Lux [h.s]

nineteen

When they went back to the Fair the next day, it was already being set up in a meadow right out of the city.

Differently from her Beilyn, Caloir was surrounded by the woods—a little isle of civility snuggled into the dangerous beauty of nature. It was a smaller than her city, too, the trees forcing its borders, making it so not many people travelled to it to attend the Fair. The places to sleep in the city centre weren't many, and strangers weren't particularly appreciated unless they were part of the team.

Cora's mind was still tied to the kisses she'd shared with Harry the night before, and she was sure her confusion was so evident that he could smell it in the air.

She hadn't dared to talk to him about it when he'd come back to the room, and he'd made no effort to bring it up as well. But while she was tense and puzzled, Harry was acting like nothing had happened—he was a little cold, a little detached, but also magnetically irritating, in that way only he seemed to manage. Nobody would've suspected anything by looking at him. Cora was starting to wonder if she was losing her mind.

He couldn't kiss her like that and then disappear in such a way, it wasn't right. He couldn't toy with her feelings like that. What even was his end goal? Had he regretted it? She was spiralling.

But Harry didn't seem to care, and as soon as they reached the Fair, he left her in Thalia's company and disappeared.

Cora pulled her black cloak tighter around her body, shivering even though it wasn't too cold yet.

The wagons were nowhere to be found, probably hidden somewhere deeper in the woods, but the majority of the people of the Fair were running all around her, setting up stalls, bonfires, and other types of entertainment she couldn't bother looking closer into. On her right, a group of men was moving a long wooden pole around, layers and layers of black fabric on the ground. The Pavilion. It was anticlimactic to see it being set up, that used she was to its presence looming in the corner of her vision every time she went out in the streets.

"I heard you broke something last night," Thalia commented all of a sudden, and Cora turned her head to her.

"I'm sorry for your pin."

Thalia shrugged. "I'll have someone fix it. That, however, was a quite interesting display on your part."

Cora sighed. "I don't feel like it was me."

"We'll wait to see if you do it again. Harry worries that it might've been his own magic reflecting off you, so any training will be useless until you show your talents again."

"Training?" Her attention perked up at the word.

"I must admit none of us here is an expert in training," Thalia said, "usually magic comes to us naturally, and very early on." She tilted her head. "I'd never met someone who didn't know they were magical before. I suppose there's a first time for everything."

"Maybe I'm not, and you're just mistaken."

"No, I do think there's more to you than you show."

Cora frowned. "How do you know?"

"I know things, don't you remember? That's my ability. I read your present and part of your future before, haven't I?"

She suddenly remembered the third time they'd met, the week before. Thalia had sat her down and told her her aunt had been lying to her for her whole life. And then she'd warned her against the fire— the fire she couldn't escape, the one that had enlightened the night sky during the Hazelnut Festival, the one that had almost got her killed.

"Your ability?"

Thalia looked at her attentively with her deep violet eyes. "Every fay has an ability, something they have a particular connection with. That's how our magic works."