The Golden Lily

I finally looked up. In our conversations, Adrian wasn’t usually the one accusing me of being ridiculous. “Oh? So I am like Rose and Dimitri?”

“No. No more than I am. And, if memory serves, someone told me recently it was useless trying to be like other people. That you should only try to be yourself.”

I scowled at having my words thrown back at me. “This isn’t the same situation at all. I’m talking about taking care of myself, not impressing someone.”

“Well, there’s your other problem, Sage. ‘Taking care of yourself.’ These encounters you’ve had-Strigoi, crazy guys with swords. Those aren’t exactly normal. I don’t think you can really get down on yourself for not being able to fight back against those kinds of attacks. Most people couldn’t.”

“I should be able to,” I muttered.

His eyes were sympathetic. “Then learn. That same person who likes giving me advice once told me not to be a victim. So don’t be. You’ve learned how to do a million other things. Learn this. Take a self-defense class. Get a gun. You can’t be a guardian, but that’s not the only way to protect yourself.”

A cluster of emotions boiled within me. Anger. Embarrassment. Reassurance. “You’ve got a lot to say for a drunk guy.”

“Oh, Sage. I’ve got a lot to say, drunk or sober.” He released me and stepped away. I felt oddly vulnerable without him near. “What most people don’t get is that I’m more coherent like this. Less chance for spirit to make me crazy.” He tapped the side of his head and rolled his eyes.

“Speaking of which… I’m not going to give you any lectures about that,” I said, glad to shift the topic from me. “Lunch with your dad sucked. I get it. If you want to drown that out, it’s fine. But please, just keep Jill in mind. You know what this does to her-not now, maybe, but later.”

The ghost of a smile flickered across his lips. “You’re always the voice of reason. Just try listening to yourself once in a while.”

The words were familiar. Dimitri had said something similar, that I couldn’t take care of others without taking care of myself first. If two people as wildly different as Adrian and Dimitri had the same opinion, then maybe there was something to it. It gave me a lot to think about when I returned to Amberwood later.

One of the good things about Adrian’s intoxication was that Jill hadn’t been able to witness our talk. So the next day over lunch when I gave Jill, Eddie, and Angeline a recap of what had happened, I was able to edit the story and leave out my own breakdown. Jill and Angeline’s reactions were about what I expected. Jill was concerned and kept asking over and over if Sonya and I were okay. Angeline regaled us with tales of all the things she would’ve done to the attackers and how, unlike Dimitri, she would have chased them through the streets. Eddie was quiet and didn’t say much until the other two had left, Angeline back to her room and Jill to get ready for class.

“I thought something was wrong with you today,” he said. “Especially at breakfast, when Angeline called a tomato a vegetable and you didn’t correct her.”

I managed a half smile at his joke. “Yeah. Well, it’s the kind of thing that sticks with you. I mean, maybe not for you guys. Random sword attacks in dark alleys are normal for you, right?”

He shook his head, face serious. “You can’t ever take any attack in stride. People who do get careless. You have nothing to feel bad about.”

I’d been stirring some sketchy looking mashed potatoes and finally gave up. “I don’t like being unprepared. For anything. Don’t get me wrong-I’ve been there when you and Rose fought Strigoi. I was helpless then too… but that’s different. They’re larger than life… beyond a human’s scope. I don’t really expect myself to be able to fight then. But what happened last night-even with the sword-was only one step away from a mugging. Mundane. And they were human, like me. I shouldn’t have been so ineffectual.”

“Do you want me to teach you some tricks?” he asked kindly.

That brought my smile back. “What you do is a little larger than life too. Maybe I’d be better doing something a little more suited to my level. Adrian said I should get a gun or take a self-defense class.”

“That’s good advice.”

“I know. Scary, huh? The Alchemists do gun-training, but I’m not a fan. I do pretty well at classes and theory, though.”

He chuckled. “Very true. Well, if you change your mind, let me know. After working with Angeline, I’m ready for anything. Although… to be fair, she’s backed off a little.”

I thought back to my last real conversation with her. Her fight and suspension had only been yesterday but felt like years ago. “Oh. I sort of had a talk with her.”

“What kind of talk?” he asked, surprised. “I told you not to worry about my personal life. It’s my problem.”

“I know, I know. But it just kind of happened. I told her that her behavior was out of line and that she needed to stop. She was pretty mad at me, though, so I wasn’t sure if it had gotten through.”

“Huh. I guess it did.” The next words obviously were a big concession. “Maybe she’s not as bad as I thought.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “And look at it this way. At least her suspension means you don’t have to worry about her at the dance.”

From the way his face lit up, it was clear he hadn’t realized that yet. A few moments later, he toughened up again. “If there are attacks going on like this, I’m going to have to be extra cautious with Jill-especially at the dance.” I hadn’t thought there was any way Eddie could be more cautious, but probably he’d prove me wrong. “I kind of wish Angeline was going.”

Most of my classes were distracting enough to keep me from thinking too much about last night, but Ms. Terwilliger’s independent study was different. It was too quiet, too low-key. It gave me a lot of time in my own head, bringing back all the fear and self-doubt I’d been trying to ignore. For once, I copied and notated the spells without really memorizing them. Usually, I couldn’t help myself. Today, my mind wasn’t there.

We were almost halfway through the period when I finally tuned in enough to really process what I was working on. It was a spell from Late Antiquity that allegedly made the victim think scorpions were crawling on him or her. Like so many of Ms. Terwilliger’s spell books, the formula was convoluted and time consuming.

“Ms. Terwilliger?” I hated to ask anything of her, but recent events weighed too heavily on me.

She looked up in surprise from her paperwork. After the cold war we’d entered into, she’d grown used to me never speaking unless spoken to. “Yes?”

I tapped the book. “What good are these so-called offensive spells? How would you ever use them in a fight when they require concoctions that take days to prepare? If you’re attacked, there’s no time for anything like that. There’s hardly any time to think.”

“Which one are you looking at?” she asked.

“The scorpion one.”

She nodded. “Ah, yes. Well, that’s more of a premeditated one. If you’ve got someone you don’t like, you work on this and cast it. Quite effective for ex-boyfriends, I might add.” Her face grew distracted, and then she focused back on me. “There are certainly ones that would be more useful in the kind of situation you’re describing. Your fire charm, if you recall, had a lot of prep work but could be used quite quickly. There are others that can be cast on extremely short notice with few components-but as I’ve said in the past, those types require considerable skill. The more advanced you are, the less you need ingredients. You need a lot more experience before you’re at a level to learn anything like that.”

“I never said I wanted to learn anything like that,” I snapped. “I’m just… making an inquiry.”

“Oh? My mistake. It almost sounded like you were, dare I say, interested.”

“No!” I was grateful that the healing magic in my tattoo had cleared up most of the bruising on my face from last night. I didn’t want her to suspect that I might have serious motivation for protection. “See, this is why I never say anything in here. You read too much into it and just use it to further your agenda to torment me.”

“Torment? You read books and drink coffee in here-exactly what you’d be doing if you weren’t here.”

“Except that I’m miserable,” I told her. “I hate every minute of this. I’m almost ready to stop coming and risk the academic fallout. This is all sick and twisted and-”

The last bell of the day cut me off before I said something I’d regret. Almost immediately, Trey appeared in the doorway. Ms. Terwilliger began packing up and looked over at him with a smile, as though everything in here was perfectly normal.

“Why, Mr. Juarez. How nice of you to show up now, seeing as you couldn’t make it to my class this