Page 46 of Shifting Tides
“Ah. So, are you a water manipulation expert?” I asked, a mild attempt at flirting. This guy was seriously gorgeous, and so far, the only mer who would give me the time of day.
“I guess you could say that. And I have other things to study in this class, which is why you won’t find me lounging about like the rest of them.”
“Oh? What is there to master aside from fancy irrigation skills?” I teased.
He chuckled. “I’m a seer.”
My brows shot up. I knew that Celeste was a seer and that the ability was rare, even among mermaids. Now that I thought about it, Kendall had been one of the students Celeste had been talking to on the other side of the room.
“At the beginning of each class, Celeste gives the small handful of us who have the affinity for future sight a brief lesson, helping to guide us through fine-tuning our visions,” Kendall said.
I leaned forward as I perched on the edge of the pool. “So, you can see the future like Celeste? I mean, do you get visions of new shifters when they’re turned or come of age?”
“Haha, no. I’m nowhere near as good as Celeste.” He shook his head. “Celeste can target her sight to just about anything or anyone she wants. That’s how she made her fortune, playing the stock market. You know she’s the one who financed the school, right?”
“Oh yeah. I think they mentioned that in history yesterday,” I said. I imagined a psychic could use future-sight to make millions. Celeste was craftier than I realized.
“The only things I can see are random events specific to me,” Kendall said. “I can’t target my visions—not yet, anyway. And the frustrating thing is, I can’t see the causes, only the outcomes, so I can’t figure out how to prevent what I see.”
A shadow fell over his face for a brief instant, and I wondered if there was something unpleasant he had foreseen that hewished to stop. If only I had that ability. I might have been able to see the vampire attack coming. I might have been able to save my mom.
“Good morning, Arya.” Celeste’s voice jolted me out of my thoughts, and I turned to see that the mer teacher was walking toward us. “I apologize for not tending to you sooner, but my upperclassmen needed some briefing. I see you’ve met Kendall. He’s one of the school’s finest apprentice seers.”
Celeste beamed at him as she settled to sit beside me, not bothering to hide her favoritism toward him. “He might even have my job one day.” She winked at him, and his brows furrowed with a flicker of nervousness.
“I’d better get back to practicing,” Kendall said. “It was nice to meet you, Arya.” And then he dove into the water and swam away.
It wasverynice to meet you, too, I thought as his tail whipped in my direction and he zipped through the water. A gorgeous mer-guy who was actually nice?Pinch me, I must be dreaming.
“I know this is all very new to you, so let me explain what we study in this class,” Celeste began.
“Oh, Kendall told me a little bit. He said that mermaids have the power to control water, and...” I gulped as I realized I was going to have to figure out how to do that.
Oh, crap.I’d been so busy ogling him that I hadn’t connected those particular dots.
Celeste nodded at my unspoken dilemma. “It’s all right. No one expects you to shape water into a sea dragon on your first try. There’s no pressure here. We’ll just take it slow and awaken your awareness of your connection to the water. Once you find it, everything else will follow.”
“Okay,” I said with uncertainty, hoping that it would be as simple as Celeste let on.
She claimed that there were no expectations of me, but I could sense that just about everyone was expecting something from me, Caesar most of all. I just had no idea what that was.
***
“So, uh, what do you know aboutKendall?” I asked Ashlyn at lunch, trying to be casual.
Tobias hadn’t come to sit with us yet, and I wanted to get this topic out of the way before he came back. I didn’t exactly want Tobias hearing me ask about a different guy.
“You meanKen Doll?” she replied with a snicker. “He’s your typical pretty boy jock. If this school had sports, he’d probably be the quarterback of the football team.”
“Don’t let Tobias hear you say that,” Brett commented, flickering his gaze to the buffet line where Tobias was currently debating over lunch options.
I laughed, stashing that comment in my box of things to ask about later. “I know mermaids don’t have the best reputation for being, well, human, but is he decent?”
He had been nice to me, but I wanted to get the scoop on him, if there was one. And though Ashlyn was almost as new here as me, it wasn’t like I had anyone else to ask.
She shrugged. “I’ll put it this way—he’s not the worst of them. But he did date the worst of them.”
“What?” I asked.
