Page 9 of Skyblossom
“Oh, for sure. The Silvervales have a storied history in spectral magics. Her mom is a great diviner too.” I looked out the window at the Grounds going by below us, colorful boughs of magic plants wrapped up in the winding paths coming out from the Citadel at the heart of campus, and I felt a nervous rush in my chest at the sight of a pair of luminis, again, keeping up alongside our car, their wings glowing brighter as they did. Seriously? Was that another one of Cadence’s enchantments, that the magic birds known as a sign of love kept following us around? What a time to admit to this. “Um, well. I should preface this by saying that Lumi is a bit weird. She’s a really good diviner, so she’s used to her intuition being correct, and it’s hard to get her head out of an idea once she’s gotten there. But she, um, she thinks you and I are, um, well. That we’re—” I shrugged, trying for casual and offhanded. “I don’t know, flirting? That you’re trying to come onto me?”
“Does—does she,” she said, a nervous catch in her voice. My throat felt a little tight. That kind of reaction made it sound a little like she was.
“She wants me not to go seeing anybody until I meet mytrue love,so—she’s protective.”
She gave me an odd look. “What? How are you… going to find your true love if she won’t let you see people?”
“Well.” I scratched the back of my head. “She’s had a, um… this sounds silly to say out loud. She’s had a vision of me meeting my true love, uh… on the last day of classes this semester.” I laughed nervously, looking at anything but Cadence. “See, I, uh, I might be friends with everybody on campus, but I’m, um… it may actually surprise you a little then to learn that I’m hopeless in matters of love! I can never make anything work with a girl. And so, um… well, I asked her if she could try to read my romantic future, and…” I shrugged awkwardly. “Well. Apparently I’m set to have a dramatic… meeting… with the loveof my life. On the last day of classes. So! She doesn’t want me getting too close to other girls before then.”
“Oh…” She stared at me, wide-eyed, studying, and I felt like I was blushing. Yeesh. I looked away.
“She’s just really extra. You can ignore her most of the time.”
“I have a hard time picturing that,” she laughed nervously.
“A diviner, being extra? Have you never met one?”
She laughed. “No, no. I mean… you being hopeless in matters of love. I mean—” She caught herself, speaking faster. “I just think you’re so cool and confident, like you’d be able to ask anyone on a date, and you seem really interesting and nice and everything, so I feel like they’d say yes!”
I kind of wished I didn’t have Lumi’s vision, so I could test that theory out right now. Cadencewaskind of acting like she was interested, and I’d have loved to take her out to a cute spot in the Citadel for dinner, but… again, Lumi would kill me. “Well, think again,” I said breezily. “I get really awkward and overly enthusiastic when I’m around a girl I like, and I can bewaytoo much. And then I take anything less than that same one-hundred-ten-percent as rejection, and I pull away and feel stupid.”
“Wow.” She looked down. “Does Lumi know anything about, um… what your true love is supposed to be like?”
“Nope. Just that we’ll have a meeting under the passionoak tree by Marveille Station while I’m getting ready to head off campus for the summer, and supposedly it’ll be, um… love at first sight. And then we text all through the summer, and when we see each other again in the fall…” I laughed awkwardly. “I dunno. It’s weird that I feel kinda nervous, like it’s a practical I don’t know if I’m ready for.”
“I feel like I’d mess it up. You know—get so nervous I’d say something dumb once I finally met her and ruin the whole thing.”
“That’s whatI’mthinking too. I’ve told Lumi that, but she insists it’ll all work out perfectly, and—”
The carriage banked suddenly, making a wide turn—there was a reason the old cars had been mostly phased out, not the most agile, and we tipped at an angle, Cadence gasping as she slid along the seat and pressed up against me, her hand catching on my wrist and pinning me against the side of the car, drawing in a sharp breath when I turned to find her face inches from mine again.
“S-sorry,” she blurted, and I was about to laugh it off when Knot slipped down her arm and moved in a blink to snare around us again, just like this morning in the Great Hall, and she gasped. “Knot, no!” she said, but the double negative aside, it was too late anyway—he wrapped around us both and pulled taut, pulling Cadence fully onto me in the tight quarters of the car, luminis flitting outside the window just below us. I swear the universe was doing this on purpose.
“Hey, Knot… good to see you too,” I laughed nervously, trying not to think about Cadence’s temple pressed up against my cheek, how soft she felt, or how nice she smelled. I think I was doing badly. “Okay, big group hug… there we go… are we happy now?”
“I am so sorry, he seriously never does this—I have no idea what’s gotten into him—”
“He let go once we were laughing this morning,” I said. “Um… have any funny jokes?”
“Uh. Why… why did the dragon get fired from the coffee shop?”
“Too big to fit in the shop?”
“They were descaling.” She laughed once, short and nervous. “I’m sorry, I’m not good at jokes.”
“Oh, like descaling the coffee machine—” I laughed nervously too, mostly just aware of Knot tightening so Cadence’s arm pressed up between my breasts. “I think that’s funny.”
“I mean, your answer probably makes more sense—”
“Maybe. Unless it’s a big shop. Big shop with big machines pulling big dragon-sized espressos.”
She giggled, clearly more from the nerves than anything else, but the sound of it made me laugh, too, and we were both wrapped up in a giggling fit before long, and sure enough, Knot relaxed off of the both of us as the car settled out right and glided down for a landing. Cadence pulled away, blushing furiously with a hand over her face, still giggling in fits, and even though I was still laughing myself breathless, my mind was fixated on how I wasprettyconfident I knew what it meant, getting nervous and blushy being pressed up to a girl like that. If Cadence had a little crush on me…
No, no. I had a fated encounter to wait for. If I tried anything with Cadence, I’d just be setting her up for heartbreak.
“Okay, okay—” she said, still covering her face, as the door swung open to the platform on the soft, grassy hill in front of the sapphire-blue surface of Glimmerdeep Lake. “If you want really good snapbush root, we’ll go to a spot a bit out of the way, so it’s about a half-hour walk from here. Um… hopefully Knot will behave.”
I slid out of the car with her, the air fresh and crisp with the sweet, cool scent of Glimmerdeep’s waters in the air, a few students out in the water playing together with some kind of crystal-gleaming sea creature, the shape of Dolphin House visible across the water. “Lead the way,” I said, turning to Cadence and pushing down the flutter in my chest, resolving notto think about things too much. “And let me know what I can do to pay you back.”
