Free Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater Page A

very, very close to me, and she ran a finger up my throat to my chin, lifting my face toward hers. “Yours is a very strange immortality, isn’t it? I am surprised you don’t plead at my feet for freedom from your fate.”
    I couldn’t even see her feet underneath her sweeping green dress, and I couldn’t imagine pleading at them even if I could. I stepped back from her touch, hands fisted. “I know better. There’s no avoiding it. I am not afraid.”
    Eleanor smiled, thin and mysterious. “And I thought my people couldn’t lie. Truly you are the most human of us.” She shook her head. “Remember what I said, dear. Don’t get in the way of our work here and perhaps I myself will find time to watch your burning this year.”
    I sneered at her. “Your presence would be truly an honor,” I spat.
    “I know,” replied Eleanor, and between one breath and the next, she and her consort were gone.

James
    I scrambled up into the corner of my bed, jerking from sleep, and pulled spiderweb strings of music from my face. They clung to my features, lovely, perilous strands of melody, and I scraped at them until I realized that they were nothing and that I was ruining my boyish good looks with my fingernails. Nothing. Music from a dream. Music from Nuala. I leaned the back of my head against the wall with a brain-cell killing thunk.
    I was beginning to hate mornings.
    And the phone was ringing, sending an army of militant miniature dwarves with hammers to work on the inside of my head. I hated the phone at that moment – not just the phone in my room, but all phones that had ever rung before noon.
    I fell out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans. Paul’s bed was empty.
    I smashed my hand over my face, still caught by the music, by sleep, by sheer friggin’ exhaustion, and relented. “Hello?”
    “James?” The voice was pleasant and ominously familiar. My stomach prickled with the feeling of imminent humiliation.
    I shoved the phone between my ear and my shoulder and started to lace up my shoes. “As always.”
    “This is Mr. Sullivan.” I heard laughter in the background. “I’m calling from English class.”
    Crap shit hell etc. I looked at the alarm clock, which said it was a little after nine. It was a lying bastard, because Paul wouldn’t have gone to class without me. “Very logical,” I said, jerking on my other shoe in a hurry, “Seeing as you’re an English teacher.”
    Sullivan’s voice was still very pleasant. “I thought so. So, the rest of the class and I were wondering if you were going to join us?” More laughter behind his voice.
    “Am I on speaker phone?”
    “Yes.”
    “Paul, you’re a treacherous bastard!” I shouted. To Sullivan, I added, “I was just putting on my mascara. Time must’ve gotten away from me. I’ll be down momentarily.”
    “You said to go without you!” Paul shouted in the background. I didn’t remember saying any such thing, but it sounded like me.
    “I’m glad to hear it,” Sullivan said. “I was planning on having the class heckle you until you agreed to come, but this is much easier.”
    “I wouldn’t miss your fascinating class for all the tea in China,” I assured him. I stood up, spun, trying to find where the smell of flowers was coming from. “Your lectures and bright smile are the highlight of my days here at Thornking-Ash, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
    “I never tire of hearing it. See you soon. Say bye to James, class.”
    The class shouted bye at me and I hung up.
    I turned once more, still feeling that I wasn’t alone in the room. “Nuala.” I waited. “Nuala, are you still in here?”
    Silence. There was nothing as silent as the dorms when we were all supposed to be in class. I didn’t know if she was there or not, but I spoke anyway. “If you are here, I want you to listen to me. Get the hell out of my head. I don’t want your dreams. I don’t want what you have to offer. Get out of here.”
    There was no answer, but the