Romeo & Juliet Suite No. 2 Montagues and Capulets
Fionola (Unknown Fae Lady)
I’ve always preferred to perch on high. When you watch the world from above, everything snaps into context—your enemies, your allies, and even the endless petty dramas of the animals below.
Tonight, I stand on a slab of shattered limestone high above l’Académie, my boots braced against the wind that tears over the saltwater lake and shoves campus lights into pinwheeling arcs across the valley.
The stars are clear enough to make you wish you could wrap yourself in the sky like a blanket and absorb their ancient knowledge.
The small shockwave that rolled through the ley lines this afternoon still has my hands humming like they’re wrapped in power lines.
I can taste it in my molars, feel it burning behind my ribs—a current that sizzled every hair on my arms and made my heart pound.
The fact that it came twelve hours early means the hybrid’s progress is way ahead of schedule.
I want to scream, or laugh, or sink my teeth into something soft and defenseless in victory.
Instead, I pace the outcrop’s edge, feeling the fury inside me coil tightly.
They deserve everything I have planned and more… It is finally coming.
Below me, the stadium lamps still stutter on the arena, flickering like a Morse code distress call.
Their dorms cluster in packs around the edge of campus, every window lit as if the shifters inside are afraid of what comes in the dark.
My hybrid is fast asleep in her bed with her mates in the library annex, all none the wiser about my trap.
I feel the ley lines here shudder every time she breathes.
I count five, six, seven intersecting arteries, all feeding into the annex, vibrating at her frequency.
My frequency, too, though the idiots on the Council would shit themselves if they ever drew the parallels.
I run a thumb along the old scar at my wrist, tracing the ridges I’ve had since my supposed death.
Once upon a time, I was considered gone from this world, at least according to everyone who mattered.
Buried for the sin of loving a shifter, for daring to cross the lines the predators drew with blood, I waited for the time to be right.
They thought they could snuff out an entire species with one clever piece of paper back then.
Joke’s on them—they knew so little about magicals that an entire army hid from their purge and lay in wait for the moment that I'd triggered.
Revenge is a hell of a second act, and it will taste sweeter than any wine.
Crouching low, press two fingers into the moss at my feet, murmuring the opening line of the next enchantment.
This is the magic of the older, more dangerous Fae who held back when we were making peace with predators.
It vibrates with dirt and rain, wielding the power of nature and beings powerful enough to hold her energy within.
The syllables scrape the back of my throat raw, each one shedding a layer of polite civilization until all that’s left is grudge and appetite.
The wind drops out, just for a second, and the entire world tilts toward me to listen.
I raise my hands, palms to the sky, while my fingers spread in the shape of an ancient oath.
The moon is directly overhead now, a white coin stamped with the faces of every ancestor who is trapped beyond.
Pulling their power into me, I feel it tighten along the ley lines that run under the mountain, and send it spinning down into the heart of l’Académie.
As it hits, the lines ignite brightly—first a blinding gold, then a sappy green, an angry red, a hungry obsidian, a sneaky silver, a burning orange, and finally a slashing, obscene blue.
For a moment, the entire campus glows as if it’s been hit by a rainbow.
Even the lake shivers; the surface goes flat and mirror-black.
The call has gone out, and the night will be filled with the blood of our oppressors.
My breath is slow as I imagine every child of the Council, every fucked-up predator who ever called us abominations knowing they have absolutely zero control over what we have planned.
The ley tremors ripple, each one setting off a chain reaction through the networks I’ve been seeding for months.
I watch as the energy splits, divides, and then races toward the rotten log cabin at the edge of the woods.
That’s where the vampires are holed up, their own little haven of rot and pain.
They will happily take more power, and it will fuel their role in the coming event.
With my left hand, I twist the last piece of the work—a signature stamped in the old Fae colors.
It is a purple so deep it eats the surrounding light.
The signature splinters, sending little traceries of violet into every corner of campus and then beyond it.
I picture it filling the stone, brick and grass under the soccer fields, in the walls of the administration building, and everywhere those monsters live in pretend peace.
The earth quivers like a lover about to come undone as the magic spreads from here to everywhere else. My spellwork is perfect, and I don’t even have to hide my satisfaction. I let myself grin fangily in the way that often makes shifters cross the street and human boys fall in love with disaster.
This is how the end begins, and it is how we will win the war that is now inevitable.
I drink in my victory, scenting the sickly sweet tang of prey animal panic.
Somewhere below, alarms howl—real ones, for once, not just the manufactured security alerts that the Council uses to keep the campus compliant.
I wonder if the hybrid’s family will investigate or, like everyone else, will believe it’s a weather warning they do not have to worry about.
Sliding my phone from my pocket, I check the group chat I have with my traitor network.
I despise this technology, but it is useful for those who are not magically gifted, and I need their help to keep our efforts going.
I’m about to power down when a message pings in from an unknown number.
Unknown: She’s awake but not moving. Your guess was correct; no one has left the annex building. However, there is magic running into the building and turning bright blue.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud.
Delores Drew, the so-called chosen one—has finally burned through her wards and started to draw real magic.
I’d bet anything she has no clue what to do with it, and that’s exactly what I need.
The tiny displays she’s shown before are nothing compared to what my spell is funneling into her, and it will slowly infiltrate her psyche.
That’s the final straw for her transformation, and it will make it so much easier to bring her into the fold.
With a final glance at the campus—now wreathed in ghost fire and humming with unleashed energy the preds cannot see—I gather my coat around me and head down the mountain.
I keep to the shadows, feet silent on loose shale, and my cloak trailing behind me like the tail of a comet.
At the halfway point, I pause to watch the reflection of the moon on the salt lake.
There’s a disturbance out there, concentric rings like something monstrous has surfaced and dived again.
I’m not sure what that is, but if it’s been hiding for this long, I welcome it.
I’m close enough now to see the panic spreading through the upper campus amongst what seem to be the guards.
Security lights strobe and small packs are converging to examine the buildings.
They’re worried and confused, which is good.
They won’t assume it’s me or my kin—the last time anyone saw real magic before the Treaty.
Every one of these overfed puppies grew up on bedtime stories about those creatures being locked away behind the Veil for good.
Fae justice is always bloody and always final, so they will see the error of those tales soon.
I stop and touch the sigil I burned into the bark of a tree last month.
It flares up, giving off a brief, intoxicating rush of nightshade.
From here, I can see the annex windows—all of them dark, except for one that pulses with the same blue light as before.
She’s not panicking, so she must be alone in that room for some reason.
I wonder if she’ll remember being awake in the morning.
It would be easier if she does not, as that will keep my presence here secret for a bit longer.
Instead of overthinking, I turn to watch the preds who are supposed to keep this school safe run in circles.
I savor the chaos as the Council’s lapdogs scramble around, hunting for a cause for the ‘lightening’ they keep growling about.
They won’t find it, of course, and this search party will disband soon enough as they write it off.
That’s the problem with using the least intelligent shifters for your security because they are bulky and aggressive—they don’t know how to solve complex problems.
Once the guards have rotated away, I circle to the back of the annex and slip a scrap of purple cloth into the door’s frame.
If she’s as smart as they say, the hybrid will find it and wonder what it means.
The world’s already changed, and nobody on this campus—not the predators, not the Society, not even the ancient monsters sleeping in lakes—can put it back the way it was.
I turn and look up at the sky. The moon’s riding high, so I tip my face up and whisper the closing of my night-time enchantment.
“We’re coming for what’s ours, and this time, we will win.”
The wind rips the words away, but I know they’ll get where they need to go.
I shoulder my bag, flex my hands one last time to feel the buzz still crackling under my skin, and set off through the woods.
There’s so much to do. But for the first time in centuries, I have hope.
I also have nothing to lose, and that makes me the least predictable element in the entire equation.
Predators, beware.