Nightworld Academy: Term Five

by LJ Swallow

  He looks down at his healing palm—I’m still horrified the guys used blood magic, but also thankful. Andrei and Ash healed within a few hours, and poor Jamie stands with two injuries from his attempts to help me. “No, but maybe there is, and the magic helped with the Blackwood spell we used.” He pulls back and scrutinises my face. “Do you?”

  “I don't know. Anastasia told me you shared Blackwood magic energy with me the day you brought me back from the edge. How could that happen unless you contained the magic too?"

  He shakes his head, as confused as I am. "I don’t know. Maybe she lied."

  If that's true, where did the dark magic come from? "I hope so." Moving closer to Jamie, I place my head against his soft shirt, and his heart beats against my cheek. "Once Tobias returns, we’ll tell you everything and can decide what to do, but I promise you Nikolai's death is the worst thing that happened."

  Jamie in my room reminds me of the days we were together stuck in Walcott, when we relied on each other to work our way through the hazy time away from the others. That closeness sticks with us, and Jamie's calm, steadying presence is exactly what I need right now.

  "Food, then class," I say with a sigh.

  "Yep." Jamie stands.

  "Have you thought any more about our date night?" I ask as he moves towards the doorway.

  Jamie glances over his shoulder and smiles. "Yes. And I will make the day entirely human."

  I hold my thumb and forefinger apart. "Maybe just a little bit of magic?"

  He walks back over to me and tips my chin with two fingers. "A date with you is magical enough."

  Butterflies flutter in my stomach at his words. "You're such a sweetheart, Jamie."

  "Sometimes I think that's my problem." I shove him. "Okay, okay. No putting myself down."

  With a stern look, I pull open the door and hold my hand out for his. "Thanks for being normal."

  He squeezes my fingers. "As normal as we can be."

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  MAEVE

  I impatiently wait for Andrei to join us, and he appears in the cafeteria as I'm almost finished eating with Jamie and Ash. His bright face and confident stance reassure me nothing bad came from his stay with his grandfather; I worried he'd be subject to more accusations surrounding his mother.

  Andrei sits beside me and rests his arms on the table. I fight running my fingers along the taut muscle or leaning in for a kiss—I'm not comfortable showing affection for one guy with the others around, although they don't seem to care.

  Andrei evidently doesn't care, because he moves in to kiss me softly. Thank god this wasn't one of his usual mind-melting 'I've missed you' kisses. I glance at the other guys, whose expressions haven't changed.

  "How did the family visit go?" asks Ash then bites down on a chip from his plate.

  Andrei scrunches his face. "Painful. Constant questions about mother dearest."

  "Did you tell them anything?" asks Jamie.

  "Yeah. That she's still an evil bitch and cosied up with the Blackwoods."

  His description of Gabriella is true, but the words sound strange for a son talking about his mother. Jamie fingers his shirt collar. Gabriella instructed a vampire to kill him. Evil is the right word.

  "Did you mention anything else?" asks Jamie.

  "Kinda. They wanted to know about the Blackwoods and why we went alone—and to know how we managed to free Maeve and Tobias. I lied and told them I was with Gabriella and never saw the escape."

  “And they accepted that?” asks Ash.

  “Yeah. They said they’d get all the details from Tobias.”

  "You didn't say anything about the group and Amelia?" I whisper.

  "No," he says indignantly. "I had to tell them about the teleportation spell, though. I'm in the shit for that one."

  "Great," mutters Ash and sinks backwards in his seat. "More trouble. Just what we need."

  Jamie spins his coffee cup in his hands. "Too late to avoid trouble now."

  I lick my dry lips. I'm worried about the questions the Confederacy will ask me about my time at Blackwood house. What has Tobias told them?

  "Chip?" I ask Andrei and push my plate towards him.

  He shakes his head. "Not hungry."

  "You mean I can eat them all myself for once?" I ask with a mock gasp. "You always eat half."

  "I've not much appetite right now," he says and looks the other way.

  I frown to myself and continue my meal. The uniformed students sit around the tables in their house groups again, resolutely ignoring each other. Katherine occupies her usual space, between two of her latest Petrescu girlfriends, and keeps glancing at us. She isn't the only one—Clive and Remi don't subtly glance, they downright stare. I smile, and when this isn't returned, I cast my eyes down. We weren't close friends, but they were always polite to me because of my friendship with Ash.

  The minute I'm done eating, Andrei grabs my tray containing my plate and cutlery and stands. “Hurry up. I want some time with you before class.”

  He heads to the opposite end of the cafeteria and adds the tray to the rack holding others.

  "He didn't want your chips because he's changing," says Jamie quietly, one eye on Andrei. "The blood born lose their need for human food when they move towards immortality."

  "I know that. Andrei told me," I say, but my heart thuds.

  "Did he tell you how soon?" asks Jamie. "He's a year older than most blood born at the academy. If he's eating less, that's a sign that his diet is changing.”

  "Maybe he's just not hungry," I suggest, and Jamie's expression shows I'm fooling myself.

  "What?" asks Andrei as he approaches, hands buried in his pockets. "Were you talking about me?"

  "No," I say and stand too.

  "Sure," he mutters.

  As we make our way from the cafeteria, I hang back with Andrei and ask Ash and Jamie to keep walking. Pausing, I stand beside the wall, out of the path of other students heading to class. "I missed you," I whisper and tiptoe to brush my lips against Andrei’s.

  Andrei strokes my cheek. "I've worried about you. Sorry I didn't catch you earlier."

  "I fell asleep," I admit.

  His lips twitch into a smile. "Does that mean you'll have energy later?"

  I slap him in the chest as his hand sneaks around to my backside. "Andrei!"

  With a chuckle, he kisses me on the forehead. "Seriously, are you alright?"

  I sigh. "You've texted me several times a day with that question. I'm fine." Apart from the nightmares. The taste of blood. But that's something to tell another time.

  "Liar." He pokes my nose with an index finger, and I scowl. "Nobody can go through what you did and be 'fine'."

  "Andrei?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Shut up."

  He laughs and seizes me around the waist. "I'll get the truth from you," he says, and I fling up my barrier as he pokes into my mind.

  "Have you stopped eating?" I blurt. Possibly a bad subject change, but big enough to change direction from me.

  "Because I didn't want your chips?" His eyes widen. "That's dumb."

  "I need to ask you something. When you change—become immortal—will that make the blood lust worse?"

  He blinks at me and thins his lips. "Wow. 'Hey, Andrei, I missed you, oh and by the way, are you unstable now?' Way to kill a reunion."

  "That was a bit blunt. Sorry."

  "Plenty of hemia students live in the academy and control themselves. When I'm full hemia, I'll do the same."

  "Sorry," I repeat and look the other way, guilty that I upset him.

  "I had one trip to Ravenhold; I'm not planning another." Andrei pulls himself from the wall and holds out a hand. "Please trust me, Maeve, because if you stopped, it would kill me."

  We wander along the hallway, hands grasped tightly. I've barely noticed time passing in a life jumbled by day to day crisis, but I've been in this new world for months. The changes my friends go through are more than simply maturi
ng to step into the world, the way human teens do. Andrei and Ash are on their own paths towards futures holding as great a change as the one I went through when I arrived here.

  I'm scared—and scared for them.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  MAEVE

  I expected to see Confederacy representatives at some point, but not summoned from class.

  A man arrived and unsubtly requested I meet with Theodora, which caused whispers from the History of Magic class and concerned looks from Andrei and Jamie. I knew when I didn’t recognise him that this isn’t a visit to Theodora, and I’m escorted by the unfamiliar man to a familiar room.

  My heart skips in my chest when I walk in to find Tobias sitting on a chair, in the room the Confederacy interviewed me about Lorna's death. Last time I saw Tobias, he wore a suit covered in dirt and with a confused aura. Today he’s back to his usual inscrutable self, as if he’s wiped away what happened when he washed away the dirt.

  Why is he here too?

  Don't panic.

  His soothing words reach me but do little to calm my nerves. The man who escorted me leaves and we're left with a harassed-looking, middle-aged man slouched back in his chair behind a desk. He straightens as he spots me, his moss-green eyes studying me. Without speaking, he gestures for me to sit.

  "This is Elon. He works with Andrei's grandfather," says Tobias.

  The man is more relaxed than I'd expect from an interrogator, and I cautiously sit beside Tobias.

  Elon nods. "Maeve."

  "Tobias and I have discussed the circumstances surrounding Nikolai's death at length," he says and rubs his temples. "I'm required to ask some questions about your time at the Blackwoods and about the murder."

  My throat tightens and I nod.

  "Elon is the best person for you in the circumstances," says Tobias. "His connection to Oskar Petrescu and myself ensures more gentle questioning."

  Again, I nod.

  Elon reaches into his jacket slung over the chair and pulls out his phone. "If I record everything, there'll be no doubt I conducted this interview correctly and that all questions are answered." He drops the phone on the table. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?”

  Elon is gentle, despite his gruff appearance, and halfway through I realise I'm merely confirming things Tobias already told those who interviewed him. He doesn't attempt to probe my mind, and if he did, I would shut down. As Tobias instructed me on the night Nikolai died, I claim not to know any pertinent details. I can't answer questions about the guys' involvement in my escape, or how they managed, and my stomach lurches when Elon mentions he'll consider talking to them too.

  The barriers that keep the estate protected also hide what happens inside. If there were any evidence of Izzy and Anton’s magic, nobody on the outside would be aware. Tobias must’ve used a lot of mental magic to soothe the Confederacy minds and blank their question: how exactly did we escape?

  In addition to recording my answers, Elon makes copious notes, and I crane my head to see names with scribbled words beneath. He's impressed when I recall visitor names from the gathering, and he doesn't push for details about what Anastasia and Gabriella saw in my mind.

  The one question I falter on is if I feel any different. At my silence, Elon looks up, no longer intent on his notes. "Did you hear the question?"

  "I haven't spoken to Maeve about events since we left, but she would be an unusual person to feel no different after an experience such as that," interrupts Tobias. "Even I've been shaken by this and I've spent time in worse places."

  Elon looks between us and returns to his notes. "I will ask the Walcott head to keep an eye on Maeve, in case she displays any signs of damage."

  Damage. My mouth dries, but I'm immediately soothed by a projection from Tobias. I don't want Sofia involved, but how could she not be?

  I'm perspiring beneath my shirt by the time I leave the stuffy room along with Tobias, hands shaking at reliving events. We stand together, professor and student, as the door close behind us.

  "Elon isn't looking to trick you. Andrei’s grandfather wants inside information on the Blackwoods and who they associate with. I helped you and Andrei to safety and that is enough for him."

  "They believed your half-story?" I ask, darting a look around the hall. “What did you tell them?”

  "That I killed Nikolai as he tried to stop us leaving. Then we came across the others who’d recently used the blood magic to arrive at the estate."

  "And how do you explain where we were all day?"

  "In hiding, at a hotel."

  "And they bought that?" I ask incredulously.

  "I don't think Oskar Petrescu did, he's too powerful for me to influence his mind as I did Elon and the others, but I fulfilled my task of keeping Andrei out of his mother's clutches. Nobody but his family knows Andrei met his mother, which means Oskar doesn't want others involved who could discover this."

  I chew my lip. "Don't the Confederacy leaders speak to each other?"

  "As with all organisations, people can be selective in who they speak to and what they say. Keeping the secret that the Blackwoods are back will avoid unease and disruption."

  "And distrust," I murmur.

  "Precisely." Tobias shakes his shirtsleeve up and checks his wristwatch. "When lessons are over, meet me with the others at the cottage."

  The door clicks open and Elon steps from the room, jacket slung over his arm and notepad in hand. He looks at us quizzically for a moment before saying goodbye and walking away.

  "Tobias, can we talk about what happened?" I whisper. "I can't stop thinking about you... us."

  His eyes widen. "Maeve. Not now."

  "I understand you want to avoid the same thing happening again, but I need a fuller explanation. I deserve that from you."

  His expressionless silence irritates me. Where's the man who looked after me? Who treated me like an equal? A lover.

  "Now isn't the right time. I'm not teaching today, so return to class and I'll see you in a couple of hours with the others." I open my mouth to respond, but he strides away.

  I'm aware how Tobias helped me avoid questions from Elon, and that he put his neck on the line over Nikolai’s death, but his indifference cuts me to the quick. Our stay at the Blackwoods took us out of time as readily as any spell Anastasia could create. Now time began again, and we’re back to our strange normal.

  But each day I spend with him and the others, the further I’m pulled from the staff and students as my interlinked fate with the four guys yanks us towards an unknown future.

  One involving the Blackwoods, the Dominion, and secrets that spread further than any vision could see.

  Chapter Forty

  MAEVE

  “We should turn this into a command centre.” Andrei drops onto the sofa in the cottage and places his feet on the low table, boot by boot. “Y’know, we could create one of those boards to track things, find a secret laptop for Jamie. Weapons.”

  I grab the coffee mug he almost kicks over and sit on the sofa arm beside him. “Are you serious?”

  “Tobias could be the tough boss who tells his operatives what to do, and you can be the beautiful girl who...” He pauses and bites his lip.

  I arch an eyebrow. “Yes? Go on.”

  “Maeve can be the one who kicks your arse,” Ash says and slaps him across the back of the head. “Dumb idea.”

  Andrei scowls and smooths his hair down. “I was joking!”

  Jamie smirks and drops into an armchair. “I like the idea, apart from Tobias in charge.”

  Ash snorts. “He is in charge.”

  “Nobody is,” retorts Jamie. “We work together."

  The door softly closes. "Did you just elect me leader?" Tobias steps into the room and fights a smile. "I haven't any weapons, though."

  "Apart from Maeve," says Andrei.

  I tense. "I'm not a weapon, but I’d rather you said that than eye candy."

  He gasps and clutches his chest. "I woul
dn't dare call you that."

  "Are you high again, Andrei?" asks Tobias and rests against the wall.

  "Whoa. Sorry for trying to lighten the mood after all the shit we've been through—and still face." His scowl grows.

  I'm learning enough about Andrei that his joking comes when he's stressed and on the defensive. I lean over and kiss the side of his head. "We all went through something tough. I understand."

  Ash blows air into his cheeks and takes a mug before peering at the contents. "I wish we'd brought beer."

  "Come on, it's two a.m. Let's talk things through before we're too tired." Jamie sits in the chair opposite.

  I've already told the guys about my interview with Elon and Tobias, but now's the time to tell our story. Andrei doesn’t know as much about events as the others, and I’m worried how he’ll react. I glance at Andrei occasionally as I speak, but he's looking at his hands.

  His jovial mood drops away the moment I mention Gabriella, but he stays silent.

  Until I mention Nikolai's death.

  “Do you understand how serious this is?” All Andrei’s light-heartedness leaves him as he stands. “If we’re dealing with the Blackwoods as well as the Dominion, we’re fucked!”

  Tobias maintains a steady gaze. “I agree, we need to be more careful, but—”

  “Careful?” he half shouts. “The Blackwoods and my mother are cohorts. We may as well give up now. Why the hell didn’t my grandfather mention someone died?”

  “Andrei.” I tug his hand. “We beat them once.”

  He blinks at me. “Killed one and escaped? That’s not beating them.”

  I can’t help feeling hurt by his tone, and look away.

  “Andrei,” says Tobias. “That’s enough.”

  “I know the Blackwoods.”

  “So do I now,” I retort. “I’m perfectly aware what they’re capable of, but this at least gives us some idea what we’re dealing with.”

  “Oh, yeah, especially as Gabriella gave them their grimoire back!” Silence drops. This is one result of the other night with unknown consequences. “Fuck!”