Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
Imake an idiot of myself in History. Again.
It doesn’t matter how much extra reading I’ve done.
I’m hopelessly lost. An outsider amongst a group of people with encyclopedic knowledge of a world I barely knew existed until last month.
I answer three questions about the War of the Witches so completely wrong that heads swivel to stare at me in horror and sympathy.
After that, I keep my head down, my shoulders hunched, praying nobody looks at me.
Dr Ward leaves me alone, but my eyes are stinging.
I scribble notes in an attempt to look productive, but I can barely read what I’ve written—my hand won’t stop shaking.
Jane scoots close and glowers at anyone who looks our way, but this only makes me feel worse.
I shouldn’t be here.
I’m numb the rest of the day. My eyes burn. My hand keeps darting to my phone, then retracting. Who could I text? Nobody in my contacts would understand what I’m going through.
Mostly, I’m just angry at Mom.
Why didn’t she tell me I was fae? I could’ve grown up where I belonged, gotten a sense of her world before I was unceremoniously thrust into it.
Jane gives me her notes, but I don’t want to read—I want to punch a wall and then run five miles.
It’s impossible to focus in Prophecy and Prediction 101. I’m supposed to see my true love in a chunk of rose quartz, but all I can think about is Duncan Stirling wincing when I tell Dr Ward that the Great Witch Rebellion took place during the War of 1812 instead of the Civil War.
Fucking bastard. At least he looked kind of sympathetic, like maybe he understood my pain. He isn’t entirely fae, even though the pointed tips of his ears poke through his ash blond hair. Like me, he has relatively human features and isn’t as intimidatingly pretty as the fae around us.
But his expression makes me feel raw, peeled open. I don’t belong here. Everyone knows it. He knows it.
He makes me feel fucking weird in a way that I can’t really explain. Maybe it’s his expressive face, his artfully messy hair, his humanity. I’m drawn to him even as I’m repulsed by him.
It’s just a weird crush, I tell myself, tying my shoes, then filling a water bottle. Aleo’s flopped across his bed, rambling about his day to his long-distance girlfriend, Charlie. He shakes his head as I stretch and bend.
I’m out the door with a wave. By the end of my run, my frustration drips off me like sweat.
Alright, so I have no idea what I’m doing here, but I’ve been in worse situations before.
Clubs that were too hardcore for me, parties with people so wealthy that the shoes on their feet cost more than my entire salary.
I know how to schmooze, how to mingle, how to find someone who knows the lay of the land and latch on.
I’m not going to be defeated by history books and some guy who can’t control his facial expressions. Fuck no.
The problem is that I don’t want to schmooze, I realize at dinner, squished between Jane, who’s poring over her notes, and Aleo, who’s reading aloud an especially smutty passage from a book called Tara and the Lioness.
When Jane glares at him, he immediately says, “What? It’s for my literature class.
This is called auditory processing, OK? Anyway—”
I’m starving after my run. Between sips of Diet Coke, I steal neglected fries from both their plates, listening to Princess Tara’s increasingly graphic sexcapades as she traverses a war-torn land on the back of a gigantic lioness.
“‘And then she did gasp, ‘Nay, my lord, not there, I cannot possibly arrive once more.’ And he quoth, ‘Thou shalt arrive as many times as I decree—’”
By now, a crowd has gathered around us. A girl named April Arthur (she sits three seats away from me in History, and is probably half-fae, judging by her round ears and angular face) agrees to voice Princess Tara.
Soon enough, there is an entire production.
People pass the book around and add their own dramatic flair to the readings.
Within ten minutes, Princess Tara and Lord Bushwick are wrapped in a passionate embrace (which of course involves Aleo crawling onto the table, lying across dirty plates without a care in the world, giving an exaggerated groan while April Arthur slinks over him) culminating in a violent stabbing (a rogue carrot stick produced by Holly Holloway is used in place of a dagger), punctuated by a great stain of barbecue sauce all across Aleo’s shirt.
Aleo crows, “‘And lo, my love, he is slain by my own hand,’” moaned April, hand pressing to her forehead. “‘How traitorous, how foul!’”
The dining room staff intervenes when April and Holly (playing the part of Gerry, the loyal ent bodyguard) start dragging Aleo’s dramatically groaning corpse across the room while a very excited Collin Barnes narrates.
“‘And the corpse was hauled most unceremoniously across the unforgiving forest floor, a great river of blood in its wake, whilst the spirit of Lord Bushwick looked on, violently affronted by the sight of his own soiled trousers—’”
Even Jane laughs as two staff members exit the kitchen, groaning, “Come on, break it up, this isn’t a theater.”
“Excuse you,” says Aleo, whose ankles are still in April’s grasp. “Anywhere can be a theater. Is this an esteemed university, or not?”
A staff member with big brown eyes and a narrow chin crosses her arms. “It is, but I’m not sure the same can be said of its students.”
Faces fall. Guffaws ring out. Hands are thrown in the air.
We leave five minutes later, herded out by merciless staff, grumbling about the state of our table.
“That was epic,” says Collin. “Best thing that’s happened to me in weeks.”
I’m not sure I agree, but Jane bumps me with her elbow. “It was,” I say, because I've just remembered I need to schmooze, and besides, I know how to make friends.
And I kind of want them to be my friends. A ragtag little group of nerds, all varying degrees of fae, reading medieval porn aloud. Not exactly what I’ve envisioned for myself, but I’ll take it.
The dramatics carry on for another few minutes.
Again, we’re surrounded by onlookers. One of them, I notice with annoyance, is none other than Duncan Stirling, who lingers at the back of the crowd.
Rather against my will, I find myself cataloguing his messy hair, his frown, the little wrinkle between his eyebrows.
His very presence sets me on edge in a way I’m not familiar with. It’s probably because of that first day in history class, when he saw me and immediately turned around. I want to believe it’s just a misunderstanding, but the rejection sits heavy in my bones.
A year or two ago, I would’ve dealt with this by puffing out my chest and approaching him, maybe chatting a little. Something to show myself that I don’t need to be intimidated. That he’s just a normal guy like everyone else.
But I just… don’t want to deal with it. I want to stay right here next to Jane and Aleo—that is, until I’m handed a copy of the book, and Collin gestures for me narrate.
The words swim before my eyes, but Collin’s finger remains stubbornly on the line, so I begin to read in a shaking voice.
“‘And dawn was rosy, a sky full of red clouds brimming with vengeance and despair. Had anyone traversed nearby, they would have heard the sound of shovels—’” I hurriedly stomp my foot in imitation of said shovels, lest Aleo protest that I’m ruining his fun with my boring, boorish personality “‘—turning through dirt, creating an immortal bed amongst roots and soil but a few yards from a road that wound up into the mighty mountains like a serpent—’”
“Oh. My. God,” groans Aleo, snatching the book from me.
I grimace, and catch a glimpse of Duncan’s mouth as it twists in disgust. “Give me this. You have the golden curls of a knight errant, but you can’t act for shit.
‘And lo, the lioness came from between the trees, ghostly as Lord Bushwick, a prophecy in the brilliant orbs of her eyes, which shone golden and hungry—’”
And so continues the night. To my relief, I eventually lose track of Duncan.
He’s witnessed entirely too much of my shame.
Weeks pass. I’m not satisfied with my progress, but with Jane’s help, I’m not failing my classes. Not yet, anyway. Considering the circumstances, it’s a miracle I have any idea what’s going on.
I’ve only marginally improved at magic. Elarion hasn’t let us progress past plastic cups, although I can now safely levitate one without closing my eyes first, a marked improvement.
In Prophecy and Prediction, we move on from soulmates and start trying to predict weather patterns, although that involves a fair bit of science that I’m admittedly not expecting.
We spend entire class periods out on the cliffs, setting up barometric equipment, jotting down notes about clouds and pressure.
Then, once we have what Professor Almara deems a solid understanding of the science behind weather prediction, we return to the classroom to make predictions of our own without any equipment whatsoever.
I normally work with Jordan, but he’s out today, so he doesn’t witness my humiliation when I’m inevitably wrong, forecasting a great monsoon that will blacken the ocean waves, send them crashing violently against the cliffs, followed by a light drizzle that will last until morning.
Apparently, tomorrow is going to be mostly sunny with a thirty-percent chance of rain.
I’m shit with a crystal ball.
“Maybe the storm will happen next week,” says my temporary partner, a fae woman named Ona.
She has the most pointed ears I’ve ever seen, the tips so long that they remind me of antennae.
She’s pale as snow, with bright green eyes and a wide mouth.
White hair is piled on top of her head in an artfully messy bun.
My forehead drops to the desk. “It’s hopeless.”