I frowned. Was the book still controlling my actions even after we'd destroyed the pages?
"Everyone, turn to the next chapter in your textbook," Professor Wiggleburn said in his commanding tone.
I sighed and did as instructed. He was known for picking on random people to answer questions, and I didn't want to be taken off guard because I was thinking about something else.
The sound of people flipping through books filled the room. The title across the top of the page grabbed my attention immediately and I perked up. This was interesting.
"Werewolves." The Professor echoed the title across the top of the page. "Can anyone tell me what they know about the creatures?"
Silence greeted him. I suspected it was because most of us thought the same thing. Wasn't werewolf the term humans had given shifters when they didn't understand what they were seeing?
"I see that none of you have been reading ahead," he scolded. "Werewolves are interesting, as they are often thought to be nothing more than fiction. But that isn't the case. This is the reason the paranormal communities are encouraged not to procreate with humans. Werewolves are the result of hybrid children between wolf shifters and humans."
My blood ran cold. I hated any reminder that hybrids could be dangerous, and this was one of those. Everyone had heard the human-hybrid rumors. They were vicious and often left a trail of blood in their wake.
A girl on the other side of the classroom raised her hand. I didn't know her name yet, I'd been too focused on my own problems to bother learning it. Guilt filled me at that thought. I should pay more attention to my fellow students.
"Yes, Stacy?" Professor Wiggleburn looked impressed that someone had the guts to ask a question while he was busy chiding us.
"If they're hybrids, doesn't that mean they're more powerful than normal shifters?" she asked.
I frowned. Was I more powerful than a normal vampire or witch? I didn't think so, but I supposed I hadn't been around enough of either to know that for sure.
"Excellent, someone knows their hybrid lore," Wiggleburn said.
More than I did, that was for certain. I'd stopped doing a lot of research into my hybrid status when I'd realized it was a death sentence in a lot of ways.
"Yes, a werewolf is more powerful than a normal shifter, which is what makes them dangerous. Does anyone know what happens if a vampire-witch hybrid is born?" he asked.
My eyes widened. Did he know about me? He couldn't have, otherwise, he'd have looked at me while he was saying all this.
"Yes, Philip." He pointed toward the back of the class, presumably to where the boy in question was sitting.
"Not much is known for certain, but it's said that they have more control over their vampire side. A vampire hybrid won't thirst the same as others."
My fangs descended as if they knew they were being talked about. I touched my tongue to them with my lips closed, then urged them to retract again. Most people at the academy thought I was a witch, and I'd rather it stayed that way. Nothing revealed a vampire faster than flashing some fang.
"Very good. It's believed that by diluting the vampire blood, it makes the cravings not as powerful. What about the witch side?"
Everybody remained silent, no one wanting to risk getting the answer wrong.
Wiggleburn sighed. "As I thought. Witch hybrids are one of the rarest types of hybrid. When they happen, they often have a high command over one type of magic than the others."
"Isn't that normal for witches?" someone blurted out. "They specialize."
Wiggleburn nodded. "Yes, it is common for witches. But for hybrids, even more so. They can often do things that other witches can't."
I stared at my hands. I didn't feel like I could do things the others couldn't, though it was true I was one of the more powerful witches in the year. That was one of the reasons I kept getting paired with Sadie, who also had a great deal of power.
Huh. I hadn't expected that.
"How does this relate to werewolves, sir?" Stacy asked.
"I'm glad you want to know." Wiggleburn smiled as if she'd asked the question he'd wanted her to. "A human-paranormal hybrid is incredibly rare. Even before the laws against such a union, they didn't often happen. In general, the human blood diluted the paranormal blood to a heightened extent, leaving the child without any magical powers whatsoever. In the rare event that a hybrid child does occur, the magic twists. They become more powerful than their paranormal parent, but with a twist. This is how several beings have come into existence, including werewolves and necromancers. Neither of which are common, but they do exist."
I swallowed. At least the reasons for hunting down hybrids were starting to make more sense, even if it was a barbaric practice. I wasn't sure what to make of it all. Was I a danger to society?
I glanced at my hands. Could we use this to stop Estelle and her book from taking over? Every time I thought about the book, I got distracted. Even now I'd managed to get sidetracked from planning by the lesson at hand.
I had to get my focus back. I thought I'd managed to when we'd burned the pages, but perhaps we hadn't burned the right ones. There had to be other, more general, things written in there that were affecting how I was acting, and that was why I still didn't have a plan.
The rest of the lesson went by in a blur. None of it registered as Wiggleburn moved on to other things about werewolves that were more specific than their hybrid status. That part of the lesson had at least been interesting, and potentially useful for me. I hadn't realized the truth about myself. Not that it was anybody's fault. My parents were pure vampire and pure witch, just like most paranormals. It was only by some fluke of nature that I wasn't one of the two myself.
But how do I use this to my advantage?
The bell rang, signaling the end of the lesson. The students around me rushed out of the door, eager to get to their next class. Or wherever it was that they were meant to be going. I had a free period, so moved slower than the rest. I'd texted the guys, but none of them had a free next, so I couldn't hang out with one of them.
I swung my bag over my shoulder and left the classroom, walking through the corridors of the academy.
"Lou, there you are!" Sadie announced.
I jumped, not having expected her to be there.
"You okay?" I asked.
She nodded. "But there's something I need to talk to you about. Do you need to be anywhere now?"
"No, I can come talk to you."
She ushered me into an empty classroom where I wasn't surprised to find Madison waiting too. She and Sadie weren't often far away from one another. I liked that about them, it was a loyalty which Kristi would never achieved.
"We don't feel right," Madison admitted softly. "We've tried talking about the book a couple of times, and both of us have ended up distracted and confused."
"And we thought you might have some answers?" Sadie added.
I wanted to ask why they thought I would know things, but then it made sense. I was the one who had started working all of this out in the first place.
I sighed. "Not that it will help. The guys and I burned a few pages from it, but it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference."
"Why didn't you burn the whole thing?" Sadie asked.
I shrugged. "We couldn't work out how. We tried ripping out all of the pages, but it wouldn't let us do more than one each. Then we burned them. The stuff written on the ones we destroyed seemed to lift, though, so that's something."
"Presumably one of them was about us staying away from you," Sadie mused. "I've been feeling like I shouldn't trust you until today. Today I'm back to normal. That's why we haven't been around as much."
Pain lanced through my heart at the thought, even though I knew it wasn't Sadie's fault she'd felt like that and it was a consequence of something written in the book. But she was one of the first people who'd actually treated me like a friend, and I didn't want to lose her over it.
"I guess so. We should have read what
was on them before burning it," I admitted. "I was too relieved to finally be getting rid of parts of the book, plus we were sort of testing out if it would work." Guilt filled me. I should have thought about all that before we got fire happy.
"I don't think I'd have checked," Sadie said with a shrug. "It's so easy to focus on what's right in front of you."
"Thank you," I whispered. She had no idea what it meant that she'd said that to me. I needed the reassurance that I wasn't going crazy.
"I wouldn't have either," Madison added. "And you weren't to know that you'd only be able to burn the four pages. Is there a way to get the rest out?"
"Only if every student in the academy tore out a page and burned it," I admitted glumly. "We were only able to take out a page each, so I don't see why that wouldn't still be the case."
"Do you have the book still? Maybe the two of us could try?" Madison asked.
I shook my head. "I put it back so Estelle didn't get suspicious." It was definitely easier to speak about the book and what was going on now, we must have burned something important in those pages. That was reassuring, even if it wasn't the perfect situation to be in.
I still couldn't consider turning it in.
"Next time you get it, message us and we'll come and try," Sadie promised. "No matter what time of day it is."
My heart soared. When I'd first met these two, I'd assumed that they were Kristi's followers and would do anything she said. I'd been wrong about that. Hopefully, now that she was gone, they'd flourish.
"Thank you, I'll let you know." Maybe it would be possible to get the whole academy to pull out a page after all. It would take converting small numbers of students like this, but at least that was something.
No. That wouldn't be quick enough. We needed to do something now. But if Sadie and Madison were on our side, then perhaps we stood a chance of destroying it.
That would be four witches, and powerful ones at that. That was a lot of magic we could try and use to destroy it. And if that failed, then at least we could destroy two more pages by having Sadie and Madison rip one out.
"I'm going to get the book tonight," I promised. "Meet me in the far corner of the library at midnight." I'd let the guys know the plan too. We were going to fix this.
"You got it," Sadie promised.
Now all I had to do was find a way to steal the book. Again. If I wasn't careful, Estelle would figure out what I was up to before we were done.
Chapter Nine
MY PHONE DINGED IN my pocket, waking me from my doze. It was Brooks. "Hello?" I wiped the sleep from my eyes as I answered. I'd gone back to my dorm for my free period and fallen asleep on the bed. I'd been hoping to find the book unattended, but no such luck.
"Hey," Brooks’ smooth voice tickled my eardrums. "Where are you?"
"Uh, napping. Am I supposed to be somewhere?" I rolled off the bed and finger-combed my hair.
"You're about to miss the Greenies auditions," he hissed into his phone. "If you don't get here in the next few minutes I don't think they'll let you try out."
"Oh, no! I didn't know that was today! Where are the auditions?"
"Halfway up the path in the woods where we went to the fairy circle." His voice was so hushed I almost didn't hear him as I hurried to yank my sneakers on.
"Be right there." I turned off my phone and shoved it in my pocket as I dashed for the door.
The thing about being a vampire-witch hybrid was that I could move fast. I mean, fast. I never did because I tried to pass myself off as a witch most of the time. Witches couldn't go as fast as vampires, and even most vampires couldn't go as fast as hybrids.
I jogged down the stone stairs at the back of the dorm area of the castle. I had to make a choice. If I wanted to make the tryouts, I'd have to run hybrid-fast. Otherwise, I'd never get that far in minutes. It was at least a mile from the base of the path to the fairy circle, and the path was a good half-mile from my dorm. At best, I'd be looking at five minutes of running at top witch-speed without dipping into my vampire side.
I decided to split the difference. I'd go as fast as I thought any other witch could manage until I hit the woods. Then I'd hit it hard.
It took me a good three minutes to get out of the castle and to the path. As soon as the trees closed around me, I took off, letting my muscles show their stuff, launching me forward like a bullet.
I heard the greenies before I saw them and slowed my pace. The half-mile or so from the base of the path to the audition spot had taken me roughly fifteen seconds. I skidded to a halt beside Brooks in a large clearing off the main path and faked panting. "I ran," I whispered. I didn't need to breathe hard, but a witch who ran from the dorms would have to. If I was lucky, nobody else knew I was that far away when he called and figured out how fast I'd gotten there. I didn't recognize any of them, anyway, and none of them paid me any attention. I was off the hook.
"Okay," Miss Green called. "It's time to begin. The audition is quite simple. You come here." She pointed to the trees in front of her. Each tree had grown in an odd, curvy way until they became the perfect shape of chairs. I'd be quite comfortable planting my butt in any one of them and reading a book or doing homework. "Sit on a tree, and connect with nature. All you have to do is what comes naturally. I will be able to determine if you have a true green connection with the earth and if you do, even if it's mild, you'll be a part of our team."
"We'll go three at a time. Line up." She must not have noticed I joined the crowd. I made us a group of seven. The Greenies were an unpopular group to be in. But I didn’t care, and I suspected that a lot of the students here felt the same. Having a connection with nature was worth so much more than popularity, even if I’d made the mistake of not thinking that was true when I’d first arrived here. Or was that just what Estelle wanted me to believe? Had she written it in the book?
She clapped her hands, and people scrambled. Brooks and I ended up in the back of the line, which was fine with me. I wanted to see what everyone else did.
I watched the first three sit down. They closed their eyes and relaxed. The girl on the left crossed her legs, balancing on the branches. Both guys leaned forward with their elbows on their knees. All six relaxed and breathed deeply. I found myself following their breathing. Soon I realized the three of them were inhaling and exhaling at the same time, and I was on track with them. Then, things started happening. The tree around the girl glowed as it grew new buds and flowers sprouted all over it.
Miss Green walked to the back of the line where she could see all three students at once. This positioning put her right beside me, but I didn't pay her any attention. I was too engrossed in what the students did. The middle guy, a blond with a crooked nose, began humming under his breath. In another few seconds, as the blooms on the girl's tree grew, he swayed back and forth. The guy on the right was still. In the middle, the leaves on the tree turned from beautiful green to yellows, reds, and oranges, and fell to the ground around him.
Without warning, on the right, new branches sprouted from the tree, complete with leaves and budding flowers. He sighed and opened his eyes, breathing hard. It had taken all he had. Damn, he used his magic in an opposite way than I did. I'd never be able to have a burst of magic like that. It was too fluid for me, too smokey. Too hard to describe.
The flowers on the left bloomed, and the leaves in the middle grew again, turning to their original green luscious color. He'd taken the tree's leaves through their entire life cycle without messing with the flowers. Pretty impressive.
They stood and we clapped. I giggled as the boy on the right gave a flourishing bow. When they walked around us and stood behind the people still to go, I nodded at them. "Great job," I said.
The girl was the only one to reply. "Thanks. You're Lou, right?"
I nodded as the other three people waiting beside me, including Brooks, stepped forward. "Good luck," I whispered, giving him a cheesy grin and a thumbs up.
He pursed his lips at me as if half of a
blown kiss and sat on the middle tree. My eyes glued themselves to him as Miss Green called, "Begin." I jumped in surprise. I'd forgotten she stood right beside me.
Brooks closed his eyes, and I found myself reaching for my connection to him. I sent him soothing feelings through the bond because his little knot of self inside me was nothing but nerves. Performance anxiety, no doubt.
He relaxed as I continued to funnel feelings of calm and happiness to him, his shoulders dropping and face taking on a pleasant expression. Glancing at those around him, I saw to his left, the girl's tree was turning purple. The trunk, leaves, flowers, all of it. I wasn't sure if that was considered a greenies thing, though. Did the color purple happen naturally? Maybe she was pulling the color from other plants, like flowers. There were lots of purple flowers.
Nothing happened on his right. The poor guy was sweating, jiggling his leg, and scrunching his face. His wrinkled forehead dripped sweat as he peeked at the teacher.
He was a fake. Why would he have bothered coming to an audition like this knowing he couldn't do it?
I had no idea, but movement from Brooks’ tree drew my attention back to him. He'd leaned against the trunk, his hands over his head. My eyes widened as the tree grew straight up, gaining several feet of height, new branches, new leaves, and flowers. It was an impressive feat.
He opened his eyes and grinned at me as he lowered his arms. I clapped my hands without noise, then looked at the purple tree. It was turning more of a pink now. The girl opened her eyes and looked at Miss Green with wide eyes.
Miss Green clapped her hands again. "Okay, that was... something." Her tone of voice changed as she turned to the guy that was not connected to nature, at all. "Why are you here?"
He shrank back against the tree. "I wanted to be in the Greenies."
She put her hands on her hips. "Try again."
"I was dared," he whispered. "I'm sorry."
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Miss Green get royally pissed off. She seemed to grow as she stared the kid down. "Remove yourself from my classroom."
Magical Misfit (Magic And Metaphysics Academy Book 3) Page 5