Suddenly, my own phone vibrates in my pocket as a smile curls the left corner of Lo’s mouth. He doesn’t look up, just continues to stare intently at the device in his hands. I frown. Coincidence? It buzzes again and, this time, I can’t help myself.
“Excuse me, Principal Cano, sorry to interrupt but I think I forgot to turn my phone off this morning. I just want to make sure it’s not on.” Cano tosses a benevolent smile in my direction as I slide out my phone with a quick glance at the offending messages. I don’t recognize the number but the words are more than maddeningly identifiable.
Still enjoying that cherry smoothie, I see. BTW, you didn’t tell me your name.
I’m so hot with delayed embarrassment that it feels like I’m going to melt into a puddle on the floor any minute. Lo hasn’t looked up but that smirk is still lurking around the corners of his mouth. I’m itching to slap it off his face and figure out at the same time how he got ahold of my unlisted number. I shove my phone back into my pocket.
Tearing my glance away from the annoyance on the other side of the window, I focus on Principal Cano, who is now looking through my file. Boring. Not much in there other than the usual—transcripts, grades, notes. On paper, I’m an exemplary student, never drawing unnecessary attention to myself.
My gaze spans the desk, and suddenly, my boredom disappears. Next to a heap of files on Cano’s desk is another open file far thinner than mine. The photo of an arrogant but familiar face is clipped to one corner.
Lo’s file.
I bolt upright and forward in my chair, curiosity peppering my brain. It would be so easy to glimmer over the desk without anyone being the wiser. Curiosity gets the better of me, and maybe a little desire for payback. The need to see what’s in that file becomes insistent. In a world governed by paperwork, his file is even thinner than mine, which makes him very interesting.
Lo obviously has money; otherwise, he wouldn’t be here. Not that it matters, but Dover is a snooty private school that isn’t exactly known for giving free rides. As a student with a royal trust fund and a generous long-standing alumni grant, I had no trouble getting admitted. Dover has been my family’s alma mater for centuries.
My real family...the nonhuman one.
Who wouldn’t exactly approve of what I am about to do. Especially my Handlers.
Shoving the thought of them away, I focus on the task at hand. Glimmering isn’t expressly forbidden so I’m not doing anything too untoward, but it is frowned upon because of the potential exposure. I’ll be careful so there won’t be any risk.
Taking a breath, I shrug off the nerves, feeling the water inside my body press against my skin in immediate response as a round weightlessness forms in the middle of my chest. I extend the glimmer-shadow outward like a ball of water, hovering over Principal Cano’s desk as he’s speaking and gesturing at some notes in my file.
From any outside perspective, I’m sitting in my chair and listening intently to what Cano is saying. But for my own purposes, my glimmer-self can now see the pages on the desk as easily as if I were sitting on Principal Cano’s lap. Which is a pretty gross thought.
Focus, I tell myself, and push slightly to the right.
The glimmer-shadow almost breaks but I pull it together with a long, slow breath that slivers through my teeth. Glimmering is a delicate business that involves manipulating minuscule amounts of water in the air and connecting those to the source in my body. The technical term for it is hydroprojection, which basically means controlling the energy of moisture to project an invisible extension of myself wherever I choose. But I like the word glimmer better because that’s what it looks like if anyone were to ever envision it.
As expected, the pages in my file are boring, basically showing my transcripts from my last school, my current grades, my extracurricular activities and all the usual stuff. I’m not interested in any of that. I am interested in the Annoyance. Hovering over the second file, I glance at the sparse notes. Lo is a C student. No surprise—I could have called that just from his don’t-care attitude. Did four sports at his last school including swimming and soccer, and is a Junior State Surf Champion. No surprise there, either. I just don’t get why he’s here and why he had transferred to Dover in the middle of his junior year, from Hawaii of all places.
A note in red on a yellow Post-it catches my attention on the corner of the manila folder. The words Under Observation are underlined several times. It’s stuck above a newspaper clipping. I almost lose hold of the glimmer at the horrific mangled photo of a boat. Nearly his whole family was killed in a sailing accident during a freak storm. His foster father survived but is on life support in some private hospital in Australia, and it appears that Lo was sent here to live with his biological mother, his only remaining family.
A pang of pity spirals its way through me, becoming more intense as it touches my glimmer-self, so much so that it ripples outward. Of their own volition, my eyes turn to the boy sitting in the waiting room outside and connect with a pair of liquid blue ones. He’s staring right at me.
I dissipate in an instant, broken apart by the fierce vulnerability in that look. Or maybe he looks that way because of what I’ve just read. Either way, I feel guilty for my spying even though he couldn’t possibly know what I’d been doing. There’s no way he or any other human would be able to see anything—glimmers are invisible, undetectable to human eyes. Only the Aquarathi—my people—can sense a glimmer, not humans. And Lo is not one of us. If he were, I would know him in an instant.
As an Aquarathi heir, my blood commands any of my kind to declare themselves to me, and it isn’t like they have control over doing so; their bodies respond. It’s complicated to explain, but we work in the same way that water bonds to water. A single drop is but a part of the whole.
Principal Cano’s voice snaps me back to reality.
“Sorry, sir?” I say, momentarily disoriented.
“He asked if you could send Mr. Seavon in on your way back to class?” Mrs. Leland, who is standing next to him, has picked up Lo’s file.
At my blank stare, Mrs. Leland gently clarifies. “Lotharius Seavon. The boy in the waiting room whom you were speaking to earlier.”
Lotharius? I nearly giggle out loud but compose myself. We do live in California, after all, where people name their kids after colors and adverbs and feelings. There’s even a kid called Happy on the surf team at Dover. Lotharius is tamer than most. And for some reason, it suits him, probably more so than “Lo” does. Maybe it’s his exotic looks, but “Max” or “Tony” just wouldn’t seem fitting.
“Oh, of course,” I say just as Mrs. Leland hands me another pile of college brochures. “Is he new here?” I can’t help myself but after seeing Lo’s file on the desk and having him brag earlier that he was a student, I have to know for sure.
“Yes, today is his first day, and he’s a junior like you.” She stares at me with a thoughtful look, tipping her little bird head to the side. “Actually, Ms. Marin, perhaps you could help to show Mr. Seavon around at lunch. Help him get his bearings a bit.” I want to kick myself in the teeth for even asking about Lo...now I’m going to be stuck with the annoying creature. I make a mental note to try to fail my next English exam just get my name off Cano’s “promising students” list, but with my luck, I’ll get hauled in twice as often.
I smile graciously through my gnashed teeth. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my world, it’s that etiquette and flawless courtesy will get you anywhere, especially as a teen. It’s as if the adults don’t expect it. “Of course,” I say sweetly. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Thank you, Ms. Marin,” Principal Cano