Chapter 28 Taera #3
He narrows his eyes on me. But he steps closer, pinning me into the corner with the full length of his body. Legs, torso, shoulders. All of him aligning with me, a cage of heat and muscle. The scent of desert sage envelops my senses.
My heart stutters. I try to remember to breathe properly, but it’s impossible in this suffocating proximity to the desert-damned magician.
Is he out of his mind? Even through the dizziness of his touch, I’m ready to flee.
I glance over his shoulder and down the corridor.
Shrieks of glee echo around the corner, only seconds away.
“Want to learn magic?” His voice rumbles through his chest, sending a foreign quiver through me. He tugs one of his gloves off, holding out a palm.
He’s refused to touch me in every class, and he wants to try now?
I stare at him like he’s crazy, which he is. “I don’t know magic.”
This is just a game. A game.
“But I do.” Nikolai looks down at me with a mischievous grin that could shatter everything.
I shouldn’t trust him. I don’t trust him. But my heart is racing, and, just for this moment, it feels like we’re on the same side. I have to learn magic, a small part of me whispers.
Like a fool, I lift my hand to meet his, and his fingers brush mine.
Energy crests between us: a spark coming to life and rushing through my blood, faster than ever before. The exquisite tingling culminates at his fingers, which lace through mine. Our palms pulse, together.
A shimmering curtain falls around us, barely visible beyond Nikolai’s taut body.
He’s still pressing me against the glass wall, keeping us both still.
His grin is feral, only inches above my own lips, and a chaser rounds the corner.
The boy in yellow gumboots and blue hair dashes past us, his eyes fixed on the next passage and takes off down the next hallway.
“He didn’t even notice—” I whisper with awe.
Nikolai cuts me off with a gloved finger to my lips, taking my breath away entirely.
“There are two more,” he breathes against my ear.
His other hand is still clasping mine, although the magic has slowed to a gentle, throbbing current between us.
I feel the shift when he wraps the illusion around us the second time, because a flurry of sparks fly down my fingertips.
Magic. The thought thrills me, excites me, far more than it should.
Nikolai’s eyes sparkle, and I look down at his red blouse rather than tilt our faces together, trying to control my breathing as the sensations of sharing my magic with him weakens my knees.
Two more chasers barge down the hall, glance at each other, their yellow jackets barrel onward. I hold my breath until they’re gone, dizzy with magic, with the thrill of hiding… and the magician who is pressed far, far too close to me.
When Nikolai unclasps his fingers from mine, the humming between us breaks.
My knees wobble, and I take a few shaky breaths, my heart still hammering.
“Are you alright, Taera?” he asks, sounding alarmingly like he cares. The velvet caress of his voice ties knots within my stomach.
“I just… I’ve never been so… close like that.”
He chuckles. “I mean, are you okay after I took so much magic? Invisibility takes a tremendous amount of power.”
Oh.
Right.
Of course he meant the magic, not the feeling of him… Nope—not going to let myself think about it.
I wish I could disappear on the spot. My blush burns for a solid eternity. When I dare to peek up, Nikolai is smiling.
“No fatigue? No headache?” he asks again. Aside from the quirk of one cat ear, he’s completely collected—in contrast with my lack of composure.
“No.” I clear my throat aggressively. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” He turns his attention back to one of the walls. “You’d just pointed out the marigold and lavender.”
I mumble something affirmative.
He points to flowers and I blurt out names. Nikolai echoes them.
“Why am I identifying flowers for you again?” I ask.
“I cheated my way through nature studies,” Nikolai murmurs, as if that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.
I raise my brows, but he doesn’t add anything more.
We’re halfway down a fourth wall when I hear voices again. We both freeze. His posture softens moments later.
“Not chasers,” he says.
A tiny, shameful twang of disappointment flits through my mind, and I extinguish it.
“Then who?” I ask.
Nikolai just strides down the hall toward the sound. I grimace.
The chatter grows louder and louder until we turn a corner and the hallway widens into a space occupied by two girls and two statues.
“Oh, hello!” One of them beams at Nikolai. Her long dark hair looks far more normal than the students that have surrounded me all week. “I’m Jayden; this is Filla. Introductory II.”
He flashes a smile. “I’m Niko. Intermediate II.”
Jayden gasps, a hand flying to her mouth. “The Niko.”
“What do you mean?” Nikolai’s smile is annoyingly innocent, but his ears perk up: interested.
I scowl, but they don’t seem to notice. Or notice me at all.
“He totally is.” Filla blinks. Her short ginger hair frames a cute, freckled face. She’s like a daintier, more adorable version of me.
“We’ve heard so much about you,” Jayden squeals.
“Like how you impersonated Glassmaster Anita last year and everyone prepared a project on flatulence.” They both burst into giggles.
Filla vibrates with enthusiasm. “Did you really skip a year?”
“A magician never tells.” Nikolai preens.
“Thank the labyrinth you arrived! We’re stuck.” Jayden pouts dramatically.
A strong irritation sweeps through me. Neither of the girls has even glanced at me since they heard his name. How is this sand-swot this popular? I bite back my own sharp thoughts about his reputation.
“What have you tried?” Nikolai asks, like the two sets of pretty pouting lips are an everyday occurrence for him. Who knows, they might be. I fume at the thought.
“Well, the statues are kissing,” Jayden says, and my eyes jump to the two faded statues, one a man and one a woman, interlocked in a passionate kiss.
I look away. Please no. I don’t want to hear their ideas about how to solve this puzzle.
“But when we do it nothing happens,” Filla says. As though to prove her point, she pulls Jayden close, tilting her head to the side and kissing the other girl.
I gape at them—at the exchange between soft lips and tongues—until my shock turns to flaming embarrassment. Did they really just—
“I think it has to be a man and a woman.” Jayden bites her reddened lips, peeking up at Nikolai through dark lashes. “But I haven’t learned how to transform myself yet.”
“Perhaps we can help.” Nikolai looks at me, despite my best attempts to fade into the background for this particular conversation. “Taera?”
“What?” I cross my arms a little too defensively.
Green eyes twinkle, his smile quirking, as though he already knows he’s going to fluster me. “Would you like a kiss?”
I can’t help the heat rushing straight to my stomach, even as I exclaim, “No! I would never—No.”
“Suit yourself.” He smirks.
“If you need to kiss another source…” Filla’s cheeks blush a pretty pink, her eyes sparkling eagerly. Jayden giggles beside her. I find myself frowning, my stomach clenching unpleasantly.
Nikolai shrugs. “A kiss may be the solution, but it may also be a distraction.” He points to the statues. “Look at the faces.”
Grateful for anything else to focus my attention on, I study the statues. While one body is clearly a woman, and the other a man, both faces are identical.
“They have the same face,” I murmur.
Nikolai grins. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
“I’m still not very good with faces…” Jayden’s brow furrows.
Her nose starts to wobble beneath her skin, flattening until her head is bulging out into a circle.
Oval eyes stare unblinking out, along with an approximation of lips.
It looks like something my brother would try to draw in the dirt, but far more disturbing.
I step closer to Nikolai, unable to look away from the surreal face. Beside me, his shoulders shake. I glance up sharply. His lips are pressed together, twitching. He’s holding back laughter.
Is this horrifying illusion funny to him?
“I can do the faces,” he says firmly.
His eyes turn on the statues, and then… they’re rounding, his hair shortening and darkening. His bones squirm beneath the skin of his cheeks, shrinking to match the features carved in glass.
I gasp, jumping away.
A stranger stands where Nikolai just was. I search for any hint of familiarity from the figure in front of me: a man with cropped hair and an oval face.
I feel nothing. This same magician pinned me to the wall only minutes ago, his face barely a breath from mine. Now he’s donned another face as easily as a new set of robes.
My blood runs cold. I feel ill.
“Amazing!” Filla claps, grinning. The two girls seem unperturbed by the new skin that Nikolai has inhabited.
I can only stare on, horrified.
“Taera?” Nikolai’s velvet voice emanates from the body of the stranger—the intruder.
Wrong.
“What?” I breathe.
“Shall I change yours as well?”
I’m shaking my head, backing away. This feels like a hallucination. The figure frowns, his flat lips taking an unfamiliar shape.
“You can do mine.” Jayden alights with a smile.
I watch, trying to suppress my revulsion as her face morphs. It molds into the same shape as the statue.
“Nothing happened,” Filla says, her face falling.
“Maybe it has to be a source and a conduit.” So-called Nikolai offers a hand to Filla, who accepts it eagerly. Her face sags outward, and then all three of them look the same: exactly like the statue.
This same gruesome wearing-of-faces was why Mom opened the door.
Bile rises in my throat. I turn away, fighting the urge to vomit, faintly registering that the statues have come apart. The glass figures wink at me before the woman points to a new passage that wasn’t there before.
When I see it, I take a jerky breath. I hate not being able to trust my own eyes. Or even the faces around me… I feel permanently changed by what I’ve seen.
“We did it!” Jayden high-fives Filla.
All three faces shimmer back to their previous appearance. Even Nikolai’s cat ears have returned, one of them cocking toward me.
“That was amazing.” Filla grins, her cheeks back to their pretty pink. She clasps her hands together, all coy and beautiful. And all this unnatural beauty is just another illusion.
My stomach twists.
“Want to come with us?” Filla touches Nikolai’s arm.
Did they really just meet for the first time? How are all of them so comfortable with each other—with wearing lies?
“Thanks, but go ahead.” Nikolai waves them onward. “We were in the middle of something.”
Jayden nods with a knowing smile and the two girls skip off down the hallway, exchanging giggles. Nikolai turns to me, a smile still playing on his lips. The sight of his golden hair, green eyes, and impossibly handsome grin feels like a betrayal. It’s all a lie.
It makes me furious.
“Look.” Nikolai gestures between the two statues. Now they’re separated, a shimmering, glassy orb hovers between them.
“Want a prize? You didn’t get a kiss, after all.” He smirks.
“You wish,” I growl.
I want to storm away. I’d rather be caught by the chasers than spend a minute longer than I need to with this face-stealer. Labyrinth be damned. But the maddening, logical part of me still doesn’t want to end up lost in this maze of glass.
“What should I wish for?” he teases, those stupid, fuzzy ears perking up.
Instead of humoring him, I stomp past him. Let’s get this over with.
I reach for the bubble and stab it with my finger.
It pops, drenching us both in shimmering, black powder.
I sneeze, then sneeze again, and again. Nikolai coughs, interspersed with laughter.
“What”—I wheeze—“in the sands—”
Invisible ants swarm up my arms, spreading across my shoulders and down my back.
I leap into a flurry of scratching, but there’s nothing there.
“Wh-what’s happening?” I gasp, rubbing my arms, and then my legs, and then every part of me that I can reach. I can’t stand it. It’s like my entire body is crawling with tiny scorpions.
Beside me, I’m faintly aware of Nikolai frantically itching his own arms and torso. He’s laughing harder, even through the discomfort.
“Stop it,” I cry out.
“It’s not me.” He yanks a glove off. “Take my hand.”
I would rather fling myself into a pit of glass shards. But desperation is a powerful motivator. I take it. Magic jolts me, and the incessant itching just… ceases. I let out an involuntary sigh, dropping his hand like it burns.
The itching roars back instantly, writhing insect legs scampering across every inch of my skin. Worse than sand fleas.
“What the—” I grab his hand again.
The hum of magic rushes in my ears, and the relief is immediate.
He groans. “We’ve been hexed.”
I frown.
Nikolai points to his cat ears. “Like these.”
“But you can make it stop,” I say. “Right?”
He sighs. “It’ll wear off by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I stare at him. “Tomorrow?”
“It’s harmless. We just have to stay in contact.”
“Stay in contact?” It comes out as a squeak. I squeeze my eyes shut, unable to look at him. This can’t be happening. I cannot hold hands with Nikolai all day and—oh no, holy desert no—absolutely not all night.
I would rather die.