Lock and Key (Nocturne Academy 1)

I shook my head. “I only wish I knew how. Today in Elementary casting, all the other girls were practicing making a feather float and I couldn’t even get mine off the ground. A feather!” I blew out my breath in frustration, just as I had in class—which was the only way my feather had ever even stirred an inch. Ms. Yasmeen continued to be encouraging but I was sure it was only because of my last name—not because she thought I had any real talent.

“I’m telling you, you’ll get there,” Avery said with much more confidence than I felt. “Is everyone done with this crap?” He nodded at our trays. “Good, then let’s go down to the Norm Dorm a bit early. Maybe we can get Emma here a hot dog and a smore before she has to run off to work.”

As we dumped our trays and trooped off to let ourselves down the concealed hatchway which led to the Dungeon, I wondered if Avery was right and if I would ever be able to access my magic without opening a vein.

Somehow I doubted it.

38

I was sure that getting one of Griffin’s hairs would be no problem. But somehow, that just wasn’t so. I looked on the shoulders and sleeves of his white uniform shirt when he escorted me to PE, but came up empty. I looked again during English—when he did indeed draw me close and murmur in my ear—but I was so distracted by his closeness and his wintry scent, that I couldn’t concentrate. So again I didn’t get what I needed.

Finally, at the end of the day when he was bringing me back to the Dining Hall for dinner, I was feeling desperate. We were walking side by side and for once he wasn’t holding my hand or my arm. So I waited until he was looking the other direction and reached up to pinch a single hair from his mane of midnight black.

Of course he felt it at once.

“Ouch,” he said flatly, turning to face me with one eyebrow raised. “What exactly do you think you’re doing, Megan?”

I was beginning to learn that he was deadly serious when he called me by my name instead of “little witch” which seemed to be his pet nickname for me.

“I…um…” I wanted to lie, but of course I couldn’t. “I was getting a strand of your hair,” I said miserably. “I, uh, hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

“Well, I hate to dash your hopes, but I most certainly did notice. And what spell do you want it for?” he demanded, frowning at me.

“What…what makes you think I want it for a spell?” I said, fighting the compulsion to answer his question at once with only the absolute truth.

“Megan…” Griffin’s frown deepened and he stopped in the middle of the busy hallway, which meant I had to stop with him. All the other students walked around us, like water parting on either side of a rock.

“I wanted it to do a spell called The True Heart Revealed, all right?” I said at last, unable to hold out any longer. “I wanted to know your true intentions towards me before I decided if I should meet you Saturday night or not.”

“Is that so?” To my surprise, Griffin didn’t seem angry or upset about this at all.

“Yes, that’s so,” I snapped. “So now I guess you want this back.” I held out the strand of blue-black hair in the palm of my hand. “So you can keep me from doing the spell.”

“Why would I want that?” Griffin asked, looking honestly mystified. “Actually, I think it’s a really good idea—doing the True Heart spell, I mean,” he clarified when I gaped at him. “And if you do find out my true intentions, please—let me know,” he added. “They’re a mystery to me as well.”

“What? How can you say that?” I demanded. “How can you not know how you feel about me?”

“Oh, I know how I feel about you.” Taking my hand, he drew me to the side of the hallway and looked down into my eyes intently. “I want to be with you every moment, Megan. I want to touch you and look at you and smell your sweet scent. And I wish, most of all, to protect you, no matter what the consequences.”

He cupped my face in his palm and gently stroked along my cheek with the pad of his thumb.

“I even feel the urge to protect you from myself,” he murmured. “Which is doubtless why I am warning you against coming to see me. It is… confusing.”

His cool touch sent a shiver down my spine and I felt like I was drowning in his pale, gorgeous eyes.

“Griffin…” I whispered and then I didn’t know what else to say.

“I have wanted all those things—to be near you, to protect you—almost from the moment I met you, my little witch,” he murmured. “But I don’t understand why.”