by Holly Hook
I gulped. "You use it for money, then. That's all I'm here for. To bring Cursed Academy more money. Don't deny that."
Ronin and Wendy both glared at Celestus. "Well, what's the verdict on that?" Ronin asked.
"You have brought my former school more money," Celestus said, stopping feet away. "I'm an honest man, at least. And I know the Lower Order wants you."
"That's why I can't go dark!" I shouted. My words echoed off the surrounding tree trunks like the cries of ghosts.
"Listen to her," Ronin said.
Celestus shook his head. "But—"
"Do you want me to get sucked into that terrorist group?" I asked.
"Once you're in," Wendy said, "then you don't get out. They have ways of keeping you forever. My friend Duncan went off with them. They marked him. Even if he's having regrets, he can't come back."
My jaw dropped. Wendy remembered that horrible night. Surrounded by wolves. Facing down Alonso, Dominique's son, as Duncan accepted his mark.
"I'm very aware of their tactics. I've studied the Lower Order for years," Celestus said. "Just because I have the magic of Nyx does not mean I'm like them. And having the power of Chaos cannot make you evil, Giselle. Only you can decide that."
He sounded like my friend Carmen.
"You don't know how I feel when it happens," I said.
"No. I don't," Celestus admitted.
"And you don't know how out of control it can make me." I would not cry in front of my tutor.
"Giselle, come on," Ronin said. "I'll talk to Zeus again. Make sure he shuts all this down." Ronin nodded his promise to Celestus. "And I don't care if he thinks I'm a daddy's boy."
I gladly stepped out of the arena, taking Ronin's hand, feeling for his magic. And it was there, angry and prickling, but it beat the lingering, low groan in my head. Wendy backed off as if she were unsure what to do.
Celestus let out a rare sigh. Ronin had hit Celestus's ego. Celestus whirled, every inch dark elf, and faced down my boyfriend. Wendy let her jaw drop and faced me.
"I am the best teacher for Giselle at this time," Celestus said.
Ronin released my hand and slapped my back. Hurry, it meant.
How could I refuse? It couldn't be more clear. Celestus knew what he was doing. And judging from his tone, he didn't have any regrets.
Chapter Sixteen
Nobody knocked on my door except for Maria that night.
I opened it for her. It wasn't as if Ronin and I were going to do anything, especially in front of Wendy, who had come up to my dorm with us. Now I felt like it didn't matter anyway. Dominique was right. There might be nothing much else I could do against my power, which left me just one option.
If I didn't transfer to Olympian, I wouldn't make it to the end of the year without destroying some of my classmates, and maybe more.
Maria stepped inside, laptop in hand. Mikey and Cal followed. Wendy moved to the side. Even though I had the biggest dorm in the school, the space felt crowded. And that unnerved me, since the low groan in my head lingered.
I could take another dose of asphodel, but didn't want to risk paralysis and near-death again. We had to move against Prometheus and now.
"So I found a GPS tracker," Maria said, setting the laptop down on my bed. "This is something criminals use to follow cars and rob them, and of course it's on the black market. This thing is about a hundred dollars and comes with a handheld device."
"That might be a good idea," Ronin said. "My mom was descended from Hermes, but my tracking abilities are related to feeling out magic in others. I'm not good with long distance. The oracles have to help me with that. And Prometheus has magical protection around himself so people like me can't follow him around."
I wasn't surprised.
"I can pay for the tracker," Wendy offered.
Everyone looked at her. Of course she had the money, but I hadn't expected her to just offer like that. And right away, I felt bad for judging.
"I was about to say I had just enough cash," Maria said.
"Why should you have to spend it? My parents won't even notice. They're busy running the funeral business." Wendy dismissed Maria's offer with a wave.
"Maria, let her pay," I insisted.
Mikey nodded to her. "Yeah. You do way too much and it needs to stop."
Just like her father, I thought.
"That's what friends do." She faced Mikey in a silent standoff.
"Okay, guys," Cal said, stepping closer. The room seemed to brighten as he did. "We don't need to argue amongst ourselves. We're a team. Maybe we need some happy vibes?" He wrapped his arm around Mikey's shoulder. Mikey breathed out his tension.
At least Cal's presence eased my own darkness a little, though nowhere near as much as Ronin's did.
Maria faced me, asking a silent question.
"Let Wendy pay if she wants to," I said. "You found this thing. We do need help planting it on Prometheus's secret car. Someone needs to break into that garage."
"Then he won't drive his car anywhere," Ronin said. "That'll tip him off. We can break into places, but we can't hide the evidence."
"Especially me," I said. "Good point. Last thing I broke into was the weapons shed last year. That lock will never see the light of day again."
Mikey frowned. "That's a good point. Sorry, Maria, but your part in this might already be done."
Maria stayed silent, leaning over her laptop. The air thickened. But we had to get through this.
"Thanks so much," I said, giving her a hug. "I wouldn't know how to find this stuff."
"We still need someone to plant the device," she said.
"It will have to be while Prometheus is driving out of his secret garage," Wendy said. "If he drives slow enough, this might work."
Maria and Wendy spent the next hour transferring Wendy's money to a secret crypto-currency account and purchasing the device, which would ship to a post office box in Marchamp and arrive by Thursday. I was glad Maria didn't have to pay because the shipping was astronomical.
And as the week progressed, I got increasingly nervous. What if the titan didn't go have a drink every Friday night? And what if he went to a place we couldn't enter? Prometheus, so far, had proven to be a master of caution.
But at least nobody talked to me about ducking out of Celestus's trainings. Ronin and I headed over to the rear grounds of Olympian every evening again, and it was like old times. I used the birthright weapons of the Olympian kids without their knowledge, burying myself in their powers and forgetting my own. My trainings with Ronin eased the low groan, though it still hung in the background throughout the day at Cursed. Once again, we were slapping a bandage on a wound that refused to close.
Both relief and worry flooded through me when neither Celestus nor the principal talked to me about my outburst and failure to show up in the burned arena. Something was off. Prometheus wouldn't just give up if I was this close to maturing. He'd find something else. And Celestus was too professional to just let me go. He eyed me with suspicion throughout Career Exploration, even as he led us through a slide show about the cons of self employment. Yeah, Celestus was educating us about how, if we started our own businesses, we'd have to pay taxes four times a year. Being magical couldn't even save you from that.
By Friday, I could once again barely focus in my classes. Mikey and Cal had gone to town and picked up the package the day before, and when I met Maria down in her dorm after dinner, she had slid it under her bed.
"Don't tell me we have to attach the tracker to the car while it's moving," I said.
"We have to do that."
"Let me. If my hand gets crushed by tires, I'll heal." I wasn't trying to push her out of the way. My plan made sense logically.
The lights flickered, went out, came back on, and then went out again, leaving just the glow of our phones.
"Great," Maria said.
In other dorms, people shouted, then quieted. I tensed, automatically thinking the Lower Order might be here, but
Zeus's protective barrier still stood. "Well, looks like someone poured coffee on the control panel at the power plant again."
"Maybe," she said.
"What if this cancels Prometheus's plans?"
"We don't know that for sure. Outages happen all the time. If anything, the darkness should help us sneak around." She fiddled with something. "Oh, and the tracking screen itself stays with us. Someone should stay behind and watch where Prometheus is going."
My eyes adjusted. Maria fished out a handheld screen that looked like a GPS device. Then I realized that was exactly what it was. Once she turned it on, a map of a single circular road, plus a series of rectangles, filled the screen and the room with a soft glow. Cursed Academy appeared ordinary on the map.
"Great," I said.
Maria swallowed. "I'll watch for where he's going. I don't have any magic. Sorry. Maybe you can take Serena's shadow power again?"
"I can only hold onto it for less than an hour. And that was pushing it," I said. I feared I'd have to go into shadow mode once more.
She forced a smile and flopped down on her bed. "Well, she won't know you're about to attack now that her memory is gone."
"I think it's coming back. Serena glared at me and Wendy in Advanced Magic today," I admitted.
"Great." Maria dragged out the word.
"And Celestus is out of the question." Just the thought of him made disgust rise in my gut.
The power remained off. Wendy arrived a few minutes later, followed by Mikey and Cal. Ronin squeezed into Maria's dorm last and closed the door behind him. He eyed me. "You know who's going with you on this mission."
Well, Ronin knew he couldn't stop me. He'd learned. "If it even happens tonight. I want you with me."
"And I promise I won't hold you back this time," Mikey said. "Now, what time did Prometheus take off last Friday? I'm assuming he's going out for drinks every Friday since we never see him around campus when we're partying."
"He left, I think, around eight last time," I said.
"Makes sense," Wendy told me. "Well, it's seven, so we might want to get moving. Get into position. If wherever he goes doesn't have power tonight, we'll just do this again next week."
"So long as nothing—" I started.
Maria's phone buzzed, and so did Mikey's. Then mine vibrated in my pocket. We were all getting a notification.
"Shit," Ronin said, removing his from his jeans pocket. "It's another Lower Order attack."
"What?" Maria asked.
After swiping and tapping a few things, Ronin turned up the volume on his phone. We gathered around him as a Breaking News video played. The anchor, a blond woman with huge earrings, spoke in a dead serious tone as she nodded her head.
"...details are still emerging, but authorities and the Olympian Guard say smoke is rising from the Marchamp Power Plant."
"The Marchamp power plant?" I asked, gulping. My thoughts turned to Elliot. Maria watched the screen, oblivious. What if her father had kept his job? Still worked there? He was the grunt and might go to the front lines.
"...here is a video of the damage," the anchor continued.
The screen changed to the Marchamp plant from above. Live. Red embers glowed within smokestacks and machinery. The sound of helicopter rotors came from the phone. Then the camera switched to night view. My stomach turned. The back of the plant had collapsed under what could have only been a blast. I swallowed. Nobody in that section of the plant would have survived. Was that the area near Zeus's office? Those bitchy ladies worked near that place, but I didn't wish death on them.
"Maria—" I started.
She snapped her gaze to me. "They won't blame you, Giselle. You toured there last year."
I lost my guts and swallowed. "Well, that explains our lack of power."
"And soon the haters will be coming," Cal said, moving in front of the door. "Some of the people in my school just need to get a life."
The haters.
They had wreaked havoc after the attack in China.
Now that there had been a possible attack one town away—
"Barricade the door," Maria said, grabbing a chair and shoving it against the doorknob. She was a dark shadow against bluish-red light. Then silence fell as she backed away.
The angry Olympian kids would come.
They would attack.
Marchamp was way too close for them not to blame us.
Dominique was closing in. She tended to focus on big events. Cities. Not towns. She'd sent us all a message.
The girls' dorm fell silent as if everyone already knew what was coming. Us third and fourth years had seen this before. A guard ran past, saying something into her radio about securing a door.
"How are we going to reach Prometheus's car now?" Mikey asked.
It was a good question. Ronin spoke. "We may have to take the risk and sneak out. Everyone will be distracted."
"And maybe Prometheus won't go out tonight," I said. "We might have to wait until next week."
Ronin bumped up beside me. "We have to try."
His words fell like hammers. Yes. We did. Time was running out for me.
"Everyone remain in your dorms!" Prometheus shouted in the distance. His voice carried. "Barricade your doors. First and second years, I am not joking. Stay in your dorms until further notice." More footfalls echoed away from us.
We couldn't do that. Not tonight.
"He's not going to go out," I blurted.
"He might. We don't know what he's doing," Ronin said. "This could—never mind. I'm still going with you."
Someone banged on a door in the distance.
"You attacked us!"
Girls squealed in malice and banged on more doors. They were outside the dorm, trying to get in.
Then a window shattered.
"These monsters!"
Those horrible Olympian girls. They thought we were all working with the Lower Order. Or they were taking the opportunity to show us who was boss.
Ronin wrapped his arm around me from the side.
"I hate this," Mikey said, pacing.
"Hey, man. I'll protect you," Cal said, opening his arms. Mikey collapsed into them.
Anger bubbled into my chest as another girl shouted something along the lines of we're going to kill you cowards, only laced with profanity. I shrunk back from my friends, pinning myself against the wall, as I remembered that punch I'd taken to the gut. Throwing up sunlight all over Ronin. The sheer hatred and disgust some Olympian girls showed to us Cursed kids. Like we were animals. Inferior.
The low groan filled my chest. I wanted to reach for the fake Chaos dagger on my belt, but I refused. I wouldn't. Because if I did, I'd let the darkness win and I'd go out there and end them.
And then I would—
"Giselle," Wendy said, jaw dropping. "This happened before." Her eyes widened. "This happened before! They beat us so savagely I wound up needing three healers."
I'd never seen how badly Wendy had gotten beaten, but the puddle of blood had been a good indicator. Now that the attack had happened in Marchamp, not China, this would be worse. Much worse.
Crashing sounded down the corridor outside. Someone growled. Our werewolf guard, Trina, patrolled this hallway. She normally just kept to herself, looking all official, but now the beast had come out.
I gripped the wall with my free hand as purple energy swirled in my chest.
"We can't just huddle in here. There are five of us. We can do something," Ronin said. He looked into my eyes and frowned. "Giselle. You're not feeling good."
The purple flecks.
They must be starting.
I was going cold.
Understanding passed between Ronin and I. His eyes widened. And I knew what was going to happen. What had to happen.
He reached for his sword. "We're fighting our way out of here."
Maria reached under her bed, drawing out the club she rarely carried. She bounced the heavy weapon hand to hand. Cal and Mikey separated. Cal's palms
glowed with liquid sunshine. Mikey reached for his dagger. The upperclassmen had to defend those not yet allowed to carry their weapons.
More girls shrieked in malice. Their war cry echoed through the halls. Somewhere, another girl screamed. Another growl sounded.
"Let's go," Maria said, anger burning in her eyes.
I yanked the chair from the door as the ice spread through my arms. I breathed in and out, focusing on the outside air, on anything but the growing power. Ronin linked his free hand with mine, lending me electricity. He would fight for both of us, and fight to keep my darkness at bay.
He ripped open the door, which barely missed hitting the wall.
Growling and snapping sounded from somewhere above. The attackers had gone to the second floor. Thumps followed. The werewolf yelped. Whoever had broken in was hurting her.
"We can't let them do this," Mikey said, small dagger pointing at the stairwell. "Cal, come on. Let's show them what Orpheus is all about."
They had a point. Once the attacking girls were done with the guard, they'd move on to the students. Wooden doors wouldn't protect them for long.
"Protect these girls," Ronin said.
Cal and Mikey bolted to the top of the stairs.
The halls were empty now. All the action had moved to the second floor. Prometheus seemed to have vanished. Maybe there was hope.
"I should fight them, too," Wendy said, reaching for her sword.
"You need to come with us." I pulled on her shoulder. Liquid ice spread through my limbs. There was no time to argue.
"Come on," Ronin said, slapping my back. "I can feel what's happening." He shook my hand. "This door."
Wendy and Maria followed close behind. Cal yelled something at the girls above and the sounds of fighting stopped, only to start again when something hit the wall.
"Mikey's powers don't work well on girls," I said.
"They're not girls. They're harpies," Wendy said.
Ronin pulled open the back door. We slipped into the frigid night, crunching snow. I felt about to merge with the chill and the nothingness of the sky. Then I took a breath and focused on the warmth coming out of my nostrils with I breathed out. Dark, icy electricity surged through me. My body wanted to grab onto it and fight.