Poseidon's Academy Box Set

by Sarah A Vogler

  Two hours later, Hailey and Aaron decided to abandon their posts and head outside to the grounds, where they found Jayden and Alec under a pearl tree not far from the palace, hunching over textbooks.

  ‘Where’s Demi?’ Hailey asked, settling on the ground.

  Jayden shrugged. ‘When we told her we were coming out here to do homework, she said she’d pass and stayed back in the common room. So did the nereids go into the stable?’

  Hailey shook her head. ‘Nope.’

  ‘You guys will never believe what I just saw.’ Demi plunked down beside Hailey. ‘I saw Nemertes talking to Cady.’

  ‘What?’ Hailey’s jaw dropped. The nereids never spoke to humans unless it was to hiss at them.

  ‘I glanced out our dorm window, which is spelled to look into the back of the grounds—opposed to looking into the dorm of whoever is sleeping on the other side of ours.’

  ‘We know how the windows work,’ Aaron interrupted.

  ‘Anyway, I saw Nemertes and Cady talking.’

  Jayden narrowed his eyes. ‘About what?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t read lips.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’ Alec scratched his head.

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ Hailey agreed. ‘Someone needs to talk to Cady and ask her what Nemertes said to her.’ Maybe the nereids are planning on killing students off one by one, and Nemertes was trying to lure Cady off somewhere.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Jayden offered. ‘We’re friends, she’ll talk to me.’

  Demi frowned. ‘Friends? Since when are you friends with her?’

  ‘Since I found her crying a few times after Venus terrorised her. We’re not good friends or anything. We just talk from time to time.’

  ‘When?’ Demi demanded. ‘I’ve never seen you two together.’

  ‘I didn’t realise there was a rule that I wasn’t allowed to talk to other people.’

  ‘There’s not,’ Demi said quickly. ‘I was just wondering.’

  ‘There she is.’ Aaron nudged his chin towards the palace, which Cady was about to enter.

  ‘Be right back.’ Jayden sprinted over to her.

  Hailey watched Cady smile when Jayden tapped her on the shoulder. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Cady smile before. She was Venus’s favourite Unique to torment, and she was so shy Hailey didn’t think she had any friends. Cady was always alone, which made her a good target for the nereids, since it would probably take a while for someone to notice she was gone, giving the nereids extra time to kill a few more students.

  ‘Do you think he likes her?’ Demi asked Hailey quietly.

  Hailey cocked an eyebrow. ‘Why? Are you jealous?’

  Demi snorted. ‘No, of course not. Just curious. Forget I asked.’

  Hailey smirked, but let the topic drop because Jayden was sprinting back to them.

  ‘Well?’ Aaron prompted.

  ‘Apparently, Nemertes was just being Nemertes. She was coming back from a swim and Cady was the only person in the back of the grounds. Nemertes called her a disgusting human or something and told her to get out of the palace.’

  ‘So nothing new then,’ Hailey remarked, relieved Nemertes wasn’t luring students away to kill them… yet.

  8

  Mid-Semester Break

  Hailey sat at her desk in her dorm, scribbling down the characteristics of a gorgon for her Monsters and Creatures homework.

  ‘Hello,’ someone said right behind her.

  Hailey’s head whipped around. Nemertes lingered a foot away, smirking. Hailey shot to her feet and backed up against her desk, the polished coral pressing into her spine. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Nemertes’s smirk widened. ‘I came to inform you you failed. You couldn’t stop me. I have resurrected the Olympians.’

  Hailey shook her head. ‘You’re lying.’

  Nemertes clicked her fingers and Hailey’s dorm vanished, replaced by the mine in Tartarus. ‘Someone wants to meet you.’ Nemertes’s eyes glistened with amusement before she blinked out of existence, lightning striking the ground where she’d stood.

  ‘No!’ Hailey cried. ‘You’re dead.’

  ‘Not anymore.’ Zeus stretched his fingers towards her.

  Hailey sucked in a breath when she woke up. She kicked off her duvet and fought the urge to scream in frustration. She was so sick of that stupid dream. She didn’t need to be constantly reminded of what would happen if the nereids succeeded in their plans.

  Two months had passed by, and despite hiding in the stable every day after classes, Hailey and her friends hadn’t even seen the nereids, let alone overheard any diabolical plotting. Hailey was hoping they weren’t up to anything after all, or that Amathia had thwarted them somehow. But she wasn’t ready to give up on spying yet. Although she wouldn’t have to worry about it for a week, because she was heading home for mid-semester break.

  Normally, students spent it at the Academy, but the rumours were that someone’s parents had complained to the School Board about the students not being allowed to go home, and Amathia had had to change the rules. So now Hailey was heading home for a week with her mum, which she was pretty happy about.

  By the time Hailey got dressed and moseyed into the common room with Demi, Madam Grayson was already handing out travelling necklaces to the second years, who were snatching them from the wooden chest in their overseer’s hands. The second they put the necklaces on, they smeared into a swirl of colours before vanishing.

  ‘Jayden’s getting us some,’ Alec said, wandering over with Aaron from the study side of the common room.

  ‘I’m here.’ Jayden strode through the horde of disappearing students and handed Hailey and the others a necklace with a gold-winged pendant on it. ‘Is it still okay if I stay at your place, Alec? My parents said the orphanage they’re volunteering at in Cambodia is busy, and they won’t get back in time to see me.’

  ‘Yeah, my parents are excited about having company.’

  ‘You can always stay at my place for the week,’ Demi offered.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dems, you’ll get to see me when you and Hailey come to visit Alec in a few days.’

  Demi’s shoulders slumped a little. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘I’ll see everyone then,’ Hailey said, and placed the necklace over her head, closing her eyes and thinking of home.

  Tingles swept over her body like pins and needles, and when she opened her eyes she was back in her blue bedroom. A teenage girl sat on her bed, grinning. ‘Sweet heart, I missed you.’ The girl leapt up and threw her arms around Hailey.

  Hailey tensed and moved to pull away. But then she smelled the familiar scent of turpentine mixed with vanilla, and relaxed, squeezing the girl back.

  When she pulled from the hug, Hailey noticed the girl’s deep auburn hair, which was pulled into a messy ponytail, and paint-smeared overalls. Hailey would have recognised her sooner if she’d been expecting her. Although technically she had been, just not looking like she did.

  ‘Mum, you know I hate it when you use your powers like this. Please change back.’

  The girl’s grin widened, and her face began stretching and contracting at the same time, and she shot up several inches. Her features stopped changing once she looked about thirty. But Hailey knew she was several years older. Her mum, Evonee, was a Hebe, which meant she could look as young as she wanted.

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘Yes.’ Hailey hugged her mum again. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Me too, kiddo.’ Evonee squeezed her back before settling on Hailey’s bed. ‘So, what have you been up to? I haven’t received any letters about how you’ve disappeared again, so that’s a good sign.’

  Hailey smirked. ‘Not much.’ She perched beside her mum, her mattress feeling like a rock compared to her sea-sponge one at the Academy. ‘We’ve been learning about gorgons in Monsters and Creatures of the World.’

  ‘Boring.’ Evonee waved a hand. ‘I want to hear about the palace.’

 
‘You know I can’t.’

  ‘Just try. Maybe the spell or whatever it is isn’t working anymore.’

  ‘The palace is amazing and in the grounds there are…’ Hailey’s voice choked off, like someone had snatched the words from her throat, and her jaw locked.

  A spell protected Poseidon’s Academy so that anyone who had been there couldn’t tell someone who hadn’t about the palace, which meant her mum had no idea about a nereid teaching her Ancient History classes through a memory ball, or the jewel trees in the grounds. Hailey couldn’t even write about it without her hand having a seizure.

  Evonee’s face fell. ‘Maybe I’ll have to enrol there myself.’

  ‘No,’ Hailey begged. ‘I love you, but I can’t go to school with my mum.’

  Evonee laughed. ‘Yeah, I guess. Okay, let’s make your favourite—chocolate-chip pancakes.’

  ***

  Hailey materialised in front of London Station and glanced about, but couldn’t see Demi among the people popping into existence around her. She took off her bronze travelling necklace, wishing it had the power to take her to Alec’s house in Manchester. Unfortunately, it was only strong enough to take her around London, which meant she’d have to catch the tube the rest of the way.

  Demi materialised in a swirl of colours beside her a few minutes later. ‘Hey, Hails. Let’s go.’

  They ambled into the tube station. An open space stretched before them, bustling with people. To the left was a series of archways with platform numbers painted above each one. To the right was a row of automatic ticket machines, and above them a screen displaying tube times and platforms.

  Hailey and Demi drifted towards the ticket machines, patiently waiting in line. An alarm blared, drawing Hailey’s attention back to the archways, where a man was banging his fist against an invisible barrier in front of Platform 5. ‘I gotta ticket. Stupid archway’s broken!’ the man drunkenly declared as a security guard grabbed his arm and steered him out of sight.

  Demi nudged Hailey in the back. ‘Your turn.’

  Hailey stepped up to the machine and typed in Manchester for her destination. She fed the machine ten pounds and received a ticket with the words Manchester Platform 3 printed along with a pair of gold wings.

  ‘Okay, let’s go,’ Demi said, collecting her own ticket.

  They pushed their way through the crowd towards Platform 3. The moment they stepped through the archway, their tickets vanished, like they had never existed in the first place.

  The platform—which was basically just a giant empty hall with a few seats spread out—was packed with about fifty people.

  ‘Why does everyone have to catch the same tube,’ Demi muttered, fighting through the crowd so she could stand behind the yellow line that stretched down the length of the platform.

  Whoo, whoo, a whistle sounded in the hall a minute later, and everyone surged towards the yellow line. Hailey had to dig her heels into the ground to keep from being shoved forward. The air shimmered in front of her, like heat waves rising from the road on a hot day, and a train materialised. A pair of gold wings was painted on all twenty carriages, spelled with transportation magic—just like the travelling necklace Hailey had used to get to the station.

  ‘Manchester,’ someone called. ‘All aboard for Manchester.’

  Hailey piled onto the tube with Demi and the fifty other people on the platform. There were no seats, only empty space and hanging handles.

  ‘Alec’s place better be worth it,’ Demi grumbled after someone bashed her with their umbrella. ‘I hate public transport.’

  ‘Me too,’ Hailey agreed, wrinkling her nose against the stale stench of body odour.

  ‘The tube to Manchester will depart in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.’

  Hailey’s grip tightened on the handle above her. A whoosh sounded and her body exploded in tingles as the tube, and everyone on it, swirled into a mixture of colours. Everything reformed a few seconds later.

  ‘Manchester Station,’ the conductor announced when the doors slid open.

  Hailey and Demi poured from the tube, gulping in clean air before bustling down a set of stairs into an underground space bursting with people, cafes, convenience stores, and a busker playing the guitar.

  ‘Let’s get out of here quickly.’ Demi grabbed Hailey’s hand and yanked her through the crowd towards a wall of automatic ticket machines.

  This time Hailey typed in Alec’s address: 5 Herodotus Place, Perseus Estate. She dropped two pounds into the coin slot, and a pair of gold wings appeared on the screen. Hailey pressed her fingers against the symbol, shivering as tingles swept up her arm and swarmed through her body.

  The world swirled around her until she found herself standing in front of a set of gold towering gates. She peered through them and gasped at the enormous yard and mansion on the other side. ‘This can’t be right.’ She pulled out the piece of paper Alec had neatly written his address on and compared it with the mansion’s number. It matched.

  ‘Medusa, Alec’s rich!’ Demi said, materialising beside Hailey.

  ‘Yeah. I can’t believe it. I wonder why he never told us.’

  ‘Hello, anyone there?’ Demi called into the speaker on the gate.

  ‘Who wishes entrance to the Parkers’ estate?’ a man’s chipper voice asked.

  ‘Um, Demi and Hailey—we’re friends of Alec’s,’ Demi said.

  ‘Enter.’

  The gates swung inwards with a slight creak.

  ‘Wow.’ Demi gasped as they stepped onto a stone pathway leading to the mansion.

  It’s what Hailey was thinking too. The front yard was at least an acre of green grass dotted with hundreds of statues, which ranged from Theseus wrestling the original minotaur, to Grecian men and women posing. There were so many statues Hailey wondered if some of them were gorgon victims. She’d heard that people liked to collect them, which she thought was creepy. Honestly, who would want a statue that had once been a person?

  ‘I can’t wait to see inside,’ Demi chimed, nearing the white mansion.

  The mansion reminded Hailey of an ancient Greek temple, with a row of towering columns out front and a pediment.

  Hailey walked up the four steps to the portico. She was reaching for the lion door knocker when the doors swung open. A gangly man wearing glasses stood on the other side, beaming. ‘You must be Alec’s friends. Well, come in.’ Hailey recognised his voice from the gate.

  She stepped into the entryway, which was big enough to fit Hailey’s entire house in. The floor was made of white marble, and polished columns decorated the interior. Gold-leaf ornate patterns adorned the ceiling, and a wide marble staircase sat in the centre of the room.

  ‘I’m Alaric,’ the man in glasses said.

  ‘And I’m Amelie.’ A woman with blonde hair glided down the stairs, her red Grecian dress flowing out behind her. ‘It’s so nice to finally meet you both.’

  ‘Yes, we were starting to think Alec was making you up,’ Alaric added with a wink.

  ‘Dad, stop it.’ Alec strode in from one of the other rooms with Jayden.

  ‘I can’t believe you kept the fact that you’re rich a secret,’ Demi said to Alec, her voice bordering on accusatory.

  ‘Demi, it’s rude to say stuff like that,’ Jayden rebuked her.

  ‘We’re not rich,’ Alec countered. ‘The TripleAS—The Archaeological Ancient Artefacts Society—loaned us this place.’

  ‘Oh.’ Demi’s face fell. ‘Well, I’d still like a tour.’

  ‘Sure. I—’

  ‘I’d be happy to oblige.’ Alaric beamed, clapping his hands together.

  ‘Maybe we should let Alec give the tour,’ Amelie suggested.

  ‘Nonsense. I used to receive five-star reviews for the tours I conducted back in Rome and Greece.’

  Sorry, Amelie mouthed to Alec, who sighed.

  ‘Let’s begin,’ Alaric said, leading them off to the left, where they entered a large room crowded with ancient bowls, jugs, pots, pit
chers, and vases. A few of the artefacts were enclosed in glass cabinets—mainly the ones Hailey remembered as black-figure and red-figure pottery—but most stood on pedestals.

  ‘Okay, let’s start from the beginning.’ Alaric moseyed up to a tall jug painted with circles and lines. ‘This is an amphora, which encompasses the decorative style known as proto-geometric. The reason it’s called this is because—’

  ‘Dad,’ Alec moaned. ‘They didn’t come here for a history lesson. We’re on holidays, remember?’

  ‘Oh.’ Alaric’s shoulders slumped.

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ Jayden said. ‘I think this stuff is interesting.’

  ‘You don’t have to lie,’ Alec told him. ‘Trust me, this tour will last five hours if you show any interest.’

  Five hours! ‘Maybe you could tell us about your favourite artefacts,’ Hailey suggested, not wanting to hurt Alaric’s feelings.

  Alaric brightened. ‘What a great idea. But I don’t know how I’ll ever choose.’

  ‘Got any swords?’ Demi asked.

  Alaric’s face brightened even more and his chest puffed up. ‘Oh, yes, follow me.’

  He led them down a hallway lined with more Greek vases and pots, and into a long room teaming with weapons. It reminded Hailey of the Ares room in her Powers classroom, with swords, axes, spears, bows, and a bunch of other weapons Hailey didn’t know the names of bordering the walls. A few of them even sat in glass cases around the room.

  ‘This is my favourite sword.’ Alaric strolled towards a sword lying on a satin pillow in a glass case. The sword was slightly curved, and its silver metal glittered with the faintest tinge of blue. ‘This was Perseus’s sword.’

  Demi’s jaw dropped. ‘The one he slayed Medusa with?’ She pressed her fingers against the glass.

  Alaric nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not exactly the same though, Dad,’ Alec corrected.