With the fading of the memory, I catch myself admiring the shift of this Byron’s well-built shoulders beneath his button-up. I yank my attention away, closing my fingers against the sting in my palm.
Cadance taps her shoulder against mine and primps her Poodle curls. “It was your idea we come out here. Now I’m wondering who you wanted to ogle.”
My throat constricts with a sudden panic that she’s followed my gaze.
Mia looks across the field and giggles. “Oh, right. Phillip is looking pretty nice today.”
Phillip? I search my memories and come up with a full name and a hazy impression of a face: Phillip Lowell, sandy blond hair and a beefy build, one of the top 16thyears though not quite as high ranked as Grady. I spot the guy I think is him smacking gloved knuckles with Grady as they gear up to play.
“Phillip?” I say in a mild but puzzled tone. As glad as I am that they didn’t pick up on my interest in Byron, I have no idea what they’re talking about. I didn’t see any mention of Phillip or the initials PL in my doppelganger’s things.
Madison arches her eyebrows. “Come on. We all saw that flirt-fest at the New Year’s party. And then he was hangingaround making puppy-dog eyes at you for ages.Somethingmust have happened.”
Must it have? I’ve wondered if Other Elodie had a secret romance, but maybe she had some less-secret ones too. It doesn’t sound like this one was very long-lived, though.
From what I saw from the sidelines, Luminary’s prestigious students would occasionally mess around with each other just to get off in the ways they can without risking an early matching, but they didn’t really do relationships. Everyone knows there’s no point in getting emotionally invested until you’re sure.
Even I knew that, not that it stopped me from falling for Asher. It just stopped me from telling him.
I lift one shoulder in a careless shrug. “Plenty of eye-candy out there. Why stick to ogling just one?”
I must hit the right note, because my friends all snicker in agreement.
The guy with the ball walks to the center of the field, his shirt still standard white. Apparently he’s appointed himself referee. He glances to one team and then the other. They’re each gathered by the thigh-high brass semi-circles that jut from the grass, one at either end of the field.
The rules of bloomblight are deceptively simple. Each team tries to propel the ball through the opposite team’s goal as many times as possible. On the surface level, it might as well be soccer with a slightly smaller ball and targets.
But the whole point of the game is to increase our appreciation for the different strengths of the two main types of glims. The bloom team can only use magic that expands or creates; the blight team can only restrain and destroy.
It usually only takes a matter of minutes before the field becomes a flurry of chaos, the bloom side aiming to overwhelm the blights while the blights try to force the blooms under their control.
Of course, none of the players down there know for sure which type their glim will be. Some people prefer to stick to their hoped-for type, but there’s a cachet in being able to play equally well using both strategies. The top students—like Byron, and probably Grady—tend to switch from game to game to show off their varied skills.
The ref tosses the ball high in the air on a rush of magic. As he beats a hasty retreat, the field explodes into a flurry of motion.
Someone on the bloom team sends a wave of energy that smacks the ball toward the blight side. More surges of magic collide with the players rushing forward.
Only a couple of the blight players stagger, none of them falling. They’ve already been weaving ephemera into their own strategies. Most of the blasts hit hastily constructed shields with booms of impact that resonate across the campus like thunderclaps.
Byron, who’s chosen the blight side today, yanks the ball out of its flight with a tendril of magic, tucks it close to his chest, and runs for the bloom goal.
Chunks of earth fly up in front of him, forcing him to zigzag across the field while he pummels a path through the obstacles. None of the bloom players dare get too close, wary of his skill.
A few of his teammates run around him, forming as much of a larger shield as they can manage. The air crackles and hisses as their magic clashes with whatever the bloom team is sending out.
A bloom player manages to shoot a rope of longer grass out of the field to catch around the ankle of one of Byron’s protectors. At the same moment, a blight player makes a jerk of her hand and a guy on the bloom side topples over in a sudden paralysis.
As more hills of expanded earth jut up in an attempt to trip Byron, the blight players send out an opposing effect. Theirspurts of caustic magic smash pits in the field around—and sometimes right beneath—the roaming bloom players.
A sudden spurt of flame provokes a hollered “Fuck!” from the guy charging alongside Byron as part of his shield—just for an instant before Byron snuffs it out with a twitch of his head. He doesn’t even need to glance over.
Each breath I take now carries the flavors of soil and smoke. Not exactly a delicious combination, but at least the skirmish is entertaining.
Sadly, it tells me shit-all about Grady and any association my double might have had with him. The guy appears to hold his own on the bloom side, but nothing about his technique stands out.
The game winds down with three goals scored for blight—the first one Byron’s—and two for bloom. The field looks like it’s been bombed. Once the ref calls the game, the players still able to walk limp around magicking the grass back into place and the soil smooth.
The exciting part is over. I get up and amble along the hill, keeping an eye on Grady at the edge of my vision.
