We clustered together, none of us daring to venture far from the professor.
When the ground beneath us shifted, Faith whimpered and latched onto my arm.
“Never fear, students,” Professor Trarion said. Her lantern—lit up blue—bobbed in her hand like a guiding beacon. “That movement you feel is just the slork’s tongue beneath us.”
Awesome.
“Keep going, everyone,” she said cheerfully, waving her lamp toward a hole on our right. “That way. Down the gizzard we go. The blight awaits.” She turned to me as Vik and Eben continued into the hole, their lights reflecting orange and pink against the walls of the tunnel. The ground—gizzard—sloped into the Earth. “To answer your question, Fleur, the blight is used as a neutralizer.”
“What does it neutralize?”
Now that we were inside the slork’s mouth, Faith hovered against my back as if she believed I’d protect her. With my track record, she might be safer with Vik.
Professor Trarion waved for me and Faith to go ahead of her, and we started down into the hole—gizzard. “We used to think it would neutralize Serum but that was sadly not proven true. We tried and it didn’t work.”
Bummer for me, then. I’d roll in blight if it would stop my hand from rotting off.
Ahead of us, Vik, Eben, and a few other kids groaned.
“This is so gross,” Vik shouted.
“Wait ’till you get to the bottom,” Eben told him. “It’s even grosser.”
Vik huffed. “I’d rather wait outside.”
My hand clenched on its own, tightening on the handle of my bucket. Pain shot up my arm and my fingers jerked open. I dropped my bucket, and it smacked onto the gizzard then slid a few feet forward. Giving chase, I snatched it back up and juggled everything in my good hand. At least I hadn’t dropped my wilty-spark lantern.
“Blight, we’ve found...” Professor Trarion’s voice shot off the walls as if ten professors walked through the slork gizzard behind me. My boots found a decent grip on the rough ridges as I continued downward. “We found blight neutralizes the sting of a banshee bite.”
Banshee? Maybe when they weren’t heralding death or, ugh, having sex?
Perhaps I should hold back some of my soon-to-be-raked blight, just in case. Never knew when I might run into a banshee.
“Crap!” someone yelled ahead. Vik, maybe. “Yuck.”
A bubble of dank air whooshed past me as if the slork had burped. I ducked sideways and it thankfully missed my head.
Faith wasn’t so fortunate. She snorted and danced sideways, banging her shoulder into the ridged gizzard.
See? This was why no one should hover behind me.
Choking, she leaned forward, gagging and flailing her hand out. Her wilty-spark clung to the far side of her lantern as it rocked.
“Nothing to worry about, dear,” Professor Trarion said, patting Faith’s back. “Vomit if you must. It’ll help you feel better. But rest assured, the gas is harmless.”
Sure, like Faith would believe that when she was hurling her guts out?
Straightening, Faith wiped her mouth and shuddered. Her panic-stricken gaze met mine, and I winced in sympathy.
“You should hear the next gurge coming,” our professor said. “You’ll be wise to duck to avoid it.”
“I will,” Faith said limply. She renewed her grip on her tools and lantern.
Below us, someone groaned, the sound the voice echoing up the passage.
“It seems they’ve reached the slork’s first belly,” Professor Trarion said with laughter in her voice.
The slork had more than one belly?
“Now comes the fun part,” she added. Moving around me, she skipped ahead, soon turning into a dancing blue light, leaving me and Faith behind.
Not for long. Faith darted forward and caught up to the professor, nearly riding her back. Wise move.
When something gurgled behind me and a swooshing sound headed this way, I burst into a run, my boots slamming the rough gizzard as I raced after the professor and Faith. I skidded to a stop at the bottom, when the ground leveled out, but my feet kept going.
Arms pinwheeling and my tools clanging together, I gained control of my skid and brought myself to a halt. As I stared down at the gloppy green stuff bubbling around us, I was never more grateful I hadn’t fallen.
Vik hadn’t been so lucky. Slime coated his right side from his feet to his hair—that now stuck up in a crooked green mohawk.
Light from our wilty-spark lanterns danced along the slick walls of the two-story cavern. Round and about twenty-feet across, the floor of the room was coated with the ankle-deep sludge.
“All right, students,” Professor Trarion said. “Settle your buckets in the blight. You’ll find small ridges on the outer side where you can hang your lanterns.”
The base of my bucket sunk into the gook but mostly floated.
“Raking blight is a simple yet satisfying task,” our professor continued.
“How do we rake liquid?” Vik asked without a hint of mockery in his voice.
A valid question. I wasn’t sure I would’ve been able to hold in my snark while asking.
“You’ll see,” Professor Trarion said. She glanced around, her face lit up ghostly in the rainbow light. “I recommend holding your trowel in your non-dominant hand and your rake in the other. That way, you’ll find it easier to control the blight.”
“Control it?” Faith said from beside me. Her green wilty-spark light blended in nicely with the goo coating the floor.
“You’ll need to shove your zether rake through the outer blight to reach the rich, thick goodness beneath.” The professor demonstrated, gouging her rake down through the green gook. When her rake hit something solid beneath, the ground trembled and the walls around us shook.
Had the walls moved closer? I could swear the room had been larger when we entered.
No shrugging it off. I’d already learned the dangers of not paying attention in class. The beatleycarne being a prime example.
“Once you’ve dug into the subsoil, you’ll need to maintain pressure on your rake as you drag it toward you,” Professor Trarion said. “Stoop down and lower your trowel into the upper sludge. When you drag your rake closer, you’ll feel bits of the thicker blight hitting your trowel. Scoop them up fast.” She lifted her trowel filled with darker green sludge that glistened in the wilty-spark light. “And plop the blight into your bucket.”
A wet smack resounded when the blight slid off her trowel and into the metal container.
“Any questions?” she asked.
“Seems simple to me,” Faith said. She lifted a half-smile my way. “If you need help—with your hand—just let me know, okay?”
“Thanks.”
Rakes smacked and gook splatted as we worked to collect blight. Once I got the hang of the movement, it wasn’t difficult. Just messy.
“Get your own blight,” Vik told Eben, shoving him. Eben’s rake fell from his hand and hit the surface with a wet smack. Grumbling, he picked it up and attacked the slork’s belly again.
“Not so rough, Eben,” Professor Trarion said. “Gentle. We need to take care with Academy creatures.”
I’d soon filled my bucket, as had Faith and the other kids nearby.
I rested my zether rake across the top of my bucket and carefully lowered the trowel into the gook for easier carrying. I’d probably leave my wilty-spark lantern hanging on the side. Then I could carry everything in my uninjured hand.
“Everyone finished?” Professor Trarion looked around with a satisfied expression on her face. “I see you are. And you can take pride in knowing you’ve settled the soul of a slork tonight.” She lifted her bucket. “Now comes the easy part. Taking the blight back to the lab.”
“Do we climb back up the gizzard?” I asked, squinting that way.
“How else will we be regurged?” Professor Trarion bubbled out, complete joy in her voice. “This has been so much fun. I’m delighted I’ve
had the chance to share this adventure with you.”
Her excitement would be comical if slime didn’t coat my arms and legs. I had a feeling I’d touched my hair more than once during the raking process. And the dampness on my backside suggested I’d sat in the blight, though I knew I hadn’t.
“I’m going first this time,” Eben said in a superior tone, his bucket hefted high in front of him. “Points for me, Professor.”
“It’s not a competition,” I said, elbowing him to the side.
“Eben,” Professor Trarion said. “Please allow Fleur to advance up the gizzard ahead of you.”
He smirked my way and whispered, “Take a number, outling.”
Hardly an insult when he was an outling, too.
He shoved me hard enough I stumbled into the wall of the passage. It squished, releasing more blight that slid down my coat and plopped on the floor.
Eben scrambled up the channel with Vik right behind him. Vik tossed me a smirk that told me he enjoyed watching Eben best me.
Professor Trarion sighed. “Boys! Slowly, if you please. We don’t want to irritate the slork.” She hustled behind them, her bucket banging against her leg. “Boys! Wait at the top, please. Do not proceed any farther.”
Faith and I shrugged and followed with the other students.
Behind me, the walls of the belly rushed in, pushing blight up along with it in a gooey wave.
Was this the regurge Professor Trarion had mentioned or were we about to meet the same fate as the unlucky wizards who’d had an unfortunate encounter with a slork before us?
I was tempted to abandon my bucket but I’d collected this gook and I was determined to get it to the lab.
“Come along now, students,” Professor Trarion said. Her words came out as if she hadn’t a care, but the edge of panic lifting her tone two octaves suggested otherwise.
What was going on?
My heart jumped and a little voice inside me told me to get the hell out of here.
Professor waved for us to hurry. Her gaze locked onto something behind me I didn’t dare turn to discover. “It appears the slork is getting feisty.”
Is that what she called it? If we weren't careful, we’d be swept into the second stomach like the slork’s latest snack. Hanging out in a slork’s digestive tract until it excreted me wasn’t my idea of a good time.
Ahead of us, someone—something—roared. A lion on a rampage. Faith and I shuddered to a halt near the top of the gizzard.
A gurgling chomp, and a shriek of agony cut through the air.
My wilty-spark light reflected off a pool of glistening wetness near the opening of the slork's mouth.
Legs…no longer attached to a body, squirted redness.
Blood.
Beside me, Faith leaned over and hurled whatever was left in her belly.
My guts rolled, insisting I was ready to eject the nachos and chicken tenders I’d eaten while talking with Cloven.
“Out! Get out,” Professor Trarion yelled. She braced herself over the dead body, her hands prying open the slork’s mouth. “Get out now!”
She must’ve pinged someone the second someone screamed. The Council for all I knew, because two Seekers passed me as I dashed between the red-stained rows of the slork’s sharp teeth.
Yuck.
Who was it?
Outside, Justine grabbed my arm and pulled me around to face her when I would’ve turned and stared.
Shock took over, and I found myself blubbering something inane and stupid and worthy of a scared two-year-old. She gave me a soft shake then handed me off to Cloven and, one second later, we stood in front of my Coven room door.
“Fleur!” Thorn, our door, said. “You'll never believe what I’ve—” He gulped. “Excuse me, Professor, I didn’t see you there. I was greeting Fleur.”
Cloven turned to me. “Go inside and remain there for the rest of the evening. Your roommate…”
“Patty,” I said dully. After the adrenaline rush from the horror had passed, numbness had sunk into my limbs.
“I’ll ping her. I don’t want you alone.”
I’d be safe in my room, wouldn’t I? He couldn’t be calling Patty because he feared someone would harm me.
I was beginning to believe I wasn’t safe anywhere at the Academy.
“I need to return to help Justine,” he said. “But I’ll come back after and speak with you.”
“What happened?” Wait to hear? I had to know now.
“Eben is dead. He rushed ahead and attempted to leave the slork without asking the proper permission. It…”
“Bit him.” My mind flashed back to the scene.
Too much red.
My stomach bolted and a surge of bile swept up my throat.
Cloven lifted my bucket I’d somehow brought with me when we flitted, and my dinner soon coated the blight with a stinky sheen.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently, patting my back. He lowered the bucket onto the floor.
I nodded and pressed my hands against my belly.
“It was a horrible accident,” he said.
Was it?
“Did the exterminators destroy the prankster?” I asked. It couldn’t have been involved, could it?
His pause told me he mindspoke with someone, before he nodded. “The exterminators were successful. You no longer have to worry about the beatleycarne.”
No, I just had to worry about being chowed by a slork.
I couldn’t stop remembering that Eben had shoved ahead of me, taking my place in the lead. He’d rushed ahead without waiting, and the slork had…
If Eben pushed me aside, would the jaws have closed down on me instead?
Chapter 23
There was no other way to describe how I felt except bleak.
“Cara is slime,” Patty said, glaring across the flit circle at them.
After what happened to Eben, I thought the Headmistress would cancel the shopping trip to the mall in Grathe, that I’d be stuck begging Tria to flit me there secretly. But the Seekers had concluded their investigation and ruled the incident an accident. Eben had rushed through the slork’s mouth without following the slork-approved protocol. Vik corroborated this, pointing out that Eben had not only skipped asking permission, he’d tried to pry open the slork’s mouth with his zether rake.
Grumpy on a regular basis but stirred up by Eben’s antics, the slork had gotten even.
Eben had paid the final price.
“How can she do this?” Patty growled, flicking her finger at Donovan and Cara standing opposite us, completely absorbed in each other. Or so it seemed to me. “She knows he’s yours.”
Was he? It was kinda hard to have a relationship with someone who didn't remember who you were, let alone what you used to mean to each other.
Still meant to each other. I needed to remember that. Deep inside him, nothing had changed.
Patty, Tria, and I waited in the flit circle for our guide to arrive. Moira and Alys were supposed to join us soon.
“I want to hit the pharmacy,” a girl in the circle behind me said. “Then I want to get new boots. These aren’t keeping my feet warm enough.”
“How about you?” someone else asked. “Where do you want to go first when we arrive?”
I had no plans for the day other than a visit to Katya's Kuriosities.
My glare rose up from deep inside me and shot toward Donovan and Cara, who completely ignored me.
Talking with their heads close together, they held hands. To give him credit, she'd snatched up his hand the moment she arrived, not the other way around. But jeez. My ribs squeezed my heart tight, to the point I could barely breathe.
He wasn't exactly shrugging her off.
Moira and Alys arrived and joined us at the circle.
“Really?” Moira said in complete disgust. Her lips twisted as she scowled at Cara. “The nerve of her.”
I winced, waiting for Alys's snarky comment, knowing it would make me feel worse.
&nbs
p; He didn’t belong to me. Even if I broke his spell, he'd always be his own person, not mine.
But it stung.
I tried to tell myself this wasn't a rejection, but seeing them laughing together only reminded me of what I’d lost. We’d lost.
Did he take her up to our roof for picnic lunches?
Ugh. Had he told her he could shift into a dragon?
My gaze shot daggers in Cara’s direction. I was surprised one didn’t impale her or knock her flat on her back. If nothing else, dislodge her hand from Donovan’s.
“I overheard her telling a friend that she likes him,” Patty sneered. “Now that she thinks you’re out of the running, she assumes he’s available.”
“He’s not available,” I snarled out.
“Not at all,” Alys said from beside me. “He’s…” She shook her head, making her blonde hair dance across her shoulders. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Donovan is yours, Fleur. He doesn’t belong with anyone else.”
Her comment amazed me. But I was even more astonished at the tone of her voice. No pain leaked through.
Moira was right. Alys had stopped trying to win Donovan for herself.
My hand spasmed, making me realize I’d clenched my fingers too tightly together; the nails were cutting into my palms.
Enough mourning. I’d recently latched onto my determination, and I needed to hold onto it.
“You know what, Alys?” I said. “Comments like that make it hard for me to dislike you.”
“The feeling’s mutual.” Her smirk held no sting. “Don’t get used to it.”
“Believe me, I won’t.” I couldn’t hold back my smile. And I couldn’t help noticing the friendly gleam in her eyes.
Maybe there was hope for me and my sister after all.
“There’s no reason I can’t host an intervention, though, right?” Alys said.
My jaw dropped as she stomped over to Donovan and Cara and pried their fingers apart. Taking his hand, she dragged him over to our side of the circle, leaving Cara gaping like the naiad, Sirene, when Minerva told her to behave.
Crystal Wing Academy- The Complete Series Page 65
