So when the class finally let out, I gathered my things quickly. I was shoving my pen into the front of my bag when a guy paused in front of our row.
"Fucking half-breed," he all but spit at Aspen.
"What?" she growled, her attention snapping to him so fast it felt like a whip.
"You heard me," he taunted.
"Court!" Jack told him. "Court, court, court!"
I just stood. "Shut it. You're the half-breed." Then I took a step closer. "Or did you forget you're half human, hm?" A tendril of darkness was starting to swirl around my fingers. "Wanna see how that fae half likesme?"
"What?" he asked, backing up quickly. "But she's part jevadu!"
I scoffed. "And? Still fae."
The guy's mouth flapped for a few seconds as he tried to think of something to say. His eyes bounced between me and Aspen. I got the impression he hadn't expected either of us to push back, but why would we just sit here and take it?
So I lifted my hand, aware shadows were wafting off it. "Run along, little boy." And I smiled the way Torian so often did: cruelly. "Runfast."
When the asshole bolted from the room, Aspen actually giggled. "That worked?"
I snatched the escaped shadows from the air, dispelling them. "Everyone's scared of my magic. I just figured..."
She hurried around her desk, then grabbed my hand. Yes, the same hand that had just had shadows on it.
"I'm not."
I gave her a sideways look. "Really?" Because fae couldn't lie, but I'd seen her watch them warily.
"I'm not scared ofyourshadows," she assured me. "I'm intimidated by Wild magic, but not all of it. Just the stuff that would be used against me."
The words all came out easily. She couldn't lie. That left one more question. "When did you change your mind?"
She towed me through the door and into the hall. There, she shifted her hand so we could loop arms. That was a lot less like holding hands, so no one could complain about it.
"New Year's Eve," she explained. "The entire atrium went dark, and I was smothered in so much Wild magic, I couldn't even imagine it, but it didn't really touch me. And yeah, I kinda had to think about it a bit, but I stopped being scared that night. Then I realized you hadn't even hurtHarperwith it, and if there's anyone who should be hurt, it's her."
"I don't really know how to hurt people with my magic," I admitted.
"Shadows!" Jack said.
"That," Aspen agreed. "It's the nature of your magic, Rain. It's anti-sidhe."
Which made me giggle, because it sounded all wrong like that. "Would a jevadu be hurt by Wild magic?" I asked just a little too casually.
"No," she groaned, acting like that was silly. "They use both kinds, feeding on seasonal so they can make - "
Her eyes went wide. Her feet stopped. Aspen gasped as her head snapped around to face me.
"What?" I asked.
"Um..." She grimaced. "Well, that's what I've been told." But those words didn't come out easily.
"Aspen, you don't have to twist that," I hurried to say. "You can just tell me to forget it, but I kinda want to know. I mean, everyone's talking about them."
"I can't talk about it," she whimpered.
So I turned, stepping closer. "I know. It's ok. You made that promisebefore you ever met me. I just think that if one of my friends was a jevadu, or knew a jevadu, or may have seen one once, then it's kinda interesting to hear how those wildlings work as compared to Jack."
