Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,24
teacher’s suggestion, Zoe took the empty seat beside Tala’s.
The new girl paid no attention to the few contemplative looks thrown her way by some of the boys, and more than a few hostile ones by some of the girls. “So, you must be Tala.”
“Yes?” Tala said, suddenly wary.
“Did Chief Master Sergeant Tawilisi tell you we were coming?”
Tala froze, staring. Zoe only grinned back. She had the bluest eyes Tala had ever seen. “I hope you don’t take it the wrong way,” Tala finally managed, “but you don’t look at all like what I was expecting.”
“No offense taken. I get that a lot.”
“I like your skirt, though.”
The girl brightened. “Thanks, it has pockets! Look, we had to find a way to get into Elsmore without looking too suspicious, and this was the best Mr. Peets could come up with at such short notice.”
This actually looked extremely suspicious from Tala’s perspective, but her opinion was moot at this point. “‘We’?”
“There’s a few more new ‘students’ around, and I’m not holding my breath on them being inconspicuous, to be honest. The enthusiasm for the game today should override some gossip, but we’re not planning on sticking around after today, so whatever.” She frowned. “Do you know where Alexei is, by any chance?”
“I thought you guys did.”
“Seems like he snuck out of Peets’s safe house this morning, and nobody could find him.”
Tala could practically feel her heart speed up.
“That’s not to say he’s in trouble,” Zoe added quickly, spotting the look on her face. “Peets doesn’t think he’s been kidnapped, if that’s what worries you. He thinks Alex might be here at Elsmore.”
“Ahem,” said Miss Lowry, from the front of the class. “Miss Carlisle, while making friends on your first day of classes is a sound idea, we highly discourage doing so while in the middle of lessons. But perhaps you can tell us what you know about Dante Alighieri.”
“He was one of the ‘three crowns’ of Italian literature, to start,” Zoe replied without missing a beat, “together with Petrarch and Boccaccio. He wrote his most popular work, the Divine Comedy, after being exiled from Florence by the Black Guelphs. The work is an allegorical vision of the afterlife where he recounts passing through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven—the first two guided by the poet Virgil, and the last by his unrequited love, Beatrice.”
She coughed, as the rest of the class stared. “I’m, um, very familiar with his works, Miss Lowry.”
The teacher harrumphed, obviously annoyed that her attempt to rebuke Zoe had backfired, and turned back to the board instead.
“That was kinda cool,” Tala whispered, low enough so as not to trigger the teacher’s wrath again.
Zoe turned a delicate shade of pink. “Thanks. Let’s talk once class is over. I have a lot of—”
More noises outside the window. The firebird was back, gazing at them. Tala’s breath caught.
Beside her, Zoe made a soft, strangled noise. “The firebird’s here?”
As if in response, the firebird began dancing on the ledge, pleased by its own cleverness. No one else noticed.
The firebird presented itself to the rightful heir of Avalon on their eighteenth birthday, Tala remembered. That meant Alex was here, somewhere around campus. “Why can’t anyone else see it?”
Zoe frowned. “In a place like Invierno where magic is repelled, I suppose a creature composed almost entirely of spells would practically be invisible to people. Only other animals would be immune.”
The door to the classroom opened again, and a second new student walked in.
He was tall, more so than most of the jocks on campus, and Latino, most likely Central or South American. His eyes were a lighter shade of dark, though, more gray than anything else. He had black, closely cropped hair, with a square jaw and a slightly crooked mouth, and didn’t seem at all concerned that he’d arrived late. It was the girls’ turn to throw appreciative glances, and the boys’ to size him up. Silently, he handed a note to Miss Lowry.
“Well,” the teacher said, clearing her throat, “this is our other new student, John Nicholas—”
“Cole.” The boy interrupted her quietly. “Just Cole.”
The girls’ interest grew more marked, as did the guys’ belligerence.
“Well. Cole Nottingham,” the teacher amended, “please take a seat beside Mr. David over there. How familiar are you with Dante’s works?”
Cole only shrugged. His eyes passed over the rest of the class, resting briefly on Zoe, who scowled at him with both undisguised hostility and angry surprise. The boy shot her the slightest of