Fairies and Felicitations (Scholars and Sorcery)
and I’m in a ridiculous position. I need to get out now, while I have some dignity intact.
    As soon as I formulate the thought, I hear the main door scrape open, and the clunk of sensible schoolgirl heels on the wooden floor. Too late!
    Oh, well, I can resort to just a little magic. I mentally suggest to Esther—assuming it is Esther I can hear— that she might want to head straight up to the table to see what has been left for her; after all, I don’t want her glancing around at the broom cupboard.
    The footsteps go, lightly and unhurriedly, up to the front of the room, and then I hear a distinct rustling of paper and an indrawn breath. I ease the door open, very cautiously, just enough to see Esther gently capturing the fairies in her hands. The weather is clearing a little, and watery sunlight streaming through the back window makes her hair gleam as if it has been burnished. No wonder they don’t bite her.Leaving the pretty paper behind, she carefully carries the fairies to the door, opens it, and tips them tenderly out into the soft drizzle. She watches them fly away, then shows every intention of following them out of the chapel.
    My heart lurches with discouragement. All that effort, and she didn’t even bother to look at my poem! Before I can stop myself, I send her a mental nudge back toward the platform.
    She hesitates, her hand still on the door, then closes it behind her. I pull the cupboard door to before she turns. When her footsteps have passed me again, I take a deep breath and open the crack wider.
    Esther is unfolding the heart again in her usual lazy, graceful way. I wish desperately I could see her expression. There’s no sigh, no change in breathing or stance as she reads. I don’t know what I expected, really.
    She folds the paper and puts it into her uniform pocket. Casually, not with sentimental care, but without scrunching it in irritation or disgust, either. As far as I can tell, she is disappointingly lacking in any response whatsoever.
    “You can come out, now. I’ve read it,” she says, mildly.
    I freeze, not daring to breathe. Surely Esther doesn’t think Cecily has skipped a prefect meeting to spy on her? I quickly shoot a mental thought, telling her she was mistaken, no one is here at all.
    She turns, before I can jam the door shut. It’s only open a crack, though. If I mentally reinforce in her not to look…
    “Please stop that nonsense and come talk to me like a civilised human being. It will simply embarrass us both to death if I have to come in and drag you out by the scruff of your neck. Besides, I detest making any kind of unnecessary physical effort outside of games, don’t you, Anne?”
    Now my heart truly is in my throat. Conceding defeat, I open the door wider. Esther is lounging against the table on the platform, hands shoved in her pockets, lips pursed as if to whistle, the picture of insouciance. She grins as she hears the creak of the door.
    “That’s a good girl. Come on out, now.”
    If I was a puppy, I would be slinking out with my tail between my legs. Instead, I try my best to look unconcerned and with at least a tiny bit of dignity. It’s useless. I can feel my face burning like I’ve spent a week at the beach in high summer, and I can’t seem to look anywhere except at my shoes.
    “How did you know?” My voice is small in my own ears.
    “It’s a mistake to try to secretly use magic around someone with the Gift of detecting it, you little goose. That’s something you might well let your demon of a friend Kitty know next time she gets icy fingers around my friends.”
    “Oh.” I feel stupid.
    “Cheer up, old girl,” she says, with a certain amount of kindness. “I would have known something was up anyway. You need to use a more delicate touch. My mind suddenly screaming at me not to look at a cupboard was enough to raise anyone’s suspicions. Subtlety is not, it seems, your strong point.”
    I feel even stupider. “How did you know it was me?
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