They started a shoving-match right there at my lab table and it looked like it was really going to come to blows. I backed away from them, as much as I could, feeling miserable and unhappy as the cause of the impending violence.
This fight over insignificant little me seemed to finally be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Morganna. She got up from her seat and sashayed over, her hands on her hips and the nostrils of her perfect nose flaring.
“Why fighting, are you?” she demanded, shouting at the boys to be heard over their trash-talk. “Not so great is she!”
Huh? I looked at her in confusion. Why was she talking like Yoda all of a sudden?
“To me you should all listen!” Morganna insisted, when the boys ignored her, just like they used to ignore me. “Nothing but an ugly little Norm she is! Not worth your time she is!”
Suddenly I understood. The skink! It must have come back to her and gotten into her ear after all and she hadn’t figured out a way to remove it yet.
I felt a moment of twisted happiness—it was, after all, no more than she deserved—but my revenge glow was quickly shattered when Cedric pushed Francisco into my lab table, nearly knocking it over, while Elian snarled at the two of them, showing extremely sharp-looking fangs.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen! What’s going on here—stop this right now!”
I thought I had never been so happy to hear my dour biology teacher’s voice in my life. Mr. Barron came striding down the aisle, glaring at the three boys who by now were pushing and shoving each other and just about an inch from throwing punches.
He took them roughly by the shoulders and pulled them apart—no easy feat since both the Nocturne and the Drake had supernatural strength on their side. As for Cedric, I didn’t know. Were Fae stronger than normal humans? Was I stronger now that my true Fae self had come out and been revealed?
I made a mental note to check on that later. Right now, Mr. Barron was glaring at all three boys and demanding to know what the fight was about.
Of course, before anyone could answer, Morganna pointed a perfectly manicured finger at me.
“Her fault it is!” she declared, glaring at me. “Put them under a spell, she has!”
Mr. Barron blinked at her strange diction but turned his attention to me, nevertheless.
“Is this true Miss…er, is that you, Miss Plunkett?” he asked, frowning uncertainly.
“Yes, it’s me, Mr. Barron,” I said in a small voice, feeling even more miserable—if that was even possible. “But I didn’t put anybody under any kind of spell, I promise! They just came over and started talking to me and…and fighting over me.”
It sounded so ludicrous I could barely get the words out. Three of the most handsome, popular boys in school fighting over plain little Emma Plunkett? Who would believe it?
But it was true and I didn’t know what else to say.
“Fighting over you, hmm?” Mr. Barron frowned at me.
He looked at me so long I was afraid I might have fascinated him as well. Knowing that this strange power I had only seemed to affect males with “weak and simple minds” as Lachlan put it, made me see my old crush—and the other popular boys—in a whole other light. I really hoped that my Biology teacher—who I had always respected—wasn’t going to fall into their category.
Thank goodness, though, Mr. Barron shook his head—like a man shaking off a slight dizzy spell—and frowned at me.
“Miss Plunkett, I’m not sure what to say but considering where we are, I’m inclined to think there is some kind of magic at work here.”
“Magic there definitely is!” Morganna put in, glaring at me. “Worked some kind of glamour spell on herself, the nasty little human has! Made herself look Fae, she has!”
“No, Morganna—Emma was always Fae.” It was Bran’s voice, coming from behind me—he must have come in the back door of the classroom. I turned to see him coming towards me and saw that Lachlan was with him.
The dark Fae looked remarkably good in the Nocturne Academy uniform of a black blazer with blood-red piping and dark slacks. It emphasized his coloring and his shock of blue-black hair and made his emerald eyes stand out.
I felt a wave of relief as my guys came to flank me on either side. Without thinking about it, I reached for both of them. When they took my offered hands, I felt a wave of strength flowing into me and I was able to hold up my head. How I looked wasn’t my fault, I told myself. And it also wasn’t my fault that the three weak-minded popular idiots had started fighting over me.
“Well—and who is this?” Mr. Barron asked, frowning at Lachlan.
“Lachlan O’Rourke, Sir. I’m a new student in your class,” Lachlan said firmly.
Behind his back, some of the other Fae students began to whisper.
“Look at his hair—he’s UnSeelie!”
“I can’t believe they let some filthy peon from the Winter Court into Nocturne!”
Of course, I also had raven black hair now, but I noticed nobody was saying anything about me. Maybe because of my triple-ringed purple eyes or the fact that I had the power to fascinate. But they were definitely giving Lachlan what my mom would have called “the stink eye.”
“All right, Mr. Lachlan, you can have a seat…” Mr. Barron frowned, looking for an empty lab table but there was none—and no one for Lachlan to have as a lab partner either. “Well, we seem to be short on seating,” he said, frowning.
“It’s all right, Mr. Barron,” I said quickly. “Lachlan can share a table with Bran and me for right now—just until you can find him a partner,” I added, knowing that wasn’t going to happen.
“All right, that’s kind of you, Miss Plunkett, but I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on here.” Mr. Barron nodded at Cedric, Elian, and Francisco, who were all still glaring at each other menacingly.
“Told you, I did. Under a spell, she put them!” Morganna insisted, putting a hand on her hip.
“Miss Starchild, is there a problem with your speech today?” Mr. Barron inquired, frowning at her. “You sound very much like you’re trying to imitate a popular character from the Star Wars saga.”
“Yeah, you sound like Yoda,” one of the other students called out, which caused the entire class to snicker.
If there was one thing Morganna Starchild was not used to, it was a laugh at her own expense. Her face grew even redder and she flounced off to her seat, little white dents of fury forming on the sides of her flaring nostrils. The expression of rage contorted her perfect features and almost made her look ugly.
“But to go back to what I was saying before,” Mr. Barron said, frowning at me. “There does seem to be some kind of magic at work here. Miss Plunkett, whatever, er, spell you used on yourself to change your appearance, may I suggest that you remove it as soon as possible to avoid causing any further ruckus?”
“I…I can’t, Mr. Barron. I’m sorry,” I said humbly.
“Emma is Fae—she has always been Fae,” Lachlan explained for me.
“She was under a geas and Lachlan removed it,” Bran said, picking up the tale. “What you are seeing now is Emma’s true self—this is how she looks without the spell that has been on her all her life.”