Chapter 8
Poppy
I’VE NEVER BEEN STARED AT like this before.
Well, students always stare when I’m with Maeve, but they don’t usually stop and talk and interrupt us—Maeve is kind of intimidating that way, so the other students give her a wide berth.
Aric, on the other hand, exudes a warmth that seems to draw people in, like moths coaxed toward a flame or cats drawn into patches of sunlight on crisp winter days.
“I’m still struggling with this rune map,” Aric says.
He slides a crumpled piece of parchment across the table toward me.
“Maeve was going to help me with it, but I annoyed her so much she gave up. And now you’re here.
So maybe that was a good thing.” He smiles, his tusks gleaming in the sunlight coming through the stained glass windows high up the library’s walls.
Him thinking me being here is a good thing makes me warm inside, and I quickly shift my focus to the parchment, hoping he won’t notice how heat rushes into my cheeks.
I narrow my eyes and sweep my gaze across the many different rune maps he’s tried.
Some are scribbled out, others are smudged, but none of them are going to work—that much is obvious.
“What’s your intention with these maps?” I ask.
Aric smiles again. “They’re that bad, huh?”
I hurriedly say, “No, no, they’re . . . uh . . . a good start.”
He arches a brow at me, and as he tips his head, the many piercings in his ears catch the light.
“Uh-huh.” Then he reaches into his bookbag and removes a silver ring, which he places on the table between us.
“The runes are supposed to make the ring glow, but no matter what I try, I can’t get them to work. ”
“Hmm . . .” I look back down at the maps he’s already tried, and I can see now where he went wrong. “You were close, actually.”
Across from me, Aric perks up. “Really?”
“Mm-hmm. Look here.” I turn the parchment so it’s between us on the table. “You’ve got lumen, the rune for light; fixus, for attaching and binding; argentum, for silver; and vita in the center, for life and energy, to power the rune. But I think we need one more.”
I look up and am startled to find Aric leaning in close, his face inches from mine.
He’s so close that I can see each of his long black eyelashes, but his gaze is trained down, on the rune map, instead of on me.
I catch my breath and lean back from him.
He must notice my hesitation, because he looks up.
His hazel eyes catch the light, and they remind me of the little glass jars of honey that Mama keeps in the café, sparkling and rich with shades of yellow and gold.
Aric blinks. “What am I missing?”
His voice draws my focus back to what I’m supposed to be doing: tutoring, not admiring Aric Vandermere’s pretty eyes.
“Well . . .” I quickly organize my thoughts. “We need something to support the light—to ensure it doesn’t go out.” Telling him would be too easy; I want him to try to think through it on his own.
Rune magic isn’t as black-and-white as other magics; it requires a bit of playful exploration, and you have to learn how each rune interacts with others, since every grouping will produce different results.
“Something to support the light and keep it from going out.” He taps one finger on the tabletop, then casts his gaze up to the stained glass windows, a thoughtful furrow forming in his green-tinted brow.
I sit quietly, in no rush to give him the answer. When he continues to struggle, I offer, “What can destroy light?”
Aric tips his head, expression still thoughtful. Then his face lights up, and he meets my eyes. “Darkness!”
He sounds so joyful, I can’t help but to smile. “Right. But we need to resist darkness, rather than inviting it in. How do we do that?”
He thinks for a brief moment, then says, “We flip it upside down, use the inversion.”
I nod. “Just like a tarot card, an inversion has a different effect.”
Aric grabs his quill and inkwell from his bookbag. He dips the quill into the ink, then narrows his eyes in focus as he practices sketching the rune for darkness: tenebrae.
“How’s that look?” He puts his quill down and holds up his practice parchment.
His lines aren’t perfect, but they’ll do.
I nod. “Good. Let’s go see if it’ll work.”
“DO YOU ALWAYS CAST YOUR runes this way?” Aric asks. He stands next to me in the academy’s courtyard. The sun is warm on my shoulders, and being outdoors, where I have more room to breathe, makes me way less nervous about being so close to Maeve’s stepbrother.
“Not always,” I say, grabbing a stick that must’ve fallen from one of the trees dotting the courtyard. “But if I want to do it right, then yes. Drawing your runes in the earth helps give them more power—vita.” I look up at him, then offer him the stick. “Let’s try it.”
Aric drops his bookbag next to mine, then peels off his fourth-year robe and tosses it over the bag. He’s wearing a white button-down, and the material strains a bit at his chest and arms. I try not to stare but fail spectacularly.
“This isn’t going to blow me up or something, is it?” he asks while rolling up his shirt sleeves, exposing his muscular forearms.
I tear my eyes away from his smooth green skin and quickly shake my head. “N-no, of course not.”
Aric lets out a laugh. And then he bumps my shoulder.
My stomach does ballet, leaping and twisting, and I’m sure my face is beet red. Boys don’t touch me. Ever. But Aric did it so casually, so confidently.
It’s nothing, I tell myself. He touches girls all the time.
“Just kidding with you,” he says, flashing me that tusk-filled smile, the many golden hoops adorning his pointed ears catching the sunlight.
His hair is cut short on either side and around the back, but the rest of it he wears long and pulled up into a topknot.
He looks equal parts clean and rebellious, and having just known him a short while, I feel rather certain that fits his personality well.
I take a step back and gesture to the dirt beneath our boots.
Aric pulls his parchment with the rune map from his trouser pocket—I try not to wince at how wrinkled and crumpled it is—and he studies it for a moment, his face taking on a focused, serious look, hazel eyes narrowing.
Then he starts to draw his runes, tracing them carefully into the dirt with the tip of the stick.
He starts with vita, the rune for life. It’ll supply the energy needed to power the rune.
Then he draws four more runes, one on each side of vita: lumen, fixus, argentum, and tenebrae.
Just as he finishes tracing tenebrae’s final line in the dirt, a subtle vibration goes through the air, and Aric glances at me, eyes wide.
“Did it . . . ? Is it . . . ?”
I gesture to his bookbag. “Place the ring in the center, on vita.”
Aric discards the stick and dives into his bag, emerging with the silver ring. He holds it tenderly, and just before he places it on the central rune, he whispers something to himself, though the words are too quiet for me to hear.
As Aric steps back, the runes start to glow with a delicate silver light. After flaring bright, the light gets sucked from the outer runes into the central rune. I hold my breath. Beside me, Aric is staring, wide-eyed, all his focus on the silver ring.
And when it starts to glow, just the way he intended, he lights up, grin so wide it makes his eyes crinkle in the corners. “We did it!”
Turning to me, he lifts me into his broad arms, and I let out a yelp of surprise as he twirls me under the late-summer sunlight. My skirt flutters around my thighs, and my hair swings in the warm air. The landscape becomes a blur of gold and green, like I’m in an abstract watercolor painting.
Aric sets me on my feet again, and when I stumble, he reaches out to steady me.
“Sorry,” he says. “I just got so excited. I’ve been working on that damn rune map for weeks. I can’t believe you got it to work!”
Slightly winded but smiling nonetheless, I reach up to right my glasses and say, “I didn’t do anything. That was you.”
Now Aric’s smile shifts into one that looks a touch bashful. “I couldn’t have done it without you. Seriously. Professor Elwood is going to be shocked when I show her this.” He steps away and bends to retrieve the ring, which retains its subtle silver glow.
“It’s a beautiful ring,” I say softly. “And it must be pure silver for the rune to have worked so well.”
“Thank you.” Aric continues looking at the ring, his expression soft. Then he adds, almost in a whisper, “It was my mother’s.”
I don’t miss his use of the word was rather than is.
And suddenly, I don’t know what to say. What I want is to say something kind and supportive, but my mind goes blank at the implication that maybe his mother isn’t with him anymore.
Just like my father isn’t with me anymore.
But that happened so long ago that it’s just become part of who I am.
My lips part, though I’m not sure what I’m about to say.
But before I can get any words out, a small witch with dark skin and yellow hair—a solar witch, perhaps—jumps at Aric from behind, startling him and almost making him drop the ring. He recovers quickly, though, slipping it into his pocket before turning to smile down at the witch.
“I thought that was you,” the witch says, hugging him around his middle, though her arms don’t reach all the way around his back. Her eyes are so bright gold they appear almost yellow, and she has gold glitter brushed across her cheeks. “Wanna walk to class together?”
“Oh, yeah. Is it that time already?” Aric casts his gaze toward the sky, squinting at the sun. Then he looks at me and smiles. “Thank you again, Poppy. You’re the best.” He reaches out and puts a warm hand on my shoulder.
“S-sure,” I squeak, still rattled by how freely and comfortably he touches me. It’s not that I don’t like it; it’s just . . . different.
“See ya Saturday?”
At his words, the yellow-haired witch looks at me, one brow arched. She says nothing, but I can feel her gaze as it assesses me, the sun catching the glitter on her cheeks and making it shimmer. I try not to shrink under her scrutiny, but it’s hard.
“Yeah. See you then.”
Aric grabs his robe and bookbag, then turns and sets off across the courtyard, the small witch at his side. She smiles and laughs freely with him, her eyes squinting in joy at something Aric says.
When they’re both gone, I take a deep breath and let it out in a huff.
Then I grab my own bag and head toward the Whim, scuffing the runes in the dirt as I go. I think I could use a moment to clear my head.