Page 7 of Prince of Flowers
“I’m a summoner, like my father was. That’s what we do: summon creatures, then bargain with them for favors, or portions of their power. The greatest of summoners can call dragons down on a battlefield, command golems of ancient rock to burrow from forgotten depths to raze entire armies.”
A bit too poetic, maybe, but I was recounting passages from the old stories, the ancient books. My gaze went distant as I remembered the legends, quite a few of them involving my own father, how the summoners of old worked with outrageously powerful eidolons, fought alongside them in battle.
And there I was, master of a couple dozen doves.
“Yes, yes,” Sylvain said, nodding distractedly. “Very impressive,” he added, in a way that suggested he didn’t entirely mean it. I decided to switch to his favorite subject — himself — expecting a more favorable reaction. No surprises there.
“I’ve heard about your kind of magic as well,” I said. “Not so distant from ours.”
He chuckled. “Not so distant, perhaps, but better, I’d wager. Why, all the things you humans can do, the fae can do as well. Again, perhaps better. Call lightning from the clouds, conjure fire, change our very faces with glamor, and — ”
“Yes,” I said, cutting him off. “Glamor. Speaking of which, it would be wonderful if you could, you know, modify your ears a little.” I motioned at my right ear, drawing a curve along the rim. “So it’s not so obvious, maybe? The people of the Wispwood might react, um, differently to your presence.”
Sylvain’s cheeks puffed up, indignant. “You ask me to change my appearance when it’s already pristine, dare I say, perfect? These ears are part of my identity. You’d think the fae would receive a grander welcome than this.”
“Yeah, you’d think,” I grumbled. “Go on, then. Change them. No, rounder.”
Sylvain muttered and complained the whole time, but I watched in fascination as he sculpted the sharpness away from his ears, the flesh bending to follow the line of his fingers. They were the only features that marked him as anything but human.
The Wispwood had its own population of nonhuman students, of course. But the fact that Sylvain was fae came with its own issues, the distrust that the Earth’s magical community harbored being the biggest one. A fae glamor was still only an illusion — not a completely physiological change, like the incredible transformations that someone like Namirah could pull off. It would serve, though, and hopefully prevent widespread panic.
Sylvain could bitch all he wanted. This was for his own safety as much as it was for the Wispwood. It was kind of cute, really — not the rounded ears, but the way he fussed and pouted. There wasn’t much room for arrogance when he was being a sulky little brat. He caught me watching and glowered back, the corners of his eyes crinkling, the color of them going darker. How was it fair that he became even handsomer in anger?
“That’s good enough,” I told him. “Oh, don’t sulk so much. It’s just a temporary measure.”
He crossed his arms and stomped the whole way after me. “In the Verdance, these ears are celebrated. Praised.” I couldn’t make out the rest of his grumbling, but again, it was oddly adorable.
I didn’t have the heart to tell Sylvain that my entire motivation for hauling him back to the Wispwood in the first place was getting Dr. Fang to perform an unbinding. Risky? Possibly, except that I had no way of calling her to meet me outside the academy instead.
Some members of the arcane underground were okay with incorporating technology like smartphones and laptops into their daily lives. Dr. Fang was one of them, but my summoning professor wasn’t in the habit of giving away her phone number to pesky students.
Either way, she wasn’t going to be happy about me dragging an entire fae prince — alleged prince, sorry — all the way into the heart of the Wispwood. I patted at my pockets, checking again for a pen, maybe a loose receipt. No way was I ripping out even a tiny section of my grimoire to use as scrap paper.
And besides, could I trust any of my eidolons to deliver a proper message, and to a specific person, to boot? Of all the birds I’d befriended through summoning, why hadn’t I bothered finding a single homing pigeon?
So drag the fae man into the Wispwood it was. This Sylvain person — prince or no prince — was stunning, yes. Possibly in the top three most gorgeous men I’d ever met in my life. But I didn’t believe I could handle much more of his attitude, and that was summoner rule number one.
A summoner and his eidolon had to work together in order to work together, whether through friendship, grudging mutual respect, or even fear. I glanced at Sylvain sidelong, trying to imagine myself in a position where he might see me as a friend, offer me respect, or fear me. Nope. Nada. Zilch.
Unlucky that I didn’t somehow ensnare a dragon or a unicorn instead, really. See, summoning didn’t just call out a member of your choice of species at will. A summoner had to forge those bonds, give those relationships the proper care and feeding to flourish. Some summoners did that through fear, others through love.
Based on the notes in the Wilde grimoire, I was pretty certain that Father was one of those who believed in ruling through fear. He didn’t simply reach out to contract his eidolons, but defeated them in combat first, beating them into submission. Interesting way of doing things. Personally, I believed in asking nicely. Saved everyone from a savage and unnecessary thrashing.
A summoner’s bond with their eidolon was unique, in short, not at all like any other relationship, something that was ideally one of give and take. There was a reason that the summoners of old were so revered, among the most powerful of mages in the known cosmos, and it all fell to how well summoners and eidolons worked together.
I’d even heard rumors of some falling in love, but no known records of it happening seemed to exist. Not in any of the dusty tomes I’d had to study in preparation for the Crest, and certainly not in any of Dr. Fang’s lectures. I chewed my lower lip, studying Sylvain, considering the bizarre alternate universe where something like that could possibly happen between us. He noticed me staring, turned his nose up, practically growling when he spoke.
“What? What is it?”
The two of us, lovers? Much less eidolon and summoner? Fuck, no. Never. Absolutely not.
“Here,” I told him. “Just through these trees.”
Sylvain looked left, then right, eyes narrowed. “I don’t see what’s so different about these trees compared to all the others. Quite common-looking.”
I inhaled through my nostrils slowly. Through the trees, into the Wispwood, and up to Dr. Fang’s office. Then, and only then would I be free.
I didn’t dignify his snarkiness with a response, only certain that he’d never seen anything like this before. Some of the more technologically savvy of the Wispwood students would sometimes bring movies for us to enjoy in the common areas. And because of those movies, and because I was especially attentive to our electives on human sciences — and video games too, fine — I knew of the existence of keypads and keycards. Wonderful devices, really, meant to safeguard nonmagical humans, enhance the security of their homes and workplaces.
