Shadow Phantoms - H.P. Mallory Page 0,42

up on my feelings for Stone. They would never ever ever let me live it down. Lying was never part of my skill set, and lying to my friends was damn near impossible.

What about lying to myself?

I was past denying I felt something for Stone. The way my heart raced when I caught his eye… but I sure as hell wasn’t past hiding it.

“I guess you’re right,” Kevin said with a reluctant sigh. “I suppose Professor Draper does have a certain intrigue to it.”

Jupiter laughed and shook her head. “Glad you’re seeing the light,” she said. “The slightly less inappropriate light.”

“Guys.” I stepped over a moss-dampened log and pointed through a deep green throng of leaves. “There they are.”

“Where?” Jupiter asked.

“At the grave beside the tomb with the angel carving, I think,” Kevin answered.

Our classmates huddled around an imposing rectangular headstone, still too far away to make out with the naked eye.

“Hey Jupe, can I borrow your eye glass for a sec?” I asked.

“Sure thing.” She reached into her trouser pocket and tossed the chained monocle my way. I caught it and brought it to my eye. I recognized a few faces, but there were a few people missing: we weren’t the last to arrive. Out of morbid curiosity, I lowered the eyeglass and magnified the image on the center of the headstone.

I squinted at the faded etching: Harriet Heraldsonian 1509-2004. There was a quote beneath her name, seemingly something she’d said in her lifetime. There was an abstract carving of a hippogriff inside a coat of arms. “Let the children commune with nature. It will teach them more of life’s beauty and death’s stingless touch than any God or man.”

I remembered the name Harriet Heraldsonian from a book about familiars; she’d been some kind of demonic zoologist in her day, pioneering the contemporary spell work that bound witches to their familiars across all plains. That, or she’d been the woman whose familiar turned out to be a microscopic termite. I couldn’t remember which.

“Does it look warmer over there?” Kevin asked from behind me “It better be warmer if we’re supposed to stay out here for an entire lesson…”

“Oh, stop complaining,” Jupiter said. Her sparkly purple hair was subdued in the dim grey light. “I gave you my cloak like a real gentleman and you don’t even appreciate it.”

“You gave me half your cloak. A real gentleman would’ve given me the whole thing.” Kevin tugged the cloak closer, and Jupiter jerked away, a slight frown on her petal lips.

Kevin started shivering immediately.

“Maybe that’ll teach you to appreciate your friends!” She said, sounding like an after school special.

There was a translucent dome around the class. It was subtle, invisible until you were right in front of it. But the barrier gave everyone inside a ghostly quality. Our classmates in the bubble were fairly clear, only a slight haze, but trying to focus on them through the dome was impossible. It gave me an instant headache, like if I’d just stared directly into an ultraviolet light.

“If it’s not at least twenty degrees warmer in there, I’m going back to the dorm and doing a face mask,” Kevin said firmly, sidling back up to Jupiter for warmth. “Personally, I do not remember getting a heads up on the whole freezing-our-asses-off-in-a-haunted-cemetery part of the curriculum.”

“Hush!” Jupiter told him. “That thing may not be soundproof!”

“Only one way to find out,” I said.

She raised her chin and swept the purple sparkles out of her face. “Guess I’ll be the first to take the plunge!” Jupiter surged forward. She stepped through the clear dome so easily that—if I didn’t know better—I’d have written off the barrier as a trick of the light.

Kevin and I followed.

It was like stepping through a bubble.

And it was warmer inside.

We folded ourselves into the crowded semi-oval of students, maneuvering our way toward the front. There was a pentagram drawn over the grave plot. The five elemental powers.

Stone leaned against the plot’s headstone. Even from a misty distance, his eyes were almost hypnotically blue, with little flecks of gold, like stars shining in a midday sky…

“Ahem.” I cleared my throat.

God, I hope no one noticed me staring at him, I thought. Ellenora would have a field day with that.

“Nice of you to join us, Emma,” Clark Parker said as he stood beside me. His dark hair had a slight sheen from the mist, and his clean-shaven face was covered in goose-pimples.

“Hey, I’m not the only one who’s late!” I said in self-defense, turning