s class, basically the last thing I needed.

“Oh, a woman who knows what she wants,” Trubble said, licking his lower lip and winking theatrically. I ignored him and crossed my arms under my breasts, the crisp new fabric of my uniform wrinkling slightly with the motion. The fox boy moved away and Professor Cross took his place, looking over the gathered students with his red framed glasses perched on his nose.

“I haven’t been to the bookstore in years,” he said with a dreamy sigh, turquoise eyes sparkling as Elijah sat down on the ground next to us and concentrated until he was able to pull the razor wolf book back into his lap. So much for dropping that subject. The heavy tome fell right through and landed on the floor, startling several nearby students, but he ignored them concentrating on turning the pages with slow, careful precision. “I forgot how vibrant it is, all this fresh blood, new ideas, youthful optimism.”

I noticed Eli rolling his eyes, but even though I was still pretty ticked off at the professor for binding himself to me without my permission, I enjoyed his enthusiasm. He really did seem to love the idea of teaching others, fostering fresh discoveries, and helping urge a new generation of Amerins into greatness.

“Universities really are the breeding grounds for social change, aren’t they?” the Professor asked, his hair sparkling with silver spook dust as he nodded at a few of his fellow colleagues. Spook dust was rare as hell and highly regulated—even a Royal College professor wasn’t permitted to use it on a daily basis—but Professor Cross had argued that one day at the bookstore was worth a million pounds of the glimmering mineral and opted to use it anyway.

“I suppose so,” I said, wondering where Air and Dyre were, what it was like to be stuck haunting messy bookshelves, so close to us and yet so far away at the same time. I glanced over at the professor as he straightened out the ghostly epaulettes on his shoulder. His teacher’s uniform was so perfect, so at odds with the torn sleeves of Eli’s jacket, that I had to wonder how he’d died. Was it rude to ask? Maybe. But it was also rude to bind one’s spirit to a whisperer without her permission, so screw this guy. “May I ask how you died?” I start, drawing the man’s—err, ghost’s?—attention over to my face.

“It’s not a particularly happy story,” he said, reaching down to touch the eye necklace hanging around his throat, a symbol of the god, Verstand, the Mad God. He was known as the god of the insane, of the prophetic, and of mind whisperers. Most of those who received his blessing considered it more as a … curse. And if I had to take a guess on how Professor Cross might’ve died, my gems would be on suicide or spook dust overdose. Or maybe alcohol poisoning. Oh, or that one famous mind whisperer from a hundred years ago who died via croco-kill. A croco-kill was a big, pink lizard similar to a crocodile. At the time, Air’s ancestors kept them in the Royal Zoo and the Royal Mind Whisperer had climbed over the bars slathered in chicken blood …

“What story of death is?” Eli asked, continuing to flip through page after page of micro text. The words were so little in that book, I was starting to wonder if I might need a magnifying glass to read them. “Let me guess: a hanging?”

“Not quite,” Spicer said with a long sigh, this awful fog of regret filtering across his turquoise eyes. I opened my mouth to say something—either comforting or question, I wasn’t sure—when I saw a familiar face out the window and let out a long squeal.

“Vex!” I shouted, pushing through the sea of students and knocking several of them over with my wings in the process. At that point, I wasn’t sure if I was being clumsy … or if I just didn’t give a fuck. It’d been only days since I last saw him, but at that point, it felt like weeks.

I charged out of the bookstore and leapt into his massive arms, feeling his muscles band around me and squeeze me tight. All sorts of emotions and sensations ran through me, making my heart beat faster, my blood get hot, my skin feel achy. I felt an affection toward Vexer of Reisender that I knew I’d never felt for anyone but Airmienan before.

Swear to Haversey, it was like sparkles were dancing in front of my eyes as I leaned back and looked him in the face … and then, subsequently panicked because I realized he was standing on Royal College property in broad daylight.

“Look,” he said, letting me down and flashing a small metal badge with the word Visitor sketched into the shiny gold surface. “I put in an inquiry to see if the staff might be interested in giving me a temporary visitor’s pass.” Vexer grins, his teeth white in his stubbled face. “I’ll be working toward putting together a special two week evening program for followers of Reisender or anyone else that might be interested in my god’s magic.” Vex leaned down close to me, smelling like man and sweat and musk and sunshine. Gods above and below, I could bottle that scent and sell it in town for a million gems! “Or the magic his followers can make with their fingers.”

Vex closed the distance between us, capturing my lips with his hot mouth, tangling his fingers in the back of my hair. It was a kiss that marked, claimed, told the whole world that we belonged together. I pushed him back slightly and wiped my hand over my lips, but inside, I was shrieking with excitement.

“Cr—,” I started, and then remembered that I was already entertaining several bald spats. “Hellim’s testicles,” I tried, and even though I felt that was a pretty good curse, I didn’t loose a feather for it. Score. Maybe Haversey liked her on-again, off-again lover’s testes more than she pretended? “I need to go back in and check out with Jasinda.” I nibbled my lower lip for a moment and then reached out a hand for Vex’s. “Come with me?”

He grinned and followed me inside, over to the line where Jas was still waiting with Eli and Professor Cross. I swear, I could feel Air and Dyre shifting frustrated somewhere in the back of the bookstore. Even Elijah looked upset when I brought the huge griffin man with the brown and white wings inside.

I had a feeling though, that it was less a case of them disliking the man himself as it was a sense of jealousy. It was natural for the dead to crave what the living had, and I knew it was probably killing Air to see another man giving me something we could’ve had for years if we both hadn’t been so damn stupid.

Vexer, still wearing the spirit charm I’d given him, nodded in greeting to Eli before bending down and stacking my books on top of Jasinda’s … and then lifting them all up like they weighed nothing at all. The line scooted forward again and Eli was forced to abandon the book on razor wolves. I picked it up and held it tight against my chest, hoping Vex wouldn’t realize what it was about.

But he was so much smarter than that.

“Razor wolves?” he asked, cocking one brunette brow in my direction. “You’re still thinking about the thief, aren’t you?”

“His name is Talon,” I said, pushing back strands of white hair from my face. “And I don’t think I’ll be able to stop thinking about him. I want to rescue him.”

Vex met my gold eyes with his gray ones, and I noticed a muscle in his jaw ticking with frustration. But when he opened his mouth to reply to me, I was pleasantly surprised, and that little bee inside of me started not only buzzing but stinging, too.

“My brother’s out of town this week, so I’m helping the guild pick up slack,” he said as he placed our purchases—well, loosely they could be called purchases even though no gems were exchanging hands—on the counter and turned to look at me while the student worker started marking down everything in a thick ledger. I placed the razor wolf book on the top of the stack and turned fully to face Vex. “We could go together, fly over the forest and see if we can’t find out where the pack is.”

“You’d think the queen would have them hunted down and slaughtered,” I murmured, but Vex was already shaking his head, shifting his wings behind him like he had something else to say but wasn’t sure how it’d be received here. Vexer leaned in close to me and placed his lips against my ear.

“The Travelers’ Guild offered to search out the wolves’ location so the queen could send in the Royal Army, but we were told to leave it alone.” Vex’s breath was warm, feathering against my ear and making me shiver. But when he pulled back, the look in his eyes was deadly serious. “I’ll help you find the wolves as long as you swear on my beating heart that you won’t go looking for them on your own; we make up a plan together.” Vexer took my hand and put my palm flat on his chest. I’d heard this sort of phrase before; it definitely originated in Scythia.

With a nod, I curled my fingers in his shirt and pulled myself toward him for a kiss.

The hot press of his lips helped chase away the cold chill that went down my spine at his words.

The queen told the Travelers’ Guild to leave a pack of razor wolves—a pack that’d attacked and killed a student—that close to the city?

Something scary was going on in Amerin, and I didn’t like it.

Not one bit.