Secrets
By Laura Schiller
Based on: The Faerie Path series
Copyright: Frewin Jones
Connor curled up on the ground beneath a tree, arms wrapped around his knees, trying to ignore the hard roots underneath him. He watched as Tania, Rathina and Edric sat together a few steps away, talking. The sun glinted on Tania's long, wavy red hair, giving it the look of burnished copper. She glanced over, a question in her sea-green eyes. He looked away.
A dark secret. That was what Coriceil had said. Connor had a secret 'too dark to speak of'. He shuddered at the memory of that deceptively young, round, girlish face peering up at him, the inexorable grip of her hands and her soul-piercing eyes. If she hadn't alerted the others, Connor might have kept both of his secrets safe. Instead he had been forced to reveal one – the less damaging of the two, but still. He felt naked now, as if a curtain had been torn aside between himself and Tania.
Tania. Anita. Whoever she was, he only knew that he couldn't keep her out of his mind. This redheaded ray of sunshine who could dance at a royal ball and still stare down a pirate at swordpoint, who made wisecracks out of the corner of her mouth but took her mission with a deadly seriousness. This woman who loved her Faerie sisters and parents enough to put her life at risk. This girl who had been used to following him around with a clipboard, pretending to interview him, her braces flashing in a brilliant smile even then.
For a moment, he longed to be back in that time and place – thirteen years old to her ten, showing her how to sail a boat and ride a horse, making her laugh with his sarcasm, basking in the glow of her wholehearted affection. He never should have started ignoring her. He had let his stupid masculine pride, the idea that it was 'uncool' to be friends with a little girl, get in the way of what could have been a beautiful friendship, and later … who knew?
Now Anita loved Edric – the Faerie with the uncanny dark magic who could make people disappear into black clouds of smoke. Connor could see it in the way she looked at him, the awkwardness of their body language when they sat next to each other without touching. It was like watching magnets turning around and around, so that one minute they were repelled, the next drawn to each other. Still, after all he had done to her – broken her heart, invaded her mind. Connor clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. What wouldn't he give to have that dour, arrogant Faerie in punching range without his Dark Arts? What did Tania see in him, anyway, besides his golden hair and wiry muscle? Connor was a blond too, for that matter, and quite well built from all his riding lessons. Edric had no sense of humor.
Well, at any rate, Anita knew the one secret now. She knew that Connor was in love with her, and she had refused him with all the kindness and grace of the Faerie Princess she was. As for the other secret, Connor prayed with all his heart that none of his companions would ever know it.
He reached into his pocket and ran his thumb over Lord Balor's tracking device. It made him feel slightly ill to have it there, like an eye that was watching him. It was necessary, he told himself for the hundredth time. It was the only way. Bring him the Princesses and they could tell Lord Balor the secret of Immortality. He had given his word not tohurt them, and surely – surely – this crazy fantasy world was the sort of place where a nobleman kept his word?
He closed his eyes and thought of home. How his father, mother and teachers had pressured him to go to medical school ("You have such potential, you shouldn't waste your time, don't you want to make something of yourself?"). How he had spent endless mind-numbing hours poring over Latin vocabulary, and gruesome hours watching professors dissect frozen corpses. He was no doctor. He didn't even know what he was, besides a failure in the making. He could just imagine the hard frown lines forming in his father's face if he had dropped out. Potential? For what?
But if (when!) he and Anita brought home the Estabrook-Palmer Formula for Immortality (because as a half-Faerie, it would be Anita's information, after all), surely his parents would be proud? He might win the Nobel Prize. Surely it would be worth it … surely Tania would forgive him eventually … hadn't she forgiven Edric for all but brainwashing her one night?
All the same, Connor stared out into the sky for a long time, silently, and could not bring himself to get up and look into Anita's eyes. His skin crawled and he had the irrational urge to scream or break something.
A dark secret, the woman had said. Connor squirmed. She should better have kept it to herself.