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Offended? Mist? Yes, I was clearly losing it.
“What is it?” I asked, ignoring the new tingling of my palm against his. It was mohawk guy. He was standing right here, scant inches from me, and not letting go of me.
“It’s the veil, of course. We aren’t meant to go there yet.”
“You people speak in riddles. I feel like I have a headache coming on every five seconds. Look, I didn’t mean to stumble into your veil or whatever. I was trying to get some fresh air.”
He looked behind me. “Testing didn’t go well?”
He was still holding onto my hand, and that feeling came back. It was similar to the swarming warmth I felt when Titania wrapped her wings around me, but this was more palpable. I could feel it pulsing between my temples and buzzing in every cell.
“Testing was weird, let’s put it that way.”
He huffed out a breath through his nose. “It always is. It’s different for everyone. At least, that’s what I’m told.”
Odd. “You didn’t go through the test.”
He shrugged. “The results…never mind. You should really stay away from the veil. Go walk around somewhere else.”
The man rubbed at the back of his neck before shrugging his backpack higher up on his shoulder. Gods, he was gorgeous, but his sudden change of attitude all caught me off guard.
My chest tightened in frustration. “I just walked out the first door I saw. It’s not like I headed to your precious veil on purpose to piss you off.”
He chuckled though there was no smile. “You think I’m pissed?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll find a more suitable location to freak the fuck out.” I stomped off with my fists balled at my sides. Where did he get off? I had been here less than a day, and he was pissed because I was coming unglued in the wrong area of school.
If this even was a school.
I mean, it had all the attributes of school. The gym. The dorms. The separated social groups and the headmistress. But wings and magic and everything fucking glittered.
I just wanted to go home. Working at the diner or the dry cleaners down the street from my home would be better than this any day.
Looking down at my phone, I begged my father to call back. As the phone lit up and disappointment flooded me, I realized I was now late for the orientation in the library. Something about books.
I mean, seriously, who doesn’t know how to use a book?
Chapter Ten
“Welcome, students.” The petite woman stood in front of the tall bank of windows overlooking the grounds outside the library. And by petite, I mean maybe four foot five but perfectly proportioned with delicate features, green-gold eyes, and a figure a movie star would kill to have. Not a model, she had too many curves for that. And dark hair that hung in a gleaming sheet to her knees. “I am Ciara, the librarian.”
Well, that sounded like the kind of thing a real school would say. Not the school, of course, the building wasn’t talking. Yet. With my experiences so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did though. I’d entered the library to find the Testing line seemed to have cleared out. That did surprise me. My own Testing—and I couldn’t have explained what I was tested for to a group of torturers with red-hot-irons applied to my feet—had felt as if it took a long time. Maybe they’d told the others to come back later.
Or maybe time was different here, too. Why not?
I took a seat at a table as far from the door to the Testing room as possible. As if maybe it held hallucinogenic fumes that might leak out and have me seeing wings on everyone. The room wasn’t crowded; it was very big, but I could see at least fifty students scattered around, most in groups, chatting. My table was empty.
“Is this seat taken?” The voice was like deep, rich melted butter and the face and body matched. Was every guy here hot? Looking around, it certainly seemed so. But this one, as I recalled, was taken.
“Uh, no.” Tall, blonde, wearing a T-shirt that left nothing to the imagination—that combo left me stammering. “But don’t you want to sit closer to the librarian?”
“Not really.” He rested an elbow on the table and gave me his full attention. My knees knocked. “If I sit here, I can escape if necessary. I’m Adair.”
“You aren’t interested in the books and how to use the library?”
“Not really. I don’t feel any need to add to my aunt’s collection.” He grinned, revealing at least four more white teeth than anyone I’d ever seen. “Do you?”
Was that what this was about? “Are we being recruited as book finders? Thought we were learning how to use the library, like the Dewey Decimal system or something.”
