Ishmae, on the other hand, had a wisp of fire hovering in the air above her and was leading that flame through increasingly complex loops and patterns. I’d seen her do the same with as many as ten wisps, each of them tightly braided, moving in their own patterns and burning steadily. Word was, London had only managed two wisps so far, and the second one had a tendency of drifting off of its own accord. Kind of like Winter’s blizzards.
Seated next to Ishmae—always next to her—Shane spent most of his class time just watching the young Pyro. The only person in the class unaware of his painful, soul-devouring crush was the object of said crush. Ishmae had turned seventeen in April but showed no interest in anything beyond school and the cultivation of her power. Supposedly, a lot of High-Fours were like that.
To the left, Erin Pearson—our near-ginger Wind Dancer—was guiding a small cyclone about in a slow and stilted dance while Olympia used her own powers to shoot darts of light through the cyclone. Past those two, Prince was humming something under his breath, the chunky Siren’s tones too quiet to affect the emotions of anyone around him. Caleb, one of a handful of first-years with dual powers, was hovering an inch or so off the floor, tossing a fistful of coins high into the air and then catching them again just before they could hit the ground, his angular features set in concentration and his hands alternating blurs. Silt had a handful of dirt in front of her and was glaring at it as it formed into a lopsided bowl, then a cylinder, and then something that was supposed to be a duck.
As for me, I sat, breathed, and waited for class to end, like I’d been doing every day for the last two months. Even my crush on Ms. Stein had faded under the relentless tedium. I’d known being a Crow would suck. I hadn’t know it would mean I was going to be completely useless at everything.
I wasn’t the only one losing patience. The Viking, as he’d loudly proclaimed on more than one occasion, thought meditation was for pussies. The two Shifters weren’t loving Control either. Something about shifting being an all-or-nothing proposition and the dampeners being still set too high for them to transform. Alan Jackson was in the other room, intimidating the fuck out of everyone around him, but Jeremiah was in our room, doing his best not to fall asleep.
Then there were the stranger members of the class.
Freddy was our Switch, one of that rare breed who could affect the abilities of Powers around him. He was an Amplifier, which basically made him every first-year’s favorite person. Nullifiers were significantly less appreciated… except when a Black Hat needed stopping. For Freddy, Control meant increasing the range and duration of his abilities, and one day being able to affect multiple targets.
With the way she blurred from one end of her mat to the other, Wormhole might have passed for a Jitterbug, but that was more a function of the dampeners and the enclosed space than anything. Whereas she and Caleb could both move from point A to point B in a flash, the button-nosed brunette was actually skipping everything in between. In their own way, Teleporters were even more badass than Flyboys or Wind Dancers.
What I couldn’t figure out was why Wormhole ended every class noticeably heavier than she’d been at the start. It was like she was detouring to the donut dimension with each teleport. Even harder to understand was where that extra weight went; by the time History rolled around in the afternoon, Evelyn would be back to her petite self.
And then there was Kayleigh Watai. Five feet tall and golden skinned, I’d never heard her speak a word. She shunned the rest of the first-years every bit as much as they shunned me. In most classes, Kayleigh sat as far from the rest of us as she could, but in the tighter quarters of Control, there was nowhere to go. While everyone else was breathing or showing off, she was just twitching, head down, arms wrapped tightly around her bent knees until she was a small ball, rocking back and forth.
It reminded me of Nyah and how she would sometimes wake up after a nightmare at the orphanage. Maybe even of how I’d been in those first few months at Mama Rawlins’, before Fat Joey taught me the value of staying quiet if I didn’t want a love tap in the ribs from his size nine shoes.
I made it through all of four classes watching Kayleigh twitch before I went to Ms. Stein for help, but the lovely teacher had just tucked a strand of fabulously silky hair behind one equally fabulous ear and told me to focus on my own problems.
That might have been the moment my crush on Gabriella Stein started to fade.
A couple weeks later, I spoke to Alexa instead. First time I’d talked to her about anything that really mattered, anything that wasn’t just a recap of my last few days of classes. She’d listened, fixed me with those unblinking black eyes of hers, and informed me that the faculty was well aware of Ms. Watai’s difficulties, that those issues were related to her power, and that they would step in when and if it was necessary.
Didn’t make me feel any better but it didn’t leave me much recourse either—especially since I’d torn up the class roster that first day and had no idea what power Kayleigh even had. Some of the other first-years knew, no doubt, but it’s not like I was on speaking terms with any of them except Shane, and the ginger Healer had an annoying habit of not spilling other people’s secrets.
Shortly after my talk with Alexa, I’d watched Paladin try to speak to Kayleigh after class, but she’d shrunk away from him
