And I’d need to be more vigilant. Maybe it had been a stupid move on my part to antagonize him further, but he’d had it coming. I was so over his nastiness.
“Aldakor alert,” Jenny squealed. “Get ready everyone!” Her eager smile turned to me. “This is it, Fleur. Jump. Grab on. And ride!” She slapped my back hard enough I was shoved a step forward.
The beast’s grunts and bellows echoed around us, combining with the dust churned up from their paws.
I shifted closer to the lip of the platform. While a lot of the forest was forbidden again due to the most recent nightlace attack, Professor Trarion had assured us this section was well warded. We were completely safe. A ward had been created to counter another ward.
Frankly, as long as we outlings stuck together, we might be even safer. Would a nightlace cluster—or a cluster directed by a vengeful wizard or a ward—succeed if we could defend each other?
I’d have to bring this up in our meeting tonight.
Aldakor paws thundered on the ground. Plants and dirt flicked into the air as the beasts drew closer.
My heart slammed like a sledgehammer against my ribs. I could do this. It was simple.
Right.
“As before, lean forward, sight, and spring,” Professor Trarion said, her voice trilling around us. No hiding the excitement on her face or in her eager posture. Her long, bright purple dreadlocks had been coiled up into a huge bun on her head, but a few had come free and drifted around her face.
The front of the herd plunged beneath us, the lead animal growling as it leaped over a fallen tree and led the group to the upper pasture.
“Ready…Set…” Jenny said. She turned quickly my way. “Want me to hold your hand?”
“I can do it. Promise.” I winced, praying I could do it.
Cloven’s words popped into my mind. Elemental magic is limitless. There’s more than one way to skin a Cerberus. Think outside the square.
I frowned. Think outside the square…
“Now,” Professor Trarion shouted. “Jump now!”
Around me, the other students sprung lightly off the platform and landed on aldakors. Their fingers wove into the creature’s silky manes and they swung their legs up and across the animals’ backs with ease. Their aldakors thundered down the path, aiming for the pasture.
I was determined not to arrive there on foot this time.
You can do this!
I jumped as a cluster of bellowing aldakor thrashed their paws on the ground beneath me.
My feet jarred on the ground. Missed!
Aldakor bolted to the side to avoid hitting me. I reached out, but their silky manes slipped through my fingers.
No!
I couldn’t fail. It wasn’t just about pride; it was about proving something to myself.
Outlings could do anything.
Outside the square? Okay…
“Damn it, go to sleep!” I said, infusing my words with both skapti and elemental magic. I swore sparks shot out from the dagger strapped to my side.
At least fifteen of the beasties tumbled head first onto the ground. Most rolled onto their backs, kicking their feet up into the air. A few even snored.
Oops. Only needed one aldakor, not half a herd.
Grabbing a mane, I leaped gracefully—sorta—onto one of the larger aldakors crouched on its belly. I secured my legs around its body.
Once I felt ready—assuming I’d ever feel ready—I thought, okay, wake up.
The beast shook its head and lumbered to its feet, as did the others.
The one I rode… Rode!…peered back at me with what I took as a scowl, but it trotted down the trail, aiming for the upper pasture. My teeth jarred together from the pace, and my butt was going to be screaming tonight.
Vik urged his animal close to mine and said with a sneer, “That’s not how an Elite rides an aldakor.”
“You’re right,” I said pertly. “But I’m an outling. And no Elite can compete with me.”
“What a neat trick,” Professor Trarion said, guiding her beast up beside mine. She nodded. “This is how a student succeeds at the Academy.”
“It’s cheating, isn’t it,” Vik whined. He guided his aldakor even closer, pinning me between his and Professor Trarion’s beast.
I tightened my legs on my aldakor’s sides and wrapped the mane around my hand. Just try to knock me off!
My aldakor must’ve caught on because one sharp snort sent Vik’s smaller beast darting to the left, settling Vik.
“To achieve Level Five with your skapti,” Professor Trarion said blithely, while Vik groaned on the ground behind us. “You’ll need to experiment with unconventional magical methods.” She crinkled her face at me. “Fleur, when we reach the upper pasture, why don’t you take a victory lap around the Academy on your aldakor. Show everyone what an outling can do.”
Kicking her beast’s sides, she urged her beast to a gallop, pulling ahead of me.
“Don’t think this makes you special,” he hissed behind me. “You’re just a dumb outling. No one would miss you if you were gone.”
* * *
Outling Club.
We sat together that evening at a table in the library, sadly staring at each other while waiting for Eben to arrive.
“Only six of us left, now,” Jenny said forlornly from beside me. Across from us Manuel, Carly, and Eli nodded.
Seven, actually, but Cloven’s heritage wasn’t my secret to share.
This morning, in the auditorium, the Headmistress had formally announced Sarah and Drea’s deaths as a rogue nightlace attack. She’d added that wards had been placed to protect all students. Someone had asked why we’d been told Drea left the campus when she’d actually died, but Justine brushed off the question, saying she hadn’t wanted to frighten anyone.
Not much chance of that. Few Elites appeared worried, maybe because they trusted the wards. Or because they were not told the cluster might’ve been directed to kill by a rogue wizard.
Or because the only ones murdered had been outlings.
Donovan had vowed to protect me and my friends. Frankly, I felt we needed a solid plan to defend ourselves.
Eben stumbled on the top step of the third floor library stairs, releasing a grunt, but righted himself and stalked past the stacks to join us. He dropped his backpack on the table with a heavy thud and raked his fingers through his already messy hair. Purple-gray shadows encircled his eyes, almost as if he’d been punched, but I imagined mine looked about the same. It was hard to sleep when you kept dreaming you’d wake gasping with a nightlace vine wrapped snugly around your throat.
He pulled agendas out of his bag and slid one to each of us with a trembling hand.
A quick skim through the list made me blurt out, “But…aren’t we going to talk about the murders?”
“As far as I know, Sarah and Drea had an unfortunate encounter with rogue nightlace vines,” Eben said, his snootiness restored. Was it the topic or confronting me that gave him courage?
He hadn’t liked seeing me excel in Cloven’s class.
“I believe our group needs to maintain our focus—acclimating to the Academy, fitting in,” Eben said.
Jenny leaned near to me, making little effort to lower her voice. “Hard to fit in if we’re dead.”
Nailed it.
Eben’s scowl deepened, and a sharp look in his eyes when he stared at me and Jenny made me wonder, but I didn’t like where my thoughts were taking me.
“What’s your skapti, Eben?” I asked. As far as I knew, he hadn’t shared.
“That’s not on the agenda.”
“It’s just a simple question.”
He lifted his paper off the table and held it between us. “First item, flitting.” Slapping the sheet back on the table, his gaze spanned across us all. “How’s everyone progressing?”
Manuel started talking about how he’d gotten caught in the rain a few days ago and was able to flit to his Coven room to change.
Whi
le Eben praised Manuel and, with a hand on Manuel’s shoulder, talked about how Manuel could extend the distance a little each day, I zoned out.
Eben then worked with Eli, who was still having a hard time pulling in more than one thread.
When we left the library not long after that, Jenny suggested we walk to our Covens together. “Just because,” she said casually, though an edge of fear hollowed out her voice. “You don’t mind splitting up between Earth and my Coven and kinda watching each other until we’re both inside, do you?”
“Not at all.” Swallowing, I peered around as we strode down the path leading between the buildings. No one out tonight except the statues, who called greetings. Would they notify anyone if someone—something—crept up on us? Maybe and maybe not. While they were friendly, I’d already learned that more often than not, the magical beings here were as happy to trick you as be kind.
“So, about Eben and his skapti. What’s the big secret?” I asked as a distraction. They’d warded the school. Nightlace couldn’t stalk us here, could it?
“Not sure why he didn’t just tell you.” She glanced around but, seeing we were alone other than the statues, her posture relaxed. “He can make objects move.”
“You mean like porting?”
She frowned. “Haven’t heard of that magical trick yet but…”
“It’s like flitting for objects.”
“And you can do it, right?”
I nodded.
“Must be nice.” The smile she released was rueful. “Unlike me. Seems I’m having no problem showing outlings make crappy wizards.”
I paused on the walkway. “Do you need any help with your classes?”
“No. I mean, I’m not flunking out or anything. Yet. But I wish some of this was easier. Like threads. I can only pull in one at a time.”
“It takes practice. I bet you’ll be drawing in more than one soon.”
“Sure hope so.”
We sat on a bench. Behind us, one of the statues—Medusa—crept toward us with a basket loaded with tools hanging over her stone arm. She dropped the basket on the grass beside her.
“May I, please?” She extended the word please for a few seconds then added a lilt on the end. Her wings fluttered, sticking out through holes in the back of her toe-brushing deep green gown.
Despite her assurances about their friendliness when we’d first met, I couldn’t take my eyes off the snakes weaving around on her head. Beyond creepy. Maybe it was her lack of flowing tresses that led her to her calling, that of the campus beautician. Since she couldn’t fix her own hair, she worked with everyone else’s.
When I’d asked her to trim my bangs last week, she’d seemed pretty happy I’d asked. As she’d fluffed my hair after the trim, she’d assured me her snakes were not venomous. That was a rumor started by Perseus, Hercules’s great-grandfather. He’d asked Medusa out and, when she shot him down, he’d gotten even by changing her beautiful hair to a nest of snakes.
“The fact that I’m sporting a viper’s nest on my head intimidates some,” she’d told me, but she’d wiggled her eyebrows at Athena—another statue in the garden—suggesting that, despite the snakes, Medusa wasn’t lonely on a Saturday night.
Jenny smiled at me, and we shrugged. “I could use a trim.”
“Medusa,” I said. “We give you free rein.”
She dry-shampooed and floofed and even gave me a blow dry, though my hair wasn’t really wet, before she swept all the strands up into an ornate arrangement and wove in tiny pearls. After, she moved on to Jenny.
“Tell me more about porting,” Jenny said, barely wincing when Medusa tucked shortened peacock feathers among Jenny’s newly formed crown braid.
“Say I want to move a rock.” I teased the tight spiral curls Medusa had created by my temples. “Like put it in your backpack or on the bench beside you, but without having to get up and do it yourself. You can use elemental magic combined with power drawn from threads to do it for you. That’s porting.”
“Ah, like teleportation?”
“Yup.”
She frowned as Medusa continued to primp, tucking stray strands of hair into the braids then creating a cloud of hair spray to hold everything in place, making Jenny cough. She turned watering eyes my way. “Eben’s…” Cough. “Eben’s skapti isn’t anything like teleportation.” Waving a hand in front of her face, she shifted sideways to escape the lingering haze of spray. “Instead of moving the objects with his mind, he makes objects move other things. For example, he can make a shovel dig into a pile of rocks and fill a wheelbarrow. Or make shoelaces tie themselves.”
Interesting. I hated the idea running through my mind, but could he somehow be moving plants?
“Look, girls,” Medusa gushed, prancing around in front of us and holding up a big mirror. “You like?”
Our gazes meeting in the glass, we both crimped our lips to hold in our laughter. While gorgeous, our hair looked like we were ready to put on gowns and go to a ball, not troop across campus, back to our rooms.
“Love it, Medusa,” Jenny said in complete seriousness.
“Me, too.” Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the only thing I had on me, my golden commemorative coin I’d collected from Professor Trarion after riding the aldakor. “Is this worthy?”
Like with Beatrice, our room brownie, we didn’t pay any of the mythical Academy creatures for their services, we offered them gifts.
Medusa pushed my hand away with a grin that revealed tiny fangs. “Treat’s on me, dearies.”
“Thank you.” I returned the coin to my pocket.
Medusa lifted her basket and drifted back to join the other statues who’d dragged over tables and chairs and were playing cards.
I leaned back against the bench and contemplated Eben’s skapti and how it might play into what was happening on campus. Making objects move? Kind of a cool ability. Pivoting on the bench to face Jenny, I tucked one leg underneath me. “What sort of job would Eben do with a skapti like that? Can’t see him digging ditches, even if he didn’t have to touch the shovel.”
“Not completely sure but I know he’s working on controlling multiple objects at a time.”
“Could he…” I traced my finger on the back of the wooden bench, not meeting her eyes. “Could he control people? Or…plants?”
She tilted her head and one of her peacock feathers fell out the arrangement and landed on her lap. She picked it up and stroked it along the back of her hand. “I don’t imagine he could control people. They have their own free will. I just heard objects.”
We rose and started toward the gazebo that stood in the center of the gardens with equidistant paths leading to each Coven. We’d part there but watch out for each other as we walked to our dorms.
“But you asked about whether he could control plants.” Pausing on the path, Jenny tapped her nose with the feather. “You don’t think…” Her eyes widened, and we walked forward again. “I can’t believe anyone would do…something like that.”
Some wizards would.
“Plants are inanimate objects, but they’re different than rocks or shovels or shoelaces. It’s impossible, isn’t it?”
I shrugged, and we walked up the stairs and into the gazebo. Twinkle lights had been strung around the ceiling and lit up the scuffed wooden floorboards and the benches along the sides.
No, they weren’t simple lights.
“Funny how, no matter how afraid I am, some things are constant. The wilty-sparks are pretty tonight,” Jenny said, gesturing to the lights. “A few days ago, they were yellow and orange, and I told myself it was for Halloween. But they change color randomly. They hang out here every night, lighting up the gazebo.”
Tiny round puffy things about the size of my palm, wilty-sparks had glowing bellies. Floating around the ceiling like bumper cars, they emitted high-pitched yelps when they thumped into each other. Green and blue was the theme tonight.
The colorful creatures should lift my mood but instead, I fel
t exposed in the gazebo. Anyone hiding in the surrounding darkness could see us, yet we wouldn’t know they were watching.
Shivers lifted the hairs on my arms.
“Seems silly to be this scared, but I can’t help it.” Linking her arms on her chest, Jenny curled into herself. “Are you scared?”
“All the time.”
“Well, you watch me, and I’ll watch out for you.” She waved to her Coven. We’d be able to see each other until we reached the side doors. Inside, we’d be on our own, but there wasn’t anything else we could do.
“Stay safe,” I said, tiptoeing down the stairs on the other side of the gazebo.
“You, too!” Jenny called over her shoulder. Gathering herself, she streaked toward Wind Coven.
I puffed as my shoes smacked the walkway, my pace as fast as Jenny’s. I’d feel better once my dorm room door was locked behind me.
Eben couldn’t be killing other outlings, could he? There was no valid reason for him to do something like that.
Except…
If Eben wanted to be the school’s best outling, he could improve his odds considerably if he eliminated the competition.
Chapter 14
What were Ashton, Vik, and Eben—of all people—up to, now?
The next day, I watched them creep out the eastern Academy door, their arms overloaded with big empty bags. Eben scooting along with them, shooting furtive glances around, told me they were up to no good.
I couldn’t help but be suspicious.
While I might be late for class, I followed. I kept to the shadows, hugging walls and, once outside, slinking from one tree to another as they approached Professor Grim’s greenhouse lab and went inside.
Not daring to enter, I instead scooted around to the back of the building and peered through the murky glass as they dropped the bags on a wooden table spanning one wall. They huddled together a moment before approaching one of the tall metal bookcases along the left side wall.
Ashton lifted a huge pair of shears—Searing Shears?—off the top shelf, and they turned and stalked across the greenhouse, approaching the row of metal cabinets standing against the opposite wall. One of the doors bulged as if whatever had been shut inside had tried to pound its way out. Strands of green material leaked around the seams and wove in the air like slender cobras responding to a snake charmer.
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