Two guys strolled in, taking the desks to my right. I studied them from the corner of my eye. They seemed normal, aside from their devastatingly good looks that were typical here, but their pointed ears gave them away. Elves, just like Maeve and Mickey.
If only their shadows had more details I could pick out—color, for instance. All I could get from their shadows was a general idea of the build of my race—a sort of toned slenderness with pointy ears.
I stared down at my thighs, grimacing at what a slimmer me would look like. Emaciated, probably.
I jerked my gaze up, remembering I was on a mission. No distraction allowed. I cleared my thoughts just in time for the hottiest hotness of all time to breeze through the doorway like some romance novel god, ready for his students to undress him with their eyes.
I ground my teeth as he beamed while walking toward his desk just as the bell rang.
The pixies were twittering and ogling him unabashedly, but everyone else didn’t seem to have a problem ignoring his charms. Either they didn’t find humans attractive or they knew what he was doing and found it annoying enough to drown out his amazingness.
I narrowed my eyes. This elf had manipulated me. He’d used my clueless human upbringing to his advantage so I’d make him my consort and give himself some messed-up ego boost.
“Ms. James, are you feeling well?”
Mr. O’Faolain examined my face as if my scowl must be symptomatic of some sort of illness and not directed at him.
Showtime. I replaced my scowl with the brightest smile. “Wonderful. I just have a question—it’s a little unrelated to math,” I said as I let my voice get breathy and batted my eyes.
He smiled, his lips framing perfect white teeth. “By all means, ask away,” he said.
My thoughts stumbled over each other as my gaze latched onto his mouth. They looked so deliciously soft. Such kissable lips—wait, kissable…consort baby maker! The guy was a creep.
I forced my voice to become firm—hard, even as my smile remained fixed in place.
“Is it against fae law to castrate authority figures who abuse their position of trust? You know—like math teachers who use magic to influence the heir’s whole consort-baby-making pick.” Dramatic pause. “Hypothetically speaking, of course. And after the heir—me—becomes queen and all that,” I said, batting my lashes up at him once more.
The school office felt quite homey. It really did. And not because I was used to offices; I generally tried to avoid them. But no-can-do when you threaten to castrate your teacher once you become queen of the fae.
I was enjoying my time on the padded, mint-green vinyl chair, replaying O’Faolain’s slack-jawed expression over and over again in my mind, when Maeve walked in, glaring at me. I smiled back.
The principal materialized a moment later. “Ah, Ms. Reid. So good to see you.” He was nodding to himself almost as if he could, by proxy, get Maeve to agree that it was nice to see him too. “Please, sit down.”
I had already selected the chair closest to the door so they’d only flank me on one side.
“So, what is this I hear about Kella threatening a teacher?” Maeve said, getting straight to the point.
“I didn’t threaten. I posed a hypothetical.”
Both adults looked at me, unimpressed, before turning back to each other.
“This isn’t so much about the threat as it is about a more serious matter.”
I heard Maeve take in a deep breath, readying herself for the worst. I folded my arms, skimming my tongue across my upper teeth to reassure myself that, yes, I had remembered to brush. There’d been a lot to think about this morning, so I might have skipped that step. Thankfully, habit won out.
“Kella seems to be under the impression that she’s to become queen.” He said the question carefully, neither validating nor invalidating. He paused, waiting for Maeve to respond.
She took a deep breath and faced me.
“Kella? Exactly what did you say? And to whom?” Her eyes commanded me to backtrack.
But there was no backtracking now. I smiled, not letting her see that my confidence in my plan had dipped just a bit. “That I’m such a powerful bad-a that O’Faolain better not try his mind-altering magicky stuff on me.”
Whatever she’d expected me to say, it wasn’t that. Maeve choked on her spit or something, but she quickly flicked on a serene smile. I’d never seen that smile on her before, but I suspected it meant that she secretly wanted to strangle me.
I shrugged it off. Fake Dad taught me that if you had a weakness, people would find and exploit it—like he did with me whenever he got the chance. The best protection was convincing people that your weakness was your strength.
For the fae, me being raised as human was a weakness. Me being magicless was a huge weakness. But if I kept my head down, hiding behind Mickey and Bridgette after finding out I was heir to the fae throne? Well, only someone weak would do that. No, much better to go on the offense. To remind them I’d be in power soon and not to cross me in the meantime.
If I sold that, it just might get me the advantage I’d need when it came time to get my magicless tushy out of here—as soon as it got ‘magicked.’ Because it was true, I hadn’t grown up fae. I didn’t belong in their world—I belonged in Caleb’s, bio sister or not. And especially if I was the reason he’d had a crappy family. I’d make it up to him as soon as I did this investiture thing and could heal him.
“Well, then,” was all that Maeve said before she faced the principal.
“The girl is bright and recently discovered her heritage.” She shook her head. “I tried to convince her to keep up
