Braving the Elements (Darkness #2)(4)

I closed my eyes and focused. Blackness greeted me, like I was meditating. I mentally searched, feeling for fire. I wiggled my toes, thinking of dirt. Air was easy—it was everywhere. I strained with it, trying to suck at air somehow.

“It is okay not to touch the elements on your first few tries,” Master Bert reiterated, but then quickly followed with, “Oh Marc, fabulous! Great work.

And James—great!”

“You don’t have to hold your breath to wrangle an element,” Charles said with amusement.

Desperately, I strained harder, searching. I needed to be good at this!

Without this, I had nothing. No job, no place to live, no friends— Panicking, trying to turn my misting eyes away from Charles, who was grinning at me in mockery like he thought I was joking with him, I tried to pull. Except, I didn’t know what I was pulling at or with. I tried to focus on the heat in my chest, which usually meant magic; but it just sat there, like a lump. I scratched my palms against my jeans—a nervous habit I did when I was staring down at a test filled with foreign information. It was a telltale sign of failure.

A light hand pressed my shoulder gently. Master Bert wore a kind expression. “It’s okay—it often takes humans much longer to access their magic. Maw, some are never able to—it is cultural conditioning, not a personal matter. You should not take it personally.”

A glance told me that every other person—every single one—was smiling in jubilation. Salline had a pale purple flicker in her palm.

Oh goodie, I’m the dummy in a class full of achievers. Something new and different for me…

Sarcasm wasn’t helping.

Fear and the common feeling of failure welled up inside me. I shrugged at my stupid brain, the act practiced.

“Fantastic, class, fantastic!” Master Bert applauded. “Now, let’s talk some theory, and then we’ll try it again.”

The rest of the lesson passed in a haze of foreign information, elbows from an increasingly solemn Charles (who had realized I wasn’t joking), and another practice session containing everyone else’s accomplishments.

“What’s wrong?” Charles asked quietly when the class finally came to a close. “Usually you’re all peppy and excited. Why’d you stop trying?”

I shrugged, slowing so a couple boys could file in front. “I just don’t get it. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“So? Since when do you give up?”

I shrugged again as we waited to get through the door, the usual traffic jam of everyone in a hurry to get out after class was no different here than anywhere else.

A boy in front of us pushed his friend. “You were the last one. What an idiot!”

“Shut up,” the other boy spat. “I wasn’t raised with an older brother like you were—how could I’ve known how? And besides, the human didn’t get it at all.”

“The human doesn’t count. And hardly anyone has an older brother.

Idiot!”

“Shut the hell up or I’m going to shove my foot up your ass!”

The first boy laughed harder, taunting. They would’ve gotten in a fight right there if not for Charles grabbing each by their shirts and tossing one first, and then the other, out the door. Limbs went flying.

“Don’t worry about them, Sasha,” Charles said in a low tone for my ears alone. “We know you can do it. You’re just new to all this. You’ll figure it out.”

I shrugged.

“Stop shrugging and have some faith in yourself.”

Jared said that to me all the time. Have faith in myself. I’d always commented that it was his job. And he always had. Except now, he was gone.

We hit the first floor. I paused, feeling that familiar tug from the back of the house. Where we should be headed for dinner, or to just go to bed. A glance told me the weird connection to Stefan was right—he stood in the center of the wide hallway, his body pointed directly at me, his eyes boring into mine. Like Moses parting the seas, people gave him a wide berth, his advisors standing by like a swat team on steroids.

He probably wanted to check up on his investment; find out what saving my life had yielded.

Goose egg, that’s what.

Pity party. Who brought the confetti?

“Can you beguile cops into deciding they shouldn’t hand out tickets for going outrageously fast?” I asked Charles, not really caring if he could or not.

“Uh…maybe we should head toward the Boss. He seems… I think he wants you to go to him. See how your first class went…”

“My, my, Charles. I had no idea your analytical skills could deduce the obvious. Well done.”

“I don’t like this defiance thing you got going with him. Someone’s going to get hurt, and it’s probably going to be me.”

“I thought you wanted a little excitement.”

“Excitement, Sasha. I didn’t say public execution.”

Stefan kept staring, the pull on my chest trying to drag my body toward him. And there was absolutely nothing in the entire world I wanted more than to let him fold me in his arms and make everything all right; to smooth all this away. But I would just be the human who got special treatment from the Boss—assuming he’d even leave his drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend and play nursemaid to a pain in the ass. His help would look like a hand-out if he stooped low enough to give it.