“You asked me out on the first day of freshman year.”
“That’s why it took guts to do it again sophomore year. You’re terrifying.”
“I’m also the only person who has ever told you no.”
Embry was the reason Ames had finally relented and said yes, actually. Her first true matchmaking win. And these two were great together, even when they were having one of their more dramatic tiffs before the inevitable kiss-and-makeup session.
Ames booped Fairfax on the nose, which put her grinning face within inches of his and suddenly they’d resumed their canoodling while aimlessly progressing toward the theater steps. Again, Alistair leaned into Embry’s ear. “Do you want to start making out right now just to see if they can actually do thatandenter the building without us guiding them? You know, for science?”
Laughing in answer, Embry grabbed Alistair’s hand and skipped ahead to navigate the steps for their indisposed friends, all the while gazing up dreamily at the building. “I cannot wait to see what this semester’s production will be.”
“Does it really matter?” Alistair asked. “I’m sure Miss Jones has something picked just for you. You’re her favorite student.”
Though a newbie, Alistair was right—Jonesy had a penchant for playing to the strengths of her class, and she knew she had a stellar group of seniors. Led by Embry, of course.
There was drama in drama class.
“Where are my girls? Why aren’t there more girls?” Jonesy looked as if she might actually cry. Medium brown face deepening to the shade of a ripe plum, she scanned her newly amended enrollment for advanced stage performance with absolute horror and disbelief.
Embry and Amethyst were the only two girls in the class.
Typically, twenty people were enrolled. Her entire Raven’sHead career, Embry had never been in this class with more than five guys/masculine-presenting people. Ever.
Something was definitely up.
“August Bell.” Embry waved her hands at the senior two rows over. He was a neckless shifter with the personality of a freight train, but that made him unfailingly honest. He simply didn’t have the patience to beat around the bush. Shifters made excellent private security in the “regular” world. “Where’s Felicia? She’s always in this class with you.”
Felicia Clawson was August’s girlfriend. He did everything she told him to do—including attending this class, which, considering Alistair’s and Fairfax’s enrollment, may not be that strange.
“Powder-puff class with Heston.”
Jonesy blinked owlishly. “But Julius knowsnothingabout makeup application. Why—”
August barked out a laugh so loud and, well, nearly feral, that it snapped her question in half. “It’s a new gym class. Girls’ football. It’s this hour. Heston recruited all the shifter girls.”
“Football?!” Jonesy nearly shrieked, the sound careening into a wail. Tears welled in her chocolate-brown eyes and suddenly she looked both much older and much younger than her twentysomething years.
Oh no. Embry shot straight from her seat and toward the now-sobbing teacher.
“Are you gonna teach us to cry on command like that?” August asked, completely serious. “That could be really useful.”
“Shut it, Bell,” Ames warned as she caught up to Embry. The pair of them blocked Jonesy from view, an acute triangle of the only double-X chromosomes in the theater.
“Don’t cry, Jonesy,” Embry whispered as the woman’s shoulders shook, the enrollment paper crinkling in her hands. Technically a Glitch, Jonesy was an empath whose personal emotional reservoirwas vast, deep, and prone to flooding. Telling her not to cry was like telling the moon to divorce the tides, yet Embry knew if she tried a calming spell, it would only make Jonesy jolt with panic at her detaching emotions and sob harder.
“That dumb fairy did this on purpose,” she snuffled into one tearstained hand.Fairywas not a terrible euphemism—it was his magical designation. The gym teacher and football coach was fae. “To punishme. And now I can’t doInto the Woodslike I wanted!”
“Why would Heston punish you?” Embry asked carefully, setting aside the fact that shelovedthat particular musical. She’d watched both the Broadway recording and the movie many times with Rye on the worst of Maine’s winter days and may have written her own two-person spin-off at age thirteen. Embry glanced over the top of the teacher’s bent head at Ames, who looked just as baffled as she felt.
Jonesy wiped her nose, an entire smear of cinnamon-hued foundation rubbing onto the back of her hand. “We were engaged. I broke it off, and even though it was the right thing to do, I’ve been so lonely for weeks, and now he’s punishing me!”
Engaged? To be married?Embry supposed the teachers were about the same age. Midtwenties, nice-looking, and, well, shoehorned into this boarding school together for nine months of the year. The faculty stayed in cottages past the lake, but the setup was a glorified dorm situation for adults. Though living within spitting distance of your ex and working on the same campus would definitely not be the best of outcomes.
“Oh, he’s not trying to punish you, Jonesy,” August shouted, making it very clear that despite the wall o’ witch in front of the teacher, they weren’t soundproof. Should’ve tossed up a sound shield spell. “Heston told us to enroll to keep your class numbers up.”
Embry arched an eyebrow at him over her shoulder. “Uswho?”
August gestured to the mass of muscle surrounding him. “The football team.”
