“Now feel the energy around you,” Mona said softly. “Feel it floating through the air and washing over your body. Then reach out and try to touch it.”
Goose bumps broke out across my skin, brushing against my clothes.
Jackson marched forward, his gaze on the dagger in his hand.
I felt the air around me tingle, tickling my skin. And then a blast of electricity slammed into my chest. I gasped. My pulse skyrocketed. The hairs on my arms stood tall. Adrenaline rushed through my veins.
Jackson’s shoulders tensed. His gaze shot up and instantly found mine. I swallowed roughly but couldn’t peel my eyes off of him. For a moment, he just stared back. With every fleeting second he looked at me, my body began to unravel. I had no idea what face I was making, but all of a sudden he gave me a death glare to rival all death glares. His lip curled up in a snarl. He shook his head and looked away, then practically sprinted away from me.
I squeezed my eyes shut. It’d been almost twenty-four hours since the tattoo parlor incident—as I was now calling it—and Jackson hadn’t spoken to me all day. Which, considering we had four hours of Swords training together, was definitely intentional. He’d gone around to every other First Year and gave them pointers. He’d been kind and patient with them.
Not that I’d been watching. Because I hadn’t. At all. Nope.
“This same energy that you’re feeling all around lies deep down inside you. You just have to pull it out.” Mona ’s voice grew weaker and then stronger, like she was walking around the group. “I want you to put your hands in your laps, palms up. Picture your magic as a river coursing through your veins. Now push, force that river into your arms and out through your hands. Push it into your hands. Okay, open your eyes.”
I opened my eyes and frowned. Little murmurs and gasps erupted around the group. I glanced over my shoulder, and my jaw dropped. Each of my classmates had little swirling balls of smoke in their palms. It was a light gray but mostly translucent. They lifted their hands and played with their magic.
How did they do that so easily? I looked down at my empty hands, and my heart sank. I’d felt that river and the energy floating around, but I just couldn’t seem to get it to come out of me.
“Bettina?” Mona walked around then dropped to her knees in front of me. “Go ahead. Try again.”
You hear that? Don’t quit. Try again. I smashed my lips together and squeezed my eyes shut. Just like last time, I dug inside of me and felt the energy. It was there, buzzing and pulsing with life of its own.
“That’s it. You’ve got it. I can feel it,” Mona said softly. “Now push it out.”
I tried but nothing was happening. The energy just bounced around like a trapped bird in a window. I groaned.
“You’ve done this before, Bettina,” Mona whispered. “With the Ouija board and the demon in the bathroom. You’ve pushed your magic before. Try to visualize what it looked like then.”
I bit my bottom lip and forced myself to think back to that bathroom, ignoring the alarm going off that my professors clearly knew more about us than I realized. Focus, Bettina. What did I see? She’d said I used magic, but I hadn’t. I’d tripped and screamed. The mirror shattered, and the toilets and sinks exploded. I’d used my backpack as a shield— Oh. I saw it now, the moment when I held the bag up and a cloud of pink mist swirled around it.
My mind filled with that pink smoke until it was all I saw. I pictured it coiling down my arms to my fingers. I pushed from deep down in my gut.
“LOOK!”
I gasped and opened my eyes. It wasn’t much, but there in my palms was a cloud of pale pink mist. It looked like pink chalk had exploded. My heart fluttered. I had magic. It wasn’t a lot, or anything worth bragging about, but it was there. I grinned then looked up into my professor’s purplish brown eyes.
She gave me a small smile. “Good job. Your magic feels quite recessed, but it’s there. We’ll work on getting it out until it’s easy, okay?”
I nodded. There was concern in her eyes that I didn’t like. I was the only person in the class who couldn’t get my magic to come out, aside from a pathetic little cloud. But right now, the only thing that mattered was that I had magic.
Chapter Eighteen
BETTINA
Erin’s long wooden practice sword swung past my face, and then my back slammed into the mat. Pain shot down my spine and into my legs. How did I get on the ground again?
“Again,” Jackson barked.
I rolled over and pushed myself back up to my feet. My chest was tight. Oxygen burned a path down my throat with every breath. Every bone in my body screamed in protest. But I wasn’t about to show weakness in front of Jackson. I was doing enough of that just by sucking at fighting.
Genevieve bent over and picked up my wooden practice sword from where it had landed a minute ago, then she tossed it straight at my head. I tried to catch it, but it hit my forearm and crashed back to the mat. Genevieve rolled her hazel eyes. The silver earrings stacked all the way up her ears somehow made her look more intimidating.
I bent over and picked my weapon up, then got into the fighting stance Jackson had taught me on day one. The wooden practice sword was heavy, too heavy. My right shoulder was tight and losing mobility. My right arm was practically numb. But I had to keep going. I might not have been the best, but I wasn’t a quitter. I adjusted my grip on the wooden hilt and rolled to the balls of my feet. I nodded.
“Stay on your feet this time, Bettina,” Jackson said with a growl.
What a shocking idea, Lancelot.
I focused on my opponent, Erin. She was the picture of ease. Even her long red hair hung around her shoulders without hindering her in any way. With a sassy arch to her eyebrow, she prowled toward me, tossing her sword back and forth between hands.
Erin leapt forward without warning, swinging her wooden sword over her shoulder and down toward my throat. I used both hands to swing my weapon up and block her strike. But it didn’t slow her down a bit. She attacked me furiously and without mercy. Wood slammed against wood in rapid succession. I was just feeling proud of myself for staying up so long when she chopped her weapon in a sharp arc, hitting my wrist and making my hand go numb. My wooden piece crashed to the ground. I shook my hand out just as something hard slammed into the back of my calves…and then my feet were swept out from under me.
I had a brief second to prepare myself emotionally for yet another fall as my Converses came into view. When my shoulders hit the mat, my body curved and sent my feet flying over my head as I rolled. I landed facedown…on my stomach.
“Again,” Jackson snapped. He narrowed his eyes at me. “If you can’t beat someone your own size, how do you expect to beat a demon?”
A handful of sarcastic responses rolled over my tongue, but I kept silent.
It was Friday afternoon. I just had to survive another few minutes, and then I’d have two days when I’d be free of moving. Literally. I was planning on becoming a potato. Just a bit longer.
Erin flipped her red hair over her shoulder and sashayed her way over to Jackson. She was really putting on a show for him. When she got there, she batted her eyelashes then looked over to me and glared. “I can’t have homicide on my record. One of you take this one.”
Jackson sighed and shook his head. He turned toward Gen. “You’re up.”
Gen sauntered over to me then pressed her big, heavy boot into my hip and rolled me onto my back. She stood over me, her feet on either side of my body, and pointed her wooden sword at the base of my throat. She held it there for a second then rolled her eyes. Her top lip curled back in disgust. “No one is impressed by this pathetic excuse for a spar. Tap. Out.”
I groaned. Tapping out was for quitters. What? What am I saying? Don’t be dumb, Bettina. I was exhausted and would probably need the entire weekend to heal all the soreness. But staying in this state and trying to fight would get me injured. For real. I cursed and tapped my open palm on the floor three times.
&n
bsp; “Finally, she grew a brain,” Genevieve all but growled. She stepped off of me then sauntered away. “Come on, Erin. Let’s have a real practice over here.”
“Maybe you should visit the crystal ball on your way to the shower,” Erin snapped, then spun and followed Genevieve out of my line of sight.
Ouch. She was right, yet it still hurt. I needed to ask that ball what happened, but I’d also promised Timothy I wouldn’t yet. I rolled back onto my stomach then slowly, very slowly, got up on my hands and knees. Jackson made a sound, so I looked up and found him glaring at me like I’d just murdered his best friend.
He shook his head, and his golden bronze hair swayed. “If this had been a real battle, you would’ve killed the entire team. You will get better, even if I have to drill it into you seven days a week on these mats without a break.” Without another word, he turned and stormed away.
Asshole. I had no idea why I thought he was so hot. He was awful and mean. But over my dead body was he going to win one over on me. I refused to be the weakest link. It was time I took matters into my own hands. I was going to the library to research everything and anything about martial arts. If no one was going to teach me, then I’d teach my damn self.
Chapter Nineteen
BETTINA
“Lennox, I’m not going to the lake.”
“Come on, Tina! Everyone else is going.”
Tina. I tried to hide my smirk at her nickname for me. It was cute. But then her words registered. I rolled my eyes. “Everyone else isn’t failing miserably at school. I need to study. I need to—”
Lennox closed my laptop, but kept her fingers on the cover. “Tina, you’ve been a witch for a week. You spent the last two days studying. There’s a scary real chance the apocalypse starts on Samhain, and then all this studying won’t matter. So give yourself a damn break.”
I stared up at her. “You don’t know what this is like for me—”
“You’re right. I have no idea what it’s like to find out I’m a witch and then a mere few hours later be enrolled in the academy for witches. Or what it’s like to be sorted into a Suit that isn’t coming naturally, or what it’s like to not be able to conjure magic. You’re right.” Lennox sat down on my bed across from me. “I can’t imagine how overwhelming this is for you, but stressing yourself out is not going to help you.”
I pursed my lips, prepared to fight back, but I struggled to find the words.
“Tina, you will get better. But in the meantime, you need to just breathe.” She stood and walked to her dresser, then glanced over her shoulder. “Besides, you’ve got a crush on a boy and it seriously needs to go. What better way to do that than to meet all the other guys on campus?”
I opened my mouth then shut it. She had a point. There was no reason to deny I had a crush on Jackson Lancaster, but she’d now seen firsthand how much he hated me. I had to get over him; it was a self-preservation kind of thing. “I’m covered in bruises—"
“I’ve got a healing potion that’ll remove them.” She dangled a little white bikini from her fingers. She turned to me with a grin and tossed it into my lap. “I got you, Tina. Now get dressed.”
Thirty short minutes later, we were pulling into a parking spot. I couldn’t see the lake, but I heard music blaring, people yelling, and I was pretty certain I smelled BBQ. I wasn’t ready to admit it out loud, but I was glad Lennox forced me out. And not just to try and get over Jackson, though just the idea of that lifted some of the stress inside of me.
I climbed out of the car and inspected myself in her car’s reflection. My blonde hair was wild from the car ride over, thanks to her T-top not having windows or a roof. I was hoping the crazy waves had that beachy vibe, and not the I-just-rolled-out-of-bed vibe. My eyes looked tired, and my skin was all flushed.
My borrowed bikini top was a white lace halter and had a thick band around the bottom, so it made my chest look bigger than I’d ever seen it. I wasn’t flat chested, but I was far from top heavy. Surprisingly, this top gave me a little more confidence than I was used to. Or maybe that was the prospect of getting over Jackson. I gave myself a last look-over in the reflection. I had on my jean shorts, but Lennox hadn’t let me put a real shirt on. She’d said my bikini top looked hot, and it would be a great way to meet new guys. It was so not me, but at this point, I was desperate.
Lennox walked around the car then stopped in front of me. She held out her iPhone. “Use my phone. Call your bestie. Cheer yourself up. Then join me. I’ll be straight down the path waiting for you.” She winked and walked away.
I only hesitated a few seconds before I dialed Tegan’s number. It rang and rang and rang before her voice mail picked up. My heart sank. I hadn’t gotten a chance to call her before my cell phone became inoperable, so if she’d called, I had no idea. I’d thought about borrowing a phone to call her, but I wasn’t sure what I would even say. They’d made it abundantly clear to us that telling humans was strictly forbidden. And I was a terrible liar, especially to Tegan. She’d see through it in an instant.
Still, when the voice mail beeped for me to leave a message, I found myself talking anyway. “Hey, Tegan. It’s Bettina. Long story, but my phone isn’t working right now. This is my friend’s phone, so when you get this, can you call me back here? Um…okay. Talk to you later.”
I sighed and hung up the phone. It was probably for the best, but it still sucked. Now that I had a working phone in my hand, I really wanted to talk to someone from my life, from before. My parents would’ve loved to hear from me, but I had nothing nice to say to them. If they hadn’t kept all of this from me, then maybe I’d have been more like Lennox—powerful and totally comfortable in my own skin. My chest grew tight and burned like I’d eaten too fast. Just thinking about them gave me anxiety.
And then a face popped into my head and I smiled. I dialed the phone number and waited.
It rang three times before a soft, familiar voice answered. “Hello?”
I smiled. “Hi, Benny.”
“BETTINA!” he screamed. “How are you? I miss you.”
My heart swelled with more than one emotion. Tegan’s little brother had always felt like my little brother, too. I missed him almost as much as I missed my best friend. “I miss you, too.”
“So, you want to talk to her, don’t you?” he asked suddenly, his voice serious.
“I would love to.”
He sighed. “She’s not here. My mom took her and my other sister away for a girls’ weekend. So they could get to know each other. It’s probably going horribly. Tegan isn’t into girly things.”
Other sister. Sometimes I forgot that Tegan had a stepsister she’d never met.
I chuckled. Tegan wasn’t into stereotypical girly things. “I adore you. Convince your dad to let me move down there with you, will ya’?”
“I’ll work on it!” He laughed and then I heard someone yell his name in the background. “Oh, my uncle is here. I gotta go. But I’ll talk to my dad, okay? And I’ll tell Tegan you called as soon as she gets back.”
“Thanks. Behave yourself, mister.” With a smile, I hung up. Weird thing was, I no longer wanted to move down there with her. I may have been sucking at being a witch, but I was a witch. I wanted to stay here, but I just wanted to be better.
“Well, that didn’t take long.”
I gasped and spun around to find Jackson Lancaster standing a few feet behind me. My pulse did that stupid flutter thing it did every time he was around. I tucked my hair behind my ears only to see my fingers trembling. “What didn’t take long?”
He narrowed those gorgeous aquamarine eyes. The longer strands of his golden bronze hair ruffled in the breeze. In the midday sun, his skin was lusciously tanned. “Four days and you’re begging to leave already? Guess I was right. You’re a quitter. You just want to go back to your princess life where everything goes your way.”
I felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice cold water on me. “You need to mind your own business.”
“My business is to turn a Barbie doll into a soldier,” he said with that infuriatingly sexy accent that did things to my insides. “All I’ve got so far is wasted time and a dented mat.”
“You’re a real piece of work, Lancelot,” I snapped and took a step toward him. “You may have the entire school fooled into thinking you’re some nice guy, but I see you. You think you know me? You think you can eavesdrop on my private conversation and then judge me for it? You think you can judge me based on my looks? Guess I was right. You’re an asshole.”
He growled and stepped forward. His cheeks were flushed pink. The air pulsed around him. “You know nothing about me.”
“Right back at you, Lancelot.” I stepped forward, my hands in fists at my sides. “You better hurry. I think that high horse you rode in on is getting away.”
“Only a true princess would recognize a high horse.” His lips curved up into a sinister smirk. “Careful. I think your tiara is slipping.”
Without another word, he spun and stormed away…leaving me gasping for air. I stumbled back and braced myself on Lennox’s car. He thought I was a waste of time. He thought I was useless, a damsel in distress. He thought I’d never become a soldier. Well, challenge accepted.
Chapter Twenty
BETTINA
The second I walked into First Year class, I knew I was in trouble. Standing right behind our professor, Mona, were the four Suit Majors.
Cheryl Cole, the Pentacle Major, looked like a blonde Ariana Grande with glasses: short, petite, and rocking a high ponytail. Next to her was Marcia Landry, Cups Major. This girl was definitely the type to wear a shirt saying Free Hugs. Beside her, but leaning against the teacher’s desk, was Harlan Scott, Wand Major. His dirty blond hair was long and shaggy, but not in a gross way. More like he spent every day on the beach.
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