The Faerie Prince (Creepy Hollow, #2) (2 page)

I sit up in a sudden panic as it hits me.

Oh, crap.

Somewhere in between breaking the Guild’s most important rule and having my heart crushed by my first and only boyfriend, I became just like every other guardian trainee: I forgot to do my homework. First. Time. Ever. I’ve always been that annoying person who finishes a written assignment at least two days before the due date. Until this morning, when my brain decided to remind me that we were given a project during my one week suspension. The due date?

Today.

Two and a half hours from now, to be exact.

I hurry back to my table in the Guild’s library with another pile of books in my arms. Catching my foot on the chair leg, I send the books sliding across the table. “Oh,
come on
!” I kick the chair back, plop myself down, and grab the nearest book.

“Stop freaking out, Vi,” Honey says from across the table. “This is completely normal for just about everyone else in our class. Did you see Aria and Jasmine over there?” I nod without removing my eyes from the page in front of me. “And do they look stressed out?”

I glance up. Aria is reading a message on her amber, her chair tilted so far back she must be using magic to keep from crashing to the floor, and Jasmine is staring into space. I return my gaze to the textbook. “Somehow, I don’t exactly find that comforting, Honey.”

“Okay, bad example,” she says, pulling her own amber out of her pocket. She giggles at whatever message is waiting for her—probably from her boyfriend—and reaches for her stylus to reply.

I scan the page in front of me, seeing nothing. What am I looking for again? Oh, right, using kelpie hair as an ingredient in—

“Attention, fifth years.” I look up and see Amon, the head librarian, poking his head out of his office. “I’ve just received a message from one of your mentors.” He takes a scrap of paper from the sprite sitting on his shoulder and looks at it. “You are to assemble in lesson room four after you’ve handed in your written projects. Someone will be talking to you about your final assignments.”

Honey wiggles her eyebrows at me and grins. “Ooh, our final assignments. Exciting! Everyone’s been talking about who they’re going to be paired with and where they’ll be sent.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they have.” And I’ve been trying not to think about how a disastrous pairing could ruin my already slim chance of graduating at the top of my class.

“Oh, Tina wants to talk to me,” Honey says, examining her amber once more. “I’ll see you downstairs.” She grabs her bag from under the table and heads out to wherever her mentor is.

I raise my eyes to the enchanted sundial on the wall over the library door. Two hours left.

I skim through pages and scribble down important facts in what I hope are coherent sentences. Hushed voices and the occasional ripple of laughter fade into the background of my thoughts. Right now it’s just me and the mundane facts of kelpies and their hair. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t do this project when I was calm—I probably would have fallen asleep. I reach the required length of the report, sit back, and read through the whole thing, making use of the
vanish and replace
spell far more than I usually have to.

Half an hour left.

With a glance toward Amon’s office—he doesn’t approve of magic in the library—I sweep my hand across the table and watch the scattered books pile themselves neatly on top of one another. I push my chair back and head for the row where I found them.

It takes several minutes, but eventually I’m kneeling on the floor pushing the last book back into its place on the lowest shelf. I’m about to stand when a snort of laughter disturbs the quiet. I tilt
A Collection of Magical Water Creatures
forward and peek through a gap between two books on the other side of the shelf. Dale and Rush, two fellow fifth years, are sitting on the floor reading a piece of paper that, for some reason, has the ability to send them into hysterics. Or it could be a blank page coupled with the effects of some kind of giggling potion. Dale is enough of an idiot to sample just about anything in a bottle, and Rush isn’t far behind him.

A book slides into the gap and blocks my view. “What’s going on? You guys been sampling Aria’s happy cookies again?”

And that would be Ryn. My ex-friend, ex-enemy, current ‘sort of friend’. Although, that last part hasn’t exactly been working out so well. A few days after we narrowly escaped Zell’s dungeon, Ryn brought his little sister Calla over so she could give me a thank-you-for-saving-me-from-the-bad-faerie letter she’d written herself. That was followed by some awkward conversation—probably due to the fact that Ryn was trying to be nice, a skill he has yet to master—after which they left. Two weeks later and, other than the glare I received when I tried to speak to him during training, we’ve had no further contact.

I’m still trying to figure out whether I should be disappointed or relieved.

“The third years have been copying us,” Rush says. There’s a rustle of paper. “See? Guys have started writing hot lists and passing them around. And look who’s at the top of this one.”

“Does that say Tora?” Ryn asks.

“Yes!” Dale says with a hoot.

Tora? My mentor?
I swallow, feeling more than a little grossed out.

“So what?” Ryn says. “She’s kind of hot.”

“But she’s a
mentor
,” Dale says. “She’s probably, like, four hundred years old. It’s creepy.”

Creepy, yes. Four hundred years old? Not even close.

I’m about to head back to my desk when Rush says, “Well, my hot list is in definite need of an update. Did you see Violet last time she was in the Fish Bowl? Man, she has definitely moved into slot number one on my list.”

Eww!
Okay, I am now officially grossed out.

“Of course I saw her,” Dale says, all trace of laughter now gone from his voice. He was the one inside the Fish Bowl with me—and I greatly enjoyed kicking his butt.

Rush laughs. “Oh, yeah, I remember. I guess you can’t see past your bruised ego to her super hotness, can you?”

As much as their conversation disgusts me, I have to admit there’s a teeny, tiny part of me that’s flattered to be included on someone’s hot list. If only it wasn’t Rush. I lean back against the shelf, wondering if Nate thinks I’m super hot—or if he thinks of me at all.

“What about you, Ryn?” Rush asks.

I feel the shelf move slightly against my back as Ryn says, “You know I don’t give a goblin’s fuzzy ass about your hot lists.”

“Yeah, didn’t you know, Rush?” Dale says. “No one here is
good enough
for Ryn.”

“Exactly,” Ryn says. “Why settle for a giggling girl when you can have a real woman?”

“Ha! A real woman?” Rush says. “Is that what you call the crazy Underground beings you hang out with at Poisyn?”

Okay, now I definitely don’t need to hear any more. I push myself up.

“I thought I should remind you two that you haven’t handed your assignments in yet,” Ryn says to his friends.

Crap, I haven’t handed mine in either. I give Dale and Rush a few seconds to get up and out of their row before I hurry forward—and come face-to-face with Ryn.

“Eavesdropping again, Pixie Sticks?” he asks.

I fold my arms over my chest. “I believe I have a right to eavesdrop on conversations that include me.”

A sly smile creeps across his face. “And did you like what you heard?”

I hesitate a moment before saying, “No comment.”

He laughs, shakes his head, and turns to leave.

“Wait,” I say before I can stop myself.

He glances over his shoulder before saying, “Yeah?” It infuriates me how unconcerned he looks.

“I really don’t get you, Ryn.”

His eyebrows pull together. “What are you talking about?”

“Uh, remember that time you sat on my bed and asked me if I wanted to try being friends again? It’s only been two weeks since then, and you’ve already forgotten!”

“What do you mean? I came over with Calla last week. You’re not expecting me to visit every day, are you?”

“Of course not, that would be creepy. But I didn’t expect to receive a death stare from you during training either.”

“You were distracting me.”

“From what? You were tying your shoelace!”

“A very important task when one is about to enter the Fish Bowl.”

I clench my hands into fists and remind myself that throwing a book at him probably wouldn’t be the most constructive move.

He sighs. “Look, I just figured it would be easier this way.”

“You figured
what
would be easier?”

He shrugs. “You know, not talking while we’re at the Guild. Everyone knows that you and I don’t get along, so if we suddenly started being chummy, there’d be all these questions to answer, and it would get really boring and tedious, and we’d waste valuable training time.”

So that’s how it is? I shake my head and walk past him. “Let me know when you want to do this friends thing properly.” I roll up my spare reed paper, stick it into the side of my training bag, and head out of the library.

Ten minutes left.

“You know the sundial is slow, right?” Ryn shouts after me.

Crapping crap
. I hurry down the stairs two at a time to the second floor, then jog along the corridor until I reach the five tree stumps outside the mentors’ lounge. The stump on the right with
Fifth Years
engraved into the bark is the only one with an open circle at the top. I dump my bag on the floor, pull out my rolled up report, and slide it in. Three seconds later, twigs emerge at the edges of the circle, growing and twisting around each other until the top of the stump is sealed.

Whew, just in time.

I run down the stairs, across the foyer—glancing briefly upward to check that the protective enchantments are still the right color—and toward the lesson rooms. I peek into the fourth one, relaxing when I see there are no mentors present yet. I slip into a chair beside Honey.

“Guess what?” she says, leaning toward me. “I think you and I might have been put together for the final.”

“What?” I scoop some loose hair behind my ear. “How do you know?”

“Well, Tina didn’t actually say your name, but she said I’d been given the best possible partner, which is obviously you.”

I can’t help smiling at the compliment. “It could be Ryn. He’s also pretty good.”

“No way.” Honey makes a face. “Tina wouldn’t have been nearly as enthusiastic. She dislikes Ryn as much as I do.”

“Oh. Well, that’s great then!” I start to feel a little less anxious about this final assignment. If I had to choose someone, it would probably be Honey. She’s the closest thing I have to a friend and easy to work with.

I notice movement by the door and look up, but it’s only Ryn. Dale waves him over. “Dude, since it’s Friday,” he says loudly enough for everyone to hear, “I was thinking I could come over and we could try that new—”

“Nope, sorry. I have plans tonight.” Ryn drops into the empty chair in front of Dale.

“What plans?” Dale demands, as though it’s inconceivable his friend might have made a plan that doesn’t involve him.

“Do we really need to know?” Honey whispers beside me.

“Just plans,” Ryn says before I can answer her.

Dale leans forward in his desk. “Is this about a girl?”

After a pause, Ryn says, “Yes.”

“Dude!” Dale punches Ryn’s shoulder. “And you didn’t say anything? Who is it?”

“You don’t know her.”

“Come on, man,” Rush says. “Spill the details.”

“No.”

“Fine,” Dale says. “All the more reason I should come over tonight. I have to meet this mysterious—”

“Don’t even think about it, Dale.”

“Hey, can you guys shut it?” Aria says from across the room. “We don’t all need to know about Ryn’s love life.”

“You got that right,” Honey mutters.

“Good morning, trainees.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” I whisper as Bran walks in, officially putting an end to any discussions. Of all our mentors, Bran has probably taught us the most, so it’s fitting that he’s the one to talk to us about our final assignment. “Everyone here?” he asks, sitting on the edge of a desk.