by Lan Chan
“I don’t want to bug anyone else. It’s fun to watch you get all flustered.”
“You are seriously the worst.”
“So I’ve heard. Not just from you. From Cassie. My grandmother. Max. Professor Mortimer. I’m still working off the blowback from that one.”
“I can’t believe you punched him.”
His arms tensed. I pressed my cheek to his chest. “I can. I’ve done worse. After my family was murdered I was like a rage tornado sweeping everyone up and dumping them in my wake.”
I bit my lip. I wanted to know what happened, but I didn’t want to open that wound up for him again. It seemed he wanted to talk, though. All I had to do was wait and stay quiet. Not a trait I was good at.
“When I was a kid, I thought we were invincible. I used to watch in the training yards of Seraphina as Michael’s bloodline trained. We’d had peace for too long. When the demons came, they outnumbered and outclassed us.”
“How did that even happen?”
“We forgot they’re demons. They don’t fight with honour. Instead of meeting Michael’s forces head-on, they went for our weakest. Our children and the Nephilim who couldn’t fight.”
“Your family.”
His grip turned crushing. I held on even harder. “When it was over, I was so angry at all of them. Looking back, I can barely remember the few years after that. All I did was train. It felt like I blinked and went from watching my family die to winning the trials. By then I’d lost almost everybody but Max. I still don’t like Bradley. Or Adam.”
I thumped his shoulder. “You definitely have issues.”
My whole body warmed when he chuckled. “Thanks for keeping her safe. For protecting them. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Cassie.”
“Does she know that?”
“Of course she does.”
I pursed my lips and looked up at him. “She knows you’re trying to protect her. But she’s a kid. It doesn’t matter what you say you’re doing. She wants to be with you. Isn’t the whole point of the Academy existing so that she has a place where she’s safe?”
“Seraphina was meant to be safe.”
“Okay, forget the word safe. Let’s talk about living. Life is not about staying one step ahead of death. She’s not going to look back one day and remember all the training you did to keep her safe. She’s going to miss all the time you could have spent with her.”
I dropped my head. He cupped my cheek and drew me up again. “Blue –”
“I don’t remember my mother at all. But I remember Nanna always being there. We didn’t have much money, but I don’t care that I didn’t have new clothes or fancy stuff. Everything she taught me while we gardened together is everything I’ve used to get this far.”
“She’s still alive.”
I nodded. “Yes she is. And that knowledge keeps me going. But I’m not going to stay in limbo until she wakes up. I have to keep going. Or it’ll hurt her when she does wake up. Keep going, Kai.”
He leaned down, his features obscured in the shadows. He brushed his thumb over my cheek. “You really are a badass.”
“Don’t you forget it.”
He smiled at me. My heart skipped a long beat. The candle lights flickered and extinguished. “Dammit. Time’s up.”
“Time?”
“I’m on a curfew. It was either that or miss the ball altogether.”
I hissed. “Typical. Even punishments for you are different to us mere mortals.”
He clasped his hands under my jaw, splaying his fingers on my neck. “After everything that’s happened, you’re anything but a mere mortal, Blue. I better get you back before they think I’ve kidnapped you.”
All things considered, I didn’t mind being kidnapped by him at all.
36
The rest of the evening was uneventful. It was fun to hang out and forget about the demon attacks and the impending exams.
We left at a reasonable hour. Adam stood for too long at our door. “Okay, thanks,” Sophie said. She slammed the door in his face.
“Soph!”
“What! He looked like he was going to try and kiss you!”
“So?”
Basil just shook his head. “I do not approve of any of this.”
Sophie nodded fervently. “Neither do I. Please tell me you’re not going to see him anymore.”
“Seriously, what’s going on with you? I thought you wanted me to make more friends.”
“You’ve got plenty of friends.”
“Sophie.” I grabbed her arm. “What’s up?”
Her jaw locked. “He shouldn’t have left you there alone with the demons.” Not this again.
“I asked him to go find help.”
“I don’t care. He’s a weak asshole.”
“You sound just like Kai.”
“I wish I’d been there when Kai strangled him and his face turned blue.”
“How do you even know what happened?”
“Charles told Max and –”
I whirled on her. Red crept up her neck and spread over her cheeks. I grinned. “When did you talk to Max?”
“That’s beside the point.”
“Is it? You had a date and somehow he still managed to make time with you.”
“It was one dance.” She put her hands on her hips. We looked at each other and broke out in hysterical squealing. Basil covered his nonexistent ears and groaned.
We didn’t go to bed until the small hours of the morning. Since my escape from the demon, I was feeling less mopey about stuff. Until the professors got all up in my head about exam prep.
“What the hell?” I said. “How is it exams already? I only just got here.”
“It’s been five months,” Sophie said.
We were making our way to the dining hall after our final class for the day. I didn’t have practice with Kai because he was still being punished with hard labour in the swamps. Figures that he was the one who did the crime and I ended up paying for it. The only thing I could console myself with was the fact that I had read up on a lot of the theory that had stumped me during my entrance exam.
Basil and I went over everything late at night while everyone else was still asleep. I wasn’t hearing voices in the middle of the night anymore. The nightmares were another thing altogether. It kept replaying that moment when the demon pronounced that I belonged to someone and tried to drag me into the Hell dimension. I hadn’t told anyone about that part. I’d only just gotten the idea that I wasn’t a demon into people’s heads. The last thing I needed was for them to question this. I wasn’t a demon. I couldn’t be. No way was I entertaining that thought. Luckily, all of the kids had been too preoccupied with dying to have caught it.
The buzz outside Professor Eldridge’s Weaponry and Combat class was deafening when I arrived back from lunch with Diana and Sophie. “What’s going on?” Sophie asked Trey. Everybody was gathered around a chalkboard at the front of the room. The professor was taping a bunch of lists to the chalkboard.
“Whoever is stabbing me in the back with their elbow had better step away,” she snarled. A circle opened up around her. She took the opportunity to stride away from the board. When she was gone, the students swarmed.
“She’s putting up the lists for the exam groups,” Trey said. He then turned his back on us and fought his way to the front of the queue.
“Why is this such a big deal?” I asked.
“Since we’re preparing for the Unity Games, the stronger the group you can get into, the higher the chances you’ll be picked to represent Bloodline Academy in the games. They have to include everybody in one trial and pick a leader for each group. If you’re in a team with a House Captain, that’s like being given a golden ticket.”
The Unity Games were kind of like the supernatural Olympics. They happened once every three years and brought together the four magical schools in the world to compete in trials. It was also a recruiting ground for supernaturals. If you did well, it was likely you’d
walk away from the games with a guaranteed job offer. I thought the whole thing was weird. I was the only one. Diana decided to join the fray.
Fred was ejected by the crowd and raced over. “I got into Bradley’s group!” His grin was infectious.
“Good for you,” Sophie said. She was frowning, though. When I glanced at where her attention was fixed, I saw the burn mark on his wrist. “Are you okay?” she asked him.
He shrugged it off. “This is nothing. I’ve just been practicing my circles a lot.”
“You’re using candles?” That was third-year stuff. Sophie told me she used candles sometimes but she was a kitchen witch and could control fire to a certain extent.
“Yeah. Brigid has been helping me with wind manipulation and the candlelight helps to concentrate that.”
I bristled. He seemed to realise his mistake. Sophie turned her shoulder to him and walked off. “Sorry,” he said. “I mean, I know you don’t like her, but she’s been okay to me. And I really do need help.”
“Do whatever you want.”
I walked away too. He did need help before. But he didn’t need it now. Maybe I was being petty, but I couldn’t forgive the Fae who had stabbed me. Diana and Trey came back.
“You’re in Adam’s team,” Diana told Sophie.
“What about Max?” I said.
“Diana got picked for his team,” Trey said.
Diana looked like she was going to thump him. Sophie put on a brave face. I squeezed her hand. She squeezed back harder. “No big deal. He picked his best shot at winning.” I was going to kill Max when I got the chance.
“Which is probably why Kai picked you,” Trey said to me.
“Huh?”
“In the games,” Trey insisted. “You got picked for his team.”
I laughed. “Why would he choose me? I‘m terrible at hand-to-hand combat.”
“Doesn’t matter. These exams aren’t just about fighting. He doesn’t need another fighter anyway. You’ve got the strongest Earth magic in the school. It was a smart move.”
Later in the week, Kai laughed his ass off when I told him what Trey had said. He’d finally made some time to reschedule one of my lessons. “Yeah okay, let’s go with that explanation.”
He tossed a staff at me. I barely caught it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
I wouldn’t let it go. Finally, he dragged his hand through his hair. It highlighted the smudge of something, it looked like seaweed, stuck to his hairline. “I don’t want you on my team, Blue.”
My jaw dropped.
“These trials aren’t a joke. They’re dangerous. You remember the one I dreamed up, right? Think of that but at the hands of the school committee.”
“Why did you pick me then?”
He glanced sidelong at me. For a second, he stopped curling the hand wraps around his hands. “Because none of the team leaders wanted you.”
I wanted to say it didn’t hurt. Not saying it and not feeling it were two different things. He saw the look in my eyes. “Don’t take it personally.”
“Well, when you put it like that, how else can I take it?”
Obviously he was back to being a jackass. I shouldn’t have expected anything less. As we sparred and he yelled corrections at me, something cold settled in my chest. Alright, if all these jerks didn’t want me on their team, then I would show them exactly what they were missing out on.
I was so tired of being looked down on just because I was a low-magic user. Hadn’t I proven my circles were just as good as their fireballs? If Fred could win their respect, then so could I. Except I didn’t want their respect. I wanted them to eat their words.
Channelling my rage, I dodged and struck with a precision I’d never been able to maintain before. Kai feinted to the right. I brought the staff up at an angle to block him and then immediately compensated. His blade swung wide. I shifted my body so that it sliced the air in front of me. When I lashed out, the tip of the staff smacked him on his left thigh.
We stilled. It was the first time I’d ever gotten in a hit before. I almost dropped the staff and did a victory dance. Somehow, I managed to maintain my dignity. Rather than get annoyed, he smirked. Leaning down, he spoke beside my ear.
“I’ll make a badass out of you yet, Blue.”
Not if I did it by myself first.
37
The library was open at all hours these days. We had exams tomorrow and everybody was trying to study. I’d never felt more nervous. Back in the human world I never even bothered to study. Sometimes I didn’t even show up for them. But it was impossible not to get swept up in the tide of anxiety. These kids were magical and their emotions fuelled their powers. More than one explosion had happened over the past week with witches and mages trying to perfect their potions. The vampires were around twenty-four seven, choosing not to sleep so they could work on their compulsions. The Fae got even more beautiful. They went around trying to out-glamour each other.
Howls rented the air at all hours of the night. The shifters were practicing their transformations. Their heightened emotional toll had them making all kinds of primal sounds.
“Have a try of this,” Sophie said.
We were in the small, disused kitchen of the dining hall. Sophie had gotten permission to use it to practice her potions. I sniffed at the spoonful of something red and bubbling that she shoved under my nose. It smelled of roses and raspberry. I opened my mouth. It tasted heavenly. Until it didn’t.
Clutching my hands over my mouth, I ran to the sink and threw up. Something felt like it was scraping down my throat. My eyes watered.
“Lex!”
“What the hell was that?”
“Rosehip jam with a hint of a memory spell. What’s wrong?”
“What memory were you thinking of when you made it? Was that during when we were talking about Max? It feels like I just ate gunpowder!”
I stuck my head under the faucet and tried to rinse out my mouth. It did nothing.
“Sorry!” Sophie kept apologizing. “Oh jeez. You’ve got smoke coming out of your ears.”
I ran to the Herbology centre where Peter gave me a magicked salve of lemon verbena, aloe, and peppermint that eventually soothed the burns in my mouth.
“That’s a powerful smoke spell,” Peter observed.
“You’re telling me!” I stuck my tongue out and scraped it with my nails. The salve had numbed it to the point where I could hardly feel anything. I sat on the bench beside the nasturtiums and chewed on comfrey leaves.
“How is your examination prep going?” Peter asked.
“It’s okay. I think I’ll do better than last time.”
“Not exactly a difficult feat as I recall.”
“I’m a bit nervous about my physical exam.”
“How so?”
“I got picked to be on a team with Malachi.”
“Ah. Not to worry. He’ll keep you in line.”
“Do you mean safe?”
“I meant what I said.” He grinned. “Give me a hand with these nightshade plants.”
I put on gloves and helped him relocate the deadly plants. Then we climbed a tree and I gathered mistletoe for the mage’s examinations. By the time I was done with those chores, my mouth was soothed and so was my mind. Being around plants had always given me a sense of peace.
Basil was waiting for me when I arrived home. Sophie was still out. “I don’t know if I can handle any more studying. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Not to worry,” Basil said. “Let’s take a look at your fighting form.”
He knew nothing about physical combat. The repeated physical exertion tired me out, though. After drawing my circle, I was out like a light.
It felt like I had barely closed my eyes when the voice dragged me into the cold cavern. I struggled but I couldn’t break free. This was just a nightmare, but while I was there, my entire body was motionless.
&n
bsp; “There you are,” a voice said. This one didn’t belong to the bull demon. It was smooth as molasses. The voice was disembodied. Nothing appeared to claim it.
“What are you?” I asked.
“I am what you are.”
“Which is what exactly?”
“Trapped.”
I thought he was referring to my inability to move. “This is just a nightmare.”
“Not for long. Not now that I’ve found you. Come to me, Alessia.”
A glacial hand wrapped around my throat. It clamped down. I fought to breathe. My body remained still. I wanted so badly to claw at the thing compressing my airways. A pulsating sound snapped my eyes open. The room was no longer dark.
A blue glow lit up the floor. When I rolled over to peer over the side of the bed, I saw circles ablaze. They threw off light that reached into every dark corner of my mind. I pressed my hand to the floor. A tingling raced up my arm. It pushed away the voice that had been in my head. I was okay. Nothing was going to get me. Not in here.
I couldn’t fall back asleep, though. The nightmare had felt too real. I had to make a decision. When the exams were over, I’d have to tell Jacqueline about what the demon had said to me. There was no more hiding. I felt certain that the source of the strength of my power came from something not of this realm. Because of that, I was dangerous. Even if I didn’t intend to be.
These were the thoughts that were racing through my mind as I tended to the Arcana tree in the Grove. My tree was growing steadily. It was almost as tall as I was. The growth was too astronomical to be normal, but I didn’t question it. There were far more sinister things to consider. I yawned as I watered.
A high-pitched chattering told me the nymphs were around. Sometimes they showed up to watch me labour. They were still gloating about conning me into doing this chore in the first place. Today I was too wound up to notice them much.
I was just about to leave when a cluster of them flew at me. They blocked my exit. The purple nymph flew in their centre. She had an Arcana fruit clutched in her tiny hands. It must have weighed more than she did. It put me in mind of those helicopters that flew into remote areas to drop supplies.