by Lan Chan
He stuck the pointy end of the trowel into the dirt and dusted his hands together. “The plant at the base of the bed where you’re standing, what is it called?”
I looked down at the low-growing plant with its serrated leaves and indigo spires of flowers. Each flower spike was made up of dozens of small hooded flowers. I knew it on sight from the many books I’d read in the library. “Monkshood,” I said.
“And what is another name for Monkshood?”
“Wolfsbane.”
“Or?”
I wracked my brain. “Aconite?”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I’m not.”
A smile tugged at his lips. He reached down and plucked a flower head. Holding it out to me, he asked, “And what is the use of Monkshood?”
I cast my mind back to the herbal medicine books. My memory wasn’t exactly stellar, but I’d pored over those books so much that I had almost committed them to memory. “It helps cure fear, anxiety and restlessness. Some say it can also help with fever.”
“Do you think a plant can do all those things?”
“No,” I blurted out. I thought of the rosemary I’d taken to Nanna all those times. It didn’t do much for her. How could a plant help fight a demon?
“Ahh but that’s where you’re wrong, my dear. You just haven’t been using them right.”
He walked over to a compost bin beside one of the beds, opened the lid and dropped the monkshood flower inside.
“You have so much of the flower here,” I observed. Now that I looked closer, it wasn’t just growing at the base of the raised bed. It was in all of the long borders and scattered across the meadow in the distance as well.
“Of course,” Thalia said. “Wolfsbane may not have been as useful as your human books intend, but it works a treat on our shifter friends. We use it extensively during the full moon cycle when the aggression may get a little overwhelming for some.”
They then got me to name a dozen or so more plants. I surprised myself by not only remembering what they were but also their intended uses. I had to plant a few seedlings from a punnet Peter produced out of thin air. Then I had to tag and sort different types of seeds. All things Nanna had me help her with in the garden. My relief was palpable. By the end of it, I wanted to stay in the garden rather than go back to the school. I said so to Thalia and she beamed.
“Wherever this journey may take you, Alessia, remember that often, our struggle is about choice.” She picked up a twig that lay against the base of the raised bed.
“Last question,” she said. “This is a cutting from one of the roses.” The stem was dry and hardened. Dead. “Bring it back to life.”
My eyes bulged. “Are you kidding?”
“Not at all. As a hedge witch, you have that gift.” She laid a hand on my forehead. My visions blazed with a glow of vivid sky blue. “Do you feel that energy? That is your power to wield. Call to it. Use it to bring this branch back to health.” She gave me a bunch of other instructions. It didn’t help.
“I....I can’t.”
“Try.”
Closing my eyes against the brightness of the power, I attempted to reach out to it as she’d suggested. I must have used my arms in real life because the back of my hand brushed against the coarse fabric of her tunic. “Sorry.”
I bit my lip and begged the power to rise. At first nothing happened. I was sweating again. After the third time, a small tendril slithered from the pool of energy. It wavered where it grew, waiting for me to direct it.
But when I opened my eyes and looked at the twig Thalia was holding, I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t sure where the hesitation came from. A spike of exhilaration had bloomed in my chest when I’d realised I had the power. But a part of me weighed up the expenditure of that power against what it was I was doing and it came up short. A phantom voice in my mind made me consider my options.
There is no life without death, the voice said. I had to agree.
Plucking the twig from Thalia’s palm, I walked it over to the compost bin and dropped it inside. “A strange choice,” she said.
Peter scratched at his head and laughed. “Well, she technically did do what you asked, Tally. The branch will decompose and bring back new life.”
He clapped me on the back. The Fae turned her head to the side and watched me. “You are a strange one, Alessia Hastings. But I have no doubt of what you are. You may proceed.”
A portal opened in the middle of the lawn. You would think after all of the weird stuff I’d seen it wouldn’t make me jump. At least I managed to catch the scream before it came out of my mouth.
Before I could step through the portal, Peter called out my name. “The rosehips in your pocket,” he asked, “are they for a specific purpose?”
I patted the pocket of my jeans. “Oh.” I’d forgotten they were there. “My roommate is a kitchen witch. She wanted them to make jam.”
He gave me a rueful smile. “Perhaps the other species might not think so,” he said. “But our power could be something more with a little imagination. An army does march on its stomach after all. And what are we if not an army?”
I waved goodbye and stepped through the portal with his words ringing in my ear. The thing I was focused on was that he’d said, “our power.” I was smiling when my feet touched down on the cement floor on the other side of the portal. The breath left me at the stark difference this room was to the clear, open air of the last test.
If I had to describe this room, the word that came to mind was: dungeon. Dark grey stone walls closed the room in on all four sides. There was no door. The room was large but oppressive. There was a dais up front with a rectangular desk that ran along one wall. Behind the desk were four people: Jacqueline, Professor Mortimer, the Nephilim who was head of Diamond House, and a female vampire. They all looked down at me as I stood there cowering. Jacqueline had some sheets of paper in her hands.
“Alessia,” she said. “Come, we’d like to discuss the results of your written examination.”
Uh oh.
13
I moved forward across the cold floor. There was no desk or even a seat on this side of the table’s divide. I had a sneaking suspicion that in different circumstances, this room might be used for containment instead of testing. There was a black scorch mark in the corner of the room that I wasn’t all that keen on inspecting.
Jacqueline and the professor continued to speak in hushed voices, their heads angled close. The vampire sat with her arms crossed over her chest. So I let my attention settle on the Nephilim. It was a mistake.
He was, for all intents and purposes, perfect. Just like Brigid, there wasn’t a hair out of place on his head. Sensing my attention, he leaned forward in his seat, his powerful shoulders on full display. Sky-blue eyes pierced me. My eyes were blue too, but next to his glowing crystal orbs, they seemed like dull blobs. A smile tugged at his lips. I dropped my gaze. Not because I was embarrassed but because it seemed disrespectful not to. Sophie was right though. He might be Michael’s bloodline and a born warrior, but there was something less intense about him compared to Malachi.
After a moment more of silence, Jacqueline cleared her throat. Every muscle in my body tensed. I couldn’t stop staring at the documents in her hands. Seeing where I was focused, Jacqueline put the papers down.
“I’m sure you know your written examination results aren’t going to be anything to write home about,” she said. It was the way she said it that lifted my dark mood. She sounded…not amused, but unsurprised.
I didn’t respond, though. They knew my history and the fact that I had no prior training in this area. “What we’re interested in are these drawings you’ve made,” Jacqueline continued. “You said your grandmother never let on that you might be a witch?”
“No,’ I said. “She didn’t say a word.”
“But it was your grandmother who taught you how to draw these circles?”
“She told me stories about them. It was more of a g
ame than anything else.”
The professor tapped the table with a pen. “On the day you were extracted from the human world, you drew one of these circles unwittingly.”
“I think so.”
“Can you show us which one?”
He spread the pictures I’d drawn on the table and motioned me forward. I scanned the pages until I came upon the one I wanted. The protection circle. My sleep circle was a variation of this same pattern.
“Interesting,” the professor said. “Malachi said you did it without needing to give the circle a physical representation.”
I stared back at him blankly. He ran a hand through his greying hair. “Oh, right. I keep forgetting you don’t know what any of this means. You drew the circle in your mind rather than, say, on the ground or in the air the way the high mages do.”
I nodded.
“I don’t suppose a demonstration is out of the question? If you don’t mind?”
I glanced at Jacqueline. She held up her hands. “It’s entirely up to you, Lex.”
I scratched my cheek. “Isn’t this a test, though?”
Professor Mortimer gave me a sheepish smile. “Not really. This is more a professional curiosity. If you don’t want to do this, it won’t affect your course syllabus.”
“Because I’ve proven I don’t know anything.”
“That isn’t your fault.”
I was happy enough with that admission. At least I wasn’t going to be punished for being a dunderhead. “Okay. What would you like me to do?”
The professor reached into a drawer attached to the table and produced a piece of blue chalk. “Just for our benefit, could you please draw the circle you use to protect yourself?”
Taking the chalk, I stepped into the middle of the room and began to draw. I always started with the smaller, inner circle first. It gave me a better gauge for the rest of the markings. After the first circle was done, I laid my hand against it and wished for protection. When I did it in my head, a feeling of calm always washed down my spine. As I did it here, the blue chalk line glowed in a bright pulse. That had never happened before.
“Ahhh….”
“Keep going,” the professor urged.
Biting my tongue, I finished the ritual by drawing two bigger circles as well as smaller circles and lines that interconnected them all. By the time I was done, their watchful gazes didn’t seem all that intimidating anymore. Also, I was so mesmerised by the glowing circle that everything else in the room could have disappeared.
“Desi,” the professor asked, “could you please see if you can break through the circle?”
Rising from her seat, the vampire stalked towards me. I watched her come closer like a baby seal watches a shark. She didn’t attempt to hide the fact that she was a predator. Not with the skin-tight black jeans she wore or the fitted biker jacket.
“I assume you had no idea of the type of fiend you were trying to keep out when you made these circles?” the professor asked. Desi was pacing around my circle. I stood inside the centre and tracked her movements. When she got behind me, a shiver of apprehension flooded my gut.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t really believe in them.”
Desi continued to stalk. It was fascinating to watch her skirting the perimeter of the outer circle like it was live electricity. Yet when I extended my arm out, it felt like nothing at all. When she did the same, her arm slid through the perimeter without a problem. But she didn’t enter. She came to a stop in front of me. Her top lip curled up into what I think might have been a smile. It showed off her canines that were elongated to sharp points.
“I can’t sense a thing from her,” she said. “My sense of smell isn’t as acute as a shifter, but I can’t scent her at all. Nor can I detect her with my compulsion.”
The blank expression on my face must have said it all. “She is, from what I can tell, completely invisible to the supernatural world.”
“Fascinating,” Professor Mortimer said. “Thank you, Desi.”
He rubbed his chin the way an evil mastermind would. “I know Kai and Evan already corroborated the potency of your protection circle in action. But I would love to see that as well.”
Jacqueline leaned in and whispered something in his ear. “Oh, right,” he said. “How are you feeling, Alessia?”
I glanced down at my hands. “Fine.”
“No fatigue?”
I shook my head. “Do you feel up to another demonstration?”
“Sure, I guess.”
Jacqueline angled her head to the side and nodded. Like she was begrudgingly giving consent for something. Professor Mortimer pointed at the Nephilim.
“This is Bradley. He is one of the Academy’s most gifted students. I would be very grateful if you could demonstrate the same spell you used when Kai extracted you from the human world.
Bradley rose from his seat. Where Desi had exuded an ominous calm, he projected confidence. Safety. The expression on his face was a stark contrast to that. When his back was turned to the others, he smirked at me.
As a result, I pushed all distractions to the periphery and focused on examining his movements. He proceeded with apparent nonchalance. The red chequered shirt he wore was fitted over his bulging physique. I bit my tongue to stop the sarcastic remark from slipping out. Here was a guy who knew he looked good. Better than good. But oh boy did I want to punch him in the face.
I should have started the protection circle way before this but the professor had asked that I replicate the results of the incident in the psychiatric hospital. That time I hadn’t had any time to even think about what I was doing. This time, I was watching Bradley so closely that I saw it the instant the tendon on his forearm twitched.
He didn’t say a word as the outline of his broadsword appeared between us. Unlike Kai’s, this sword was shiny and new. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he had magicked it for cosmetic purposes. All of that was pushed to the side as I lifted my left hand an inch above my waist. I projected a sense of impenetrability into the circle I drew with my finger. The circle completed at the same time the blade of Bradley’s sword slammed down onto my forehead. A couple inches from my hairline the blade hit an invisible force field. Sparks of multicoloured lights burst between us.
He pulled back and brought his sword down again. And again. And again. Each time I grit my teeth, forced my overreacting heartbeat to slow, and reinforced the notion of safety. After several dozen similar blows, something wavered in Bradley’s indomitable ego. He wasn’t getting through.
Sweat started to gather on my collar and my armpits. That fatigue the professor was talking about caught up with me. Done with playing this game, Bradley brought his arm back. A slow lick of red fire crawled along the top edge of the blade. This time when he attacked, I shoved back against the circle with a command of my own.
I wasn’t sure where the knowledge came from. All I knew was that I didn’t care for the vicious look in his eyes. As though he was trying to break me. We might be many things, but Hastings women did not break. Nanna had proven that much to me.
When Bradley’s sword collided with the circle, a thunderous crack reverberated through the room. I felt it shudder through my bones, making my molars ache. I fell to my knees as a hollow feeling ate into the pit of my stomach. A guttural growl emitted from two metres away where Bradley had been thrown when he made impact. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him stagger to his knees and make a forward motion.
“I think we’ve seen more than enough,” Jacqueline called out. Just like that the air in the room cleared. Bradley extended his sword arm, the point directed right at me.
“Neat trick,” he said. “Only problem is that you have to stay inside the circle in order to keep yourself safe.”
I wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a criticism. Judging by the way he sauntered off without giving me a backward glance, it was the latter.
“This is truly fascinating,” the professor said. I was glad he thought
so because I felt like I’d been stepped on by a five-tonne elephant. It made me remember that I’d woken up so late this morning I hadn’t had a chance to have breakfast. Not that eating regular meals was something I was used to anyway.
“And Raphael detected none of the supernatural in her?” The professor was addressing Jacqueline.
“Nothing of any consequence.”
They exchanged a hard look that made all of the hairs on my body stand up to attention. I cleared my throat. My parched throat. My stomach grumbled.
“Is there any chance I could get something to eat?” Yeah, yeah. I was standing in a room with some of the most powerful people in the Academy and all I could think about was food.
“Didn’t you eat before the trials?” Desi said.
I shook my head. “I got woken up late.”
Jacqueline suppressed a grin and then tried to cover it up with a stern expression. “We pride ourselves on discipline at Bloodline Academy.” At the same time, a plate of sandwiches appeared on the table. “Having said that, it’s your second day so we’ll let it slide.”
Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, I grabbed for two sandwiches, one in each hand, and stuffed the one on the right in my mouth. I tried to speak at the same time. As a result, it came out as indistinguishable mumbling.
“Beg your pardon?” the professor asked.
I chewed and swallowed as fast as I could. “May I please take some for Sophie?”
“Both your hands are already full,” Bradley noted. He looked at the bulge in my jeans. “As are your pockets.”
Clearly, they did not understand the power of motivation. Not hearing an outright no, I shoved another two sandwiches into my left hand. A portal opened at my back. The professor gave me a nod. “Thank you for your time, Alessia. It’s been very enlightening. I’ll be in touch.”
I swallowed and massaged my throat to get it down. I’d already eaten two sandwiches in front of them. I was sure the look Desi was giving me was disgust. But I was suddenly ravenous. Surely, as a vamp, she could understand that. “About my written exam...”