‘I know,’ Hailey said. ‘But no one was telling us anything. Did you know half the school is infected?’
Madam Grayson’s eyes widened for a split second, but she quickly composed her features into an unreadable mask. ‘No. But I do know Amathia and PET have everything under control.’
‘Demi’s got a week to live,’ Hailey protested. ‘I hardly call that control.’ She stalked off.
27
Nightmares
The tunnels in Tartarus loomed in front of Hailey, amethyst, topaz, and malachite glittering in the pit’s rock walls. No. I don’t want to be here. Not again. Hailey spun around and clawed at the wall behind her, trying to climb to the tunnel forty feet above her. It was the only way out of Tartarus.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ a voice said from above, right before a figure leapt from the tunnel, their iridescent blue dress billowing out around them like a silk sheet.
Hailey whipped around as the figure hit the ground. She expected it to be an Erinys, but it was Nemertes, who had a wicked smile planted on her face.
‘Please, let me go,’ Hailey begged.
‘You would leave your friend behind?’ Nemertes clucked her tongue. ‘You’re not as heroic as you claim to be after all.’
‘Friend?’
Nemertes clicked her fingers. A second later, Demi staggered from the tunnel directly across from Hailey, blood oozing from her eyes.
‘Demi!’ Hailey sprinted to her, catching her best friend as she stumbled to her knees beside a cart brimming with sparkling jewels. Hailey glared back at Nemertes, her wicked smile still in place. ‘Save her. Please.’
Nemertes shook her head. ‘I would never save a human. Your kind’s suffering brings me great pleasure.’
‘Save her. Now! Or I’ll kill you.’
‘Do not fear, you will be joining her in the afterlife.’
Hailey lunged for Nemertes. A streak of lightning struck the ground in front of her, and she stumbled back as Zeus materialised.
‘Not so brave are we now, human.’ Zeus sneered.
A hand latched around Hailey’s ankle and she looked down at Demi, her best friend’s eyes desperate. ‘Hailey – you have – to save – everyone. Please. I – don’t – want – to die,’ she wheezed out.
Zeus’s mocking laugh echoed around the pit, bouncing off the jewel-encrusted walls. ‘She is too weak to save anyone. You are not worthy of my powers.’
Hailey stared back at Zeus, her heart hammering. ‘I’m braver than you think.’ She stepped towards him; the air around the god hummed with electricity.
An amused smile tweaked his lips. ‘All right then. Strike me with a lightning bolt if you are so brave.’
Please let this work. Hailey aimed her trembling hands at Zeus, who merely crossed his arms, bored, assuming she’d fail. I am brave. I am strong. I am not afraid.
Nothing happened.
No lightning.
Not even a spark.
Zeus shook his head. ‘You are pathetic.’ He reached a hand towards her; at the same time, someone shook her shoulder.
Hailey’s eyes flew open as a scream built in her throat. She strangled it when she recognised Aaron’s face in the gym’s dim light.
‘Are you okay? You were tossing and turning.’
Hailey blinked a few times, clearing away the clinging threads of sleep before wriggling into a sitting position. ‘I had a bad dream.’ It’d been so long since she’d had one of her nightmares, or even thought about the Underworld. She supposed being chased by a cyclops, being attacked by a sea-monster, and watching her best friend dying trumped her fears about being back in Tartarus.
Hailey glanced around the dimly-lit gym. Everyone was asleep—even Madam Grayson was snoozing in front of the doors, having abandoned her chair for a quick nap.
Aaron shifted on the ground to cross his legs, being careful not to wake Jayden, Alec, Tahlia, or Hope. ‘We never really talked about what you said to me in the stable that day— about the potion Madam Norwood gave us after the Underworld not working on you.’
Hailey tensed. ‘Forget I said anything about that.’ She’d been okay with talking to Aaron about it when she’d thought he’d been going through the same thing as her, but she didn’t want him pitying her and making her feel even weaker than she already did. She wished she’d never told him. He probably thought she was a coward.
‘It’s okay to be scared you know.’
‘I’m not scared,’ Hailey snapped loud enough to stir Hope. ‘I’m not,’ she repeated quietly once Hope fell still again.
‘Okay.’ Aaron ran a hand through his ruffled hair. ‘But, you should know I wasn’t lying when I said I was scared. Sure, I don’t feel terrified when I think about what happened to us in the Underworld. But I do when I think about the fact that the gods are still alive. That there’s a chance the nereids will find a way to bring them back. I guess that’s one of the reasons I didn’t fight my dad as hard as I could have over him coming here. I wanted the duty of watching the nereids to go to someone else. I thought that once he was in the palace, the nereids wouldn’t be able to do anything.’ He took a breath. ‘I guess I was wrong.’
‘We both were.’
Hailey had assumed the exact same thing: that everything would be fine as long as PET was watching the nereids. But somehow they’d worked out a way to put another one of their evil plans in action.
Hailey fiddled with her heart pendant. ‘Aaron, what happens if they win this time? If we or your dad don’t stop them?’
‘We will.’ His voice was indubitable. ‘We won’t let them win. The gods are never coming back. My dad will get the cure out of them, and when he does, he’ll have them shipped off to some deep underground prison where they’ll never scheme again.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘What do you mean there’s no extra credit?’ Alec mumbled, rolling over.
Trust Alec’s nightmares to be about less school work.
‘So are you sure you don’t want to talk about anything?’ Aaron asked. ‘About the Underworld?’
Hailey pulled her blanket over her legs. ‘No. I’d rather forget the Underworld. And if you’re right about your dad locking up the nereids and throwing away the key, then my fears about facing the gods will never come true.’ Please Tyches, let that be the case. Let the threat of the gods returning be gone.
‘Okay.’ Aaron shuffled back to lie down. ‘And, Hailey. The potion not working on you doesn’t make you weak. If anything, it makes you stronger. Because you still remember every terrifying thing about what we went through, yet you’re not curled into a ball hiding in a dark room. You’re still fighting the nereids—not to mention monsters. And that’s what makes you ten times braver than all of us.’
***
Hailey stood in the back of the grounds with the hundred and something other students from quarantine. Madam Grayson had somehow convinced Jake to let them outside for Powers practice.
‘Okay, everyone pair up,’ Madam Grayson instructed, ‘and keep working on your powers from wherever you were with Madam Norwood.’
Hailey sighed. Demi was usually her partner.
‘I can pair with you,’ Jayden offered. ‘Alec and Aaron are joining together.’
Hailey was about to accept when she saw Hope standing behind him, hugging her arms and staring at the ground, where fish darted in and out of coral reefs beneath the diamond floor. ‘Actually, why don’t you find Tahlia. I’ll go with Hope.’
‘Good idea.’
‘Want to be a pair?’ Hailey asked Hope.
Hope’s face brightened with relief. ‘Yes. Although you should probably just practise your powers—unless you want to choke me or something?’
‘Not really,’ Hailey said. ‘But you might get a chance to use your powers. I’ve been trying to use wind to lift people up, and I have a tendency to drop them. At least if you break your neck, you’ll come back.’
Hope smiled, but there was a sadness to i
t. ‘Yeah, I will. Where do you want me?’
‘Let’s go over here.’ Hailey led her about ten yards away from the other pairs, not wanting to risk catching someone else in the wind. ‘Stay still.’ Hailey aimed her hands at Hope, warmth flowing into her fingertips.
The pearls on the tree beside Hope clinked together, and a few scattered to the diamond floor, as a gale swept into the grounds and lifted Hope into the sky. Hailey’s arms dropped a couple of inches, feeling like they had ten-pound weights attached to them. Why is this so hard? She could easily create a tornado to sweep someone away, but for some reason controlling the wind to hold someone was a thousand times more difficult.
Hailey’s hands trembled. ‘It’s too much.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘I can’t hold it.’
‘Yes, you can,’ Hope called back, the wind carrying her voice around the grounds.
Hailey’s arms dropped a little more. ‘No. I’m not strong enough.’ She clenched her teeth tighter, fighting the heaviness in her arms.
‘That night when I first came here, you told me the sky calmed you. Why? Why does it make you feel calm?’
‘Because I’m a Zeus.’
‘No. It’s more than that. Think.’
Think? How was she supposed to think when she was concentrating on not letting Hope plummet to the ground?
‘Hailey, think,’ Hope repeated.
Pain bloomed in Hailey’s head and she bit down harder. Why does the sky make me feel calm? The answer came instantly. ‘Because it’s mine. The sky is like another world, and I’m the only one who can control it. No one else has the power to touch it but me.’
‘Yes,’ Hope said. ‘You control it. It’s yours. Now think about that. You control the sky, not the other way around. This wind is yours to command.’
I have the power, Hailey thought, feeling like a bit of an idiot. But it helped. The trembling in her hands eased as the wind stopped fighting against her. I am in control. I am queen of the sky, and you’ll listen to me, wind. The warmth intensified in Hailey’s fingertips, and the strain of containing the gale ebbed, along with her headache, as her body flowed with power. She raised Hope higher.
‘Yes!’ Hope cheered. ‘You did it.’
‘Well done, Hailey.’
Hailey whirled around; she’d been so absorbed in her powers she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone in the grounds. Madam Grayson’s eyes widened behind her, and Hailey whipped back as Hope shrieked. She threw her hands up, summoning the gust of wind back to catch Hope, a mere foot from the ground.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Hailey said, dropping her arms, killing the wind.
‘I’m fine,’ Hope assured her. Cough.
Bile rose in Hailey’s throat. No, not Hope too.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ Madam Grayson reached to touch Hope’s forehead.
Hope leapt away. ‘Stay back. I’ve got the plague.’ She coughed again, and then raised a hand to her temple. ‘My head is throbbing.’
‘Are you sure it’s not an ordinary headache and a dry throat?’ Hailey didn’t want to lose another friend to Poseidon’s Plague.
Hope nodded slowly. ‘It’s the disease. I’ll go to the fourth floor.’ She gave Hailey a sad smile before drifting towards the palace.
Hailey watched her go, her throat burning as she imagined Hope looking as sick as Demi, with blood pouring from her eyes.
Madam Grayson shifted beside her. ‘Amathia and Madam Norwood will find a cure.’
I’ll make sure of it, Hailey thought, promising herself that she’d force the nereids to reveal everything, no matter how dangerous confronting them was.
28
Snow Party
Hailey pressed her wet palms gently against the spinning lump of clay on her pottery wheel, trying to concentrate on turning it into a vase, and not on everything else in her life. But it was near impossible. A day had passed since Hope had left for the fourth floor. A day of uncontrollable unease and anxiety, where another five students had developed Poseidon’s Plague and been marched from quarantine.
There was still no word from Amathia or PET, and the waiting was killing her. Hailey needed to hear that the nereids had spilled their guts and Amathia had found a cure. But there was nothing. And time was running out.
Clay oozed between Hailey’s fingers, and she threw her hands in the air, giving up on the stupid vase that had turned into a giant lump of slimy goo. This is stupid. How can Madam Grayson expect us to sit in the gym day after day continuing our classes as if nothing is wrong when people are dying?
‘You okay?’ Jayden was sitting at the pottery wheel beside her, his clay fanning out into a bowl.
Hailey rubbed her dirty hands on her paint-stained apron. ‘No. I want to go after the nereids.’ She kept her voice low so no other students would hear.
‘It’s only been two days.’ Jayden continued moulding his clay. ‘We agreed on four.’
‘What if Demi doesn’t last that long?’
‘She’s tough,’ Aaron said from behind her. He was painting at an easel beside Alec. Alec’s painting looked exactly like Poseidon’s palace, complete with a sea sky of iridescent fish, whereas Aaron’s looked as if he’d thrown a bunch of paint on a canvas and smooshed it together.
‘I hope you’re right,’ she told him.
‘Come on, we need to keep working on Creative Arts.’ Alec tapped his paintbrush against the palette of paint colours in his hand.
‘I can’t sit here pretending everything is okay,’ Hailey retorted, and it appeared she wasn’t alone. A glance around the gym showed her the lack of enthusiasm among the other hundred-plus quarantined students. Half of them were meant to be studying. But most of their textbooks lay abandoned in their laps, while the students stared at the ceiling or drummed their fingers against the soft ground, looking ready to die of boredom—or burst into tears.
Madam Grayson seemed to sense everyone’s dying spirit because she popped up from her chair by the doors and said, ‘I think it’s time for some fun. Amber, Cody, Lachlan, and Jess, can you please come over here.’
Four students separated themselves from the pack and ambled towards Madam Grayson, who rattled off instructions.
‘What do you think she means by fun?’ Alec asked, sounding a little nervous, as though he thought Madam Grayson’s interpretation of “fun” might include running laps around the gym.
‘Who cares?’ Hailey yanked her apron over her head and dumped it on the ground. ‘Nothing will make me forget about what’s happening out there.’ She nudged her chin towards the doors.
‘Okay everyone,’ Madam Grayson called out as the four students she’d summoned fanned out around her. ‘We’re going to have a little snow party.’
Amber—the girl with extra-long legs who Riley had a crush on—stretched her hands out, along with a boy from fifth year. Snow flurried from their fingers, spraying across the gym like a snow machine.
Students rescued their blankets from the ground before the snow could bury them, securing them around their necks like capes. Hailey didn’t bother moving from her pottery wheel stool, but Jayden was nice enough to drape her blanket over her shoulders. Snowflakes kissed her cheeks and stuck in her hair as she watched the gym transform into a winter wonderland.
‘Jess here has mittens and beanies,’ Madam Grayson said, once the snow was almost to her knees.
Jess tossed her pigtails behind her shoulders and touched the white ground. A big pile of multi-coloured mittens materialised. She trailed her hands a few inches away and a mountain of beanies appeared. Students bounded towards the conjured piles, shoving their hands into mismatched mittens and yanking beanies over their ears.
‘I’ll get us some,’ Jayden volunteered, joining the throng of students.
Jess pushed her way into the middle of the gym with a curly-haired boy. She pressed her fingers into the snow again, and this time a metal fire pit appeared. A fireball glowed in the curly-haired boy’s hand, and he tossed it into the pit, smiling proudly
when flames shot up.
‘Here.’ Jayden dumped a pile of mittens and beanies in the snow.
Aaron and Alec threw them on, but Hailey stayed exactly where she was, ignoring the cold seeping into her clothes.
‘Hailey, here.’ Jayden held out a purple and a pink mitten to her. ‘Look, you can stay on the stool, but freezing is a stupid idea. You could get sick, and then you’ll be useless if we have to go after the nereids.’
Hailey huffed, her breath puffing out white, and took the mittens, shoving her hands into the scratchy wool before tugging a red beanie over her head.
‘Come on, Hailey. I know things are tough at the moment but sitting around moping won’t change anything,’ Jayden said. ‘You might as well have some fun.’
Hailey crossed her arms. ‘I’m fine here.’
Hailey watched the laughing students with growing annoyance. How can they even be thinking about having fun? Poseidon’s Plague had taken over the school, and it was only a matter of time before it infected everyone in this gym, and there was still no cure. Plus hundreds of students were busy fighting for their lives at this very moment. It seemed wrong for everyone to be laughing. But they were.
Girls giggled as they threw themselves down in the snow, swishing their arms and legs up and down, carving out snow angels. Snowballs zoomed over the top of them as other students formed teams and began an epic snowball fight—including Jayden, Aaron, and Tahlia. Alec and a few other students reclined around the fire pit, while Madam Grayson conjured marshmallow skewers on a gold plate, handing them out for the students to roast.
If Madam Grayson’s there, that means… Hailey’s eyes flew to the unguarded gym doors. She could easily slip out with everyone so distracted. All she’d need was some dust from Tahlia to throw at the soldier outside. Or she could kick the soldier in the shins and sprint away before Madam Grayson came running out to see what was happening.
If Hailey ran all the way to the nereids’ room, then there was no way anyone would reach her in time to stop her from confronting them… But then there was Jake. How would she get past him? I’ll battle that minotaur when I cross it.
Poseidon's Academy Box Set Page 55
