Miss Beverly teaches me the proper way to hold and point a wand for the first half of the day. I really think I know how to do it by now, but she makes me practice nonetheless. At lunchtime she lets me loose so I can explore the city for an hour and eat at a restaurant something. I go to straight to the food, at the Fae Cafe.
They're busy today, so there are lines to order food. I go to the shortest one. There's a boy in front of me, with brown hair and brown eyes. He's wearing the traditional outfit of a fairy school uniform. It's a white shirt with a holographic tie, olive green shorts and red shoes. Truth be told, he kinda does look like an olive.
"Hi, I'm Oliver." The boy says. He looks at me for a bit longer, and his eyes widen the slightest bit. "Are you...are you Zanelle?"
"Yes." I say. I'm a little of a celebrity here, being the only fairy who lives in earth.
"You've been to Earth, then! What's it like?"
"Nothing much. It's really boring there. Nothing like this place."
"But there's humans, they've got to be different than us. What do they do?"
"Nothing. Nothing intelligent anyway. I'm probably, no, I'm the smartest one there."
At this point we've advanced enough in the line to order our food.
"Are you staying here to eat? Would you like to sit with me?"
"Sure." I don't have anything else to do. We go to a table and eat. After a bit of silence, Oliver speaks.
"When I first heard of Earth," he says, "I heard it in this poem. It talked all about the secrets which could be unraveled if one could find a bridge between the human Earth and the fairy Fae."
"Really?" I reply, not really interested in any of this,"What kinds of secrets?"
"Oh, there's the one about crops growing bountifully, there's the water one where you can always have access to it, there's the beauty one, there's the love one, there's the - "
"Love one? What's that?"
"Legend has it if the Rose Charm is brought from the Fae into Earth, a secret chasm will form, causing the wielder to know what true love is. Of course it's probably not real."
"Why couldn't it be real?"
"Because that's not how love works?"
"How do you know that?"
"I'm pretty sure emotions are just hormones, or neurotransmitters, depending on what you're talking about, but they're just stuff that flows along in your bloodstream and causes you to feel different feelings. And they do more than just alter feelings, some have roles in the immune system or digestion or things like that. The only way you could force an emotion is if you drugged them with the hormone."
"Well, maybe the charm does that."
Who is this kid? Bill Nye the Science Guy?
"No, it'd have to be transmitted directly into their brain, so it doesn't have to worry about not being able to cross the blood brain barrier. Besides, I think forcing someone to love you is a violation of free will."
"What do you mean?"
"It's rape and it's not right."
Woah! How can he be comparing the simple act of strongly convincing a person to fall in love with me through the aid of magic with rape! That's a little over the top. At this point, I agree with him and change the subject of the conversation. But this gives me a lot to think about.
This kid is clearly into me. It was obvious from his first reaction of knowing my identity. And then him telling me about he love charm. And his big science rant was obviously a sign of flirtation. Why in the world would someone know that much random science if it weren't to impress a girl?And then his reaction to what would happen if I used them on someone else. Clearly jealousy, right? He wouldn't have called the love charm rape if he hadn't wanted to be the one for me.
This is crazy. Does he really have a crush on me? I've never had this kind of attention before. It's a nice change, from being constantly ignored by Connor.
What am I saying?
Of course Connor and I are soulmates! There's no other possibility. But...Oliver likes me. If things don't go well with Connor, I guess I'll have Oliver as my backup!