The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 1) (36 page)

“Really?” Rachel’s voice quivered slightly. “What h-has he done?”

“Among other things, he has a very bad reputation when it comes to dealings with young women. Also, he is a thaumaturge. There are reasons why that kind of magic is not practiced by decent folk.”

“O-oh.” To her tremendous embarrassment, her voice hiccupped.

“You should not associate with a wicked boy, Rachel. It is wise to avoid those who behave immorally. We must not compromise with evil, not in any way.”

“Um…right. Thanks for telling me.” Rachel bit her lip.

She kept her face calm, but a huge lump had formed in her throat. It did not go away, no matter how many times she swallowed.

As Rachel approached the table with her breakfast tray, Joy waved to her. The buzz of breakfast conversation was as loud as ever. Rachel had to get close before she could hear her.

“Did your brother Peter find you?” Joy bounced up and down in her seat. Without her headband, her very straight hair fell into her eyes. Rachel wondered if she was wearing it down to be more like the princess.

“No.” Rachel glanced around the dining hall, but Peter had already departed. “Did he say what he wanted?”

“Nope. Just to tell you that he was looking for you.”

“Huh.” She sat down beside Joy. Had someone seen Gaius kiss her? She very much hoped not. That would have enraged her brother. Peter still thought she was eight years old.

The kiss, which had brought her such joy earlier, now tasted like dust in her mouth. Had she allowed herself to be taken in by a cad, like the heroines of all those Gothics she had found in the east library at home? Oh, she had so hoped that would never happen to her! Gaius did not seem like a cad. But then, what would she, a thirteen-year old girl, know about the conniving ways of men? Surely, Nastasia, a wise princess, knew more about these matters than she did.

Her breakfast included eggs and English muffins with butter and marmalade. The marmalade smelled particularly sweet and tangy today. She breathed in the delicious aroma before taking a bite. Buttery, marmalady goodness filled her mouth, dancing on her taste buds, dispelling a few of her fears about having been kissed by a cad, and all concern about the wrath of Peter.

Valerie arrived, her camera bumping against her hip. She had a big smile on her face and was carrying a thin box. She plopped down next to Rachel. “Where’s Siggy?”

“Still in the kitchen filling his tray.”

Valerie leaned closer, grinning. “So. I hear Gaius Valiant is your boyfriend.”

“What?” Rachel jerked so violently that her bite of egg flew off her fork, nearly hitting Wulfgang Starkadder sitting farther down the table. He glared at her. “No! No, he’s not!”

The temperature of her cheeks rose at least a hundred degrees.

It was one thing to think such thoughts in the privacy of her own head. It was quite another to hear someone say it, especially after the princess’s recent revelation. Her heart thumped like a runaway horse. Had Peter heard this rumor? She certainly hoped not!

Still, Valerie’s words brought an odd rush of pleasure. If someone thought she and Gaius were an item, maybe her feeling that they were being drawn together was not mere insanity; maybe something truly was happening between them.

“If you say so,” Valerie grinned, snapping a picture of her.

Rachel opened her mouth to ask Valerie where she had heard this, but Sigfried arrived. He carried a tray so full that sausages and hashbrowns spilled off it. None of it hit the floor, though. Lucky saw to that. Putting the tray on the table, Sigfried began shoveling the food into his mouth even before he finished sitting down.

“Sigfried!” Joy moved her tray to sit beside him, her face eager. “I hear you saved a whole group of children from a skunk! One that was on fire no less! That was very brave!”

Siggy nodded, accepting his due praise. He tried to reply, but his mouth was too full.

Valerie stood up and slid her thin box next to Siggy’s tray. She walked around the table and stood grinning beside him. “Stand up, Siggy. I have something for you.”

Sigfried paused to cram more food in his mouth. He stood, warily. Valerie opened the box and held it out for him to see. Inside was a brand-new bowie knife atop a leather sheath. Its steely blade gleamed.

“Is that…for me?” Sigfried gawked in wonder, his mouth nearly full. “No one’s ever given me anything before.”

“You said you wanted me to give you a favor, so you could be my champion. I thought this would be even better.” She tried to speak casually. However, her cheeks had turned all pink, and her words tumbled out in a rush.

“Wow! This is the next best thing to a real sword. Ace!” Siggy swallowed rapidly, hardly chewing.

He picked up the knife. Holding it aloft, he turned it this way and that, appreciating the way the light shimmered along the steel blade. He started to strap the sheath on, frowning as he fumbled with the straps and buckle.

Valerie rolled her eyes. “Siggy, allow me. Here.”

Taking it from him, she unzipped his robe, revealing his naked chest. Putting her arms around him, she passed the leather under his garment and strapped the sheath to his bare skin. He flushed.

“There. That’s how you wear a knife. You want it at chest height so you can draw it and go directly for the heart in one motion.” She pantomimed the stabbing motion. Then, she waved an admonishing finger at him. “But don’t stab anyone, unless they are actually trying to kill you. And no more stabbing wraiths that can’t be hurt by knives and letting them eat you, okay?”

Siggy’s cheeks continued to grow pinker. He gazed at Valerie and the knife as if, together, they were the most beautiful things in the world. Valerie had begun to recover her aplomb. Now she blushed even more deeply. She caught her breath and lowered her golden lashes, gazing downward, suddenly shy.

“Cool! A girl who knows how to wear a knife!” Siggy beamed. “Can’t beat that!”

“We should stick together.” Valerie stepped back, grinning. Pulling off her lens cap, she snapped a picture of Siggy and his new knife.

His hand still in front of his face, as he blinked from the bright flash, Sigfried declared, “I’ve decided I’ll be your boyfriend.”

“What?” Valerie’s eyes blazed with indignant fire. “Y—you don’t get to just decide things like that! You have to ask.”

“No.” He shook his head emphatically. “All I ask is whether you want to be my girlfriend. Because it will be really awkward for you—if you were my girlfriend, but you did not want to be.”

“Siggy, that makes no sense.” Valerie held her head, as if trying to make sense of the madness.

“Here.” Sigfried draped his silky red and gold dragon around her shoulders like a feather boa. “Hold Lucky and pet him while you’re thinking it over.” Sigfried stood as close to her as a dance partner—as if he was about to lead her around the dining hall in a wild waltz. He gazed steadily down at her. “Now. Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

Valerie turned entirely pink. She stroked Lucky’s soft fur, as the dragon nuzzled her cheek. “Why yes! Yes, I do!”

“Kiss! Kiss!” Zoë chanted, clinking a fork against a glass.

Joy joined the chant, too, but her heart was not in it. She looked pinched and sad. Rachel did not chant, but she watched all this with delight, a warm joyful feeling filling her at Siggy’s happiness.

Siggy kissed Valerie.

As Rachel finished her French toast, a shadow fell across her shoulder. Looking up, she was startled to find Vladimir Von Dread looming beside the table. He bowed before the princess.

“Miss Romanov.” He towered over her. “I have heard tell that you see visions—glimpses into the pasts of those you touch. I would be curious to know about my own past.”

Von Dread pulled off his black dueling glove and extended his bare hand toward Nastasia.

“I am sorry, Mr. Von Dread.” Nastasia lifted her chin proudly. “I have been instructed never to touch you.”

“But you…Wait. Never to touch
me
, personally?”

The princess nodded. She regarded him with quiet dignity, as if she had said all there was to say on the subject. The prince of Bavaria frowned in annoyance.

Rachel stepped up beside Nastasia. The princess had stood with her against the girls of Drake Hall. She would return that favor by supporting the princess against the Drake boys—even if it meant facing down the most intimidating, and most handsome, of them all. Nastasia moved slightly closer to her, as if grateful for the support. The two girls linked elbows.

“Mr. Von Dread,” Rachel met his gaze evenly, “Miss Romanov was instructed not to touch another student. She touched him anyway, and something very bad happened. She ended up in a place where he was being tortured. The creature doing the torturing could see her. Not only that, it tried to keep her there. Then, it attacked her later in her dreams. There may be something dangerous in your past,” Rachel concluded. “Something that could hurt Nastasia.”

“Ah.” He nodded thoughtfully. “But you are willing to touch others than myself? I would be quite interested to see the process in action.”

“There is little to see,” Nastasia replied graciously. Her pale gold lashes brushed her cheeks. She was as lovely as he was handsome. Rachel could not help noting what a pretty couple they would make. “But yes, I am willing to touch others.”

Von Dread replaced his glove. He glanced across the dining room. He gestured imperiously at a table of younger students from Drake Hall. “Almeida, MacDannan, Valiant. Attend me.”

The braggart with the scar, the pretty, copper-tressed Irish girl who was sweet on Gaius, and Gaius himself came obediently to his side. Gaius winked at Rachel. She smiled back, warmth kindling within her. Her pleasure was quickly dampened, however, by the concerns the princess had raised.

Was Gaius really wicked? The thought made her heart beat at an odd, uneven rate.

“Please allow Miss Romanov to touch you,” Von Dread instructed. “She will then report to us as to whether doing so has caused her to have a vision.”

Colleen MacDannan put out her hand first. The princess touched her and shook her head. “Nothing.”

“What does that mean?” Von Dread asked.

“I do not know, but I did not receive visions when I touched any of the other MacDannans here at the school, either. As well as quite a few other people,” Nastasia replied. “Miss Griffin, Miss O’Keefe, and Mr. Smith, for instance.” She nodded at Sigfried, who was sitting with Valerie, demonstrating the fine art of balancing a spoon on one’s nose.

“I wonder if it means that we are from this world,” Rachel mused. “It is unlikely that everyone came from somewhere else.”

With a start, Rachel realized that if her theory was true, she herself was local. An initial pang of disappointment at not hailing from some distant place was swept away by a sudden swell of pride and something stronger: fierce, unassailable love.

This was her world
. She
belonged
here.

Closing her eyes, she solemnly vowed to do everything in her power to keep it safe.

“Interesting.” Von Dread nodded. “We should have brought William. He would have found this fascinating. Mr. Almeida?”

The young blond man with the scar on his face strutted forward, grinning. The princess did not respond to his swagger. She merely put out her hand, her expression gentle. She was so beautiful that he halted, flustered, his outstretched hand forgotten. She touched it.

Watching Nastasia, Rachel thought again about how sad it was that the princess did not seem more pleased with her lot. How much fun it would be to have such visions. Rachel would so have enjoyed being able to pull them up and examine them again and again. She was certain that she could have found something useful in each one.

Information was like that. It had to be loved.

The same held true for Siggy’s amulet. If Rachel owned such a talisman, she would be glancing around her at all times, so that, if nothing else, she could pull up the memory later of what she had seen, to check for details she might have missed. Of course, if it were hers, she would never do anything else—like attend to her studies.

It was not as if she did not appreciate her own gifts, her perfect memory, her ability to use that memory to break obscurations, and her skill on a broom. When she thought about these things, a happy warmth grew inside her. All sense of envy faded.

And yet, as she watched Nastasia, she could almost taste the wonder.

Nastasia withdrew her hand. “Mr. Almeida, I saw you in a magical duel with another man. You were grown up and fighting in a forest made of glass. The other man was dressed in blue and silver armor. Spells flew back and forth very quickly. Jagged black fire struck your face, leaving a wound exactly where your scar is now.”

Seymour ran a finger along the scar on his face. “That’s weird. I got this in a broom accident when I was a kid.” He frowned at Von Dread, as if expecting an explanation.

Von Dread showed no reaction. “And Gaius?”

That was interesting.

The prince of Bavaria had called all the other students by their last name. But Gaius, he just called Gaius, as if they were on a first name basis. Now that she thought about it, Gaius had called him by a nickname, Vlad. Rachel wondered what this signified.

Gaius came forward. He looked so good-natured with his huge, congenial smile. Her heart rebelled against the dark things she had heard about him. But that did not mean that they were untrue. The thought caused a painful tightening in her chest.

Rachel swallowed. Gathering her courage, she gestured from him to the table and back, introducing those present.

“People, this is Gaius Valiant. Gaius, these are my friends: Nastasia, Joy, Sigfried, Valerie, and Zoë.”

Gaius’s eyebrows leapt up. “Sigfried the Dragonslayer? The boy who saved the campus from the flying, flaming skunk?”

“The very same,” Rachel beamed proudly. “Oh, and this is Lucky.”

Lucky stuck his head out from under the table and peered at Gaius. Then he snaked over to whisper in Sigfried’s ear. “Just a boy. Nothing to see. Unless you want me to take him?”