by Lan Chan
“Tell that to Lex!”
For the first time, her composure wavered. It was like watching a ripple feathering across a still lake. “Don’t even go there.”
The second warning bell rang.
I dropped the topic for now as we rushed to join the throng of students who were making their way to the labs. I wasn’t at all surprised that there were fewer students, but it hit me when we were lining up to enter the room that I didn’t know half of these faces.
“Who are all these people?” We got through the door amidst a lot of jostling. Diana elbowed someone in the back. The Fae turned around, her face thunderous.
“Watch it!” she snapped.
“Or what?” Diana said. “This isn’t your Academy!”
Only then did it dawn on me. “Are we–” My question was cut short by the way the Fae’s glamour shimmered as her eyes widened. Her mouth opened slightly, tiny fangs elongating her canines. They might have been different races, but the Fae had the same reaction to me as the shifters.
Diana pulled me away. “This is going to be fun,” I muttered. “I take it we have to make nice with the other Academies again.”
Diana shook her head as we found our room and she dived for a bench at the back. “None of the other Academy heads wanted to risk opening their doors again. Jacqueline is the only one who still thinks it’s safer to learn here than it is to go off half-baked on their own. Half the students from the other Academies transferred.”
“Well, then maybe you shouldn’t antagonise them on the first day.”
She made a face. “I will if they get in my way. And also, right back at you!”
“I haven’t done anything.” She raised a brow and my words dried up.
“Which is it, Soph? Did you murder someone or not?” Her confident tone said she knew.
“I see the shifters aren’t the only ones who have given in to their baser instincts.”
She flashed her teeth as me. “Who the hell are you calling basic?”
“Let me guess,” Kieran’s voice said. I glanced up into laughing hazel eyes. “Diana’s not happy about our new classmates.”
He slid into the seat in front of us like nothing had happened in the past six months.
“She’s not the only one,” Orla piped up. She waved at me and crammed her small stature into the edge of our table.
“This is a two-person bench!” Diana informed her.
“I’m tiny!” Orla shot back.
“Okay, relax, please,” I said. “People are looking.”
James McTavish strode past. “It’s not them that are the problem,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be rotting in a jail cell?”
“You’ll understand the meaning of the word rot shortly if you don’t get out of my face,” Diana told him. I shivered at her tone. Sometime in the last six months, she’d gotten mean. I wrapped an arm around her and rested my head on her shoulder.
“It’s okay, Di.”
“No, it’s not.”
No, it wasn’t. But it wasn’t worth getting into a fight in class either. She sniffed. “So you haven’t changed at all.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that to me like it’s a bad thing?”
She placed her hand on my thigh and squeezed. “Unless you’re some kind of psychopath,” she said, “murdering people kinda changes you. Maybe you should remember that for your story.”
I couldn’t say anymore because Professor Suleiman arrived. Moving languidly behind him was Noah. They exchanged brief words before Noah slid past us and went to the back of the room.
“Why does he look familiar?” Diana asked absently.
“Book of Beasts,” Orla offered. “The boy who survived Sophie’s great-grandfather.”
“Oh.”
“Thanks, guys,” I muttered.
Professor Suleiman cleared his throat. He surveyed the class which was overly crammed. Ours wasn’t the only bench that housed more than the allotted two bodies. “I’d like to imagine that this is a reflection on my teaching prowess, but we all know that would be a lie.”
The Bloodline students laughed nervously. “You all know by now that I’m taking over some of Professor McKenna’s classes. I’ll try and do my best to muddle through it.” His gaze landed on me and halted. He tipped his head but didn’t linger.
“Those of you who aren’t Bloodline natives may wish to brush up on the Academy’s policy on terrorising each other. Now, more than ever, it will not be tolerated.”
“What if we’re not the ones doing the terrorising,” the Fae girl who had clashed with Diana in the hall spoke.
I elbowed Diana when her mouth opened.
“We are in this together or we all die. It’s that simple.” He wouldn’t hear any more about it, and I was glad. A smile tugged at my lips when I thought of Lex’s love-hate relationship with the professor. She whined and moaned every Dead Language class while he coddled her as though she was a puppy in training. Both of them went away frustrated, but they both always came back for more. Talk about abusive relationships.
“Open your textbooks to chapter three,” Professor Suleiman instructed. I had to share Diana’s textbook. The shame of being unprepared for class made me irritated. I’d always had all my things ready for the start of the new year. Sometimes I even read ahead. I supposed my only saving grace was that Celeste didn’t seem to have returned this year. It was almost a shame. My health elixir would have blown her out of the water.
The days of harmless potions were a thing of the past. As indicated by the top of chapter three: offensive binding potions.
“Umm...” Orla said. Her eyes skimmed down the page. “All these potions use blood.”
The air rushed out of my lungs. Professor Suleiman didn’t move an inch. “Yes, they do,” he said. “Blood is a powerful binding agent in this dimension. To fight the malachim, you must first force them to remain here physically.” He glanced around the room. “James, Keith, and Shawn are the only ones who would have a physical advantage. The rest of you will need to find other ways.”
“I thought you said blood magic is heavily regulated,” Kieran questioned.
“Under the circumstances, the Council have decided to relax that edict.” It was at that point when Alex appeared at the door pushing a cart loaded with ingredients for potions. Sitting atop the carts were two boxes of glass vials filled with blood.
Instinctively, my arms retracted under the tabletop. My hands fisted together as I bit down and held my alchemy at bay. The magic could transmute any substance, but it had a natural inclination towards blood. My magic could pick up remnants of memory from a blood source depending on how fresh the bloodletting had been.
Right now, my thoughts were running amuck with the instinctual terror of rodents and poultry. They were fresh enough that I could scent the ammonia in the air as they voided their bowels after they died. Nausea rolled over me. I bit down hard on my tongue to stop from dry-retching.
“If you’re not minded to use the blood supplied,” Professor Suleiman said, “you are free to very carefully use your own. And any blood given to you freely from another student. But that is the extent of it.”
When Orla whipped a thin instrument from between the folds of her textbook and inserted it into her finger, I got up.
Diana turned towards me. “Soph?”
“Gotta go for a minute.” I speed-walked out of the room. “I’m not feeling well,” I told Professor Suleiman when he gave me a questioning look. I didn’t hear a thing as I pushed the door open and raced outside into the morning sunshine. That was why I probably should have known I was being followed.
Ignoring Noah who was doing his best to imitate a creep, I made a beeline for the Grove. Unsure what I was doing until I hit the barrier that kept students out, I banged my palm against the white picket railing.
A flash of purple and pink streaks whipped past us. They came to a halt just inches from my face. I could see the recognition in their eyes, but it didn’t soften their
vicious expressions one bit. Razor-sharp talons adorned their little hands and feet. The purple nymph gave me a combative smile, her teeth like the opening of a shark’s mouth. Their message was clear: No entry.
That was okay with me. Standing there, I realised I didn’t need admission. It was enough to be in the vicinity of the Arcana trees. Breathing in deeply, I sucked the almost sickly honey and lemon scent into my lungs and held it there. After a minute the Arcana scent burned away the hints of copper and salt of the blood. I finally allowed myself to unclench.
I stood there for a while until the nymphs got bored of me and left. When my heartbeat resumed a normal pace, I turned around to find Noah watching me with that quiet intimidation of his. You would think I would be used to it, but the years in between contact made the resumption of his scrutiny more powerful. He never said anything. Just watched me with accusatory eyes like he was certain I would one day transform into a monster.
“Haven’t you gotten sick of that by now?” I asked him, the wound suddenly very fresh.
His bland expression sparked an old resentment in me. “I was asked to guard you,” he said.
“Of course. Well, you can report back that I managed to hold myself back from murdering anyone today.”
It would be another fifty minutes before my next class. There was no way I was going back in there with that essence in the air. “Can you tell Diana I’m going to the infirmary?” I asked Noah.
“She’s not my concern.”
Right. So he hadn’t changed either.
Chancing Diana’s wrath, I decided to visit Professor McKenna. Given that there were so few students at the Academy, I could be forgiven for expecting quiet and solitude in the infirmary. What I walked into was a passive-aggressive hissing match. Impressive when you considered one of the participants was an actual reptilian species. They were standing smack bang around the front desk.
“...not getting it from here,” Doctor Thorne said. Maggie Cross, Luther’s mum, would not accept that explanation.
“Then where is he getting it?” she snapped back through clenched teeth like she was pretending to smile.
“Ambrose works for the Dominion. Do they not have potions and elixirs available for the inmates?”
Maggie opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. She turned and only when she moved her robust body did I see Luther sitting in the patient chair with his head in his hands. “Lu!” she said. “Did you get the medication from Dad’s office?”
“No,” came the distinctly bored reply of a teenager who wanted to crawl into a hole and die. It was at that moment that he caught sight of me. His expression perked up. I wished it did something to the tinge of green on his dark skin. He’d lost weight. Too much. It was noticeable in the big knobs of bone that stuck out at his wrists. His usually rich, mahogany skin was sallow.
“Sophie?” he said like he didn’t believe I was here.
“Ah...hi. Is this a bad time?”
Maggie whirled around. Her eyes went wide, and I prepared for her to become hostile like the rest of the supernatural community. Instead, I found myself suffocating against a generous pair of breasts. It was only brief, but the smell of gardenia slapped me hard. “Sophie!” she said. “I heard you were back at school. Good for you, love.”
Behind her back, Luther tried to stand. She seemed to sense it, let go of me, and skewered him with her eyes. “Did I say you could move?”
“Mum!”
“Don’t give me that. Until you can prove you can make good choices, you don’t move a muscle unless I tell you.”
“Madam!” Doctor Thorne pleaded. “Can you please lower your voice? We’re in an infirmary. Not a MirrorNet drama.”
I never thought I’d get to see a basilisk getting punched, but it was so going to happen. Luther’s eyes begged me to save him. I just wasn’t sure how. “Ummm,” I said again. “Can somebody please tell me which room Professor McKenna is in?”
Doctor Thorne turned towards me. He seemed grateful for a distraction. “Room nine in the private ward.”
“Luther, do you want to come with me?” I asked.
Maggie grabbed his arm. “Oh no you don’t! No hanging out with your friends until we get to the bottom of this.”
“What exactly is this?” I ventured.
Luther pinched the bridge of his nose. Maggie was the world’s biggest over-sharer. She was brassy and bold and so full of life that for a second, I suddenly missed my mama unbearably. “This fool has gotten it into his head that he needs to be studying at all hours. He hasn’t slept in how long? And then I found these in his backpack this morning.” She waved a couple of vials of winterflower essence in my face.
Not strictly illegal, the concoction was regulated, though. It had the effect of being able to keep supernaturals awake longer than they could already handle. The problem was that a supernatural, hyped up and without sleep, was all kinds of dangerous.
Seeing that I wasn’t going to be a saviour here, I backed away slowly and scrambled through the door to the private wing before I could get too caught up in the argument. Luther was in for a world of hurt.
Pain was a familiar emotion that latched on to me as I made my way to room nine. There was no need to read for signs on the doors because Tony was standing guard out the front. He nodded at me.
“May I go in?”
Stepping aside, he opened the door for me. Like a ghost, Noah slipped in behind me. Irritation flamed in my chest. It felt intrusive for him to be here. But I doubted he would care if I made that point. Pushing the annoyance aside, I focused on the figure on the cot in the corner of the small room and felt my throat closing over.
“Hi, Professor,” I said, coming to stand beside her. There was a bunch of cappuccino-coloured dahlias on the table by her bedside. In between the pretty petals I could see a number of beetles and earwigs hiding. They had probably come from the kitchen garden which meant Peter or Thalia had been here recently.
Somebody had bundled the sheets just below her chest like they thought she might be too warm. I understood the sentiment. Right now, I was imagining her waking up all of a sudden because she was uncomfortable.
Without warning, a tear trailed down my left cheek. Dammit! Why did I keep crying all the time? Scrubbing it away with an impatient swipe, I was very aware of Noah standing behind me. If he weren’t, I might have tried to see if I could revive her with something from the infirmary supply closet. There was any number of elixirs that I could transmute. But I had a feeling this ailment ran far deeper than mere disease. Just for kicks, I took a deep breath and gathered the Ley dimension around me.
Lex had always told me that her Ley sight allowed her to see the world in a vast array of colours. I saw it only in a swathe of pink, white, and red hues. I saw it as varying shades of blood. In connections of love and friendship. The aura around the professor was the deepest shade of brownish crimson. Like it was being polluted with darkness.
Given that the malachim had gone for her, I wasn’t surprised. I knew Professor Suleiman would have tried to perform an exorcism. Her current condition was not synonymous with demon possession, but it still felt as though there was something inside her that shouldn’t have been there. Tentatively, I reached out as though to take her hand. Her skin was warm and pliant. As soon as we touched, the brown tint in her aura intensified. Something bucked inside my chest in response to the contact. Without thinking, I bit my tongue and tasted blood. It coated the inside of my mouth as an ancient, sonorous voice filled my mind. It wasn’t unpleasant as much as it was surprising.
Soon, it whispered. In my mind, I saw an endless Abyss.
Something locked on to my wrist and tugged. I lost grip on the Ley dimension and blinked in disorientation. Steely but warm fingers dragged my hand away from the professor.
“What are you doing?” Noah said. The frost in his tone left nothing to the imagination. For a second, all I could do was stare. Then I coughed to dislodge the frog in my throat.
I opened my hands and waved them at him. “What did you think I was doing? I’m unarmed.”
“What was that just now?”
I tried to shake him off, but he wouldn’t let go. “Get off me.”
His nostrils flared. I bristled, knowing he was trying to scent a lie on me. “What was that?”
“What was what? You’re seeing things you want to see. Get. Off. Me.”
We stared at each other, neither of us wanting to back down. “This is way too familiar,” I sniped. “I’m not a clueless little girl anymore. Let me go.”
He would not. “You did something.”
“Right,” I laughed. “I waited until we were alone together and decided that right now would be the best time to try something. Just like when I was five and I was collecting bones for rituals, huh? Or when I was six and stealing teeth and hair to cast voodoo.”
He was undeterred by my recollection of all his baseless childhood claims. “You murdered people to save your friend!”
I had been expecting it from the moment I’d first laid eyes on him again. “What did you do?” I said. “Did you wait around all this time until you caught wind of me doing something and then asked to be assigned to me so you can catch me out?”
“Why are you getting so upset if you haven’t done anything?”
If I were the violent type, I would have hit him there and then. “Why have you always acted like I’ve done something when I never have?”
He leaned down to me, his face just inches from mine. “Because I know you want to,” he said. It was barely above a whisper, but it reverberated in my head. “You might not like it. On some level, it might even hurt you. But I can feel it. I can feel you wanting to do it. Needing to do it. Just like I felt it that night from your great-grandfather. You destroyed my pack once. I won’t let you do it again.”
This time I pulled my arm away as hard as I could. He finally let go. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
I tried to squeeze past him towards the door, but he hemmed me in. The thing I hated the most was that he was so calm about it. He never raised his voice or showed any signs of actually losing his temper.
