Page 32 of Faerie Gift

“You’re lucky,” I tried to tell him. Pulling at the suddenly stuffy collar of my blouse. “Think about everything you can do with your power. The possibilities are literally endless. You can travel to the past. Or the future! Youcantravel, can’t you?”

He nodded sadly. “Yeah, but I’m too nervous to try anything.Thinkabout it. You make one wrong move, you evenbreathewrong, and everything can change. Like the butterfly effect. You know, a butterfly beats its wings in Africa and causes a snowstorm in Colorado, that kind of thing? There are so many rules to potentially screw me up. Or over. Nah, I’m going with the second one. Unquestionably screw me over.”

Another moan and this time his head dropped all the way to the table and fluttered the pages of our texts.

I winced at the sound. “There are risks withanykind of power. We’re here to practice, to get better. To learn to control our power before we mess up and get hurt, or hurt someone else. The school isn’t going to release you out into the world with a half-assed grasp on something as big as time manipulation.” I’d had to give myself the same kind of pep talk on my cognitive manipulation. Which was kind of ironic.

I might not have as many rules as Mike did, but the same worries applied. I had just as many chances to hurt myself or someone else.

My soothing did nothing for him. He looked up, sighed, continued to drum his fingers on his book—the same giant-sized literature he’d been given at the testing—with his gaze fastened on anything but the words in front of him.

“I’m going to fuck it up, Tavi,” he admitted. “I’m going to fuck it up and get kicked out of school and probably do something crazy to erase myself from history.”

I rolled my eyes at the melodrama. “You aren’t going to fuck it up. It’s going to take alotof practice and focus and time but you will get it. Trust me.”

But I understood how he felt, and it made a difference. Being at the academy not only represented a way out for me, but an open door for parts of me to come alive. To expand and step into my true power. Learning to work magic meant something important for me. I felt it in my exhausted muscles, the thrill of happiness at seeing my power manifest. Like watching a garden you tend burst into bloom in the spring.

“How can I trust you on this?”

Oh, really? “I haven’t steered you wrong before,” I said. “Have I? No, you know what, don’t answer that because I really don’t want to know. Unless you have some kind of compliment for me. A compliment I willgladlytake.”

Mike and I always got a decent amount of studying done together during our sessions in the library. I didn’t even mind putting the work in when we sat there, the two of us, as close to alone as we could be. This week it seemed as though we spent most of our time at this table, late into the night, with me trying to help Mike with his magic by tutoring him.

He wasn’t a bad student, don’t get me wrong. He simply wasn’t…the best. Not even in the top twenty. Though his confidence had surely skyrocketed since the start of the semester. He almost made me believe he could rise to the top.

Whatever he felt he needed to prove by doing well, I was determined to help him achieve those goals. If he wanted to be the number one student, then I’d get him there, through sheer grit and determination, giving blood if I had to. In my mind, he wasn’t my competition.

A partner, maybe…

Okay, I had to stop getting ahead of myself.

I liked him too much to think of him as a competitor. And if it ended up being the two of us at the end of this adventure, then even better. A small part of me warmed at the thought. The thought of the two of us getting snuggly on our way to Faerie—

“Okay, enough chitchat,” I told him, clapping my hands together as softly as I could to avoid the attention of Mustardseed. “Are you ready to practice this spell?”

I’d been putting off looking for the Augundae Imperium box artifact thingy thanks to my class workload. Pretty much whatever I could do tonotlook for the artifact, I did, telling myself I had plenty of time. I had more important areas to focus on at the moment.

I placed a pen in front of Mike. Then I gave it a little push and it rolled to the left about two feet. “The spell is simple. Rewind time and put the pen back to where I first set it down.”

“Easier said than done,” he muttered, staring angrily at the pen as though it was to blame for the bulk of his worries. “You say simple. I saybig deal.”

“Not a big deal. Move the pen to its original position. It’s a few words, a few seconds. You’re starting small. Remember and repeat. It’s your magic.”

“Starting small,” he repeated obediently.

“Absolutely right. You have to start somewhere. You aren’t going to test positive for this power and then suddenly be an expert overnight, no matter how badly you may want to be. You might be the crown prince with youradoringfan club, but underneath all the glitz and status you are just like the rest of us,” I teased, fluttering my eyelashes and trying to lighten the mood in the only way I knew how.

Endless teasing on a sensitive subject.

“Hey, you leave my adoring fan club out of this.” Mike’s brows drew down in mock sternness. “I haven’t been asked for an autograph intwodays.”

That made me grin. “Two whole days? How are you coping?” I raised a hand to his forehead to check for a fever. Definitely not as an excuse to touch him. “Coming down with any kind of ailments? You’ll have to let me know how you feel without life-giving admiration.”

Mike swatted my hand away and scowled. “You know I hate it when they swarm me like gnats. It’s not like I ask for the attention.”

“Oh, I think youlovethe attention.”

“Do I?” he said, leaning closer. “Have you figured me out? You now know my desperate need to be in the spotlight?”

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