Lily rolled her eyes even though Hector wasn’t joking. Her father had guards inside the gate, as well as a security room to keep eyes on the whole estate at all times. Daidí took extra precautions because of his career choice. Nonetheless, she was fairly certain that such measures were a bit more draconian than those that St. Columba’s employed, despite the affluence of their students.
“We are not a prison.” Mistress Cuthbert pursed her lips again, and Lily thought she might like the woman a little bit after all. “As I was telling your driver, Miss Abernathy, students are free to explore the grounds within reason. It’s simply the area outside the gate—the town of Belfoure, in particular—that is off-limits.”
Lily nodded. None of this was actually surprising. It wasn’t pleasing, but it wasn’t unexpected at all. Daidí held security second only to love of family in his pantheon of values.
“If you exit the rear of the hall, the grounds extend quite far,” Mistress Cuthbert was saying. “You really have no need to go into town proper unless you need something from one of the shops, and there are sanctioned outings for that.”
Her voice sounded almost sympathetic, and Lily suspected that she was far from the first student at St. Columba’s who had an overzealously protective parent. In this, at least, Lily might be normal.
Abernathy Commandment #14: Blending in helps you seem less memorable should you need an alibi at some point.
The headmistress turned away to answer another student who had the look of a girl who was not used to any conflicts in her life. Lily felt a stab of sympathy, both for the girl’s obvious emotions and for her inability to hide them.
“Don’t leave the grounds again, Lilywhite,” Hector ordered in a voice not to be refused.
“I don’t intend to leave again,” she told him, offering both an admission and a promise.
He nodded, having been trained to know that when she offered blunt promises, she could be trusted wholly. “I’ll wait here with your things.”
“I’m safe, Hector,” she assured him, and then she went to find peace in the gardens.
She didn’t need both the waves and the soil to keep healthy. Either one would suffice. It was easier if she had both, but one was enough to sustain her. Daidí had undoubtedly already researched the matter. If they hadn’t already had what she needed, he would’ve paid to add it.
The hall appeared empty so she slipped off her shoes again. The stone sang to her as she walked, speaking of a faraway quarry where men had carved the rock from the earth. The story was not told in words, not in the way that most people understood words. Stone spoke in thick slow images, like heavy syrup trailing across her mind. The news most stone could share was far from recent. Their words fell into her consciousness with a welcome surety though. Stone mightn’t know the newest things, but what they did know was true.
On the other hand, sea was fickle, and sometimes the act of sorting through the sheer immensity of the words from the water was an exhausting task. Air, for her at least, was barely an affinity. It was there, but it came with difficulty thus far. Fire hadn’t been an affinity that she’d felt as comfortable with. Mostly, she counted on the earth for knowledge. Earth had been her first, and of the earth options, the words of stone and soil were easiest for her to hear.
As soon as Lily left the hall, the hum of the roots seeped through the cobblestone path under her feet, beckoning her. She resisted stepping into the soil. It was one thing to walk barefoot on the old stone of the building; it was an entirely different matter to let the plants greet her, especially when her mind was so unsettled. Plants with so much human contact were chaotic in their words, more so than she could manage today.
“Soon,” she promised.
The grounds behind the administration building were beautiful. Trees flourished as if they had never known dry seasons. Shrubs dotted healthy lawns, and flower beds offered bursts of reds, golds, and violet. Beyond them, however, was something far more exciting. A walled garden waited there, and the door was open. It looked seldom used, which was exactly what she needed. She wanted to step off the stone path and onto the living earth. She wanted to lose herself in it, fill the ache inside her with the surety of nature.
She pushed the door open farther, murmuring a soft greeting to the remnant of the spirit of the wood that still clung to the aged timber. Vines clung to the walls and exploded in every hue of green she could hope to see. Inside the garden, paths were clearly marked. At the far back of the curated part of the garden was the mouth of a labyrinth. To either side of it, the plants seemed to have been allowed to go wild. The juxtaposition of the sculpted maze and the chaotic expanse was perfection. People didn’t enter the wild anymore. Fears of fae lurking in the shadows kept most of humanity to the fringes of nature.
Lily went into the maze and twisted through several passageways. Then, after a quick glance to make sure there were no witnesses, she asked, “May I pass?”
The plants rustled softly as they parted to allow her into the wilderness outside the labyrinth. She stepped through the opening in the hedge wall, expecting to be alone with the rarely visited plants of the wild, but there, dressed only in his tattoos and jeans, was Creed Morrison.
She was glad she hadn’t arrived a few moments earlier. He was buttoning his jeans.
At her gasp, he looked up and saw her. “And here I’d begun to think you disliked me.”
The anger in his voice was tempered by his apparent amusement at her discomfort. Lily looked down at her feet to keep from staring. She’d certainly seen pictures of him like this, bare-chested and barefoot. He’d been caught on a beach in Ibiza wearing nothing more than jewelry, ink, and a smile. He’d been photographed in the restored Trevi fountain in Roma. The journals had blurred just enough to keep from violating “privacy of minors” laws, but only just. She’d liked the pictures, as she suspected most anyone with functioning eyes would. Still, seeing the pictures of mostly naked Creed Morrison hadn’t made her feel dizzy the way the real person was.
“I was just”—she gestured behind her—“taking a walk.”
“And stepped through a hedge wall without a scratch? However did you manage that?”
She looked back at him as he buttoned the top button on his jeans. He didn’t sound as friendly as he had at her party, and she had exactly zero experience in being challenged. She kept her lips pressed together.
“Is this the part where you injure yourself by lying again or admit that you’re a fae-blood like me?”
She stared at him, consciously holding his gaze and not letting her attention drift to his bare skin.
Abernathy Commandment #6: Never confess your vulnerabilities if you can avoid it.
“Neither.” She smiled then, letting a little of her temper into it. “I don’t see the need to answer that question.”