‘You’ll pay for that!’ Venus growled at Jayden. She and the twins looked like drowned harpies, with water dripping from their hair and clothes. ‘Or more like your girlfriend will.’ She stomped back towards the palace with the twins, a trail of water dripping behind them.
‘I didn’t think you approved of revenge,’ Hailey said to him.
He shrugged. ‘Sometimes it’s okay to retaliate. Well, I better go find Cady before Venus does. I hope Demi is okay. Let her know I’m sorry about what happened. It probably wasn’t the best way to end a first date.’
‘Thanks for your help,’ Hailey said, grateful he’d spared her from breaking Venus’s nose and bearing the wrath of Madam Grayson.
18
More Bad News
Hailey bit into the toasted sandwich on her plate, cheese oozing into her mouth.
Demi, Alec, and Aaron sat around her, gobbling down lunch before their next class.
‘Hey, Dems, we still hanging out after class?’ Brax asked, stopping by their table.
‘Uh huh. I’ll see you in the grounds.’
Brax winked. ‘Can’t wait.’
‘Things look like they’re going well between you two,’ Hailey said when Brax was out of earshot.
Demi blushed. ‘Yeah, but we’re still only at casual hanging out stage. It’s been three days, twenty hours, and twenty-four minutes since we first hung out, so I’m hoping he’ll ask me out on an official date soon.’
‘He doesn’t seem that great to me.’ Aaron skewered a piece of pork on his plate.
Demi rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t know why you have an issue with him. He saved my life twice.’
‘You could have swum back through the force field the second time,’ Aaron countered. ‘He was showing off.’
‘This doesn’t look good,’ Alec remarked.
Hailey followed his gaze to Amathia, who was making her way towards the front of the hall. Please don’t be something bad. Four days had passed since Lacey had vanished. Now every time she saw Amathia, she expected to hear that they’d found Lacey trapped in a secret passageway, and that she’d starved to death. Hailey kept praying to the Tyches that Lacey was stuck somewhere with a conjuring plate and goblet.
‘Quiet down please everyone.’
The din of chatter quieted to whispering as the students focused their attention on Amathia, who’d stopped in front of the teachers’ table. ‘I have some unfortunate news.’
A lump lodged itself in Hailey’s throat.
‘I have kept some information from you, as I did not wish to create a panic,’ Amathia continued. ‘But I now fear everyone might be in danger.’
Hailey gulped, the lump in her throat not budging. The nereids are back. They’ve probably already overwritten the palace’s Goldarin commands, and now Amathia is about to tell us we’re all going to freeze to death.
‘As you are aware, four days ago a first year went missing,’ Amathia said, ignoring the growing murmur of students’ voices. ‘I and the other teachers have been unsuccessful in locating Lacey. Yesterday another student vanished. A second year named Diego. At first I thought it merely a coincidence, but this morning, I was advised that yet another student has disappeared. This time a fifth year who was using his Hecate powers to try and find the missing students.’
Three students have gone missing in the past four days, how is that possible? Lacey is meant to be lost in a secret passageway, trying to find the bones of a dead woman. Two more students can’t have fallen into the same passageway. If it were that easy to find, Amathia would have stumbled across it by now.
‘Quiet down, please,’ Amathia said as the murmuring rose to a loud chatter. ‘I’m unsure of what has happened to these students, but I have every hope they are alive within the palace somewhere. With that said, I would like all students to be more aware of their surroundings from now on, and to not go anywhere alone. I also ask that no one wanders into the forbidden parts of the palace, or sneaks out after curfew. If anyone is caught doing any of these things, they will receive a detention.’ Amathia fixed the students with a serious gaze to make sure her words sank in. ‘Now please do not fear. I promise I will locate the missing students. I just wish for everyone to be more cautious from now on.’
‘What is happening to everyone?’ Hailey said, tossing her half-eaten toasted sandwich back on her plate, her appetite gone.
‘A vortex,’ Demi suggested. ‘Some random vortex has probably materialised and started sucking up students.’
Alec raised an eyebrow. ‘I think we would have noticed a vortex. And they don’t randomly appear. To create a vortex you must—’
‘No science talk.’ Demi waved a dismissive hand at him. ‘But if it’s not a vortex, do you think it’s a monster?’ she asked, excitement sparkling in her green eyes.
‘Again, I think we would have noticed a monster,’ Alec said.
‘What if it’s an invisible monster?’ Demi went on. ‘It could be in here with us right now, eyeing off its next victim.’ Her gaze darted around the hall.
‘Hmm, that would explain how it’s able to move so stealthily around the palace,’ Aaron mused, his eyes combing the main hall too. ‘But how do we fight an enemy we can’t see?’
Alec sank down in his chair, half-slipping beneath the table. ‘We hide from it and wait for someone else to kill it.’
‘I’m sure it’s not a monster,’ Hailey said, not even wanting to think about the possibility that some horrible creature had eaten the missing students. ‘They’re trapped in a room somewhere.’
‘If it was one student that would make sense,’ Alec agreed; he was still slunk down in his chair. ‘But statistically the odds are less than one percent for two more students to discover the same room that even Amathia doesn’t know about.’
‘Stop hiding under the table.’ Aaron kicked Alec’s chair. ‘If there is a monster around, it’ll smell your fear.’
‘Maybe it’s a room that only reveals itself when it wants to,’ Demi mused. ‘It could like move around the palace. So when you actually think you’re about to step into your dorm, it’s really the magic room. And then you’re trapped inside it with everyone else.’
‘If that were even possible, and I’m not saying it is,’ Alec said as he reluctantly straightened back up, ‘why would it have only started luring students away now—seven years after Poseidon’s Academy opened?’
Demi shrugged. ‘You’re the genius. You work it out.’
‘It’s not actually a bad idea,’ Aaron said. ‘It makes a lot more sense than an invisible monster.’
It does actually. And maybe the reason why it hasn’t been active before is because you have to bring it to life somehow. And maybe that’s something the nereids have the power to do. Anything bad happening in the palace is always because of the nereids. Maybe it wasn’t a magical room taking students, but Hailey could feel it in her powers that they were involved somehow.
***
‘Wait,’ Demi said when Hailey reached for the handle of their dorm.
Hailey glanced over her shoulder. ‘What?’
‘It could be that magic room. Let me check.’ Demi twisted the handle and threw the door open as she jumped backwards, acting as if something would charge out at her. ‘Looks clear,’ she said a second later, peering into their dorm.
‘What do you think about my theory?’ Hailey asked as she dropped her book bag by her desk and sank onto her bed.
Demi kicked off her shoes beside the door. ‘Theory?’
‘About the nereids? Do you think they’re responsible for the missing students?’
Demi jumped onto her bed and rolled on her side to face Hailey. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me. But I don’t know how they’d be getting around kidnapping students. Amathia probably has some security system that lets her know if they’re here. Plus other students would have seen them lurking around.’
Hailey drummed her fingers against the side of her mattress. ‘I know. But I feel like they’re in
volved somehow, even if it was just to activate the room you think is sucking people up.’
‘Now that I would believe. But I’m not sure what we can do about it.’
Hailey sighed. ‘I don’t think we can do anything except hope Amathia works out whatever they’ve done. I need to tell her about my theory though.’
‘It’s a little hard when she’s never in her classroom anymore. Which really sucks, because now we’re stuck with Madam Grayson teaching us Ancient History from a book until Amathia finds the missing students.’
‘I’m going to write her a letter,’ Hailey decided, settling at her desk. ‘It’ll show up in her classroom, and then she’ll get it whenever she goes back.’
‘Make sure you tell her about the magic room.’
Hailey picked up a pen and scribbled down her theory on the nereids being responsible for the missing students. ‘Done.’ She shoved the letter into an envelope, scrawling Amathia, The Ancient History Classroom, Poseidon’s Academy, on the front before pressing a gold stamp imprinted with a pair of wings into the envelope’s corner.
Their dorm door burst open as the letter vanished from Hailey’s hand.
‘Demi, guess what?’ Kora half-squealed, bouncing into their dorm.
Demi sat up. ‘What?’
‘Brax is in the common room asking for you,’ Kora blurted.
Demi shot off the bed. ‘Seriously?’
Kora nodded. ‘Yep.’
‘That’s awesome!’ Demi bounced on her toes, too, acting as if Kora had told her she’d won a pet unicorn. ‘How do I look?’ She darted to her mirror, dragging a brush through her hair.
‘You’re gorgeous,’ Hailey said, twisting around in her chair.
Demi spun back around. ‘It’s a good thing he’s come looking for me, right? He didn’t look nervous, like he wasn’t sure how to tell me to stop stalking him?’
Kora grinned. ‘It’s definitely a good thing. Now, hurry up. I told him I’d have you out there in five seconds.’
‘Okay, here I go.’ Demi bounded into the hallway.
‘You okay?’ Kora asked, moving to lean against Hailey’s desk.
Hailey nodded. ‘Yeah, just worried about the missing students. I’d hate for anyone else to disappear.’
‘Amathia will work it out.’
As if summoned by her name, a letter materialised on Hailey’s desk.
‘From your mum?’
Hailey shook her head, picking up the envelope. She hadn’t expected Amathia to write back so quickly.
‘Ooh, do you have a secret admirer?’
‘No, it’s… from a friend.’ Hailey said, not in the mood to explain her theory all over again, especially when Kora had no idea about all the things the nereids had done.
‘Well, I’ll leave you to read it. See you later, Hails.’
‘Bye,’ Hailey said, not even hearing the door to Kora and Tahlia’s dorm close.
She tore open the envelope, snatching out the letter and reading Amathia’s flourished handwriting:
Dear Hailey
I appreciate your thoughts about my sisters being involved in the disappearances, but I promise they have not left the island they are currently residing on. I have checked. I have also spoken with them, and am convinced they are not involved.
As for this magical room Demi thinks may be responsible, as far as I am aware, no such room exists. But Poseidon did have Hephaestus create many secret places in this palace, so I suppose it’s possible.
Thank you for your assistance in my search. I promise to let you know if I learn of anything.
Yours sincerely
Amathia
Hailey’s heart dropped. She’d wanted the nereids to be involved. Because if they were, then they’d have their answer to what had happened to Lacey and the other missing students.
Maybe they haven’t come near the palace, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t left something behind to grab students, like a spelled puddle of water that transports anyone who steps on it straight to the nereids.
Hailey sank back in her chair. Why couldn’t she have just one normal year at Poseidon’s Academy? Just one year where she didn’t have to fight for her life on an island, or where the entire school wasn’t dying from a plague? Just one year of normal school, where her biggest worry was passing her mid-year exams?
19
Sunrise Flying
Hailey’s eyes flew open, and she sucked in a scream as a shadow leered over her in the dark. The nereids are here to kidnap me!
‘It’s okay, Hailey. It’s me.’
Hailey strangled the scream, her body turning lax as she recognised Kendra’s voice. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Rain asked me to get you.’
Demi moaned from her bed.
‘She wants to show you something,’ Kendra continued, lowering her voice.
Hailey sat up, squinting to see Kendra’s outline. ‘Show me what?’
‘She said it was a surprise—she’s been searching for something for you.’
‘For me?’ She hadn’t asked Rain to find her anything.
‘Come on, let’s go.’
Hailey threw her legs over the side of the bed and paused. ‘Wait, the curfew. If we get caught, we’ll be in heaps of trouble—and there’s something in the palace taking students.’
‘So we won’t get caught,’ Kendra said. ‘And if we cross paths with a monster or whatever is making everyone vanish, then we’ll run like Tartarus—plus we’re together, and only students who are alone seem to get taken.’
That was true, and Hailey was curious to know what Rain wanted to show her. Maybe it has something to do with the missing students—maybe she’s seen something. Hailey had to find out, no matter the risk. ‘Okay.’ She quickly threw on some clothes and snuck into the hallway with Kendra. Jewels and shells glowed in the walls, luminescent sapphires, emeralds, and cockles lighting their path to the stable.
The orb of light floating beneath the stable’s ceiling flared to life when Hailey walked inside. ‘Hello,’ she greeted the whinnying sea-horses, giving each of them a quick pat while Kendra let Rain out.
The pegacorn rubbed her head against Hailey’s arm, leaving sparkling white fur on her sleeve.
‘What do you want to show me?’ Hailey asked her, running a hand down the bridge of Rain’s nose.
Rain whinnied.
‘It’s a surprise,’ Kendra interpreted. ‘We better hurry. The early risers in the palace will start to wake up soon.’ They climbed onto Rain’s back. ‘Okay, let’s see what this surprise is.’
Rain snorted and nodded her head, trotting through the double doors that led into the grounds.
Hailey’s hands tightened around Kendra’s waist, and she sucked in a breath, bracing herself for take-off.
Rain galloped forward, her hooves clopping against the diamond ground as jewel trees whizzed past them, and then she was jumping. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Her wings pumped up and down, carrying Hailey and Kendra into the sky.
The sun was just starting to rise. The great glowing orb of light pushing above the horizon, painting the sky and sea a dusky pink. Hailey breathed in the sea-air, the salty tang waking up her senses and clearing her head. What was Rain flying her to see? If this did have something to do with the missing students, then maybe Rain was taking her to them. Maybe an invisible monster has kidnapped them and is keeping them on an island. If that’s true, then Rain better only do a flyover and take us straight back to the palace for backup, because I’m so not facing a monster on my own.
‘Rain said she’s taking us down,’ Kendra said about fifteen minutes later.
‘Down?’ Hailey had been so busy thinking about how the teachers would fight a monster they couldn’t see that she hadn’t noticed the small island they were approaching. As far as Hailey could see, it was nothing special—just a bunch of sand with rocks spread about. There was no sign of the missing students, or of a monster guarding its prisoners. What could Rain possibly want
to show her here?
‘Hold on.’
Hailey’s grip tightened around Kendra’s waist as Rain dropped towards the island, descending lower and lower. The pegacorn touched down on the beach, sending sand puffing into the air from her galloping hooves.
‘So what did you want to show me?’ Hailey asked, sliding from Rain’s back once the pegacorn had slowed to a stop.
Rain whinnied.
‘Uh oh.’ Kendra gulped.
‘What?’
‘She said she’s been searching for the nereids because you wanted to know what they were up to. This is where they’ve been hiding.’
Ice water as cold as a glacier rushed through Hailey’s veins. Her eyes darted around, combing the island for Nemertes. But, by the luck of the Tyches, the nereids weren’t there. ‘We need to go before they show up.’
Rain snorted and shook her head.
‘She said this is what you wanted.’
‘Yes, it was,’ Hailey said quickly. ‘Thank you so much for finding them. But if they know we’re here, they’ll kill us. We need to go.’ Tingles exploded in Hailey’s fingertips.
‘Too late.’
Hailey whipped around. Nemertes and five other nereids glided from the sea, their shimmering blue dresses flowing behind them. They stopped a yard in front of Rain, Nemertes’s poisonous green eyes locking on to Hailey. It had been months since she’d last seen the nereid, and in that time Hailey had forgotten how truly terrifying she was.
A smile curved Nemertes’s lips, making her look like a Nemean lion who’d just returned home to find a tasty deer waiting in its den. ‘How kind of you to have travelled here. It will save me the trouble of hunting you down later.’
‘We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to come here.’ Kendra’s voice bordered on terror, and she didn’t even know the true extent of how evil the nereids were. ‘Rain brought us. We’ll go.’
‘No,’ Nemertes said before Kendra could move. ‘You’re not leaving.’
Hailey found her voice. ‘Amathia knows where we are,’ she lied.
Poseidon's Academy Box Set Page 78