by Mana Sol
I reached up to gingerly touch my temple. She was right. The swelling probably wasn’t so visible, but there was still a faded silver-red blotch there marring my hairline. I grimaced.
“But don’t worry. Because eventually, we will get his ass and he will be sorry. Okay? So relax.”
I rolled my eyes. “I said it’s not him. I’m still thinking about what Octavius told me yesterday.”
“Seriously? You’re still thinking about that? He was making all that up to change your mind. Genie’s supposed to be the gullible one, don’t fall for it just because the man is the most scrumptious thing we’ve ever seen.”
I gave her an odd look. So did Genie, who lifted her head from the table and squinted. “Do you like him?” asked Genie. Her nose wrinkled. “I thought you said you hated everyone at this school now and they’re all ugly with flabby kiesters.”
“Emotionally,” said Addy. She patted her chest. “They’re all ugly with flabby kiesters inside. But honestly, have you not seen the man? His outside is…”
I raised a hand. “I’ve heard enough. Come on, let’s get ready to leave. You guys remember what we’re doing today, right?”
“Your big master plan on how to handle Zedekiel? Come on. We don’t need to get all tactical on him. We just need to try harder to beat the hell out of him. It’s three against one, are you kidding me.”
“Three humans against one Nephilim.”
“And there you go again, talking us down.”
“Just go with the plan, okay?”
She rolled her eyes and planted her feet on the coffee table by my elbow. “Lot of effort for something that should be simple. But okay, fine. We’ll make it ten times harder and more complicated than it has to be so you can have your ego trip.”
“Do you not remember how badly we got beaten exactly one week ago?”
“Because he cheated! And took us by surprise!”
My turn to roll my eyes. I’d already explained to her too many times that the point of it had been how unprepared we were. There was no cheating in war. If we weren’t ready for whatever came our way, game over. That had been the lesson at the center of it all, and it was one I had accepted after prying myself free of the humiliation of being walloped so soundly to get there.
“Come on, you two,” I said. “Genie, you and I are going to have to go over your elements table when we get back.”
“I don’t wanna…”
“What did you get on this week’s quiz.”
She remained stubbornly quiet, so Addy chimed in instead like the traitor she was. Good. “She got two.”
“Two!” I exclaimed. “Two questions!”
“No, not two questions. Two percent. We had ten questions and she got all of them wrong, but the professor gave her point-one points for writing her name and the date each.”
I slapped my hand over my face. If I were in the same Integrated Alchemy class as them, I would never have let Genie do so badly, prisoners or not. Meanwhile, she glared at Addy, eyes sparking. An orange gleam flashed through her sclera, but neither of us flinched. “You shouldn’t have looked!” she accused. “Why were you looking at my stuff!”
“You were asleep when she passed the quizzes back out and didn’t put it away until you woke up at the end,” Addy retorted as she picked something out of her teeth with an impudent smirk. “Besides. We’re not supposed to look at each other’s papers so we don’t cheat. But what would I be able to cheat off of you? Your drool marks?”
“Both of you stop and get ready,” I snapped, head throbbing again. “We don’t have time for this.”
Genie sniffed. “I was bored, anyway.”
“We’re still finishing this assignment when we get back.” She mumbled something under her breath. I narrowed my eyes. “What was that?”
“She said, ‘if you don’t get knocked out again.’”
But Genie had already disappeared, scurrying off into the hallway before I could say anything back. With a grin, Addy stretched her long limbs out as leisurely as a cat, then rose out of the armchair with a contented sigh. “All right,” she said. “Showtime.”
24
He was in his uniform again, though without his blazer this time. Somehow, it made him look even more unbearably obnoxious as we gathered at the back of the Academy grounds, but farther away from the tree line this time. I thought I could still smell scorched wood in the air.
“You sure about this,” Addy murmured as she rolled her shoulder back and circled her arm around at the joint. “Because I think I forgot what I’m supposed to do.”
“You better have not.”
“‘Kay…”
“And Genie?”
“I’m okay.”
“Yeah. Because you have the easiest job. All you have to do is -”
“Shh.” I shushed Addy’s grumbling and finishing knotting the laces of my worn shoes. If I were confident enough, I would have taken them off so as not to ruin them, but I would just have to take that chance. Determination and my thirst for payback aside, I was still the same girl that had never even finished a one-kilometer run for physical education, much less barefoot. I needed the traction.
“Last chance,” Addy mumbled again as she stretched her hamstrings with both of her eyes fixed on Zedekiel. Good, she’d learned. I was suspicious about how graciously he was waiting for us this time, too. Why was he doing that? Not that I was complaining… ”Blair?”
“We’re doing it. Unless you’re scared.”
“Oh, shut up. I’m scared for you, you dolt. It’s a stupid plan and you know it. I can’t believe I’m saying this because usually, it’s me -”
No. It wasn’t stupid. It was reckless, spiteful, and would get us a reprimand for sure, but it wasn’t stupid. I knew well the difference even if Addy didn’t. Maybe she thought anger was blinding me, but I was past anger now. I was bitter, which was worse. For Zedekiel. I’d never been a graceful loser.
Besides. When she channeled her Augmenting magic through her entire body and began thrumming like a struck tuning crystal, I knew then she was past the point of return, too. Lecturing me? Please. She was the one trying to hide her excitement, just like Genie who had already burst into flames before Zedekiel had even given a signal. He was still standing there, idly popping the top several buttons of his shirt as he stared at me.
Screw him.
“New shirt,” I said mildly. “I’m sorry you had to ruin your last one.”
Next to me, Addy tittered. Tittered. It made me feel amazing. Genie didn’t react from where she stood a short distance away, or maybe I just missed it over the spirals of crackling orange fire that swelled over her body and swallowed it up. Her face disappeared and morphed into a mask of flames that flared out with crackling pops, and a halo of fire hissed around her hair that had risen around her head.
Ah. So she was angry, too. I’d seen so much of her docile side lately that I’d forgotten what it was like to feel this searing heat from a full three body lengths away, a reminder that of all of us, Genie had been the only one to nearly kill a man.
I needed that rage. Maybe getting scorched into an early grave was a little too harsh for the Nephilim currently sizing us up with those haughty blue eyes, but I needed her rage. He was good, better than we were. I had to acknowledge that because that was the rational thing to do, but that only meant we had to compensate in other ways.
“You’re too emotional, all of you,” he said, though his eyes were still on me. I knew who he was talking to. This son of a bitch. My wrist and palm tingled where he’d gripped it tight and left fresh Nephilim marks on me, and I reminded myself to leave some of my own if I had the chance. How delicious would that be, seeing him walk through the halls or sit in our classes together with bruises mottling his skin? I couldn’t wait to hear the excuses he would bring up, too, to anyone who asked, because surely he’d never admit a few humans had marked up an almighty angel-touched. I shivered, and his eyes narrowed at me across the grass.
“We’re ready, you know,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to waste your time, so you can start whenever.”
“We start when I say we start.” He unbuttoned his sleeve cuffs and rolled them up to his elbows. A step up from last week. Was he giving us an ounce more respect than he had last week? “You should use the time you have to get your emotions under control.”
“Too much for you?” Addy cooed. “Is Genie starting to scare you? It’s fine, she’s like this. She didn’t burn you too bad last time, right?” In response, Genie’s flames crackled even louder and threw sparks that hissed on the grass, and Zedekiel’s eyes finally peeled away from me to look at her instead. I didn’t see any wariness in his stare, but she concerned him enough to get his attention.
I smiled. “Sorry. We’re just really emotional types. I hope you can forgive us.”
His eyes flashed, and I was ready for the single word he barked next. “Defend.”
But no. We weren’t defending. I’d stayed up all night, mind racing after hearing what Octavius had had to say. Humans, a warring species. The warring species. For all our savagery and primitive ways, for all the ways we fell short compared to elder peoples, those were the things that would redeem us now and I was ready to take a chance on it, to prove it to both myself and these people who were watching our every move.
Like hell was I defending. We were going to attack.
My hands were already flying. My left tore out a Dispelling sign and held it, ready to cast in case he used his aura again. I could see him trying to keep an eye on me as he beat Genie and Addy back, but they were closing in on him from opposite sides. He couldn’t watch all three of us; he had to choose.
Not that it would matter. He’d already made his critical mistake last week; I just hadn’t realized it until last night while poring over my options. I retreated hastily to the tree line, my right hand etching a rotating array layered over a compressing one. I had to move fast; Genie and Addy wouldn’t last long. Especially if Genie kept heating up like that as the other girl wouldn’t be able to withstand the scorching either. A little more, a few more steps, and I was there.
Last weekend, Addy had told me about how Genie had accidentally set the trees on fire, which explained why Zedekiel had situated us so much farther away this time. But he had shown his hand. Too late.
I put Genie and Addy out of my mind, trusting them to keep him in line for the few more seconds I needed to get this done. I’d never fooled myself. They were going to get pummeled while I scuttled away. They were no match for a Nephilim, much less one that was so good at what he did that he’d been put in charge of us. But so long as they held him back long enough -
“Get back here, Blair Kaine.”
I could hear the rumbling anger so clear in his voice despite the newfound distance between us, but I ignored it and continued reproducing array after array before releasing it at swift intervals spread across the boundary of the tree line. I placed the floating white arrays where the foliage was densest, where the branches began interlocking with those of neighboring trees. It would have been better if I could go higher, but the farther they were from me, the weaker the funneling and compression effects. Magic faded with distance.
“Blair Kaine!”
He must have thought I was trying to run away at first, but now I could hear a prick of alarm in the hard syllables he ground out between clenched teeth. He didn’t sound tired - pain? Had Genie managed to burn his resilient flesh so soon? I smiled as I spun out another combined array. I was already sweating, straining with the effort of holding half a dozen spell catalysts, but the rush of gratified adrenaline gave me just enough strength to toss out one more.
”Blair Kaine!”
“Ah!”
Damn it, that was Addy’s scream. He must have clocked her hard. My suspicion was confirmed when I looked over my shoulder to find Addy curled up in the grass on her side, looking like she was about to vomit. Shit! Genie? Where was Genie, I needed her! Everything hinged on her and I’d told her, I’d told her repeatedly how important it was to stay standing -
There. There she was on her hands and knees but scrambling to her feet now. Half her flames were extinguished and the other half flickered around her body as if they were living, but dizzy and weakened, and she staggered toward me behind Zedekiel. I didn’t move. He had either failed to notice Genie coming behind him or he didn’t care - the latter was more likely since his face was set in hard, cold fury as he glared at me. His mistake. She wasn’t coming for him, after all, as she hurried to match his pace and stumble after him.
She was coming for me.
“Genie…!” I called, my voice climbing to a warning pitch. Zedekiel was now so close I could make out the individual holes in his shirt buttons. Shit. The plan had been simple despite all of Addy’s complaining; had I been wrong to think this was enough? “Genie!”
Zedekiel was only half a dozen strides from me when Genie finally put on a burst of speed. Bleeding from both nostrils and looking like she didn’t quite know where she was, it must have been luck that she gathered enough of her wits to do one last thing: she ducked around the Nephilim, opened her jaw that somehow swung open far too much as if she had dislocated it entirely, and spewed out a jet of orange flames directly at my face.
Zed whirled around and smashed the back of his fist against Genie’s throat, sending her flying, but it was too late. He’d hesitated too long, hadn’t understood exactly what I was doing until it was too late. Maybe he had thought that I was calling Genie’s name so much because I was begging her to stop him from reaching me, and clearly he hadn’t read the symbols of my complex arrays in time to understand what my real intentions were.
So now it was too late. The central array still attached to my right hand ate up the stream of flames and set it whirling within. Then, in the blink of an eye and with a flash so intense I had to close my eyes, it connected to the six other arrays hovering by the trees. It took but one instant for the fire to stream out along six different connected threads and fill the waiting arrays, which flared and began spinning madly. Fire danced within them, loud and crackling and hungry -
“Hold it,” I snapped, and Zed halted as abruptly as if I’d struck him. “One more step and you’re going to need more than a water caster or two to put these out.”
He was no longer staring at me but at the fire-bathed arrays spinning by the branches. “That’s enough, Blair,” he said. “Come back and do what you’re supposed to do.”
“Do what I’m supposed to do?”
“Train.”
“I’m training. What are you doing?” I let my focus loosen just enough to set one of the fire-filled arrays flickering, but just as the branches next to it began smoking, I tightened my control once more.
Zed’s jaw clenched. “This isn’t the time for games. Bring those down and join your friends.”
He still didn’t understand. I was glad to explain. “Look,” I said, smiling. I knew he could see the sheen of sweat over my brow, but that was all the better. The longer he failed to bend, the more likely it was that I would lose control of my simultaneous spells and set the entire woods on fire. “I’m assuming you’re supposed to test us and report on our progress, let them know if we’re worth it. But you come out here, knock us around, knowing we’re at a disadvantage. Of course, we can’t win, playing fair. It’s impossible.”
“Try harder.”
“Try smarter.” I nodded back at my spinning spell catalysts, enjoying his anger far too much. I was going to pay for this later, but this was now. “I’m not going to waste our time getting thrashed every weekend until you’ve had your fill. Especially not with this gladiatorial bullshit. It’s war out there, isn’t it? So we should prove we can win a war, not just throw punches. And this is what winning looks like.”
“Blair…”
“Your choice. You call it, and I’ll drop the spells, or you’re going to have to explain to Olisanna how you let the humans burn down every tree o
n the grounds.” I squinted. “I don’t mind either way, but I heard you were so concerned last weekend, and I wouldn’t want to accidentally…”
“Blair!” he snapped, and I glanced up to see that the fire was leaking out of their constraints. It wouldn’t be much longer before at least one of them broke free. “That’s enough!”
“Say uncle,” I said with a smile. “I don’t give a shit about your plants. The whole school’s going to smell like smoke for months.”
His eyes flickered from me to the trees to the arrays still spinning but now sputtering -
“It’s about winning,” I said softly. “That’s why you all need us. Because humans use dirty tricks and cheap shots and that’s how our minds work. Time’s running out, Zedekiel. In case you haven’t deciphered them yet, I have a funneling and a compression sigil inside each one of those. If I let go, the whole sky’s going to light up like canned firestorms straight from hell. I can’t imagine what people are going to say. Jupiter Gate Academy loses control of miscreant humans…Flames seen for kilometers around…Vaunted Arcane Institute forced to reconsider their decision, what ever will the Citadel do now -”
“So what do you want.”
“Tell Olisanna you admit you lost. That we’re beyond games and they should take things seriously now. Because we are.”
“This is you taking the situation seriously?”
“I made it serious, didn’t I? And I told you. The object isn’t to fight, it’s to win. Here, and there. You don’t need more bodies to fight, you need people who can win. And that’s me. That’s us. Because for all our faults, that’s what humans do. Win. At all costs. We’re a bit broken like that.”
His eyes gleamed, reflecting the red light of the crackling wheels of fire above. “There will be consequences.”
“I know. I’m sorry for pissing you off. And embarrassing you. I’m also really sorry that if Olisanna doesn’t approve, she’s going to keep making you do this thing with us every weekend where we do our absolute best to make it hell for you in every possible way. It’s really regrettable.”