Chapter 8

ISOLATION

"It's just temporary," my mother said, trying to console me.

"I want my phone back!" I glared at her. "I can't believe you're making me miss the last few weeks of school just because I didn't go to prom! Give me back my phone! Give me back my car keys!"

"You didn't even take your dress out of the bag. Where did you go?" my mother asked, frowning back at me. "You still haven't told us."

"It's none of your business," I replied, looking away.

"You aren't going to be ungrounded until you tell us the truth." She sighed. "You're going to spend every day at home, and your father is going to keep reading to you from the Bible every night until you tell us. We love you. We want you to be safe, and we can't keep you safe if you won't talk to us."

"You just get mad or push me away when I do talk to you," I snapped. "How am I supposed to talk to people who don't want to listen?"

My mother shook her head and walked towards the door.

"I don't want to talk to you when you're like this." She threw her hands up. "You need to get yourself sorted, apologize, and tell us where you went."

She shut the door behind her.

We have to go or you will miss the admissions interview, Niamh said.

"I know," I sighed.

I rose to my feet and grabbed the backpack I had hidden under the bed. The flier said that if I got in, I would be leaving straight from the interview to go to school.

I opened the door to my bedroom.

I heard the familiar click and hum of the old device waking up, and then the soft sound of orchestral music playing, followed by the dulcet tones of a Shakespearean actor saying something dramatic.

I walked out the bedroom door and shut it quietly behind me.

My little sister was waiting near the front door, the keys to my truck in her hand.

She held out her hand, I put the flier in it.

She handed me the keys, her eyes sharp.

"I think this is dumb," she said. "You should just do what Mom and Dad want and go to college."

"Do the spell, and you'll see I'm not dumb," I replied. "There is way more to this world than we know, and I'm not going to spend my life cut off from it just because my parents think they know the right way to live my life."

I headed out the front door and ran to the truck. I got in, Niamh jumping in with me. I started it, backing out of the driveway, ignoring the front door opening as my mom ran out.

I drove away, ignoring the rearview mirror.

I was done existing in a state of stress and fear, wondering how I was going to find another light that made my heart shimmer the way Magnus did when he smiled at me. The dark pit in my heart was growing larger, but if I held onto the anticipation of my new future tight enough, I could almost ignore the fact that I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him.

He would be better off without me anyway.

He didn't need to be around a constant reminder of what he did.

I parked my truck on the busy street a block away from the address. I grabbed my stuff, taking the key with me just in case. There was no guarantee I would be accepted, no matter what my mythical magical deer fox said. There was no guarantee this was even real.

I looked at the numbers on the buildings as I passed.

It was in the next block.

I waited for the light to change so I could cross.

Across the street I saw a familiar form standing with his back to me. He shifted, turning his head like he was looking for someone. That glowing burst of sunlight exploded in my heart, causing me to gasp. I'd looked at him across so many rooms, so many distances, that it was impossible for me not to recognize him. I could see him in the way he held himself, the way he stood, the way the tousled curls of his hair caught the light.

When the walk signal changed, I crossed the road.

As I drew closer, he turned.

His face lit up when he saw me, then it shut down, fading into an expressionless barrier between us.

"You ghosted me," he said.

I shook my head.

"I was grounded," I replied. "My parents took away my phone."

He looked at me and I looked back at him. His eyes softened as he took in my words, and my heart pounded with the rush of desire to reach out and touch him. It hurt to look at him, but it hurt worse to look away.

"Did you come to say goodbye?" I asked.

"I came to make sure you weren't about to be kidnapped, drugged, and forced into a life of prostitution," he said, his tone flat. "You're shit at judging people."

"How did you even remember the address?" I asked.

"I took a picture of the flier," he replied. "While you were sleeping. I also took a picture of you."

"You're ridiculous." I laughed.

He winced, shaking his head as if to shake off my casual dismissal of his feelings.

"You're the one showing up for an admissions interview for a school that doesn't exist in a building that rents out temporary offices," he shot back. "You're crazy coming here."

"I know I am," I replied. "But what does that make you?"

A sex obsessed demon, obviously, Niamh commented.

I ignored her.

Interacting with her when other people couldn't see her would make me look even crazier than I already was, running away to this interview without telling anyone where I was going. He was right. This was probably a mistake. The idea of a magical college that existed only for special sparkly people was way too good to be true, and I should go to a therapist and figure out how to suppress my hallucinations of a familiar.

"An idiot who cares about you Magnus replied. He tilted his head to the side. "Now, shall we go find out if we're about to be murdered?"

My laugh cut off an instant after it started.

"Are you doing okay?" I asked.

Magnus's strained smile reflected my own. Neither of us were willing to voice the source of my worry out loud.

"I needed to see you," he said as we walked up to the front door. "I needed to make sure you were okay."

He sped up to beat me to the door, grabbing the handle and pulling it open for me.

"Quite the gentleman," I said, feeling gratitude. I hated opening doors. They always seemed like they were made for bigger people. Most of the time I had to sit back into my butt and use my body weight to get them open. It was annoying.

What wasn't annoying was Magnus opening the door for me.

That I loved.

But not as much as I loved him.

That thought caught in my throat as I held those words back. I already said them. I already laid my heart out for him, and he didn't want it. He'd literally murdered someone because of me. And yet, he was still here for me when I needed him.y thoughts and feelings collided into one another in a tangled mess I couldn't sort out, no matter what kind of logic I tried to apply to it.

All I could do was feel it.

Feel and walk into the building with Magnus beside me.

We walked up the dirty grey carpeted steps to the second floor and down the hallway to the door number listed on the flier. Magnus opened that door, too, and we entered a barebones waiting room where people around our age sat in rows of plastic chairs with their familiars. The room was stuffy, but I could hear the whirring of a fan struggling to circulate the air around the room.

The sight of the different creatures took my breath away.

A smile broke over my face as a small blue woman shaped creature floated through the air in a circle around one girl's head. Something that looked like a bunch of twigs glued together perched on a shoulder. A round ball of wool with two horns sticking out of its head sat on a chair next to a boy.

I walked up to where a woman sat behind a flimsy folding table with a computer set up in front of her, the wires all visible as they hung down to the electrical strip of plugs under the makeshift desk.

"Name?" she asked as I walked up.

"Lumi Anderverison," I replied.

She looked over at Magnus.

"I'm just here for support," he replied, jerking a thumb at me. "I'm Magnus."

Her eyes tightened around the edges, managing to widen and then narrow with the tension around the edges, her nostrils flaring for a moment as her eyebrows dove in the middle of her forehead like kingfishers going for the kill.

She rose to her feet.

"Wait here," she said.

Then she ran through the door that stood to her left.

"That was weird," I said.

"Are you sure you don't want to just leave?" Magnus said. "It could still be trafficking, even with guys being here. Guys are vulnerable to that sort of crime, too, you know."

The woman burst back through the door, holding it open.

"You two, both of you, go in." She gestured with her entire arm, swinging her upper body as she pointed at the door behind her. She was out of breath and her eyes were locked on Magnus.

There were some mutters behind us in the room.

"I've been here for three hours," someone griped.

I walked through the door, Magnus following.

"Definitely murder vibes," he murmured.

All of the walls in the room were the same grey as the carpet, devoid of decoration. There was one other door on the other side of the room. Three people sat behind a solid wooden table. One was a lanky, elegant woman with long black hair whose clothing fit her like a second skin. She stared at Magnus the way a cat stares at a lizard. Another was more mousy and round, with tight brown curls framing her face. The third was a man who was so nondescript it was difficult to focus on him, he was so bland looking. I wasn't sure I'd be able to recognize him in a crowd if I saw him again.

"Oh, a deer fox! Those are quite rare," the mousy woman said. "That is a definite yes from me. Those are amazing help with the unicorns, and we're a little short on workers there after that last bout of unpleasantries."

The black haired woman rose to her feet and stalked towards Magnus.

She circled the two of us, placing her hand on the back of his shoulder, causing him to twitch and jerk it away from her touch.

"How delightful," she laughed. "An incubus trapped in the mundane."

"A what?" I asked.

"An incubus is a type of male sex demon." Magnus frowned. "That's a really creepy thing to say to someone you've just met. Actually, we haven't. What's your name, anyway?"

I elbowed him in the ribs to stop, but the black haired woman either didn't notice his tone or didn't care.

"Do you not know?" she asked as she strolled back to the table, perching on the edge of her seat. "Your parents are lying to you. One of them has to be a demon, or you wouldn't exist. There are only a few bloodlines who escaped, so you must be quite powerful."

"We should go." Magnus shook his head as he took a step back towards the door. He grabbed my hand, enveloping my smaller one in the warmth of his grip. "This is freaking me out."

I looked at him.

He wanted me to give up on it all just because he had a bad feeling.

I didn't want to leave.

But that was the thing about this love - it put the weight of his words over my own desires. It made his opinion matter to me. It wasn't just because I loved him. It was because he treated me like he loved me, even though he said he didn't. Every action he took spelled out the intentions of love, despite what he had told me in the woods. I was used to people who said they loved me, but their actions said the opposite.

His actions meant far more than words.

As a result, he'd earned something the people who raised me hadn't.

My trust.

"Okay, we can go," I said.

He smiled at me, that brilliant expression that touched his eyes and took my breath away.

"I think not," the black haired woman said.

Magnus yanked me behind him as she rushed forward. She was so fast, like the snapping head of a snake. He barely had time to get me out of the way before her hands were on his face, forcing him to look into her eyes.

His entire body relaxed.

His hand would have fallen out of mine if I wasn't gripping it so tightly.

"You will go through the admissions process and get sorted," she said. "Once you're in orientation you may regain yourself."

He nodded.

"That is, 'Yes, headmistress'," she purred.

"Yes, headmistress," he replied, the tone of his voice empty of all feeling.

He walked towards the door on the far side of the room like a robot.

"Magnus?" I asked, pulling on his hand, but he didn't stop. I threw my weight into it, but he was a lot bigger than I was, and he just dragged me along in his wake. "Magnus, stop!"

"Oh dear, we don't need you, so you can leave if you wish," the headmistress said. "But your deer fox is useful, so you still have a place at the school."

"I'm not leaving him," I replied. "You can't do this to him."

"You will find out that I can do anything to you that I want." She smiled, wiggling her fingers at me as Magnus opened the door. The air in the doorway shimmered, and he dragged me through it as I held on to his hand, still trying to pull him back.

The air felt strange.

My skin prickled with goosebumps.

It was noticeably cooler.

Magnus's hair frizzed slightly with the humidity.

We were in a stone hallway that arched over our heads high enough that I could stand on Magnus's shoulders and barely touch the ceiling. There was a soft red carpet under our feet, centered in the hallway with the stone floor on either side of it. It was secure enough that it didn't move when I tried to drop my weight and pull backwards on Magnus, resulting again in me being dragged forward, the smooth bottoms of my shoes sliding on the carpet and getting no traction at all.

"Magnus, you have to snap out of it," I demanded.

You can't fight the compulsion of an unbound vampire by talking it out, Niamh said as she trotted by my side.

"A vampire? Seriously? How do I fight it?" I asked.

You have to kill the vampire, Niamh replied. Or cast a mind protection spell.

"Tell me how to cast the spell!" I begged as Magnus dragged me through a wooden door and into another stone walled room with a single heavy wooden desk that held a large computer monitor on one side of it. There was a strange honey colored oval membrane the size of a door set up high in the wall back behind the desk.

"A compulsion?" a feminine voice said, accompanied by a light fluttering buzz. I looked around me for the source of the sound. "He must be quite valuable if the headmistress forced him to attend. I haven't seen her do that to anyone before. Most people are just desperate to get in. You poor souls don't know what you're getting into. Reminds me of that mundane movie, the one with that gorgeous octopus temptress who seduces a mermaid into a bad bargain. It works out for her. I suppose it works out for some of you, too. Much better than living in the mundane anyway, even if your options are pretty limited here."

A small woman leaned out from behind the huge monitor screen. At first glance her eyebrows looked like they had been glued to her face, but as I looked closer, I realized that they were small scales instead of hair, even though she had hair on her head. Long, gossamer wings arched up and away from her back. As I stared at them, they fluttered, lifting her up out of the chair for a moment before she settled back down behind her desk with a wink.

"Now, I need your names so I can assign your school tablets," she said. "You are?"

"Lumi," I said, staring at her.

"Perfect. Let's get you all set up here." Her fingers flew over the keyboard, then she grabbed a tablet and a bundle of red clothing from a stack next to her and pushed it across the table. "He must be Magnus? Oh my, an incubus! No wonder Tabitha got so excited. Their population is so low due to the bond suppressing them here in the magic realm. The only way we really get new ones is if the Goddess releases them so they can breed. The ones who remain in the mundane stay hidden, so it is a miracle that one of them came to Admissions."

"He didn't know," I said, feeling disconnected, like this was all happening to someone else. The only thing that kept me anchored was his hand in mine. "I don't think he knew."

"Well, he is in for quite the shock." The fairy laughed. "Now, he gets one of these."

She pushed a violet uniform and a tablet over the table.

Magnus yanked his hand free from mine, causing me to stumble forward as he grabbed his shirt and stripped it off.

"Oh, dear." The fairy floated up and turned around, facing the other way. Magnus continued to strip, then put on the silver trousers, the white shirt, and the violet jacket.

"What are the differences in the colors?" I asked, following his lead to put on my own uniform. I had to keep up with him to stay with him.

I couldn't leave him alone in this.

This was all my fault.

"Those designate your ranking, of course," the fairy said to the back wall. "Red marks the first year mundanes, like you, who are here because of the value of their familiars."

"He is done dressing," I said as Magnus picked up his tablet. I grabbed his clothes and mine and stuffed them both in my backpack before snatching up my own tablet. "What does violet mean?"

"It means you should stay away from him." The fairy floated back around. "Proper students are a danger to the mundanes. If you know what is best for you, then you will keep your head down and be careful not to offend any of the regular students."

"I'm not a regular student?" I asked.

Magnus walked out the door we'd used to enter the room.

"No, dear. You're a mundane," she called out as I trailed after him. "You're nothing."

What the heck did that mean?

Magnus turned down the red carpeted hallway and continued walking until we made it to a huge set of heavy wooden doors. He pushed one open and walked through, letting go of it as soon as he was past the threshold. I turned to avoid it, but it caught my shoulder, and I twisted around it as I stumbled to keep up with him. His stride was so long, his greater height covering more ground than I could. I didn't realize until this moment that when he walked with me before, he had been slowing himself down to match my shorter stride.

I jogged to keep up with him, ignoring the forest on either side of us.

This had to be the magical realm.

"Goddamn it, Niamh, you better be as good a friend as Toto," I snapped.

I know you're afraid, and you should be. I'm sorry, Niamh said as she bounced beside me, practically glowing. But you were my best ticket out of there. They don't let lesser fae back into the magic realm unless we come attached to a mundane being. Living in the mundane world is like living in the desert when you're a fish. Our lifespans are so much shorter there.

"So you used me." I frowned at her as I sucked in air at a more rapid rate. I was not used to having to jog like this.

Yes, she replied simply. I used you, and now they will use me. It is the way of things. It is important that you keep your head down and behave well. The ones that are obedient or find protectors are the ones that survive.

"Shit shit shit shit," I swore, the words keeping beat with my footsteps. "I'm so sorry, Magnus."

There was no way I would listen to Niamh now.

She was a traitor.

She knew this place wasn't all rainbows and unicorns, and she didn't warn me. A thought interrupted my internal tirade of blame. She didn't tell me, but I also didn't ask.

Up ahead was a large, shimmering, glass geodesic dome surrounded by a cluster of smaller cottagecore style buildings. A path to the left led to a large mansion in the distance, and the other to the right led to another cluster of buildings that looked like they could be dorm rooms or apartments. Tiny balconies dotted the front of the buildings in uniform rows, barely big enough for the handful of small potted plants on some and laundry hung out to dry on others.

We moved past a group of four stupidly handsome guys all wearing violet jackets. I couldn't focus on them, but the sight of long violet hair and pointed ears caused me to do a double take before I pulled my attention back to where I should be focusing.

"Magnus, you have to snap out of it," I demanded, grabbing his arm and planting my feet in the dirt. "We have to get you out of here."

I threw my weight down and back, using every ounce of my being to stop him.

He didn't even slow, and I left two long drag marks in the dirt.

The four guys' heads turned, watching us.

We were getting closer to that huge dome, and I had to stop him. I didn't know what would happen there, but I was one hundred percent certain it would be bad news. My stomach twisted with fear and anxiety. Any school that forced students to attend by taking away their free will couldn't be good. I had to save him. This was my fault and I had to fix it.

I'd watched a video of self defense techniques once, but I hadn't used any of them.

My hands trembled as I jumped on Magnus's back.

I wrapped one arm around his throat and put the other one on the back of his neck, my knees clamping down on either side of him. I squeezed as hard as I could, but he didn't react or slow.

"Magnus, you didn't want me to go here!" I yelled in his ear. "You only came to make sure I was safe. Fucking snap out of it! We are not safe!"

That won't work, Niamh said.

He still didn't stop.

He kept moving like a terminator locked on his target, with nothing more important than accomplishing the goal in front of him. It was like I wasn't even there, like I was a mote on his back.

I threw my weight back and down as hard as I could, and he swayed backwards for a second.

Then one of his hands came up and wrapped around my forearm that was around his neck.

His grip was firm and warm as he pulled me up, holding my arm so it no longer constricted his throat, and I couldn't throw my weight back again. His hold was immovable, static, a statue except for that one gesture to stop me from stopping him.

But even in his resistance to my attempts to stop him, his grip was gentle.

He grabbed the handle of one of the two big glass double doors of the dome building and opened it, walking through while still carrying me. He carried me into a room filled with students wearing red uniforms, all standing around and chatting.

He came to a stop and let go of my arm.

I slid down his back and walked around to his front.

He was staring off into space, but not in the way that I loved. He wasn't lost in some world in his head. He wasn't anywhere. His eyes were empty, disconnected from the reality of the moment.

I grabbed his hands, holding them in mine.

"Magnus," I pleaded. "Please."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw four figures in violet jackets standing nearby, watching the two of us. I turned to look at them, and recognized them as the guys we had passed on the path outside. The red uniformed students near them moved a little further away, glancing nervously over at them. They kept their distance from Magnus, as well, maintaining an open circle of space around us as we stood in the crowd.

I rested my forehead against Magnus's chest, breathing. I wanted his arms to hold me against him. I wanted him to tell me that everything would be okay, even when I knew it wouldn't.

I'd led him into this trap.

He wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me.

"Wake up," I begged, tilting my chin to look up and focus on those empty eyes.

Light flashed in the orbs that led to his soul, like something coming back to the surface of a deep pool, rippling into the edges of consciousness.

He blinked, his entire body tensing as he sucked in a breath and looked around with wide eyes. He focused on me, the confusion painted across his face in lines mixed with fear.

"Lumi?" he asked. "What is going on?"