It
felt as though much more time than an hour had passed, but I trusted the pristine
grandfather clock in the corner of the dull room was in top condition. Sipping
at my water, I spent most of the hour glancing around at the wood paneled
walls, the well-kept crown molding along ceiling, the shaded windows, and the
impeccably clean but uncomfortable furniture. However, I did spend the first
couple minutes after she left inspecting myself, trying to attain a sense of
how thin I really looked. All of my limbs seemed properly proportioned, but who
knew? Perhaps that was all in my head.
My
mind wondered if the woman would come back saying Mikael had died in the last
hour. If she did, I wouldn’t be happy. I wouldn’t care what kind of punishment
Drei gave me; I would probably kill her and not think twice about it.
Then
I stopped, shocked at my suddenly violent thoughts. I couldn’t remember having
wanted to purposefully hurt someone. I had practiced self-defense often enough,
but I had never physically hurt someone just to hurt her or him. Mentally, I
made a note to talk to Drei about that; I wanted to write it off as bad vibes
and stress, but not even that made sense. I would hate for it to be something
more and not have brought it up. Unfortunately, it was forgotten in the next
moment.
The
door opened and Mikael entered, the cheerily strange woman smiling behind him,
visible until he shut the door again. He had grown so much, just like Kora. I
had always been one of those kids who hated when adults gushed over how much I
had changed, and now I understood why; I never would have guessed he was in
high school still. Mikael carried himself much the same as Drei did: tall and
proper, a thumb hooked loosely in his pants pocket, relaxed but charismatic. His
thick black tresses still retained some of their youthful wildness, but were
tamer in the way the curls framed his visage.
“Margie
said you were here to see me about something personal,” he started, crossing to
sit in the chair adjacent to mine. “I must admit, while you look familiar, I
don’t remember who you are.”
“Mikael;”
I couldn’t help smiling at his questioning eyes as he struggled to place me. At
least he didn’t judge me as a danger as Kora had. “You’ve grown up so much…even
your voice has stopped cracking.”
Blushing,
embarrassed, he waved off the comment, saying, “Margie said you told her you
were Miss Jones. But I’m afraid, when my voice was still cracking, I didn’t
know anyone’s last name.”
“Oh,
you’re thinking too hard. Think…feathers and games.”
“Abriel?”
he gasped before I could stop him. Reaching across the distance, he embraced
me. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“Well,
here I am.”
“But
why? And why couldn’t you just tell Margie your name in the first place?” he asked.
“We’ll
get to that soon enough,” I assured him, waving the questions away for the time
being. “How are you doing? And how in the world did you end up at a boarding
school?”
He
shrugged his broad shoulders, saying, “My parents got used to not having a kid
around. They stuck around for about three months after I went back and then…they
disappeared. So I found Mitchell while he was following a young earth elemental
and told him about it. He told Valetta and she’s been paying for me to go
here,” he said, which made sense why Mitchell had reported back so quickly; he
didn’t even have to look for Mikael.
“It
seems so sketchy here, though,” I said, unable to hide my concern. Valetta had
chosen this place, and usually I trusted her judgment, but so far my reception had
led me to wonder about how safe an environment this was.
“That’s
just because Margie’s wary of everyone,” Mikael said. “Most of the boys here
are earth or water elementals, so any visitors she doesn’t recognize she
hassles a little. It’s mostly for our protection.”
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