Page 27 of The Cursed Fae

My shared dorm room was empty when I returned. After the odd dinner, I just wanted some time to veg. Unfortunately, I also had a ton of homework and not much time to do it before Tina's mandatory lights out. Unless I wanted to spend another night in the astrology room, I had to get moving on my assignments. With ten minutes to spare before her self-imposed bedtime, Tina sauntered into the room, took one look at me, and smiled. It was unsettling.

“Are you almost finished?” she asked.

“With my homework?” I sat up in bed uneasily.

Tina gave a dramatic eye roll. “No, with solving world peace. They said you were smart, I'm not seeing it.”

“I can go to the library or whatever. I just don't want to get locked out again,” I said pointedly.

Tina blinked, brief confusion flittering across her expression. Then, she placed both hands on her hips and said in a haughty voice, “I had no idea whether you were coming back, and I don't want to sleep with my door unlocked.”

“So if I tell you I'm going to study and not to lock the door tonight, you won't magically block me from entering?”

This time Tina's eyes narrowed, like maybe I was messing with her. “Maybe if you were a better fae, the spell wouldn't have been a problem.” With a saccharine smile and a finger wave, she pranced to the bathroom. “Don't wake me up when you come back,” Tina called over her shoulder.

I thought about asking Laz to teach me some hexes as I collected my books and shoved them into my backpack with too much force.

Once again, I found Archer in the astrology room lounging in a hammock and smoking one of his odorless cigarettes.

“You look like you need a snack,” he declared when I entered the room.

“I don't know how to take that,” I replied, letting my backpack slide from my shoulders.

He rolled over the edge of the hammock. “Just say sweet or savory.”

“Sweet.”

Archer swept me a bow. “Back in a sec.”

He returned twenty minutes later with a bag of chocolate dipped pumpkin cookies and two cartons of milk. He set the snack on the floor and grabbed my textbook.

“Hey. You promised you'd let me study when I'm up here,” I protested.

Archer jumped to his feet and started backing away. “I'm going to help. Quiz time—what are the thirteen present day fae clans?”

I bit into a cookie and frowned. “Is that a trick question? Aren't there only twelve?”

“Have you retained anything you've read?” He shook his head in mock indignation. “You should be very glad you met me.”

“Jury's still out on that,” I grumbled.

Archer stood a little taller and cleared his throat. Then, in a spot-on impression of Professor Tartan, he began lecturing.

“The Aries fae took their name from the first sign of the zodiac...”

A part of me wondered if Archer was high from whatever he'd been smoking, but then I realized I didn't really care. He was entertaining and surprisingly informative. Though he started withholding cookies for incorrect answers to motivate me to do better.

Just before midnight, Archer walked me to my room.

Maybe I had a sugar high, or perhaps it was the late hour. Maybe I was tired of being in the dark. Regardless of the reason, alone with Archer in the quiet hallways, I dared to show my naivete.

“Can I ask you a question about depletion?”

His eyes were more gray than blue today, and they darkened with my question. “What do you want to know?”

“How does it work? Is it possible for one spell to wipe out a caster's magic?”

Archer slowed his pace. “Depends. An old, complicated spell? Yes, though highly unlikely. They don't teach that kind of stuff.”

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