Page 26

It’d been two weeks, midway into April, and Gemini Academy had issued the lowest form of a stopgap in regard to the lack of a building. We’d moved to online classes. Not remote learning, not virtual classes, but simply teachers posting assignments online and students making their “best efforts” during this difficult time. And I didn’t want to hold anyone to the same expectations as I had before the attack on the academy, but I also didn’t approve of how administration had dropped the bar. Not even lowered it. Oh no, they’d dropped it completely on the ground and started kicking dirt over it.

This was equivocally an extended early vacation that’d completely screwed up the education of our students. At least the third-year students were still able to report to their internships, and first-years would have a chance to make up for this lost time. But what about second-year students? What was my homeroom coven going to do? It was hard enough getting guilds and enchanters to take individual accommodations seriously when setting up internships. But it was fucking laughable to think they’d make accommodations for the entire student body.

Sure, guilds might promise they would, but then the news would die down, and the immediate tragedy of the events would pass—maybe something new and awful would land on national headlines—and people would return to their lives unable to really care about a situation that didn’t personally affect them. I already heard thoughts across the city falling back into place for normalcy.

With my telepathy already soaring every which way, I used this time to check in on my homeroom coven. I couldn’t rein in my psychic magic if I wanted, so this seemed like a helpful way to assuage my concerns.

The first psychic pin I dropped was with Katherine and Caleb while he lay out on the couch, and she rifled through the pages of a grimoire in the center of the floor. For a living room, it was nearly as spacious as Milo’s penthouse layout and a reminder that the Harris family had a lot of income thanks to the success of their enchantment company.

Katherine had eight grimoires of different sizes and bindings spaced around her. Delicately, she used tools to unravel the pages and cut them from the spines. She kept stacks of pages in an arrangement of various piles meant for storage, clutter, sentimental, and her new grimoire. Sentimental because even the silly spells she’d written as a kid couldn’t be tossed out. She’d never use the crayon sharpening spell, but she fondly recalled how proud she was of that wordy little wonder.

Right now, though, she wanted to pull from her old, mostly unused grimoires to recreate the one she’d sacrificed during the attack on the showcase.

“This makes absolutely zero sense.” Caleb huffed, becoming visibly frustrated with some of the online assignments he worked on.

One glimpse into Caleb’s aggravated thoughts revealed the shitty classwork he contended with. Talk about teachers who dropped the ball. I spent hours modifying lesson plans to help account for the fact no one could really ask questions or work with their peers. Some teachers simply copied and pasted their original assignments without an ounce of forethought—like, say, the fact it required using a classroom textbook that students didn’t have access to anymore, but it didn’t seem to deter Caleb, who used every online search engine to read up on the information.

Caleb was sprawled out on the couch, lying on his stomach with the laptop in front of him, while he kicked his legs back and forth. The kicks were meant for training, but his strides got more aggressive, and his muscles flexed harder than intended, so Katherine swooped in and snatched away his weighted training blocks.

She looked at the erratic pulsating glow of her carved enchantments and knew her boyfriend was a few kicks away from breaking another set.

“Sorry.” Caleb grimaced.

It seemed like a disservice now, minimizing the assignments I’d posted since I didn’t want to stress all the students on my roster. Caleb found himself breezing through entire units, which left him stagnant. Having finished his work, he rolled over and sat up, telekinetically grabbing his bag of books. Not to be confused with his book bag, also filled with texts. No, no, no. Caleb sported a new tote bag Katherine had gotten him that easily held ten books, and he’d managed to wedge over twenty in it.

Not satisfied with his classwork and a bit burnt out on his casting research, Caleb moved on to a passion project. He flipped through his notebook to a page where he’d sketched The True Witch.

I shuddered at her image, even if the likeness lacked, I synced to the tiny recollections Caleb held for her arrival, her attack. He’d only seen her for a few seconds before the world turned into water, before he couldn’t breathe or think or fight.

But he’d seen enough to draw her hat, her dress, the bone staff. Though he didn’t catch the glyphs tattooed on her, and he made her hair impossibly long, reaching her ankles.

The eyes had this startling gaze, where they seemingly followed everything in the room. Caleb drew them exactly as they were: vibrant green—the only part of his sketch he’d colored in.

It was a topic many minds from Gemini Academy lingered on. The news didn’t discuss The True Witch. Every media outlet simply pretended she didn’t exist. The authorities and guild professions simply acted as if the attack had been fully resolved. Yes, they publicly admitted to Theodore Whitlock’s escape, how he now fled the city, probably the nation, but if The True Witch came up in discussion, the topic was skirted. Avoided. A subject no one wanted to have, so everyone pretended she wasn’t real. Still, she silently haunted memories, even the students who hadn’t seen her appear on the stage beside Theodore Whitlock, who hadn’t seen her and The Sisters Three shatter the mind of the great Enchanter Evergreen, held fear for the ocean that nearly swept them away.

Milo’s collapse flashed through Caleb’s thoughts, repeating again and again and again, hitting me with a gut punch of guilt until he finally buried images with research, focusing his mind on something different. Something he could offer help on.

“You know, I don’t think it’s actually a psychic branch,” Caleb said, running through his notes before opening a book and flipping through the heavily annotated pages.

“Huh?” Katherine asked, attention still fixated on the order of arrangement she wanted for her new spell book.

“I think it’s an arcane branch,” he explained, catching Katherine up on where his brain had darted. “The way she summoned the water into people’s heads, that was real. All the sensations, and yes, psychics can add sensory details, manipulate perception, but there was this heat, a light, a flash of something…I don’t know, cosmic? Primal? Ward? No. Definitely a primal element, though, because of the water. But then another branch to transport it. And of course, the psychic element to invade minds…”

Katherine nodded to Caleb’s rambling theories as he accurately assessed the three branches utilized by The True Witch’s arcane magic. To think he arranged these puzzle pieces with such little information. He’d make an amazing enchanter someday.

“You’re still on this?” she asked.

“Well, it’s important.”

“Yeah, and important enchanters are probably already deciphering things.”

“I just wanted to help.” Caleb shrugged.

“Here I figured you were just avoiding your feelings or thoughts on a certain confrontation during the attack.” Katherine side-eyed Caleb. “With Kenzo.”

“What?” Caleb tensed. “We didn’t fight.”

“Exactly. You fought together, had a bromance moment, and now you’re pretending it didn’t happen while researching some mysterious threat.”

“Do you actually think it was a moment?” Caleb bit his lip, desperately avoiding the topic—even in his thoughts. He didn’t want to dream about the idea of having Kenny back in his life, didn’t know what it meant, didn’t want to face another letdown.

“You know, that weirdo witch lady seemed like a psychic to me.” Katherine shrugged, noticing Caleb’s inability to handle the annoying Kenzo-shaped elephant in the room. “Psychics can do a lot with even seemingly basic magics. Look at what Mr. Frost did?”

“ Huh? ” Caleb and I thought at the same time.

“You know, using his telepathy to remove the bizarro brain water stuff.”

And like that, Caleb’s mind weaved away from worries and back toward wonders. “You think that was Mr. Frost?”

I hadn’t told anyone I’d been the one to remove Oceanic Collapse. Everyone was so deeply entrenched in their own battle for survival that they hadn’t seen or felt my actions.

“Who else could’ve done it?” Katherine casually mused, piecing together intricate ideas about how my branch worked, how it must’ve pierced through the other psychic magic, estimating vital variables with a whim, then went back to her project without missing a beat.

“I guess I just thought the woman who attacked everyone overexerted herself.” Caleb furrowed his brow, adding new notes on the casting capabilities of The True Witch, wondering what the full level of her channeling range was.

I’d also like to know her channeling limitations. They weren’t infinite, that much I knew, and without her bone staff, she’d lost a lot of her seemingly immeasurable power.

“Hmmm.” Caleb hummed along with Katherine who’d started singing a mnemonic device that she used to use as a child when memorizing the steps required for creating a properly functional grimoire. The song in Caleb’s maze of a mind made his thoughts fuzzy, but he continued taking notes on The True Witch while writing a separate note in the corner of the page.

Telepathy Range?

He circled it and underlined it several times as a reminder to revisit his curiosities about Mr. Frost’s psychic magic.

I kept close as the two of them worked separately, content being in the same space. I found myself drawn to the other minds across Chicago that worried about The True Witch’s magic, about her return, about the ocean that lingered in their nightmares.

If I continued training my telepathy, truly mastering it, I would be able to find her no matter where she’d gone underground. I’d make certain of that.

Gael sat on the floor of his bedroom crisscrossed while he played a video game. The headphones he wore to chat with his gaming team matted down his spiky hair, something he still kept up with even if he’d allowed his dark brown roots to grow out.

Based on the rips on the furniture of his bedroom, I gauged that he preferred scratching up the hardwood floors. Honestly, the tears paled in comparison to Charlie and Carlie’s claws of destruction for everything I owned, but I understood how it was something Gael was self-conscious about. Always worried if he didn’t watch his every breath, it might hurt someone or something.

Though that protective overthinking didn’t concern him now. Kenzo lay on Gael’s bed, reading a book. His legs hung off the edge and wrapped over Gael’s broad, spiked shoulders like Kenzo was hugging him with his feet. He wasn’t, though. They were training Gael’s observational skills even in this casual, affectionate way.

Gael had to be completely self-aware of each of his spikes, redistributing them elsewhere as Kenzo occasionally shifted his position, brushing the heel of his foot one way or the other. It was impossible to remove the sharp prick of the spikes, but he could change their size and location with proper focus. Even the ones that seemed to have vanished from his arms had simply shrunk so small they were basically the tiny, hairlike barbs found beneath the larger spikes of a cactus.

“Oh my fucking god, you stupid dumb bitch just shot your load for nothing.”

My face fell flat, baffled by how Gael shouted at his game.

“Get fucked, poser. Coming…coming…coming. Gotcha.” He shook his head, no fury, just this bizarre cathartic satisfaction. “Looky looky at your little buddy out for my ass. He’s not getting it.”

I couldn’t place it. I’d never seen him like this.

“Yeah, bitch. Came up right behind you and fucked you,” Gael growled. “Thought you were something, didn’t you? This punk ass team’s got nothing.”

Wow. This was… I had no words. I’d seen Gael play classroom games, always so happy and giddy for everyone involved. I’d seen him play games on his phone, always so polite and quiet. Right now, his thoughts raged in the mayhem, delighting in the war his team fought. I’d never believed it was possible for someone who spent his every waking minute at school finding ways to cheer up others could also relish in the blood of his victims. Granted, these victims were on a screen and pixilated, but goddamn.

“Get it out of your system, porcupine,” Kenzo said, his surface thoughts adding a bit of context to the stress release Gael found when gaming. “Start saying your goodbyes to your basement-dwelling loser friends.”

“What’re you talking about?” Gael tilted his head back, then jerked right back to the screen. “Not you. What’re you doing walking in like that? Back in formation. Shot. Shit. Shoot. Shoot!”

“You’ve got ten minutes left of gaming.”

“That’s a school rule.” Gael jabbed the controller buttons, thinking profanities in English and Spanish. “School’s out for like ever. Maybe. I dunno.”

“You don’t know because your brain is turning to mush.” Kenzo thudded Gael’s chest lightly with the heel of his foot. “School might be out, but learning never is. Where’d you put that book you were reading?”

“I dunno.” Gael stared at the screen. “Get him. Fucking missed. Where’s he at?”

“Gael, if I have to look through your junk…”

“It’s not here.” He huffed. “Not you. Focus!” Gael craned his neck, Adam’s apple bulging as he locked eyes with Kenzo. “It was in my locker at the academy, which is now poof.”

“You should’ve just said that to begin with, porcupine.” Kenzo scoffed. “You’re so damn difficult.”

“You’re one to talk.” Gael snarled into his microphone, then muted himself to avoid further confusion. “I see you’re still not mentioning how you buddied up with Caleb, buried the hatchet—and shockingly not in his head—but like, did you?”

“Excuse you?”

“I’m just saying, I didn’t hear an ‘I’m sorry’ during that demon fight. And Kitty Kat keeps me up to date.”

“One, she doesn’t know shit.”

“Yet, you call her know-it-all.”

“Two, why would I apologize?”

“Do you really wanna have this conversation?”

Kenzo didn’t reply.

Gael had this obnoxious ability to pry out Kenzo’s feelings, his words, his unresolved everything. Kenzo had never experienced something so goddamn frustrating, and he loved it.

But right now, Gael used his skills to pick and poke, which tactically Kenzo admired. Overall, though, Kenzo also had an obnoxious ability over Gael, too. His being a way to center Gael’s mind, show him alternative study styles, create habits that wouldn't give him a headache, and make him acknowledge how fucking smart he was.

“That’s what I thought. I know I’m not that smart, but I know you’re avoiding those unresolved issues, so maybe we don’t mock me for being dumb enough to—”

“I didn’t,” Kenzo blurted. “I wasn’t. I was…”

Kenzo struggled to find leisure reading that Gael enjoyed, but he wanted to keep Gael actively growing, even if he thought he was just having fun with a graphic novel. Everything he did was to encourage Gael. It hurt Kenzo, creating this painful pit in his stomach for how he worried about Gael, how he wanted to find ways to keep him smiling. Not simply smiling but smiling with pride in himself. He disliked how someone so clever, so considerate didn’t think he was smart enough for his dreams.

I so rarely observed Gael’s depression—his infectious optimism always shining brightly—that I forgot he still struggled with his self-worth like so many.

“Yeah, I’m back,” Gael said into his headset.

Kenzo sat quietly, allowing Gael to sulk and game away his feelings, struggling to process his own. During a lull in the military murder game, Gael kissed Kenzo’s knee with wet and sloppy lips that said sorry. And if Kenzo didn’t catch that—which he did—Gael vocalized it.

“I’m sorry for being bratty.” He turned off his game. “And no, this is not an apology to teach you how apologies work. How mean would that be? God, how big of a jerk am I for even thinking that? Like I wasn’t thinking it, thinking it, but it crossed my mind, and if I thought it, you definitely probably maybe also thought it. And it was this awkward elephant in the room, but not a real one. A metaphorical elephant. I just got caught up in—”

“You’re fine, love.” Kenzo squeezed his legs tighter around Gael, a hug without hugging. An ‘I love you’ without saying it. Kenzo rarely used names, mostly just nicknames meant to hack down a person’s self-worth to match Kenzo’s state of being. But very rarely, he’d say love or pet or something else he found equally absurd because it made his heart beat faster seeing Gael get flustered and happy and speechless. God, how Kenzo loved when his talkative Gael was left speechless.

“What’s the name of that book again?” Kenzo made a note to buy a new copy. “We can study something else. Maybe you can teach me how to—”

“Or, or, or! What if we replaced study time with an impromptu make out session?” Gael wiggled his eyebrows, hinting how he casually dropped a second vocab word. “I can do that thing with my tongue you like. You know when you pull—”

Kenzo leaned forward, his head upside down when he kissed Gael. “I’m just gonna take this make out time out of your future gaming time.”

Gael quirked his brows, smirking with his shark-like teeth. “What if I did that other thing with my tongue that you really like?”

Kenzo smiled, something he often struggled to fight when basking in Gael’s cheerful energy. Gael’s orange aura radiated as he eagerly delighted in Kenzo’s softer side, even if the sourpuss went right back to frowning before he pulled Gael into another kiss.

I drifted away, allowing them their privacy as I continued training my telepathy. It’d grown so much so soon, and if I kept this up I’d be ready for any threat. Any danger that dared step into Chicago.

“Damn.” I shook away the last fragments of Kenzo’s fury that fanned the flames of my own anger. Anger I held for The True Witch, for Theodore Whitlock, for anyone who threatened the happiness of the people I cared for.

My telepathy fluttered through the currents of summer heat kicking in a bit earlier than expected, even if it was nearly the end of April. Psychic energy rippled aimlessly like leaves dancing in the streets. Finally, I locked in on a familiar mind, a friendly mind, a mind I’d seen struggle with quiet anxiety for years now. A struggle that hit him the day he saved my life against all the odds.

But Carter wasn’t nervous about whether or not his branch was good enough to help others. He’d finally grown past that trauma, that lingering fear that ate away at him, and now he fought his biggest, most threatening battle ever.

Christ, this kid’s emotional state was a wreck of dramatic overthinking.

He’d kissed Jennifer. He’d finally told her how he felt. He’d reached out and offered every drop of his vitality to protect her from the explosion. And then they’d survived. They’d survived like everyone had survived. Now Carter didn’t know what the fuck to do with himself, with his feelings, with his words, with his hands that fidgeted with the zipper of his jacket—a jacket he suddenly hated, feeling overdressed—as he walked to the table to meet Jennifer.

Bev’s Pizza Palace was a spot where they loved to dine. Great food. Queer history tucked away in this hole-in-the-wall eatery that was filled with booths, scattered rainbow-clothed tables, and a variety of arcade games. Casual. Cool. And just a fun place to waste a lot of hours with a good friend.

“ But are we even friends anymore? ” Carter swallowed the lump stuck in his throat and took a seat. “ Can you be friends with someone you kissed? Sure. Maybe. Not if you still like them. Still lo… Jennifer’s gonna be so pissed if I don’t deal with these dread bunnies and the butterflies. Fuck, feelings suck. ”

Jennifer sat across from Carter, her mind a blank slate, completely silent, which seemed skillful at first. I’d almost considered she’d mastered some new degree of psychic precision, but in actuality, her thoughts were quiet because her empathy magic stretched far and wide, linking and unlinking to everyone on the city block.

It kept her calm, clear-headed, too busy to think, to feel, to figure out whether or not Carter felt the same way for her.

“ We were about to die. ” She pursed her lips into a frown over Carter’s late arrival, and they ordered their meal. “ He only kissed me because he thought we were about to die. Dead. Gone. Fuck—how nice would that be right now? Did he mean what he said? Was it spur of the moment? ”

They didn’t speak, they leapt through their thoughts, and they made the cringiest smiles as they avoided eye contact. Ugh. It was painful to watch. Almost as painful as the small talk Carter led with on the weather.

“Seriously?” I huffed to myself. “The weather? The most generic fucking thing ever.”

I wanted to shake these two, to tell them how the other felt, but I just rolled my eyes and hoped for the best.

Jennifer strummed her fingers against the booth, ignoring her scorching hot pizza that’d arrived and fought to keep her words inside. She’d changed her nails, keeping them black with tiny little cartoony explosions artistically stenciled on. Really? Did she commemorate the destruction of Gemini Academy?

“Do you like me?” Jennifer blurted. “Like actually like me, or was that kiss just something to check off your bucket list before dying?”

“What? No.” Carter coughed up the drink he’d taken. “No to the bucket list. Not no to the liking you. I do like you. A lot. Obviously, we’re friends, right? But I also like you in an unfriendly way, too. No, I mean, in a non-friend way. In an ‘I think about kissing you all the time’ kind of way.” Carter’s entire face burned bright red, his cheeks so flushed it’d take hours for the color to fade.

Jennifer giggled, actually fucking giggled, at the sight. It always made her smile, seeing and feeling Carter’s awkward confusion since he usually strutted through life carefree and confident. Yes, Jennifer felt the waves of panic he struggled with, and she was always there to offer support. But those feelings were different from shy embarrassment. And she’d know the subtle differences in every emotion as the expert empath.

“I also like you in an unfriendly way.” Jennifer blushed. “Your annoying kissable face and all.”

“Good, good.” Carter sighed. “I guess I was overthinking it. ‘Cause our first kiss was…”

“Hot?” Jennifer rocked her head from side to side. “You know, ‘cause of the fiery death explosions going off everywhere.”

Carter’s face stretched into a thin smile, biting back a snicker.

“Too soon?” Jennifer batted her eyes.

“Yeah, no, um…I don’t know. It was momentous, though.” Carter held onto the word, momentous, having heard it a dozen times over when seeking advice on his kiss. “How do you go about following that up? If I wanna hold your hand, I’ll have to fight a warlock first. If I wanna make out with you, I’ll have to banish a demon.”

“Awww.” Jennifer sipped her drink from the straw. “You’d banish a demon just to make out with me?”

“I’d do anything for you.” Carter clammed up.

His mind whirled with flashes of a conversation he’d had with Gael and Jamius about the topic, when the two boys who were self-proclaimed experts in the field of romance declared Carter had screwed up by making his first kiss with Gothic Barbie so grand.

Everything popped too quickly to track the fragments of memories but there were lots of lude gestures from Gael as he explained… Christ, I didn’t want to know what he explained. And Jamius kept stacking duplicates in some cheerleading pyramid style which I could only assume was a Jenga analogy on romance that resulted in forty collapsing clones who ended up fighting in Carter’s backyard.

“I don’t know.” Jennifer shrugged. “This is a pretty lowkey first date. I think it balances things out to normal.”

“Date?” Carter buried his memories. “Right. This is a date. A casual date.”

“Are you calling me casual, Preppy Prince?”

“Never, my Emo Queen.” Carter leapt out of the booth and took a dramatic bow, dropping to one knee for the added flair.

It made Jennifer snort and laugh and let out this unhinged, wheezing giggle fit of delight. I’d never seen her so ridiculously happy. She looked as bizarre as me with a smile.

As they slipped into comfortable conversation that overlapped with their feelings, their hopes, their thoughts, I silently observed until my telepathy waned, and I was able to unwind for the night.

Tara used her telekinesis to decorate the pool enclosure. She wore a flower-patterned bikini top with a skirt bottom that reached her knees and had an open slit going up to her hip, which revealed a bit of a tattoo on her thigh. I scoffed, knowing that was definitely Gael’s influence, and found myself almost drawn back to my other half, where another part of me actively battled against the kitchen stove in some futile effort to prove I could cook dinner.

Tara ignored her nerves, her thoughts about Theodore’s escape, the whispers she’d heard everywhere she went. Not that she went to many places with Chicago on high alert and the academy closed. This party was a selfish distraction. It made her wonder if her father threw similar events to avoid his own anxiety over family drama.

At first, a small pool party seemed like an impossible feat. Who would want to go to a Whitlock party? After Theodore had once again caused so much destruction? Despite Tara’s nerves, Gael assured her he had everything under control. Now, she found herself setting up for a gathering three times her initial estimates. How he managed, she’d never know, but she was grateful to always have Gael at her side.

While I shouldn’t be excited for a bunch of seventeen-year-olds gathered together to drink and smoke and screw around while next to a dangerous body of water without adult supervision, I was admittedly a bit excited to see them all interact together.

I missed the talkative energy they brought into the classroom. I missed the curiosity in their surface thoughts. I even missed the ridiculously asinine questions some students would ask.

“So, are you just gonna be here lurking all night watching teen hotties strutting around in their half-naked bodies?”

Case in point.

Gael stared at the security guard posted at the door of the pool party. This wasn’t the security at Milo’s building, not that those attendants were lacking in skill, but this guard had biceps bigger than Gael’s head. He had six visible knives strapped to his person and three guns and enough hidden pockets in his Kevlar jacket to probably hide a dozen others. Even his thoughts were difficult to read with the number of enchantment sigils and ward symbols tattooed on his skin.

Whitlock Estates was actually one of the most secure places in the entire city since Tara’s father had hired private security after Theodore’s escape. Muddled minds of several dozen elite witches buzzed at full attention as they patrolled the grounds. Seriously, half of them were fully armed with gear and gadgets and an arsenal of destructive weaponry and magic like the one Gael currently squinted at. These witches were former marines, navy seals, or ex-operatives of all kinds from across the world. Whitlock Industries spared no expense when buying a private army.

Tara folded her arms. “He’ll be joining the rest of the little unit surveying the grounds outside.”

“But your father said—”

“My father is out of the country and has left me in charge of the estate.” Tara’s expression shifted, almost stern, like she was channeling her inner Whitlock authority. “Besides, if a threat really managed to get all the way inside, past the thirty-some-odd magical military boys swinging their guns around, do you think you’ll make a difference?”

“Ma’am, I assure you—”

“Leave now before you ruin my party.”

He nodded and stepped out of the enclosure.

Gael side-eyed the guard. “You think I can take him?”

Tara giggled, continuing her final arrangements for the party.

“Bet I could take him.” His mind shifted to wrestling moves he’d been practicing. “Pin him in under thirty seconds flat.”

“That quick, huh?” Tara asked with a grin. “Thought fast was bad.”

“Oh, you got jokes.”

“And you have a checklist you’re ignoring.” Tara pointed, channeling her stern expression again, which folded almost the second her eyes met Gael’s.

“Fine, fine, fine.” He pouted and rushed off to help with the setup.

It didn’t take long for students to start funneling inside. Kenzo arrived with Gael, who practically dragged him through the door. But once Gael turned his head for a minute to talk to someone, Kenzo had plastered himself against the furthest wall.

Katherine arrived with Caleb at her side, literally directing him as he remained with his head buried in a book while carrying a tote bag slung over his shoulder. Not the new one he had, but the kind of bag one might bring for a day spent at the beach, not at a pool party, and he’d stuffed it to max capacity.

So many students showed up, I could barely keep track. It was difficult to hear thoughts, too, given the blaring music and loud as fuck voices. Anxiety popped, and I followed.

Gael’s heart hastened, pounding so hard his rooster fluttered off the pool floatie he rode and went to check on his human companion. When Gael’s surprised expression shifted into disgust, King Clucks merely bawked with annoyance and returned to his swan floatie.

“Eeeeww, you seriously invited my ex?” Gael eyed Tara. “You dick.”

“What?” Tara waved around the last few kegs to add the final party touches. “Aren’t you and Tiff still doing that whole on-again-off-again thingy with your thingies?”

“I’m a sidepiece wonder, but I’m over that life.” Gael shrugged. “I can’t believe you’re still buddy-buddy with her.”

“I thought this was amicable. Didn’t realize I had to pick sides.” Tara sighed. “If you want me to shun her, I will. Easy. Done.”

“No, no. Your Whitlock ice-outs hold weight, and on the off-chance Tiff and I reconcile, I don’t need you turning her into a social pariah.”

“You’re making me sound like Layla.” Tara bit back her aggravation, finding Layla’s need to constantly punch down on others irritating. In fact, she noticed Layla latch onto Melanie and Amani the moment they walked into the party, circling the pool like sharks and sniffing out drama.

Some students certainly missed the angst in their day-to-day school routines.

“You’re way worse than Layla,” Gael said.

“What’d you just say?” Tara telekinetically shook a can of beer before handing it to Gael.

“I’m just saying, she works for the Queen Bee Top Bitch thing—which, good for her or whateves—but you just roll outta bed with the title.” Gael cracked his beer tab. “Like not the bitch thing, though, with a little work, we can get you there. But the queen title? That just happens every time you walk into a room, crown waiting for you to claim it.”

He tilted his can away, spraying bystanders with his beer, which Tara didn’t realize he’d immediately suspected had been tampered with.

He wasn’t wrong about Tara’s title. It was something I’d noticed in the halls, in classes, during events at school. As a Whitlock, students often deferred to her expertise in anything; as someone with mastery over her roots and new branch magics continuing to develop, she was the envy of many thoughts. It helped that Tara had this sweet, calm personality that simply drew others in. Something mysterious and distant, yet everyone believed they had a chance to be her friend. After all, she tolerated the most obnoxious boy in school. And I couldn’t even believe the number of students who outwardly expressed annoyance for Gael but secretly pined for him. That was a whole different layer of absurdity.

It didn’t take long for the party to turn into a noisy kerfuffle of chaos, with teens drinking, diving into the pool, throwing booze and water and anything else they could with telekinesis, casting their branches, and acting like utter fools for the fun of it.

I expected Gael to jump into the revelry, yet he hung close to Tara at the bar, listening to talk about upcoming events she was excited about and the very many she loathed. Turned out, as impulsive and absurd as he was when it came to talking, Gael proved quite capable of being a good listener. The entire party faded from his thoughts as he listened to his friend.

Gael and Tara did a lap around the party, checking in on guests before they joined Carter and Jennifer at another wet bar beside the pool. Seriously, who needed four bars in one room? I mean, the pool enclosure gave most public pools a run for their money in size, but then again, the Whitlock Estate certainly wasn’t lacking in funds.

Gael flaunted his new tattoo on his chest over his heart. It was, in fact, a heart tattoo shaded in with black, gray, white, and purple for the ace flag. Which seemed confusing until I realized that Gael hadn’t gotten the tattoo to parade his pride but instead his love. Beside the heart was a portrait of King Clucks forever tattooed on Gael’s chest.

“Okay, so what’s with the new tattoos?” Carter asked.

“How do you keep getting them?” Jennifer asked with aggravation, though secretly curious since she couldn’t find anyone who inked teens—unless they lived in a basement and had sketchy needles.

“King Clucks knows a guy who knows a gal who has a cow, and that cow’s got a pal who does great work.” Gael flexed his chest, making the heart wiggle. “But to answer your question, Carter, the heart’s for my bestie. Bestie, show him your heart.”

Tara revealed her matching heart tattoo and King Clucks portrait on her thigh, hidden by the skirt of her bikini bottoms. Only her heart was colored pink, yellow, and cyan for the pansexual flag.

“And if we ever break up,” Gael said with a shrug, “I’ll just lie and say I dabbled in asexuality before deciding my cock was far too glorious not to share with the world.”

Tara, Carter, and even Jennifer bit back a laugh.

“One, not funny.” Tara held out her raised thumb, sipping her cocktail. “Two, you could just laser it off.”

“My cock?” Gael covered his crotch. “You monster.”

Tara lifted her middle finger to join her thumb, then finished her drink before telekinetically waving the stemmed glass into the bar sink. “Three, we’re not dating.”

“We’re not?” Gael jested. “But you’re the longest relationship I’ve ever had, and we never have sex. You’re basically my wife.”

“No, sweetie.” Tara playfully patted Gael’s head, messing with his fauxhawk. “You’re too high maintenance.”

“Boo.” Gael guzzled his beer. “How am I high maintenance? I’m drinking Bud Light.”

“Okay, okay, I get the queer besties tats—love, by the way, and already thinking of ways to get something similar,” Carter said, gesturing to Gael and Tara before pointing a finger at Gael’s stomach where another tattoo was inked below his pierced belly button. “But what’s this one for?”

“Come on.” Jennifer rolled her eyes. “You know damn well it’s some perverted bullshit.”

“I know it’s gotta be something ridiculous, but I gotta know the specifics.” Carter pointed to Gael’s head. “He’s a fascinating specimen of epic nonsense, and I will have some ink ling of how his brain works before the night is over.”

Gael winked. “I see what you did there, you punny little bastard.”

“Whatever.” Jennifer crossed her arms and awaited the answer Carter craved.

Gael ran his hands over his lower torso like a magician revealing his “100% Vegan” tattoo neatly tucked between the V-cut indents of his abdomen. “This right here is a healthy reminder to all the guys, gals, and nonbinary pals that I might be slinging sausage in your face, but it’s totally vegan, babes.”

Carter burst into laughter, face red with delight at the absurd awesomeness that was Gael Rios-Vega. Considering how carefree Carter carried himself, he’d never met someone who genuinely lived freely, saying, feeling, and expressing his every single whim.

I stayed close to the group as they chatted, Carter and Gael leading the conversation since Jennifer and Tara preferred the silence, the atmosphere, the calm joy that boomed from their designated extraverts. When Tara wandered, she took Jennifer with her, and feeling a little emptier without her presence, Carter bid farewell to Gael and went off to search for his new girlfriend.

“See you soon.”

“Good luck finding your girlfriend ,” Gael said, smirking at the flustered, giddy expression it elicited from Carter who flushed every time he got to call Jennifer his girlfriend.

I stayed close to Gael at the party, realizing the work he put into reading others, nudging them with varying degrees of crude one-liners. There was a bit of pride in him for Carter and Jennifer. He’d spent the better part of the school year trying to shove those two into a room.

He swaggered over to the pool’s edge.

“Damn, baby gurl.” Gael raised his brows and pouted his lips. “When’d you get so thick ?”

Christ. He really just blurted the first thoughts that sprang to mind.

Katherine snorted, slightly amused but mostly annoyed. “Maybe you don’t stare at my ass all night?”

“Huh?” Gael cocked his head, barely registering that Katherine was right in front of him. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. Totally missed you there. Looking hawt as always, Kitty Kat. But I was lost on your boyfriend strutting around with all that cake.”

“Ba-ba-bawk.”

Katherine and Caleb wore matching white swimsuits with golden stars, hers being a two piece and his being a pair of trunks.

“Seriously, Caleb.” Gael made a show of nodding his head with approval. “The glow-up is legit. How’d that slip under my radar?”

Caleb’s entire face burned bright red, spreading to his neck and freckled shoulders. Gael’s very vocalized flattery—as Caleb thought it far too politely, in my opinion—had drawn many eyes to him.

“ He’s really keeping it all hidden under his baggy academy outfits. ”

“ Those abs... ”

“ Talk about buying the stock at zero and watching it soar. ”

“ Good on Kitty Kat, locking him down. ”

“Honestly,” Gael said. “Katherine, Caleb, if you two are ever looking for a little spice in your life.” He gestured to himself. “Or Caleb, if you’re ever just curious, curious about the human body, or have a question for—Aaaaahhhh!”

Kenzo shoved Gael into the pool with a bit of added telekinesis which made the headfirst cannonball splash a huge wave of water.

“Asshole.”

“Gah, Gael!”

“What’s your problem?”

After the crowd simmered, most believing Gael had done this in some dramatic bid for attention, Caleb tensed, worrying Kenzo planned on throwing him in next. It was bizarre how Kenzo had stormed across the entire party to find Caleb. Not so strange he tossed Gael in the pool considering Kenzo had a very short fuse and Gael managed to light it every time they interacted.

“There’s a lap pool in the next swimming enclosure.” Kenzo frowned at Caleb, practically snarling as he tried and failed horribly to look nicer—per Gael’s advice that fluttered in Kenzo’s surface thoughts. “Figured you might be the only one here actually interested in training.”

Caleb smiled awkwardly. “Oh, um, thank you for thinking of me.”

“I wasn’t thinking of you.” Kenzo huffed. “I was thinking everyone else was lazy, treating this time like some mini-fucking-vacation or some other bullshit.”

“Oh, well, that’s still nice. Uh, I guess.” Caleb’s awkward smile strained but didn’t falter.

Kenzo glared. “So, did you wanna do some real training, or are you just gonna splish and splash and be a lazy dumbass?”

“My lil poet.” Gael slung an arm over Kenzo’s shoulder, careful with his spikes but finding he’d gotten quite good at physical contact thanks to the practice he had with Kenzo. Literally. From handshakes to hugs to pats on the back and anything else, Gael avoided over the years since he didn’t want to prick someone by accident.

Gael’s bright shark-like smile eased a nervous Caleb, who thought back to the exchange he shared with Kenny during the Spring Showcase. They fought a gargoyle together, faced off against a demon, and they buried a piece of their feud. He wondered if maybe Kenzo had buried all of it.

“You cool with me ditching?” Caleb turned to Katherine.

“I already saw the books you stuffed into your towel bag.” Katherine playfully bumped her hip against Caleb’s. “Figured you were gonna abandon the fun sooner or later.”

As willing as Caleb was to go out and explore, try new things, interact with others, all he really wanted to do most days was read, write, workout, practice his casting, and study. Caleb liked hiding in the world of words, learning anything and everything he could get his hands on.

While Caleb and Kenzo headed to the next enclosure, Katherine and Gael made a show of mingling with everyone in a quick social lap before they dived into the pool.

Before they reached the door, Kenzo grabbed Caleb by the arm and held him in place. They stood out of earshot from the rest of the party.

“About what happened during the showcase attack…” Kenzo averted his gaze. “I never apologized.”

“Apologized? For what?” Caleb cocked his head, recalling everything that’d happened, everything he’d witnessed, any possible thing Kenny could’ve done. “You didn’t do anything, though. I mean, you were kind of sort of a bit rude, but that’s fine. And it all worked out.”

“Not for the showcase attack,” Kenzo snapped, shoulders raised high and neck turtling in on itself. “For everything. Everything since my parents died. Everything since middle school. Since freshman year. Since we enrolled at Gemini Academy. I’m sorry for being a prick, for questioning your worth, for punching down every single day. I’m an asshole, and I’m not going to change. Fuck anyone who thinks I should. But I am going to change how I treat you. I’m going to work to make up for how I treated you.”

Caleb stood speechless, mind whirling in a million different directions.

“I’ll start by helping you do some real levitation training.” Kenzo nodded toward the door that’d lead them to the lap pool. “Seriously, your form is pathetic. How you expect to be a professional enchanter with such a sloppy stance is beyond me. Bird Brain and Chicken Sandwich have a tighter form, and they just started levitating.”

“I forgive you, Kenny.” Caleb smiled, then scrunched his face into this contorted, frazzled grimace. “Kenzo. I mean, Kenzo.”

Kenzo huffed. “You can’t forgive me.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I just apologized. And it was terrible.” Kenzo cycled through every well-rehearsed speech he’d practiced, every bullet point he’d mentally prepped, and yet, the second the time came, he word vomited his feelings. “You’re not allowed to just forgive me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No, you can’t apologize to me!”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s…” Kenzo stifled an angry shout. “This isn’t going at all how I planned. Just know you can’t just accept an apology right away.”

“Oooooookay,” Caleb meekly dragged out the word as he studied Kenzo. “And why can’t I just accept an apology again?”

“You have to process the apology, think it over, then decide. You can’t just forgive someone. Especially someone who treated you like shit for years. Who made it his mission to smash apart your dreams, your goals.”

Rage funneled from Kenzo, hurled back onto himself mostly as his emotions twisted into disgust and regret. Part of him wanted Caleb to reject his crappy apology, spit in his face, call him every cruel word in the world, tell him he waited too long to be a decent human being. Another part of him wished he could be as forgiving as Caleb.

“Hmmm. So I’ve been thinking over the apology.” Caleb had a pensive expression. “Well, here’s the thing. I’m a fast thinker so I—”

“No! You’re not that fast of a thinker. I’ve seen how long you take on tests.” Kenzo scoffed, opening the door and allowing Caleb to go first. “Let’s just put a pin in all the mushy gushy feelings bullshit. We’ll revisit this awful apology. Maybe I’ll have a better one.”

“I’m not being very mushy gushy.” Caleb blinked. “Am I?”

Kenzo realized he was the one weighed down by feelings, by desires to mend a broken friendship, by confusion on the right way to fix what he’d ruined, by Caleb still being too nice. It annoyed and frustrated Kenzo, yet more than anything he wanted to have Caleb’s kind smile back in his life, his wordy nonsense, his absurd optimism.

Kenny wanted his best friend back.

“Whatever.” Kenzo jabbed Caleb in the side. “I need you to pay attention to the list of things you’re doing wrong when it comes to channeling your roots. It’s a long list, so we’ll likely be at this all night.”

“You know, I actually perfected a root, right?”

“Yeah, and I don’t see you throwing out perfected banishment on the regular.” Kenzo pushed Caleb forward. “Probably because your technique is sloppy as fuck, and you need a real teacher.”

I wasn’t even there—that he knew of—and Kenzo still found a way to cut down my teaching methods.

Still, seeing all my students in one setting, enjoying their time away from the academy, recovering, healing emotionally and physically, it helped ease the guilt I had. It also helped exhaust my telepathy since this party had given me a fucking headache. I was able to quell my overpowered branch and settle in for the evening with Milo and Benjamin.