That was really … freeing.
The three of us linked arms before the step-through, and when we emerged on the other side I sighed at how fairytale it all looked. “The mid-year theme is magic,” Larissa said. “I was so sad when you missed it last year.”
I was starting to think I needed to make more effort to get to these school events. Moving quickly from the step-through, we took our time looking around the dance floor. The room was huge, with the sense of being outside—the ceiling above was filled with what looked like a billion magically created twinkling stars.
They hung low, shining their silvery light everywhere, and I felt like if I just reached high enough I could take one of those sparkling spheres into my hand. The floor was white marble, polished to the point that even in the semi-darkness it shone. The space was huge, more than big enough to encompass both Academies, and I was not at all surprised when a few trolls strolled past, their faces not covered by masks and their bodies clad in woven, earth-colored clothing. Simple. Not formal. But perfectly suited to them. Or what I’d learned of them in class anyway.
The demi-fey were not as foreign to me as they used to be, and tonight I was going to get the full picture. Centaurs galloped past and I studied their horse bodies, then their top half. Their heads were not quite human in shape. More elongated in the face, and with wider-set eyes, but there was no denying their duality.
“Different to seeing them in books, right?” Ilia said, waving at a few of the demi-fey she knew. Most of them glared at her and she dropped her hand. “Right, they don’t know who I am.”
“You’ve worked with some of them?”
She nodded. “Yep. On more than one occasion I’ve had to track down some demi-fey.”
She fell silent when a green skinned demi-fey walked past. I was pretty sure it was a female, but her body was thin to the point of skeletal. Her face was covered in bumps and dark spots and she was horrifically ugly in an extremely interesting way. I wanted to keep staring at her, examining the foreign and yet magical creatures that walked among us.
“Hag,” Ilia and Larissa said together.
I looked closer now, because the demi-fey known as the “hag” was not one I’d spent much time learning about.
“They’re actually pretty cool,” Larissa told me. “Just wait until they get some wine into them, then you’ll see how they dance.”
Surrounding us now were trolls, gargoyles, pixies, golems, selkies in their human form, and a few other hags.
Before I could ask any questions, Ilia, ready for a drink, dragged us across the room to the long chrome-topped bar that spanned about a mile in total distance. Behind the bar were hundreds of creatures I had no names for. They were about three feet tall, with wings and bulbous stomachs. Most of them were hairy, even the ones that looked a little more female, and they had the biggest noses I’d ever seen.
“Leprechauns,” Ilia side-whispered to me. “They’re the luckiest of the demi-fey and are always at parties to keep the fortune smiling brightly on us.”
They didn’t look much like the human depiction of them, but they were wearing an awful lot of green, so some part of it was right.
“What can I get you three?” one said, her voice a scratchy sound that took me moments to decipher.
“Three fey wine, and three of the twilight cocktail,” Ilia said, then dropped some bills on the table.
The leprechaun hurried off to grab the drinks. “Always leave them a tip,” Ilia told me, never taking her eyes from the one making our drinks. “It’s extra lucky.”
Our drinks were back in about sixty seconds. We each grabbed a wine and cocktail before we evacuated the crowded bar. “Okay, you know the drill,” Ilia said, tipping her fey wine down in one gulp. I did the same and the warmth spread through me immediately, relaxing my limbs. Fey wine was potent, apparently even for demi-gods.
We sipped at our cocktails, which were also laced with the fey wine, and by the time they were done we were dancing closer to where the live music was playing. The band was different to the last dance. This time it was more like an orchestra, with multiple masked musicians playing slower ballads with haunting beats.
At some points, when they hit a particularly deep, thrumming note, my chest went tight and my throat filled to the point that I was trying desperately not to cry. “It’s so beautiful,” Larissa sobbed next to me, uncaring that tears ran down her cheeks.
Ilia sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve heard about these musicians.Emotives.Their trademark is to make you feel emotions to a degree that visibly affects you. Luckily, everyone is in the same boat.”
It was true. I could see supes crying all around us. Demi-fey too.
“This is not quite the escape I was thinking about,” I choked out, even though my body was swaying to the haunting melody.
“Give it a minute,” Ilia added, wiping at her cheeks.
Sure enough, not even a minute later the beat changed to a waltz. I blinked as a man appeared before me, tall with raven dark hair. He wore no mask, and I didn’t recognize him. “Would you like to dance?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, without hesitation. Anything to take my mind off … whatever the Emotives were doing to me. He led me out into the center, where only a few were dancing, but I was already drunk enough not to care about that. And that’s where my fun began.
We swirled around the dance floor, and despite the fact I’d never had a dance lesson and had no idea how to waltz, I kept up with him. My body moved and adapted like it was born to dance, the beat controlling my steps like it was a puppet master holding my strings. The dark-haired supe was a vampire, which surprised me because I didn’t get the cold energy vibe from him. When I told him as such, he shrugged.
“Yeah, I’m not very powerful, and I’ve learned to blend in. It’s a great adaptive survival instinct. I can exist no problem in the human world.”
