First Year Final Exam

by Ivy Hearne

  So I did.

  And it spoke to my deepest fears.

  Your allies are not what you think they are. They don’t want to protect you. They only want to use you. They want you to protect them from us. But we are safety. Join us.

  A steady thrum beneath the words gave them emphasis, like the heartbeat of a parent comforting a child.

  I sank further into it.

  Then, it was as if that warm blanket had been ripped away from me and I was dropped into the dark cold of a lake deep underground, the kind that had never seen light. The kind with eyeless, sightless creatures that had adapted to their permanent night.

  Eyeless.

  Sightless.

  Something in that tugged at my memory.

  But before I could chase the thought, the cold, dark waters closed over my head, and I was lost again.

  I don’t know how long I drifted, becoming inured to the temperature, to a world of blackness.

  But eventually, I heard another voice, one that I had heard before.

  No, we can’t leave her there. We have to get her.

  The voice was high and light and somehow familiar—not only one I’d heard in my regular life, but in the darkness, too.

  Jolie.

  Her name came to me suddenly. The Lusus Naturae student who had brought me my pendant.

  My pendant. In this incorporeal space, I still forced myself to reach up and grab it. It anchored me like a lifeline.

  And somehow, it tied me to Jolie as well.

  There you are. She seemed to grab my hand and pull me along with her. What are you doing? You can’t stay here.

  Just as she had done before, she tugged me out of the darkness and into a kind of empty bubble inside whatever it was that had held me.

  This space held light and air, so I could see and hear her—but I was dazed. Her voice drifted out of her mouth, the words seeming to take on a blue tinge in the air. They matched her hair.

  She shook her head, peering at me. “I can’t keep you here long. I’ll help you get back home. But there’s something I need to show you first. Something you should see.”

  She closed her eyes, murmured an incantation, and wove her hands around in a motion designed to close the arc of the spell.

  “Watch what he does. Pay attention.” Her voice was urgent, determined. And she slipped away, pulling me behind her just long enough to take me into the vision she had conjured.

  * * *

  In my grandmother’s generation, tattoos were for sailors and regrets. But the man Jolie had pulled me into a strange room to see was at least in his fifties or sixties—more than old enough to be part of my grandmother’s generation—and he’d clearly missed the memo about regretting the tattooed folly of his youth.

  Inked images in shades of blue and yellow covered every inch of his skin from his bald head all the way down to his fingertips.

  When he threw back his hood and raised his arms, the ink began swirling in mesmerizing circles, like a Van Gogh painting in motion.

  Stars and suns flashed across his skin as he wove his hands in arcane patterns, sending out sparks of white-hot magic dancing in the air just above his arms.

  The smell of burnt ozone crackled around him in a haze I could almost see.

  I watched him in rapt fascination as the magic built up higher and higher, the sparks of magic turning to lighting flashes snapping out into the air, then arcing down to the ground at his feet.

  Oh, shit.

  The thought wasn’t my own. It came from somewhere behind me, outside of me.

  This guy’s going to demolish you. You have to get out of there, Kacie. Get out now!

  Souji. He was the one calling me.

  I wasn’t sure how long he’d been trying to break through the spell the darkness had cast on me, but hearing his voice reminded me that I needed to break free of it.

  But it wasn’t easy to keep from slipping back into the black edges of this room. The wooden floors and plastered walls bled away into the night-black shadows.

  It wasn’t any easier to avoid getting hooked into the wizard’s spell, either. The lights swirling around him kept vying with Souji’s voice for my attention.

  Don’t quit talking to me, I sent back to my hunting partner. He’s going to draw me in.

  Got it. Souji’s mental voice held an undercurrent of stress, but he didn’t stop transmitting—though I wasn’t sure how much of what I was getting came from actual psychic sendings and how much was sheer, unfiltered stream of consciousness.

  Not that it mattered.

  I took a step backward, hoping to find Souji and the Hunters’ Academy.

  As I moved, the wizard stretched out one hand, reaching toward the darkness with his fingertips.

  And the darkness reached back, sending out a tendril like black smoke, wrapping around and through the wizard’s fingers.

  A hissing noise slithered through the room, and I knew the darkness was speaking to its emissary.

  Just as I took another step away, the wizard’s head snapped around, his eyes focusing on me, even though we both knew I wasn’t really there.

  I fled back toward the conference room my mind had left, either minutes or maybe hours before.

  But his words echoed around me all the way back to the Hunters’ Academy.

  “Yes, Master. I see her.”

  Chapter 4

  My eyes popped open in the conference room, where I sat upright in a chair, still grasping the Sisters’ hands.

  Instantly, I gagged, then leaned over and heaved out black sludge all over the table.

  If I hadn’t felt so awful, I would have been embarrassed by my insta-vomit. But I was far too concerned about what I had seen—and more to the point, what had seen me—to worry about anyone seeing me puking up the physical remains of the darkness that had tried to seep into my cells.

  “Did you see any of that?” I finally managed to choke out to the Sisters.

  “We did,” the tall one said. The three of them stood as one, and Dr. Novak followed a heartbeat behind.

  “I’ll begin calling in the upper-level students and alumni and hunters. Anyone who will stand with us,” Dr. Novak said softly.

  “What about finals?” I blurted. Instantly, I shook my head. “Never mind. That’s not important.”

  Dr. Novak turned to me, startled. “Of course it’s important.” He paused, frowning. “Do you have any idea how much time we might have before they come for us?”

  I shook my head mutely.

  One of the seers cupped her hands under her chin as if she were creating a bowl, then turned her eyeless sockets to the ceiling. “The timing is at least a week. Possibly two.” She dropped her hands, and a flash of rose-gold light swirled away out of them.

  Dr. Novak nodded. “Then we will hold finals this week as planned, and afterwards, send the underclassmen away.”

  Souji and I both made protesting noises at that. Dr. Novak gave a nod and a hand gesture that suggested he would discuss it with us further later.

  “We will report to the Council,” the Sister continued. “In the meantime, we should all begin gathering allies. We will return here before the end of the week.”

  “If the Lusus Naturae are connected to this darkness—and Kacie’s vision certainly suggests that they are—then we will need all the help we can get,” one of the other Sisters added.

  A frisson of dread skittered through me. “Did I make a mistake letting him see me?” I asked. I barely managed to keep the quiver out of my voice, but I was certain the Sisters heard it, anyway.

  “No, child. The darkness was already in search of you and it had already made an alliance with the Lusus Naturae wizard. It would have turned the wizard’s attention in your direction at some point, no matter what. It is better that we know as much now.”

  I didn’t want to let out a sigh of relief in front of everyone, so I simply nodded tightly.

  The tall sister reached out and squeezed my hands. “You are not a
lone in this. You never will be. But I hope you decide to remain when the Lusus Naturae show up. We will need you. A gorgon on our side is no small thing.” She gestured toward the pendant around my neck. “Especially one with such a potent weapon at her disposal.”

  “I’ll be here,” I said, my voice raspy.

  “Then we shall see you when we return.

  The three Sisters deliberately pulled their hoods up over their heads, tucked their hands into the sleeves of their robes, and moved through the door Reo opened.

  As Dr. Novak moved out of the doorway, he motioned to Reo to follow him, leaving just me and Souji standing in the almost-empty conference room.

  With a table covered in black-sludge vomit.

  “I guess I’ll find something to clean that up with,” I said.

  “I’ll get paper towels from the bathroom.” Souji started out the door, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm. He turned back toward me. “Yeah?”

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “For coming to get me in there. I wasn’t sure how I was going to escape.”

  My hunting partner—the guy who had remained in his panther form as long as he could after his last partner died, who had retaken his human shape for me, who had kissed me on that beach, whose power I had used—stared deep into my eyes.

  “Don’t you know yet? I’ll always come find you.”

  My breath caught in my throat at his words. I couldn’t think of anything to say in reply. I simply nodded.

  “Me, too,” I finally managed.

  Souji smiled, and it softened every aspect of his face. “That’s what hunting partners are for, after all.”

  Chapter 5

  At any other time, I think finals would have been much bigger deal. As it was, however, we had more important things to think about. Like possibly dying in a combination Lusus Naturae and Evil Darkness attack.

  So I wasn’t sure how I did on my exams, though I dutifully got up and went in to take them every day.

  In my old school, I would have spent my evenings trying to cram for tests.

  I’d started out that way here, too. But the first night after I met with Dr. Novak, the Souji brothers, and the seer Sisters, I had been sitting in the library with an open book in front of me for at least half an hour without turning a page when Ms. Hush’s hand landed on my shoulder.

  “Come with me,” she said. “You’re not doing yourself any good here.”

  I closed my book and packed it up, following Ms. Hush out of the library and over to the Rathskeller.

  I glanced around. “Lately, I’ve been spending more time here than I have in the cafeteria,” I noted.

  Ms. Hush laughed. “Yes, well, you’re not our average student in any way. I’m not surprised.”

  She gestured for me to take a seat in a booth, then ordered herself a coffee. I asked the waitress for a milkshake.

  “Not a coffee drinker?” Ms. Hush asked.

  “Only the morning. I can’t sleep if I get too much caffeine.” I thought about that for a second. “Then again, it might not be a bad idea to have some on hand in case the Lusus Naturae and the darkness attack when I’m tired.”

  The wraith across from me snorted as she poured creamer into a cup and stirred it lazily with the spoon. She set the spoon on the table with a little clatter and leaned toward me. I suspected something big was coming.

  “You don’t have to stay here, you know.”

  Her words were so far from anything I expected her to say that I sat silent and stunned for a few moments, simply blinking at her.

  When I didn’t answer immediately, she stretched out her hands across the table as if she wanted to grab mine—but she didn’t touch me. “We could find a place to keep you safe. Someplace where the Lusus Naturae would never find you if we lose the coming battle—and you can always come back if we win.”

  I frowned at her. “What makes you think we’re going to lose?”

  “I don’t. I just don’t want to see you caught up in a war that is not yours.”

  “Do you know something the rest of us don’t?”

  She shook her head. “No. Any information I brought from the Lusus Naturae is long out of date. I simply know how ruthless they are.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes and she brushed them away angrily. I pretended not to notice.

  “Ms. Hush,” I began, drawing my words out slowly as I considered everything I wanted to say. “I can’t leave. If I left and the Academy lost the battle that we all know is coming, then I would always wonder if my presence would have made a difference. I have to stay. I have to add whatever I can to the strength that everyone here can combine.” I chewed on my lip. “It’s not that I want to stay. I’m terrified. But—” I reached up and grasped my pendant. “I have been given a gift of more power than I could ever have imagined. No one else can use it except me. And so I have to be here.”

  Ms. Hush sighed, but she nodded, too. “I understand. That’s why I’m here instead of with my family. I can’t stand by and watch other people be hurt. Not when I could do something about it.”

  I took a long drink of milkshake. “Now, if you want to give me any hints about what’s on the parabiology exam on Tuesday, I would be delighted to hear that.”

  The wraith’s laughter pealed out through the restaurant, and I was struck by how rarely I had heard that sound. “No, I’m afraid you’ll have to sink or swim your own merits on that.”

  “Then maybe I should get back to studying.” I finished off my drink and thanked Ms. Hush.

  She watched me leave, and when I turned back to glance at her through the window, she gave a little wave.

  Then I went back up to my empty dorm room to stare blankly at my books some more.

  In the end, I simply went in and took my tests without really studying for them. If I had learned enough to fight in the upcoming battle, my guess was that I knew enough to at least pass those exams.

  I didn’t really care.

  I was much more concerned with staying alive.

  Chapter 6

  About the middle of the week, people began pouring into the Academy. The campus was no longer dead. It practically bustled with life—just not student life, exactly.

  Most of the people who showed up were adults, though a lot of the upperclassman had come back. Everyone I spoke to said that they had been given a choice.

  My roommate Erin was one of those who returned.

  I came back to our room from my Chemistry for Magical Defense II class to find her sitting on her bed cross-legged, flipping through a fashion magazine.

  “Erin!” I dove in to give her a huge hug.

  She hugged me back, then pushed me away, laughing. “What? You thought I wasn’t coming back?”

  “I’m just glad you’re here.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m not about to leave you alone to deal with the Lusus Naturae without backup.”

  I glanced out the window at the campus that was teeming with adults. “Looks like we got lots of backup.”

  “Yeah, but I came back specifically for my friends.” She waved out the window dismissively. “All those people can watch out for each other. They’re not going to be all that interested in having our backs. Those of us who are still students here need to take care of each other.”

  I gave her another quick hug, then tried to pretend everything was normal.

  But it wasn’t. Now that everyone was on board with my warning that something even worse than the Lusus Naturae was headed toward us, the adults had swooped in and taken over.

  Or at least, tried to take over.

  Everywhere I went, they huddled in small groups, whispering. Countless meetings took place—and I only glimpsed them through opening and closing doors as I walked past.

  The adults had arrived to take care of everything. And the rest of us were being shut out.

  Except Reo, of course. He was a full-fledged hunter and was, in fact, the campus Hunter in Residence.r />
  And he would still talk to me.

  So the day I took my para-biology exam, I tracked him down in one of those meetings and stood outside the door waiting for him.

  As he came out the door, I reached out and grabbed his elbow. “Come with me,” I hissed.

  “What? Kacie, I have things I need to do.”

  “And none of those things are more important than talking to me for five minutes.” I glared at him until he stopped resisting and slumped one shoulder against the wall to face me.

  We were in the administration building, not far from the conference room where we’d met with the three sisters. I hadn’t seen them back yet, and I was beginning to worry.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “You know what’s going on. We’re getting ready to try to battle whatever’s coming toward us.”

  “You heard the Sister say that you would need me, right?”

  He frowned, a tiny wrinkle appearing in the middle of his four head. “I did, yes. But you’re not our only hope, Obi Wan Kacie.”

  I rolled my eyes at him.

  “Seriously, Kacie. We need to develop as many strategies as we can.”

  “Stop saying my name so much. It makes it sound like you’re hiding something.”

  “Kacie,” he began, then broke off as I raised my eyebrows at him. He gave an exasperated sigh and stood up straight. “I’m the low man on the totem pole here. We have council members, experienced hunters, mages, shifters—and a ton of them are people who have not even practiced battle tactics since they were students.”

  “Wait. They were students here and didn’t go on to be hunters?”

  “No. Most students who graduate from the Academy go on to do perfectly normal human-type jobs. We’re all trained in case there’s an emergency—but not all of us choose this life.”

  That had not occurred to me before, though I knew that some of my classmates’ parents did perfectly mundane things with their lives. Lawyers, cops, bankers.

  “So all these meetings are to get them ready?”

  “Yes.” Reo raked his hands through his thick, dark hair. “We are trying to remind them of the things they need to know, and it is kicking my ass.”