AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I glower at her, taking in the items on her person that she collected from my boys to better control them—Emrys’ dangling earring and Sindri’s ceremonial silver hoop on her ears, Ashton’s ring on her thumb, Jason’s leather bracelet on her wrist.
“Thief,” I whisper. “In every sense.”
I don’t know if she hears me. Taking Sindri’s hand, she turns her back to me and they head out.
I want to throw my backpack at her and scream until the windows shatter. My skin feels too hot. It’s damn hard to sit there and watch them go. A feeling is rising inside me, a furious whirlwind with nowhere to go. It spreads out, and the desks start to screech, sliding away from me. I…
“Mia,” the teacher says and the whirlwind starts to fray. Slowly I turn toward him, my heart pounding in my ears.
“Yes?”
“I’ll be expecting your joint project with Sindri by the end of the week. You’re already behind. Don’t fail a class that’s supposed to be easy.”
“I’ll remind him again,” I whisper and the desks stop moving. I turn back to look at them.
Did they move? It’s hard to tell. Did anyone notice? I’ve barely discovered magic and my lineage and I’m already frustrated by my lack of knowledge and experience. Father—my uncle, in fact—had said they’d wanted to protect me from magic—but how can you protect someone from what’s in their blood? Why let me remain ignorant when instead they could have taught me how to use my power properly?
I need to learn how to use magic, how to control it. But who could teach me?
Instead of heading to my next class after art, I go back to the classroom where we just had Lit class, where Emrys was collected by his jailer.
I have this thought lodged in my mind and I need to double-check.
I mean, no way, right? I’m making up a story in my mind that isn’t real. So what if Sindri wrote my name and that word—beloved, oh God—in his art pad? He was probably absent-minded. It doesn’t mean anything.
But I can’t wipe out of my mind the way Emrys had been bent over his desk, looking like he was carving something into the wood.
What if he was?
The classroom is thankfully empty. I walk over to the desk Emrys had occupied and stop. There, on the surface, two words have been carved.
‘Dancing Angel.’
He’s called me that a couple of times.
I sit heavily in the chair where he’d sat earlier and rest my hand over the words. My head’s reeling. Is this for real? Can I trust it? Are the boys really fighting her enchantment? Is it a message for me, or is it only an absent-minded game, an action with no meaning?
Frowning, I press the pads of my fingers against the grooves in the wood. I think of Ophelia standing at the door of the classroom, beckoning, of the boys leaving without a backward glance. Her control over them is immense. But I’m missing something, something about this picture of Ophelia at the door, and it’s bothering me.
What I need is to test my theory, see more evidence of it. If I’m right, it will happen again. And then I will think of a course of action.
So, I head to my next class, and then the next, because I don’t share all my classes with the boys. In the last one of the day, though, the French class, I see Jason.
My breath leaves me at the sight of him. God, why is it so hard to see them and not be able to go put my arms around them, ask them about their day?
He’s sitting kind of hunched over in his seat. They all sit like that now where before they liked to sprawl, take up space. It’s as if they are in pain, or in fear of their lives. It makes my heart hurt to see them like that. The fall of his dirty blond hair hides his eyes, but his mouth is thin and his lips cracked. There’s a smudge on his jaw that I ache to brush with my fingers.
The teacher walks in and the class begins. Not that I’m paying any attention. I’m distracted and impatient to find out if I’m right, to see if Jason will leave me a message, too.
“Wake up, everyone!” The teacher claps her hands. “Allez! What’s wrong with youth today?”
Lots. Preach, lady. And God, this class will never end. Time is getting slower and slower. It’s as if I’ve been hit with another time spell. The minutes drag. The seconds stall.
Also, I seem to have forgotten all my French. The teacher is very ennuyée with me—that means royally pissed off, by the way. I know because she explains it to me. Apparently, I need to get my cul on the siège and get some étudier done—that is, get my ass on the seat and study.
Roger that.
I’m now at the opposite end of the rope I held this morning. I’m thrilled to see Jason but I can’t wait for the class to end and for him to go so that I can check his desk for any clue.
