Hailey dropped her head, feeling like a terrible friend. ‘I know. I’m really sorry.’
‘So why did you decide to tell us now if you’re so sure they’re dead?’ Jayden asked.
‘I guess I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe they can come back somehow.’
‘You said the gods were dead.’ Demi finally spoke, shooting Jayden an accusatory look. ‘And so did you.’ She transferred her gaze to Alec.
Alec gulped. ‘I… I…’
‘It’s okay.’ Aaron slapped him on the back, cutting off his stuttering. ‘Nothing is definite. I think Hailey is probably right about the gods dying before they could do whatever they were planning. Regardless, we need to amp up our spying. Every chance we get, we need to follow those nereids.’
They moved to the common room after that, before students started trickling out of their dorms and could bust Hailey and Demi in the boys’ dormitories. They were hunched in a corner, trying to work out a spying schedule, when a pile of sapphires landed in the middle of the circle Hailey and her friends had formed. Hailey scowled up at Venus and the twins.
‘What are you doing?’ Aaron demanded.
Venus’s face morphed into horror, and she pointed to the jewels. ‘They’ve stolen sapphires!’ she shouted.
Hailey sprang up. ‘You stole them!’
Madam Grayson charged from the girls’ dormitories. ‘What’s happening out here?’
‘I was walking back to my dorm when I saw them pulling sapphires from their pockets,’ Venus said. ‘See, they’re on the floor—right there.’
‘She’s lying!’ Demi was on her feet now, too, along with Jayden and Aaron. ‘They’re the ones who’ve been stealing.’ She shot Venus and the twins a glare.
Madam Grayson rubbed under her eyes. ‘I’m tired of all this fighting. Just put the sapphires back where they came from.’
Venus gaped. ‘But they stole them. It’s against the Academy’s rules.’
‘We didn’t stea—’ Hailey began.
‘Enough,’ Madam Grayson snapped. ‘Hailey, would you please put the jewels back. And if there’s any more fighting between any of you, I’ll have no choice but to give everyone a detention and make you sort your issues out there.’
Venus continued to gape as Madam Grayson marched back into the girls’ dormitories.
‘Is that all you’ve got?’ Aaron asked her acidly.
Venus glared. ‘No, I’ve got plenty more in stock for you,’ she hissed before stalking off with the twins.
Alec snatched a sapphire and stood up. ‘She makes me so mad,’ he said, clenching his hands into fists.
The tinkling sound of something shattering had Hailey scanning the common room for the cause. Her gaze focused back on Alec who opened his hand, revealing a pile of blue dust.
Jayden cocked an eyebrow. ‘What’s that?’
Alec stared at the dust with wide eyes. ‘I think… I think…’
‘Well, spit it out,’ Demi prompted.
He looked completely dumbfounded. ‘I think I crushed the sapphire.’
Aaron scoffed. ‘No one can crush a jewel with their bare hands, especially when they’ve got twigs for arms. They must be fakes.’ He picked up a sapphire and clenched his fist around it until his face turned red, but the sapphire didn’t so much as crack. He looked at Alec, dubious. ‘How’d you do that?’
‘I don’t know.’
The memory of Alec catching Kendra when she fell off the cliff flashed into Hailey’s mind. She remembered thinking that Kendra should have crushed him, but he’d been unharmed. Comprehension hit her. ‘Alec, I think you’ve got a new power.’
He scratched his head. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It looks like you’ve got a bit of Heracles in you,’ she told him, smiling at the stunned look on his face. ‘It explains how you were able to catch Kendra when she fell.’
Alec stared at the dust in his hand like it held a great secret. ‘I can’t be a Heracles. I’m an Other, and strength is hardly an expansion of my powers to pass through things.’
‘I think Hailey’s right.’ Jayden rubbed his chin, thoughtful. ‘Madam Norwood said it’s possible to have more than one power, and that a second power might not show up until years later.’
‘Yeah, she did,’ Demi said. ‘And she also said powers usually expand when we need them the most—and you really needed super strength to save Kendra.’
Alec’s hands dropped, the blue dust scattering to the floor. ‘I can’t believe I’ve got a god power.’
Aaron crossed his arms. ‘How is it fair that he gets super strength? He can’t even do one chin-up. If anyone should be a Heracles, it’s me—I’m always working out,’ he huffed.
A moment of silence passed before everyone burst out laughing, realising the irony of Alec’s new power.
26
Revelations
One month later. Hailey sat at a desk in the common room, attempting to commit her Monsters and Creatures of the World textbook to memory so she could pass the approaching end-of-year exams. She flipped the page, smiling when she saw the entry on griffins. Finally, she thought, something I already know and don’t have to bother studying. Hailey snapped the book closed. Break time. She packed up her things and headed into the grounds, which were packed with students hunching over notebooks and textbooks.
Hailey found Demi and Jayden sitting under a seaweed tree, which had little seashell flowers blossoming on it, surrounded by textbooks. ‘No Aaron yet?’ she asked, toeing away a few books before settling on the diamond floor; a school of rainbow fish darted around beneath her.
‘Not yet,’ Jayden said, rubbing the back of his neck.
Hailey took his lack of appearance as a good sign. It was his turn to spy on the nereids, and he’d been gone for a few hours now, which she hoped meant he was learning something.
Hailey and her friends had spent the past month spying on the nereids constantly—except for when they were in class—they even took turns spying on them at night. But so far it had all been pointless. The nereids spent most of their time in the sea, and when they were in the palace, they didn’t mention anything about Poseidon or killing students.
A book slammed shut. ‘That’s it. I can’t do it anymore.’ Demi pressed her fingertips to her temples. ‘My head is going to explode if I have to read one more paragraph about the characteristics of a hydra. I mean how does me being able to tell if a hydra is male or female from the shape of its frills help me? It doesn’t. Male or female, a hydra is always going to try and kill me. And what’s the deal with—’
‘Aaron,’ Hailey said, cutting off Demi’s rant, spotting him striding towards them from the palace. ‘So?’ she prompted when he plunked himself beside her.
‘So they were in their room, and spent three hours talking about which fish scales make your hair gleam more. And I’m not exaggerating. Three hours!’ He pulled the wand from his track pants and tossed it into Jayden’s lap. ‘Tag, you’re it.’
Hailey’s heart sank. This isn’t good. If they didn’t find out what the nereids were up to soon, everyone could end up dead. Of course there was always the chance Amathia had foiled her sisters’ plans already—Hailey really hoped that was true, and that some sea-urchin bomb didn’t blow her and everyone else up three days from now.
A mountain of books dropped in front of her, snapping her from her thoughts.
‘I found some books that expand on the information in our textbooks,’ Alec said, sitting down.
Demi’s mouth fell open. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Yeah, Alec, that’s kind of overkill,’ Jayden agreed.
Hailey was about to tell Alec he was taking studying a bit too seriously—they were only supposed to learn the stuff in their textbooks after all—but got distracted by the newspaper perched on top of the books.
She was vaguely aware of Alec diving into a lecture about how important doing well on the end-of-year exams was, and that a bit of extra reading could only help in
their studying. But her main attention was on the paper’s headline: “Erinyes Back in Business”.
Hailey picked up the paper and started reading.
The Erinyes, who were believed to have died along with the gods, have been sighted in Sussex. Abigail Norris was bringing her husband, Joseph Norris, a cup of tea when she walked into the living room to find what she believed to be an Erinys grabbing him by the neck. She described the Erinys as looking like a rabid woman wearing a tattered red dress. Mrs Norris claimed the Erinys snarled at her before dematerialising with her husband.
The police have denied all claims that the Erinyes are involved in Mr Norris’s disappearance, instead claiming the person who kidnapped him was an Inbetweener with the power to dematerialise. This raises the question of whether this so-called woman—or Erinys—is involved in the other 717 disappearances. But this is a question the police have refused to comment on.
The paper slid from Hailey’s hands. She’d learned enough about the Erinyes in Monsters and Creatures to know they were spirits of vengeance and retribution. They’d lived in the Underworld with Hades, the god of the dead, and their job had been to bring criminals to Tartarus so they could be punished for their crimes.
It all made sense to Hailey now—what had happened to the missing people. The majority of them were criminals—ideal targets for the Erinyes. And the other people who’d been taken were obviously guilty of something, they just hadn’t been convicted…
But if the Erinyes didn’t die with the other gods, where have they been for the last sixteen centuries? And why have they chosen now to come back?
Hailey’s dream surged into her mind. The missing people had been standing in the grounds, and Demi had been holding the wand saying it did this.
Hailey’s breath caught. ‘It was us! We brought back the Erinyes!’
‘What are you talking about, Hailey?’ Demi asked, but Hailey didn’t hear her.
People started disappearing seven months ago, around the time they found the wand. The spell they’d read hadn’t been written to restore the wand’s magic; it had been written to wake up the Erinyes.
Hailey’s stomach clenched, and she swallowed down the urge to vomit. She and her friends had released the Erinyes. The Erinyes that had kidnapped a bunch of people, who they were probably torturing. She hated herself for not taking the wand to Amathia.
But even now, when she knew the truth, an urge to protect the wand remained, and the very thought of turning it over to Amathia made her ball her fists up in protest.
‘Hailey?’ Jayden nudged her. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘The paper,’ was all she could say.
Demi frowned, picking up the fallen newspaper; the boys leaned forward to read it. Jayden, Alec, and Aaron paled as they finished the article.
Demi laughed. ‘You can’t believe this.’ She tossed the paper aside. ‘It’s just a crazy person trying to get ten seconds of fame by making up a story about the Erinyes.’
‘But it explains so much,’ Alec contradicted. ‘How else could so many criminals escape without leaving a trace of how they did it?’
Demi’s carefree look faltered. ‘Even if it is the Erinyes—and I’m not saying it is—why have they decided to show up now?’
Hailey found her voice. ‘We woke them up.’
Demi raised an eyebrow. ‘We woke them up? Are you sure you’re feeling okay, Hails?’
‘She’s right.’ Alec’s voice was barely above a whisper. ‘It was the wand.’
‘But how—’Aaron started to ask.
‘The spell!’ Jayden gasped.
Demi shook her head. ‘No. We didn’t do this. We couldn’t have.’ She looked at the four of them with pleading eyes, begging them to agree that it wasn’t their fault.
More than anything, Hailey wanted to tell her they were only joking. But that would be a lie. They were responsible for the missing people—they might as well have kidnapped them themselves—which meant they were responsible for making things right.
Hailey sprang up. ‘We have to fix this.’ She dashed towards the palace, ignoring Demi’s protests that it couldn’t be their fault.
Once again, her stupid decision to go after Kendra haunted her. If Hailey had been smart and told a teacher instead of running off, she and her friends wouldn’t have ended up in the griffin’s nest and found the wand. Then Alec never would have read the spell, and Hailey wouldn’t be about to do the dumbest and most dangerous thing she could imagine.
‘Hailey, where are we going?’ Jayden asked from behind her.
She didn’t answer. She ran into the palace and up the stairs to their common room, charging through it.
She didn’t stop until she reached the girls’ dormitories, and that was only because Venus, Nerissa, and Cleo were blocking the hallway. ‘Get out of my way!’ Hailey ordered them.
Venus surveyed Jayden, Alec, and Aaron standing with Demi behind Hailey; a smile tweaked her lips. ‘Boys aren’t allowed in here, are they, girls?’
‘Oh, no,’ Nerissa said, shaking her head with derisive deplore.
‘Definitely not,’ Cleo agreed, clucking her tongue.
‘I’m afraid I’ll have to report this.’
Hailey punched Venus in her perfect nose.
The pain that shot through her hand didn’t even register. She shoved a howling Venus into the shocked twins, clearing a path, and fought through the chaos that erupted in the hallway as studying students poured from their dorms to see what all the screaming was about.
‘What the Tartarus was that?’ Jayden demanded as the five of them slipped into Hailey and Demi’s dorm.
‘You punched Venus! Seriously punched her!’ Demi said, looking so shocked her eyes were practically popping out of her head.
On any other day, Hailey would have been feeling more satisfied than she’d ever felt in her life with what she’d done. Of course, on any other day, she never would have risked the consequences of punching Venus.
But none of that mattered right now. All Hailey knew was that she needed to stop the Erinyes and save the people they were torturing. ‘I had to. She was wasting time.’
‘Um, shouldn’t we be telling Amathia about the Erinyes instead of hiding out in your dorm?’ Alec asked.
Telling Amathia was definitely the smart thing to do, but Hailey couldn’t. If she told Amathia, then she’d probably gather up a few teachers and use the wand to take them to the Underworld to stop the Erinyes. Hailey couldn’t allow that, because the Erinyes weren’t exactly known for having a passive nature and would likely kill anyone who tried to fight them, or, at the very least, imprison them.
Hailey refused to risk anyone else’s life when everything that was happening was her fault. She was responsible for fixing it, no matter the consequences. ‘I’m going after the Erinyes,’ she told Alec, striding to her chest of drawers and clawing through the bottom drawer, tossing aside jeans and shorts.
‘What?!’ Alec exclaimed. ‘You can’t. You don’t know how to fight the Erinyes.’
Hailey yanked the wand from her drawer, staring spitefully at the object that had caused so much trouble. She twisted back to her friends and said, ‘The wand woke them up. It can put them back to sleep.’ At least that’s what she was counting on, and if the wand had been powerful enough to wake up three gods, then it had to be powerful enough to take Hailey to the Underworld. ‘I don’t expect any of you to come with me,’ she added, seeing the looks on her friends’ faces, which ranged from shocked to utterly horrified.
Alec shook his head. ‘No, Hailey. It’s too dangerous. And we promised Amathia we would never do anything like this again.’
Hailey hadn’t forgotten her promise to Amathia, or her mum, about never stupidly risking her life again. Sometimes promises have to be broken. And besides, she had the wand. It might have caused this whole mess, but it would keep her safe, so what she was about to do wasn’t really that dangerous when you thought about it.
‘Hailey’s right,’
Aaron said. ‘We’re responsible for this. It’s our job to save those people and stop the Erinyes. I’m coming with you.’ He moved to her side.
‘Well, I’m not letting you two have all the fun,’ Demi said, joining them. She’d obviously realised that the paper had been telling the truth about the Erinyes. ‘It’ll be pretty cool visiting another one of the gods’ undiscovered hideouts—I never even thought of using the wand to find the gods’ lairs.’
Much to Hailey’s surprise, Alec stepped forward. ‘If this is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I read the spell. And you’re right, we can’t endanger others for our own mistake.’
Everyone looked at Jayden, who shrugged nonchalantly. ‘What the Tartarus, I’ll come too—it beats studying.’
Hailey wasn’t fussed on putting her friends at risk by letting them go with her, but, in truth, she didn’t want to go alone. The Underworld was a buried place shrouded in horrific tales of gloom and misery.
Even with the wand and its magic flowing through her, Hailey was petrified. She didn’t know what would happen once she broke into the Underworld and came face to face with the Erinyes.
‘IT WAS HAILEY!’
It wasn’t hard to work out Venus was the one screaming in the hallway, and judging by her words, it appeared the commotion in the girls’ dormitories had finally caught Madam Grayson’s attention.
‘Time to go.’ Hailey whirled the wand around her and her friends. ‘Kda kiat Underworld.’ The wand’s moonstone tip glowed.
One moment Hailey was floating.
The next she was sinking.
Water that smelled of sewage wrapped around her, its burning warmth stinging her eyes and flooding her lungs.
She kicked her legs, coughing and spluttering when her head found the surface.
She coughed out the last of the foul water and gazed around, trying to work out where she was. But it was completely dark. The only thing she could make out was the high rock tunnel the current was dragging her through.
‘Did anyone bring a torch?’
Hailey squinted in the direction Aaron’s voice had come from; she could barely make out his silhouette. ‘Hang on. I’ll use the wa–’ A wave dunked Hailey, another slamming her against the rock wall as the water frothed into a rage.
Poseidon's Academy Box Set Page 21
