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  Alayne danced in a circle, her arms outspread, her face to the sky. She would be a Quadriweave! With a squeal of joy, she took off at a sprint along the pathway, enjoying the solidity of the earth element as it embraced her feet upon contact. She wheeled around the corner and skidded to a stop.

  Daymon’s group lounged lazily along the other side of the rock wall, laughing uproariously.

  “The kid started shaking and tried to run. I think he even peed on himself. He didn’t come out of his dormitory room for the rest of the night. Professor Brinks was right there, too, staring at the couch where we were sitting. I couldn’t believe the kid actually fell for it.”

  Alayne tried to backtrack before they could notice her, but Cornelia’s voice stopped her.

  “Well, well, look who’s here, guys. If it isn’t Alayne the Pain.”

  Chapter 11

  Cornelia stood up and took a step toward Alayne. Her sneer held no friendliness. “Did you get lost, Pain? Kind of far away from your usual group, aren’t you? Here all by yourself?”

  Alayne didn’t answer. She pushed her hands farther into her pockets and started to walk by the group. Daymon jumped up and grabbed her arm.

  “Not so fast, Pain. I want to know what you’ve done with my book.”

  Alayne stared up at him. “What book?”

  “The book I was reading at the library. I went back to check it out, and they said it was checked out to you.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s mine, and I’m going to take it.”

  Alayne rolled her eyes. “It’s not yours, Daymon; it’s the library’s, so stop acting like I’m committing a High Court crime.”

  Daymon glared at her. “Are you trying to be smart with me?”

  “Yes, I am trying to be smart with you,” Alayne shot back, “but you aren’t holding up your end of the deal.” She yanked her arm out of his grasp.

  Cornelia’s angry visage appeared next to Daymon’s shoulder. “Are you calling him stupid?”

  Discomfort spread over Daymon’s face. “You’re not helping, Cornelia,” he muttered.

  Alayne ignored him and planted her hands on her hips, fury coursing through her. “So what if I am? This is between Daymon and me, and you can keep your nose ring out of it.”

  Cornelia’s face reddened to a near-purple. A moment later, her fist flew toward Alayne’s face, lurching to a stop when Daymon’s hand caught her arm. His furious eyes blazed as he stared at Cornelia. “I said, you’re not helping, Cornelia.”

  Cornelia yanked at her arm, but Daymon didn’t relax his grip. Her booted foot lashed out, catching Alayne in the shin. Alayne hadn’t been expecting it; she lost her balance and fell, knocking her head against the wall with a thud. Stars burst across her vision. Embarrassed and angry, she struggled to get her feet under her, but before she could, she heard a shout.

  “Get away from her!”

  She squinted upward to see Kyle step in front of Daymon, blocking her view of the bully. Kyle’s hands were balled into fists, the veins corded through his forearms. “You want a fight?” he yelled, obviously thinking that Daymon had been the one to hit Alayne. “I’ll give you a fight.” Kyle’s fist flew forward and Daymon’s head whipped back, but it didn’t stop him. He slammed his fist into Kyle’s stomach, bending the hockey captain double.

  The two traded punches, and Alayne tried to crawl out of the way. Cornelia and the others cheered on Daymon. His nose bled, but his eyes were still clear. Kyle bounced on the balls of his feet, slugging punch for punch.

  Without warning, the shriek of a gale wind blew around the corner. Everything in its path flew off the ground. Nearby statues fell over, shattering their heads and breaking off limbs. Daymon and Kyle were both hurled into a nearby hedge. Cornelia and her friends dove for cover, but not before jackets and pants had ripped from their bodies.

  The wind did not affect Alayne at all. She lay in the middle of the chaos in her still pocket of air and watched it all happen. It was over in a moment. The wind died down to nothing, and Alayne tried to push herself to her feet.

  Suddenly, Jayme was there, helping her up. Her head throbbed where it had hit the wall; she touched it gingerly with the tips of her fingers. Jayme checked her temple, and Alayne saw rage flicker in his gaze.

  “The scumbag. I should have finished him off.”

  “I’m okay. He wasn’t the one who hit me. It was Corn.”

  “Then I’ll go kill her.”

  “Just drop it, Jay.” Alayne flinched as Jayme tenderly touched her hairline.

  The shadow of a smile appeared on his lips. “It looks fine, but you should probably ice it, just in case. Wish I could make an ice-cube for you like you did for me.” He blew into his hands and opened them to reveal a few ice-crystals.

  Alayne grinned. “Slush is better than nothing, I guess.” The pain in her temple was already disappearing.

  Jayme held the slush carefully against the side of her head. “Let’s go find Professor Grace.”

  Alayne shook her head. “No, I’m fine. This’ll all blow over soon.”

  “But Al, they deserve to be suspended from Clayborne.”

  “Listen, Jayme.” Alayne laid her hand on his arm. “It’ll all blow over if we just leave it alone. I don’t want to cause anyone any trouble.”

  “Not even for them?” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.

  “I don’t want to make a big deal out of it,” Alayne snapped. “You’re already blowing this out of proportion, and the professors will too if we tell them. So let’s just leave it be for now, okay?” She let her hand fall back to her side. “And thanks, by the way.” She nodded toward the chaos surrounding them. Daymon and Kyle were just now beginning to pull themselves out of the hedge. The others were looking around dazedly. The ones who had lost pants tried their best to make themselves as unseen as possible.

  Jayme shrugged. “No sweat.” He draped his arm over her shoulders and started up the path. “Let’s go find Marysa.”

  “I need to thank Kyle, too, Jay.” As Alayne looked up at him, she thought she saw a shadow cross his face, but it was gone before another second had passed.

  “Yeah, tell him I’m sorry for throwing him into the hedge, too. He was so close to Daymon, and I didn’t want to take the chance of missing my target.” He grinned. He gave her a nudge and ambled off down the path toward an arch in the hedge.

  Alayne glanced back. Kyle stood next to a toppled fountain, watching her, his face an unreadable mask. She turned and walked toward him.

  “Thanks, Kyle. That was—brave of you.” She scuffed the ground with her toe. “I really appreciate it.”

  Kyle shrugged. “Nah. It was nothing.” He carefully felt his eye, where Alayne could already see a dark bruise growing. “Just another notch on my scoreboard, right?” He winked with his good eye and then flinched.

  “Well.” Alayne blushed. She formed an ice-cube without needing to breathe into her palm. “Here.” She dropped it into his hand. “For your eye.”

  She started to turn away, but Kyle fell into step beside her. “Alayne, I know things are sort of—awkward right now, but I—I was wondering if you would go to the Christmas dance with me?”

  Alayne stopped walking and stared at him. “The Christmas dance?”

  “Yeah, you know, all those posters that are up all over Clayborne? The ones that say, ‘Christmas Dance’?”

  Alayne’s mind was completely blank. “Oh,” she said in a small voice.

  “So...?”

  Alayne licked her lips. “Just as friends, right?”

  Kyle’s gaze fell, and he kicked the gravel. “Sure, sure,” he muttered. “That’s fine, I guess.”

  An awkward silence fell. Kyle walked with her toward the front of the arboretum, but as soon as the other students came into view, he left her side.

  Alayne spotted Marysa leaning over some of the butter daisies in their portion of the arboretum. She hurried over to her.

  Marysa didn�
�t look up. “I just love these things, Layne.” She poured some more heat on them. “I wonder where Jordyn pulled them from; I’ve never seen anything even at home that looked like these, and my mom has a whole greenhouse of different kinds of flowers. Professor Grace called them butter daisies, and I think...” She looked up and stopped short at the look on Alayne’s face. “What’s the matter?”

  “Didn’t you see Jayme?”

  “No, what happened?”

  Alayne looked down and shrugged. “I ran into Daymon and his friends, and they got mean. Kyle took offense and started a boxing match, and then Jayme appeared out of nowhere and blew everybody away. Literally.”

  “Ah, I wish I had seen it. That would have been awesome. Jayme’s getting pretty good with his element.”

  Alayne nodded. All the First-Years seemed to be getting the knack of how to bend their elements. Alayne had been practicing her artwork. The night before, she’d done a self-portrait using ice, and sculpted every detail of her face, including the dimple in her right cheek and the wisps of fly-away hair that always managed to escape her braid. The thin hairs had kept breaking, but Alayne had patiently restarted them and tempered them several times until they were thin and fine and hard as a needle. She had opened her closet and carefully placed the sculpture on the top shelf in the corner. Then she’d notched the bend so it wouldn’t melt all over her clothes. She’d grinned to herself as she had thought of her parents’ old-fashioned refrigerator/freezer at home. Who needed those things anymore?

  The rest of the First-Years were gathering on the pier again, and the boat was in sight. Alayne and Marysa stood and meandered toward it.

  Alayne took a deep breath and blew it out. “Did anyone ask you to the Christmas dance yet, Marysa?” she asked quietly, glancing around.

  “Why in the world would anyone be asking anyone else to the Christmas dance? It’s only October.”

  “I guess some people want to get their bid in early.”

  Marysa looked at her sharply. “Why? Who asked you? Jayme?” She read Alayne’s expression. “Oh, I see. Oh, Layne, that’s awkward. Did you tell him you’d rather go with Jayme?”

  “Who says I want to go with Jayme?” Alayne snapped miserably. “And no, I wouldn’t tell him something like that. That’s horribly rude.”

  Marysa shrugged. “My sister did it. In fact, I think she’s done it every year. She’s always got a new crush, but the guys she likes never seem to catch on until half the school’s asked her each year. She keeps turning guys down until the one she likes finally gets a clue.”

  “Do you think someone will ask you this year?”

  “I’ve got lots of guy friends here, and maybe I could go with one of them. I don’t know of anyone who likes me, you know, like that, so who knows?”

  They had reached the boat by this time. Alayne spotted Jayme helping Professor Grace swing several crates of some of the prettiest flowers onto the craft.

  Alayne teasingly gave her friend a nudge. “Do you like anyone, you know, like that?”

  Marysa’s expression slammed shut. She hurried forward. “Let’s get on board. The best spots’ll be taken if we don’t hurry.”

  Alayne furrowed her brow, but followed her friend. The trip back upriver was unusually quiet. Marysa seemed to have disappeared inside herself, and without her continuous chatter, Alayne noticed more often the wide gaps of silence in her conversation with Jayme. She mentally shrugged it off. She’d get it out of Marysa later.

  * * *

  As the semester drew to a close, Alayne’s classes became more and more rigorous. Final exams were in the spring, but the professors required a written examination just before Christmas.

  In Points of Motion-Stop, the gong sounded at the end of Sprynge’s boring lecture, and the class scooted back their chairs, throwing bags over their shoulders.

  “Don’t forget, your essays are due at the next class period,” Professor Sprynge called above the bustle. “And please make sure you sign up if you plan to attend the Christmas dance. Sign-up sheets are on the wall in the common room.”

  Jayme followed Alayne to the chute. They squeezed in with nine other students, and the car dropped them toward the common room. “Are you going to the Christmas dance?” Jayme asked from where he was wedged up against Alayne’s shoulder.

  “I guess.” Alayne had seriously considered pretending to be sick and thus avoid the whole awkward mess.

  Jayme was silent for a second. The car stopped, and the doors sprang open. The students stumbled out into the Common Room.

  “Want to go with me?” He stepped out of the chute ahead of Alayne.

  Alayne’s spirits sank like a rock. “I ... can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Kyle asked me a while back.”

  Jayme stared at her and then turned and walked toward the entrance to the boys’ dormitories.

  Alayne hurried after him. “Jayme, I—it’d be nice to go with you—it’s just as friends.”

  A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Is it?” He faced her, anger churning in his brown eyes. He shook his head and turned to go.

  Alayne caught his sleeve before he could take another step. “Just what do you mean by that?”

  Jayme whirled around. “I mean that you have feelings for him, don’t you? Don’t you?” he shouted. “I’ve tried to be understanding, Al. I gave you space, even after you broke up with him because you were so obvious. Every time the guy walked in the room, you’d follow him with your eyes—”

  “I did not follow—”

  “What an idiot I was to think you might have ever gotten over him.”

  A general hush had settled over the surrounding students, most of whom were watching the scene with obvious enjoyment. Thankfully, Alayne didn’t see Kyle in the group, but she knew the story would get back to him quickly.

  “It’s not like that, Jay. Please, let’s just go somewhere and talk about this.” She glanced at the group of people, embarrassment coursing through her.

  Jayme jerked free of her hand and pushed his way past four Third-Year girls whose eyes were way too eager. He hit the entrance to the boys’ dorms and took the steps three at a time.

  Alayne dropped her gaze to the floor, mortified. Whirling, she ran to the chute and pressed the first button she could. The chute’s doors banged shut and she flew upward, past the dorms and the classrooms, the storage facilities, all the way to the shuttle landing. When she stepped out, the platform was empty. Frigid wind whipped across Alayne’s cheeks and froze her nose. Alayne had left her coat in her dorm room, not expecting to be outside. She shivered miserably, but refused to get back in the chute.

  She walked to the edge of the platform and sat down, swinging her feet in the empty air that surrounded her. The clouds were almost eye level. The top of the spire above her disappeared into grayish mist. She wrapped her arms around herself.

  Was Jayme right? Did she have feelings for Kyle?

  She pictured him in his hockey gear, skating backward in front of her down the rink, laughing at her as she tried to get around him to make a shot. Handsome, most definitely. Nice guy, completely. Fun to be around, check. Tickly butterflies in her stomach when he was around? Sometimes.

  But then why, when she pictured Jayme next to Kyle, did Kyle fade completely into oblivion?

  Jayme, with his curly brown locks, his brown eyes, his high cheekbones, his laughing lips.

  The wind had grown stronger; Alayne braced herself to stay on the platform. This high, the gusts could be gale-force.

  Alayne chewed on her bottom lip. If Jayme had asked her to the dance first, she would have jumped at the chance. If she still supposedly had feelings for Kyle, why had she been so reluctant to say yes to him?

  The longer she sat and tried to make sense of the situation, the more forceful Alayne’s conclusion: Jayme had stolen into her heart when she wasn’t looking. Her good friend had become something more. And it was too late to do anything about it. He’d written her off. />
  The tears that formed in Alayne’s eyes had nothing to do with the harsh wind blowing against them. The lump in her throat made it hurt to swallow. She buried her face in her hands, miserable.

  The chute doors banged open behind her. Alayne jumped and half-turned, but the hand she put down to steady herself slipped. The next second, she toppled from the edge of the platform, free-falling through the icy air.

  Chapter 12

  Terror paralyzed Alayne for a half-second before her senses sharpened. Every detail presented itself to her brain with alarming clarity. She heard Marysa’s scream from where she stood on the edge of the shuttle platform. Her stomach rose into her chest, and she wondered what it would be like to die. Her parents’ faces flashed through her mind, and she wished she had been able to say goodbye. Windows flew by, and the trees on the ground seemed much larger than they had appeared from the shuttle platform.

  The dormitory floors screamed past and then the gymnasium. The ground was close now.

  All at once, Alayne could feel the air around her. Not with her skin like normal, but with that Elemental sixth sense that let her touch the essence of the air. With a powerful surge of will, she pulled the air into a wide cushion beneath her, curling it into currents that fought her freefall, slowing her. It wasn’t enough. She tightened her grasp, digging harder into the element strands, clutching it so tightly that the cushion completely arrested her fall.

  She buffeted to a standstill, arms and legs spread as she floated on the updraft. Her heart beat wildly as she looked around with wide eyes. Her breath came in shallow gasps. She was about fifteen feet from the ground. The entrance to Clayborne was up the sidewalk from where she rested in the air. She had literally almost landed on the doorstep.

  She slackened her grip on the air by a fraction, and she slid slowly downward toward the ground. When she could finally put her toes on the sidewalk, she let go of the element strands, and the updraft dissipated.

  Alayne shook her head, trying to regain normal perspective. Five seconds ago, she had been sitting on the shuttle platform. Somewhere in those five seconds, she’d learned how to use her third element.