Free Forgotten Sea by Virginia Kantra Page A

with the swirl of steam from the serving line, rising in the vaulted, sunlit room. This was her reality. This was her life. Last night was like a wonderful, terrible, moonlit dream.
    Memory unfurled inside her like a bird beating to get out.
    The long lines of Justin’s body on the cellar steps. His mouth, salty and warm. The surge of power and freedom and lust she’d felt when she was with him. In him.
    Taking a deep breath, she reached for her orange juice.
    She’d done everything she could to help Justin. Maybe it would be enough.
    A shadow fell over her fruit plate.
    “Leave him alone.” Ariel stood flanked by her friend beside their table, her pretty face contorted. “Haven’t you done enough already?”
    Lara lowered her juice glass. “Excuse me?”
    “I can’t believe you have the guts to even speak to him after what you did.”
    Speak to . . . Gideon, Lara realized. Ariel was talking about Gideon.
    “I didn’t do anything.”
    “You got him in trouble with Zayin because you failed as Seeker.”
    Lara glanced at Gideon, already walking with his tray toward the bus line, his back stiff, his face turned away. “Is that what he told you?”
    “He didn’t have to. All the lower cohorts are saying you didn’t come back with a new student last night.”
    Ariel’s friend nodded. David hunched his shoulders, apparently fascinated by the congealing eggs on his plate.
    “They’re kids.” Lara kept her voice even with effort. “They don’t know what they’re talking about. And neither do you.”
    “Really?” Ariel set her hands on her hips. “Then why did Master Zayin pull Gideon off lampwork?”
    Lampwork—crafting beads with a torch from colored glass rods—was a coveted apprenticeship. The beads were imbued with power as well as color, used not only for jewelry but for charms.
    Lara bit her lip. If Gideon had been dismissed from spell work, no wonder he was upset. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s probably only temporary.”
    “You two better watch out,” Ariel said to David and Jacob. “If Zayin finds out you’re hanging around with her, you could be reassigned, too.”
    Jacob pushed back his chair. “That’s crap. Zayin’s not going to stop us from taming fire because your boyfriend screwed up.”
    Ariel’s eyes glittered with moisture. “He didn’t. Take it back.”
    “What is this, high school?”
    “Gideon did his job,” Lara said quickly. “I’m the one responsible for . . . for the mission.”
    An uncomfortable pause.
    “That’s all right then,” David said. “I mean, you work for the headmaster.”
    “Not anymore,” Ariel said with satisfaction.
    Lara’s throat tightened.
    “Lara? What’s she talking about?” Jacob asked.
    “I hear your friend is in really deep shit.” The girl with Ariel tittered. “Literally.”
    “She’s working in the bird house,” Ariel said with gleeful vindictiveness. “With Crazy Moon and the other cuckoos.”
    “Oh, hey.” David’s good-natured face creased in sympathy. “That sucks.”
    Lara swallowed. “It’s only temporary,” she said again.
    And heard Simon saying, “Until I can trust your judgment, you cannot work for me .”
    Her hands shredded her napkin in her lap. He would forgive her, eventually. Everything could go back to normal. If only she’d be quiet, if only she’d be good . . .
    “From now on, you cannot see him, cannot speak to him, cannot visit him, is that clear?”
    She stared down at the bright pattern of fruit on her plate, all appetite gone.
    * * *
    Dust motes danced in the diffused brightness of the raptor enclosure. Lara’s rake rattled over the gravel subfloor, turning up broken bones and hardened pellets, the remains of small dead rodents, digested and undigested.
    The big bird perched in the corner turned its wicked head, surveying her with a bright, suspicious eye. Lara froze like a rabbit. Moon said the bird wouldn’t attack. But Moon was crazy. Everyone knew that.
    As if