by Lan Chan
Icicles formed on the ceiling of the sphere, expanding as Tyler drew moisture from the air. Chilling water dripped down onto his head and shoulders, but he didn’t flinch. My teeth chattered. When I attempted to constrict the circle to see if I could break the form of the icicles, my magic groaned against an invisible force and wouldn’t budge. Dammit!
Tyler’s rigid stance never changed. A frighteningly cold expression froze his features. The scales on either side of his jaw stood out in stark relief. I wasn’t ready for the moment when the snowflakes turned into razorblades of ice and began to burrow into the circle.
Stifling a whimper, I broke out of my reverie and began to draw symbols. Rather than use the grass as a canvas, I pushed myself up to standing and drew the patterns directly onto the circle.
“Why the change?” Professor Mortimer asked. He loved talking while I was concentrating!
“Closer.” My responses became monosyllabic as I focused on countering the cold drilling of ice inside my skull.
“To what end?”
By then I had completed a pattern of light symbols across the surface of the circle. Bracing my palms in front of me, I pushed back against Tyler’s magic. For a moment, ice and fire collided. In my mind, I pictured a midnight-blue dragon at my side. Flames seared through the ice. Something sharp pierced my mind. I winced but didn’t let go of the magic. The circle turned translucent once more. Tyler yelped. Water sloshed over his clothes and head. But he was grinning.
“Very good,” he said. He tapped against his nose. I didn’t get it until I felt the slick of moisture trickling down my lip. My sleeve came away dotted in blood when I swiped at it. Just great. “Should we try something a little more comprehensive?”
“Tyler,” Professor Mortimer warned. “This isn’t the compound.”
“She’s perfectly fine, Professor.”
I blinked and Tyler’s image dissolved. In his place, Lucifer appeared wearing Nephilim battle armour. Blue flames licked at his heels, growing steadily until he was lit in hellish blue fire. I drew a circle out of instinct.
“Tyler!” Professor Mortimer barked his name. The being inside the circle didn’t react. I focused on the swirl of blue flame that had jumped from the fire and was now dancing around his left hand. A corresponding flame engulfed his right hand. The magic inside of me reacted poorly. I knew he wasn’t real, but my mind refused to take chances. Not where the Prince of Darkness was concerned.
When Tyler threw the first ball of hellfire at the circle, I braced against it. Pain exploded in the left side of my brain. He shot another blast. It slammed against the circle and caught fire as though my magic were made of petroleum. His magic began to attack the circle, scratching and slicing like knives and claws at the same time.
I made a beastly whining sound at the back of my throat. Professor Mortimer reared up. “No,” I hissed. “I want to try.”
“This isn’t the way to –”
A metaphorical sledgehammer bludgeoned the right side of my head. I staggered forward, unable to stop my momentum. When my palms touched the edge of the circle, scorching heat chased up my arm and sank into my chest. It spiralled thought my veins and nerves until it came to the chamber where my pools of magic resided.
I scented iron and salt. Swiping at my bloody nose, I attempted to reinforce the circle with blood.
“Alessia!” Professor Mortimer screamed. Something equally powerful hit back at the circle from where he stood. I knew his intention was to break the circle to stop the trial. What happened instead was that his magic blended in with Tyler’s. The circle absorbed his considerable power and fed it to me in an overpowering wave that I couldn’t contain. It pushed through the barrier in my chest and swarmed my pool of magic. Something cracked inside me. The hedge and bone magic vibrated chaotically. In Potions class, we’d learned about the fission of materials to create a transmutated substance. My magic rocked and split like a million magical atoms.
The world became a flicker of red and black lights across my vision. I fell backwards. My ass and then my back hit something hard. The impact scattered across my spine and then the back of my head.
The Ley dimension slipped around me as darkness encroached. Everything in the world became a static roar. Nausea gripped my gut, making my chest convulse. I heard footsteps approach and then a boom that came out of nowhere.
A scream was on the tip of my tongue when a flash of green stirred in my chest. It swarmed my senses.
“Let her go!” Kai snarled. The purple circle disappeared. Calloused hands settled lightly on my waist. The comforting pine and sunshine scent of him washed over me. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to concentrate on the warm contact of his skin - the rise and fall of his chest, the sound of his heart beating in my ear. My muscles relaxed, sinking naturally into Kai’s embrace. Just for a moment, I allowed myself to let go of the emotional chains that held us apart. I was safe. In response to me, his hold became less restrictive, the tension sliding from his muscles. The bond worked furiously to repair the damage to the pools of magic. My nerves stopped jolting as I took in long, even breaths. Green light saturated my eyelids. When it finally receded, I opened then and found myself face to face with the rage of a Nephilim.
23
Eugenia’s words rattled in my thoughts. You get a different side of him, my love. I wasn’t sure. All of Kai’s sides were quite extreme. Tyler’s ice magic was nothing compared to the glacial fury in Kai’s expression. The bond furnished me with a gruesome image of Kai beating Tyler’s head against a jagged boulder.
I yelped as he moved and wrapped my arms around his neck. He took a single step with such frightening intent that my heart skidded. “Stop.”
He froze on the spot. His well-muscled chest expanded in a deceptively calm breath. My weight was negligible. If he wanted to, he could kill Tyler with me still hugging him.
“Don’t. We’re in training.” I held on tighter. His breath feathered against my ear. A harsh rasp that made my gut tighten. His arm laced around my lower back, holding me in place. Pressing me up against him.
“What kind of training involves scaring the shit out of you so that you lose control of yourself?”
I pulled back, placing my palms on his shoulders. The possessive flare of green in his eyes made my mouth water. Even insane with misplaced protectiveness, I wanted him. My brain tried to grasp the answer that had been there before I felt his fingers wriggle beneath my top. His fingertips burned against my skin. Some such therapy. I...my tongue felt too big for my mouth. Adrenaline morphed into something that made me both weak and my skin hyper-sensitive. I became blindingly aware of Kai all around me. The unchained violence in his eyes melted into a beast of another sort.
A harsh voice offered up the words I was struggling to remember. “Immersion therapy,” Tyler said. He appeared on my left, rubbing at his chest. There was a scuff mark on his cheek. His presence snapped the tension between Kai and me, allowing the fog in my brain to clear.
I thumped on Kai’s shoulder to indicate that I wanted to be put down. His upper lip trembled like he had no intention of letting me out of his sight.
“Put me down or lose a body part,” I said. His heart kicked against my chest. A grin flashed across his face before I was set free.
Kai rounded on Tyler. “Immersion therapy happens when she’s ready for the possibility. Not when you’re losing so you ambush her.”
I wasn’t sure if I was more disturbed by his cutting tone or the fact that he knew what had gone on before he even arrived.
It was a testament to elite guard training that Tyler didn’t roll over and show his belly. He threaded his hands in front of him and stretched them over his head casually. But there was too much calculation in it to really be relaxed. “I went with what I thought would be best for her,” he said.
“That’s not your call to make,” Professor Mortimer said. He came up to me and pressed his fingers against my temple. “Does anything appear broken?”
&
nbsp; Tyler’s face registered disgust. “She’s never going to get anywhere if you continue to coddle her.”
“Get stuffed,” I snapped. Coddling was the last thing I had received.
He flashed me a grin. “There you go. No harm done. She’s not a doll. If you want her ready for war, you’re going to have to stop treating her like one.” He stalked off rather than stick around to be subjected to more grilling.
Professor Mortimer rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe I made a mistake asking him to assist.”
Kai grunted. The professor stared at him for a second too long before shaking himself. “Weren’t you meant to be infiltrating a demon swarm outside Morgana?”
Kai gave him a curt nod before teleporting away. It was only after he was gone that Professor Mortimer rubbed his forehead.
“Sir?”
“I’m sorry, Alessia. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.”
“You didn’t. That was okay.”
He chuckled. “You and I have very polar definitions of okay if that’s the case.” He regarded me with open concern. “These attacks you’ve been having, are they usually only triggered by violent emotional or physical danger?”
I wish that were the case. “Not really. I can be perfectly fine and then it just comes out of nowhere.” I picked at the cuticle skin on my left thumb. “It’s a little bit scary.”
The professor sighed. “I’m a little disturbed by Tyler’s assessment. The problem is he might be right. You do need to be trained. Your power isn’t something that can be treated with kidgloves. But I find myself hesitant to put you in more danger than necessary.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Better you than Lucifer when the time ever comes.”
He placed his hands on his hips. “Based on my observations of the strength of your circles, you should have easily been able to contain the amount of magic Tyler was throwing at you. So it was either your unease at seeing Lucifer’s image or the Angelical affecting your psyche.”
I suspected it was both. “Either way,” the professor continued, “we will need to find a way to boost your power. But at the same time...” he started pacing in a circle muttering to himself.
After a minute or two, he halted. “Let’s put the prophecy to one side for a moment. There will be other dangers for you out there. The demons know who you are now, and they will be concerned about your ability to destroy them with a single word.” His brow furrowed.
“I still have blood magic.” It was a feeble attempt at trying to reassure myself.
The professor inhaled. “Was it not the blood that started the cascade in the first place?”
Oh, so he’d noticed it too?
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. Lucifer’s blood had always been a curse. It made me strong but shunned. Now it looked like it was going to be the thing that killed me.
“Do you remember the end of your first-year trial when you split the ground in the Fae forest to dig up Kai?”
How could I forget?
“You were depleted, but at the very last second, you managed to draw power from the supernaturals around you.”
I hadn’t remembered until he said it just now. Part of me had tried to blur out those memories because thinking about Kai dying was just about the worst thing I could imagine. But now that he said it....
“That kind of magic transfer is very dangerous,” the professor cautioned. “I think it’s about time we considered training you.”
“I’m not sure how I did it.” I tapped my lip. “Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve never come across it in any of my reading.”
He nodded. “That’s because it’s not something that many have access to. You harness it through your bone magic.” I balked, understanding then why there was caution in his stance. The power was attached to death.
“The only other people who can do it are necromancers, aren’t they?”
He stared off into space. When he glanced back at me, it was grim. “And demons. And the Soul Sisterhood.”
I gulped. “I don’t know if I want to be stealing power from unwilling supernaturals.” I’d only just gotten past being a supernatural pariah.
“No, of course not. We’ll ask.”
Something occurred to me. “Is this the special dispensation Jacqueline was talking about?”
He nodded. “We probably won’t get too many volunteers, but one is better than none.”
The callout went live a week later. It happened through a MirrorNet bulletin that just about broke the gossip chains. For security reasons, the participants had to be vetted by Professor Mortimer. That went down like a lead straitjacket. The admin building had to be warded for sound because the complaints were vocal.
I was coming back to the dining hall from my Herbology class when a trio of guards sailed past. “Marshall?”
He got sidetracked by the group of supernaturals marching towards us from the portal field. From their bearing and the deathly scowls on their faces, I surmised that they were parents. Marshall popped up right in front of me all of a sudden. “What–?”
All I saw was the swipe of his finger before I was rudely teleported right into the snaking line of the dining hall.
“Oi!” a familiar voice shouted. “No cuts!”
A fist almost clipped me before Diana realised who she was attacking. She pulled back at the last second. “You’re a bloody menace!” I exhaled.
“She has a point,” somebody down the line said.
Diana did a full one-eighty and glared at the first-year Fae girl. She wouldn’t let me leave the line for the back. “Ignore them. We’re almost at the front. Sophie’s on duty.”
I would have protested but the burn of hundreds of eyes on the back of my neck was enough to have me reconsidering.
Sophie was manning the carvery. Somehow, she still managed to see my spectacular entrance. She made slow progress carving up my roast beef. “What happened?”
“I think I’m about to get lynched by the parent brigade.”
“Screw them,” Diana said. “It’s voluntary. Nobody is forcing their kids to be part of your experiment.”
“It would help if you stopped calling it an experiment!”
The Fae girl cleared her throat. We were holding up the line. Sophie’s nose scrunched but I steered Diana away.
Astrid, Trey, and Roland were already at the table. Two other students took up the end of the benches. Charles’s wide-toothed grin was filled with mischief. Luther’s was only marginally more contained. “You shouldn’t be here,” I told them.
“Our dining hall is so boring,” Charles said. “And Marshall won’t let us near the admin building.”
Roland eyed the two junior campus students. “This can’t be good for our cred.”
“What cred?” Sasha snorted from behind me. “We’re friends with a magic stealer.” He slid into the seat next to Astrid with a tray. How the hell did he always manage to get through the line so quickly? When we left, he’d been in the middle.
I took a long-suffering breath. “I am not stealing anyone’s magic!”
I squeezed into the seat next to Charles. Astrid had a small frown on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s just overreacting,” Luther told me. He bit into the monstrous double-decker thing that could have been a hamburger in a past life. Four discarded buns sat on his tray. The burger spilled its guts onto his lap. Charles doubled over laughing. A second later, Luther joined in.
“I told you that would happen, dude.”
Luther wiped his hands on a paper towel and then muttered an incantation that tidied up the spill. The envy must have shown on my face because he grinned at me.
“What’s Astrid overreacting to?” I asked.
“Cass said she’d rather stay in tonight because she’s not feeling great. Now Astrid wants to send a search party after her.”
Astrid blinked. “All I said was that it’s odd. Cassie always wants to see you.”
I chew
ed on a bit of roast beef. “Why do you supernaturals not feel concerned when somebody gets sick?” It boggled my mind.
Charles and Luther were suddenly staring at the ceiling like lighting fixtures were the most fascinating thing in the world. I didn’t get it. “What?”
“She’s not sick, per se,” Charles told me. Luther gave up picking at the mess in front of him that was once food.
“You’ll have to speak proper words if you want me to understand.”
Astrid rolled her eyes. “She’s menstruating.” The boys made gagging noises. I would have chalked it up to immaturity but Trey’s rhythm of shovelling food into his face stuttered. Sasha’s top lip curled. Men!
I focused on Astrid instead. “Why does that worry you?”
“She’s never had problems before.”
There were reasonable arguments either way. But Jacqueline’s mystery illness had me feeling overly cautious. Despite their protectiveness of her, both Charles and Luther declined to come along to check on her.
“Wait,” Charles said as we got up to leave. He disappeared through the dining hall and jumped right into the front of the line. Somebody dared to make a peep in protest. It was cut short by a rumbled growl that was filled with underlying menace. My little warrior came back with a take-out container of chocolate cake.
“Don’t tell her it was from me.” He offered it to me with a pink blush appearing on his cheeks.
“Shifters,” Diana spat, as we exited the dining hall. “Even the mini-Neanderthals can get under your skin.”
The hall to Cassie’s room was choked with female students.
“What’s going on?” Astrid marched out in front in full guard mode. Dry retching answered her. Girls huddled in small groups whispering to each other.
Maddison’s soothing voice filtered out when Astrid pushed the bathroom door open. I almost had a heart attack. Diana swore. The box of cake crumpled as I gasped and hugged it to me. Cassie was lying on the floor of the bathroom. Her floral skater skirt was drenched in blood. It stained her skin and soaked into the thick wads of paper towels pressed between her thighs. It also coated the white tiles in a splatter pattern. When she saw me, she raised herself up on her elbows and bawled.