by Mana Sol
I could almost hear his teeth grinding. “Fine. Now drop the spells.”
“Sure thing -”
“Wait.” Addy hobbled up suddenly. I had been so tense despite my facade of casual insolence that I hadn’t even noticed her limping closer with Genie following close behind. She looked sick to her stomach, and with a twinge of sympathy, I thought I noticed a hint of vomit on her collar…He must have hit her in the gut, hard.
But now she stopped behind Zedekiel, who looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “What now,” he snapped.
“Turn around,” she rasped.
When he glared at me, I shrugged and nodded up at the flickering arrays. They were dangerously close to falling apart. With a silent snarl, he turned to face Addy, showing me his back -
Only for her to deck him in the face so hard he twisted to the side and doubled over. Her first remained in the air, glowing yellow with Augmentation magic and now tinged with a few drops of crimson if I wasn’t wrong.
“That’s for being an asshole all this time,” she said. “Go to hell.”
25
We didn’t hear from Olisanna right away. That disappointed me. I thought we’d at least get disciplined for threatening to light the grounds on fire, especially since I’d accidentally ignited two trees anyway. It truly had been unintentional, but the furious glare Zedekiel shot me after he dragged a water-casting Dark fae to the scene told me he would never believe it. Oh, well. His problem. I was just going to enjoy the memory of the light tinge of blue under his left eye, courtesy of Addy’s fist. We deserved it. We’d all paid our toll in the infirmary, her especially since she’d fractured a bone in her hand with the punch. And after all of it was over, they sent us straightaway back to our dormitories, no doubt to keep us out of further trouble until everyone figured out what to do with us.
Genie sulked clear until Monday morning as Nurse Willat insisted on calling her back to the infirmary to read her magic so many times we lost count, something that made me suspicious. But there was nothing I could do, and Addy and I had no choice but to sit outside the door and try to eavesdrop. In the end, we learned nothing, and Genie wasn’t well-versed enough in spellwork to know exactly what the woman had been looking for.
The weekend passed like that, quiet when it shouldn’t have been, and we didn’t step outside our dormitory wing except for meals until Monday morning. “Careful,” Addy grumbled as she tugged her blazer into place. “Genie and I can watch each other’s backs, but you’re all by yourself. And with the asshole, too.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I can come with you,” Genie offered.
“No, you can’t. You’re going to take your quiz and you’re not going to skip.”
“I hate this place…”
Addy threw her arm around Genie’s shoulders and sighed. “Join the club. I only came here out of spite, and now because Blair’s even pettier than I am, we’re going to get trapped here for the rest of our lives. Maybe killed.”
“They’re not going to kill us.”
“That’s what someone who’s about to get unexpectedly assassinated in the night would say.”
Assassinated. I wondered - she had been joking, but were we important enough that our deaths, our failures, could truly change the course of history? I’d never wanted to fight, especially not on the front lines. But here I was, plotting ways to make myself so useful they would bow at my feet and beg to make things right again. I clutched my books to my chest. Was I just falling into their trap? Could Addy be right, that I was being manipulated like a marionette, dancing to their tune because I couldn’t look past my grudges?
I had to be careful. I’d been reckless with Zedekiel and that wouldn’t pass me by unscathed. Even if it were only my own wellbeing at stake, I shouldn’t have thrown caution to the wind, but I had to think about the girls, too. We were in this together, and even though I’d come with every intention to push others away, to stick to myself and look out only for number one, I couldn’t imagine suffering through the next two years here without them.
I’d had my fun. Now I had to tread carefully. That outburst might have been one too many already.
“See you later, Blair. Don’t die.”
“I can still come with -”
“Good luck on your quiz.” I gave Genie a hard look, and she slunk away, pulling at Addy’s sleeve.
There. I knew I was being obnoxious, but I couldn’t help it. Someone had to do it…and I didn’t mind. I was used to being the overbearing one, the third wheel, and it didn’t bother me to see Addy and Genie talking in animated fashion as they hurried off toward their class. If anything, it reassured me - I didn’t have to fill the gaps in our strange, topsy-turvy relationship and be someone I wasn’t. I could be as stern, cold, and bitter as I wanted to be, and things would still fall into place.
I liked them, I thought as I lingered by the doors, reluctant to go. For the first time, I wished I could be in their classes with them instead of holing up in my corner every morning with only people who wanted me gone for company.
But enough whining. I couldn’t put this off forever. Zedekiel had warned me there would be consequences and I’d gleefully told him I was well aware, so now it was time to see what hell I’d brought down on myself.
And maybe, if I was clever enough, I could start fixing the mess we were tangled in.
When I entered Combinatorics, the fleeting look Pompey gave me told me what I needed to know. The students likely knew nothing at all unless Zedekiel had suddenly decided to air his moment of humbling before them (which would be stupid), but the faculty were certainly aware of the stunt we’d pulled this weekend, and I could sense the disappointment radiating from the woman. I walked it off. What else could I do? Apologize? I’d made my choice and had known it would lose me what little favor I curried with my work ethic.
But I didn’t want favor. I wanted respect. If not respect, then begrudging tolerance.
Though when I sat down in my seat next to the wall, the stares I could feel peeling my skin from the other side of the room were neither respectful nor tolerating. Those were Zedekiel’s friends, or at least the students who huddled around him because apparently, a Nephilim was always the center of attention no matter which species they mingled with or how coldly he treated them. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t know if I’d ever heard him say a word to them except in monosyllabic answers whenever they asked him something. Glares and unspoken commands were his primary form of communication with his adoring public, who forgave him even at his most frigid and domineering.
And yet they seemed so doting and friendly as they huddled around his desk and glared at me. I shouldn’t have looked over, but I couldn’t resist, and there he was. Zedekiel, the stoic, ice-cold Nephilim, staring straight ahead toward the front of the class without saying a thing. But wait. His eye - I could see a tinge of blue still there, unless that was wishful thinking…Was that what they were so angry about?
I wondered again if he had told them the truth. No, not possible. He would never admit to them that Addison Dorne, plain little human, had sucker-punched him while he stood there, blackmailed into submission. So what must have been his excuse? How had he explained that bruise to them? None of them had been around to see for themselves; he had chosen a deserted spot far to the rear of the Academy grounds on purpose, after all. Maybe they’d figured we must have done something truly devious and scummy to pull it off because there was no feasible way we could manage such a feat through honest means.
Which was true, to be fair. I almost wished I could tell them how we did it.
Either way, today was finally going to be the breaking point, I could tell. No one had outright bullied me after the fae girl had tried in the dining hall that first day, but the animosity was so thick it was palpable from across the room. Something was definitely going to happen now.
I turned away. I wasn’t interested in staring contests with his groupies. They could shove my head down
the toilets or whatever later, but for now, I had notes to take.
It was halfway through the class when my wrist began tingling. I ignored it, then ignored it harder when the sensation grew to a prickling burn-freeze. Damn Nephilim. This was his idea of revenge? So juvenile. I gritted my teeth and focused harder on Pompey’s voice as she droned on for another half-hour, but finally, it was too much. With a scowl, I stopped etching and whipped my head around to stare squarely at Zedekiel from across the room.
What happened next mystified me: as quickly as I’d turned to look at him, he was just as quick to look away, avoiding eye contact although he must have been glaring at me all this time. I hadn’t been imagining it, but as I rubbed my wrist, I realized the silvery handprint no longer tingled. I narrowed my eyes. All right, then.
But as soon as I looked away, the sensation returned. It didn’t hurt, but knowing that he was staring at me, that he was affecting me - I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck and throttle him. See how he liked that. Yet, whenever I shot another glare in his direction, he always looked away. A few times, his head remained facing me even though his eyes were elsewhere, and a simmering unease grew in my stomach. What was he doing? Why was he doing that? Playing coy with a human - maybe that punch from Addison had scrambled his brains after all.
And then it occurred to me that perhaps it wasn’t deliberate at all. Did he even know what he was doing to me?
Whatever the answer, it accomplished one thing. By the time class was over, I was no longer angry but anxious, and I sped out of class the instant Pompey dismissed us. I had even skipped the last minute of note-taking just in case she dismissed us early, something I’d never done before in my life.
But clearly, Zedekiel was up to some mischief, or he had gone insane and was going to do me real harm at this rate. Maybe he’d cracked.
When my second morning class concluded two hours later, I did the same thing, hurrying out so I could meet the girls. I hoped they hadn’t run into trouble. I’d figured since they were together and Genie still had her reputation of burning men alive, they would be fine, but I was now too unnerved to take anything for granted. I’d only relax once I saw them with my own eyes -
“Hey. Surprise.”
I didn’t even see their faces. One second I was almost trotting down the empty hallway toward my dormitory, and the next, my books were flying everywhere and I was on the ground, face down. Before I could roll over, someone was on my back and wrestling what felt like a bag over my face, and I furiously etched a propulsion sigil to get them the hell off me.
“Get her arms!”
“Got them!”
“Easy. Hey, new kid.”
I started to say something back, but a hand wrapped around my mouth and drowned my words.
“It’s fine,” the faceless voice assured me. “We’re just having a good time.”
Giggles. Multiple voices. I struggled to free my hands, heart racing. Was I afraid or was I angry? What difference did it make?
“We didn’t get a chance before,” another voice continued. “We were waiting to see what Zed was going to do, honestly. But looks like you’re a free-for-all. You ready?”
Fae. Goddamn fae. I could sense it from the maliciously playful lilts in their voices, though some might accuse me of stereotyping if I admitted that aloud.
I shouted garbled things past the hand that muffled me and tried to bite it, but ended up choking and wheezing when an elbow hooked around my throat and yanked my head back.
“Ugh, stop that,” a more familiar voice demanded. Her? The yogurt fae girl from that first day? It was her, wasn’t it? “Anyway,” she continued, “a bit late, but we’re your official welcoming committee and want you to feel at home. So let’s have some fun, okay?”
26
I was going to beat their asses if they let me get up. That was the only thought bruising and crashing in my head as they giggled amongst themselves and pinned both my hands flat on the floor with their knees because fragile little fae couldn’t handle a human one-on-one. But someone was still straddling my back, and when they leaned forward to tighten their elbow around my throat, I could hardly breathe. Sitting on me didn’t require any strength and I knew they were more than capable of restraining me like this. I wasted no time in opening biting down on the hand around my mouth to scream, throwing aside all pride because I would not lie here and get swarmed by a small mob of fae idiots who thought they were tough for ganging up on a single target.
“Shut her up!”
“I’ve got a scarf, here.”
Something woolen wrapped around my mouth, but I could still scream around it - and I did, like hell. The only thing that stopped me was when the arm wrenched my head back and nestled even tighter around my throat, right under my jaw, but not being able to scream was the least of my worries when my vision shrank and blackened. My carotid, I thought in a panic, and with a burst of renewed adrenaline, I fought the chokehold even harder in a vain attempt to throw them off before I blacked out.
“Stop it, they’re fragile. Lighten up.”
Fragile! Who were they calling fragile, I fumed as my vision returned - somewhat - as well as the throbbing of my arteries against the arm that choked them. I was still in danger of falling unconscious in seconds flat if they assumed the position again, so I tried to protect my neck the best I was able by turning my head to the side. All that earned me was a bash against the floor, and I felt a trickle of blood tease inside my nose somewhere. More giggles. I thrashed again to no avail, fury blinding the half-vision I had left.
“See, this is why I was holding her like that -”
“You’ll kill her and then we’ll have to explain that, you dolt.”
I tried to spit an insult around the scarf over my mouth, but a smack to the back of my head cracked my cheek on the floor once more. “Hurry, mark her up before the other two get here.”
They were laughing and whispering as they got to work digging their fingers into every inch of exposed skin outside of my uniform, etching symbols I didn’t care to decipher through sensation alone. These asses, I knew someone would make a move soon but I hadn’t expected them to jump me the same day. Then again, that was the smart thing to do, and if I’d cared to think hard enough, I would have known they would pull something like this before I had the chance to prepare. I almost didn’t know who I wanted to punch more, myself or them.
“Hey, leave my stuff alone. Mark up her back, there’s plenty of room there.”
Oh, hell no. I drew the line at them taking off my clothes. When hasty hands pulled my blouse out of my skirt and wrestled up the back of it, I thrashed so hard I sent the boy who’d been sitting on me toppling to the floor with a grunt. Good! I writhed harder, fighting the weight still sitting on my shoulders despite my vision now thinning to pinpoint width. I was still jointly screaming and spitting horrible curses around the scarf when they gave up and grumbled. “Get her arms, tie her up.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You idiot, give me her hands. You, tie up her feet then grab them to me so I can knot those and her wrists together.”
No! But no matter how I struggled, it was in vain. They paused only once to twist my arm around, wrenching my shoulder and elbow. “Hey, look at this. I thought you said Zed was going too easy on her.”
“Oh, wow.” Someone cuffed me on the back of my head. “You really pissed him off. I don’t remember the last time someone lasted long enough for him to leave a mark this deep.”
“She’s lucky he didn’t break her arm. That looks bad.”
“Come on, what’s that face for? You feel sorry for her?”
“No, I’m just saying. That probably hurts.”
“Yeah. Maybe he did break her arm.” He slapped the back of my head again. “Iaife did see you going in and out of the infirmary a ton of times last weekend. We thought it was just because you’re fragile. So, what’d he do? Grab it and snap it in half like a twig? Huh?”
“Prob
ably,” a familiar voice sneered. “I told you something was up with her. There’s no way a human spars with Zed and gets away with nothing but a bruise or whatever. I should have gotten closer while I was following her around, then I could have seen it for myself.”
That voice. I knew it. The fae girl from the dining hall that first day, wasn’t it? I grit my teeth and tried to flip over even though I knew it was futile. Iaife was her name, then. Was this her little posse, and were her two lapdogs here, too? I made an angry sound when someone dug their fingers into the Nephilim mark on my wrist and palm, growing more furious by the second.
“Hey, we need to hurry up. Those two will be here in a few minutes.”
“Throw her in one of the sweep closets a couple of hallways down. They never go that way, and it’s behind the old stairs no one uses.”
“Nice. Come on, help me pick her up.”
No! Shit, I only needed to stall a little longer before Addison and Genie came this way, and outnumbered or not, I was confident they could at least make enough of a fuss that it would draw the attention of a professor or two. It curdled my pride to think that I needed to rely on someone else to get me out of this mess, but next time, I promised myself viciously, I would make damn sure I didn’t need it. For now, just today, I needed help and I had to figure out how to make these assholes get away from me -
No one heard my muffled screams, especially when one of them balled up another scarf and crammed it into my mouth before wrapping the end around my jaw so I couldn’t try to shove it back out with my tongue. And I couldn’t kick out at them or punch, claw, scratch with my hands and feet bound together painfully behind me, forcing me to arch my back and strain my shoulders to accommodate the position. Half-dragging and half-carrying me, two of them towed me along the smooth floor by the shoulders of my blazer until we entered a dim hallway where the torches on the walls hadn’t been lit.
