by Lucia Ashta
“Make way! Coming through,” Sadie yelled, and students dispersed immediately. “Who is it?” she called through the three-inch-thick wood of the doors.
“Damon. The threat has been neutralized.”
“How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
Okay. So Sadie had lost her mind. It was bound to happen. She hadn’t seemed that stable to begin with.
I searched for my friends, looking to get away from the kooky lady. I found Wren, Dave, Adalia, and Jas right away; they were already staring at me. But when I moved to step away from Sadie, she didn’t release her hold on my arm.
“A woodchuck would chuck wood at you just to punish you for your stupid joke,” Damon’s voice rumbled through the wood.
Sadie sighed in relief. “Help me get this barricade cleared.”
I nodded, and along with several other students I heaved and pulled, and in minutes Sadie yanked the doors to the dining hall wide open.
Damon stood immediately beyond them, his semi-automatic hanging from one hand, Ky at his other side. I breathed in my relief, my chest expanding fully for what felt like the first time since Fianna’s panicked announcement. When I spotted Leander a few steps behind Ky, I had to lean on the threshold as my knees buckled from relief. Boone was next to Leander.
The guys stood among what appeared to be the entire staff, including a dozen-ish ornery trolls, who seemed disappointed they hadn’t gotten to kill anyone. Even the gnome Professor Quickfoot’s battle ax was blood free, when it had been coated after the Attack. At least he didn’t seem annoyed he hadn’t gotten to shed blood this time.
Sir Lancelot swooped above the heads of everyone and flew into the dining hall. Fianna and Nessa zoomed in behind him, flapping their wings so fast to keep up that they were barely visible. He landed on one of the tables to the side of the entrance, the fairies alighting immediately behind him. The headmaster cleared his throat tiredly, and for the first time I noticed hints of the bird’s long life. Ordinarily prim and proper, he sagged, as if the burden of our current conflict weighed on him as much as it did on me.
“Everyone, settle down,” he called. If not for the magical augmentation of his voice, I doubted his words would have carried across those of us assembled. He appeared beaten though we’d just scored a victory—if there was such a thing as a true win during war, when all parties lost to some degree or another.
“The threat has been dealt with. Not a single shifter managed to enter the school’s campus. The rabbits and Enforcers halted their progress. We’re all safe.” A relieved hush settled across the crowd. “We’ll continue to be safe. The Enforcers have sent everyone they can afford to the campus, and the trolls will bolster their numbers so continuous patrols and watches can take place across the entirety of our large institution. Do not be alarmed if you notice the Enforcers or trolls in unusual places. The Voice, whether through its subgroups the Shifter Alliance or the Undead League or other supernaturals, will not have the chance to harm any of us again.”
Those amassed outside the doors trickled inside as the owl sucked in a big breath and squared his petite, feathered shoulders, scanning the crowd with his large, serious eyes. “I realize that current events are unsettling. Even I feel shaken to my core. But please know that you’re in the midst of the finest institution for magical creatures in the entire world. And though you certainly are already aware, our sister institutions are also the strongest in their fields. The Magical Arts Academy and its several subsidiaries will not abandon us in our time of need. If it becomes necessary, I will call on the mages and dragons to help us.”
No. Way. Dragons would come help us? On campus? I sensed the disbelief circling through our ranks. Sure, two dragons had descended upon the school last term so their riders could warn Sir Lancelot with some secret news. But they’d departed quickly, and the beasts that’d been relegated to legend up until then had mostly remained elusive—a vision one barely dared believe.
The owl rubbed a wingtip across his tired face. “Nothing has changed, other than I hope this morning’s attempt will serve to encourage you to press forward in your studies harder than ever before. Do not feel helpless. Rather, channel that energy into training to become the most powerful shifters you can be. I fear the world will need every single one of us before this war is over. Give everything you have to excelling. Not only will you benefit, but so will the entirety of your community, and there is no greater honor than serving others.”
Ky, Leander, and Boone wove through the students and appeared at my side. I pushed away an irrational urge to bury myself in Leander’s arms and pretend we had no greater concern than his father’s dislike of me. The elfin prince met my eyes. Something flashed across the silver of his own that made me wonder if he could possibly be thinking the same thing—unlikely. Regardless, I took half a step toward him, thinking no one would notice. When I sensed Ky’s stare on me, I stopped moving and trained my attention on the owl, but Leander took half a step toward me as well so that the sides of our bodies pressed together. His fingertips brushed mine.
“No misguided shifter, vampire, or other magical creature will tarnish our way of life,” the headmaster was saying. “I won’t allow it. We won’t allow it.”
“Here, here,” Damon called out, as Sadie whooped.
“They won’t disrupt our lives or our purpose,” Sir Lancelot continued, standing as tall as he could at six inches, his own declaration appearing to bolster his resolve. “Proceed to your first class immediately. We’ll learn, we’ll train, and we’ll excel. We’ll beat them at their own game, because we’ll play it better if for no other reason than that our motives are true. We don’t aim to hurt, we aim to protect. We don’t wish to crush anyone, only to elevate all the races. We seek to defend the humans and animals as they inhabit this Earth with us. We will prevail for our hearts are earnest, and there’s nothing more powerful than that in this world. Only those true of heart can perform the strongest magic.”
The owl brought both wingtips to what might have been his waist if he’d been a very tiny man. “I believe in every single one of you. So does the school. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. Now all that’s left is for you to believe in yourselves.” He allowed his message to sink in, then barked, “Now, off to class you go. Those shifters made us waste enough time. You have ten minutes to arrive at your first class for a late start. Dismissed!”
Students stirred to action as if returning from a stupor and began filing outside. I noticed Sir Lancelot’s attention settle on something in the distance and turned to find Wendi at the back of the hall. The owl gave her a short nod, from which I read thanks and respect. Wendi nodded back.
So she actually had been a big part of saving the day? Maybe Wendi with an “I” wouldn’t be so bad after all.
“Come on, Rina,” Sadie said from behind me. “I’m going to be stuck to you like white on rice.”
Leander brushed my hand again as we turned to face her, and I couldn’t help but smile at the determined look on her face. Sadie was all grit and business in her Smurf-blue Smurfette shirt. “You heard the owl. Time to get to class and learn to kick ass. You don’t get to be this awesome without a ton of hard work. Am I right, Damon?”
“Hell yeah. You’re in good hands, Rina. You can trust Sadie with your life.” Damon moved to Ky’s side, preparing to escort him to his own first class, no doubt.
“Let’s just hope she won’t have to.” Sadie grimaced and ushered me through the throngs of people, elbowing students out of the way as she went. I offered Ky and Leander wary smiles, then allowed myself to be swept up in Sadie’s momentum, leaving a trail of protesting students in her wake. Wren, Dave, Adalia, and Jas hurried to catch up with me.
The first day of school had barely started, and already nothing was as I’d expected it to be.
Just peachy.
8
Wren, Dave, Jas, Adalia, and I huddled past the main auditorium in Irele Hall and continued down a wide hallway to
ward a smaller version of the room. Sadie was at our backs, making us all nervous by constantly glancing in every direction, like we were in some B-grade cop movie and bad guys might pop out at us at every turn. Her fingertips twitched around the hilts of the curved blades that hung from her belt, though I wasn’t sure she even realized she was doing it. I sensed her behind me like a big sack of Smurf-colored stress. I hunched and released my shoulders, trying to rid myself of the tension, but there was no way to accomplish it while my high-strung protector was shadowing my every move.
When we arrived at the appointed room, Wren and Dave stopped at the open doorway, peered inside, then stepped to the side to consult their schedules.
“What? What is it?” Jas asked, tilting her head to see around them.
“There are advanced students in there.” Wren peered at her schedule. “But it’s the right room. The Illumination Room in Irele Hall for Defensive Creature Magic 101.”
“Yeah,” Dave said. “We’re at the right place.”
“Ky’s in there,” Jas said excitedly, and Ky whipped his head around to look at her, and then me. Did Jas really not realize that my brother had super hearing thanks to his shifter powers? Or worse, did she not care?
I rolled my eyes at her back until I realized that if Ky was in the room, there was a decent chance that his best friends would be as well. I tried to be subtle about peering around my friends’ heads, but when I did, I discovered Leander’s searing eyes already on me.
Shit. I whipped my gaze away and turned to find Sadie staring at me with a smirk. “The prince of the elves? Really?” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
“Shut up. It’s nothing.” Was I allowed to speak to an Enforcer that way? I had no idea, but she needed to butt out of my business—my very nonexistent business. There was nothing official between Leander and me, or at least there wasn’t supposed to be.
When I snapped my gaze from Sadie, I found Adalia also looking at me. Her eyes were gentle … almost as if she pitied me for falling for someone I couldn’t have. Well, there might be plenty of reasons to pity me—first and foremost the fact that I was one of the two most hunted shifters on the planet right now—but rejection wouldn’t be one of them. I’d be damned if I’d allow it.
I shrugged off thoughts of the prince I couldn’t have and straightened my back, smoothing my shirt and pleated skirt. I was here to learn. I should be the most motivated of all the students to study. Not only was I still very nearly a novice, there was every chance I’d be forced to defend myself, no matter that I’d been assigned my very own high-strung protection detail.
“Well, what the hell are you guys waiting for?” Jas asked. “The advanced students won’t bite, you know.”
But at this school they actually might.
Wren and Dave folded their schedules back up as they prepared to lead us into the room, then Wendi appeared around the corner behind us. “What are you doing here?” Sadie asked, her voice as hard as the blades at her side.
Wendi smiled winningly as her ponytail swung behind her head. “Sir Lancelot asked me if I’d help you watch over Rina.”
Sadie growled, a rumbling low in her chest. It was difficult to remember that she wasn’t a shifter but a witch. With the way she behaved, I expected fur to erupt across her arms at any moment. She was wound tighter than a corkscrew.
Adalia stepped closer to me as if to protect me from my growling protector.
“If you don’t like the headmaster’s order, take it up with him,” Wendi said. “I’m just trying to do my job.”
“I’m already doing the job. I don’t need you,” Sadie grumbled, low and menacing.
Wendi’s smile broadened until it couldn’t possibly be genuine. “Clearly, Sir Lancelot didn’t think you had it covered.” She shrugged bare shoulders. “Don’t blame me for your shortcomings.” Wendi’s voice dripped with saccharine, and Adalia took my arm.
Sadie narrowed her eyes and flared her nostrils. “I don’t have shortcomings. What I do have is a pest trying to cramp my style.”
Wendi flipped her ponytail. “Girl, do you seriously think a Smurfette shirt is the pinnacle of style?”
“Them are fightin’ words.” Sadie grinned like taking down Wendi would be the best thing to happen to her all day. She put up her fists and bounced on her feet. “Come on. Bring it. I’ve been waiting to take you down forever. You’ve had it coming, with your stupid hair and your stupid outfits and your stupid nails.”
Wendi studied her manicure again. “You’re just jealous because I took down those rogue shifters all on my own. I saved the day.” She flicked innocent-looking eyes up at Sadie, but she was laying it on too thick. “Maybe someday you’ll get to save the day. Or someone. Anything, really.”
Sadie snarled and charged at Wendi, whose eyes widened as if she hadn’t actually believed the wild Enforcer would follow through. That was stupid. I’m pretty sure every single one of us there could tell that Sadie was about to give Wendi a beatdown.
Sadie tackled Wendi. The two of them went flying onto the marble floor, hitting it with a loud smack and a groan—Wendi’s. I was starting to think Sadie was too tough to complain about pain.
“Ahem.”
We all turned to look at the entrance to the small auditorium classroom, including Sadie, straddling Wendi with her fist pulled back, ready to let it fly.
“While I enjoy a good smackdown as much as the next person, this isn’t the place for it. I have students to prepare to direct their own smackdowns on the assholes threatening our school.”
Marcy June. The petite professor of advanced students who was fiercer than a man ten times her size. And I hadn’t even seen her in her animal form yet.
The tiny woman placed both hands on her hips. I slid my gaze down her tank-top, well-worn jeans, and kickass boots, then swung it back up to take in the well-defined muscles of her arms. She was ripped. Not bodybuilder ripped—thankfully—but she made the most of her slight frame. She was all muscle, no fat, and plenty of gristle from the looks of her.
“Well? Are you waiting for a formal invitation or something? Because all you’re going to get is a good ass-whooping if you don’t listen.”
I couldn’t tell whom exactly Marcy June was talking to, but Sadie stood, allowing Wendi to get up, and my friends and I slipped into the room, receiving a friendly-ish glare from the petite professor as we slid past her. Dave and Wren halted as soon as we were in the room and twenty or so faces turned our way, including Leander’s and my brother’s protector, Damon.
Jas huffed from behind me. “You guys are ridiculous. Take a seat already.” But as she moved to the front of our group, the buxom redhead, who’d been draped all over Leander every chance she got last term, swooped past us to lead her crew of groupies to the open seats in the front rows next to Leander, Ky, and Boone. Damon sat a few seats over from them, his semi-automatic weapon absent, though the Enforcer continued to appear lethal despite his chill demeanor.
“What the fuck?” Jas whispered, though I was sure most everyone in the room heard her, including my brother. Subtle, Jas was not.
She stomped past the front rows and deposited herself in the open row immediately behind them. She sat behind Ky, crossed her arms over her chest defiantly, and crossed her legs, highlighting stretches of creamy skin beneath her skirt that was shorter than school regulations permitted. She narrowed heavily made-up eyes at the ginger, but the curvy redhead didn’t respond, training her own narrowed eyes at me instead.
I sighed audibly. I thought I’d left the cutthroat catfights behind at Berry Bramble High. With attention thick enough to make me want to squirm with every step I took, I moved across the front of the room, up the center aisle, and claimed a seat next to Jas, which happened to be directly behind Leander. Wren, Dave, and Adalia sat next to me.
Ginger and two of her equally bosomy clones in different shades swiveled in their seats to offer me the full-on glare treatment. I rolled my eyes so hard that my eyeballs actually ach
ed, and when I returned them to front and center, Leander was looking straight at me, which made Ginger and crew fume. He winked at me, and I laughed—softly. I didn’t have a death wish, and Ginger and crew looked ready to pummel me to the ground à la Sadie.
Sadie tromped into the room with Wendi on her heels. Sadie shooed the student from the seat immediately behind me and sank into it with enough noise to guarantee she disturbed the class. When Wendi tried to sit next to her, Sadie growled until the enforcer took a seat behind her.
“Well,” Marcy June said from the front of the room, drawing my attention. “I think we’ve had enough distraction for one day. We have important shit to do.”
I started at the teacher’s language, but Jas grinned. Marcy June seemed just her style.
“You’ll have noticed that this is a mixed level class, unlike your other classes. This is because this is the first time the school is offering Defensive Creature Magic 101. It’s a new required class, and yes, you’ll be all mine every single day, Monday through Friday, so get used to me. And get used to your classmates. You don’t have to like each other to learn to kick ass.”
Jas nodded enthusiastically, setting the gemstone hanging from her hoop nose ring to swinging and sparkling.
“Your schedule lists me as Professor Marsh, but for those of you who don’t know me, call me Marcy June. I don’t stand by formalities. Also, while this is the official classroom for our class, we’ll meet at the shifter practice room in Bundry Hall often, so make sure you pay attention at the end of each class to find out where to show up for the next one. You should also pay close attention because I don’t repeat myself. I’m here to teach, not coddle. If your mommies didn’t do enough hand holding before you showed up here, well, you’re flat out of luck.”
I snapped my gaze to Ky and noticed him go rigid just as I did. Though I was certain Marcy June didn’t realize Ky and I didn’t have a mother to do anything for us, she also didn’t seem like the type to worry about diplomacy and tender feelings.