by Lan Chan
Everything around me stood still as Jacob Buchanan smiled at me.
With barely a thought, I could have Morning Star hurting through the dimensional barriers. But sticking him with my demon blade wouldn’t be satisfying enough. Rage bubbled up inside me. It crashed through my chest and ripped aside the layer of green that kept trying to soothe my unpredictable magic.
Jacob was the reason why I had spent my whole summer feeling like the world was coming to an end. I took off running even though the odds of me being able to subdue him unarmed were minimal. It didn’t matter. He was right here, and I was going to strangle him with my bare hands.
I was two metres away from him when Jacob threw up a defensive arcane circle. I countered it with my own, blending the two forces and breaking his hold. Something Professor Mortimer had taught me during my second semester. Without the circle to stop me, I went crashing right into Jacob. It should have rung an alarm in my head that he did nothing to throw me off. We crashed onto the ground with me on top of him.
The gnawing anxiety that lingered in the back of my mind manifested in my balled fists.
My first hit clipped him in the jaw. My second one hit the side of his face. I would have grabbed him around the throat and started strangling him if somebody hadn’t hooked their arm around my waist and tried to drag me off.
“Lex!” Sophie’s voice said in my ear.
My head whipped around and tried to find her. The field wavered in front of my eyes. I blinked hard, trying to align the two images I kept seeing. One was of Jacob and an empty field. The other contained multiple casualties and a sea of mildly shocked faces. With the help of Sophie’s warming magic, the second one won.
I shook my head and swallowed. Sophie tried to get me to move but my limbs were heavy. “Lex. You have to get off him.”
The next thing I knew, somebody was scooping me up. I scented the bitter afterburn of wolfsbane. “Just when I think you can’t get any more insane,” Trey spoke in my ear. He righted me but held on to my arm so I wouldn’t topple over. Irritation chased through the bond, making me want to throw him off. At the same time, my hand clutched Trey’s.
What the heck was happening?
Sophie stepped in front of me. My vision was bathed in pink light. When she removed her hand from my cheek, my mind became sharp again. I saw the irritation in the bond for what it was: Kai’s reaction to Trey touching me.
I glanced down at the ground to find Tyler propped up on his elbow, a genuine smile on his face. Around us, the game seemed to have ended. I swept the field. Students were huddled in small groups, helping each other up and taking stock of their injuries. My competitive side reared its head. I searched for Emily only to find her shackled in Diana’s immovable grasp. Diana gave me a thumbs-up. Emily flinched. Right. I got it. She thought I was a big baddy.
“I take it we won,” I said, addressing the field in general.
Tyler chuckled. “We did.”
I nodded. “Okay.” I gripped Trey’s arm once and he let me go. “Okay.” I stopped walking beside Tyler. “We won. That’s good.” I peered down at him. “So do you want to tell me what the hell just happened?” The last part came out as a scream.
He leaped up and twisted into a crouch before I could follow through on my intention to kick him in the head.
Rather than succumb to my rage, Tyler continued to grin his amusement. “It was over as soon as you started phasing. But this was meant to be an evaluation. I needed to see how you would react to any situation.”
I could feel the nerve above my left eye twitching. The memory of Jacob’s face made the blood freeze in my veins. It was almost impossible to feel my heart beating over the furious demand that urged me to slit Tyler’s throat. “I’m glad you find my misery funny.”
He appeared in front of me as I turned to walk away. He was fast. I’d give him that. But if he didn’t get out of my face, I was going to kill him.
Kai sensed my deadly serious intent. He teleported beside me. “Don’t,” I snapped. “Both of you stay away from me.”
I tried to march off the field with as much dignity as I could muster after losing my shit and proving that I wasn’t as okay as I made out. A shower of glitter assaulted me.
“I’m really not in the mood, Orla.”
The sprite hovered in the air beside me, her tiny rainbow wings somehow keeping her afloat. She glided beside me as I marched away. “Don’t be embarrassed. I’d be snapping at everyone too if I almost caught Malachi Pendragon and then had to throw him away.”
Her hand inched towards me. I glared. She retracted it.
And then something hit me. I stopped dead. “Your power, do you think it’s possible you might be able to break a Nephilim bond?”
I held my breath. The vigorous shake of her head dashed my hope against the rocks of fate. “No way! If it was just a crush, I might be able to dampen it a little, but I don’t know a single force in the dimensions that could nullify a Nephilim bond. Except maybe a powerful spell.”
Right. What was I thinking? Nothing was ever that easy. I huffed, widened my stride, and got the hell out of there.
13
The next morning, my internal clock insisted on forcing me awake before dawn. Stubbornness kept me in bed until the sky began to lighten. Guilt made me rise and change out of my pyjamas even though sleeping through the day was probably the best outcome.
Not since my first night at the Academy had I been more apprehensive when approaching the Grove. My tongue felt fuzzy and dry. The warm nights amplified the overly sweet scent of Arcana fruit. It lingered in the air. Breathing through my mouth wasn’t much relief.
“Now what?” If there was one thing the nymphs hated more than a thief, it was a coward.
With a final exhale, I grabbed the railing of the fence and vaulted over. Pins and needles dashed across my skin. It skirted through my body in an escalating wave of prickling. Unlike the other times, it did not subside as I staggered deeper into the Grove. On the contrary, the farther in I walked, the more frantic the sensation became.
A million tiny little pinpricks stabbed at me. Once or twice was annoying but the constant assault turned into an ache. By the time my foot hit the edge of the Arcana clearing, I lost control of the nerves in my body. My muscles contracted. The ground came rushing up at me. All I could do was fall sideways so that my head hit the grass rather than the paved ground.
My mind felt like it had been stuffed with cotton wool. A dozen fluffy coloured lights appeared all around me, but by then my eyelids were too heavy to figure out what they were.
Something latched on to my foot. The last thing I remembered was a hideously long face in my periphery before I passed out.
Sunlight burned my corneas. Grogginess made it not worthwhile to turn around. A deep voice had me paying more attention.
“Why is she up there?” Footsteps crunched on gravel and then “Ow!”
More laughing. Huh?
“Somebody get Kai.”
His name was like a trigger in my sluggish thoughts. The effort to peel my eyes open was astronomical. They threatened to close again as a result. When I tried to move my arm to rub my eyes, I found them folded in my lap in an awkward cinched position.
My head drooped as I tried to make sense of the stimuli around me. The first clue was that my field of vision was parallel to the second floor of the dorms. From here, I could make out the shadows of several dozen students moving up and down the staircase. I had to turn my head down to glance at the tops of some of the trees that lined the small copses around the Academy. There was a lattice of finely braided rope impeding my sight. I was caught in a snare.
Those mini flying jerks had drugged me and hung me from the ancient overhanging branches of the oak that guarded the Grove. Sunlight beat down on the crown of my head. My sunburned cheeks said I’d been out here for some time. If they made me miss lunch, somebody was going to die.
The rabble of laughter from below denoted that I had an au
dience. Not one of whom thought it might be a good idea to help me down. When I escaped, I was going to kick some nymph ass. Getting down proved to be an issue.
My thoughts refused to settle on anything. Despite being trussed up and on display, I couldn’t seem to rub two logical brain cells together to form a coherent plan.
All of that flew out the window when footsteps crunched on the gravel below. The laughter died down slightly but was replaced by the low hush of anticipation.
Wings fluttered. I deliberately closed my eyes.
Green light filled my mind. It burned through the last of the potion the nymphs had doused me with. I cursed silently as my mind sharpened. The knot digging into my butt was starting to ache.
“What’s the plan here, Blue?” Kai said. Though my eyes were closed, the bond furnished me with an image of him hovering in the air in front of me. His sardonic smile needn’t have been so amused.
What was the plan? Sadly, I had none. Still, I wasn’t going to admit that to him.
My eyes opened. The momentary blur subsided.
Kai’s hand was fisted in front of his mouth. His chest and shoulders twitched. The heat that burned my cheeks was no longer from the sun.
“Are you done?” I asked.
He coughed to try and dislodge the laughter but didn’t quite manage. He tapped his chest a couple of times before he could get himself under control. It only encouraged the idiots below.
Feeling exposed, I let out my frustration. “Get lost! Don’t you guys have anything better to do?”
“Nope,” came Charles’s unrepentant answer. Dammit. Whose idea was it to move the Academies closer together?
I wriggled in the netting. The unstructured shape made balancing difficult. My feet kept slotting through the holes. “Argh!”
“Need help?” Kai asked.
“No. I’m fine.”
“Blue –”
“I said I’m fine. As you were.”
Suddenly, he loomed in front of me. His fingers weaved through the rope lattice to settle on my arm. I tried to pull away, but the net trapped me in place. If I struggled, it would reshape into an awkward position that might make it harder to escape later. “Why do you always make things more difficult for yourself?” Kai asked.
“Why do you always make things more difficult for me?” I nudged back against his hand as emphasis.
He drifted closer until his nose pressed up against the netting. His eyes sharpened. Specks of blue glittered in them like ice. Just like his angelfire was setting up shop inside me, my hedge magic had branded him too. I inhaled and tried to pull away. It only made him hold on tighter. “The harder you fight it, the worse it’ll become,” he said. “I might have wings, but I’m not an angel. I can only be pushed so far.”
I was no stranger to threats. Death, pain, damnation? All in a day’s work. The ripple of pleasure that whispered over my skin was far more terrifying. It settled in the pit of my gut, promising me untold rewards for being reckless. Raphael who? My lips parted. No. I bit the inside of my cheek to distract from the growing hunger that had nothing to do with food.
I yanked my arm away. It didn’t move very far with the net hindering me, but it was enough. Kai floated to the ground. “Leave her,” I heard him say. “She’s being unreasonable.”
Excuse me?
“I dunno,” Charles said, “she seems pissed.”
“She’ll get over it.”
The shifter snorted. “Yeah, right. Are you sure you even know her?”
While they hammed it up with thinly veiled digs at me, I tried to roll my thumb over the band of Gabriel’s Key. Knowing the nymphs, the netting would probably be hexed but there was no harm in trying. My thumb hit bare skin.
I glanced at my hand. No ring. The kernel of annoyance in me graduated into rage. I’d fought and died for that ring. How dare they take it from me? Over the years, I’d taken a lot of crap from the nymphs. If someone held a gun to my head, I might admit I was fond of them. But I’d be damned if they took a source of power from me that I needed. Not for something as trivial as eating Arcana fruit.
“Blue!” Kai screamed as the first tendril of black-laced hedge magic shot through the oak. He appeared in front of me again. This time, I saw him through a haze of anger.
“Release me.” It wasn’t directed at him. I knew that somewhere around here, the nymphs were spying. They made no appearance.
The second shot of magic caused the oak to shudder. The rope snare swung me in mid-air like a carnival ride. Feeder roots began to shake off the earth that had sheltered them for centuries.
“I said, release me!”
Something inside me revolted. My heart kicked. A dull ache squeezed my brain.
Kai’s angel blade appeared in his hand. With a single swipe, the netting broke. I fell for a breath before he swept me up in his arms. I was already struggling out of his hold when we landed on the ground.
My rage fit had cleared the crowd from directly beneath the tree. They gathered again a safe distance away. When I stepped forward, Kai grabbed my arm. “Stop it!”
The oak groaned and shook. My magic sifted the earth around it, encouraging it to break free. “Blue!”
“Get lost!”
The first screech came from the side. Morning Star whipped through the barrier of the Ley dimension and flashed as it connected with the claws of the purple nymph. There was no contest. Hell-forged steel beat nymph claws hands down. That didn’t mean the nymphs were logical. Where they couldn’t beat me with force, they tried to win with numbers.
A squadron of multi-coloured lights blinked into view. They came at me from all sides. Kai attempted to step in their way, but they evaded. That was the beauty of being small. Rather than take another swipe at them with my demon blade, I funnelled hedge magic into the oak. Using its thick branches as a weapon, I swept it in a wide arc that gathered up the nymphs and tossed them aside.
“The ring,” I grit out.
The purple nymph shook herself where she’d fallen. She shrieked at me. The high-pitched sound almost busted my eardrums. “Scream all you like. Either give me back the ring, or I flatten this place.”
“Blue!”
“Shut up!” I rounded on him. “Mind your own business for once!”
The storm cloud that gathered over his face told me I was rapidly hurtling towards the tip of his restraint. Screw him.
Never ones to take a threat lying down, the nymphs regrouped. Since they couldn’t get to me physically, they decided to throw hexes at me. I only just managed to erect the protection circle in time. The smile on my face should have enraged them. In a contest of sheer power, I knew I had them beat.
They formed a ring around the circle. Their numbers were such that they almost lapped the distance. Nymphs in every colour swirled around me. I readied myself for another attack when a scroll appeared in the purple nymph’s hand.
What was this?
Not wanting to miss anything, I traded this reality for that of the Ley dimension. In it, the purple nymph’s speech slowed down. “Alessia Hastings is contracted to servitude to the Grove,” she said in slowed, breathy speech. “Where possible, that service extends to doing no harm.”
As she read out the terms of the contract that she had tricked me into making when I first arrived, golden bands of string appeared in the earth beneath me. I yelped and tried to hop away but they sprang up and wrapped around my limbs like vines. “Any attempts at harming the Grove will be nullified.”
Hundreds of golden fibres mummified me. The only part of me uncovered was my face. They glowed so brightly it gave the sun a run for its money. The light hurt my eyes. That was the least of my problems. The second the purple nymph stopped reading, the ropes snapped and dragged me to the ground. All my hedge magic leeched from the oak. It swayed for a moment before groaning its way back into the ground.
I tried to move but I was caught tight. They’d beaten me on a technicality. I was going to kill something.
&
nbsp; My vision had turned sideways. A figure walked around the perimeter of the Grove. Emily stopped short. She tried to backtrack, but Isla barred her way. The Fae’s lips moved furiously.
“Let go of me!”
The nymphs hissed. “You stole Arcana fruit.”
“So what? I bust my ass here every day. Besides, it didn’t help. What more do you want?”
Isla and Emily inched closer. They had probably been on their way to the Fae forest. Now they joined the group of spectators watching me being constricted by the nymphs. Purple nymph glided down right in front of my face. A glamour covered her again in ethereal beauty. She scratched a nail down my cheek. It drew blood.
“Don’t.” Kai’s voice was hard. I was tied too tight to see where he’d moved. She glanced menacingly at him over the top of my body. “Fair’s fair. She stole. You’ve punished her. Don’t touch her again.”
The nymphs screeched. Emily shuddered. For a second, our gazes met. An image flashed in front of me. Another version of me, this one dressed like a ninja, appeared at the edge of the Grove. Her expression was without animation. It was like she was functioning without a soul.
As I watched, she leaped over the railing of the fence just like I’d always done. Instead of moving to the pathway, she stepped up to the oak that had only just resettled itself. Her palms braced on the rough bark. They began to glow a deep blue marred by brown flecks. Demon poisoned.
My ears popped from the decibel of the nymphs’ screeching. Ninja me glanced back once before she slammed her fist against the oak. The world exploded in a shower of displaced energy beginning with my doppelganger’s body. My mouth opened in a silent scream as the wave of power rolled over me. But when I blinked, the image had disappeared. The Grove stood as serene as ever. Silence gripped the scene. Somehow, I knew I wasn’t the only one who had seen the vision.
