The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy



"What!?" Luca says, starting to sound freaked out. There's a little tussle behind me and I glance over my shoulder to see Tony frowning and giving Luca a little shove. Luca bares his teeth at Tony, but Rafe casually moves to step between them, giving me a nod. I turn back to mom.

"Is that it?" mom asks, turning her head to the side. "Is there anything I'm missing?"noveldrama

"Ariel can like, burn up my shadows," Jesse says, making us all turn to him in surprise.

"Oh yean, I forgot about that," I murmur.

"You forgot?” Rafe asks, kind of laughing.

"I don't know," I say with a grin, shrugging. "We were just messing around on movie night."

"Movie night!?" Luca asks, jealous.

"I'm going to need you to shut up, Luc," Tony snaps.

I deliberately ignore them, and, taking my lead, so do mom and Cora.

"I think we should explore that," Cora says, turning her head and thinking aloud. "To see whether that's just Ariel's magic...interacting with other magic? Or if it's your powers combining somehow because you have a bond."

Luca doesn't say anything at this revelation that Jesse and I have a bond - unusual for cousins - but I do hear him sigh. I reach for him down the bond but am a little unsurprised when I find his wall up, newly built. I move on from it, trying to concentrate on mom and Cora.

"Ari, why don't you step forward and let's start to experiment," mom says, waving me to her side. Quite eager, I move forward.

Then we begin to play - a process I enjoy very, very much.

There's a log out front of the big bonfire - which I scowl to hear that we're saving for later - that they ask me to light on fire. It takes me awhile - it's further than the ones I usually work with in our room, and – obviously - I don't have Jackson to give me his powers. Cora pulls a notebook out of her pocket and begins to take fervid notes, writing down everything that I narrate as well and the distance between the and the object and the time it takes for it to actually burst into flame.

When it does

about six minutes

later - Jesse Tushes down and attempts to put the fire out with his shadows which do nothing. So he sighs and uses a little fire safety blanket that his mom gave him for the cause.

When he trots back, mom calls Jackson forward and has him take my hand.

"If you wouldn't mind, Ariel?" she says, gesturing forward towards the same log.

I grin up at Jacks, who gives me a wink and squeezes my hand. "Oh, I don't mind at all."

I look back at the log and about half a second later it basically bursts into a ball of flame. Everyone jumps and steps back.

"Whoa," Cora says, looking up at Jackson, who remains stoic - even if he can't keep the corner of his mouth from turning upwards, slightly smug.

"Okay okay, enough of you," mom says, waving Jacks away as Jesse again runs forward with the safety blanket, He tosses it on the fire and begins to stomp it out and then goes and gets another log from the bonfire, since the first one was basically reduced to ash

Jackson steps back into the line of boys and mom crooks a finger at Luca, beckoning him forward. He sighs but does as he's told, coming to my side.

“Hands, please,” mom says, her voice a little sing-song as she points between us.

"But mom," I say, frowning a little even as I happily take my mate's hand. "Luca doesn't have magic. It would have shown up, right? On the little...orb thing, that Alvez had us hold the first day?"

"Yes, I think sq. Alvez gave us the

orb when he left - we checked it out and don't have any reason to believe it's faulty Cora murmurs, studying Luca, "though...I suppose it doesn't matter if it did. No, we kind of think that it doesn't matter if Luca has magic or not. We think it's about the bond."

"Really?" I ask, interested, looking up at Luca who just looks down at the ground, his mouth pressed in a thin line. I squeeze his hand, kind of wanting to know what's going on, but he doesn't look at me.

"Yeah," mom says, watching us curiously. "Give it a whirl, Ariel, see what happens. Worst case, everything stays precisely the same."

"Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath and then looking forward at the log in front of me, simultaneously calling on my bond with Luca as I concentrate.