She was still lucky, in a way. Close to the things that mattered. Jade had been shuffled off to magical special ops. Imogen, like me, wasn’t even allowed to test.
We sat together sometimes, when Imogen wasn’t on nanny duty. We’d climb up to the balcony overlooking the training room. With our legs stuck through the bannister rails, we’d lean our foreheads against it and watch those lucky enough to train for things we’d never get to do.
“Aren’t you mad?” I asked her once.
She shrugged. “It was nice of them to let me stay. I don’t have anywhere else to go. And I’m not like my mother. I don’t want power. I want to help. So if me taking care of the Littles while their parents do important things helps? I’m glad I can do it.”
I liked Imogen, but I didn’t understand her. I would have been pissed. I was pissed. I watched my sister training with a body that should have been identical to mine, and I envied her. I wanted that same level of ease in my skin. For our thirteenth birthday, my mother had given Artemis weapons. She’d given me DVD collections of ER and Chicago Hope.
At first it felt disappointing, but then portentous. I could do something. I could have a role. That was when I gave up my previous hobby and started learning all the ways human bodies could be broken—and all the ways I could fix them. It was just as important as, if not more important than, knowing how to hurt things.
Unfortunately, my previous hobby had been poetry. And it had all been focused on the crush I had nurtured since the year before, when Leo had shown up, saved me, and made my body realize that not only were boys super cute, he was the super cutest of all boys. Every part of me felt electrocuted around him. I filled notebook after notebook with doodles of his name and poetry dedicated to him. I didn’t interact with Leo much, but whenever I did, he was so nice, it left me floating for days. Sometimes we’d eat lunch in the dorm cafeteria on the same day. Once, six months before, he had been given two oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies. Any day with chocolate instead of raisins was a treat. When he walked by, he slipped the extra one onto my tray. I saved that cookie until it crumbled.
There weren’t too many of us, even back then. Rhys, Artemis, Jade, and me. Imogen. Leo and Honora. A few trainees a year or two older than them. And then a gap until the Littles. But whenever Leo noticed me, I felt special. That was real magic.
One day I was quietly studying alone on the balcony when Artemis dumped a stack of spell books on the training room’s floor. I glanced over, uninterested. They didn’t know I was up there. I wasn’t supposed to be in the room when they did magic practice. But I’d often stay, quiet, trying to sneak peeks into the aspects of our world that were hidden from me.
“I found every book I could that wasn’t in the library,” Artemis said. “We had some boxed up in our rooms. Maybe my dad’s old books.”
“Ooh.” Honora sat down next to Artemis. “This could be good! They’re so restrictive in what they’ll even let us look at.”
I hated Honora Wyndam-Pryce. Artemis idolized her. Honora was wickedly clever, her tongue as sharp as the knives she specialized in. She was smart and deadly, and when Artemis wasn’t around, she called me Wheezy on account of my asthma. She acted like it was a pet name. But I already had a pet name. I didn’t need one that felt mean.
Plus, she was a Wyndam-Pryce. The whole family was insufferable.
I chose to ignore Honora, focusing instead on Leo. He was sword training with Rhys. His movements were fluid and graceful. He made me feel like I was having an asthma attack in my heart.
“I’ll go grab our lunches,” Artemis said. She walked back out, and I returned to my paramedic manuals. My dad had died from a bullet to the brain. I couldn’t have fixed that. But there were a lot of things I could fix, if I knew how. And I’d learn them all. Except the magical ways, of course, because my mom still kept those off-limits.
That’s why I didn’t see when Honora picked up a book that should not have been there.
Honora started laughing. “Oh gods. These are the greatest spells I’ve ever heard. Would you like to hear them?”
I was only half listening until I recognized the words. And then I froze.
“?‘Your lips are a promise / I’d love to keep / They haunt me when waking / And tease when asleep.’?”
No. No no no.
A few months before, I had run out of notebooks and found a dusty old magic book that was mostly empty. So I filled it with the best of my poetry, enamored that my love was written like spells in a leather-bound book. Whenever I wrote one in there, I pretended like it was an actual love spell that would make Leo see we were meant to be.
Rhys paused in his training. “What is this?”
I crawled to the balcony and watched, numbing with horror, as Honora read poem after poem, each more embarrassing than the last. But maybe she wouldn’t say who they were about. His name was written only in a few of them.
Honora was in performance mode, standing on a bench in front of Leo and Rhys and reciting each poem with the relish of a Shakespearean performer. She wouldn’t say his name. She wouldn’t. But then she looked up—right at me—and winked.
She knew I was up there. She had the whole time.
“This one,” she said, “is the best. It’s an acrostic. Please imagine the letters going down the side, starting each sentence.” She cleared her throat. “?‘And when / The days are too / Hard / Endless in knowing I will / Never be / Anyone important—’?”
She paused. “That’s ATHENA, for those of you too dumb to spell on the go.” She lifted an eyebrow at Rhys. I wanted to run or scream at her to stop. My body wouldn’t do either.
“?‘Looking at you gives me / Optimism / Very real and true / Everything will be okay / Someday.’?” Honora smiled, baring her perfect white teeth. “Rhys, what did that one spell?”
Rhys looked at the floor. “You shouldn’t be reading those.”
“Give it here.” Leo held out his hand, but she lifted it out of his reach.