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.”
“She can no more go back to her original, unremarkable appearance than you can regrow your balding hair,” Lachlan added with a straight face.
Mr. Barron went red in the face and frowned.
“Is that right? Well then, how can we avoid this kind of fiasco in the future?”
“I, uh, don’t know,” I admitted. “I didn’t mean to do it—they just came up to me, Mr. Barron—honestly.”