The sound of my name forced me to release the image my conscious had formed and like the tide rushing out to sea, I returned, opening my eyes.
A hand much darker than my own tugged at my fingers and round brown eyes stared up at me from behind a mass of tightly curled black hair, partly twisted into braids.
‘Tee,’ I said, greeting the younger student beside me. The girl, barely twelve, wrapped her wiry arms around my middle, clutching me like I was a sister – sometimes I felt like I cared for her as though she were a sibling. I might be inadequate at preventing the bullies from taunting me, but I hadn’t been able to stand the racist remarks that were casually thrown at Tee by the older students. In return for my sticking up for her, Tee’s cousin, Tammy, had sought me out as a friend and steered me towards Christy and Gwen.
‘How was your summer?’ I asked as Christy stepped around the chattering group, joining me.
‘Quiet with lots of rain,’ Christy replied, referring to the particularly bad summer we had endured – endless storms, broken by odd days of sunshine like the one we were lucky enough to be experiencing, lightening the blow of returning to a school regime. Tee nodded in agreement, lips raised at one corner into a glum expression I was sure I shared.
‘I keep telling you, I didn’t do it!’
A shiver travelled up my spine. My gaze darted to the blossom of the autumn-flowering cherry tree, eyes trailing the frail pink petals as they descended, spiralling in slow circles towards the ground. A breeze stirred my hair.
‘Gwen, I don’t want to talk about it.’
I wrapped my arms around my middle, feeling the chill the breeze brought tease out the goose bumps along my uncovered wrists. Above, the sun was snuffed as low, callous clouds clawed their way across the blue sky, leaving behind an ashen trail that betrayed them as coming from the direction of the sea.
Tee shuddered. Tammy untied her school jumper from around her waist and slipped it on.
‘Tammy, you don’t need to—’
‘Gwen, shut up!’
‘I was only—’
‘No, look at Autumn!’
The outlines of the tree and the people blurred, air gathering where there should be white shirts and bark. Only the falling blossom remained crisp: a rotating plume, falling, slow, slower, slow enough that I felt I could reach out and catch each petal from the air.
‘Shit! Autumn, say something!’
I could hear every step of every student, falling into a rhythm, regular. The rise and fall of my chest filled in the pause between each beat, struggling to remain steady. My hand tightened, a finger at a time, around the hilt of my sword, tips tracing a ridge, feeling the grip worn from the years of practice mold to the shape of my palm. Between the metal and my flesh, sparks sprung, words forming on my lips as I prepared to cast.
‘Autumn!’
In my empty hand I held a heart, grip tightening and slackening to the rhythm of its pumping, knowing that the beat I felt belonged to something – something that wasn’t human; something that was nearing, fast.
Death danced on my lips and I allowed my magic to drain from my system into shields around as many of the students as I could manage. Then without tearing my eyes away from the falling blossom, I let go of the sword and slipped a small knife out of the scabbard instead. I gripped it in my right hand, curse balanced in the left; waiting.
Panicked, fearful babbling faded away, leaving only the thumping heartbeat of whomever – whatever – was coming.
I didn’t have to wait long. I heard breath behind me; felt another’s magic; heard a voice.
‘Duchess.’
I spun around, lifting the dagger until it rested beneath the defined jaw line of a man not much older than me. But it didn’t get any further.
Half-formed on my lips, a curse that would kill was snatched away by the wind that whipped past, replaced with a sharp intake of breath; then a silence that was only broken by the clatter of my dagger striking the ground. Thrust forward, my hand hung in mid-air, fingers sprawled from where I had let the blade fall.
I wet my lips, shock turning to realization. The seconds fell and neither of us moved. After a minute, it occurred to me to drop into a deep curtsey, onto one knee, aware of how high my skirt was hitching; aware of how the trees whispered treason.
‘Your Highness,’ I managed, eyes fixed firmly on a blossom petal, partly crushed below the edge of my shoe.
‘Duchess,’ he repeated quietly, so only I could hear. I raised my head, risking a glance, but did not allow our gazes to meet.
Always remember your place, Autumn. Etiquette, child, is everything.
My mind fought with itself. He should not be here. He has no reason to be here. But I could ignore neither the leather satchel resting at his side nor the diary in his other hand, the school logo printed on the hard front cover. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but I knew the sixth form didn’t have to. A lump formed in my throat.
‘Do you always greet people like that, or am I the exception?’ His accent, Canadian, rung over the whispers of the students around us – they weren’t stupid. They read the magazines and watched the news. They knew who was standing before them.
‘My apologies, Your Highness, I was not expecting you.’
‘No, forgive me, I didn’t mean to startle you.’
I nodded to the ground, feeling the urge to reach out and snatch up my dagger. I knew better.
The bell sounded, yet nobody moved. The Athenea. Not now. Not here. Movement only began as teachers started to cross the tarmac, late and unhurried as they always were to tutorials. If they were surprised by the scene before them, they didn’t allow it to show.
‘Good, I see you’ve met each other.’
The sound of the headmaster’s voice straightened me up; fingernails buried into my palms to help me keep control.
‘Autumn, this is—’
‘I shouldn’t think either of them needs an introduction, Headmaster,’ a second teacher said – Mr. Sylaeia, my English language and literature teacher, as well as my tutor. ‘They will have met at court.’
Mr. Sylaeia, unlike the other teachers, didn’t hide his surprise, his untrimmed eyebrows arching as they moved from the dagger on the ground, to me, to the tanned arms of the man in front, clad only in faded jeans and a white v-necked t-shirt.
‘I’m afraid the weather here isn’t quite on a par with what you will have experienced in Australia, Your Highness. I would recommend a coat in the future,’ Sylaeia said.
‘Please, call me Fallon,’ the prince replied, his eyes never leaving me as my mind reeled, unable to comprehend what I knew was happening. I stared straight past him to Mr. Sylaeia, mental barriers opening just enough to allow him to speak in my mind – he was half-Sage, and although he did not bear the scars, he possessed many of our abilities.
‘You understand what is happening,’ he said. It was not a question.
‘Why?’ I replied, releasing the dread in my chest which wormed its way between my ribs, slowing my breathing.
‘His parents desired for him to spend a year as a guardian within the British education system. He requested a state school.’
‘There are thousands of state schools. Hundreds without any guardian at all.’
He held my gaze and his silence told me there was more, but that I wasn’t going to be privy to it.
‘Autumn: