Page 11 of Crashing Tides

She must sense my trepidation, because she says brightly, “Don’t worry! You won’t be spending too much time here!”

I’m a homebody, but nobody ever wants to hear that, so I just smile and nod.

My roommate is named Aleo Harria. Even the name intimidates me. It sounds old fae, old money, prestigious.

Aleo is about to be very, very disappointed.

I follow Orea all over campus, from the massive library to the coffee shop to the student union to the various dining halls and theaters. She pauses to point out the buildings and their individual uses. One for history, another for astronomy and ecology, another for healing arts, and so many others that blend together into a terrible, mixed up soup in my mind. Even looking at a map, I’m lost.

We pass elaborate gardens and fountains, manicured lawns and cobblestone walkways. A few people pause to wave at us. Orea’s not bothered by them, but I’m so out of place that I want to melt into the cobblestones and disappear.

“What’s with the wall?” I ask, gesturing ahead. There are clouds overhead, heavy and dark, threatening to spill. Thunder growls, low and distant. Trees sway.

Orea flashes me a smile. “It’s to keep people out.”

“Like, people from a long time ago?” I don’t know the history of the area, and based on her tone, I’m not sure I want to.

“No,” she says sweetly. “Mostly humans.”

A chill runs down my spine. “Oh.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the fae are very private.” She arches a delicate eyebrow. “And humans feel threatened by what they don’t understand. You’ll be perfectly safe,” she assures me, like I’m not one of the dreaded humans. “It’s been over one hundred years since we had anything more than a simple trespassing case.”

Simple trespassing. I feel like her words imply a whole lot more, but I don’t ask. I don’t want to know. Instead, I follow her down a trail, then up a hill, until we’re overlooking the cliff and the Pacific Ocean, which has grown dangerously dark, nearly black.

The sea calls to me in its wrath, and I take a step forward without meaning to. It’s as if my very bones are drawn in, as if every inch of my being craves the tides. Then I blink, and I’m back in my body, being pelted with cold raindrops while Orea rattles on about something. Her words sound like part of another language. As I let them wash over me, I can’t help but feel they’re the only reason I’m still anchored to this earth.

Later, alone in my room, I feel sick to my stomach. Even the sight of the ocean is enough to empty the thoughts from my mind, for my limbs to go loose and pliant, moving of their own accord, trance-like.

The sun goes down. There’s a lamp on the narrow bedside table, but I don’t reach for it.

Maybe, if I lie very still, the sea won’t claim me tonight.

“Your first test,” says a fae professor named Elarion, who wears his blond hair in two stern braids, “is to close your eyes and tell me which color I’m envisioning.”

I squirm in my chair, still faintly nauseous from a breakfast of strawberries and toast, washed down with too many cups of coffee.

Elarion looks down his nose at me, like he can tell I’m an imposter. Like he knows there’s something wrong with me. That I’m too human, that I didn’t sleep last night, that I yearn for the sea in a way that will probably get me killed before the end of the semester.

Maybe it’s lucky that I’m going to have a roommate. I’ve never sleepwalked before, but I’m suddenly afraid I might start.

“Close your eyes,” says Elarion sternly, and I snap them shut, glad that I can’t see his disapproval anymore. But it emanates from him in waves, impossible to ignore.

I ask myself what color a person like Elarion might think of. Green comes to mind immediately, but I remind myself that not all fae love nature. That’s just a stereotype. Some fae won’t leave their concrete jungles.

I force myself to focus. What color is Elarion thinking of? Blue, like the ocean, I think, and feel sick.

“Stop thinking, start feeling,” Elarion instructs. I take a deep breath, try to feel a color.

At first, there’s nothing. Then, something leaps to the forefront of my mind. Gray, like a timber wolf, like the rocks on the beach, like the moody sky outside the window.

“Um, is it gray?” I ask, but I barely hear the affirmative, because suddenly I’m envisioning yellow eyes. But they’re too lifelike, too vivid. For a split second, they stare straight into the depths of my soul, and I want to fall into them the same way I want to fall into the ocean—with total abandonment.

Then there are hands on my shoulders, and I’m ripped away from those strange, piercing eyes, back to reality. Elarion glares at me, disapproval written plainly across his perfect, fae face. His eyes are a stunning peridot. “Something on your mind?”

“No, sir,” I say hurriedly. “I’m just tired.”

He raises a pale eyebrow. “Your accommodations?”