Chapter 14
By the time I make it to Quincy Courtyard, my heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my stomach.
Drunk students totter along the brick walkway, bags of Tasty Burger and Felipe’s burritos clutched in hand.
Through the glass to the left, I see students crowding the booths of Quincy Grill, sharing baskets of french fries and mozzarella sticks. My stomach churns.
On the bus ride home, I didn’t speak to Daerios.
I feigned tiredness, shutting my eyes and resting my forehead against the tinted glass.
In the row behind us, Berendir and Cara chattered away, gossiping about the couples at the event.
I listened to the elvish names, the titles, the sordid predictions.
Anything to keep me from thinking about where my mind truly wanted to go—to Daerios’s finger on my clavicle, to his hand around my ankle, to the shudders those images sent through my body.
When we returned to the Square, I’d given Daerios a curt thank you before taking off down Mt. Auburn, not bothering to wait for Cara. Something told me she wouldn’t mind. That a certain elf would be walking her home.
I press my ID to the plastic scanner, waiting for the buzz that tells me I’ve been granted entrance to Stone Hall. When it sounds, I press down on the handle and step into the fluorescent-lit staircase.
What is happening to me? For years, I’ve been a broken lightbulb, capable of recognizing warmth but unable to produce it herself. No one—not a single boy I met in high school nor in freshman year of college—lit me up the way I did when Daerios touched me.
I should be happy, I suppose, as I jam the key into the lock on our suite. Now I know I’m not truly dead inside.
But why—out of all the males at this school, all the males in the state of Massachusetts—why does it have to be Daerios? A man I detest, whom I’ve sworn to use for his access to information?
How do you explain attraction? Is it a chemical compound? A string of neurons? A learned reaction?
Or is it something else? Something intangible—like magic?
The next morning, I eat breakfast with Cara. We spend the hour rehashing events from the night before. Mostly I pepper her with questions about Berendir, and to my surprise, she’s more than happy to answer.
“He’s really sweet,” she says, “for, you know, the son of the deadliest elf in living memory.”
I spear a cauliflower floret. “Doesn’t that scare you?”
“Nope.” She points a slice of breaded chicken at me. “If we were all judged by the actions of our fathers, none of us would make it to eighteen. Myself included.”
I stare at Cara, mouth open. The second half of the cauliflower floats before my lips. She continues eating, eyes out the window, as if she hasn’t just said something incredibly personal and revealing.
With every day that passes, I find myself wondering if I really know my roommate at all.
“So,” I say, “does that mean you and Berendir are…?”
She shrugs. “We’re friends. And for now, that’s all I want us to be.”
Friends. A human and an elf. It seems impossible.
“And you and Daerios…” Cara quirks an eyebrow.
I look down at my plate. Count the remaining cauliflower.
3, 4, 5.
“What about us?”
“Well, you didn’t tear each other’s heads off, for one.”
“A miracle.”
“Though there were a few moments where it looked like you wanted to tear something else off each other…”
“Absolutely not,” I say quickly. Too quickly.
Cara doesn’t press the subject, but I spy a grin rippling through her glass of water.
After breakfast, Cara heads back up to our room, but I spread my books out on one of the tables in Quincy Courtyard to get some studying done.
It’s a gorgeous September morning. Hazy sunlight filters through the canopy of the elm in front of Stone Hall.
Its leaves are just starting to take on the faintest hint of orange.
In the hammock at its base, someone lies with one foot hanging over the edge, reading Proust.
I’m in the middle of a paragraph about Proto-Indo-European, one of the many ancestor languages referenced over and over by Dr. Infix during his lectures, when a long shadow slants over my notebook.
“Studying the morning after a party? You really are an overachiever.”
My stomach flips at the sound of his voice.
Keeping my expression perfectly neutral, I look up at Daerios, shading my eyes with the hand holding my pen. “Some of us have to actually do our course work if we want to graduate, Your Highness.”
The prince is back in his Imperial Greys, thank God—no tuxedo in sight. Pouting, he lays a hand on his chest. “You wound me. I do occasionally open the books on my syllabi.”
“Occasionally,” I repeat.
“Sure. When the mood strikes me.”
I roll my eyes. “What are you doing here, Daerios?”
“Just checking to make sure you’re alive. You ran off the bus so quickly last night, and I never heard from you afterward.”
“Were you expecting me to?”
“I was expecting a thank-you note, at the very least. Midwestern manners, and all.”
“Right. Well, allow me to amend that: thank you, Your Highness, for bringing me to a creepy estate where I had the distinct honor of watching you nearly beat up another sophomore.”
The elf’s eyes darken. “Agathron deserved it.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe you default to violence because it’s the only reaction you understand.”
Darkness hardens to anger as Daerios clenches his jaw. “You have no idea what I do or don’t understand.”
“Right,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “Because I’m just a stupid human who couldn’t possibly understand the ways of the elves.”
The anger dissolves. Daerios blinks twice. “Is that truly what you think I believe?”
“Of course, it is. It’s what every human thinks. It’s what we’re reminded, day in and day out, from the very moment we’re born.”
“And where does that sense come from?”
“Hm.” I tap my chin twice with my pen. “Gosh. Could it be the hundred years of entitled separatism?” I furrow my brow. “No. It couldn’t possibly be that, could it?”
“The elves’ separatism has nothing to do with the human race’s intelligence, Quinn.”
“Oh, no? Please, then, enlighten me—what does it have to do with?”
“Elves are secretive creatures,” he says. “We tend to keep to ourselves.”
“Nice. Great stock answer. Not like I haven’t heard it a hundred times before.”
“I’m just saying.” He gestures to the stack of books on the table.
“You’re a dedicated student. A passionate linguist. You’re curious.
Insatiable, really. You speak seven languages, including two born in a realm no human has ever visited.
You keep few friends. You never visit home.
You are unerringly focused in your search for answers.
You’re brilliant, Quinn.” He tilts his head, studying me.
“The question is, what are those answers you so desperately seek?”
I flush, at once torn between pleasure at his compliment and fear beneath the weight of his gaze, his starlight-silver eyes that seem to pry me apart.
To unzip me from forehead to naval, prod at the soft tissue within.
I fear, in that moment, that he can see the truth of my desire—both of my desires, the one for information and the one for something else, a something to which I cannot yet admit—with nothing but his eyes.
“N-nothing,” I say, strangely breathless. “I’m not looking for anything. I’m just studying.”
He reaches out and grabs a loose red curl. Rubs it between two fingertips. “I don’t believe you.”
My heart picks up speed, pounding so hard I can feel it in my stomach. “Do you ever?”
“No. Not yet.” He tilts his head. “But maybe eventually.”
I have nothing to say to that.
Daerios releases my hair, stepping back from the table. “I’ll see you around, Quinn.”
And then, with a swoosh of his cloak, he turns and strides out of the courtyard.