I’ll practice her flippant tone and carefree gestures tomorrow. And then I’ll go out into the world and see who looks pissed off that she’s still in it.
Four
Elodie
Monday morning, I crawl out of the addictively soft bed and position myself on the hardwood floor at the edge of the rug. Push-ups, crunches, lunges, squats. Fists pummeling straight out and elbows jabbed backward.
In half an hour, I’ve completed the three sets of my usual workout sequence, and my heart is thumping twice as fast as it should be. I couldn’t push myself hard enough to outpace the anxiety twisting through my chest.
I fold my legs in front of me for the meditation I normally finish with. Settle the mind. Detach myself from the vices of my body. Let my consciousness float like a lotus flower on water, unaffected by the currents beneath.
Fat chance of that today.
I silently repeat the mantra I chose when I first took up these techniques, when I still hoped they might suppress my glim.I have all I need. I have all I need.
After several minutes of steady breaths, my pulse hasn’t stopped hitching. With a grimace, I push myself upright and head to the shower.
Deciding what to wear is easy enough. Luminary Academy has a required uniform for all ages from five to twenty-one. To keep our minds on our studies, the staff say, but I’d bet it’s mostly to distinguish ourselves from the kids doing their magical education at Beacon Prep next door. The kids whose families couldn’t afford a yearly set of branded clothing, let alone the Luminary tuition.
Other Elodie’s clothes fit me just fine, though my slimness is through necessity and hers was a fashion choice. I tuck the white polo shirt into the indigo-and-gold plaid skirt, rolling the waist up the way she and her friends always have theirs.
Her smug voice echoes up from the videos I’ve spent all weekend poring over.“Gotta show off those legs if you got ‘em, right, ladies?”
Excuse me while I hurl.
I consider the vest and sweater but decide the indigo blazer with its gold trim will be enough. It’s early April, the worst chill gone from the air.
I dab on the least amount of make-up I feel I can get away with while pretending to be Other Elodie. No one wants to see how I’d botch an attempt at her more elaborate styles.
The sight of my hair, trimmed from mid-back to a few inches below my shoulders and streaked with lighter brown highlights with Aunt Daphne’s help, makes me grimace. But it’s a necessary part of the disguise.
I pause over the drawer filled with neatly stacked pairs of gloves. I haven’t needed to wear them in years, and I’m not looking forward to having my tactile senses muffled.
But unless they’re throwing caution to the wind, every unmatched lucent keeps their hands covered in company untilthe graduation ball at the end of the last year of school. Our matches spark through skin-to-skin contact.
And that first burst of our glim flaring to life can have horrible consequences if your training hasn’t been thorough enough. Occasionally even if it has. Our innate magic hurtles into being at full force, not caring who’s in the way… even our own matches.
My throat constricts. I grab a white silk pair.
I didn’t mean to spark with my matches so early. In a family like the Devines, Other Elodie would never have considered it.
What would she have made of the mates fate chose for her?
She’s never going to get to find out. She’ll never know anything else.
It’s all on me to put her soul to rest.
Another wave of jitters passes through my nerves. Gritting my teeth, I stuff the gloves into the blazer’s pockets.
It’ll be fine. It’s not as if I haven’t gone into dangerous situations before. I’m a lying liar who lies—this is my forte.
Hell, if I was back in my own reality, I’d have been heading to the exact same place I am now.
Only I’d have been heading to the academy in a faded uniform bought used and not perfectly tailored to my figure, which I wouldn’t have minded because I’d also have had Byron and Salvatore at my side.
How distraught must all three of my matches be right now? What do they think happened to me?
How much longer will it be before I can tumble back into their arms and reassure them I’m okay?
