Poseidon's Academy Box Set

by Sarah A Vogler

  ‘I was more interested in hearing what you said to Amathia than staying hidden,’ Aaron retorted. ‘You can’t blow up the palace. This is a school now.’

  ‘I have orders to do whatever it takes to accomplish my mission.’

  A muscle tightened in Aaron’s neck. ‘The palace isn’t yours. You can’t just come in and claim it. It belongs to Amathia.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. Everything in this world belongs to humans now—including this palace. I don’t know why you care so much, considering you helped me take it.’

  ‘And I regret it. I like it here. This is a great school. You can’t take it away!’

  ‘You shouldn’t even be here. You’re an Other. This school is meant for those with god powers.’

  Aaron flinched. ‘I see. I always knew you hated that I was an Other. That you were disappointed in me for not being an Ares like you. That’s the whole reason I did this. To show you I’m just as strong and capable as anyone with a god power. I betrayed my friends to make you proud and still all you see me as is a filthy Other. You know what, Dad. I’m done trying to make you proud. You can go to Tartarus for all I care.’ Aaron’s footsteps echoed down the hallway as he stormed off.

  ‘Aaron, wait,’ Jake called, taking a step to follow after his son.

  Demi moved in front of him, blocking his path, and shook her head in disgust. ‘He deserves so much better than you.’ She stormed off too.

  Hailey was lost for words. How could somebody be disappointed in their kid for being a Unique? Aaron’s betrayal was starting to make a lot more sense.

  Jake turned to Alec, who still had his back pressed against the wall, almost as if he were trying to melt into it. ‘Will you talk to him for me? Tell him I didn’t mean anything by what I said.’

  ‘I… um… I.’ Alec swallowed, gulping down his fear, and straightened from the wall. ‘No. You can tell him yourself. Come on, Hailey.’

  They both retreated down the hallway and back into the grounds, where Demi stood with her hands on her hips by the palace’s entrance. Hailey followed her gaze, spotting Aaron sprinting around the edge of the grounds.

  ‘Aaron, come back here,’ Demi shouted as he ran into the back of the grounds, vanishing out of sight. ‘You can’t outrun your problems.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jayden asked, jogging over to them from where he’d been sitting down with Cady a few yards away.

  ‘Aaron had a fight with his dad,’ Hailey explained.

  ‘And we also learned Jake is planning on blowing up the palace if he doesn’t get what he wants,’ Alec added.

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Demi said. ‘We might have to do something about stopping that. Aaron, get over here. Now!’ Demi yelled as soon as he reappeared from the back of the palace.

  Reluctantly, Aaron jogged over, panting. ‘What?’

  ‘Are you okay?’ Hailey asked.

  He swiped away the sweat dripping down his face. ‘My dad just told me he hates me for being an Other. So no, not really.’

  ‘Screw your dad,’ Demi said. ‘He’s a jerk. I don’t know why you want to be like him.’

  ‘Yeah, Demi makes a good point,’ Alec agreed.

  ‘I’m done with him,’ Aaron declared, kicking a pearl; it skittered across the diamond ground and plopped into the water, sinking out of sight. ‘I don’t care what he thinks anymore.’ He sprinted off, starting to do laps around the palace again.

  Demi sneezed. ‘Ugh, I hate getting sick.’

  ‘I think you should lie down,’ Hailey suggested. ‘You’re starting to look a little pale.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll get Kora to heal me.’

  ‘No.’ Jayden’s voice was stern. ‘You know Asclepiuses aren’t meant to heal things as simple as colds, because it weakens the immune system. You need to get over this yourself.’

  Demi rolled her eyes. ‘Sometimes I wonder why we’re friends.’

  ‘Because secretly you like that I don’t let you get away with things.’ Jayden grinned and threw an arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on, I’ll walk you back to the common room.’

  ‘Fine,’ Demi conceded, letting Jayden steer her into the palace.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ Alec asked Hailey.

  ‘About Aaron?’ Hailey watched him loop around the grounds. She didn’t think there was much they could do. Aaron’s relationship with his dad was something he had to work out himself.

  ‘No, about his dad planning to destroy the palace. We can’t let him blow it up. It’s a piece of history.’

  ‘What can we do? There’s five of us and a team of them—and they all have guns.’ Hailey would have loved nothing more than to send Jake and his team away on a tornado, but she was pretty certain they’d shoot her before she even managed to conjure enough wind to sway the trees.

  Alec rubbed his chin. ‘I don’t know. Maybe we can talk to Amathia. See if she has a plan. Or try to convince her to give them what they want—access past the barrier. If the trident isn’t here, then she has nothing to worry about.’

  Hailey watched Aaron sprint from behind the palace, following the edge of the grounds. He clearly didn’t want to talk right now. And someone needed to save this palace. ‘Okay, let’s find Amathia.’

  Sneaking down to Amathia’s classroom was easy, since Scar hadn’t returned to his post at the stable doors.

  ‘I hope she’s inside.’ Alec reached a fist up, rapping against the mother-of-pearl door.

  ‘Enter.’ Amathia’s voice was crisp.

  Hailey and Alec exchanged an unsure glance. Amathia sounded angry, and that wasn’t something they were used to. But Hailey supposed she had a right to be when someone was threatening to blow up the school she’d worked so hard to create, not to mention her home.

  Hailey pushed into the room. Amathia sat behind her desk, glaring towards the door with venom-filled eyes so similar to Nemertes’s that Hailey took a step back. Her harsh features melted when she saw Hailey and Alec—clearly she’d been expecting Jake. ‘Hailey? Alec? What brings you to my classroom?’

  ‘Um, we kind of overheard what happened just before with your sisters and Jake,’ Hailey admitted, moving towards Amathia’s desk.

  Amathia arched an eyebrow. ‘Eavesdropping, were we?’

  ‘No,’ Hailey said. ‘Okay, maybe. We just wanted to know what was happening.’

  ‘Well, as you heard, I was given an ultimatum.’

  ‘We want to help save the school.’ Alec pressed his hands against Amathia’s polished-coral desk.

  ‘That is very kind of you. But not your responsibility.’

  ‘But I can help.’ Alec glanced over his shoulder, checking to make sure they were still alone, before lowering his voice and saying, ‘My dad has a watwdaom atpkonaskdao.’

  Curiosity sparkled in Amathia’s eyes. ‘A memory extractor?’

  ‘Yes. We can use it to take away PET’s memories of the palace and their mission. They’ll forget it ever existed.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Alec?’ Hailey frowned. ‘I remember your dad showing us the memory extractor, but it was just a replica. Do you think he can borrow the real one from the museum?’ It would solve all their problems; she couldn’t believe she’d never thought of it before.

  ‘It’s not a replica.’ Alec lowered his voice even more. ‘Nothing in our house is a replica. The replicas are in the museums. My dad protects the real relics so if anyone tries to steal from a museum, they’ll end up with a fake.’

  ‘Seriously? Why are you only suggesting this now? We could have used that memory extractor to get rid of PET when they first showed up.’

  ‘Shh,’ Alec hissed. ‘It’s top secret. Only my dad and some people high up in the TripleAS know about it—I’m not even supposed to know.’

  ‘That is very kind of you to offer, Alec,’ Amathia said. ‘But a watwdaom atpkonaskdao should only be used in the direst of circumstances. Memories make up a person. When you take away memories, you steal parts of the pe
rson they have become.’

  ‘But you’d only need to take the memories about Poseidon’s palace,’ Alec argued. ‘It wouldn’t change PET that much.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Amathia mused. ‘But Aaron aided his father with gathering information about the palace. If you took Colonel Wynton’s memories away, he would forget that, and any relationship developments between him and his son would be forgotten as well.’

  ‘But isn’t it worth it if it saves the palace?’ Hailey argued. And from what she’d seen, Aaron and Jake definitely didn’t have a strong relationship. ‘And Aaron wants his dad gone too.’

  Amathia tapped a finger against the blue glass teardrop hanging around her neck. ‘Thank you for bringing me this information. I’ll take it under consideration.’

  Why is Amathia giving up the perfect chance to get rid of PET? ‘Do you have another plan?’

  ‘Unleash my sisters on them.’

  Hailey’s eyes widened. The nereids would kill PET.

  An amused smile broke over Amathia’s face. ‘I only jest. I will do everything in my power to ensure the palace stays intact.’

  Thank the Tyches Amathia isn’t slipping to the dark side.

  Alec straightened. ‘Why don’t you just give them what they want? Let them through the barrier.’

  ‘Because it is there for a reason,’ Amathia said simply.

  ‘What’s on the other side?’ Alec inquired. ‘Poseidon’s trident?’

  ‘It’s better for everyone to remain oblivious. There are some things in this world that no one should ever have. Such as that wand you discovered last year. Power changes people.’ Amathia smoothed out her dress and stood up. ‘Now, I think you best return to your common room before someone discovers you roaming the palace. And do not fear, I will protect this school. With my life, if I must.’

  Hailey left Amathia’s classroom feeling no better than when she’d walked in. Amathia made it sound as though her only plan was to refuse to leave. She wondered if PET would even care about the nereids’ lives enough to not blow them up with the palace.

  ‘What if we hid the travelling necklaces?’ Alec broke the silence as they headed back down the hallway to the stable.

  Hailey cocked an eyebrow. ‘What?’

  ‘If we hide the travelling necklaces, then PET can’t send us home.’

  ‘And they can’t destroy the palace if we’re still here.’ Hailey finished his thought, coming to a stop in the hallway to face him. ‘Alec, that’s brilliant!’ PET might not care about the lives of a few nereids, but there was no way they’d blow the students up. ‘But what if they have their own travelling necklaces? They could use them to get more back up.’

  ‘Their necklaces wouldn’t work here. The palace is protected by a spell that blocks anyone from using a foreign travelling necklace to get in. It’s the same for leaving the palace. Only the school’s travelling necklaces will work, because they’re specially designed to bypass the protective spell.’

  ‘Well that’s good,’ Hailey said, and then her heart sank as she realised the massive hole in their plan. ‘It won’t work. Not with Hart here. She can open a portal back to land and force everyone through.’

  ‘We’ll battle that minotaur when we cross it. Right now we need to get the travelling necklaces from the teachers.’

  Hailey stared at Alec, suddenly realising how strange it was to hear him talking like this.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘It’s just you’re normally the one who wants to avoid getting involved in things. And now you want to go after PET.’

  ‘Poseidon’s palace is a piece of history.’ He traced a finger over the jewels and seashells embedded in the crystal wall. ‘I can’t stand by and let someone blow it up. Now come on, let’s go see Madam Grayson.’

  ‘You’ll have to go and see her,’ Alec told Hailey as they came to a stop in front of the girls’ dormitories in their common room. ‘The soldier won’t let me in.’

  ‘I’ll be right back.’ Hailey disappeared through the door. She shot an uneasy glance at the soldier standing a few feet from her, just in front of the door to the common room, before knocking on the first door on the left. Please let this work. Please don’t let the soldier stop me.

  The door opened a second later. Madam Grayson smiled at her. ‘Hailey, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I need to talk to you about something—private,’ she added with a sideways glance at the soldier.

  ‘Come in.’

  Hailey walked into her overseer’s dorm, which had the usual double bed, along with a mother-of-pearl chest of drawers, and a polished-coral desk, which was stacked high with what looked like students’ essays. A coral bookcase stretched across the wall opposite her bed, cluttered with giant tomes similar to the ones Alec’s dad kept hidden under the floorboards in his library. The whole place smelled like ink and leather.

  The door clicked shut behind her.

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  Hailey fiddled with her necklace and wondered if this was a good idea. Would Madam Grayson simply hand the necklaces to her just because she asked? And if she did, how was Hailey meant to sneak them out? The soldier would see her and confiscate them. Plus she’d have to get the travelling necklaces from all the other overseers too. Maybe she and Alec should have thought the plan through more.

  ‘Hailey, what’s wrong?’

  Hailey couldn’t back out now. She had to at least get Madam Grayson to agree to give her the necklaces. She and her friends could figure the rest out later. ‘Um, I came from Amathia and she said Jake is planning to blow up the palace if she doesn’t give him what he wants.’

  Madam Grayson’s eyes widened. ‘What? Why would she tell you that? She hasn’t told the teachers anything. I need to see her.’

  ‘Wait.’ Hailey darted in front of the door before Madam Grayson could rush out. ‘Alec has a plan.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘If we hide the travelling necklaces then PET can’t evacuate the school, which means they can’t blow it up.’

  Madam Grayson shook her head. ‘Hailey, I don’t want you or your friends getting involved in this. These soldiers are dangerous. If you interfere with their plans who knows what they’ll do.’

  ‘It’s the only way. I don’t care about the risk. This palace is my home. I won’t let them destroy it. Now, please, can I have the necklaces?’

  ‘Even if I did agree to your plan, I couldn’t help you. Colonel Wynton confiscated the travelling necklaces after the takeover. He didn’t want to risk us sneaking away to get help.’

  Medusa! Jake was one step ahead of them. How would she and her friends get the necklaces from him?

  Madam Grayson placed her hands on Hailey’s shoulders, her eyes serious. ‘Promise me you won’t do anything stupid, Hailey. Promise me you’ll stay out of it.’

  ‘I’d be lying if I did.’

  20

  The Plan

  A letter materialised on Hailey’s desk, dragging her out of bed. She dropped into her clamshell chair and tore the envelope open, expecting to see her mum’s handwriting.

  Hailey and Demi,

  Alec filled me in on what’s happening. This was the only way I could think to come up with a plan without PET catching us. My dad let me keep my stamps, since my mum knows what’s happening. I’ve put one into this envelope so you can send me a response.

  This is what I’m thinking…

  Hailey read through Aaron’s plan. A lot could go wrong, but she didn’t exactly have a better idea, and they were running out of time to do something. She prayed the Tyches of the world would be on their side today and wrote Aaron a letter back saying her and Demi would meet him in an hour with his requested supplies.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Demi yawned as Hailey pressed a stamp onto her letter; it vanished in an instant.

  ‘A lot. Feeling better?’

  ‘A little, I guess.’ Demi sniffed. ‘So what’s happening?’

  H
ailey explained everything.

  ‘Wow, you miss a lot when you’re sick.’ Demi yawned again and swung her legs over the edge of her bed.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’

  ‘You are so not leaving me out.’

  ‘Okay, you get dressed and then find Kallie. I’ll get the other stuff.’

  Hailey grabbed a white sock from her chest of drawers before knocking on the joining door.

  ‘Come in.’

  Hailey pushed into Kora and Tahlia’s room. Both of them were lounging on their beds, painting their nails.

  ‘Want a manicure?’ Kora held up the hot pink nail polish she’d painted her nails with.

  ‘Maybe later. I’m actually here because I need your help, Tahlia.’

  Tahlia placed her violet nail polish on her clamshell nightstand. ‘With what?’

  Hailey held up the sock. ‘Any chance you can fill this with sleep dust?’

  Hailey reconvened with Demi, Jayden, Alec, and Aaron on the second-floor staircase—the only staircase that didn’t have a soldier guarding it.

  ‘Did you get it?’ Aaron asked Hailey.

  She pulled the sock out of her pocket, tiny specks of gold sparkling like glitter all over it. ‘Yep.’

  ‘And Kallie?’ Aaron asked Demi.

  Demi shook her head. ‘Elora said she went into a parallel world an hour ago. I told her to let Kallie know what she needs to do.’

  ‘What happens if she’s not back in time?’ Alec glanced up the stairs, looking as if he was considering abandoning the entire plan and running back to the common room to hide under his bed.

  ‘We’ll battle that minotaur when we cross it,’ Aaron said. ‘Let’s get through phase one of the plan first.’ Aaron started up the stairs.

  Jayden stayed close behind him. ‘Where are we going exactly?’

  ‘The sixth floor.’ Aaron took two steps at a time. ‘It’s where the teachers who aren’t overseers stay. When my dad came in with his team, he kicked the teachers out and made it PET’s base camp—he even put a spell around it so no one can materialise in.’