by Lan Chan
I was stunned. “You’re joking.”
I leaned forward like being closer to her might reveal something to explain this lunacy. “Doesn’t their very nature suggest that they have to protect us?” I asked.
Mani’s shoulders dropped. “That was when they could do it with impunity. If they’re going to be outed, they say that humans can learn to fight their own battles.”
I snorted. “That’s really rich. So they roll in here and bring a war and we just have to clean it up?”
“They didn’t bring the war,” Nora reminded me. “The seraphim did.”
“And what do Michael and Raphael think about this?” I already knew the answer. “They can’t just get away with doing whatever they want because of free will!”
Nora smiled at me. That was exactly it. And there wasn’t a thing the seraphim could do.
Azrael! I screamed in my head. Do you know about this madness?
I heard an ethereal sigh of such weighted resignation it made my heart clench. We can’t stop them from making mistakes.
You can bloody well say something to make them stop.
They’re frightened, Azrael told me. This is new and uncharted territory. Some of them haven’t seen true hardship in a long time.
Boo bloody hoo. Just then something occurred to me. Is this why they’re so hell bent on continuing Raphael’s line? They’re scared that they might die in a conflict?
If the seraphim were subject to mundane human gestures, I imagined Azrael would have shrugged at this point. There are many reasons. I swear I saw an image of myself during that first trial against the manticore. I saw how I would have looked to the Nephilim Council. I was a human who had so much power it was leaking out of me without any control.
Even though I had contorted myself into a human pretzel to assure them I wasn’t going to kill them, they just wouldn’t get it through their thick heads.
And now they were going to make humans suffer for it.
“I won’t have to do anything but sit there and watch, right?”
Declan smiled. “Right.”
“Fine. I’ll go and try not to look broken.”
That was all well and good, but I felt pretty broken that evening as I sat by the fire with Basil. I was still obsessed with trying to find a way to contain Lucifer if we could kill him. The citizens of Ravenhall were not scholarly. In fact, I had walked into what I had thought was a bookshop in the main stretch in town and was promptly assaulted with all manner of smut.
It wasn’t even good smut. Just some crazy guy’s very poor drawings of demons in odd poses. The art was terrible. Basil almost had a seizure when he found me in there pointing out how they could improve their drawings.
The library at Ravenhall was not well-stocked. When I asked Eugenia about it, she scrunched up her nose. “We do magic in here.” She pointed to her heart. “Not in here.” She pointed to her head. I imagined Jacqueline would have a word or two to say about that.
I groaned as I read to another dead end.
“I give up,” I said. Casting the stupid book aside, I went to grab the next one in the pile. Basil shoved a Western romance in my face.
“If you’re going to try and distract yourself, you may as well do it with something worthwhile.”
“I’m not trying to distract myself.”
“Right.”
I eyed the cover of his book. Hmmm. Insane ramblings of an unqualified scholar or sexy alpha cowboy? There wasn’t really all that much competition. But after I took the book from Basil, I set it aside. I’d tried to read a bit since coming to Ravenhall but anything with even the smallest dab of romance had my mood nosediving.
Instead, I grabbed my sketchbook and began the millionth drawing of a circle. “Lex,” Basil said after a while. “You’re not going to forget how to do it.”
I was just circling it on the page over and over again. It was a wonder I hadn’t worn the damn thing out. I threw the pen at the sketchbook. “I hate this!”
Nanna came in with a cup of tea. I wanted to scream that if I saw one more cup of calming tea, I was going to strip naked and run blindly into the fens. Instead, I sat with my back to the fire and did my meditation.
“You lived seventeen years without magic,” Nanna reminded me.
I dropped my head into my hands. “I know,” I said. “But I can feel it in there. I just can’t reach it. The worst part is that it doesn’t feel right anymore. It’s all aqua and warped and argh....”
“Aqua?” Basil asked.
I scrunched my hair in my hands. Then I scrubbed my face. “I think I should probably go and blow off some steam.”
That equated to hours of standing in the backyard going over drills that Giselle had taught me. The repetitive motions reminded me of all the times I had trained inside the Grove. Thinking about the Academy had all the pent-up emotion in me draining. I sank to the ground and bowed my head. There was so much I missed about the school. I spoke to everybody over the MirrorNet, but it wasn’t the same.
Tomorrow I would see them all for the first time in over a month. How much would their lives have changed while I was exiled in this place?
“Hey,” Basil said. He sat down beside me with his legs crossed. I couldn’t help grinning at how ridiculous he looked. It was like all those years as a doll had imprinted on him. The thought hit me like a freight train. My great-grandmother had taken away his powers and sealed him in the body of a doll. He’d endured years of this kind of torture without complaining. And here I was whining yet again.
“I’m sorry,” I said. He petted my cheek.
“I knew what I was getting into. You’ve had this forced on you.”
“Still. That doesn’t make it okay.” I drew a circle in the dirt with my hand. There was no corresponding spark of blue. Something inside me shrivelled.
“You know your blood magic still works, don’t you?” he said.
I nodded. I’d read about it since we got here. A seal had no effect on blood magic because it was everywhere inside me. The problem was that as soon as it left my body, that’s when the connection eroded. Without the strength of my bone and hedge magic, the blood kind of just fizzled. Fat lot of good that did.
“It’s easier to control if it’s inside a body,” Basil offered.
“Right,” I said. “Next time I fight a demon, I’ll make it drink my blood first.”
He grimaced at me. We spent the rest of the night sitting outside like we’d done my first semester at Bloodline when I couldn’t sleep.
42
Even though I hardly slept, I’d gotten used to being sleep-deprived. It didn’t help my nerves when Eugenia gathered us up at the portal beside the Great Hall. Giselle and Matilda were both present.
Nanna elected to stay home. “Strangely enough,” she said, “I’m not that interested in watching supernatural creatures beat each other to a pulp.” I had to agree with her at this point. Basil, the gossip, wouldn’t have stayed home on his life.
“I shouldn’t bother to ask who your money is on, should I?” He suddenly thought something up in the tree branches was really interesting.
“What’s that, Eugenia?” He walked off in the direction of the portal.
Bloody bastard. He had bet on Kai for sure.
I took a huge breath as the portal opened. Seal or not, I was gripping Morning Star when I stepped through. There was no flash of anything. Phew.
The sound of the crowd on the other side of the portal was almost too much after the backwater rowdiness of Ravenhall.
We stood at the end of a long line of spectators.
“What the hell is this?” I gritted out. I’d seen some of the crowds from previous games, but they had never been this packed. The stadium had been amplified by a factor or ten.
“The Academies need additional funding to rebuild some of the damage to their grounds,” Basil told me. He stood in front of me with Matilda on my left and Giselle on my right. They blocked my field of vision and obscured me from
anybody else at the same time.
“Oh. I didn’t even know the Academies had to fund raise.”
“Did you think our money just grows on trees?” Eugenia asked.
I thought about it for a second. “Well…yeah.”
“Currency is currency in any dimension.”
I snorted. “What about in those utopian graphic novels I saw in the bookstore?” Eugenia actually poked her tongue out at me. Basil cleared his throat. She grinned. He’d given her such an ear bashing after he’d dragged me out of the store. She was the one who’d taken me there in the first place as part of a “getting over Malachi Pendragon” day.
My palms turned sweaty. I’d managed to avoid as much talk and all pressure to see him for over a month. The pain in my chest when I thought of him was still very much an open wound. While I was away, I could pretend I was okay. The thought of seeing him today had me feeling untethered.
“We’re never going to get to our seats at this rate,” I said. “Where are we sitting again?”
Matilda pointed in the opposite direction to where most of the spectators were being directed. The stadium was set up much like the amphitheatre that intersected the Academies. There would only be spectators here for the opening ceremony and the third day when the games turned into a gladiator bout. The rest of the time, it was much better viewing from the comfort on your own mirror. Or so I had been told by Basil.
The crowd in front of us finally dispersed. I came face to face with a stadium bursting at the seams with supernaturals. The portals opened up at the top of the stadium. It meant we would have to walk all the way down the steps in order to get to our seats.
We were here in our capacity as guests of the Human League. Since the Supernatural Council was still trying to schmooze the League, our seats were almost front row.
I considered hiding behind Basil until we got there. When he started moving forward, I straightened my back and strode behind him.
I had been stared at a lot over the past couple of years, but the sheer volume of people made me nervous. Somebody screamed my name. I recognised the sound of Cassie’s voice and turned to find her, Charles, and Luther waving at me from their seats. All of the Academy students had been given permission to attend. It was one of the perks of attending the Academies in the first place.
I waved back but kept going. My goal was to make it to my seat without an incident. I was sticking to it come hell or high water.
The lesson here was never to make your plans known to the universe. Especially if it was prone to kicking you in the face when you were down.
Basil stopped abruptly. I walked right into the back of him. I lost my footing because I was halfway in between taking a step. Matilda reached out to steady me. I swayed to the side. For the first time I could see something in front of me besides Basil’s back. So what if it happened to be Kai standing directly in our way? So what if Chanelle stood next to him? So what if his arm was looped around her shoulders?
They were both dressed for physical activity. Kai was in Bloodline’s navy-blue sweatpants and burgundy T-shirt with the logo embossed on the shoulder. Chanelle wore a pair of khaki cargo pants. Her tan blouse had a V neck that showed off an emerald necklace. It wasn’t Kai’s mother’s necklace, but it might as well have been.
Kai’s gaze brushed over me but didn’t linger. I felt like I’d just been slapped. It wasn’t the end of the world, I told myself. My heart wasn’t suddenly feeling like someone had ripped it out of my chest. My vision was not clouded in a red haze.
Matilda let go of my arm. I was suddenly as well-balanced as a trapeze artist. I would thank her later for not treating me like a lovesick puppy. Because right now if anyone so much as breathed comforting words in my direction, I would have a nervous breakdown.
I pressed the tip of my boots against the heel of Basil’s shoes. He started walking again. I followed leisurely behind. Just as we were about to sail past them, I caught sight of the person Kai was speaking to.
Evan sat in the aisle seat. His complexion was so pale I swear I could almost see through him. Though all his physical injuries looked to have healed, he seemed fragile. My pulse raced in my ear. He caught me staring and smiled at me.
My feet stopped moving. Though Giselle was partly in the way and the happy couple was definitely not moving, I approached him. Everything else fell away.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
When he opened his mouth, I shook my head at him. “Don’t,” I said. “You’re too nice for you own good.” I knew that he would tell me it was okay. But it wasn’t. He could have died, and it was my fault.
“Lex,” Basil said.
I squeezed Evan’s hand and kept moving. My head hadn’t exploded on the way to our seats. Now that was something. As suspected, we were in the front row of the Bloodline column. There were eight in all. The four in the middle were given over to the Academies and the very important supernaturals. The two on either side of those were for paying spectators. I forced myself to sit down and stare straight ahead.
Nora and Mani gave me nods and reassuring smiles. I was sure the MirrorNet would be reeling with speculation about what it had meant the first time Kai and I had seen each other in over a month.
It was nothing. A piece of cake. I suddenly really despised cake.
“You know it would look a lot less conspicuous if you actually spoke to people,” Andrei said from behind me.
I didn’t have the wherewithal for this today. “What is it that you want, Andrei?”
He poked his head between my seat and Matilda’s. I imagined for a second how satisfying it would feel to head butt him. Three weeks in a boxed room fighting demons from dusk till dawn and I had turned into some kind of violent fiend.
Andrei grinned at me as though could read my thoughts. He too was wearing sweats in the Nightblood regulation grey and red. Much like Evan, he looked like the undead. Unlike Evan, he didn’t really have an excuse except for being crazy.
“How is Ravenhall treating you?”
I didn’t want to answer, but the interested stares I was getting told me I hadn’t fooled anyone. The trick was to pretend like nothing had happened. Not that something had happened and I was dealing with it the best way I knew how.
For the first week after Kai and I broke up, I would literally hear the replay coming out of the windows of my neighbours’ cottages. It was a nightmare hearing his voice and mine as we argued. I was still a thousand percent convinced I had done the right thing. So then why did it feel like I had been kicked in the chest repeatedly?
“It’s not as bad as people say it is,” I said.
He grinned. “Then you’re not doing it right.” He cast around. “Next time I’m down that way, remind me to take you to the black market.”
I snorted. “No thanks, I think I’ve had my fill of things that can get me in a tonne of trouble for a lifetime.”
He eyed me speculatively. “Don’t tell me the indomitable Alessia Hastings has finally been tamed.” There was that urge to punch him again.
He was lucky the mirror speakers squealed right then. Andrei bounded ahead up to the stage. Other contestants streamed from the crowd to also take their places where we could all see them. Max gave me a hard stare that I couldn’t decipher. I hadn’t spoken to him since the incident. Sophie told me his protective instinct was going haywire. Now that she was alone again, he spent a lot of nights just sitting in front of her door like some demented feline guard.
Jacqueline stepped up to the stage with the other academy heads. Like Kai, she was in a pants suit in Bloodline’s navy blue. Her blouse was burgundy with gold trim to match her bangles. I clung to her every movement. For almost two years, she had been a maternal figure in my life. I glanced to either side of me. Giselle and Eugenia were not suitable substitutes. One was a certifiable nutjob and the other was a perpetual teenager.
Jacqueline cleared her throat. The whole stadium hushed. I tried to scan the front of the Bloodline column for sig
ns of Professor Mortimer. I didn’t see him. Peter and Thalia were there. So was Rachel. I saw Sophie, Diana, and the boys waving at me. For the first time, I grinned outright and waved back.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Jacqueline said. “Welcome to the Unity Games. Now more than ever, the importance of these games cannot be downplayed. We all arrived in this dimension as strangers. As enemies, even. But we come together in comradeship to cheer on these young men and women who I have no doubt will one day lead us.”
The crowd applauded. I kept my focus glued to Jacqueline because if I dropped it, I knew my attention would fall on Kai.
“Many of you will have witnessed previous games,” Jacqueline said. “But these are different and unprecedented times. We’re not the same community we were the last time we met. Nor should our customs remain the same.”
A murmur of excitement rippled through the crowd. Different customs meant only one thing. The rules were changing. Jacqueline’s eyes came to rest on Declan. “As you all know, we have members of the Human League here with us today. While our relationship with humans may have been fraught for centuries, we hope this new understanding will be the beginning of a prosperous relationship.
“As you all know, the Unity Games have typically been played out by the best and brightest students in our Academies. We have prided ourselves on both our academic and physical prowess. But it has been pointed out to us that there are times when our abilities may hinder us in the coming struggles. This is why we have decided that for the first time ever, the first two days of the games will be played without powers.”
The roar from the crowd was deafening. The first two days of the games were the trial days. Who knows what kind of monsters they would be up against? I smirked. Being powerless against a creature that outclassed you would be horrendous. I knew it. Now they would too.
The people who knew the contestants were protesting the unfairness of the decision. The ones who didn’t loved the idea of a neutral starting point.
I heard what Jacqueline said loud and clear. What I interpreted it to mean was that it was unfair to pit normal supernaturals against the likes of Malachi Pendragon. One of the other supernatural species must have kicked up a stink. Judging by the unabashed smirk on Andrei’s face, I suspected it was the vamps.
