Zale

I had thought that maybe discovering my brother and trying to connect with him would pull me out of the awful numbing fog that had taken over my life and my mind when Harlow died. That's not what happened, though.

It was still hard to get out of bed in the morning and whenever I woke up from a nap, and I napped whenever I had the opportunity. I couldn't even pinpoint when I started sleeping so much. It happened slowly, I think, over time. The waking world didn't hold my interest, so I slept. And sleeping so much made me tired, so I slept some more. The times when I had to stay awake longer than usual were almost unbearable. I knew I needed to break out of this cycle before life lost what little meaning it had left, but I had no idea how to do it.

Astrea's presence on campus might not have been a magical solution to the depression that had sunk its claws into me, but he did help. And anyway, some days were just better than others.

Nearly a month after Astrea came to Ashen Oak, I had a particularly bad day of class. Every period, my students were chatty and energetic. They were completely unfocused on the lesson about cell structure, and this was an unusually fun class, I thought. We were making cells out of Jell-o and using all edible components to represent the different parts of a cell. Class would end with students getting to eat their creations. It was a damn good lesson, one I had created in the time before. My class should be excited about this, not distracted. They shouldn't be so energetic until after they had eaten their treats and I set them loose on the unsuspecting teachers of the campus.

I was starting to feel really irritated by the time my final class period was over. Most students had placed maybe half their components. Candies were strewn across their desks and they haphazardly scooped them up, leaving sticky messes behind, before blithely leaving the room, chattering as they went.

One person lingered.

"People suck," Astrea said as he surveyed the carnage with delicately lifted brows that were mostly obscured by the hair that flopped onto his forehead.

He pulled a few paper towels off the roll by the sink and started wiping down desks for me while I watched him in utter puzzlement.

"I'm not sure I'm supposed to agree with you when you're talking about my students, but yeah. People suck," I agreed. He snorted and ripped off another handful of paper towels, which he passed to me.

"I'm helping, not doing all the work," he said.

I frowned, but started helping him clean up the classroom. "Thanks for staying," I said after we worked in silence for too long.

"No problem. I don't get why everyone's so worked up about a new teacher anyway," Astrea said while he scrubbed at a green spot left behind by Everlasting Gobstoppers that must have gotten wet.

These kids didn't deserve candy biology lessons, I thought caustically as I encountered a similar stain on the desk in front of me. I briefly considered just letting the desk stain, but I really didn't want to deal with the lecture I'd get from our janitor, Stan. He was a mean bastard even on a good day.

I was almost done with the stain when Astrea's words registered. "A new teacher?" I asked. How had I not heard about this? And why were we bringing on a new teacher partway into the spring semester?

"You should check your e-mail. I guess he's fae? It's weird, I kind of always thought they were made up. I bet Mrs. Morris got mixed up and meant to say he's a pixie. But everyone's pretty excited."

"Oh, fae are real," I corrected. I had never met one, but I had been schooled in many different supernatural species. Fae were just one of them. Shouldn't Astrea, who also had a royal upbringing, know this?

The conversation lulled while Astrea and I finished cleaning the desks. He was on his way out when I desperately grasped for something I could say to keep him talking with me. "I was going to drive to the beach for a swim. Care to join me?"

I could see by the light in his eyes that Astrea wanted to say yes, so it was surprising when he said, "I'd better not. Have a good weekend, Mr. Knightley."

He darted out of the room before I could get out another word. I glared at the spot of melted Gobstopper I hadn't quite managed to remove and decided to leave it for Stan. I headed out, determined to spend the rest of the evening in bed, and regretted ever leaving the classroom after three steps. Hattie, a witch who taught Math, appeared out of nowhere and hooked her arm through mine. She pulled me in the opposite direction before I realized what was happening. "Impromptu faculty meeting," she explained.

"I really can't-" I protested, but Hattie cut me off.

"C'mon, this won't take long and our contracted hours aren't technically over for half an hour," she said. "Besides, you're my favorite person in this joint. If I'm suffering, you're suffering."

"Funny way to show you care," I muttered, but stopped fighting her. We were almost to the conference room now, anyway, and other faculty members were mingling in little clusters.

Hattie loudly said, "So then I found the tangent of the second derivative."

"What?"

"Go along with it," she hissed as we slid into seats in the back of the room. "No one will bother us if they think we're talking math."

"You're a genius," I whispered back. "The inverse of the function... algebra... analysis," I said, pitching my voice high enough to carry. Thinking of mathematical terms was harder than I would have thought. Had it really been so long since I got out of school?

Hattie snickered, but then her eyes widened and I caught sight of Betty heading in our direction. "And then I realized that the limit does not exist," Hattie said. Betty shifted directions and joined a small huddle of English teachers instead.

"I should have gone into math," I realized. I loved the sciences, but it was way better to have a subject you could use to put up a social force field.

The headmistress, Lana Morris, entered along with a man who could only be the fae teacher whose arrival had apparently stirred up my students all day. I despised him on principle for wrecking my best lesson.

Lana's entry was a cue for everyone to take a seat, and our corner stayed vacant save myself and Hattie, who glared at anyone who looked like they might approach. I might know almost nothing about Hattie, but times like this were the reason she was my favorite person at this school.

"Thank you all for making room in your schedules for this. I know it was last-minute," Lana began. "And special thanks to those of you who brought in your less e-mail savvy companions."

Hattie smirked at me and whispered "You." I kicked her foot under the table. Kicking was by far my favorite part of having legs.

"I just wanted to take a few minutes to introduce Fen Martritz, who will be teaching Interspecies Relations and doing a series of lectures on fae culture. Since the semester has already started, we've had to do a little creative arranging to incorporate this into the students' schedules. We'll be cutting class sizes in the other humanities courses and switching some students to Fen's. Watch your e-mails; new assignments will hit your inboxes on Saturday and the transition will take place Monday morning."

Whispers went up around the room. Class sizes were bigger than ever this year, so people were understandably excited. It didn't impact me, as a science teacher, and I glanced at the door, wondering if I could make it out of here without being dragged back.

Probably not.

"While I have you here..." Lana continued for what felt like ages, but was probably just a few minutes. I tuned it out. Anything important would be in my inbox the next time I felt like checking it, and it had been a long week. I was ready for a break. I propped my elbows up on the table and rested my face in my hands, shutting my eyes and pretending I was alone. It was easy enough to tune out the conversation around me until the sound of chair legs squealing against tiles went up in an ear-piercing chorus to signal the end of the meeting.

Most people were clustered around the table against one wall, which held the usual array of snacks and pastries. Several of my usually-serious coworkers held little juice pouches and I captured a mental image for examination later since something about the sight seemed like it could be funny if only I weren't so exhausted.

Rather than join the chatting throng of faculty, I got up and headed for the door. Only, just as I had been stopped from going to my suite before the meeting, I was stopped now by someone tapping on my shoulder.

I turned to frown at the culprit, and was taken aback when I realized it was the new teacher. What had Lana said his name was?

"Um, hello. I'm Fen," he said with a bright smile and wide, eager eyes.

I took a moment to study him since this was my first time seeing a fae up close and he looked more inhuman than I would have expected. His ears rose in points through a cloud of golden hair, and in this case, I did mean "golden." It looked like fine strands of metal, glinting in the light in a way human hair never could. His eyes looked golden, too, but brighter. With skin as dark and smooth as his, he made a striking picture. And though he was taller than most humans, he was still shorter than me by a good few inches. I was used to looking much lower to make eye contact while outside of the ocean, and it was a little disconcerting not to have such a height advantage. My scowl wouldn't be half so intimidating now.

Fen kept watching me for some kind of response instead of taking a hint, so I begrudgingly said, "Hi, I'm Zale." And just so he wouldn't take this as an invitation to strike up a conversation, I added, "Have a good weekend."

I turned and, finally, escaped back to the peace of my bed.

--

Monday morning, I woke up stupidly early in the morning and, groaning, dragged myself out of bed to go to the pool. Over the weekend, an aching loneliness had set in to the point that I nearly went back home to my mother. The only reason I hadn't was because I really didn't want her to realize just how unhappy I was. She might insist I quit my job here, and if I had to go back to court life right now, I might just break under the pressure of it all.

Besides, once I went back to Rell for good, my mother would start actively grooming me to take the throne. She couldn't find out that I wasn't a fit ruler right now. I couldn't take over for her even if I wanted to, not since my magic had gone awry in the months since Harlow's passing.

The law was clear. In order to rule, a mer had to have siren magic. It was why my mother had done what she did before I was born, which in turn was why I had grown up without a father. That couldn't all be for nothing.

I had to keep from moving back to Rell until I straightened out my magic again. I just... had to.

So, yeah. The weekend sucked. I stayed holed up in my suite since I couldn't go home and since every time I ventured out for even a few minutes, Fen appeared seemingly out of nowhere to strike up a peppy conversation I had no interest in. I was running out of half-polite ways to excuse myself.

This was the first morning I had managed to get out of bed early enough to maybe run into Astrea at the pool, and surely it was too early for Fen to be up and out. I was actually kind of looking forward to some more time spent around my brother, even if he did seem determined to distance himself on a personal level. I blamed the fact that I was his teacher, and I was determined to find a way around it. Not that I had any kind of plan other than pure stubbornness. If I kept trying to make a connection, it had to work eventually... didn't it?

I got to the pool before Astrea did, but I knew he would arrive soon. In the meantime, I shifted into my mer form and swam a few laps. It did feel good to move through the water, even if it was too still and a little stale.

I surfaced in time to hear the door to the pool squeak open and I put on the best smile I could manage as I turned toward it. Only, it wasn't Astrea standing there in the doorway. No, it was Fen, and he was gaping at me, totally frozen.

"You're..." he trailed off and cleared his throat with an audible gulp. "You're... you... a tail?"

I looked down at my tail and swished it through the water a few times, admiring the way it caught the light. "Looks that way," I agreed sarcastically.

Fen shuffled forward on what looked like unsteady legs and sank into one of the poolside lounge seats. His eyes were open so wide, I could see the whites all around his irises. I was laughing before I could recognize the feeling of genuine amusement bubbling up in me. His expression was just too funny. And then I laughed a little more, because it felt so good to find anything funny at all.

Fen's cheeks darkened with embarrassment. "Sorry. I was just surprised."

Since this was more or less the reaction I'd gotten from everyone when they saw me in my mer form for the first time, I knew better than to be too offended. For some reason, Fen's reaction was just funnier. "Don't worry about it."

Fen looked around the pool room, but his eyes kept darting to look at me. I started getting antsy under the attention and my amusement quickly evaporated, leaving behind only irritation. "What are you doing here, anyway?" I asked ungraciously. He obviously wasn't going to swim, since he wasn't wearing trunks and had no bag with him that could contain them.

His cheeks heated again. "I was just... um.... Exploring the campus."

"At seven in the morning on a Monday?" I asked dubiously.

Fen nodded uncertainly, then again with more gusto. "Yeah."

I didn't believe him, but I didn't see much point in responding. That would only continue a conversation that had gone on way too long already. Instead, I sank back into the water and regretted leaving my bed that morning.