Smoke and Mist (The Academy Book 1)

by Kate Hall

  Her hand is reaching out to touch it, but this time, when she strokes the silky fur, its skin peels off in her hand. It turns its head calmly to her, its right eye rotting out of its skull. When she looks down, she sees that she’s been run through by the unicorn’s horn, and her arms burn as Helen carves the markings deep into her skin.

  IT ISN’T THE NIGHTMARE THAT WAKES HER, BUT a knock at her door. She startles up, her neck cramping from the position in the armchair when she turns her head. Her throat is thick, and her eyes are still heavy, but she says, “Come in.”

  Alex opens the door but doesn’t enter. He’s in his charmed pyromancy clothes, a pair of black leggings and a skin-tight athletic tee, hands shoved in the pockets of his overcoat. “Mark sent me a message. So did Kendall.” He doesn’t continue, and his eyes don’t focus on her. His voice is quiet and shaky.

  “You didn’t have to come all the way out here,” she replies, standing, careful on her now healed leg. The cut had been deceptively small, but it ran all the way to the bone. While Mark healed it, she bit the leather strap of the watch he gave her to keep from screaming. “It’s late,” she points out, although she doesn’t actually know what time it is. It must have been hours, though.

  He takes a step toward her, closing the gap between them and wrapping her in his arms. “Do you want me to leave?” he asks, his voice gravelly and muffled by her hair.

  She doesn’t answer. They still have school in the morning, so she should tell him to go back to campus and get some sleep, but she Helen’s dream knife is still making its way into her skin, taking everything it can from her.

  “How’d you get past the curfew?” she asks in lieu of a response—the gates shouldn’t have allowed him to leave the school so late. In fact, he should be in huge trouble for not being in his room by now.

  “Phillip,” he says. Of course. Only Phillip, softer than he looks, would’ve been able to get Alex off campus without sounding any alarms. “He let David leave to stay at Kendall’s apartment, too.”

  Elizabeth appears in the hallway, her eyebrows tilted up in concern.

  “Are you planning on staying?” she asks him apprehensively. There’s no sign of her earlier immovability. She’s just Sarah’s vaguely aloof guardian once again. In her hands is a teen parenting book. It’s so normal that it throws Sarah, and she has to suppress a laugh.

  Alex pulls away from the embrace and looks at Sarah questioningly.

  “If that’s okay,” Sarah whispers, burying her face back into his chest, unembarrassed by the show of affection in front of Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth looks between them, then sighs. “You can stay, but you have to sleep on the couch. I don’t want any...permanent consequences.” For the first time ever, Elizabeth’s face is turning pink with embarrassment.

  Sarah suppresses another laugh, and Alex tries to pull away, but she grabs his shirt with desperate fingers to keep him from moving. “Get some sleep. School tomorrow,” she says before walking away, leaving the door wide open behind her. A set of linens appear with a whoosh on the couch in the sitting room, along with a couple pillows and a comforter.

  Sarah does not want to think about school, about facing Kendall after her vision. She shakes her head at the image, and Alex wraps her inside the black peacoat he’s wearing. She’s seen it a few times, and she’s sure she’ll see it more as the season wears on. For now, though, it smells musty, like it was only recently taken out of storage.

  “You need to wash this coat,” she says, holding him tight for another moment before letting go. They stand like that for a moment, a foot apart. It feels like a mile. “I’d better change into my pajamas.”

  Her pajamas are still bunched up on the floor of the bathroom, and she wonders how so much could’ve changed since this morning. She washes her face and brushes her teeth quickly after changing—she’s anxious to get back to Alex, so she doesn’t consider the fact that she sleeps in a dragon kigurumi—basically a baggy onesie that Elizabeth bought her—until she’s standing in the doorway, and Alex is making the bed, wearing just a pair of Mark’s flannel pajama pants.

  She feels herself flush when Alex turns around, and a grin breaks out across his face.

  “You look adorable,” he says, opening his arms for her to walk into. It takes a moment for her to tear her eyes away from his narrow, chiseled body. Is he always this hot, or does she always just happen to catch him at a good time?

  She folds herself in between his arms, nuzzling his neck once again, but his bare skin is hot against her face, and she rests her hands on his chest.

  “You don’t look so bad yourself,” she mumbles, tilting her head so that her lips are pressed against his scruffy jawline, the beginnings of a beard rough against her lips.

  His breath hitches at her movement, and his arms tighten around her.

  “We should really get some sleep,” he whispers, his conviction surprisingly strong given the situation. Probably the pink dragon kigurumi. It’s not exactly sexy. Her mind moves back to Sunday afternoon, when they’d been behaving much worse without complaint.

  She sighs and pulls away from him. She looks into his eyes, the irises black in the dark of night. Somehow, they don’t scare her like Helen’s pitch-black eyes. He leans just enough to brush his lips against hers, and she runs her tongue along his bottom lip gently, teasing him.

  He lets out a sigh and puts his hands on her shoulders, using the leverage to distance himself. She plants an exaggerated pout on her face, but he isn’t swayed.

  “I’ll be right here all night,” he says. She gives him a quick peck on the lips and then crawls into her bed, and he lays under the blankets on the couch. She can barely see him across the room and past the doorway, but knowing he’s there is comforting.

  “Good night,” she sighs, her eyes fluttering closed as soon as she’s caressed in her warm bed.

  “Good night, beautiful.” Her lips turn up at the word beautiful, and she falls asleep with a smile.

  WHEN SHE BOLTS OUT OF BED FROM YET ANOTHER nightmare, it’s early in the morning. In a couple hours, everyone will be awake. Her right hand is wrapped tightly against her left arm, and when she lets go, she expects for it to be sticky with the hot red blood that had just been pumping out of her, but there’s nothing there. Just a dream. It was just a dream.

  She tries to steady herself to the pace of Alex’s breathing in the other room, but the cold air presses against the window and slips under her covers. She shivers. She runs her fingers through her hair, eyes darting between Alex, asleep on the couch, and the house’s front door, clear as day even from here.

  Another shiver rips through her, and she’s not sure if it’s from the chill in the air or the fear from the nightmare, so she wraps herself in her comforter and walks over to the couch. A draft makes her even colder, and she looks around, expecting to see Cynthia or Gina’s ghost. This time, they’d both been holding her down while Helen cut into her, Cynthia bleeding while chunks of scalp slid off of Gina’s head.

  “Alex,” she whispers, and he startles awake. Her stomach roils at the sight of the front door and the thin glass of the windows—so flimsy.

  It takes him a moment to get his bearings, but when is eyes trace her shivering form, he opens his arms. “C’mere,” he mumbles, and she doesn’t need any convincing. She lies on the couch—or, more technically, on him—and stretches out, absorbing his heat as well as she can. He wraps his arms around her and kisses her on top of her head, and she finally falls into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Thirty

  Alex

  WHEN ALEX AWAKENS, HIS WHOLE BODY IS stiff. Twisting his neck is agony, but it’s worth it to have Sarah’s weight on him, her warmth blending with his own. Her hair tickles his nose, but he can’t get away no matter how much twisting and turning he does. For a girl with short hair, she sure has a lot of it. The scent of pomegranate wafts up to him.

  “Good morning,” he says, his voice quiet and gravelly with sleep.

&
nbsp; She stirs gently, curling into him and letting out a sigh. “Morning.” She buries her face in his neck, her breath tickling him. After another moment, she says, “Your face is stabby.” He hasn’t shaved since Tuesday, so it makes sense that he’s getting a little scruffy.

  He chuckles. “We have to get up.” Instead of letting her go, though, he traces his fingers in random patterns on her back. She mumbles something that he doesn’t catch, but he doesn’t ask her to clarify.

  They lay there in silence for a few minutes as the pale blue light begins its waking shift into gold. The crackling of the fire in Sarah’s room is the perfect white noise to keep them grounded here, in this moment. Together.

  “How do you keep the fire going in your fireplace constantly?” he asks. There’s probably a spell or a potion that does it, but he can’t think of one off the top of his head. Maybe Elizabeth gave her something that the zoo uses.

  Sarah sits up, her eyes boring into his. “I don’t. I usually just add more wood to the embers in the morning and after school.”

  The fireplace is still crackling, though. The sound is unmistakable—fire has a very distinctive sound, one he is intimately familiar with.

  Sarah looks to her room and then back at Alex before climbing off of him. She walks into her room, and, just as Alex’s eyes are about to drift closed once again, he hears a scream.

  “Elizabeth!” she yells, and Alex jumps off the couch and runs in to see what’s going on, but not before banging his shin against the coffee table. He hops toward the bedroom, ready to light something on fire if there’s any danger.

  Sarah is crouched on the ground by her fireplace, eyes glittering with excitement, hands braced on the stone hearth.

  “What is it?” Elizabeth asks, sweeping in behind Alex in a floor-length silk robe.

  Sarah looks toward them, a grin like Alex has never seen spread across her face. “It’s hatching.”

  After a pause, Alex and Elizabeth move at the same time. Elizabeth goes to the dresser, grabbing the heated pouch, and Alex picks the egg out of the fireplace. Within moments, Sarah is sitting cross-legged on the ground, the egg nestled in her lap.

  Another crack, and a dime-sized chunk falls off the top of the opal shell. It’s always looked thick and endless, a precious stone. Now, though, it’s clear how paper-thin it really is. A tiny white beak pokes out, digging aggressively at the shell. More of it breaks away, and this time, a full snout pokes out, pink and featherless as the nostrils flare with its first breath of air. Sarah puts a hand over her mouth, tears flooding her eyes.

  “It’s actually happening,” she chokes out. Alex moves toward her, but Elizabeth stops him.

  “She has to be the first person it sees,” Elizabeth says. He looks to her, and her eyes are alight.

  “Have you ever seen a dragon hatch?”

  She looks at him, a smile spreading on her face. “Not a forest dragon.”

  They don’t move, watching the dragon slowly destroy the opalescent shell. It isn’t until another knock at the door that Alex remembers that they’re supposed to be getting ready for school.

  “You two will be late if you don’t leave soon,” Mark says, bringing the smell of breakfast with him. He must not have heard Sarah yell for Elizabeth. “Oh my god.” Mark trots over and leans against the dresser, and they all watch the spectacle of the egg hatching. It’s only a little weird for Alex to be in his calculus professor’s home—he has to keep himself from straightening up and calling him Mr. Halacourt.

  He hasn’t finished his homework from yesterday.

  Another hole forms, and a crack forms between the two. The tiny snout shakes violently, and the hole is suddenly big enough for the entire head to poke through. Alex should probably tell Sarah how cute the creature staring at her is, but he’d be lying. It’s a nearly naked pink creature, only a sprinkling of off-white feathers covering its body, similar to the chicks that he once hatched when his parents decided to raise chickens. It’s skinny, its bone structure obvious under its hollow cheeks. Unlike the chicks, though, its eyes are open and watchful as it stares directly at Sarah. It sucks in air for a few moments as it rests its head along the edge of the shell, preparing itself to thrash around some more, tiny claws tearing away slivers of opal.

  “He’s beautiful,” Elizabeth sighs. The dragon ignores her, destroying as much of the shell around it as possible, desperate to get to Sarah.

  When the shell has been demolished, a creature the size of a small cat is lying on the blanket, its breathing rapid and strained from the effort of hatching. Sarah doesn’t look away from it, and she runs a careful finger along its spine. The dragon squeaks and jerks its head to the side to get a better look at her. The entire process took less than fifteen minutes.

  “I’ll tell your teachers you won’t be at school today,” Mark says to Sarah. Then, he looks at Alex. “Unfortunately, I can’t get you out of classes. We’re already late.”

  Disappointment floods through Alex, but he supposes that it’s for the best. Sarah deserves the day to bond with her new pet. He goes to the bathroom and hurriedly changes into his only clothes—the new training outfit Phillip gave him yesterday—and rides with Mark to school. He can pick up his car later, as Mark’s is much faster.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Gabby

  GABBY HAS TO SIT ALONE IN LITERATURE CLASS. She got a text from Elizabeth yesterday about the Helen situation, and Sarah texted her from Elizabeth’s phone this morning about the egg hatching. Her fingers twitch, aching to pull her phone out. Not to text anyone, but to scroll through Instagram. Instead, she tries a new breathing technique that Rudy taught her when she visited him last. She can’t concentrate on anything the teacher is saying, although it’s probably important information for the midterm.

  Come third hour, Alex slides into the seat next to hers. There aren’t assigned seats in this class, but everyone pretty much picked their permanent seats at the beginning of the semester, so a few students gawk when Alex changes the order of things by sitting next to Gabby. “This morning has been wild.”

  She smiles. “For Sarah, yeah. I guess she texted you about the dragon egg, too?” His face goes red, and her eyebrows shoot up. “What?”

  It’s his turn to seem anxious—she takes note of his fingers tapping out a song on his desk, and the added emotions rush into her. “I sort of…” He looks at the board, and then out the window. “I stayed the night at her house.” She can feel his heart racing, the nerves bundled up in his throat.

  “You slept at Sarah’s house last night?” Her voice is controlled, careful. She keeps all emotions—his and hers—from reaching her words and taking control. She has no logical reason to be upset, but still, the betrayal is there. Her best friend had two vastly different yet equally important things happen, yet Gabby hadn’t been invited.

  He looks down at his notebook, almost like he’s reading something, but the page he has open is blank. She can still feel his embarrassment, but she’s also absorbing Paul-from-two-seats-up’s fear over passing the exam, and the fact that Wendy Thomas, at the back corner, is desperately sad. “I slept on the couch,” Alex says slowly.

  She tries to smile, to make a joke of it. “Alone?” His face flushes and he looks away. Before she can say anything else, the teacher comes in and starts the lesson, confused momentarily by Alex’s move when he goes over the roll-call sheet.

  Their teacher’s voice and Alex’s embarrassment and everyone else’s everything is just too much right now, so right as the teacher starts speaking, Gabby stands up and runs. She locks herself in a bathroom stall and buries her face in her hands, sobs wracking her body.

  Gabby doesn’t know why she’s jealous. They’ve always spent time with her, hanging out at her house after school, eating lunch with her during the day. Hell, they went to the dance with her. Now, though, she can’t help but think that they don’t need her anymore, that Sarah only needs Alex. It’s just like the fact that her parents don’t need her, do
n’t pay any attention to her. Maybe she’ll just disappear when everyone forgets her, like Tinkerbell from Peter Pan.

  BY THE TIME LUNCH COMES AROUND, SHE’S DEbating whether or not to actually go to their usual abandoned classroom. Usually, Sarah is there, a sort of buffer between Gabby and Alex. Gabby doesn’t know what it would look like for her and Alex to be friends without Sarah.

  She decides to go, if only for the fact that it’ll be a safer than trying to eat in the cafeteria while she already has such a tenuous grip on her current stability. She will not end up like Rudy. She won’t let herself hurt that bad. It would only make him feel that much worse. And her parents would be so disappointed in her.

  When she walks into the classroom, Alex is already there with his food. She could turn around and walk out. Wait until he forgets about her running from him this morning. Would a month be long enough? Surely, after a month of avoiding him, they could pretend her outburst never happened.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes on hers.

  She freezes, her mind going still. “What?” Her voice cracks under the stress. She doesn’t try again.

  He repeats, “I’m sorry. I should’ve texted you or something. To let you know I was going to Sarah’s. I wasn’t actually invited, but when I heard what happened...” She isn’t sure what to say, but after a moment without a response, he continues. “I know it’s hard for you. Being left out of stuff. And with everything going on...I should’ve gotten ahold of you.”

  Well now she just feels like a brat, although his face is nothing but earnest. She sighs. “Sorry I ran out earlier. There were just so many...feelings. You know what I mean?” She sinks down onto the teacher’s desk where she usually sits, leaning her head on his shoulder.

  He lets out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I get what you mean. Not as bad since I only sometimes hear thoughts, but still. Being around other people is the worst.”