by Ivy Hearne
“You don’t mean.... Wait. Is that Souji?” Why hadn’t anyone warned me that I had been paired with—what? A were-cat? Cat shifter? I didn’t know what to call it. Or how to communicate with it, for that matter.
It? Him? I couldn’t even pick a pronoun for my hunting partner, much less work magic spells. I had hoped my hunting partner would alleviate some of my stress by being able to help me in my studies.
Instead, I was paired up with the giant creature who came to class in an animal form.
Oh. God. What if he’s not even a shifter? What if he’s just a magical panther? Ms. Gayle was clearly not the one to ask. She’d already turned her back on me, dismissing me without a word.
I sank down into my seat at the table Ms. Gayle had pointed me to. There was only one seat in the two spaces. So, of course, the giant cat came and sat next to me.
Ms. Gayle began writing on the board, so I took a second to say hello. “You are Souji, right?” I whispered. The cat looked at me and yawned.
“And you’re a panther-shifter, is that right?”
The cat nodded at me. I was surprised by how disconcerting I found it, but at least he was communicating with me.
And at least I knew he wasn’t going to talk my ear off—not as long as he stayed a cat.
I could work with that.
I pretty much have to.
Chapter 6
When I got back to my room in the lower-classes’ dorm, I collapsed on my bed. Erin came in moments later. She took one look at me and said, “That bad, huh?”
“Oh my God,” I moaned. “The magics teacher hates me.”
“Ms. Gayle? Yeah—she can be tough. But mostly, I think she doesn’t like disruptions to her routine. She’s easy enough to deal with once you get to know her.”
I set up, rubbing the heels of my hands over my eyes. “And I finally met my hunting partner.”
Erin winced. “Ouch. Yeah, I would’ve warned you if I could’ve figured out what to say.”
“Why did he come to class in his panther form?” I asked.
Erin blinked at me in surprise. “No one told you?”
“No. The only thing anyone has done is pretty much the same thing you just did—they make a sound of sympathy and then look off. Clearly no one wants to tell me anything about him. And all he did when I tried asking questions was yawn at me. He did finally nod at me. I think. Can he even understand me when he’s busy being all panthery?”
Internally, I acknowledged to myself that this might be the strangest conversation I had ever had. The problem was, the longer I stayed at the Hunters’ Academy, the more strangest conversations ever I kept having. The bar for strange kept getting raised.
“So not even Finnegan told you what’s up with Souji?” Erin chewed on her bottom lip.
“No. No one did. I cannot get any information about him.” I wanted to shake it out of her but forced myself to stay still on my black, white, and maroon plaid blanket.
“Okay. I’ll share the gossip. But only because the people in charge aren’t talking about it to you. You deserve to know. Especially since you’ll be expected to fight with him.”
“Fight him?” My voice squeaked in alarm.
“No, no. Not fight against him. Fight by his side.”
“Oh.” My breath whooshed out of me in a sigh of relief. “Okay. Tell me.”
“It’s not a big secret or anything—it’s just nothing anyone likes to talk about when it happens.”
“You are making me insane. I need you to tell me now.”
“Souji’s hunting partner died.” She sat down on her bed cross-legged, facing me across the gap between our beds. She stared down at the patterned blanket atop her own bed, picking at the threads. “Rose was a really good magician. Everyone expected her to be the top of your class all the way through. She shouldn’t have tripped her entrance exam when she did—it was way too early. There were rumors going around that something had gone really wrong with her test. But students were the only ones talking about it. When a student dies during an entrance exam, the instructors don’t discuss it. It’s pretty much the worst thing that could happen here, and they all try to just go on as if it never happened.”
“Did you know Rose?” I didn’t know why it mattered to me, but I suddenly needed to know Erin’s stake in Rose’s story.
“Only a little. But there aren’t that many of us here, only a couple hundred, so everyone kind of knows everyone.”
I asked the question that had hung in the air between us since she started talking. “What kind of entrance exam killed her?”
“She was in the library, working on one of the earliest projects we did this year, when something she was doing caused her entrance exam to drop.”
“Drop?”
“Caused it to start. It was a dragon.”
I gaped at her. “A dragon?” I shook my head, still not believing that I’d heard right. “What the hell kind of exam is a dragon?”
“The kind that will get even a good magician killed.” Erin’s voice was flat and harsh. “The kind none of us would ever want.”
“What was your entrance exam?”
She rolled her eyes. “Nothing so bad as a dragon.”
“That just seems like such an asshole move, to give students entrance exams that could kill them.”
“It’s one way to make sure that only the strongest people make it to the later classes here.”
I frowned. “Are the later classes somehow more special?”
Erin shrugged. “They definitely give more information out in the later classes. And the homework gets tougher.” She chewed on her lip again, then leaned forward almost conspiratorially. “I think maybe the real reason is that weeding out the weaker students first, right at the beginning, allows them to keep anyone from getting too attached to someone who’s likely to die in their first off-campus hunt.”
“Sounds harsh.”
“It is way harsh.” Erin stood up and brushed the wrinkles out of her plaid skirt. “But the life of a hunter can be harsh, too. I think they might be right to have some of the toughest exams early on.”
I crossed my arms around my stomach, hugging myself tightly. “Even if you’re right, it’s still terrifying.”
“It absolutely is. You can’t worry about it too much right now, though. You know you’ve got an extension. And we’ll get you ready, whatever your test may be. Come on.” She jerked her chin toward the door. “Let’s go grab dinner. I’m guessing you could use fuel. The first day is always tough—even more so when you didn’t enter with everyone else.”
I got up and followed her to the dining hall, where she continued introducing me to some of her classmates. But I couldn’t help thinking about her words, staring off into the distance, wondering if she was right, if the entrance exam was designed to get rid of those of us who were likely to get ourselves killed later, anyway.
And I wondered what it meant that I had been paired with the student whose partner had most recently died. I had assumed that morning that I had twelve classmates and I was the thirteenth. But Souji hadn’t been there when I’d made that deduction.
That meant I wasn’t the thirteenth student in my class. He was.
If anyone was unlucky, it was him.
Or maybe Rose was the thirteenth student.
I finally gave up on my numerology attempt and let myself join in the conversation around the table.
Chapter 7
Two days later, all the instructors who needed to assess my abilities finished up their written reports to the headmaster, who called me in to meet my new tutor.
“This is Shane Weber. He will be working with you during your non-classroom school hours to help you prepare for the entrance exam.”
I nodded hello to Shane Weber. And I found myself having to glance away from him, down at the floor. He was drop-dead gorgeous. The kind of pretty that you usually only see in movies. He had dark hair, green eyes, dimples, and the kind of muscles that should be illeg
al in a school official.
I was going to have to spend hours every day with him. If I was lucky, maybe I’d get used to having a pretty boy as my personal instructor.
“Nice to meet you, Kacie.”
Then again, maybe I won’t get used to it all.
His voice was deep and smooth. If he could sing with that voice, I might melt into a puddle right now.
“And this is your new schedule,” Headmaster Finnegan said.
I glanced down at it, thankful to have something to study for a minute. My magics and psychics classes were the same. Chemistry for Defense had been added, as had Hand-to-Hand Combat for Beginners.
I had an hour every day for study hall—with a note attached to the schedule that said I was to use that time working on the remedial projects my instructors would assign me.
And I had two hours a day assigned to spend with my new, hot tutor.
“Looks good,” I squeaked.
“So we can start this afternoon?” Shane Weber asked.
“Mr. Weber is a new addition to our faculty this year,” Headmaster Finnegan told me. “He comes to us from our sister school in Europe.”
This is the first I’d heard of any sister schools. I wondered if that one really was in Switzerland. And if there were any exchange programs so I could run away to Switzerland if I humiliated myself in front of my gorgeous new tutor.
“I’m ready when you are,” I said to Shane—Mr. Weber. I wondered what I should call him. He wasn’t that much older than me, but he was a faculty member. It was probably stupid that I had already started referring to him as Shane in my head.
I was beginning to feel like I might be the stupidest person on this campus.
I inhaled in an attempt to calm the butterflies in my stomach. “Where will we be meeting?” I asked.
“For now, let’s meet in the number four study hall right off the main room of the library. It has space for both traditional studies—desks and such—and a mat over half the floor to work on combat situations. Plus, it’s soundproofed, so we won’t bother anyone else while we work.” He grinned at me, and his smile was absolutely devastating.
“Will my hunting partner be joining us?”
Shane shook his head. “Not at first. Let’s get you going on your own before we bring him into it. You should, however, arrange for some practice time with him after classes every day.”
“I don’t even know what we should practice,” I ventured, glancing between Headmaster Finnegan and Mr. Weber nervously.
“For now, you might simply work on getting to know him,” Mr. Weber suggested.
“I know that might be difficult with your partner at the moment,” Headmaster Finnegan interrupted. “But Mr. Weber is right. It could be worthwhile. Souji is still suffering the loss of his former hunting partner. We’re hoping, to be honest, that working with you will help convince him that he needs to take his human form occasionally.”
I saw my opening to ask questions and took it. “Is he simply refusing to change?”
“We honestly don’t know.” Headmaster Finnegan and Mr. Weber exchanged a glance. “It is possible that he suffered some psychological damage during Rose’s entrance exam.”
“He was there?” I sounded almost as appalled as I felt.
Headmaster Finnegan inclined his head. “Indeed he was. None of it by design, of course. But it is possible that he is also simply refusing to shift. In either case, working with someone like you—someone who will need his support in the coming weeks as you all prepare to face your entrance exams, should help him regain his equilibrium.”
“In order for that to happen,” Mr. Weber said, “our goal will need to be to get you test-ready as soon as possible.” He grinned at me again, and I felt my cheeks flare pink. “So let’s plan to get started today,” he continued.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “I’ll meet you and study hall this afternoon?”
“Perfect. See you then.”
“Thank you very much, Ms. Deluca,” the headmaster said. “You may return to class.”
MY SWITCH OVER TO MY new classes was smooth. I wasn’t the only beginner in my hand-to-hand class, thank goodness. I wasn’t even the clumsiest. That honor went to Angelica, a gangly girl with frizzy hair who was a first-year student along with me. She was all arms and legs, and they seem to get in her way more often than not.
Another first-year student, a boy named Uriel, stood next to me as we watched our instructor, Coach Packwood, as he helped Angelica position her arms and legs. Leaning closer, he said, “Centaur shifters. My mother always said they were terrible at fighting in their completely human form.”
I glanced at him in surprise. Angelica was a centaur shifter? “Why not have her practice in her centaur form, then?” I asked.
Uriel glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as if perhaps I lost my mind. “Because it takes them much longer than most shifters to change forms.” He spoke to me very slowly, as if I were small child, or unutterably stupid. I wasn’t sure he was wrong.
“So she needs to be able to fight in her all-human form, in case that’s how she gets caught out by one of our enemies?” I deduced.
“Exactly.” Uriel nodded.
I looked him up and down. He didn’t look like a centaur-shifter. He was more willowy than gangly, and his ears were pointed at the tip. “So what are you doing in the beginners’ class?”
“Me? Oh, I just suck at hand-to-hand. I’m much better with ranged weapons.” When I didn’t respond, he explained further. “Bows and arrows. That kind of thing.”
“Got it.” I was glad to know that even some of the students who’d grown up in this—what? culture?—anyway, who had grown up knowing all about these things still ended up in some remedial classes.
My Chemistry for Defense class was actually kind of fun. At least for now, it mostly dealt with creating chemical reactions out of household items, both on the spot during a fight and to carry with us into battle. Things like stink bombs and acid-throws and mini-explosions out of just a few ingredients. It was nice to discover something I was halfway good at. And the instructor, Dr. Qazi, gave excellent directions. I was going to learn a lot in there, I suspected.
None of my teachers had any special projects for me yet, so I spent my personal study hall hour reading up on the history of the Hunters’ Academy in the library. The librarian, Ms. Stover, pointed me to those books when I asked if she had any suggestions.
At the end of that hour, I had more of a sense of belonging. The people who’d founded the Academy had started off not knowing much more than I did about the occult and paranormal. They had teamed up with some of the supernatural creatures fighting against the Lusus Naturae and had eventually begun training others.
Somehow, having a sense of history made all my flailing around as a new student feel worthwhile.
And my tutoring session with Shane Weber wasn’t nearly as terrifying as I had anticipated. For one thing, he at least helped me figure out what to call him.
When I walked in the door of the large, high-ceilinged study space, he said, “Hello, Kacie.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Weber,” I called out, dropping my bookbag on one of the desks near the door.
“Please, call me Shane. It’s not all that long ago that I was a student, too.”
I nodded, pleased. “Shane, then.”
“I’ve read all your evaluations,” he said. “I think we might be best off working to help you break through your psychic blocks.”
I frowned. “Headmaster Finnegan told me that he—the school—could remove the blocks.”
Shane nodded “Absolutely. And we will, if we can’t help you break through them on your own. But it really is better if you did it than if we do.”
“Why? What makes that better?”
“Because, contrary to what might feel intuitive about it, breaking through a block like this actually strengthens your psychic ability. The fact that the blocks have been causing you migraines suggest
s that you’ve been fighting against them unconsciously, anyway. If we can get you to push through them entirely, you’re more likely to come into your full psychic powers much more quickly than you would if we simply removed the blocks.” He paused, examining my face, which I was sure showed my worry. “That said, if you don’t break through them in time to take your entrance exam, we will remove them for you. So, shall we see what happens?”
“Sounds fair enough,” I agreed, even though the thought of continuing to attempt to do psychic work without any clue about what I was doing actually frightened me.
But then Shane flashed that gorgeous smile at me, and I realized that as long as he kept asking, I would do just about anything he requested. He was just that pretty.
It was probably a good thing he was an instructor. At least that way I knew nothing could happen. I would admire him from afar—or as close up as being his private tutoring student would allow without crossing the line. That made the crush I was working on developing much easier to deal with.
I hope.
Chapter 8
Three weeks later, my psychics and magics classes were still my biggest course problems. Almost as problematic as working with Shane on eliminating my psychic blocks. I’d had some successes in all those areas—but only small ones. I’d managed to float a pencil in magics class. And in psychics, Matthew had received part of a message I had sent him.
But as Shane pointed out, although both those things were steps forward, they weren’t the kind of great strides that would help me pass my entrance exam.
And they definitely were not the sorts of skills that would make me useful in battling the Lusus Naturae.
All my classmates were terrified of their upcoming entrance exams. I was terrified for them, too. The more I got to know them all, the more I liked my class—well, except Matthew. He was still horribly rude to me.
“Do you think maybe he’s evil?” I asked Erin one night as I came back in the room from my shower.
