Aaron made a strangled sound, which caught the attention of Venus, who was sitting at her desk in a high-backed chair that looked like a throne—guess she didn’t approve of her scallop-shell chair. It made Hailey think that maybe she was a princess, especially when she spotted the glittery tiaras and crowns adorning her desk.
But if Venus was royalty, Hailey was certain she would have made sure everyone knew it by acting a lot more imperious than she already did—if such a thing were possible.
If she’s not a princess, what’s with the tiaras and crowns? Hailey worked out the answer and let out the same choked sound Aaron had as she tried not to laugh at the fact Venus competed in beauty pageants. She was an Aphrodite; she was literally born one of the most beautiful people in the world—entering beauty pageants was cheating in Hailey’s mind.
‘Who’s there?’ Venus demanded, marching towards the door. She peered into the hallway before slamming the door with an irritated huff.
Aaron positioned himself beside Venus’s desk and threw a stack of pink paper into the air when she spun around.
Venus sucked in a breath, her features contorting in fear for a second before turning hostile. ‘I said if anyone used their powers on me again, they’d regret it. So whoever you are, you better get out of here before I get really angry.’
Hailey smiled with an idea when she noticed Venus was standing on a fluffy white rug. Demi was way ahead of her, already yanking it out from under Venus.
‘Ouch,’ Venus yelped, hitting the ground.
It proved too much for Aaron and Demi, who burst into laughter. Alec signalled them to be quiet, but Venus was the one to silence them yelling, ‘Show yourselves, cowards!’ Her eyes combed the dorm, passing over Hailey and her friends.
Hailey decided they’d put Venus through enough—for now—and it was time to do something nice for her, like re-decorate. She plucked the wand from Demi’s hand and whispered, ‘Sinarlat kda nvnast.’ She swished the wand around the dorm, changing the white furniture to black so it matched Venus’s heart.
Venus paled, her brave façade dissolving as she scrambled to her feet and bolted from the dorm.
Hailey couldn’t contain her laughter anymore; she let it encompass the room along with her friends’. Justice had been served. But it wasn’t over yet. She had no doubt Venus was knocking on Madam Grayson’s door right now, getting ready to tell her how an invisible person had attacked her. Hailey didn’t want to leave any evidence that could give credibility to her story.
‘Quickly, tidy everything up,’ she instructed her friends before changing the furniture back to white.
The boys stopped laughing and caught on to her plan. They knelt down and collected the scattered papers.
‘How in Tartarus did she get a spa in here?’ Demi asked, sniffing the strawberry body soufflé resting on the spa’s edge. ‘Not to mention that throne.’
‘Conjuring furniture,’ Alec explained, picking up a small rectangular remote control from her desk. It had a button on it and a picture of the same high-backed chair Venus had. Alec pressed the button, and the chair vanished. He pressed the button again, the chair popping back into existence.
‘We need to go!’ Hailey hissed.
They slipped out the door and spotted Madam Grayson, Venus, Nerissa, and Cleo heading towards them.
‘I told you, Venus, there’s no one at Poseidon’s Academy with invisibility,’ Madam Grayson said.
‘There has to be, and you’ll see that, too, when we get to my destroyed dormitory.’
Hailey squeezed past them and snickered, imagining Venus’s face when she found her dorm in perfect order. With any luck, Madam Grayson would give her a detention for wasting her time.
Blue skies.
* * *
Sunday arrived, bringing the end of Hailey’s detentions. She was relieved, to say the least. They’d gotten progressively worse each day, with Madam Grayson making them scrub every pearl in the entryway’s floor yesterday.
Hailey stepped into the grounds and automatically glanced at the sky. She lifted a hand towards it, the gold neutralising bracelet on her wrist sliding a few inches down her arm. Her heart clenched when no warmth flowed into her fingers, and, with a sigh, she dropped her hand, feeling as though she’d been banished from her own little world. It was ironic that when she had her powers she didn’t want them, but when she couldn’t use them she missed them.
It wasn’t as if she needed her powers to manipulate the sky though. Hailey reached into her shorts pocket and pulled out the wand; a euphoric rush of power surged into her, making her feel as though she could do anything—walk on water, fly, even march into Madam Grayson’s dorm and tell her she wasn’t doing any more homework for Monsters and Creatures.
It was early enough on a weekend that the grounds were deserted, so she didn’t bother casting an invisibility spell. She pointed the wand at the sky. ‘Sinarlat kda zkart. Sinarlat kda zutozvat.’ She puffed up when the sky turned pink and the clouds purple. It appeared the wand made her a more powerful Zeus than her powers did.
She aimed the wand at herself. It was time to find out if it could make her live up to everyone’s expectations by giving her the ability to shoot lightning from her hands.
‘I saw that.’
Hailey whirled around, scrambling to hide the wand behind her back. ‘Aaron.’ She exhaled in relief. ‘You scared me.’
He saw the wand and gave her a censorious look worthy of Jayden’s praise. ‘You shouldn’t be using that so publically, especially for something as obvious as changing the sky’s colour.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ Hailey changed the sky and clouds back, and shoved the wand into her pocket, feeling the power rush that had swarmed her fizzle out. ‘What are you doing out here so early?’
Aaron stiffened and balled his hands into fists.
Hailey followed his gaze. Venus and the twins, it appeared, had decided to get up early for a little bullying. They, along with three spellbound boys, were chasing a girl with bright red fly-away hair out of the palace.
‘Stop. I want to help you,’ Venus called after her.
The girl spun around. ‘How?’
Venus’s face gleamed with malice. ‘By putting that fire out for you.’ She nodded to one of the spellbound boys.
A stream of water shot from his fingertips, saturating the girl, whose red hair faded to mousy brown. The dull colour emphasised her plain features, and Hailey recognised her as Cady: a Unique who could change the colour of anything—including herself.
Rage pulsed through Hailey as she watched Cady run away in tears. It seemed the lesson they’d given Venus last weekend had worn off.
Time for a refresher.
Hailey grabbed Aaron with one hand to stop him from storming over to Venus and the twins, and reached into her pocket with the other. The wand’s power consumed her again as she aimed it at Venus. ‘Akaat!’
A jet of fire blasted from the wand’s moonstone tip and hit Venus with such force, it sent her flying backwards as a fiery hole burned through her chest.
Hailey gasped and dropped the wand.
What have I done?!
22
Spying
‘Hailey.’ Hailey opened her eyes—when had she closed them?—and looked at Aaron. ‘Are you okay?’
She’d just killed someone. Of course she wasn’t okay.
Her stomach heaved, and she leaned forward to throw up, but paused when she heard Venus laugh. She glanced past Aaron and saw her standing with the twins near the palace’s entrance. She’s alive. But how? Hailey instinctively looked at the wand lying on the ground, and suddenly realised it had sent her a vision. The wand had wanted her to use it to kill Venus.
Its power called to her now, urging her to pick up the wand. To use it. To kill. She didn’t dare reach for it. Hailey might despise Venus, but that didn’t mean she wanted her dead.
‘I’ll get it.’ Aaron grabbed the wand before Hailey could stop him. She froze as he a
imed it and said, ‘Onakar.’
Venus and the twins screamed.
But not because Aaron had sent a death spell at them. They were screaming because the patch of sky above their heads was dropping an onslaught of rain onto them.
‘Hailey, what’s the matter with you?’ Aaron asked as Venus and the twins fled into the palace for cover. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a shade.’
She pulled herself together. ‘Give me the wand.’ Aaron cocked an eyebrow, but he handed it to her. She flinched when he placed it in her outstretched hand, expecting it to possess her again with images of what it wanted her to do. She blew out a breath when nothing happened and shoved the wand into her pocket. ‘We can’t use it anymore.’
‘What are you talking about? It’s the only thing that can help us get revenge on Venus while our powers are gone.’
Hailey had happily used it for that exact reason since they’d found it, but she couldn’t trust the wand anymore—not after what had just happened. And she wasn’t going to risk her, or her friends’, freewill by continuing to use it.
She explained to Aaron what the wand had shown her.
‘I’ll be right back with the others,’ Aaron said and ran off into the palace.
Hailey sank to the ground, next to an aquamarine tree. The wand pressed against her leg and she tensed, waiting for it to possess her and force her to embark on a killing rampage. How many people would it compel her to murder before letting her go, or someone else killed her? She shuddered at the thought and was grateful for a distraction when her friends came hurrying towards her fifteen minutes later. She told them what she’d told Aaron.
Demi laughed. ‘Is that it? You think we should stop using the wand because you had a vision you killed Venus? You were angry, Hails. Your mind was probably showing you what you really wanted to do to Venus. It had nothing to do with the wand.’
‘Demi might be right about it being in your mind,’ Jayden said. ‘You sounded pretty angry.’
‘I don’t think my anger could have transported me into a vision so real it made me think I’d actually killed Venus,’ Hailey retorted. ‘It was the wand. It’s dangerous.’
‘I told you wands are dangerous,’ Alec said. ‘The power they’re infused with is said to be so strong it can take on a life of its own.’
Demi snorted. ‘It’s a wand, Alec—an inanimate object.’ She fixed her gaze on Hailey. ‘So are you saying we should give the wand to Amathia?’
‘No,’ Hailey said so suddenly she surprised herself. The wand needs to be protected. ‘I just don’t think we should use it anymore, that’s all.’
Demi crossed her arms. ‘But we’ve barely done anything with it.’
‘I think you might be overreacting a little bit, Hailey,’ Jayden said in a measured voice.
‘She’s not,’ Aaron said. ‘I saw her face when it happened. She was terrified. We’re not using the wand anymore, unless it’s an emergency.’
‘But I—’ Demi began to argue.
‘What are they doing out here?’ Jayden asked, cutting her off.
The nereids were sashaying towards the grounds’ edge. Hailey watched them jump into the sea, not making so much as a splash before they vanished, becoming one with the water like the naiads had on Killer Island. Hailey suddenly remembered Amathia saying they’d been the ones to lower the palace early. Hailey hadn’t given it a second thought at the time, but it seemed like a big coincidence that at the exact time the nereids had lowered the palace, Hailey and her friends had been fighting for their lives on the island.
The realisation of what the nereids had done hit Hailey like a cyclops’s club, deepening her hate for them. ‘I know why the palace lowered while we were on Killer Island.’
Jayden raised an eyebrow. ‘We already know why. Amathia said it was because the nereids wanted it back underwater.’
‘But the palace has been rising from the sea since the beginning of the year, and they’ve never lowered it before,’ she pointed out. ‘Doesn’t it seem like too much of a coincidence that the same weekend we weren’t here they chose to lower it?’
Alec smacked himself on the forehead. ‘Of course. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. The nereids knew we were on the island, didn’t they?’
Hailey nodded. ‘Yeah. They probably went to take the sea-horses for a ride, and when they saw they were gone, they figured they’d try to lessen the number of students by lowering the palace and stranding us.’
Apparently, the nereids weren’t as harmless as Jayden had convinced everyone. They might not have made an attempt against the whole school, like Nemertes had threatened, but getting rid of Hailey and her friends would have shown Amathia they weren’t bluffing.
‘I thought Amathia was making sure they didn’t get up to anything,’ Alec said, a slight glint of disappointment in his eyes, like Amathia had let him down.
Aaron pitched an aquamarine towards where the nereids had vanished, the gem slipping over the grounds’ edge and sinking. ‘Well, she’s not doing a very good job.’
‘She can’t exactly watch them twenty-four seven.’ Jayden defended Amathia. ‘She does have a school to run as well.’
Demi shot him an accusatory look. ‘Wasn’t it you who said the nereids were bluffing about their threats?’
Jayden shrugged. ‘I thought they were. But Hailey’s right about everything being too much of a coincidence. I still don’t think they’ll start killing off students though. I just think they saw an opportunity to get rid of some and took it.’
‘Either way, we’re not leaving all the watching up to Amathia,’ Aaron said. ‘It’s time we helped her and made sure they’re really not up to anything.’
‘We’ve had this discussion before,’ Demi reminded him. ‘It’s kind of impossible to spy on someone you never see, and who might kill you if they catch you.’
‘What if they couldn’t see us?’
‘What do you mean, Alec?’ Aaron asked.
Alec looked at Hailey apologetically. ‘I know you said you don’t want to use the wand anymore. But I think it’s the only way we can spy on the nereids.’
Hailey opened her mouth to argue, but Aaron cut her off. ‘I get that you’re worried about what the wand could do, but I don’t think it’s powerful enough to control any of us, or it would have already. You managed to drop the wand before it did anything, and I didn’t have any visions when I picked it up. I think it was just responding to your anger.’
Hailey had to admit that Aaron had a point. If the wand was capable of possession, it would have taken her over the first time she’d touched it, and it wouldn’t have let her drop it after she’d had the vision of killing Venus. Maybe it had been her anger. Regardless, the wand was the only way to find out what the nereids were up to; their only choice was to use it.
‘Okay,’ Hailey said after a long pause. ‘We can use the wand to spy on them. But nothing else.’ She emphasised the last part especially to Demi, who pouted.
About two hours passed before the nereids climbed back through the force field, not a single drop of water clinging to them as they sauntered back towards the stable’s doors.
‘Give me the wand, Hailey,’ Aaron said, holding his hand out. ‘I’m going to follow them and see if they let anything about their plans slip.’
‘No,’ Hailey said. ‘I’ll go.’ She wasn’t letting her friends anywhere near the wand until she knew it wasn’t dangerous. Reluctantly, she dragged it from her pocket and relaxed slightly when no images of killing Venus flashed into her mind. But the rush of pure power that surged through her made her stomach quiver. Has it always felt this powerful? Or has its power being growing? she wondered.
‘Are you sure you want to go, Hailey?’ Jayden asked.
‘Yeah, because you don’t look happy about it,’ Demi added.
‘I’m going.’ Hailey’s voice was absolute. She’d never forgive herself if the wand hurt her friends. She glanced around to make sure none of the other student
s in the grounds were looking, and then aimed the wand’s moonstone tip at herself. ‘Sdarsatnav.’ She shivered as what felt like freezing water spread through her body.
‘Good luck,’ Alec called after her as Hailey started towards the palace.
I’m in control, everything is fine, she told herself, dodging around students wandering from the palace’s entrance. Or not! Hailey froze in the entryway.
Venus, Nerissa, and Cleo were standing by the glass statue of Poseidon.
Hailey went to drop the wand, afraid it might make her kill them, but stopped when no gory vision of their deaths rushed into her mind, and no strong urge to obliterate them possessed her.
‘I’m bored,’ Venus whined, staring at her pink nails.
‘We could have a bit of fun with some Others,’ Nerissa suggested.
‘Yeah, like the one from this morning,’ Cleo agreed.
‘Hmm, I wonder where that chameleon girl is hiding now,’ Venus said, a dark smile touching her red lips.
Hailey glared and decided it was time to get Venus and Nerissa back for bumping into her on Poseidon’s Island and in the healing wing. She rammed through the middle of them, suppressing a laugh when they stumbled to the ground.
‘I’m going to kill you!’ Venus shrieked, staggering back to her feet. Hailey bit back a laugh, watching her and the twins kick and punch the air around them before Venus let out a frustrated cry. ‘When I find out who you are, you’re dead!’ she yelled before storming up the crystal staircase with the twins.
Hailey snickered and strode through the left archway. She was starting to feel more comfortable about using the wand. Comfortable enough that she decided if it kept behaving itself, she would reinstate its use in getting even with Venus. But right now, she needed to focus on finding the nereids and hope they were stupid enough to be talking about whatever they were planning.
The only problem was Hailey had no idea where their room was. She thought maybe it was near Amathia’s classroom, so she decided heading there was a good place to start.
Poseidon's Academy Box Set Page 18