Hannah gave me a strange look as we sat down. "What did he want with you anyway? I thought you'd sorted out your problems with him?"
I shrugged and opened up the app on my tablet to flick through the lunch menu. "The workings of his mind are so far beyond my understanding that I couldn't hope to know what he'd want from me."
It was only a teeny tiny lie. It wasn't that I didn't know. It was that I didn't want to know. There were only two possible things that Tennyson Wilde would want to talk about with me: magic or werewolves. He was still suspicious of me after everything that had happened back in the fall, even though I'd clearly had nothing to do with it. No matter what I said or did to prove my innocence, he still treated me as if I was some sort of dark mage or something. It wasn't as if we met up every Sunday for tea and cakes to chat about it, but every so often I caught him glowering at me out of the shadows.
And if he wanted to talk about werewolves, that was a whole other problem. I'd tried to keep as far away from all of that as I could – any time I'd had anything to do with werewolves they'd tried to use me as a chew toy. I knew Sam was having problems with it, that was why he hadn't been around, why we were like strangers now when once we'd been closer than anyone. If Tennyson Wilde wanted to talk to me about werewolves, that meant Sam. And if things were bad enough to ask for my help, they'd have to be pretty bad. But Sam had seemed fine that morning. He'd been going to classes regularly all month, and the only problem I'd seen him have with it was his new legions of fans.
"Let me know if you need back up when you go to see him," Hannah told me, giving me a bracing smile.
"I have no intention of seeing him," I said. "But thanks."
The rest of the school was not nearly as easy to convince though. It was the most attention I'd received since I got to Amaris. The people who weren't outright hostile were overly friendly, in that creepy fake way that people like that somehow think is convincing. By the end of the day, I was over it and snuck out of class before the bell to get a head start on the morbidly curious crowd.
Instead of taking the path down toward the Green House, I crossed the school lawn as quickly as I could and vanished into the forest. The forest was big and wild, and took up most of the island. There was so much of it I hadn't explored, so I was always careful not to stray too far, but the paths closest to the school were becoming familiar to me. I knew that night would fall early and there were monsters out there, so I hurried my way along until I broke out of the trees and onto a clifftop, to where the lighthouse rose up before me.
It felt so good to be away from the school, to be in a secret place where nobody knew to find me, that I sprinted my way up the stairs to the top of the lighthouse and burst into the little room there.
"I expected you an hour ago."
The table was spread with all sorts of delicious little treats, cakes and pastries and little cheesey wonder things.
"You were in France?" I asked, taking a seat at the table and looking over the display of goodies.
Althea Wilde shrugged and placed a protective cover over the food. "Family business," she explained. I didn't know if she meant actual business or werewolf business or what, I was too busy trying to lift up a corner of the food cover to sneak a pastry. "Sorry I couldn't meet up last week."
I shrugged. I found it odd that she wanted to meet up at all, though I liked Althea and I really like the treats she supplied on our weekly get togethers. I couldn't see what she was getting out of it at all, unless maybe she was doing some sort of social experiment but as long as the tasty food kept coming, I was in.
"Cakes later," she said, throwing a punch at my head and making me fall out of the chair. "Training first."
Althea was teaching me to fight, to defend myself. She said that even if I didn't want to be involved in their world, I was close enough to it to be in danger and I had to know to how to protect myself, so she was bribing me with delicious foods to learn. We trained for an hour and then I collapsed back into my chair. Althea removed the cover and I piled my plate high with treats.
"You know my brother wants to talk to you."
I nearly choked on my cheesy puff thing. The entire time we'd been hanging out, not once had either of us brought up her brother or Sam. Occasionally we talked about Nikolai, in a general sort of way, but things never got personal.
"You're his messenger now?" I brushed the pastry crumbs from my fingertips. I really didn't want to leave in a flurry of righteous indignation, not when there were so many delicious treats to sample, but if she'd just been luring me in all this time to do his dirty work, that put me in a right pickle.
She shook her head. "Nothing like that. I'll never get between the two of you, I just wondered if you'd caught up with him already."
I really wanted to try the little guys who looked like deep-fried mini sausages but I hesitated. I needed to know what I'd be trading for them.
"I didn't really intend to catch up with him."
"You haven't noticed anything strange lately then?"
I narrowed my eyes at her. What was she playing at.
"No stranger than usual," I said. "Why?"
She shrugged. "Nothing concrete, just … the air tastes different. More metallic."
I picked up a mini sausage and bit into it. It wasn't their fault if people had hidden agendas, I couldn't let them suffer for it.
"You think someone's doing magic?"
"I think Tennyson is worried," she said. "You should talk to him." She smiled and passed me a plate of cakes. "How did you go with the history quiz?"
With the subject change, we fell back into our usual routine but her words kept repeating in the back of my mind. I didn't want to talk to Tennyson Wilde but I didn't want some magic spell sprung on me unawares either. Why couldn't that guy just send a message like a normal person?
Chapter 2
It wasn't as if I had much choice about talking to Tennyson Wilde anyway. He was waiting for me when I left the dining hall after dinner the next day, looking like the personification of winter as he lingered in the shadows. His black hair was stark against the crisp white marble of the fountain, his navy blue peacoat perfectly matched his eyes. Everything about him looked cold and untouchable.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, breezing past him. "You should be more careful, if your fan club see you here, your stocks might plummet." I really wanted to tell him about the "Tennyson Wilde is public domain" girls, just to see his face, but it wasn't worth the bother of having a conversation with him.
"You might have the others fooled but I see you for what you are," he said, falling into step with me.
"And what is that?" I tried to outpace him but his legs were too long and he kept up with me easily.
"Trouble." He caught me by the arm and pulled me to a stop. "The orb of light, it is acting strangely. With purpose. The energy within it seems to be rebelling, trying to break free."
I pulled my arm away from him. "And this is my problem, why, exactly? I have nothing to do with any of this, which you've made more than clear, so I don't understand why you'd come to me about this. Don't you have a team of experts standing by to solve your every problem."
He narrowed his eyes at me. "You are involved in this."
I rolled my eyes. "Whatever, buddy. I told you before, I am done with trying to convince you I've done nothing wrong."
I turned to walk away but he caught me by the wrist and pulled me close.
"You may not have cast that spell," he said, his voice a quiet growl in my ear, "but that doesn't mean you have nothing to do with what is happening here. It's not a coincidence that this started when you came into our lives."
He dropped my arm and moved away from me, vanishing before I could even react. When I looked around, a small crowd had gathered, watching the exchange. It didn't take a genius to figure out how it had looked to them, from their whispers and gestures. A few people had their phones out taking photos and Olivia Hearst and Charlotte Du Pont were watching with looks of horror on their faces. Olivia drew a finger across her throat as if to say I was dead meat. As if Tennyson Wilde was such a sweet prize. Losers.
I had better things to do than to worry about them, anyway. My family called me every week at exactly 7pm and I didn't want to be late. I'd talk to them every day if I could, it was nice to have the reminder that there were actually normal, real people in the world who weren't super rich or supernatural. Hannah wasn't in my room when I got back, she'd gone to study in the library with Fatima and Milo after dinner, which was good because it always felt a little weird having someone listen in when you were talking to your family, I thought. Like they were seeing you naked or something.