Fire and Ice (48 page)

“I'm Nevaeh. This your first year here?” the girl said as Ari reached the bottom.

“Ari. This is my first day here, actually,” She said around a mouthful of tacks.

“And Brittany roped you into this?” Nevaeh shook her head in disgust.

“She cried.” Ari shrugged as she dragged her ladder across the floor.

“Crocodile tears.” Nevaeh smirked. “I'll get this side. These big-A ladders are heavy!” Nevaeh grabbed the other side and lifted with a grunt.

“Oh…thanks,” Ari mumbled. She hadn't noticed how heavy the ladder was. In addition to her magic she was also freakishly strong and fast and coordinated. Probably to make her the perfect killing machine, but otherwise it didn't do her any good. She loved sports but to avoid notice of how
not
normal she was, she always had to play so carefully it took all the fun out of it. She had quit playing.

“I've been here for four years. It's a good school. Are you a senior too?” Ari just nodded. “I thought so. You look like you could pass for twenty-one.” She glanced around the rungs at Nevaeh as she walked backward. “Not that it'll do us any good. We get monitored pretty closely here.”

Ari was trying to figure out how to respond to that when she backed into something. A not solid something. “Oof!” it squeaked.

“Well Livi, do you not see us coming with this huge ladder straight at you?” Nevaeh yelled as Ari attempted not to fall over backward and bring the ladder with her.

“Sorry! I'm so sorry!” The thing kept squeaking, her voice getting higher and higher. Nevaeh dug her heels in and steadied the ladder just as Ari let go and tumbled back, landing on her butt. Before she quite grasped what had happened, a tiny brunette was kneeling in front of her, pulling on Ari's hands in a vain attempt to help her to her feet. “Are you okay? I am so blind. Or oblivious. I guess it would be oblivious because I can see fine with my glasses on, and I'm wearing them, see?” She pointed to her face, where the glasses were indeed perched on a button nose sprinkled with freckles. Ari allowed herself to be dragged to her feet, where she towered over the speed-talking girl.

“Hush Livi. She's fine,” Nevaeh said, coming around the ladder as she made shooing motions with her hands. “This is Olivia. We call her Livi.”

“Hi!” Livi said with a grin, bouncing up and down.

“Hey,” Ari responded.

“She's a senior, like us,” Nevaeh told Livi.

Ari's chin dropped as she stared down at the tiny girl in shock. “You're a senior?” She realized belatedly that she should have tried to keep the incredulous note from her voice. Interpersonal communication was not her strongest trait. Probably not even in the top ten of her strongest traits. Grimacing, she tried to remove her foot from her mouth as she added, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean…”

“No, it's okay. I get that a lot. I look like I'm twelve,” Livi said with a smile and a shake of her head, sending silky brown hair swaying down her back.

Before Ari could say anything that made her look even more stupid, the gym door banged open and Brittany walked in, heels tap-tapping on the floor, demanding attention.

“How are you not done yet?” she shrieked.

“We
would
be if you were in here helping,” Nevaeh snapped back, turning on her with a ferocious scowl, braids whirling with her like miniature, angry snakes. Ari had a brief image of Medusa. If Medusa had been beautiful and had kind eyes instead of eyes that turned people to stone.

“I was getting supplies.” Brittany sniffed, dumping an armful of paper table clothes on the floor in the middle of the gym. Dust poofed up around them like a miniature storm.

Nevaeh put one hand on her hip and eyed the colorful pile. “And that took you an hour?”

Ari shook her head and started back up the ladder, wishing she were anywhere but here. Fighting in battles, surrounded by spells and magic and threats and smoke — that she understood and could handle — Teenage girls were beyond her, even if she was supposed to be one.

Livi pushed her light brown ponytail over her shoulder and sighed. “Don't start girls. Let's just get done, okay? I'm exhausted.”

“You wouldn't be if she'd do her share,” Nevaeh snarled. Ari smirked to herself at the top of the ladder as she snatched up her crepe paper.

“Good. Let's get to work,” Brittany called to their retreating backs. No one responded.

Nevaeh dumped a giant box on the floor a few feet from Ari's ladder. “Hallelujah! We're almost done!” she crowed, throwing up her hands and dancing around the box.

Livi laughed from the other side of the ladder. “I think you might even have time to get ready for the ball, Cinderella!”

Ari had been listening to their easy banter for the last hour, and her dark mood had lightened considerably, despite her every effort otherwise.

All three of them were hot and messy. Ari's long hair that had hours ago been pulled back in a tidy braid now straggled out and fell in her face. She heard Nevaeh saying something about her lack of a prince charming and how painful glass slippers would be, and looked down with a smile. “So, no boyfriend, Nevaeh?” she asked.

“No way. No boy's gonna be tying me down. Girl, my mama got married young. Regretted it ever since. I am
not
gonna live that life!”

“Do you, Livi?” Ari asked, trying to get the obnoxious crepe paper to twist right. So far it was just tying itself in knots.

“No. I did last year, but we broke up before we headed home for the summer. I don't do long distance relationships.”

Ari frowned. Her summer had been spent hunting the Carules Prodigy, or fighting in pointless battles. Usually, when the Carules realized she was there, they'd retreat as fast as possible, because there was no point in fighting her. Everyone knew she could only be killed by the Carules Prodigy.

No one ever saw her face. Her brother always cast a shroud spell on her beforehand so that nobody could see her clearly. Shroud spells were his specialty.

Just to be safe, she also wore a long black robe and hid in its hood. It had once belonged to Ada Aleshire, Ari's great-great-whatever ancestor, and the sorceress who had started the whole stupid feud three hundred years ago. It was a war that had claimed thousands of lives but would never go in the history books.

The Carules Prodigy never fought. He allowed his people to be slaughtered rather than risk the Edrens capturing him.
Coward,
Ari thought, pushing the sting of jealousy deep down as she viciously shoved a thumb tack into the wall. She was a weapon for the Edrens, and weapons should be used, not protected.

“Hello! Ari!”

Ari started and nearly fell off her ladder. “Hey! What?” She gasped, clinging to the top rung. She was starting to think the ladder had it in for her.

“I
said
about a thousand
times,
do
you
have a boyfriend?” Nevaeh demanded, raising an incredulous eyebrow at Livi.

“Were you daydreaming?” Livi asked in a singsong voice, giving Ari an impish grin.++

“Yes,” Ari answered.

“Ooooh, what's his name?” Livi asked, bouncing up and down on her toes and clapping her hands like a little girl.

“What? No, no I don't have a boyfriend. Yes, I was daydreaming. Sorry.”

“Aww.” Livi's face fell.

Nevaeh shook her head as she hefted a second large box and turned toward the ladder. “How does someone who looks like you not have a boyfriend?”

“Oh my! Shane is coming! He can't see — we're not done!” Brittany squealed as she scampered through the door, her heels click-clacking against the gym floor. She raced to the lights, killing all but the small one over the door.

Ari glimpsed three figures silhouetted in the doorway. Nevaeh cursed as Livi screamed. Too late, Nevaeh crashed into the box on the floor and pitched forward, slamming into Ari's ladder. Ari watched it all in slow motion, having been graced with excellent night vision to accompany her magic. Her brain flew, catalog-like, through the spells she knew, searching for one that would hold the ladder. Unfortunately, her spells were for blowing things up, not holding things still.

Instead, she flung all her weight to the side, throwing the ladder to the right and away from Livi, who was standing below. Ari could then do nothing but crash to the floor. She had just enough time to realize she had never been knocked unconscious before as her head slammed into the wood and the ladder smashed into her ribs. She heard running feet as light exploded behind her eyes, and then nothing.