PERIWINKLE

I follow the short walkway to the plain, boxy structure set back from the two main school buildings like a barn might be. It’s about the size of a barn too. The dry desert wind sweeps over me, and my skin prickles as if I’m doing something wrong.

This is the first time I’ve left the academy’s reform building on my own. But it’s not as if I can get into any trouble when there’s no one else outside, just a long stretch of dusty earth dotted with wizened shrubs and craggy reddish mountains rising in the distance.

The door hinges squeak as I slip inside. When I peer up at the far wall, which stretches up two storeys to the building’s high ceiling, Jonah has already paused where he’s clinging to handholds about two thirds of the way up.

Shanty told me it’s a rock-climbing wall, although no part of it looks like actual rocks. The brightly colored holds jutting out in their variety of shapes do have a certain appeal. It seems a little silly to me that anyone practices climbing rock faces here in a big artificial box when there are actual mountains within sight, but I guess it saves a couple of hours’ driving.

And I’m glad Jonah isn’t a couple of hours from the school right now.

“Peri,” he calls down as I walk over to the padded mats laid out at the base of the climbing wall. “I thought I was going to see you in about an hour. Is something wrong?”

Before I can answer, he’s already clambering down. He took off his shirt for this exercise, and a sheen of sweat gleams off his warm brown skin. His muscles flex with his movements in a way I can’t help appreciating with a flicker of heat deep inside me.

When he’s close enough to the ground that I don’t have to yell, I clasp my hands together in front of me. “Shanty said you’d be out here and that it was okay for me to come. I wanted to see you before we were all going to meet up for you to use your sorcery—to talk to you about something privately. I’m sorry I interrupted.”

“It’s all right.” Jonah’s feet hit the ground. He reaches for a small towel to blot the perspiration on his face and chest. I don’t sense any emotion from him other than a faint flicker of self-consciousness, as salty as his sweat probably is.

Okay, I probably shouldn’t be imagining tasting it off his skin.

In any case, he honestly doesn’t seem to be upset. He peers at me from beneath the black waves of his hair, concern turning his eyes even darker. “What did you want to see me about?”

A flare of my own self-consciousness washes over me, even though this conversation was my idea.

I look down at my hands. “I thought you might be the best person to talk to about this since you’ve had a lot of experience with mortal beings and shadowkind… and you’ve always been nice to me, so you won’t laugh… Why is anyone cruel to anyone else? I’ve seen it from humans and from shadowkind now. It doesn’t make sense to me. They don’t even usually feel good while they’re doing it, not the way real happiness tastes.”

Jonah blinks at me, looking at a loss. Maybe it’s too big a question for anyone. But he doesn’t laugh, and I think the other administrators might have. Hail and Mirage definitely would have—though Mirage wouldn’t have meant it in a malicious way—and Raze might think I was criticizing him for whatever he’s done wrong before. Fen wouldn’t have any answers.

So the sorcerer who’s always been kind to me is my only chance at figuring it out. The uncomfortable uncertainty has been gnawing at me since Gloss’s cutting insults yesterday.

Jonah delays his response by turning to put on his shirt, which is a bit of a shame, because I was enjoying the view of his sculpted torso. It’s still very nice to look at with the fabric overtop, but not quite as vividly so.

I decide it’s better not to mention those thoughts to him.

When he faces me again, slinging his hands in his pockets, his mouth has gone crooked. “That’s a tough one, Peri. I don’t know how much thought shadowkind usually give that subject, but human beings have been grappling with it for hundreds—probably thousands of years.”

I grimace. “So, no one knows?”

Jonah shrugs. “I don’t think you can know exactly, because everyone has different reasons. But in my experience, cruelty is mostly about feeling in control. Some people don’t know how to feel the better kinds of happiness, but they can figure out how to make someone who’s not them feel worse. So they settle for that smaller satisfaction, knowing that at least they’re not the worst off.”

“Oh.” I know from the soft tingle of my hair that it’s shimmering my sadness at the idea. “That’s awful. For everyone.”

A hint of a smile, soft and sweet, touches Jonah’s lips. “You just want everyone to be as happy as possible, don’t you?”

I spread my arms. “Why wouldn’t I? If everyone lived that way, then maybe no one would be so sour they want to spread their unpleasant feelings around.”

“Life is pretty complicated. For mortals, because of all the pressures and responsibilities that go into navigating our society. For shadowkind, because you weren’t made to be part of this world and the approach that feels normal to a lot of you clashes with what’s acceptable here. Sometimes things just can’t help but be tangled up.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I study him, focusing on his face now. “It’s been tangled for you, hasn’t it? Because you’ve lived around shadowkind so much, but you are human. How did you start feeling like you fit in at the school? Or with the shadowkind who raised you?”

Maybe what worked for him will help me make peace with all the beings like Gloss and her friends who’d rather snipe at me than leave me alone.

Jonah’s smile fades. “To be totally honest, I can’t say I feel like I fit in even now. Here, at least. It’s a tricky balance, leading classes and using my sorcery to rein the shadowkind who need it in without being seen as sort of an enemy.”

A twinge of guilt ripples through my gut with the knowledge that I saw him that way at first. “Then how do you stay happy while you’re working?”

“Well, I do have a few beings on staff I know understand me, and students here and there who appreciate what I’m doing. And I take a lot of strength from the good memories from my past.” He motions to the climbing wall. “Back home, growing up with my shadowkind ‘family,’ I was always climbing trees in the forest around the house. This is the closest I can get to that feeling here.”

I gaze up at the wall with its handholds, wondering how it would feel to haul my curvier and much shorter body up that expanse.

Jonah’s voice softens. “You’ve already helped even in the short time you’ve been at the academy, Peri. I know some of the other students have been hard on you, but you have to know that doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong. I can see how much you’re trying, and I admire how hard you work at looking out for everyone around you. You’ve kept up a positive attitude through so much. It means a lot to me that you even trusted me enough to bring this up after the horrible experience you had with that other sorcerer.”

His reassurance lights a joyful glow inside me. I think it might be glinting out of my hair too in cheerful yellow, but I don’t mind him seeing that.

“You’ve looked out for me a lot too,” I say. “I know you’re not at all like that man. You want us to be as good as we can be, just like I do.”

When Jonah’s smile comes back, it sets off an even brighter flare of warmth all the way through my body. “I do want that. And I’d really like to see you find a place in this world where you can be at peace and not have to worry about your powers going wild.”

This conversation makes me feel as if I could. What do Gloss or Hail or any of them matter? As long as I keep my goals in mind, I have to find a way to reach them, right?

I shake off the quiver of doubt in that last question and turn toward the wall, coasting on my momentary elation. “I want to try climbing. It looked exciting, being all the way up there.”

I’m already reaching for the nearest handholds above my head before Jonah can respond. As I place my feet against a couple of lower holds, he makes a restrained sound of warning. “The wall’s for everyone, but it can be a little tricky to keep your balance if you’re not used to this kind of climbing. Take it slow, and watch out for any shifts in the holds. Some of the ones higher up are loose so they’ll rotate for an extra challenge.”

“I’m good!” I keep clambering onward, my spirits rising with each short distance I heft myself up.

At first I move more slowly, keeping in mind Jonah’s cautions. But the climb is easier than I expected. I push myself a little faster, delighting in the extra thrill of the effort radiating through my muscles.

“Peri…” Jonah says in a worried tone, and at the same moment, the handhold I’ve just grasped whirls in my fingers.

My hand slips off. My balance wobbles, and I tumble right off the wall.

For a second all I’m aware of is the air whooshing through my hair and the lurch of my pulse. A yelp breaks from my throat. Then my body is smacking into a pair of muscular arms that reached out to catch me.

I look up sheepishly and find myself gazing into Jonah’s eyes with less than a foot between us. “Thank you. And sorry. I got too confident. And I should have just jumped into the shadows when I fell.”

Jonah exhales shakily and offers me a bemused grin. He’s so close that his gorgeous face makes my pulse skip again even though I’m perfectly secure now. “I can imagine it’s hard to think logically when you’re in freefall. I’m glad I could jump in there in time.”

My hand rises to his cheek as if of its own accord, following the chiseled angles of his cheekbone down to his jaw. “You look after me lots of different ways.”

Something shifts in Jonah’s expression, with a waft of emotion that’s as tantilizingly sweet and heady as a rich chocolate cake. It sparks a pang between my legs.

His head dips closer to mine, and for a second I think he’s going to bring our lips together in an embrace as delicious as the one I shared with Raze.

I might have closed the last short distance if Jonah didn’t tense a second later. He sets me carefully but swiftly down on the mat and backs up a couple of steps.

His face has flushed, but he’s managed to rein in most of that mouth-watering emotion. “I should get back to the school. I’ll see you there in a half hour to reiterate everyone’s commands.”

He strides out of the building before I can say another word.

I stare after him, my own emotions scattered. Was he upset? Why?

I’m just hurrying after Jonah when a massive, sinewy figure emerges from the shadows by the door. Raze peers at me and then turns his head in the direction Jonah went, his muscular frame emanating aggression. “What does he think he’s doing with you?”