HUSH, Ivy: The Arcane Academy

by Kirah Nyx

  “I’m confused,” admitted Penny, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Does it mean that the sun and earth are aligned in a certain way, or is it River’s surname?”

  “Both,” said Ivy. “It makes sense that it’s a surname of the Fae. Their names are all born of the universe and nature. But, it’s strange, isn’t it? You warned me in our dreams about the solstice, yet it’s connected to River somehow.”

  “Somehow,” agreed Penny. “But how?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. Ivy chewed her lip harshly as she thought. Blood trickled out of the fang wounds as she gasped. “What if … What if he’s been helping the Rebellion?”

  “River?” laughed Penny. “No way. Nope. Not a chance.”

  “Well, it would explain the connection here. Didn’t we agree that the Rebellion needed a Vampire to remove the wards around Stonehenge Village? What if they didn’t have a Vampire to do it—they had a Fae. They had River from the very beginning.”

  Penny slumped in the chair. Her arms draped over the sides and her chin drooped to touch her collarbone. “We can’t run around and fire accusations at our friends without proof.”

  Ivy made a face. ‘Friends’ was far too strong a term to describe her relationship with River; though, she had to confess that she’d been fond of him. Now, her fangs slipped out at the thought of him.

  Penny sighed and rubbed her hands over her tired face. “Let’s forget the River problem right now. Whether or not he’s connected to the Rebellion, it doesn’t explain the meaning of the celestial solstice.”

  “It does,” argued Ivy urgently. “When the December solstice starts, all Fae magic in the Northern Hemisphere weakens.”

  “Which makes the wards easier to dismantle,” said Penny exasperatedly. “Yes, that we know, but what does it mean?”

  “It means,” replied Ivy severely, “that the Rebellion will attack the fourth province when the solstice begins. They can breach the wards, and break into the crypts for whatever they are searching for. And we know that they won’t attack Verato City.”

  Penny stiffened in her chair.

  Her gaze snapped up to Ivy’s. “They’ll attack us,” she whispered. “The Academy.” She jumped from her chair. “When does the solstice start?”

  Slowly, Ivy raised her gaze to the leafy clock on the wall. Beneath the clock, flower stems joined together to spell the date; December 19th. The clock chimed. It struck midnight. Swallowing thickly, Ivy watched the flower stems twist around each other until they spelled ‘December 20th’.

  “Now,” she whispered. “Or in the next few days, at most.”

  Ivy released a shaky breath and placed her palms flat on the desk. Penny suddenly snatched and searched the textbook for more information.

  Ivy vacantly gazed out the window. The woods outside were peaceful, as always. Rustling trees obscured the moonlight, and the smell of nature called out to Ivy with a promise of tranquillity. A particularly hefty hedge rustled ahead, at the base of a thick tree trunk.

  “Ivy,” barked Penny. “We need to do something. We should tell a Videer, or a Houseparent.”

  Ivy didn’t respond. Her expression slackened into one of stunned bewilderment. The bush outside moved and the leaves parted. Two familiar yellow globes looked right back at her. She had seen those glowing balls before.

  And, just like before, they saw her; staring directly at her, up at the window she stood at on the fourth floor. They were the eyes she had seen at the beginning of the school year.

  “They’re here,” said Ivy, eyes glued to the orbs outside. “Penny … We’re too late.”

  Penny stepped around the table to follow Ivy’s gaze. She didn’t make it. Before she could look outside, Penny flattened herself to the floor and slapped her hands over her ears.

  Ivy stayed standing. The deafening school siren exploded throughout the manor. Ivy’s palms cupped her splitting eardrums as she winced and recoiled from the evacuation alarm.

  Through the shattering pain in her ears, Ivy squinted. Her feet were glued to the carpet. Her hands were stuck to her ears. Her parted lips trembled, but she couldn’t scream. The eyes outside held her complete, distressed, horrified focus.

  Penny curled into herself on the carpet by Ivy’s bare feet. She screamed over the pulsing blare of the siren. Ivy barely heard her.

  The bush parted further. Out stepped a slow-moving creature, towering, slinking like a regal lion. It was monstrous.

  Raw muscles and blood coated the skinless beast that emerged from the bush. It moved with deliberate, predatory movements.

  Its radiant yellow eyes never strayed from her glassy gaze through the window. It could see her fear in the trembling of her body, and smell it in the adrenaline pumping through her veins. Its torn lips curled and revealed pointed, perfectly white teeth, dripping with saliva and blood.

  It snarled viciously at her.

  Glowing eyes, yellower than the sun at dawn, was the mark of a Shifter in creature form.

  Over the ear-splitting siren that pulsed around her, Ivy heard her own heartbeat pound against her eardrums. Her fingertips tingled and twitched. Her toes curled against the carpet. Her legs wobbled beneath her.

  There was no shame felt in her consequent response. She stood there, tears welling in her eyes as she locked gazes with the monster—

  Ivy screamed.

  Her shrieks of distress were almost loud enough to drown out the alarm tearing out, loud enough for the beast outside to hear her. The scream went on and on, continuing even when her vocal cords shook in her throat, threatening to wilt away from exertion. And then, suddenly, she stopped and gasped. The Shifter stared at her, and she gaped back with watery eyes.

  Ivy snatched her bag. Penny scrambled to her feet.

  They turned and ran … like cowards.

  18

  Panic drenched the thick atmosphere in the Academy. Ivy could taste it, smell it, sense it. It came from her own tense body and from those of the students frantically racing by her. Shouts, cries, and screams ripped out at the students scrambled around the manor in an absolute frenzy. Ivy sprinted down the library corridor, Penny at her heels. They headed toward the chaos on the staircases. Students barged into them, shoulders collided with shoulders, some fell over, but nobody stopped to help.

  The alarm continued to siren loudly, hurting all ears of the Vampires in the vicinity. Ivy tried to ignore it as best she could as she shoved herself between two Vampires.

  They stumbled to a stop among the parade of panicked pupils.

  “We need to get Addie!” shouted Penny. “We need to find her!”

  Ivy went to respond.

  Before she could, a wretched cry tore through the manor house. Her wide, frantic eyes darted around the swiftly moving crowd of Vampires vacating the staircases down to the foyer. All she saw were distressed students fleeing the school.

  The scream resonated over the never-ending booms of the evacuation alarm.

  It took Ivy a mere two seconds to locate the source.

  It came from two staircases up, the sixth-floor. She saw a flash of movement in the shadows of the landing, but it was gone before she could determine what it was.

  “Go,” shouted Ivy. “Find Addie. I’ll meet you outside!”

  “Where are you going?” screeched Penny. But Ivy had already leapt over the mob of students.

  Ivy soared over the fleeing Vampires, her formation flawless and elegant. She settled on the fifth-floor in a squatting position, her hands pressed against the step between her feet. Students jumped over her and dashed around her. She could hear the Houseparent’s shrill voice ahead, herding the students down the stairs.

  The dense mob swarmed her. The screams above ricocheted through the manor, calling out for help. Ivy was the only student who paid attention to the cries. She shoved her way through the crowd.

  At the top of the landing, she boosted herself onto the bannister and looked over the bobbing heads flooding down the staircases.

&
nbsp; Crouching down, she fixed her gaze directly above before she soared upwards. Ivy snatched onto the wooden edge of the upper level and swung herself around to the landing.

  She landed with a light thud on the musky carpet.

  The survivalist in her begged her to turn back and join the fleeing crowd. The survivalist tried to wrench her legs back and draw her away from the screams, to the safety of the evacuation point. But she couldn’t ignore the screams that everybody else dismissed.

  Blood spattered out. Ivy ducked and dove out of the way. The spatter splashed onto the back of her t-shirt and shorts. Crashing onto the carpet, Ivy flipped around and gaped up.

  Two Vampires came tumbling over a bannister, hitting every railing on the way down. Ivy winced as they soared down the gap between the staircases. An echo of their pain and fear ignited within her as the crunch of their landing reached her ears. Was there a Shifter in the upper levels? Had it shoved them over the bannister? Had they been toppled over in the stampede of panicked pupils?

  “HELP!”

  Startled, Ivy flinched. She’d forgotten, briefly, what she was doing; what she was chasing. The cries from the corridor. Scrambling to her feet, Ivy raced over the landing and into the hallway. Two turns; one left, one right.

  “Help! Please help me!”

  Why had no one else followed the sound of the screams? The others had ignored it and ran by the corridor of distress. Perhaps the others were so full of their own fear that they hadn’t heard the cries for help?

  Ivy wanted to believe that, to believe that not all others of her species were so selfish and cruel.

  “Plea—Please! Somebody! I’m stuck!”

  Ivy raced speedily down corridor after corridor. The voice wasn’t recognisable.

  Skidding to a halt, she reached the end of the corridor. A peeling grey wall faced her. The screams choked and weakened to whimpers. It took her a second to realise they were coming from the classroom to her left.

  Ivy yanked the handle of the door and shook it violently. It wouldn’t budge. It was locked from the inside.

  “Hello?” a broken voice rasped out. “Is someone out there? I need help! I’m stuck!”

  Ivy grunted as she rattled the door in its hinges. “You need to unlock the door!”

  The boy sobbed. “I can’t reach it!”

  Ivy stumbled away from the door.

  Her back connected with the opposite wall. Inhaling deeply in a bid for inner strength, she closed her eyes and willed for every bit of strength forward. She knew it would hurt and would ruin her favourite silk pyjama set.

  Grimacing, Ivy shoved herself from the wall and tore toward the door.

  A cry escaped her—she threw her entire weight against the hard wood, and shattered through the splintering door.

  Shards of wood stabbed into her skin as she collapsed on the ground with a crunch. Door fragments protruded from her neck, arms, and legs, and blood oozed from her wounds.

  “Bloody hell,” she groaned, and rolled onto her side. Her schoolbag survived the impact and dug into her back.

  “Over here! Hurry. It hurts!”

  Ivy craned her bleeding neck. The boy, no older than twelve, was jammed beneath a metal cabinet. Somehow, the cabinet had fallen over and landed on his legs, trapping him beneath it. He had mousy brown hair, dark eyes, olive skin and wore his school uniform—a Videer.

  The boy pushed the filing cabinet. It didn’t budge. “It hurts,” he whined. “I’m not strong enough to move it.”

  Ivy clenched her teeth and pulled a splinter from her kneecap. Her body jerked and a hiss seeped through her teeth. Her body ached all over. Her hand clasped around the rough piece of wood that stuck out from her neck. Shakily, her fingers clutched, but she didn’t pull.

  “Don’t!” shouted the boy. “You’ll bleed out. Then we’ll both be stuck here.”

  He was right, she knew. She wouldn’t die, but she would lose consciousness. Her best option was to find Fae magic and heal herself.

  “All right,” grunted Ivy. She pushed herself to her feet before she lurched over to the Videer. Her wobbly, bleeding legs trembled beneath her, but she managed to squat down beside the cabinet.

  “What the hell were you doing?” she asked. Her fingers slipped under the metal, and she heaved the cabinet off the boy. Strength wasn’t Ivy’s prime ability, but she pushed through the strain in her arm muscles. Her feet slid across the floor as she struggled to lift it. Fleetingly, she feared her arms would pop out of their sockets. After a few moments, she was successful. The cabinet slammed onto the floor beside the boy. Ivy rubbed her aching shoulders.

  He looked down at his broken legs. Trousers covered the bruises, but they both noticed the mangled position of his left leg. He winced and pushed himself to sit up. “I was just looking for something in the filing cabinet. The alarm startled me and it fell over.”

  Ivy scoffed incredulously, offering her hands to the boy. “How did it fall over?” The Videer took her hands and struggled to his feet.

  He grunted, ignoring Ivy’s question completely. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m Silus, by the way.”

  She looped her arm around his back to support his weight. “I know a Silus,” she said, trying to distract him from the pain. “Sort of. I named my pet wolf Silus after someone.”

  He hopped on one leg and leaned on her. “Good for you,” he muttered.

  “I’m Ivy,” she said awkwardly.

  Silus nodded and waved his hand toward the door. “Can we go now?”

  Ivy doubted herself immediately.

  He was a rude little Videer, especially considering she’d just saved his life. Perhaps she should’ve simply left him for the Shifters.

  They staggered through the corridors much slower than Ivy preferred. But, with Silus’ wounded legs and Ivy’s injuries it was the best they could hope for. If Ivy was stronger, she might’ve been able to carry the Videer, but she knew her limits.

  The alarm still wailed out.

  Each siren stabbed Ivy’s eardrums and raked tremors down her spine. Tendrils of dread curled in her stomach with each limp closer to the main staircases.

  Shifters were on the grounds of the school, and she, like a fool, stayed behind to help an ungrateful Videer. Ivy hoped her decision wouldn’t get her killed.

  “I was with a girl,” Silus suddenly admitted. Ivy hummed — though, it sounded like a grunt — and helped him down the shadowy corridor. “A Fae girl,” he added bitterly. “We were talking when the alarm … It gave us a fright. She panicked, and her magic exploded. That’s how the filing cabinet fell. She just … left me there.”

  Ivy snorted. “Didn’t your mum ever tell you to stay away from Fae?”

  “She told me to stay away from every species except my own.”

  “Well, you can tell her this when you see her next,” she said proudly. “A Vampire saved your ass.”

  “My pride would never let me,” he laughed weakly. “I’m supposed to save myself. I’m supposed to save you.”

  “Look how that turned out,” she mumbled.

  They reached the landing. It was empty. There were no students running down the staircases, no Houseparents shepherding strays, no Videer Knights searching the manor.

  Everyone had been evacuated. Ivy wondered if there was anybody left in the school. She just hoped she wasn’t too late to meet at the evacuation point on the grounds.

  Actually, she was certain that they wouldn’t evacuate without her.

  She was an Vampire, and the daughter of a Committee member, not to mention the reluctant fiancé of the prince. A Videer Knight would be searching for her right at that moment to remove her from the threat—she was sure of it.

  Ivy undraped Silus’ arm from her shoulders. He leaned against the wall as she skipped onto the top step of the staircase. She turned to assist Silus onto the stairs, but froze—

  Chills crept up her spine to her tingling scalp. Silus’ hands were extended, reaching for Ivy’s, but that�
��s not what stopped her. It was his legs.

  Silus followed Ivy’s bewildered gaze to his legs. The tension struck Ivy, and choked the air from her lungs.

  Ivy frowned at his trousers.

  They were tight, and fastened with little pockets and straps, but Ivy noticed that they weren’t the standard-issued combat gear.

  The colouring was off, and the straps were misaligned for the placement of weapons … weapons that he didn’t have on his person.

  But, even more concerning were the legs themselves. They were perfectly straightened. The left leg wasn’t mangled anymore. They were healed. Videer healed quickly, but not that quickly. Not in a matter of minutes. Only Fae magic could heal injuries that fast.

  “Your legs,” said Ivy. Her breathy voice rasped between them, barely escaping her dry throat. “They’re … healed.”

  “Oh,” he said, staring down at his legs. With his head still bowed, Silus’ dark eyes slowly raised to Ivy’s gaze. A cold smile twisted at his lips; a bolt of panic surged through her at the malevolence in his eyes. “Help,” he mocked. “Somebody help me, please.”

  Ivy stumbled back onto the second step. Her fingernails tingled and her fangs extended. The silky material of her t-shirt clung to her dewy back as she exhaled shakily.

  “I hoped it would be you,” he sneered. “Any one of you vile creatures could’ve heard me, but it was you.”

  Ivy’s chest rose and fell as her hands curled into fists. “What are you?” she whispered hoarsely.

  He barked a cruel, short laugh. “Anything I want to be …”

  Silus began to hum. Not from his mouth or throat, but his body. His form pulsated, fuzzing the air around her.

  Ivy screamed.

  Silus was a person no more. His clothes tattered, tore and shredded in the air. The debris of his uniform rained down on her before she saw him for what he truly was. His body had exploded into the form of an Abarimon—a hairless, orange creature in the shape of a human; only, its feet were backwards, and its spine curved, like a floppy blade of grass bent in the wind.