"He's dead," he said to no one.
Topher and Rhi stood behind him, neither of them saying a word, and no one paying me any attention at all. It was like I wasn't even there to them.
I stood motionless, the pain ripping through my heart almost too much to bear. Jake. Even if he'd hurt me at the banquet, I didn't want him to be gone.
A wave of dizziness overcame me, and I swayed back and forth even as the fuzziness of my vision faded, and the world came back into focus. The sound of shouting voices and whooshing spells assaulted my ears. I hadn't even realized they'd been missing before. What was wrong with me?
My gaze locked on Jake, who was still very much alive and blasting off spells with Adam and Topher, just like he had been when my vision had gone funny.
In fact, he was acting exactly like he had when my vision had started to change.
Did that mean that the other parts of what I'd seen were going to happen too? Had it been a vision of the future?
I dithered on whether or not I should do something, or even just give a warning. Seeing the future just wasn't a thing people did. For that matter, it wasn't something I'd ever done before either.
"Jake, watch out," I blurted before I could overthink it all.
He turned at the sound of my voice, a scowl marring his perfect face. But he didn't move.
I stepped forward. "You need to get out of the way," I said, feeling slightly crazy.
"Why?" He didn't seem particularly bothered about my warning, other than annoyance for me even giving it.
I grunted in frustration. If he wasn't going to listen to me voluntarily, then I was going to have to make him. I leapt forward and pushed him to the ground, only processing how close I was to him after our bodies began to touch. He struggled against me, but the surprise of my attack was enough to knock him to the ground.
"Will you get off me?" he demanded.
He pushed hard with his arms, and I fell to the side, grunting in pain as I landed. That was going to leave a bruise. Jake got to his feet, dusting himself off.
"What are you doing?" he half-shouted at me. "You think that you can just jump on people, you weirdo?"
I bit my lip, trying to keep back the tears that were threatening to fall. I didn't like the way he was speaking to me, but on some level, I knew I kind of deserved it. I'd done exactly what he was accusing me of, and there was no getting away from it.
"I..."
A flash of red light streaked past us, saving me from having to come up with an explanation that didn't make me sound crazy. The last thing I wanted was for it to go around that the heir to the Enchantian throne had a few screws loose, there was already enough talk of that, thanks to my dark clothing.
"Was that what I thought it was?" Rhi asked, her mouth gaping open.
Adam nodded. "It looked like a stun shot."
I looked between them from my position on the floor, hoping one of them would explain what that meant. Once we got back to the palace, I was going to spend some time learning about casting spells. I hadn't paid as much attention to it as I should have, and it was starting to catch up with me.
"I was standing right there," Jake whispered, his face as pale as it had been in my vision.
"It would probably have killed you," Topher said without any hint of sadness that his friend nearly died. "It was lucky the princess was there to save you."
Jake glared at him. Maybe he didn't like the fact he'd been saved by a girl? A small voice in the back of my head whispered that his problem wasn't because I was a girl, it was because I was me. I shook it off.
"Those kinds of shots should be banned," Jake grumbled.
"It would only have gained so much power because of the distance," Topher pointed out.
I listened raptly. This was all new information to me, though that just highlighted how badly I was doing in that part of learning about my kingdom. I’d thought the basics would do me. I was wrong.
"Still." Jake shuffled about, twisting his wand in his hand nervously. He was more shaken than he was letting on.
He needed someone to reassure him. I opened my mouth, wanting to make that person me, but Jake stepped away before I could.
Topher moved as well, planting himself in front of Jake and crossing his arms. "Aren't you forgetting something?" he growled at Jake.
"What could I be missing?" There was thinly veiled contempt behind Jake's words.
I glanced over at Rhi and Adam, who both looked about as confused as I felt. I was reassured to know I wasn't the only person out of the loop in this conversation. I did have to wonder what was going on between the two boys.
"A thank you for the princess," Topher said. "She did save your life."
An apology for speaking so harshly to me before wouldn't have gone amiss either. I pushed that thought away. There was no reason to expect an apology. He'd reacted in the only way he could, given how random me pushing him over had been.
Jake's jaw ticked in anger, but he turned to face me, nonetheless. "Thank you, Kelis," he said, stressing my name. It was probably just a response to Topher always using princess to talk about me, but it made my heart soar nonetheless. He was talking right to me. He said my name.
"It was nothing," I mumbled. Great. Where had my confidence gone? I'd held my own against a general just a couple of days ago, but faced with a twenty-one-year-old guy, I was stumbling through my words and acting like I didn't
