Page 51 of Quiet
He could have. Technically, Isa had no reason to stay after he finished his last final. He was only doing the play tomorrow as a favor to his friends.
Panic began to creep up Briar’s throat. It screamed at him to leave the show and race to Isa’s room to make sure he hadn’t left.
No. Isa wouldn’t ditch his friends. Briar had seen how hard he’d worked on the play and how much he cared about his friends. Isa was loyal. He would stay until the play was finished.
That meant Briar had at least twenty-four hours to convince Isa to stay. It didn’t feel like enough.
Someone shoved a drink in his hand. He didn’t know what it was, but it looked like it might be caffeinated. If he drank it, he’d have to leave. The ambient noise and constant interruptions were already driving him nuts. Caffeine would make it intolerable.
He looked around for somewhere to put it down. If he kept it in his hand, he’d forget and drink it without thinking. And he had to stay. He needed to be here if Isa showed up.
Someone bumped Briar’s arm. He was already so overstimulated, he jumped and dropped the drink on the floor.
“Whoa, sorry there, sport. That was totally my fault.”
Sport? When did this guy think he was? The early nineteen-hundreds? Briar spared a second from his Isa-search to look at whoever had bumped into him. The guy was tall, like, insanely tall and that was saying something coming from Briar.
Briar did a doubletake. No, he wasn’t taller than Briar, but he had a presence that filled the space around him more than his physical body did. His hair was a multitude of reds and browns, and there was a shimmer to his skin that reminded him of Isa’s eyes.
The man almost passed Briar by without a second look, but then he stopped and stared. “Kid, what areyoudoing here?” The man’s eyebrows were raised in confusion. “You aren’t old enough to be here alone.”
Briar was so surprised he blurted out, “I’m twenty.” He was more than old enough to be out alone and had been for several years.
“Twenty?” The man laughed. “How are you twenty? Don’t mess with me, child, no twenty-year-old baby is as tall as you. Ninety, maybe. Come on, let’s take this outside where the humans won’t hear.”
The what?
Briar was too stunned to stop the man from pulling him onto the balcony. What the hell was this guy playing at?
“Fess up, which hill did you escape from? I’m not going to get you in trouble, I’m only going to send you back. If you’re lucky, no one will have noticed you left. If you’re unlucky, your parents will keep you home for another hundred years.”
Briar’s mouth worked, but nothing came out. Under the moonlight, the man’s skin shimmered even more dramatically than it had under the fluorescent lights.
“See? You’re so worked up you can’t even talk properly. Let’s get you home.” The man scanned their surroundings and nodded, seemingly happy with what he saw. He held his hands apart, and Briar could have sworn he saw the space between them start to glow.
“What are you?” Again, Briar spoke without thinking.
The glow fizzled out, and the man leaned in, giving Briar a closer look. “Holy shit, you’re actually serious. Do you not know what you are?” He put a hand on Briar’s shoulder, and something shot through him like sparkles on ice. For a second his mind was clear as a bell, all the external and internal static was blasted away in the wake of whatever the man had just done to him. When the man released him, it all came flooding back.
“Hm. Well, you’re an interesting mystery, aren’t you? I wouldn’t have even noticed you if it weren’t for that spell on you. However, there’s something else going on in there. You’re definitely one of us, but you’re also human. That’s got to be rough, man. I’ll bet that spell isn’t helping either.”
“What spell?”
The man put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. “I guess it can’t hurt to tell you. You are a fairy, even if you aren’t a fairy.”
“You know that makes no sense, right?”
The man laughed. “I get that a lot. Listen, I need to go consult someone about”—the man waved at Briar—“this situation. But I’ll be back soon. First, let me do you a favor and get this baby spell off you. You’re way too old for it. Whoever put it on you should have lifted it once you started talking.”
The man gestured, and Briar felt as though he were pulling a cloak off Briar’s mind.
“I’ll be back soon!”
Then the fucker vanished into thin air.
All at once, a thousand sounds and smells assaulted him. The stars overhead shone so brightly he had to close his eyes. He stumbled backward and leaned heavily on the railing.
There were voices around him, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. Everything else in his brain was too loud, too sharp, too everything.
