Read Online Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater - Free Book Online Page B

the promise of movies to come, but I couldn’t focus on them tonight. For starters, I wouldn’t be around for any of the movies they were advertising—they were all for the Christmas season and next year—and plus, I was rehearsing dialogue in my head for next time I saw James.
    “Unrequited love,” I’d say. He’d look at me sideways in that cunning way he did and say, “What about it?” and I’d reply, “It’s just not your color.” Pithy. Just to show him that I’d noticed. Or maybe I’d show myself to her and say, “Guess I’m not the only one who uses humans around here.” And then I’d summon some of Owain’s hounds to chew off the bottom bits of her legs. Then she wouldn’t fit just right into his arms. She’d be too short. It’d be like hugging a midget.
    I grinned in the theater.
    The movie began with a sweeping rock ballad from the ’70s and a helicopter shot of New York City. The guitar work was inspired—I wondered if I’d had anything to do with it. It quickly became apparent that Ticket-Boy had sent me to a romantic comedy. Not really my thing, but at least it would take my mind off James and the song he’d played for me earlier. It was unbearable to think I might never hear it played out loud again. I was getting a crush on it.
    For a half hour, I tried to get into the movie but I couldn’t. It was cutesy, and they kissed, and there was lovey music. And I started thinking how I would fit into James’ arms, if my head would fit just right under his chin like Dee’s had. And then I started thinking about his car, how it had smelled like him, and I imagined that smell clinging to my skin.
    Crap.
    I got up and pushed my way out of the theater. I didn’t stop to talk to Ticket-Boy, although I felt his eyes on me. He probably thought I hated the movie. Maybe I had. I walked straight out into the twilight. The rain had stopped; thunder growled far away. I headed down the rain-slicked sidewalk, fast, as if I could put space between me and my thoughts.
    It wasn’t like there hadn’t been tension of the sexual variety between me and my pupils before—the guys, poor little lambs, almost always wanted to get my clothing off, which just made them work harder and sound all the more beautiful.
    But it wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I wasn’t human.
    I was so caught up in myself that I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone until the street lights flickered around me, guttering and flickering like candles before shining brightly again. Whoever—whatever—it was, it wouldn’t do to look cowed, so I kept walking along the sidewalk as if I hadn’t noticed. Maybe it was only a solitary faerie who would leave me alone.
    My hopes disappeared when I heard voices, distantly, and saw two faeries approaching me on the sidewalk. My stomach flopped over in a hollow kind of way, an unfamiliar sensation. Nerves.
    It was the queen.
    Before she had been queen—before the previous queen had been ripped into pieces—Eleanor always wore white. The white had lent her pale gold hair more color. Now that she was queen, Eleanor wore green according to the oldest traditions, and her long hair looked nearly white under the streetlights. Tonight’s dress was of course a thing of freakin’ beauty, deep green-black with golden rings and spangles stitched into the sleeves and into the high collar that covered her long neck and framed her chin. Some sort of jewels glittered at me from her train, which dragged on the sidewalk behind her. Unlike the previous queen, Eleanor didn’t wear a crown—only a small circlet of pearls that shone dully like baby teeth.
    She was so beautiful that it ached. Was this what James felt when he saw me?
    Eleanor saw me and laughed, terrible and lovely. The person beside her was not a faerie, as I’d first thought, but rather her consort, the man from the dance. He smiled at me with one corner of his mouth and looked back at Eleanor. He was very human; fragile and stolen and in