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The Golden Moon. Another event. Is there a Golden Moon coming soon? I need to speak with Ashton.
And I need to speak with Jason and Emrys, preferably when they’re as far away from my cousin as possible, to lessen the effects of her spells.
“Give us an example of magic from the Tempest, Miss Apollinari,” the teacher says, coming to stand in front of my desk, startling me. “As I recall you’ve read the book, haven’t you?”
Oh yes, wouldn’t you know it. We’restillstudying The Tempest. We will study this play for the rest of the semester, for the rest of our lives, until the end of the world.
But my brain isn’t at all on topic.
“I can’t remember,” I whisper. “Sorry.”
The teacher waits as if hoping I’ll say something more, then he sighs and turns to the class. “We’ll talk later, Miss Apollinari.”
God, I’m turning into the worst student in the entire Academy. I never study anymore, never pay attention in class.
“We have instances where Prospero’s magic failed,” the teacher says. “Class, what are the instances? You, Connor. Yes, with Caliban, right. And you, Mary, tell me. That’s right, with Sebastian and Antonio, too. What made Prospero’s magic fail?”
Magic failing.
That makes me think of what Ophelia said, of witchcraft being like a hook, hooking into others’ magic—of the holes in the boys’ magic. Their emotions, their dark pasts. What had she said? Sindri’s conception, Emrys’ tortured childhood… Ashton’s guilt. Guilt over what? And Jason’s darkness. If I find out what they’re hiding, their weakness, their Achilles’ heel, maybe then, maybe… The idea almost forms. But not completely. It slips right through my fingers, because it’s stupid.
Then what? I’ll have them talk about their traumas and heal them? Since when is anything so easy? No way would that work.
Around me the students discuss how Prospero’s magic works and whether elemental magic can be controlled and if witches have better control over it or simply different, and I see Ashton looking back at me, a question in his eyes.
Only I can’t decipher it. Does he want to ask if I’m okay, or if the others are okay?
I can’t take this anymore today. The tossing and turning all night hasn’t helped either. I want to say to hell with classes and go.
Screw Prospero. He’s imaginary and has no idea what it feels like to sense things you can’t properly describe or understand, let alone control. I’ve always loved losing myself in books, escaping from my own boring, uneventful, frustrating life and now I’m pissed off at books for making everything seem so simple when it’s not. How do all those heroes and heroines do it? How do they know what to do when a power they never had before strikes them, when they are supposed to use it—and fast—if they are to save the people they care about?
And above all, yeah… How many heroines do you know who want four boys and all four seem haunted and doomed… and the heroine’s cousin is the one controlling them?
God, I wish I knew at least who I am, who my parents were, if this magic I seem to possess could be enough to break Ophelia’s enchantment.
If I’m not an Apollinari, then who am I? Where do I belong?
I throw a scrunched-up piece of paper at the back of Ashton’s head but it hits the girl behind him instead. She turns to glare at me and I pretend I had nothing to do with it, pushing my pen and notebook around on my desk.
Closing my eyes, I focus on Ashton—gray eyes and crooked smile, coolness and fresh water and grass rustling—and he turns around to look at me.
I feel it before I even open my eyes.
Kind of creepy. But I grin in triumph and he gestures at me, asking to know what I want.
“We need to talk,”I mouth.
He rolls his eyes a little.“I know,”he mouths back. And then he looks a little sheepish, cheeks coloring, mouth quirking in a quick smile before he turns back to the front and I’m left wondering what it means.
What did he do?
I narrow my eyes at him, prod through the magic which is like a network, a net where we are all caught like insects, some of us aware of our predicament, some of us able to tug on threads and change the pattern—but he doesn’t turn back around until the bell signals the end of the class.
As he gathers his things, I walk up to him and park my hip on his desk. “Hey. Did you change classes?”
“No. I wanted a chance to talk to Emrys but obviously he’s not here.”
“No, he isn’t. Sindri put him in bed last night. He’s probably still resting. What was that look you gave me earlier about?”
