Page 22 of Inked in Bloom
Well she couldn’t have been more wrong about me. My life was full. Brimming, in fact. I couldn’t have filled it with anything else.
Tess flips to the next slide that projects onto the rose-covered wall. The top is titled Bloom Seasonal Cycle and beneath it are a series of arrows and labels. “Each year, Blooms bring spring twice. Once in the northern hemisphere and then again in the southern hemisphere. However, our seasons do not align with those you may have been taught in your previous life. We begin bringing spring in early March and September, where we have a few weeks of overlap with winter’s Frosts. At the end of the season, around mid-May and November, we slowly phase out as summer’s Storms take over. In between those seasons, it is imperative that Blooms recharge through a process called rejuvenation in order to regain enough magic to do their duty the following spring. We will talk more about each part of the cycle at a later date, including solstice—which happens at the close of the season and works as a magicboost for depleted Blooms before they restore themselves with rest.”
With a twitch of her nose, the slide disappears, replaced by a flower-shaped map with City Hall at its center. Tess drones on about the various parts of Florezca’s map and I find myself sketching George beneath my notes. He’s behind the reception desk in his signature noise-cancelling headphones, lips parted, their corners upturned as he sings along to the music. I miss seeing him each day. He’d probably love it here, everything’s bubbly just like him. Rain pelts against the windows, slipping down the glass in long streaks, plummeting toward the soil.
The professor pauses her description of The Fluffle and gestures toward the glass pane embedded into the ceiling. “The afternoon rains are necessary to keep our work hydrated. By the end of this course, you will learn how to do this as needed in the mortal realm. Here in Florezca, the rains are powered by off-season Blooms. Each of them is responsible for a week of rain so as to not deplete any one harbinger.” She points to City Hall’s tallest tower on her map. “This is where Blooms report when they’re tasked with hydration duty.”
I continue drawing, eyes still on Tess so she believes I’m taking notes. My strokes come in jagged lines, cracks, and fissures. It’s mindless, a whirl as I take in her tour of the map. The rain’s pouring echo vibrates through the room, and the soil beneath my toes cools, becoming moist, preparing for our magic.
Not that I have any yet.
I screw the ball of my feet into the dirt and zone out. However, my ears perk up when Tess points to the one area Roxy and Kendrick didn’t talk much about. “Beyond this are The Nestling Fieldswhere?—”
Her words are drowned by the thundering purr of an engine. Everyone’s eyes snap to the side of the auditorium where a tall rider gets off the strange motorbike. As he walks toward the door, the rain obscures him, turning him into a moving oil painting, blurring when he passes the row of windows.
Professor Briar enters, rich-lavender strands plastered against his forehead. His feet are bare and he shakes his head, droplets spraying in all directions before his hair flops over to one side, perfectly mussed.
Tess’s still talking about the map in the background, but I’m too entranced by the wayward droplet snaking down Briar’s Adam’s apple. It slips beneath the V-neck collar of his fitted T-shirt. His white, currently semi-sheer T-shirt, the material clinging to every inch of muscle, leaving nothing to the imagination. He’s got the abs a human only achieves from extremely long days at the gym, and he’s soaked…
Pretty soon I’m going to be too.
There’s a scrape against the ground, and a whisper pulls me from my ogling. “Monroe.”
“Yes?” I shift in my seat.
“You may want to screw your jaw back in place.” Cherri’s voice lowers. “You’re about to drool.”
I shush her under my breath. There’s a loudpopbehind me, jolting me in my seat, and I turn and spot Dani, who’s back to jaw-smacking. They’re leaning so far in their chair that it should fall over—but it doesn’t. Unfortunately.
The professor glances up at the clock and hands off her notebook and other supplies to the hanging vines around the table’s edge. They disappear beneath the wood, and she says goodbye to us, closing out Bloomology and turning the class over.
Briar removes his black leather jacket, and a slip of thefamiliar insignia from Dani’s back is visible as he hangs it on one of the sculpted rose-gold tulip wall hooks.
“Those glasses sure do work for him.” Cherri appraises him shamelessly. “The inkwork isn’t too shabby either.”
It really isn’t. With his jacket off, vines and blossoms in a gradient of stunning strokes cover his thick biceps, wrapping around his arms and moving all the way down to the rose encompassing the back of his hand. There are so many that I wish I could look closer at, pick them apart one by one, and admire the artistry that went into it all.
“Did you have any tattoos—before?” Cherri asks dreamily, looking her fill alongside me.
“No. I always wanted one, but I never knew what to choose.” I purse my lips, tracing the brambles descending beneath his neckline. “I wonder how many he has.”
“He’s got at least sixty flourish marks.”
My brows scrunch together and I shift my attention to her. “How do you know?”
“He’s a Radix,” she says with a shrug, as though that should be enough. “Every inch of their skin is inked.”
Every inch. My throat dries, focus drifting down his stomach where his dark jeans are tight in the best way. I huff at myself. My imagination needs to calm down.
Cherri rubs her hands together. “We’ll see soon enough.”
I cock my head at her. “What do you mean?”
She brings a finger to her lips and waves me to face the front of the room. “Class is in session.”
“Welcome to your first lesson in Transformational Studies,” Professor Briar says, making eye contact with every student. “As I mentioned at orientation, this will be your most rigorous course of the curriculum. Our transformation is not only a difficult process to achieve, it’s imperative foryour own safety to understand the ins and outs of how to move safely through the veil and mortal realm.” His gaze drifts from Cherri and just as it’s about to reach mine, it skips down to the harbinger in front of me. “One mistake could cost you.”
“If we are immortal, why would it matter?” Dani calls out in a mocking tone from behind me. They’re leaning back in their seat, like they’re watching TV and not in a classroom where they’re supposed to be learning.
