Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance) by Jillian Keep Read Free Book Online

being
watched.
    And how quickly they’d laugh at
her failure.
    She could see it in them. Curiosity,
sure. But also a desire to see her fail. To know that they were
better than even the best the human world had to offer.
    She was grateful she’d gotten
loan of such a fine robe with flowing sleeves that showed off her
wrists when she cast. It felt like a safety blanket, something to
protect her from the cruelty of others, and she tried to calm her
breathing as she took it all in.
    From out of the sea of watchful eyes,
one of the elves approached her. He was tall, lanky, with
wheat-coloured hair that was cropped close to his head. He wore not a
robe, but a cloth tabard, bearing his family crest. It wasn’t
one of the ones she recognized, though after the elf nodded and spoke
his “Greetings,” she recognized him from her class. He
was not a wealthy or influential elf. He couldn’t have been, to
have gone to school with humans.
    It was almost like he was an ally, but
she wouldn’t go that far. She knew that those with as dismal
futures as she could be more cutthroat than any, and she gave him a
reserved smile. “Hey, ah…” she paused, struggling
to remember his name. She’d never bothered to even learn that
about her classmates.
    “Mae’lin,” he said
without taking offense, giving her a respectful bow that in elvish
society was reserved for equals. “You're going to compete
then?” he asked, his emerald eyes alight with curiosity.
    “Well, I didn’t come here
to see how the better half live,” she agreed with a sarcastic
smile. She had pulled her hair back in a single ponytail and it
swished against the back of her neck as she glanced around. “I
guess you are too? And… I’m Firia,” she added,
just in case.
    “I know,” he said with an
amused smile. “There was always talk of the quiet human girl in
the back of class,” he remarked, standing more casually then,
comfortable it seemed with her greeting. “Some of the other kin
–” and she knew elves all thought of each other as kin
“–speculated you were plotting some violent act of
rebellion,” and his ovaline eyes flashed with amusement.
    She laughed, and her blue eyes
sparkled. “Well, we’ll just have to see what happens
here. I’ll say no more.” Even though her words were dark,
she smiled at him deviously and gave him a wink. The thought of the
others talking about her – her! – came as a surprise,
though.
    Mae’lin smiled at her, almost
bashfully really. “I always told them they were foolish. Truth
be told,” he remarked with a shrug of his shoulders, “they
never react well to humans who make them wonder or strike their
interest. It bothers them.”
    “Well… I suppose that’s
good.” She wasn’t doing it for them, or to embarrass
them. She simply wanted to do what she was best at. Always. “You
never answered if you were competing.”
    “Oh,” he said, brushing a
hand back over his blonde hair. “Oh! Yeah, of course,” he
remarked, a bit of a blush forming on his own pale cheeks. “I’m
giving it a shot … My family has enough sorcerers of our own
working the business, so… it’s make the cut at one of
the academies or else…” he shrugged his shoulders again.
    “It’s not often humans
compete,” he blurted out. “I mean… that makes you
pretty special… is all… I’m sayin’.”
He gulped.
    Was he nervous around her?
    Suddenly her stomach tightened, and she
felt nervous too. It was as if all her forced confidence slid out of
her and was replaced with the heat of her blood rising to the
surface. She finally really looked at him, not just through him, and
a lump developed in her throat.
    She tried to swallow it down. “I’ll
be special if I get picked.”
    He was handsome in his own way. Though
all elves were, his long, lanky nature gave him a curious look that
contrasted his kin. It made him stand out more, she realized, for the
others tended to be so perfectly uniform humans could hardly