Chapter Three: Chloe

Lessons went smoothly, and Chloe’s magic remained stubbornly absent of anything relevant. Also, her gut-reaction magic only worked a few more times, but mostly, it seemed to concern students doing illicit deals in the gardens late at night or someone throwing lightning in a corridor or sending out a disturbing cloud of dark magic from the science labs.

There was also the business about the statue in the Triscor garden, which all the students speculated was the actual body of a former student turned to stone. No one actually knew for sure, and not even the teachers seemed able to confirm or deny anything. However, Chloe suspected that the teachers might also be a part of the conspiracy.

After all, if the rumors of how scary a school happened to be drifted around, passed from student to student, spreading the image of the dangers if you were foolish to wander into the wildlands at night – perhaps that alone might be an effective deterrent.

At times, she thought of the student she’d raced after, the one she’d talked down from the ledge, ate dinner with, and listened to. She knew she’d done the right thing – it was just – the trouble with doing the right thing is that you seldom got to experience the results of them.

Since that time, the student had simply vanished – she never saw him in the corridors. Maybe he’d left because the griefwas new and too much to bear. She considered asking Professor Umber about his whereabouts but didn’t know how to do that without appearing nosy and intrusive. Still, the image of the dragon shifter flitted across her mind’s eye at times. She recalled his slumped posture, his immense struggle to neither cry nor snap at her, those amber eyes locking on hers as if he was using her presence to cling to reality, to life.

Hopefully, he’d be okay.

“What’s up with you, Chloe?” Her friend Holly hovered over with her eyebrows lifted. “Are the lessons hitting harder?”

“Not as hard as yours,” Chloe replied, with a small smile that she thought would reassure her friend. “At least I’m not a medium who needs to go around and talk to people’s spirits or anything.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t…recommend it.” Holly shuddered. “People don’t really treat you nicely when you have those sorts of powers. I mean, it depends on the people, of course…”

“Honestly, my powers feel like a joke at times.” Chloe sighed, shrugging for emphasis. “I’d hoped that summer camp might unlock some unknown but super-awesome element of the powers, like, I could be predicting with more accuracy than I do now. But it’s the same for everyone, really. Being an oracle is not reliable.”

“But what about those oracles in ancient Greece they talk about?”

“Oh, they found out the oracles were using some kind of artifact to help make their visions more relevant. That artifact is no longer around today.”

Chloe knew exactly what had happened to it, thanks to Kati and Harrow gossiping after all the drama that had gone down. Those two had been right in the middle of the action. Chloe couldn’t help but feel somewhat envious of them. Normal people like Chloe (well, normal enough, anyway) didn’t get to experience those things. The intuition/premonition side of her magic was a little cool, but it had very limited use, and just like actually peering into the future, it couldn’t be activated on a whim. So, she couldn’t just go through her life as if she was dosed up on luck potions.

The subject of their talk soon drifted. “Have you seen or heard anything about that student you helped out, the one whom you said was going to jump?”

“Nothing.” Chloe could almost see a cloud of gloom hovering above her head now. “For all I know, he might’ve quit. It’s not like we exchanged numbers or anything. I was just helping him out, letting him know someone was listening, even if they were a total stranger. I knew somehow he needed that. But… what exactly would you do if you found out your parents died in an accident?”

“I don’t know,” Holly replied soberly. “This… it’s not something I want to think about, really, because then I have to start picturing something I don’t want to picture.”

“Exactly. It’s a problem. I… I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if he dropped out of the school.”

“Why not ask that professor about him? If you’re so curious?”

“Because.”

“Great answer, Chloe.” Holly didn’t pursue the matter further, however, likely sensing that Chloe didn’t want to keep speculating or want to intrude on the professor without making it obvious she was simply being nosy. She had no reason to approach him, no permission to ask about Tiran. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder about him all the same, maybe because it happened to be one of the few genuinely good uses of her otherwise obscure powers. The long evenings lying in bed, trying to delve into her gifts, were fruitless. The meditations they made people with her type of magic do, the incense sticks they burned, the ritualistic aspect of trying to work their way into the “right” frame of mind so that their powers might actually manifest…

Yeah. It didn’t really work that well. Still, she had set up a small corner of her assigned dorm room so that it might act like a small shrine that would allow her to concentrate on her powers. A little table, some candles, and a long lighter to help with the ones that had burned down a narrow waxy tunnel, a small wolf figurine that looked suitably dramatic from a souvenir shop in the nearby village… and she was encouraged to meditate to help access her powers. Hell, they even had a meditation room in Dreadmor Academy, but she preferred the comfort of her own space without having to share it with total strangers.

A vision journal sat on the desk as well, just in case she received one out of nowhere, so it could be jotted down quickly before the memory faded, and she’d instead need to take a potion that helped enhance her memory.

A lot of measures to take for ironically unpredictable magic. A few days more passed, and she still hadn’t mustered up the nerve to approach Professor Umber and ask him about his nephew. Then Professor Umber himself was absent for a week, and it seemed to her to be linked with Tiran’s plight, and the mystery continued to grow without answer.

Almost the same day Professor Umber returned, dominating his classroom as if he’d never left, Chloe finally glimpsed Tiran in the corridor with a group of fourth-year students. Had he been here before? Or had he, too, mysteriously returned like the professor, and conveniently at around the same time?

She observed him from a distance, still between lessons. All his friends were superbly good-looking, but he…something about his features, combined with the memory of his expression in the dining hall, made him stand out compared with the rest, at least in her eyes. But she might be slightly biased toward him, so…

As if sensing her stare, he looked away from the group, and his eyes swept in her direction, fixing on her.

Ah. Best not to stand here and continue to be creepy. She pretended instead to be engrossed with something on her phone, trying to resist the urge to stare. She walked closer and closer until she passed the gaggle of students blocking one side of the corridor. Her neck prickled from unseen attention. She made it to class without incident, but she knew he’d been watching her the whole time.

A fourth-year student wouldn’t be interested in someone like me. He might remember and thank me, but that’s pretty much all the interaction I can expect at this point.

Nothing more, nothing less, which was fine. Of course, her mind was a little… overactive at times. It liked to picture hypothetical, impossible scenarios and conversations that might never happen. It was like, sometimes, fantasizing about an exceptional life waiting for her just around the corner.

The lessons blurred into one another, with one more “vision” encroaching on her during a session with Professor Z’Hana, but that vision, dutifully recorded in front of witnesses, gave her no clues that it might be for something… useful. Something about a pack of dogs chasing someone, or maybe it was wolves… anyway, they were chasing someone who ran supremely fast, and there was a river, sunlight, and nothing more.

“So, someone might be in danger,” Z’Hana had noted after checking over the vision. “From dogs or wolves. And they are… running. You had no indicators to see who was running?”

“Nope. It was in first person for me. I was whoever happened to be doing the running.”

“Anything else?”

She thought and thought. Had there been any defining features of the place that she might recognize? But no. Straining her thoughts yielded nothing, and they chalked it up to yet another vague vision that might have been about anything over the world.

“I had some high hopes for your type of magic,” Z’Hana had told her. “Of course, everyone with oracle powers can glimpse the future on occasion – but it is said that those with intuitive abilities on top are meant to get more relevant visions. It doesn’t seem to be the case for you, however.”

“Harrow had the most accurate visions.”

“Yes, well, Harrow also had some assistance that boosted her vision capabilities. Now, without that assistance, she is about as reliable as the rest of you.”

“We really should try to make another artifact that can assist with these visions.”

At this, Z’Hana grimaced. “Well… there’s only one entity we know that is capable of even enchanting such a thing, and that individual isn’t exactly known for being a pleasant person.”

“Maybe someone should try. Baba Yaga talked to Kati and Harrow, right?”

At this, Z’hana shook her head and placed a long, thin finger against her own lips. “Not something we can have open discussion about.”

These powers were so stupid. Traipsing to eat dinner after her lessons had finished, Chloe felt in quite the mood, even more so when she spotted other students demonstrating their awesome and multifaceted powers, like flames, wind, floating objects, zipping around at ridiculous speeds, and even one person lifting an immensely heavy statue with one arm, grinning and posing for a photo.

What I wouldn’t give to actually have a useful power…She stabbed aggressively at her food. One pea, harder than anticipated, pinged off the plate and hit a figure moving in her direction.

“Ugh, I’m sorry about – oh, it’s you.”

“Me,” Tiran said, rather nonplussed from being assaulted by a pea. “Do you mind if I sit here?” He gestured opposite her, which was less awkward for her, having chosen to sit near the end of one of the long tables.

“Sure. Be my guest.” Puzzled but pleased that he was now sitting with her, she tried to quell the storm of thoughts in her head, the questions that wanted to emerge and shout themselves at him. Surely, by choosing to come here when he had his friends – he wanted to talk to her. Her father used to say that the best thing you might do is to listen, stretch out silences, because people loved to fill the silence with something that chased it away.

When he didn’t, in fact, strike up anything, she figured she may as well. “So… I feel like I haven’t seen you around for a few weeks.

“That’s true,” he said. “I’ve been on sick leave. Then, I was… with my uncle in the funeral procession. We wanted to do it without those… other family members around.”

“Ah, right.” Her brain began to sparkle with remembrance. “That can’t have been easy. I guess they were mad they couldn’t come?”

“I think they were happy for the excuse, really, because they can paint it like we’re the bad people. But we didn’t want them to come – they didn’t deserve it. My uncle hired a lawyer to see if the will can be challenged. But short of finding a new and revised version of the will, it looks like I’ll have to strike out independently.”

This wasn’t quite the romantic conversation she might have daydreamed about, but still, she nodded and smiled and expressed sympathy in hopefully all the right places. “Do you think they… made a new will?”

“I think so. But… it’s hard to know where even to look to find it.” He lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a pause. “It’s most likely best that I try to focus on…making it on my own.”

“Perhaps. But, uh, why are you telling me all this?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I feel like I can trust you. Is that odd?”

A little, she thought, but she nodded outwardly.

“It sounds like you’ve been dealing with a lot. Are you at least a little better now?”

“I can get up, talk, and function like a normal person,” he said. “I think that’s about as much as they expect from me. My friends ask if I’m all right, but they get uncomfortable if I actually say I’m not. So, I put up a big front for them.” His amber eyes now settled on hers. “Have you… lost someone?”

A sharp, painful heat shocked her brain.

The little coffin is next to the big coffin. It was so small. It didn’t seem fair that everything he should’ve been was now consigned to that little wooden box, lost forever to everyone, denied the chance to ever be…

“My brother,” she managed. “And my grandfather.”

Those piercing amber eyes chilled. “How long ago? And how? If you don’t mind me asking. But… I understand if it’s not something you wish to share.”

It wasn’t. She barely thought about it these days, though sometimes that thinking was… aggressive in the way she avoided it. Maybe a little too aggressive. It seemed some kind of family pact, never to mention what had happened. Maybe partly out of protecting her and partly because they didn’t really know how to address the whole situation.

“My… grandfather was a fisherman. He had a boat on the marina, very proud of it. He’d take family members fishing with him all the time. Even I had been on that boat with my little child-sized fishing rod, trying to catch something when we anchored in the water. He didn’t like conversation much; it was why he kept escaping out to the big blue, he said.” She swallowed, unsure if she could continue. No tremors. No sudden urge to burst into tears, no increased heart rate that preluded a panic attack. Just… normal feelings.

“My little brother at the time… two years younger. He went on a trip with Grandpa as he had done before. But…neither of them came back alive. My parents didn’t hear anything about them, aside from there being a report on the news about a capsized boat bobbing in the water. They think maybe strong winds might have caused it – but their bodies washed up on shore a couple of days later. That’s what they said, anyway. So, my brother and my grandpa had the service together, and I remember the little coffin next to the big coffin. And it didn’t seem fair.”

She stopped there, unwilling to continue, but he nodded, grim, eyes heavy with knowledge. “It’s not easy to deal with, is it?”

“No.”

Peacefully, they ate their food, and Chloe slowly let the door close on her feelings about those deaths. There was nothing she could have done; she was just a little girl. Even when she used to imagine winding back the clock and dreaming about getting a premonition that this would happen so she could triumphantly warn them not to go… the magic never worked the way she wished it did.

So, those types of thoughts would always stay in her dreams and never manifest beyond them.

“I do apologize,” Tiran said then, “for bringing down the mood. I just… I just wanted to talk. And I suspected, maybe… you knew.”

“My magic helped with it,” she said, “for once. But yes. I’m not completely unfamiliar with the feeling. It’s just different and faded, and I don’t think my family was anywhere near as divided as yours over it.”

“Heh.” He finished off his drink and leaned back more comfortably in his chair. “Thank you again, by the way. For what you did. And for listening again. And for sharing. I owe you a lot, it seems.”

“You owe me nothing at all,” which was the right thing to say, but secretly, she was pleased to hear those words from him. “But you can always buy me a milkshake or something in the future if you want.”

“Actually, I have another thought, which may or may not interest you. I don’t know exactly how adventurous or risk-averse you are…”

Now, her interest was piqued. “You have a proposal for me?”

And does that proposal mean spending more time alone with you? Because there are no complaints if that’s the case.

“Something like that, yes,” he said with a smile. “My uncle was mentioning what happened in one of his classes the other day. He said that it was one of the lessons about respecting the fae that live in the wildlands, and one of them was Jenny Greenteeth. And he said that the creature had paid special attention to you out of all the others who were there. Interesting, isn’t it?”

Wow. Chloe had almost forgotten about that incident. “Yeah? What about it?”

“I don’t know if you know this, but if that old hag is recommending that you visit, it means she will have told the dryad to expect a human of your type of magic. Some of the creatures are in close contact in the swamp to be sure they don’t infringe on one another’s territories, harm chosen humans, and that they take an interest in people from time to time. Right now, you have an open invitation to visit the dryad. They usually deal in forest-based magic… but they can offer some powerful enchantments if you are in their favor.”

Chloe processed the information, wondering why Tiran was now informing her of all this. Even though it sounded interesting, the swamp was not a place for someone to travel off the beaten path.

“Okay, that sounds pretty cool, but uh… why are you telling me? No offense or anything.”

“None taken. I’m mentioning it because if you ever actually want to visit the dryad, it’s something that can be arranged officially. The professors will allow some students to do so, especially if they have an inkling that the student may get a boon from the entity in question. If the dryad likes you, you might be given a rare enchantment. It’s only the true fae that can enchant things these days, and they’re not exactly generous with their magic in these ways.”

“Oh! That’s... interesting.” Chloe considered. “I didn’t realize that was even a thing.”

“It happened to a third-year. One of the mountain spirits took an interest in him, and they arranged a trip with a few of the professors for security. The spirit gave him the ability to shapeshift into an eagle. He does it to show off to people at times.”

She grinned at the image. She’d probably do the same if some random mountain spirit blessed her with such an ability.

“I think my uncle was planning to talk to you at some point about it, but it looks like you haven’t yet taken that meeting. I mean, he was pretty busy, so…”

Though the chatting started heavy, it gradually shifted to less heavy topics. Tiran genuinely seemed like he wanted to stay in her company, and she couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. Though some of the conversation attempts were a little awkward, they were all coming from a place of interest, of wanting to find reasons to talk to her. It reminded her, in a way, of how she’d tried to probe for topics when dealing with someone she’d crushed on back in her teen years, how they were all awkwardly trying to figure out how to act, how to speak, what was cool or not.

Sometimes, those types of conversations ended up being awkward, but with good intentions toward one another. And she got that kind of vibe from Tiran.

“Dude,” he said when she mentioned the disappointment about her own powers, “I still would want to swap mine with yours.”

“You’re crazy. You literally can breathe fire and do fire stuff. You can turn into a dragon. You don’t want this lukewarm crap; you won’t ever get anything exciting out of my powers!”

“I think you grievously underestimate how cool your powers are.”

At this, she thumped a fist on the table, unable to quite quell his grin. “You’re completely biased. Just because I happened to be around, so you didn’t launch yourself off a balcony, doesn’t mean my powers are therefore awesome.”

She worried for a second that saying that might be considered offensive to him, but he laughed uproariously. “Uh, duh. That’s exactly why I think they’re awesome. It’s not every day someone comes running at you waving their hands telling you to stop.” The smile was wry, his eyes twinkling. “It’s not always easy, this old life. What some of us wouldn’t give for a guardian angel swooping in.”

“I’m no guardian angel,” she said, blushing, and he simply grinned.

At that point, someone glided in with their own tray, placing it next to him. “All right, Tiran?” Another older guy, probably the same year as Tiran. “Is this her?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah, so you’re the oracle chick who helped our friend.” The guy grinned so wide that the corners of his lips seemed close to touching his ears. That was a wide smile. “He’s been going on about you, you know. Said he was hoping to run into you again and thank you and everything, isn’t that right?”

“Right,” Tiran said, going oddly red from his friend’s blithe words. “And do you really have to be here? Right now?”

“Oh, you don’t want me to be around? That’s hurtful, man,” he said, but it was clear he knew exactly what he was doing and was taking far too much delight in Tiran’s reactions. “Have you asked her out on a date yet?”

“Silas,” Tiran said between clenched teeth. “I am this close to seriously murdering you right now!”

“Oh, you haven’t asked her out yet. Okay. I bet he was being all polite and awkward, wasn’t he?”

Chloe felt she had some responsibility to salvage…whatever this was before Tiran completely burned up in embarrassment. She felt a little pink herself from those pointed, blunt words, but seeing Tiran placed on the spot helped keep her cool enough to stand up and say, “I think we were both just leaving now. I’m sure you’re an amazing company, but we had something to discuss, didn’t we, Tiran?”

He nodded desperately, and they both abandoned the roguishly smirking Silas behind, handing in their trays and exiting the dining hall.

“Your friend… is he usually like that?”

“A freaking asshole? Yes, yes, he is. He can be all right, sometimes, but he has this overwhelming urge to be an absolute dick when he sees any of his friends talking with people of the opposite gender.” He then let out a small groan. “That was not how I was planning… anything.”

“You were planning something?” she asked, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Uh… would it be bad if I said I wanted to try and find an excuse to hang out with you?”

Some of the pinkness returned. He was so… She rubbed the back of her neck. He was so… human. Not some almighty dragon shifter that could transform into some giant reptilian, fire-breathing murder machine. Just a normal person. Who got flustered, who had annoying friends, who wanted to reach out and talk but didn’t always know the best way to do it.

Somehow, that made her feel warm inside. “I’m sure we can meet up again if you want. Let me give you my number…”

They exchanged numbers, both of them beaming in a rather silly way, then took a little walk around the Triscor gardens. Dreadmor Academy had immaculately well-kept gardens on the main grounds, with gardeners and sculptors tending to everything daily. The stone statues in Triscor, the fountain, the pathways dotted by a myriad of colorful flowers, and the artfully carved benches that took up some of the space there as well – were many a student’s favorite walk. Perhaps not the best place for privacy since most students tended to have the same idea.

Other parts of the Dreadmor grounds had their own appeal, too – there was even a collection of small fairy huts in the back, other paths, other benches – it was just clear of the gardens and the main spectacle within the grounds themselves.

A part of Chloe found it difficult to comprehend that someone like Tiran actually wanted to hang out with her – and actually liked being in her company. It was easy, sometimes, to have a poor opinion of yourself. Then, when you saw someone looking at you like you were simply so awesome, it… Chloe really didn’t know what to make of it. All she really knew was that she didn’t want to do anything to discourage the company.

When they eventually parted with smiles and waves, she gushed about the whole thing to her friends in separate chats and got the expected reactions from all of them. Kati, with her millions of exclamation marks and caps and overbearing excitement, as if she were a dog somehow in human form, Harrow with her, are you sure he doesn’t have some ulterior motive suspicion, Holly with her light, polite encouragement, and recommendation to visit the village that was a short walk away from the academy, and Skyla offering to curse him if he turned out to be shady.

Chloe did some research later as well, based on the wildland fae that had granted their more mundane human and part fae subjects boons and gifts. Almost as many of them gave gifts as they did curses; she checked specifically about dryad blessing, making sure that any sort of dryad actually wanted to gift her and not just screech and chase her out of the territory like a lot of protective fae.

Some quick searching suggested that most of their magic and enchantments were nature-based, but nothing that led her to really know what to expect from a dryad. She searched for things that dryads like as the last rabbit hole of pages before sleep beckoned and the new day arrived.