Shadowborn Academy_ Year One (Dark Fae Academy #1) - G. Bailey Page 0,42

a little stupid and embarrassed. I follow Gage with my eyes over to the other side of the office. He busies himself behind a cabinet I can’t see over, and when he comes back, he’s holding a silver tray with two cups of tea and an extra cup of sugar cubes.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks quietly, not looking up as he sets the tray down on the coffee table.

I grab my arms and rub them, strangely cold despite behind near a blazing fire. “Not really. I’m okay now.”

He nods. “Drink this. It’ll help.”

I take the cup from him and sniff the milky tea. What if he’s put something in it? I already know how stupid that sounds in my head. I also don’t think Gage is the kind of person to break my trust by slipping me a truth serum. Plus, I believed him when he said he wanted to earn my trust.

“I always feel like a cup of tea can solve just about anything,” he says, noticing my close scrutiny. “Perhaps it’s because I’m British.”

I don’t drink it, but I smile at him at least, thankful for the gesture. “You don’t sound very British.”

“Years of training. I came from London, originally, but when I arrived here as a little boy, nobody could understand a single word I said. My adoptive father taught at this school and he wanted me to study here. It was better than spending the rest of my life under Keeper Inglis. Nasty fellow. Terrible temper.”

I can’t believe it. Gage was a shadowborn orphan like me? I never would’ve thought that. “So you grew up in foster care?”

I watch him nod and sip his tea. “The exact same one that you did. And I know just how awful those homes can be for people like us.”

“Like us…?” I echo, clenching the cup in my hand.

“Shadowborns who don’t want to be a shadowborn.” He flicks his eyes over at me, the china cup still pressed to the edge of his lips. “It’s why I started working here in the first place. I understand more than anyone how the kids here feel. How you feel, Corvina. Trapped. Alone. Robbed of your future and what should have been. I get it. I felt the same way, too. But it does get better.”

I struggle not to shake my head at him. I don’t believe it gets better. It just gets easier to endure until the next wave of darkness arrives.

“It’s terrifying how much power words can have over us, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” I agree, sipping the tea. “It’s a pain in the ass.”

“What word triggered you, Corvina?”

I clutch the cup tighter, blanching my knuckles a peroxide-white. I’m not sure why I say it, or why I’m even entertaining another of these stupid sessions, but before I can register anything, the word just… tumbles out from my mouth.

“Wish.”

And there he has it.

He now knows something about me that only Pitch and Sage know; anything to do with the word wish or wishing well triggers me.

I should be terrified at the thought of Gage, a therapist, gaining this information. But for once I’m not. If anything, it feels more like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I can breathe again.

Pitch whispers, and a warm glow spreads through my body as I feel his own emotions merging with my own. He’s proud of how strong I’m being. I rarely ever talk about this to anyone, let alone a trained professional I’ve only just met.

“The thing about words having power over us,” Gage adds, setting his tea down on the tray and smiling at me, “is that their power can be taken back. If you’re ready to take that power, Corvina, I’ll help you. I’ll stand by you every step of the way should you want me to. You’re not alone anymore.”

My heart squeezes with a gratefulness I didn’t even want to feel when I stepped in here. Now I’m bursting with it and I have no idea what to do. All I know is that right now, right here, my panic attack is gone and I’m no longer in crippling emotional pain.

“Vina,” I say to him. “Call me Vina.”

His smile deepens, lighting up his face like a ray of sunbeams. “Vina… It’s beautiful.”

“It’s too early for this,” I say, coughing on the dust I’ve just wiped off another book.

Detention so far has consisted of Professor Gale drinking from his flask, Sage glaring