by Ivy Hearne
“Probably not,” she said absently as she flipped through her own Chem-Defense II notebook.
“But he could be, right?” I warmed up to my topic. “He’s rude and hateful. He sneers at me every time we have to work together. He could be a secret spy for the other side.”
“I mean yeah, there are some total jerks here, just like everywhere. But we’re all on the same team, really, so it’s not like there’s anyone evil.” Erin frowned at me. “You don’t really think Matthew Gibbs is dangerous, do you?”
“No,” I sighed. “I guess not. He’s just annoyed by me and my lack of psychic ability.” I went back to working on my own homework. I stretched out on my bed and held my psychics textbook up above my head to read it.
I was about to announce that I couldn’t read more theory without being able to actually practice when a knock at our door startled us both.
Erin answered it. I was still getting to know people. No one came by our room to visit me.
Not yet, I told myself.
Apparently, four years of being the social outcast had left me a little behind on social skills. But I was determined to correct that deficiency—just as soon as I made sure I’d be here for at least the next four years.
In the meantime, Erin had been kind enough to invite me to go with her to several events with her friends—a couple of movie nights in a library study hall appropriated for that purpose, the weekly television viewing of a favorite time-traveler-in-a-box show, and once even a weapons demonstration put on by the graduating class.
But those were all her friends, so I was confused when I heard a voice at the door asking for me. When I stood, Erin backed up and held the door wide for Angelica, the centaur shifter. She entered, wringing her hands and glancing around worriedly.
“Hey, Angie,” I greeted her. “What’s up?”
“Have you heard?” she half-whispered.
“Heard what?” I gestured for her to take a seat at my desk chair.
“Headmaster Finnegan has disappeared.” She fidgeted in the seat, her gangly arms and legs taking up more room than usual, it seemed—if that were even possible.
Erin, who had gone back to studying her Chem-Defense II notebook, sat up straight and closed it. “Where did you hear this?”
“And why did you come to me?” I added.
“We were all talking about it just now,” she said, “all the first years. Well, almost all.” Her broad, freckled face slowly turned the deep red color of a brick. “Anyway, a lot of us...”
“It’s fine,” I said. I hadn’t realized my class did things without me, but I would have if I’d thought about it. “Just tell me.”
“Davian came in late and told us he’d gone back to the chem lab to pick up a book he’d left there this afternoon. While he was there, he overheard Ms. Gayle and Mr. Jamison talking about Headmaster Finnegan disappearing three days ago.”
I thought back over the last few days. I hadn’t seen the headmaster on campus, but then, I hadn’t been looking for him, either. I was all wrapped up in my own issues.
“Why come to me?” I asked.
“You’re the only one we know with a private tutor. We were wondering if maybe you could ask him to find out what’s up.”
By now Erin was standing, her arms crossed. “So the rest of Kacie’s class was having a social when you got the bad news and you all decided to just go ahead and use her connections?”
Angelica gaped at my roommate for a few seconds. “Um. Yes?”
“You know what, Kacie?” Erin said. “I take it back. I think maybe that one classmate of yours is evil. And in case you haven’t noticed, the rest of your classmates are definitely a bunch of brats.” She turned back to Angelica. “You can tell your classmates that if Kacie learns anything, she might let you know—unless she takes my advice and keeps all you jerkwads completely in the dark about this until you learn to act like decent people. And for now? I think it’s time you leave.”
She waited until Angie was out in the hall and started to shut the door in her face, then stopped. “And furthermore, I think you should remind them that we are all in this fight together. Cutting people out of your social circle might be fine in a regular high school. But this is not a regular high school. When we don’t work together, people die. Your class needs to get its collective act together and get on board with the rest of us, or none of you will be able to pass your entrance exams.”
Then she really did shut the door.
The last glimpse I caught of Angie, her face was that dull red color again, and her eyes had welled up with tears. I almost felt sorry for her, but Erin was right—we were supposed to be learning to work together, and instead, my own class was locking me out.
Erin closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, blowing the air out through her mouth as she did a few opening stretches that I recognized from my hand-to-hand class.
Once she’d calmed down a bit, she opened her eyes. “Okay. Now let’s find out what’s going on with this supposed disappearance.”
Picking up her phone, she tapped out a text and sent it to several people. She included me on the list, too. “No one’s keeping this a secret from anyone, if I have my way,” she muttered grimly.
“What should I do?” I asked.
“For all that your class is full of a bunch of...” she paused, gritting her teeth as if she couldn’t think of a word bad enough. “A bunch of hifflefarts,” she finally said, spitting out Mina’s word as if it were truly profane, “they were right about one thing. Shane Weber might be our best source of information. I think you should text him.”
Text Shane?
Now my own face flared red. In the three weeks we’d worked together, I had never once contacted him outside of class. That skirted too close to the edge of personal relationship territory, and I was determined to stay completely businesslike in my dealings with him.
But if Headmaster Finnegan had indeed disappeared, that was definitely worth breaking my no-texts rule, so I pulled up the number he’d given me the second time we’d met for tutoring and tapped out my own message: Other students saying Finnegan has gone missing. Do you know anything?
His response came back in mere seconds: It’s true. Don’t worry—there are Hunters searching. I will tell you more when I see you tomorrow.
I showed Erin the text. She pulled my phone out of my hands and sent Shane a text of her own.
Is it the Lusus Naturae?
He responded instantly.
Almost certainly, yes.
My stomach clenched as I read the message. If the Lusus Naturae could reach us here, the one place that was supposed to be completely safe from them, then how could we possibly be expected to fight against them? How could we win?
“You know,” I said to Erin, “if my class wasn’t inviting me to their get-togethers, you know they weren’t inviting Souji, either. I should go make sure he knows about this, too.”
“Definitely.”
I didn’t particularly relish the idea of telling my hunting partner that things on campus weren’t going well.
But I was the only one who was likely to do it.
For the last three weeks, I had dutifully met with Souji every day after classes. I’d even reserved the same study hall Shane and I used.
And every day, we failed to communicate psychically. We failed to do magic spells together. We failed to study for any of our classes in any way.
But we did do one thing together. We practiced something like hand-to-hand combat, though it ended up being more like agility training for me.
Souji would swipe at me, trying to catch me with his paws—claws retracted, though, thank goodness—and I would leap away.
Then I attempted to catch Souji any way I could. My goal was simply to touch him.
I’d gotten faster and stronger in the time we’d been working together. Even my combat instructor had mentioned it. Shane hadn’t brought it up specifically, but he’d been nodding his approval more often lately, I tho
ught.
In any case, although we certainly weren’t friends, by any stretch of the imagination, I was probably the closest thing Souji had to a friend at the moment.
I headed up to his dorm room to let him know what was going on.
Chapter 9
When Souji pulled open the door to his room, I got a glimpse inside. In addition to the usual dorm bed, there was a giant cushion on the floor. And instead of the doorknob that Erin and I had inside our room, there were handles, like levers, on Souji’s.
And he didn’t appear to have a roommate, though I didn’t know if that was because of his unpopularity or if it was standard for shifters. I needed to find out if Foxx, the other shifter in our class, had his own room.
Souji stepped outside into the hallway and let his door shut behind him before I could see any more. He tilted his head at me inquiringly.
“There are rumors going around that headmaster Finnegan is missing,” I said without preamble. Souji squinted, and I was reminded yet again of how useful it might be if we could communicate telepathically.
“That’s all I know.” I shrugged. “The rest of our class—all of whom have been meeting without the two of us, apparently—want me to ask Shane Weber tomorrow during my tutoring session to see if I can find out what’s going on.” I paused, considering how much to tell my hunting partner, then decided I should trust him with everything. I leaned over just a little bit, enough to make steady, direct eye contact with him as I spoke. “But I already texted him, and he says it’s the Lusus Naturae.”
Souji lifted one side of his lip and the snarled, revealing a pointed canine.
“I agree entirely,” I said. “But I don’t have any ideas about what to do. Do you?”
He shook his head.
“I was afraid of that.” A sigh trickled out of me slowly. “I think for now, we should simply try to find out everything we can. I hate to leave it to the adults. But I don’t know what to do otherwise.” I glanced down at Souji. “Anyway, I wanted to make sure you knew what was going on, since we have apparently been cut out of the loop. Mostly, anyway—until they need our connections to get information.”
I started to turn and walk away, but Souji’s giant front paw landed on my foot, effectively pinning me to the spot.
I glanced down at him. “Yes?”
Ever so gently, Souji raised his other front paw and patted me on the back.
He might not be able to send messages to me directly, but I knew exactly what he meant.
“Thank you.” Tentatively, I reached out and patted the top of his shoulder blades, too. “Even if our classmates aren’t sharing information with us very often, I’m glad you and I are in this together. I will let you know if I discover anything. I’ll see you tomorrow at our usual sparring place and time?”
Souji nodded, and I made my way back to my own room, knowing no more than I had when I’d left, but somehow still feeling better now that I was secure in the knowledge that my hunting partner had my back.
THE NEXT DAY, RUMORS flew all over the campus. Every class I went to, students stood huddled in small groups, whispering about the missing headmaster.
But the instructors refused to tell us anything.
“As soon as I have any solid information, I promise I will let you know,” Mr. Jamison said in psychics class. He whirled around to point at Foxx, probably the best psychic student in the course. “And don’t go trying to dig around inside my mind. I guarantee I have more defenses than you’ve ever heard of.” He stared at Foxx for a moment, and the student flinched.
“See?” Mr. Jamieson said. “It’s not all that pleasant to have your mind invaded.”
It had never even occurred to me that someone could invade my mind uninvited. I’ve been so focused on learning to send and receive messages that I hadn’t stopped to consider all the other ways psychic gifts could be used. The thought of someone digging around inside my head was deeply frightening.
Of course, that’s what had been done when someone put a psychic block on me—I simply hadn’t considered it in those terms before.
I resolved to ask Shane how to set up defenses inside my own mind as soon as possible. We’d been working on taking away the blocks that other people had installed to keep me from using my powers. But now I needed to figure out how to put up walls to keep other people out of my head entirely.
Later that day in Chemistry for Defense, another classmate, Zanya, set off a small explosion at her workstation, filling the air with an assaulting gas that made us all cough so much the entire floor to be evacuated for several hours.
As we made our way out to the courtyard, hacking and coughing, Zanya’s roommate, Hazel, fussed at her. “You’re a vampire. Those kinds of things don’t bother you. You don’t have to breathe unless you want to look human. The rest of us, however, can’t help it. We have to breathe. From now on, don’t do those kinds of experiments when you’re nervous.”
“I know, I know,” Zanya lamented. “I’m just so anxious about headmaster Finnegan.” She glanced around, as if to make sure no one else was listening. We all pretended not to be. “What if the Lusus Naturae do have him?” she continued. “That would mean they know where the campus is, where we are.”
“It doesn’t do any good to worry about it,” Hazel said. “We need to focus on what we can do. And what we can do is learn everything possible to help defeat them. I’m sure the rest of the actual hunters have this in hand.”
To some degree, I couldn’t help but agree with her. We didn’t know enough—none of us did. Especially me. But I also couldn’t help but feel a kind of obligation to try to help. For all my frustrations here, I was still happier than I had ever been, and headmaster Finnegan’s willingness to bring me to the Hunters’ Academy was part of that.
I was glad when it came time for my tutoring sessions. Shane’s prompt answers to my questions the night before suggested that he, at least, wouldn’t try to put me off with answers like, “the adult hunters are taking care of it.”
And he didn’t. But what he told me instead was worse, at least to me.
“Faculty rumor has it that Corinna Gayle has been named acting headmistress until Headmaster Finnegan is found,” he said as soon as I’d dropped my bookbag on the desk by the door.
“Ms. Gayle? The magics teacher?” I breathed out in horror as I sank into a desk chair next to where Shane sat waiting for me.
“That’s the one.” Shane’s expression was grim.
“She hates me.”
“So you’ve mentioned.”
“What am I going to do?”
Shane stood. “Well, for now, we’re going to change gears a bit and begin working on sword fighting. Your agility has improved tremendously over the last several weeks, and I think you’re ready to begin weapons training. You should be good at the necessary footwork.”
I stood, too, but still asked, “How is that connected to the situation of Ms. Gayle being headmistress?”
He grinned that devastating grin of his. “It doesn’t. I’m trying to distract you.”
I laughed aloud. “Well, it’s working.”
“Good. Let’s begin with a light shortsword.”
An hour and a half later, I was soaked in sweat, but I was feeling good about my ability to slash at attackers with my new favorite weapon.
Okay. My only weapon.
Still. I knew how to hold a sword. And that made me feel more powerful than I’d ever felt in my life.
For the first time since I’d come to the Academy, I felt somewhat useful.
“That’s enough for today,” Shane announced. “Good work!”
His praise, doled out so sparingly most days, fell on me like rain on parched earth. I soaked it up and yearned for more.
I would make him proud, I decided. No matter what happened.
“You should have just enough time to shower and change before your next class,” he announced, checking his watch.
Right. My next class. Magics with Ms
. Gayle.
This ought to be fun.
“See you tomorrow,” was all I said, though.
“Tomorrow,” Shane confirmed. “And I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.”
“Thanks,” I called out as I dashed off to get to my dorm. The last thing I wanted to do was show up all sweaty and stinky to the class where the instructor hated me and most of my classmates avoided me.
But when I got there, Ms. Gayle wasn’t even teaching the class.
It was one of the fae, a small, short man in a dapper, neon-green suit and matching bowler hat.
“I’m Mr. Ren,” he announced, buzzing back and forth at the front of the room, “and I will be taking over this class for the time being. We will be having a general assembly in a few moments, but you should be the first to know that Ms. Gayle is taking over as temporary headmistress. She’s asked me to hold off on telling you anything further until the assembly. So I guess we should head over there now.”
We all stood up and moved toward the main auditorium. Students streamed out buildings and through the courtyard, whispering frantically. Our class joined them. Inside the auditorium itself, we filled all the seats, instructors leaning up against the walls.
This is the first time I had been to any kind of general assembly on campus. I’d heard they happened at the beginnings and ends of the semesters—and apparently, whenever there were events that required it.
Once everyone had filed in, Ms. Gayle stepped onto the stage at the front of the room. She carried a microphone her hand, and her prim mouth seemed more relaxed than I’d ever seen it.
I believe she likes the spotlight.
When she began talking, her words sent chills down my spine.
“I am sorry to have to tell you that the rumors are true. Headmaster Finnegan went missing four days ago. Just this morning, we got confirmation that he was taken by the Lusus Naturae.”
A collective gasp went up around the room. I found myself joining in, even though I had already believed that was what has happened to him. Nonetheless, getting official confirmation was difficult and painful.
