Page 57 of Faerie Gift

“Yes.” She accompanied the word with a yawn.

Another gentle push of magic sent her in the opposite direction. I watched her shuffling steps until she turned the corner back toward her dorm bed. Then let out a breath when my chest began to ache and the energy sapped out of me.

Two big spells in less than five minutes.

I should have been more careful. I should have been watching everything instead of the chaperone. Because then I would have noticed Nora and I wouldn’t have been forced to—

Shivering, I rubbed my hands along my arms. I hated what I’d done to her.Hatedhow I could do it in the first place. There was no good excuse for using powers on friends.

Unless you were hiding something that meant the difference between life and death.

Nora didn’t know about me. She didn’t know I was running for my life. It didn’t make me feel any better.

Turning back to the door, I pulled at the handle and wondered if my cognitive manipulation would work on inanimate objects. Worth a try? Why not!

“Open,” I whispered. “Open for me.”

Nothing happened; the lock remained sealed. In charms class, we’d learned a spell to unlock any door. Helpful for a Fae, sure, but it still didn’t work for me tonight.

I leaned back with hands on my hips, crinkling my nose. What was I doing wrong?

Footsteps echoed behind me and I rolled my eyes.Notfrom the same direction Nora had gone. What the hell? Had someone put out a memo to congregate in front of the exchange students’ dorm? Maybe a memo had gone around about the benefits of midnight walks around the castle? If so, I’d missed it.

I’d waited until after midnight to make sure there wouldn’t be anyone around.

I used transformation again, shifting my body into something different. Something I’d never tried before and hoped I could come back from.

A fountain pen.

Melia had told me I had the magic to change intoanythingat all, animate or inanimate. Hadn’t she? I had to give this a try, on the off chance whoever it was would pick me up and head into the locked room. It had to be something small, something anyone would want, and definitely not food because I didn’t feel like being eaten tonight.

I was winging it. Winging it in a dangerous way that if I’d been thinking straight, I might have regretted.

My body shrank, compacted, and I lost track of time holding the image of the pen in my head. Too small, my brain argued this time around. Too small and too strange, too different. Worse than the moth because a pen wasn’t alive. My subconscious folded into tinier and tinier portions, relegated into a little box inside the plastic and metal pen body. A shred of myself still maintaining the image with the necessary magic.

The chaperone with the gun made her way back around, obviously taking a circuitous route to check the halls. I didn’t have eyes to see and had to rely on my other senses. Strange.Sostrange and nothing I wanted to repeat if I didn’t have to. The pen had no movement. No feeling.

But my half-ass plan paid off.

The woman bent to pick me up, stuffing me into the pocket of her robes. Through the door we went, the woman using a pulse of her own magic and a key to unlock the door. She made sure to bar it behind her with a spell I hadn’t heard of. I felt the ward pulse. No eyes, of course.

It wasn’t the optimal situation. At least I had an in. And once inside, then I’d figure out my next step.

Time meant nothing to me then. Not as a pen, of all things. I recognized movement, felt when fingers came around me and lifted me out of the pocket. The chaperone headed into her own private quarters—I could tell because of her feeling of relief when she sat—and I settled in to wait, as much as I could settle in.

Tavi, you outdid yourself this time.

Any discomfort would ease once I got my hands on the Augundae Imperium.

Hours surely passed and I recognized the soft snores coming from the bunk. Once I was sure I wouldn’t be found out, I changed back into my normal form.

My skin stretched uncomfortably, spreading and loosening. My lungs inflated with a pinch of pain and I spared a few moments to work my jaw, to tilt my head left and right. I went still as the tang of magic seared my nose and speared outward from me. Hoping it wouldn’t wake the sleeping chaperone on the twin bed next to me.

I glanced down at the floor to make sure my feet were there.

Never again, I told myself. Never again would I choose to be a pen. It wasn’t worth it. My magic had dropped to dangerously low levels.

But I was inside. A spark of excitement followed the thought.

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