(Playlist: Never Say Never- The Fray, Good Night- Gloriana, Remember Everything-Five Finger Death Punch (This one is like Kymma's theme song :D), Through Glass-Stone Sour)

Beautifully Dark Places

Chapter 5
Never Say Never

I woke up that morning to the smell of bacon. It had been a very long time since I had bacon, and I was a little afraid to imagine a guy cooking, much less someone who used magic to fix their food. I slung my legs over the side of the bed and stretched out. My nerves had settled from last night, and I was practically kicking myself for running away from Nolan. I struggled to wipe the sleep from my dreary eyes and search for the clothes I laid out last night. I had found a dress that was my size in one of Emma's drawers. It was extremely cute, like most of her clothes, but I was sure that I could move freely enough in it for it to be practical.

I slipped in to it and admired it in mirror. It was a cream colored sun dress with a brown belt around the waist. It hugged me at the right spots and made me look… pretty. I was stunned at difference that one dress could make. I was suddenly cute enough to be accepted.

I walked into the kitchen where Ryan was standing over the stove. She smiled and offered me bacon, though my nerves had returned and I turned it down. She was in the same t-shirt and jeans get-up and had left her hair wavy instead of straightening it. Her purple irises scanned the dining room to our right, and then fell on me.

"I saw that last night."

"What?" I jerked my head up to meet her gaze. She didn't look like she was disapproving or even degrading me, just making a statement. She seemed as indifferent as if she had said 'Barney is a purple dinosaur.' or something.

"I saw you and Nolan." She nonchalantly flipped her bacon. "I saw how you looked at him."

"Why do you care, Ryan?"

"I don't," She glanced over at me, "but I do care about Malorn, and I've seen how he looks at you." She sighed, and then continued, "I know that it's not my business, but I don't think it's healthy for you jerk them around like that."

"Just don't worry about it. Ok, Ryan?" I said. She shrugged and continued working on her bacon. Boris strolled into the room with his blond joke shirt displayed proudly. Ryan nodded to him in acknowledgement and fixed him a plate of bacon. Boris had smoothed his brown spikey hair down, and looked incredulously different than his wizard self.

"What's on the agenda today, girls?" Boris had a very husky voice that I had never really paid attention to. He was handsome, and I was sure that there was someone he was interested in. I felt like I owed it to him somehow to find him a girlfriend. I honestly didn't know why I felt like that.

"We're supposed to head back to Wizard City and talk to Ambrose. There have apparently been more kids summoned from Earth." Ryan brought the plate of bacon over to the dining room table and laid it in front of Boris. He smiled and thanked her.

"It's awesome." She informed him, and headed back to her station at the stove. I could hear the shuffling of footsteps as Malorn and Nolan emerged from the hallway. Malorn's eyes were slit in a nasty look he threw at Nolan, who also had an equally unattractive look upon his face.

"What's up with you two?" Boris asked innocently, munching on piece of bacon as he watched the two boys. Malorn was the first to break the stare to answer Boris. Nolan glanced over at Boris, but kept an eye on Malorn. He made an effort to avoid looking at me.

"Nothing." Malorn's reply was dangerously laced with venom. He walked over and snatched the plate of bacon Ryan had prepared out of her hand. She jumped backward a little, but said nothing. Nolan rather calmly took the plate from her and politely thanked her for the food. She nodded, but still seemed to have not recovered from Malorn's rudeness.

"What's going on?" I asked, pulling my hair up into a pony tail.

"Just eat so we can get out of this forsaken world and go back to normal." Malorn snapped, violently chewing his bacon. Poor bacon. I thought gently. I waited, half expecting Nolan's voice to appear in my head, but it never came. Boris got up and washed his plate in the sink, Malorn followed behind him.

"Let's go."

"Dude, let them eat." Nolan said, shaking his head at Malorn.

"Shut the hell up, Nolan!" Malorn yelled, facing turning an alarming shade of red. "We need to get her back to Ambrose as soon as we can. Of course you're not in a hurry, you've known about this the whole time!"

"It's not my fault that she talks to me and not you." Nolan shot back, standing up and folding his hands into fists. Malorn walked forward a little.

"She could be magic, Nolan! We would have never known that because your head so far up your ass you don't care about anyone else!"

"What are you two talking about?" I screamed over them as their volume went higher and higher. Malorn turned to me; his chocolate eyes seemed to burn a hole in me.

"You have telepathy, and you never said a damn word to me about it."

"I didn't realize I needed to!" I countered. Boris walked over to me and grabbed my hand, with Ryan's in his other one. I ignored him. "Do not cuss me, Malorn Ashthorn!"

Suddenly—and rather violently—I was ripped away from reality and to Wizard City again. It took a few minutes for me to realize that Boris had ported the three of us. Ryan gasped for breath beside him, and he was busy trying to console her for scaring her. We were in front of Ambrose's office, and I had the strangest feeling that I needed to walk in. I did so, without a single word to the other two.

The heavy, ornate wooden door pushed open with ease, but creaked as it did so. I saw the elderly man sitting behind his desk, talking to tall man with the long nose I saw on the first day I was here. I recalled his name to be Cyrus Drake, professor of the Myth School.

"Ah, Kymma!" The Headmaster greeted me, and motioned to the seat beside Drake, "I was expecting you. Malorn told me that you have telepathy, which means you at least have magic in your blood." He paused, making sure that I was listening. "There is no way to tell how diluted it is. All we can do is attempt to tap into your stored magic and try to make it flow correctly."

Cyrus looked down his nose at me. "This has never been successfully completed. Do not get your hopes up."

"I've observed you during your stay here in Ravenwood, and from what I have observed you are patient and wise beyond your years. I think you are an Ice, if you do belong to a school." I blinked at Ambrose as he spoke, "Professor Grayrose will summon you when she is ready."

I shrugged and stood. Cyrus sneered at me. "And tell Nolan that all there are to be no more conjures until otherwise stated." I nodded and walked out.

I found myself standing on the cobblestone street that led to Malorn's home. I had never been to his house, and the thought made my palms sweaty. I sighed and shook my head. I owed him an explanation for not telling him about my telepathy, even if it meant going to his house. The street was dark, and reminded me of London from the early nineteen-hundreds. There was a street lamp beside his townhouse, but that was the only light source on the street, apart from the moon that glowed overhead.

I walked up the few steps that led to his door, and knocked swiftly. The door opened a few moments later. Malorn's head popped out of the half opened door.

"Oh, sorry, hang on." He shut the door, something clicked, and he reopened it. He must have had it bolted shut or something. He stepped aside and let me in. His house wasn't as big as Susan's, but it was still roomy. He apologized for 'the mess', which consisted of a few leaves on the welcome mat and a drink on the table. He always did strike me as a neat person.

"What can I do for, Kymma?" He asked, sitting down on the couch that faced the bay window beside the door. I sat beside him.

"I wanted to talk to you." My words made me queasy. I didn't really want to talk to him, but I needed to. I needed to get this off my conscious. He looked at me, brows knitted together in confusion. "For… for not telling you about the telepathy…" My voice trailed off at the end.

He turned sideways in his seat to look at me easier. He had subtly scooted closer, and it was obvious that he had already exonerated me. "I don't blame you, Kym." He whispered gently, chocolate eyes shimmering in the dim lighting of his London-themed home. He continued after a moment's pause, leaning away from me with a repulsed look on his face, "Nolan is who I blame. He knew that you were magic and he would be content to send you on your merry way home. That bastard would have let you go back to Earth without as much as a word."

I didn't say anything for several minutes, allowing him a cool-down period. Malorn sat back against the couch and ran his fingers through his black hair. He had changed back into his wizardly attire when we all arrived in Wizard City again. Unfortunately, he had gone back to the all-black cape and tunic-like shirt, but he had ditched the hat. He looked better without the jester-style hat.

"I didn't want you to leave." He whispered half to himself. He looked depressed in that moment, as he stared down at his black boots. I was at a loss for words in that moment. I tried to suppress my thoughts as much as possible; I was afraid that Nolan might hear them.

"I don't want to leave," I replied, feeling my body lean closer to him, and he looked over at me. For a moment, even the air was still. But then, of course, an idiotic comment flew out of my mouth before I could stop it: "but if Nolan wasn't going to tell you, and just let me go home, how did you find out?"

Malorn momentarily ignored my comment, glancing from eyes to my mouth, but then seemed to think that I needed an answer. "I don't know what happened. He just came into my room, woke me up, and told me you were telepathic. Then later he told me that the two of you had been talking for a few days and hadn't said a word."

"But… He… I…" I stuttered, words spilling out of my mouth before I could stop them. The words in my head flashed by faster than I could say them: Stupid, ugly, deceit, kiss, reprehensible, disgraceful, Nolan, back-stabber, liar, cheater. There were so many words; words I could begin to count or even process. Malorn was still staring at me, waiting for me to collect my speech and continue, but I didn't.

Or worse, I couldn't.

I couldn't begin to explain to Malorn that I liked Nolan, which was why I didn't tell him about our telepathic conversations. I couldn't tell him that Nolan almost kissed me, or how wrong it felt to wish he had. I couldn't tell Malorn that I liked him, even if I liked Nolan, and that I wished that he liked me, too.

"You ok?" Malorn suddenly looked concerned. I nodded quickly. "Tell me about your life was like on Earth." I raised an eyebrow at him; he had no idea what he was asking for. "Please?"

"Well, ok." I inhaled a deep, dramatic breath. "I lived in a small town, with a no-less-than-perfect family. We had a big home but it always felt… empty. Like, it was our house, but it wasn't our home. My older sister, the girl whose house we stayed in last night, is a movie star. She's extremely pretty and always got the guys in school that everyone wanted. Ever since she became famous, my life just… sucked."

"Why?" Malorn's voice was gentle as he peered down at me.

"Do you know what it's like to wake up every morning knowing that you will get called ugly that day? To expect people to be so horrid and malicious that you quit trying… everything?" I was in my own world again. I was watching things that had happened to me over the years: Ariel and her crew cutting my hair in seventh grade, the boys on the football team tripping me in the lunch room on my first day of ninth grade, and getting all my books knocked out of my hands, glasses broken, lunch ruined, and told how hideous I was after break in eleventh grade.

"Why would anyone call you ugly?" There was genuine surprise in his voice. I looked up at him to see if his surprise was real or not. It was.

"My sister was beautiful and I… I just wasn't. She was so skinny, tall, blonde, and had perfect skin and straight hair. I'm not that skinny, I'm short, I have brown hair, and I have blemished skin and mildly curly hair."

"You know," Malorn whispered, wrapping his arm around shoulders so that I leaned closer to him, "not all girls are skinny and tall, but not all guys like girls who are skinny and tall. Look, Susan's not super skinny and she's not all that tall, either. It just depends on the person you're talking to."

"I guess I just went to school with all the wrong people then…" I laughed a little, but fell quiet quickly.

"I guess you did." He laughed a little as well, making my head bounce on his shoulder as he did. "You're beautiful, Kymma."

I was too shocked to speak, much less say anything. He had turned, and was looking directly into my eyes. He went about this differently than Nolan did. Malorn was painstakingly careful and moved so slowly I was half tempted to check a clock. Nolan, on the other hand, was cocky and assumed that I wanted to kiss him, and he was allowing me to.

His face was just inches away from mine. I wasn't sure whether or not I was ok with him kissing me. He was even closer now. Should I back away? Malorn's nose touched mine. I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Malorn?" I squeaked just before he kissed me. He blinked, seeming bewildered at first, but then he understood and sat back. He looked incredulously embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," He shook his head, "I thought…"

"No, I'm sorry." I whispered, running my fingers through my hair, "I'm just not ready for that yet…"

We sat in silence for a few moments. The awkwardness was more than I could handle. "Well, I probably need to get home and get some sleep. Long day tomorrow." He nodded in agreement and walked with me to the door. We didn't say much other than a polite 'good-night' before I left.

My life just kept getting more and more complicated.

Sorry, I know it's short! And thanks for all the reviews you guys! Rachel Blake, I really appreciate all that! Thanks so much!

Well, R&R!