Rise of the Fey (12 page)

“What?” I ask suspiciously.

Keva leans in and whispers, “I want to check out fairyland.”

I cock my head questioningly then take a step back when the answer hits me. “You mean Avalon?” I exclaim.

“Not so loud, you nitwit,” Keva mutters. “But yeah, essentially.”

“Why?” I ask. “I thought you guys hated anything Fey.”

I gesture vigorously towards the classroom left open behind us and accidentally smack Bri in the face as she finally emerges. She reels around and hits the wall before straightening up, looking dazed.

“St. George’s balls!” I exclaim as Keva bowls over laughing. “Are you OK? I didn’t see you there…I’m really sorry! Are you hurt?”

“Don’t sweat it,” Bri says, rubbing her reddened forehead. “What are you two doing here? I thought you’d be in Lore class already.”

“Waiting for you, of course,” Keva says, grabbing her arm.

Keva throws me a pointed look, and I’m not sure whether she’s still waiting for an answer from me, or if she’s warning me not to talk to Bri about Avalon, but I nod ‘yes.’ To both.

I do my best not to let the change in Bri affect me too much over the next few days, yet I can’t help but to acutely feel the loss of her once animated presence.

Even when Owen was sick and in the asylum she’d still confide in me, laugh with me, help me with my studies. Simply being with her had made me feel like…I was home.

Now, she’s turned into a robot, doing things solely when told to, only coming out of her catatonic state to spout a few random statements on the Fey that has even the teachers stumped. Every day she seems to be drifting further and further away from us, like a raft caught in a storm, and I sometimes fear she’s going to try to follow her brother by sitting on the Siege Perilous herself.

A ruler smashes on my desk, inches away from my hand and I jump in my seat.

“I would stare less at Bri’s profile and a little more at what I should be doing if I were you, Morgan,” Miss Pelletier says.

I let go of the inch-wide bluebell bulb I’m supposed to plant, staring guiltily at the deep fingernail gouges I’ve dug into its white scales. With a sigh, Miss Pelletier hands me a small pot and I immediately proceed to fill it up with earth.

“Can anyone tell me why bluebells are so important?” she asks, resuming her pacing around the muggy room.

Dina’s hand shoots up. “They’re a sign that the area is ancient,” she says. “Especially when found together with other plants, like wild strawberries and forget-me-nots.”

“And what does that imply?” Miss Pelletier asks.

Dina’s complacent smile melts off her face as she can’t answer, then turns into a frown when Bri raises her hand.

“They’re a sign of Fey presence,” Bri says, her voice sharp as an executioner’s axe. “They’re often used to trap people, especially children, into their lair.”

“Excellent,” Miss Pelletier says, clapping her hands together. “After you’re done with your bulbs, we’ll go over how to counteract the Fey’s trap. As you all know by now, every poison has an antidote. With this countercharm, you’ll be able to reverse the bait and destroy their hive.”

I repress a shiver at the casual way with which she says it, as if destroying Fey is as simple as wiping the blackboard clean.

At the table next to ours, Daniel raises his hand enthusiastically. “We’re already done with our potting, Miss,” he says. “So how do we disarm their traps?”

Miss Pelletier glances over at his and Brockton’s pots, then nods satisfactorily. “Very good,” she says. “You two can start on the extraction now. Use the triple closed alembic
¹⁰
for the first
phase. After that, you’ll need the retort
¹¹
with tubus
¹²
, but wait until I’ve come by before you move on to that step. And please,
please
, read the instructions carefully. We don’t want anything to explode now, do we?”

“Yes, miss,” Daniel says, before motioning for Brockton to fetch the material.

But in his hurry, Brockton drops one of the glass vials and it shatters on the floor, spraying Daniel’s boots with its contents.

“Oh, brilliant,” Daniel says, smacking Brockton on the back of the head. “It’s certainly not thanks to you we’ll defeat Carman, that’s for sure. Now clean it up!”

The burly boy hurries to follow Daniel’s orders, without a word of complaint, though at a slower pace to avoid any more mishaps.

“Hurry it up, slowpoke,” Daniel says, kicking Brockton in the shin. “I’d like to get this done before the end of this century!”

Brockton’s knee gives out and he collapses against their table with a yelp, nearly bringing down the whole apparatus with him. I look at the teacher in indignation, but though she’s witnessed everything, she remains in her corner, tight-lipped.

“Why doesn’t Miss Pelletier say anything?” I ask. I may not like Brockton, but the part of me that always wants to defend the weak screams for me to help him out.

“It’s up to the knight to teach his own squire as he sees fit,” Jack says. “Some knights may try to intervene but—”

“—but Miss Pelletier isn’t even a knight,” Keva finishes for him offhandedly. “So she can’t say a word.”

“Well that’s total nonsense,” I say, as Daniel gives the whimpering Brockton another kick with his steel-tipped boot.

“It’s the way things are,” Keva says.

“Makes me glad I became an apprentice blacksmith instead,” Jack says.

I flinch as Brockton cracks another dish and watch in horror as Daniel grabs a pair of shears from one of the racks.

“Never seen you quite so eager to learn anything beyond EM, Daniel,” Keva says nonchalantly, patting the earth in her own pot.

“Times are different now,” Daniel retorts, pointing at me with his secateur
¹³
, Brockton momentarily forgotten. “We’ve got battles to fight against those of her sort.”

Keva swings her trowel around so fiercely that dirt spatters all the way over to his table. “You’re just jealous Morgan’s got more battle experience than you do, admit it,” she says. “While you were cowering safe behind the school walls, she was out there fighting Carman.”

“Freeing her more like,” Daniel retorts. “I’ve got another theory instead. Wanna hear it? I think she was in league with them all along, a spy like. We all saw how tight she and that Fey guy were.”

I grip my flowering pot at the mention of Dean, remembering his final moments, his last words meant to comfort me even as the earth was eating him alive. But that’s not something I’m ever going to be able to tell any of these guys.

Daniel’s voice grows louder as the rest of the class pauses in their work to listen to him. “The barriers didn’t fall apart on their own, you know. Someone must’ve helped from the inside.”

“Daniel?” Bri’s soft voice cuts over the buzzing murmurs of the class. “Why are you trying to piss her off? We’ve all heard what she did to that guard. Now I don’t think you’d fancy having your brains splattered all over the place, would you?”

The blood drains from my face so quickly I’m afraid I’m going to faint.

“Briana!” Jack exclaims.

“Morgan!” Keva says, at the same moment.

I blink slowly and the room comes back into focus, as are the faces of my classmates, their fearful eyes staring at me in shock. No, not at me, at the table.

I glance down as something smooth and cool brushes over my hand then coils around my wrist. The remains of my shattered pot are lying about my splayed fingers and, poking out of the spilled dirt, is the bluebell bulb, writhing and contorting as long green shoots sprout from it, using my blackened hand for support. Mesmerized, I watch as a bud forms, growing larger and larger until a cobalt blue flower unfurls into a delicate bloom over my elbow.

“What are you?” Keva breathes next to me.

“A-a demon,” Daniel says, his voice subdued.

I hear the distinct ring of metal being drawn and a long, serrated knife buries itself in the table, cutting the plant’s stem neatly in two. I gulp, unable to tear my eyes away from the gleaming blade sticking a nail’s breadth from my hand.

“She’s a Fey,” Bri says before pulling the knife free and returning to her potting.

“Don’t you worry so much,” Keva says. “Everyone’s got a demon or two inside. Just look at Bri going all Jekyll and Hyde on us.”

I rub my arm, unable to dispel the sensation of the plant curling around it. “That…that wasn’t me,” I say. “It couldn’t have… it just happened.”

“Things don’t just happen, Morgan,” Jack says. “For every reaction there’s an action.”

“I know physics too, you know,” I say sullenly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m the one behind the action.” Or does it?

We wind our way down the corridors in silence, keeping well behind Bri as she marches head down through the thickening crowd of students on their way to the cafeteria. Spurred by the heavenly scents wafting over to us, my stomach rumbles loudly.

“Say, did you notice something special about our teacher today?” Keva asks, catching up with Bri who’s suddenly stopped at the edge of an uncommonly large throng gathered before the dining hall doors.

“Must’ve made something special for today’s lunch,” Jack says, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “They’ve been doing that more often lately, to keep people’s spirits up. Last time it was a chocolate fountain for dessert.”

Already salivating, we both push forward, eager to get in. Only Bri isn’t budging, as if rooted to her spot by some invisible force, despite Keva trying to get her to move.

“Don’t you think Miss Pelletier took your knife throwing extremely calmly?” Keva asks Bri, pulling on her arm to get a reaction out of her. “And I know exactly why that is.”

“What did you do?” Jack asks suspiciously, as we backtrack towards them.

“Nothing,” Keva says, her wide eyes full of innocence. Which of course means she’s absolutely, irrevocably guilty. She pats Bri on the shoulder, smiling widely. “Bri’s brother, on the other hand….”

“Remember that you’re his squire,” Jack says reprovingly. “You’re not supposed to make his life harder.”

“I’m making it easier, thank you very much,” Keva retorts. “And rose colored.” She smiles cheekily. “I wrote a letter to Miss Pelletier, signed by him, and now he’s using any far-fetched bio project as an excuse to go make goo-goo eyes at her all day long!”

But despite her taunting, Bri remains unresponsive, and Keva’s wide smile turns into a scowl.

“Well someone will be doing lots of things to Hadrian soon,” Keva huffs, finally letting go of Bri’s arm. “And he won’t mind it one bit!”

Without another look at her, Keva marches into the cafeteria. But Jack and I hang back. Most of the crowd has funneled through the doors by now, leaving Bri standing in the middle of the hallway with an inscrutable look on her face.

“What’s the matter?” Jack asks her.

But her eyes remain riveted to some point over his shoulder, and we trace her gaze back towards the news board.

Front and center is a newly pinned article that makes my blood run cold:

DISASTER HITS SOUTHEAST ASIA, CAUSING UNPRECEDENTED DESTRUCTION


Indonesia is left in chaos after the violent, double explosion of the Mount Tambora and Mount Krakatoa volcanoes destroyed parts of their islands, killing thousands of people. Clouds of ashes have spread out over the entire island of Jakarta and neighboring countries, keeping them in continuous twilight
.

Temperatures have dropped ten to fifteen degrees and they keep going down, leaving governments scrambling
to prepare for a volcanic winter that is bound to affect the whole world
.

But that is not the worst of it. Scientists have now picked up on seismic readings that show irregular activity around Lake Toba, and have issued a warning that the supervolcano under it could erupt as well, with an estimated VEI
¹⁴
of 7 to 8—enough force to wipe out Indonesia’s population. The last Toba eruption occurred some 70,000 years ago and it has been hypothesized that the volcanic winter that resulted from it lasted from six to ten years, followed by a general cooling of the Earth that did not end until a thousand years later
.