Smoke and Mist (The Academy Book 1)

by Kate Hall

  Instead of climbing up the rough stone wall, he traces his fingers along the metal bars that lock the school in, the iron cool with the late-September evening. He expects to feel something, a trace of the energy that remains from Cynthia’s death, but there’s nothing except cold metal. The school must have had someone wipe the entryway clean, clearing all trace of the gruesome sacrifice that tainted it.

  He sits down, his back against the bars, and when he looks to his right, he finds a tiny dot of red that’s embedded itself in the stone, the last evidence of the crime committed here.

  Blood.

  Of course.

  He knows she had bled, of course. He’d felt the markings being carved into his arms as it happened to her. He’d seen it flowing from her body in the early morning light. Still, the sight of her blood awakens something in him. He should’ve done something.

  Maybe he still can.

  Maybe, upon touching that nearly imperceptible speck of blood, he can find Cynthia’s killer. When the thought enters his mind, he can’t shake it.

  Surely, the police had a seer check the scene already.

  If that were true, wouldn’t Cynthia’s killer have been found? There had been someone there that night, but the memory is blocked, buried deep within Alex’s mind. All he can think of is the blood pouring out of Cynthia.

  He sprints to the library to find a book on blood magic, and, the moment he finds what he’s looking for, he runs back to the gate.

  Please let this be enough.

  He whispers the incantation three times and then pricks his thumb with the pale little blue, pink, and white flag pin that he wears on his lapel. Sucking in a breath, he puts his finger to the drop of blood on the stone.

  He’s thrown back into that night, only this time, instead of hearing Cynthia’s thoughts and feeling her pain, he is her.

  HER HEART TWINGES AT THE FACT THAT IT HAD to be so soon, but she’s known for months that this is where she is to die. The gate of her school, her home. Her stomach drops with guilt as she forces herself into Alex’s mind, but she can’t bring herself to be completely alone. She thought she was strong, but she isn’t. Not for this.

  The woman in front of her is mumbling to herself, “Blood of a dragon, flesh of a seer, hair of a mermaid, flame of a mage, tears of an empath.” The words echo through Cynthia, but she can’t focus on them when the woman starts to carve into her skin. For a moment, she thinks she’s burning her, but no flames come out. She tries to hold back a scream, but the sound rips out of her, volatile. “She who intervenes must be the last to die.”

  She can’t even tell Alex what’s happening, although she’s sure it’s important. She can only hold on to him, desperate to cling to something outside of herself.

  Thank you for not letting me be alone, she tells him just as her vision starts to fade. She wishes she could tell Vince how sorry she is for leaving.

  THE AIR ALL RUSHES BACK INTO ALEX AT ONCE.

  The woman at the funeral.

  He’d been inches from her, and he hadn’t known it. He could have stopped her right then and there, but he hadn’t. He shakily pulls out his phone and calls the officer he’d spoken to the morning of the murder.

  “Hello?” The woman’s voice says after a few seconds, muffled by other voices in the background.

  Alex says, “I know what Cynthia’s murderer looked like.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sarah

  THURSDAY MORNING, SARAH IS INTERRUPTED before she can meet Gabby at the front entrance.

  Alex is sitting on the stout wall between the faculty lot and the front steps, elbows on his knees while he sits and messes with his phone. As soon as Sarah pulls herself out of Mark’s Pontiac, he puts his phone away and jogs down to meet her on the sidewalk. He’s probably here to ask about her Spiritual Magic notes.

  “Alex,” she says, surprised. “Um. How are you?” Her voice is too cheery. Of course she knows that he’s the one everyone is whispering about. Some people are even saying that he killed Cynthia, but everyone knows he didn’t—they just want to start shit.

  Wind rips between them, and a shiver runs through them both. Alex glances around, and Sarah catches the eyes of other students that dart away from her as they stand on the steps.

  “Can we go inside?” Alex asks. “I need to speak with you...privately.”

  They walk up the steps together, not speaking. Sarah isn’t sure what made him want to talk to her now, but it must be important if he felt the need to seek her out. Were her notes really that bad?

  Gabby is waiting inside, and her eyes widen when she sees that Alex and Sarah are walking together.

  “Hey, Sarah,” she says, her voice slow as she evaluates Alex. His hands are in his pockets, and his head is ducked as he tries to avoid the attention of passing students. “What’s going on?”

  Sarah looks to Alex, then back to Gabby. “Let’s go upstairs,” she replies.

  Gabby leads the way, and Alex seems uncomfortable as he follows. “I really need to talk to you,” he tells Sarah, his tone hushed.

  “I know,” Sarah says. “We’re going somewhere more private.” She doesn’t want to get told about how much her notes suck in public.

  A senior crashes his shoulder against Alex, and Sarah could swear that she hears him mumble, “What’s up, lady killer?”

  Alex tenses up and doesn’t speak as they make their way to the stairway, and he doesn’t speak as they climb up. In fact, he doesn’t say a word until they come to the almost hidden staircase that leads to the unused classroom.

  “Where are we going?” he asks, looking over his shoulder to the near-empty hallway they just walked down.

  Gabby smiles. “Our secret clubhouse.”

  Sarah chuckles at that. The room is just a dusty old room with a teacher’s desk and a few wooden chairs—it doesn’t even have student desks anymore. She and Gabby have done a pretty decent job getting rid of the spiderwebs and the pixie nests, though.

  Gabby sits in her usual spot, cross-legged on the teacher’s desk, and Sarah leans against her project window, which now opens nearly two inches. This leaves Alex to either stand or sit in one of the rickety wooden chairs—he remains standing.

  “What’s going on?” Sarah asks, keeping her voice gentle. She’d been mad at Alex for ignoring her, but now, all she could feel for him was sadness. He had gone through something terrible, and it’s only gotten worse for him since then. On the way home from the zoo on Saturday, Gabby had told her about the funeral, about the emotions she could feel rolling off of him. Even without Gabby’s empathy, though, Sarah could see how much Alex was hurting.

  He looks at Gabby, and, after deciding that she isn’t leaving, he says, “I need your help with something, but it’s going to be terrible.”

  Sarah cocks her head. “What kind of terrible?” A study group? Tutoring? Does he want her to help him cheat on his tests?

  He hesitates and looks at his hands for a moment, seemingly deciding if he really wants to talk to her.

  “Your aunt is Helen Jackson, right?”

  Oh.

  In a million years, Sarah could not have predicted this question.

  She freezes, her eyes widening. “How do you know that name?” she asks, her voice coming out hushed and frantic when her voice sticks.

  He looks toward the door as if someone might be listening, then looks at Gabby.

  “Spit it out, Locklear,” Gabby says, not unkindly, over a spoonful of yogurt.

  He closes his eyes and sighs. “I did a spell. Last night. To see if I could get more information on what happened to….” he fades off without saying Cynthia’s name.

  Sarah waits for him to continue. Of course this isn’t about school work. How could Alex possibly think about school work—or anything else, for that matter—when he’d watched someone get murdered?

  “I saw her. Your aunt. In the vision. I didn’t know it was her at the time, but I talked to a detective, and I looked her up, and it
was her.”

  He’s rambling, so Sarah interrupts, “I thought it might be.”

  He stops and collapses into a chair, which creaks with his weight. “I didn’t know who else to talk to. I thought you might... I don’t know. Be able to find her?”

  Her blood goes cold, and Sarah grits her teeth. “What do you mean by that?”

  His eyes widen. “I don’t mean anything. I just thought, since you’re related, that maybe-”

  “That maybe I’m on her side? That I’m harboring a murderer?” Her voice is too loud for this small space, but she doesn’t care. She isn’t sure why she’s so angry, but her face is hot, and her heart is thudding hard in her chest. Of course, none of what she’s saying makes any sense. Nobody could possibly think that she’s a part of this. She wants to flee, to run out of the room and out of the building, but Gabby still has her hand, and she’d have to get past Alex.

  Alex shakes his head, backpedaling. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just thought....” he considers his words before speaking again. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry.”

  Gabby is still holding Sarah’s hand, and Sarah can feel herself cooling down under her touch. When she’s no longer boiling over, Gabby lets her go.

  “Come on,” Gabby says through gritted teeth. “We have to get to class. Lit test today, remember?”

  “What about—“ Alex starts, but Sarah lifts a hand to stop him.

  “We’ll talk later.”

  IN POTIONS CLASS, ALEX APOLOGIZES AGAIN.

  “I really didn’t mean anything bad by it,” he says while they go over the instructions for today’s potion.

  Sarah shakes her head. “No, I shouldn’t have freaked out. I don’t know where that even came from.” She thought it over in Literature class while she was doodling on the back of her finished test, and her reaction was definitely unwarranted.

  He stays silent for a moment, then changes the subject. “Thanks for the notes in Spiritual Magic, by the way.” Every day, Sarah has been transcribing the notes twice. Once for herself, and another set for Alex. Her personal notes are just written with a pencil, but she’s been using red and black and blue pens to color code his, hoping that it would be easier for him to follow along. She’s even been writing annotations on the side that explain the technical aspects in more detail.

  “Yeah, it’s not a problem,” she says. “I’m good at remembering information. I’m total shit at casting any sort of spell, though.”

  “Language, Miss Jackson,” Mr. Thompson chides as he walks by their table. “No cursing.”

  “Sorry,” she responds.

  When their teacher is out of hearing range, Alex says, “I could help you with magic, if you need it.”

  Sarah tilts her head. Alex has been avoiding her for over a month, and then she exploded at him, and now he wants to help her? “Why?”

  He shrugs. “I want to. Plus, maybe you can teach me how to actually learn Spiritual Magic theory so I don’t flunk out of school my Junior year.”

  Sarah smiles just a little. “True. It’s always better to flunk out your Senior year.”

  Alex laughs at that. “Exactly.”

  Sarah forgot how easy it can be to talk to Alex. She wishes that he wouldn’t have ignored her for so long—the kiss they’d shared weeks ago is barely even a memory anymore, and his silence in class has been exhausting. She just wants to be friends with him. He’s the only one who seems to truly understand how she feels here.

  “Maybe we can study after school sometime.” The words just fly out of her mouth before she thinks of them, but it’s too late to take anything back.

  A small smile plays across his lips, and she suddenly remembers exactly how soft those lips are. “I’d like that.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alex

  ALEX EATS LUNCH IN THE ABANDONED CLASSROOM with Sarah and Gabby. He doesn’t recall being invited, but he feels as though he’s supposed to be here.

  He wants to talk about Cynthia’s death. He wants someone to help him find out exactly what happened. Instead, they talk about classes, and Gabby tells him about their trip to the zoo over the weekend, mostly detailing how terrible it was to get all the faerie dragons out of her hair before they left, but also going over Sarah’s bond with Hawthorne, the sassy forest dragon. She acts out her and Elizabeth dealing with her dragon problems whilst trying to make sure Sarah didn’t get eaten, and he finds himself invested in the story, laughing at the image of a juvenile prairie dragon claiming someone’s shirt as its pouch.

  He doesn’t want lunch to end—he’s having too much fun, and he’s able to shed his sadness for the short half-hour. He and Sarah walk to class together, and she clarifies a few parts of the story that Gabby had embellished on.

  “Hawthorne was fifteen feet tops,” she says. “Forest dragons don’t even grow to be thirty feet. The females can be as big as twenty-two. He could be thirty feet long, but not tall. Mountain dragons, though...”

  Alex is content to listen to her explain the differences between the dragon species. He barely even notices the stares he’s still getting, as Sarah’s face is aglow with excitement.

  They don’t get to talk during Spiritual Magic, but it turns out that their sixth hour classes are close to each other, so they walk together once again. Alex talks about his life in Kansas, being raised by both humans and faeries. “I used to swim in the lake with the nymph kids, and one time I almost drowned because they didn’t get that I needed air.”

  Sarah sighs with longing. “That must have been amazing,” she says. “I mean, not the almost drowning. The part about having so many people that care about you.”

  He doesn’t have a chance to ask what she means by that, but he doesn’t have to be an empath to see how sad her eyes are at that comment.

  AFTER SCHOOL ENDS, ALEX WAITS WITH SARAH in the atrium until Gabby shows up. As he’s walking away to spend the rest of the evening in his dorm, Gabby calls, “Hey, pretty boy. Are you following us back to my place or are we hanging out at yours?”

  The question shocks him. Did the two have a chance to talk about him coming over when he wasn’t around? Then, he considers her question. He would be in a good deal of trouble for having guests in his dorm on a school night, so he goes to his piece of crap Ford after figuring out the details with them. When Gabby’s big black SUV pulls up to the dorm building, Sarah hops out and joins him in his Taurus.

  “She drives like an old lady. But the Florida type, where speed limits don’t exist, and neither do blinkers. I don’t want you to get lost,” she explains, orienting her feet around the junk that’s all over the floor.

  “Thanks,” Alex says with a smile. When he woke up this morning, he’d planned on soliciting Sarah’s help. He hadn’t expected that he would be absorbed into her friend group and end up going to study with them after school, especially in less than a day.

  He has friends at St. Merlin’s. He and David hang out often, going to dinner in town rather than eating at the dorms. They even occasionally have lightsaber fights in the courtyard, coating steel poles with fire to be realistic. He counts Phillip as a friend, although most people wouldn’t be friends with their teachers.

  He hasn’t made any new friends in a long time, though, and David is so busy trying to charm Kendall that Alex always turns into a third wheel. He’s at ease around Sarah. Perhaps it has something to do with their similarly modest upbringing, or her easygoing humor. He wants to reach across and take her hand in his, lacing their fingers together, but that’s not something friends do. He has to forget about their kiss at the midnight party.

  Sarah skims through the radio stations while he drives, but she can’t seem to find a channel she likes. He wordlessly offers the AUX cable, so she digs around in her bag and pulls out a Zune.

  “That thing is ancient,” he laughs.

  She smiles, plugging it in to the radio. “It was my dad’s. He got it when he was in college.”

  Alex sobers up immed
iately, and he wants to apologize, but she doesn’t look upset by what he said, so they listen to her music the rest of the way. He even sings along to one of the showtunes that comes on, although she informs him that he isn’t a musical nerd if the only Broadway plays he knows are Wicked and Into the Woods.

  Sarah was right—Gabby is a terrifying driver. She was out of sight within moments of leaving St. Merlin’s, and Sarah has to direct him the rest of the way to her house. When they finally pull into the driveway, Gabby is no longer in her car.

  “Take your shoes off,” Sarah tells him when they walk in the house. He follows her lead, placing his shoes next to hers on the rack.

  He follows her through the house, and they wind their way upstairs. He traces his fingers along the black metal railing of Gabby’s spiral staircase, amazed at the craftsmanship.

  “Hey, guys. I was afraid you got lost,” Gabby says, sitting cross-legged in bed, wearing mermaid-patterned leggings, a tank top, and a gold and pink flower crown.

  “Nah,” Sarah replies, “Alex just doesn’t want to kill me, is all. Because he cares.” His heart jolts at that even though he knows that she’s just taunting her friend.

  Gabby laughs heartily at that. He wants to sit, but he isn’t sure where. Sarah is already spreading her domain on the couch, which she is obviously the ruler over, and Gabby has her books set all over her bed. After standing there for too long, he opts for the computer chair, setting his backpack on the floor.

  “Nice house,” he says, glancing at the telescope and star charts taking up nearly half the room.

  “Yeah, Dad bought it like the day after he finished his residency. A big private hospital in the city offered him a job as a neurosurgeon, so he makes a ridiculous amount of money,” Gabby says.

  He nods. Most of the students at St. Merlin’s are from rich families, so it makes sense that Gabby would be.