Mr. Fowler glances at each of us in quick succession, though he watches me a little longer than the rest.
“It’s about Mason, Daddy,” Bryar says.
That has the desired effect. Mr. Fowler cuts our staring contest short and clears his throat. “Well, then, come in.”
We spill into the living room after him. The scent of roasted meat gives me a sense of déjà vu. The house looks exactly the same as that night Dad and I came over for dinner, but too much has changed in those short few months. I try to push Mason to the bottom of my mind and focus on our task.
There’s enough space for all of us on the two plush couches. Bryar, Jean, Vanessa, and I sit on one couch while Mr. Fowler, Awan, Charity, and Seff sit on the other.
“So, Bryar, what is this about helping Mason?” A warning flashes in Mr. Fowler’s eyes.
“Well, he’s out there with the creme-de-la-creme of the hunters.” Bryar’s voice jingles like she’s retelling a story. “And the guys in the circle now told me that apparently Mason is somewhat special.”
I open my mouth to object to her saying more, but I only manage a sharp intake of breath. We have to put all our cards on the table if we want Mr. Fowler to trust us enough to part with some of his blood. Plus, if he really is another one of the hidden legacies, this might not sound so crazy to him.
“Are we alone?” Jean looks from Bryar to Mr. Fowler, who nods.
“Bryar’s mother refused to come back to town with the new rules in effect. We can talk freely.”
“In that case, there’s something you should probably see.” Awan fishes the old booklet out of his inside pocket and hands it over to Mason’s father.
We allow Mr. Fowler a few minutes to read it, during which I try to take in the aristocratic decor of the living room, but my eyes keep flashing to the wrinkles deepening on Mr. Fowler’s face.
“Did Mason read this?” he asks when he’s finished reading.
We all nod.
“But we can’t be sure what he understood from it,” I whisper.
Mr. Fowler seems to see right through me. “If Mason read this, he understood exactly what it means and what he is... What we both are.”
I clasp my arms in front of me. “That doesn’t make any sense. If he knew he’s a legacy, why would he leave Elmwick where he’s safe? And why would he keep away from us? We can help him.”
Mr. Fowler sighs, placing his palms together, fingers perfectly aligned. “Mason has known for a while now that he’s different from other hunters, from other humans. I asked him to keep that a secret because those like us have become a target for hunters in the past. Until reading this text, I never realized we might be a hidden legacy. Neither did he.”
“So he freaked out about it and left?” Bryar frowns in disbelief. “I don’t buy that.”
“Neither do I,” Mr. Fowler says to his daughter.
“Has he been in touch with you since he left?” I hear myself ask, my voice sounding foreign even to me.
“Every once in a while he lets us know he’s safe, but he hasn’t told us where he is or when he’s coming back. Explaining his absence from school right before graduation has been a bit of a nightmare.” He keeps his tone level, but I can sense the tension underneath. “I think Mason might still be playing the double agent. I should have told him to drop it when the Hastings got to town. They’re too dangerous. Even with Vaughn gone, I wouldn’t underestimate his wife.”
At the mention of Vaughn, Bryar flinches while Mr. Fowler’s shoulders stiffen. I look down at my feet, unable to keep the darkness at bay. It was always inside me, and I let it slip that day. Vaughn may have died in the explosion, but I was tempted to kill him myself. I’ll forever carry the horrid memory of the injuries I caused him in my bleeding heart.
“All the more reason we need your help,” Awan says to sound diplomatic. “We think there might be a way to undo the joint spell, get Mason his legacy powers, and bind him to our circle to balance it.”
Mr. Fowler gasps, a question for me in his eyes. “Is that what Carina meant?”
I force myself to hold his piercing gaze. “Mom?”
“When she broke the circle and left town years ago, she told me that you and Mason would fight the fate of the circle. She said you had a chance to change what she and I couldn’t.”
There’s an uncomfortable pause, during which I sense that Mom may have been closer to Mr. Fowler than I would have liked. The mere thought of them together is yucky.
Even in my fogged mind, I know that whatever Mom told him was a premonition—one we badly need as a clue right now. “What else did she say?”
Mr. Fowler leans forward in his seat, his warm eyes, the same color as Mason’s, begging me to trust him. “She said I had to help you out.”
“That’s good to hear,” Jean jumps in, “because we need your blood to gather all clues necessary to break the joint spell. We have a theory that the clues reveal themselves to the hidden legacies only. Your blood would help us find them.”
Another breathless moment passes, then Mr. Fowler’s eyebrows squelch together in disbelief.
“How about it, Daddy?” Bryar chirps in. “I’ll go get the med kit.”
Mr. Fowler gives her a quizzical look, but then glances back at me. “I hold nothing but respect for your mother. She believed you and Mason would succeed, and so do I.”
I try to smile, grateful to have his support. Since I’m the daughter of a nurse, Bryar hands me the syringe and needle.
I tighten Mr. Fowler’s arm with a blood pressure cuff and wait for the vein to turn blue and bulging. “Sorry,” I say to him as I angle the syringe.
He only nods at me, seemingly not bothered by the intervention. I take a sample of his blood with a sure hand, though I haven’t done this since that sixth-grade practical medicine seminar I took at Dad’s hospital back in New York. When the syringe is full, Awan transfers the blood into a vial and seals it tight while I place a band-aid over the tiny puncture in Mr. Fowler’s arm.
It seems Awan is one of the few others used to seeing blood because, when I look back, Charity is fanning herself and Jean is nowhere in sight. It feels awkward to linger, so we thank Mason’s father and leave.
Even though it’s early summer, it’s pitch dark by the time we’re out on our street.
“I’ll keep the blood,” Awan says.
Good thinking. It isn’t safe around me, not in a glass container I could shatter with a single sound.
“Thanks.” I try to sound optimistic, but the swirling darkness inside me wouldn’t allow such liberties.
“Are you all right?” Jean, who seems to have waited for us outside in the front yard, places a hand on my shoulder. “You look pale.”
“I know this all makes sense. I just have a really bad feeling about what comes next.” It’s impossible to instill the panic of a dark premonition into anyone who doesn’t share my legacy.
“You’re our banshee.” Vanessa smirks at me. “We’d expect nothing less.”
Charity is more sympathetic. She gives me a tight hug. “Get some rest. We’ll try the blood after school hours on Monday.”
THE WEEKEND PASSES in a blink, not because I’m having fun trying to catch up on homework while ignoring the dark whispers inside my head, but because I dread Monday at Elmwick Academy even more. It doesn’t help my nerves that the members of my circle keep passing each other notes all throughout our self-paced reading period. Or that this carries into our instructor-led class with Mrs. Gianni—Myths and Origin Stories.
I reluctantly accept the note Seff passes to me after tapping my shoulder with one finger. It reads, “The emblem of each training room door might react to the blood.”
Without gracing that statement with a nod of confirmation, I pass the note along to Vanessa. She reads it in turn and scribbles a reply, no doubt another wild guess, when Mrs. Gianni stops us all cold.
“Today, we’re going to discuss a very controversial old text, so I need you to pa
y close attention.”
My jaw drops. Ever since we got the booklet, we’ve been unsure what our teachers think about that text and whether they know the original was hidden right here in the Elmwick Academy library. Perhaps they’ve only heard a retelling of it or read copies made for teaching purposes?
“In previous sessions we’ve briefly mentioned the joint spell—a rumored magical barrier placed on a clan of rebels.” Mrs. Gianni walks back to her desk and picks up a pile of printouts, then hands them around. “Here is a printout of the most unbiased version of the text ever encountered.”
“So, there are multiple versions?” Charity asks at once.
Mrs. Gianni saunters further down the aisle, handing out the copies to students in the back. “Yes. Three versions have been found, and each of them is being kept safe. That’s why we’ll be working with the printouts.”
I skim the page as fast as I can, but even a cursory look reveals this text is much shorter than the story we found in the booklet. It refers to the groups of legacies as clans and doesn’t mention the actions each legacy performed to seal the joint spell, nor does it hint at the rebel clan being a separate, seventh legacy.
I seek the others with my gaze—Jean, Seff, Charity, and Vanessa. Awan, as a senior, has a different schedule from us. They’re all wide-eyed, but Seff shakes his head and the others frown. They must have realized, same as I did, that our ancient booklet is a far more reliable source of information.
Before I’ve thought this through, I raise a hand. “Mrs. Gianni? This story doesn’t provide much detail. What do the other versions say?”
“The other versions are unreliable, Camelia. That’s why we aren’t studying them.”
“Unreliable according to whom?” Vanessa hisses.
Mrs. Gianni returns to her desk and shoots us stern looks, meant to silence further questions. “By experts in matters relating to the history of all legacies. The other texts suggest outrageous ideas, which no one ever found a shred of evidence to support. Thus, they have been deemed inappropriate for teaching purposes. Now, let’s start by—”
“Are any of the other texts here?” I ask without bothering to raise my hand this time. “At Elmwick Academy?”
If she won’t tell us more about the other versions, I might as well find out once and for all if she knew about the booklet Mason found.
Mrs. Gianni evaluates me with a pinched expression that suggests she’s had it with our questions for today. “No, Camelia, none of the texts are here. Since we don’t teach them to our students, there’s no point in keeping them here.”
I nod, as if that makes sense, but all I can think about is the booklet. It’s an Elmwick Academy secret even our headmistress hasn’t uncovered. Urged on by the strong sense of a premonition, I grow more and more certain that we have the one true copy of this legend. Judging by the expressions on the others’ faces, they agree.
Too bad our booklet doesn’t tell us more about how to break the joint spell. I try to concentrate on the lecture on the off chance that Mrs. Gianni might mention something useful, but she keeps the legend so vague that we leave the classroom irritated.
I hope to work off the nervous energy in my self-paced training period with Jean, but concentration doesn’t come easy, especially as the others file in at different times. That was the plan—for them to leave their training rooms whenever they see an opening and come join us in the banshee training room.
There, we wait for the rest of the students to leave and for the teachers to do a final check, during which we hide behind an invisibility shield Charity creates for us. Then Elmwick Academy falls quiet.
Awan takes out the vial of Fowler’s blood from his bag and shakes it in front of his face. “So, who wants to go first?”
Chapter 4. Cami
“I alwayss try to blaze a trail.” Vanessa barely suppresses a smile as she snatches the vial from Awan’s hand. “To the viper pit.”
We remain rooted in place for a second, much less decisive than her, but once Vanessa calls us from the hallway, we shuffle out of the banshee room. Awan holds out a pack of Q-tips for Vanessa, who carefully uncaps the vial of blood in front of the vipers’ training room.
She dips the Q-tip into the vial of blood. “First, let’s test the emblem.”
Vanessa touches the bloodied Q-tip to the curled green snake painted on the door, then presses her lips together in expectation. We watch the emblem for a sign the blood may have caused a reaction, but nothing happens.
“All right, on to the next test.” Vanessa doesn’t seem the least bit discouraged when she swings the training room door open. “I’ve got plenty of other ideas.”
As soon as we enter the vipers’ training room, my skin crawls with the sensation of being watched. The constant hissing of the countless reptiles in the pit doesn’t help my concentration either.
“No idea if it’s a premonition, but I’ve got a terrible feeling about this.”
“Relax.” I imagine Vanessa rolling her eyes at me, although her back is to me. “You’re safe when you’re with me. Even here.”
She then proceeds to touch the Q-tip to random objects in the training room—the shelves, the pots of salts on them, even the walls. Awan follows her with a wet wipe, sanitizing the places she tests as soon as she pronounces them as duds.
The others may be bored, but I’m feeling increasingly restless. The hissing demands my attention, making it impossible to stop staring at the tangled mess of snakes in the pit.
“Cami!” Voices shout behind me, but the hissing is mesmerizing. I step closer, standing at the very edge of the pit.
“Cami!”
Seff sweeps me up with one arm, which presses against my stomach. He only puts me down when we’re a few steps back from the pit. “Are you all right?”
I shake my head groggily. “Sure, I guess. I got sucked into the moment. It must be all the hissing.”
Rubbing my eyes, then my temples, I take a minute to cancel out the effect the sound has on me, but once I look up at my friends, they’re watching me intently.
“What?”
Vanessa snaps her fingers. “Aha! Maybe it’s your banshee intuition guiding you to the object we can unlock with the blood.”
“What? In there?” I point to the sea of vipers, twisting in knots. “Like, it’s one of the snakes?”
“I doubt it.” Vanessa hops down a level in the amphitheater-like pit. “But I’ve never seen the pit empty. There could be something at the bottom.”
“At the bottom? Meaning under all the snakes?” Awan draws out. “Never mind, there she goes.”
Horrified, he watches Vanessa descend further down the structure that has been dug into the ground, hissing at the vipers at her feet to move.
“What’s the plan, Vanessa?” Jean calls, her voice echoing in the room.
“It’s not exactly a plan, but I think I’m going to have to move all the vipers.”
Edging closer to the pit, we peek down at her, confused.
“How?” Awan asks.
“Oh, don’t tell me...” Jean can’t even finish her thought.
“She couldn’t worg into that many, could she?” Charity says at the same time.
Their voices mingle in the space around me, but my hearing seems to be filtering them out, focusing on the hissing again. Vanessa has reached the bottom of the pit. She lowers herself into the sea of vipers, swimming toward the center, or at least that’s how it looks from my vantage point.
When she reaches the center, she spreads her arms on both sides, snakes already curling and tightening around them. Her eyes go milky white.
“Vanessa?” Seff calls out, more panicked than I would have expected. “She couldn’t possibly—”
“I think she can.” Laughter bubbles out of me at Vanessa’s gutsy spirit.
“Don’t let your jaws drop, guys,” Vanessa says. “I can control them all, so long as I need them to do the exact same thing.”
But before we can ask
what that might be, the vipers move as one, like a wave. Inch by inch, they move up and away from the center of the pit, crawling up the sides of the amphitheater structure. There’s so many of them that the first reptiles reach the very top level by the time I see the bottom of the pit.
As soon as she senses that she can move freely, Vanessa makes the snakes halt and turn to look at her. She must be seeing herself in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view.
“Wicked.”
She takes an unstable step ahead and kicks at the marble sphere at her feet. It would have been almost impossible to find that with all the vipers around it. Still holding the Q-tip, Vanessa squats to bring it closer to the marble sphere.
“Even if this doesn’t work, I’m kind of glad we did this,” Vanessa chuckles.
She flicks the Q-tip in front of her as if it were a magic wand and touches its tip to the sphere. A clicking sound accompanies the mechanism unlocking the sphere. A line appears that cuts the sphere in half, then the top part flips open, like a dome turned upside down. Inside the sphere is a shiny box.
But before Vanessa can reach for it with a gloved hand, just in case there’s iron on the box, the entire room creaks. Our gazes fly up to the ceiling. A tremor goes through the air as dust sprinkles from the settling floorboards above.
“V, get out of there!” I yell, but too many things happen all at once for my warning to matter.
Disoriented by the tremor, Vanessa closes her eyes and snaps them open, revealing her usual dark irises. Free from her command, the vipers twist and crawl in all directions, many falling to the bottom of the pit and forming a mass that already reaches up to Vanessa’s knees.
“Sstay put, I’ve got this,” Vanessa yells, but another tremor, stronger this time, shakes the room. She couldn’t concentrate enough to worg into all the snakes again, not when the pit seems to be coming alive.
The ground beneath her feet sinks in, shaking the pit and producing a new landslide of snakes falling over Vanessa. She drops the box into the already tight knot of twisting vipers.
Heritage: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Elmwick Academy Book 3) Page 3