Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Orea meets me at the Administration Office, beaming like the sun, like she’s really, truly happy to see me again. It’s hard to believe anything can go wrong while she’s here.
I’m cynical enough to know that this is probably her role at Halea, convincing the new students, the frightened parents, the uninitiated that it’s going to be all right.
She shows me to my dorm, a little room in a brick building so old that it looks it might crumble beneath a good gust of wind. Nothing fancy, just two narrow beds, pocked desks and chairs, and twin wardrobes as tall and skinny as my high school locker.
For my purposes, it’s fine, but I’m immediately homesick.
She must sense my trepidation, because she says brightly, “Don’t worry! You won’t be spending too much time here!”
I’m a homebody, but nobody ever wants to hear that, so I just smile and nod.
My roommate is named Aleo Harria. Even the name intimidates me. It sounds old fae, old money, prestigious.
Aleo is about to be very, very disappointed.
I follow Orea all over campus, from the massive library to the coffee shop to the student union to the various dining halls and theaters.
She pauses to point out the buildings and their individual uses.
One for history, another for astronomy and ecology, another for healing arts, and so many others that blend together into a terrible, mixed up soup in my mind. Even looking at a map, I’m lost.
We pass elaborate gardens and fountains, manicured lawns and cobblestone walkways. A few people pause to wave at us. Orea’s not bothered by them, but I’m so out of place that I want to melt into the cobblestones and disappear.
“What’s with the wall?” I ask, gesturing ahead. There are clouds overhead, heavy and dark, threatening to spill. Thunder growls, low and distant. Trees sway.
Orea flashes me a smile. “It’s to keep people out.”
“Like, people from a long time ago?” I don’t know the history of the area, and based on her tone, I’m not sure I want to.
“No,” she says sweetly. “Mostly humans.”
A chill runs down my spine. “Oh.”
“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the fae are very private.
” She arches a delicate eyebrow. “And humans feel threatened by what they don’t understand.
You’ll be perfectly safe,” she assures me, like I’m not one of the dreaded humans.
“It’s been over one hundred years since we had anything more than a simple trespassing case. ”
Simple trespassing. I feel like her words imply a whole lot more, but I don’t ask. I don’t want to know. Instead, I follow her down a trail, then up a hill, until we’re overlooking the cliff and the Pacific Ocean, which has grown dangerously dark, nearly black.
The sea calls to me in its wrath, and I take a step forward without meaning to.
It’s as if my very bones are drawn in, as if every inch of my being craves the tides.
Then I blink, and I’m back in my body, being pelted with cold raindrops while Orea rattles on about something.
Her words sound like part of another language.
As I let them wash over me, I can’t help but feel they’re the only reason I’m still anchored to this earth.
Later, alone in my room, I feel sick to my stomach. Even the sight of the ocean is enough to empty the thoughts from my mind, for my limbs to go loose and pliant, moving of their own accord, trance-like.
The sun goes down. There’s a lamp on the narrow bedside table, but I don’t reach for it.
Maybe, if I lie very still, the sea won’t claim me tonight.
“Your first test,” says a fae professor named Elarion, who wears his blond hair in two stern braids, “is to close your eyes and tell me which color I’m envisioning.”
I squirm in my chair, still faintly nauseous from a breakfast of strawberries and toast, washed down with too many cups of coffee.
Elarion looks down his nose at me, like he can tell I’m an imposter. Like he knows there’s something wrong with me. That I’m too human, that I didn’t sleep last night, that I yearn for the sea in a way that will probably get me killed before the end of the semester.
Maybe it’s lucky that I’m going to have a roommate. I’ve never sleepwalked before, but I’m suddenly afraid I might start.
“Close your eyes,” says Elarion sternly, and I snap them shut, glad that I can’t see his disapproval anymore. But it emanates from him in waves, impossible to ignore.
I ask myself what color a person like Elarion might think of. Green comes to mind immediately, but I remind myself that not all fae love nature. That’s just a stereotype. Some fae won’t leave their concrete jungles.
I force myself to focus. What color is Elarion thinking of? Blue, like the ocean, I think, and feel sick.
“Stop thinking, start feeling,” Elarion instructs. I take a deep breath, try to feel a color.
At first, there’s nothing. Then, something leaps to the forefront of my mind. Gray, like a timber wolf, like the rocks on the beach, like the moody sky outside the window.
“Um, is it gray?” I ask, but I barely hear the affirmative, because suddenly I’m envisioning yellow eyes.
But they’re too lifelike, too vivid. For a split second, they stare straight into the depths of my soul, and I want to fall into them the same way I want to fall into the ocean—with total abandonment.
Then there are hands on my shoulders, and I’m ripped away from those strange, piercing eyes, back to reality. Elarion glares at me, disapproval written plainly across his perfect, fae face. His eyes are a stunning peridot. “Something on your mind?”
“No, sir,” I say hurriedly. “I’m just tired.”
He raises a pale eyebrow. “Your accommodations?”
“They’re fine,” I explain. “It’s just that I don’t sleep well in new places.”
He shakes his head. “Well, I can see we’ve some skill in telepathy, although of course that could’ve been a lucky guess.” He gives a one-shouldered shrug. “Although it’s rare for anyone to guess gray.”
Clever. Even I could admit it.
He makes me guess a bunch of things. Shapes, animals, colors. I’m mostly right, but he seems far from impressed.
We move on to basic magic. “You’re going to conjure a flame,” he tells me. “Have you ever done anything like this before?”
I shake my head, cheeks burning, but Elarion is quick to reassure me. “That’s very normal. I’d be surprised if you had. I want you to place your hands on the table. Now cup them together, like you’re going to drink from a stream.”
My palms are sweaty.
“Close your eyes. Take a moment to clear your mind.”
My mind is a jumble of colors and sounds, still searching for those yellow eyes. A part of me is in a panic that they’re lost, that I can’t find them again.
But that’s not logical, I remind myself. They aren’t real. I don’t need to be worried, because they don’t actually mean anything.
I drip sweat as I follow Elarion’s instructions. I imagine a flame, try to feel the heat licking my palms, climbing my fingers, crawling down my wrists…
There’s a shout, then cold water splashes over my hands, across the table, and into my lap. Elarion stands holding a pitcher, his brows drawn together in something like astonishment.
“You were supposed to conjure a little flame,” he admonishes me. “Not a bonfire.”
There are scorch marks on the table. The room reeks of smoke. My hands are somehow sweatier than they were before, but not blistered or singed. “I barely felt that.”
“Conjured flame generally doesn’t hurt conjurer,” says Elarion with a glower. “But it has the power to destroy. Remember that.”
It hasn’t occurred to me that I might be powerful enough to burn down a building, let alone hold a tiny flame in my hand. “I… didn’t know I could do that.”
He sighs. “Well, now that we know you’ve certain affinities, we’ll be a bit more careful. The table needed to be replaced anyway.”
I doubt that, but I don’t say anything, too stunned to protest.
The rest of the day passes quickly. I’m terrible at manipulating matter, but I can conjure a flame, lift a piece of chalk without touching it, and turn the lights on and off. Seven hours later, I’m exhausted, but Elarion seems pleased.
“Good news. Your heritage hasn’t let you down.
” He vanishes into a supply closet in the corner of the room and reappears with a stack of books.
“Your schedule will be adjusted accordingly. In the meantime, I suggest you begin reading.” He glares at me, and any pride I feel diminishes.
“Do not, and I mean this wholeheartedly, do not attempt to replicate anything we’ve done today.
This was a controlled exam under controlled circumstances.
If you try to do these things unsupervised, they will backfire, and you will face serious consequences.
” He wipes his brow with the back of his hand, sighs. “Do not do it.”
I nod, looking anywhere but the scorched table.
“We’ll put you in introductory classes with others who weren’t raised among the fae,” he says, not unkindly, but with a note of pity that has me squirming in discomfort. “You’ll learn quickly enough.”
I leave with a stack of books. In the hall, I pass Orea, who lets out an excited squeal when she sees me. “See? I told you everything would be fine!”
“He destroyed a table,” says Elarion, who has appeared behind me like some kind of tall, well-dressed ghost. “It was not fine.”
“It was mostly fine,” I insist, but he raises a critical brow and disappears around the corner.
I try not to let Elarion’s disapproval stop me from celebrating. I hit the gym, then the mostly empty dining hall. I’m just about to go back to my dorm when a woman approaches.
Her ears are rounded and her features are almost certainly human, but her eyes are a striking green. She’s wearing a red tank top and tight jeans that emphasize her muscular thighs, and before I know it, she’s sitting down across from me, smiling a polite, reserved smile.
“So,” she says, nodding at me like we share some kind of secret. “You’re like me. Putting the half in half-fae university.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but now I’m really worried that it’s bad I’m only a quarter fae. “Um, I guess?”
She laughs, a little restrained. She’s nervous, too. “You’ve never heard it called that before?”
I shake my head.
“Half-fae university, because Halea will let anyone in.” Her nose wrinkles. “Or so the snobs say.”
“Oh,” I say, suddenly embarrassed and hopeful. “Does that mean most of the students are half-fae?”
“Or less,” she says, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Like me.”
I relax immediately. “Me, too.”
“Really?” She looks me up and down. I let her, knowing full well she’s going to be disappointed when she finds out I almost exclusively date men. “Your eyes are so vivid, though.”
I’ve heard that before. My eyes are a bright bluish-green. People always comment on them. “I think that’s pretty much the only thing about me that counts as fae.”
She shrugs. “There’s probably more. Are your parents fae?”
“My mom is,” I admit. “But she never told me. I had no idea.”
Shock colors her face, but she recovers quickly. “I’m sure she had her reasons.”
I’ve had a couple of sips from the flask in my pocket, and am feeling bold enough to say, “And I’m going to find out what they are.”
Again, she manages to smooth over her surprise. “Hey, that’s a solid goal.” She smiles, reaches her hand across the table. “My name’s Jane.”
I shake her hand. “Dominic.”
“Where you from?”
She grins, self-conscious. “Cow town. You?”
We talk for nearly an hour. By the time I leave, I have not only her phone number but also her dorm room number and Instagram handle.
That night, I pass out as soon as my head hits the pillow.