Victory: Year Four

by Amabel Daniels

  “You don’t follow orders very well, do you?” Bateson snarled.

  “Not yours.”

  She curled her lip at me and then flicked her hand at the condor I’d instructed to scare her. It might have been hard to truly intimidate the woman with a creature she could very well counter-control, but it had been my only idea at the moment.

  “Go on,” she said in an annoyed admission of loss. Then she backed up to press a button, raising the cage from the deer. With gobbling-sounding grunts, Ren’s and Aura’s condors sped for the food.

  “What on earth is going on in here?” Glorian demanded from a side door that just opened. She didn’t run into the room, but Wolf did.

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve…” he spat at her.

  “That one’s injured. On his legs.” As I spoke, I began to run for the door Flynn had led the other two toward.

  “Where are the other two?” Wolf asked, jogging after me. “Glorian? Maybe teach your kid a trick or two?”

  The prim woman gasped at his suggestion.

  He groaned and slowed running after me. “You mean you can’t handle it in here?”

  “Just leave,” Glorian shouted.

  Out in the room Flynn had exited to, pandemonium ensued. I hadn’t thought too much into my plan to have Flynn get two of the condors out of their room. I could only trust they’d listen to him. Having two starved and angry predators in a room with a proverbial dangling carrot had to be better than four in there.

  Yet, Flynn had led the pair of endangered hunters into another room full of birds—species that were smaller and clearly intimidated by the condors’ presence.

  Wings flapped every which way. Screeches, caws, and barking cries sounded in a painful cacophony, I didn’t know how I heard Flynn. “Cover them!” He’d shouted it to Lorcan. “Put the blanket over them and the feed.”

  Jesus. It was a madhouse of threatened and territory-challenged birds. We’d created an insanity even Hitchcock would’ve feared.

  “Flynn!” Wolf called out.

  “Thank God. Layla?” he yelled.

  I squinted through the blur of too much action, too many feathers whipping through the air. A crowd of birds swarmed around Flynn and I guessed he was trying to calm them.

  So much like what I’d waded into at the busted breeding operation in Texas, we were overwhelmed. Too many worked-up animals and it was hard to pinpoint which being you were even directing your energy or commands to. When we’d faced off the saber-toothed ancients at the North Stand, we’d had more Pure elves on hand, and they were all at least preying on us in an orderly fashion. Here, it was like being in the eye of a bird-frenzied tornado.

  The blackbird from before suddenly landed on my shoulder and I flinched at the touch, so disturbed as I was by the mayhem.

  “Help. Just make them all chill.” Something. Anything. Nothing’s going to hurt them. I glanced over to the black blanket Lorcan and Paige held up over the condors. The redhead must have gotten them something to eat, because they weren’t at all interested in the many flying little guys freaking out overhead.

  Paige winced and closed her eyes tight. She crouched instinctively when a bird flew close to her afro, yet she still hoisted the edge of the blanket over the condors.

  “You’re a helluva smart guy,” Wolf shouted out. He strode further into the room with me and pointed at Lorcan. “Keep them hidden. It’ll help.” Then, he raised something from a necklace. A whistle? He drew it to his lips and blew in it three times.

  A miracle of silence didn’t come, but at least half the birds had to have stopped calling out their woes. They still flew in an unorganized mess, but they weren’t making as much noise over each other.

  The uproar of calls was lessened enough that I could make out a distinctly different sound. A softer, lilting song. It followed the blackbird I’d ordered. He must be giving them an avian type of instruction.

  Within a few more moments, the majority of the birds had taken perch on a branch or ledge. Several strutted on the ground near Wolf’s feet, a few more hanging out by Flynn.

  “I would really like to have one of those whistles.” Flynn rubbed a finger at his eyes and popped his mouth open, like to relieve the pressure of an earache.

  Wolf huffed and set his hands on his hips. Then dropped them. “Do I even want to know?”

  Flynn and I shared a tired frown and then in unison, shook our heads.

  “I can’t believe she did that,” Lorcan groused.

  Paige sighed, still holding the other side of the blanket draping over the condors still eating. “I can. Unfortunately, I can.”

  “Can you guys hold the blanket up to conceal them while we get them back in their room?” Wolf asked.

  Lorcan nodded and Paige clenched tighter to the blanket. “Yeah.” She gagged.

  “What are they eating?” Wolf asked.

  “I told him to find something in the nearest supply room,” Flynn said. “I thought if they were eating something, the others in here wouldn’t be as intimidated.”

  Lorcan said, “It’s a bucket of fish. I found it in the freezer. It was all I could find but I think I was too slow bringing it out.”

  Hence, the bird hell. “Better than nothing.”

  “All right, let’s get them back home.” Wolf nodded toward the door. “And perhaps we’ll catch the last of the other bird fight in there.”

  I smiled, despite the ill humor. I was more than sure Glorian and Bateson were sharing words in there.

  Wolf ducked under the blanket and must have grabbed the bucket of fish because the hulkish shape of the two birds shifted under the blanket. “Come on, come on. Back in you go,” he told them. Like a tent following a float, we all walked the condors back into their room.

  “He’s not a Pure!” Glorian shouted at Bateson.

  I flicked a glance at the two women facing off.

  Ren and Aura sat huddled together in a hug on a chair, her in his lap.

  “I bet that kills ya, doesn’t it?” Bateson teased.

  “You had no right exposing him to this kind of danger.”

  Bateson shrugged. “Make up your mind, won’t you? Yesterday you said I was going too easy on them for exams. Today, I spiced it up. Which do you want?”

  “This isn’t the way to do it. You know that,” Glorian snapped.

  “Oh, so you still want me to go easy on your student. He’s never going to advance his skills if he doesn’t practice them.”

  “Leave him out of this. This exam is the most ill-suited arrangement for an exam. Mind games with condors? Where someone could have been injured?” Glorian inhaled deeply. “Where an endangered species is injured?”

  “Nothing some elven med won’t cure.”

  Glorian nearly screamed, “That’s not the point!”

  “How about this,” Bateson challenged in a grave tone, “stay out of my business and how I do my job, and I’ll stay out of yours. Hmm?”

  “Are you threatening me?” The headmistress reared up straight.

  Paige elbowed my side, having ditched the blanket hiding the condors since we’d entered the room. She stood next to me and leaned to whisper, “Yep, that is by definition, a threat.”

  I shook my head at her. And at the councilwomen. They call themselves adults? Authority over teenagers? It was laughable.

  Perhaps Glorian heard Paige’s smartass comment. Or maybe she’d realized they weren’t as alone in the room anymore. She stood up straight and whipped around to glower at us. Paige sucked in a breath at the focused glare.

  “We’ll discuss this more in my office later,” she said. Looking at her son and the mean girl on his lap, she jerked her chin toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  Bateson watched the three of them exit and then growled.

  “And now it’s my turn.” We all turned to face Wolf, his expression even more menacing than the condors’ had been when stalking toward the venison. He stood between the pairs, the first two munching on the fish and
then the second two ripping at the deer.

  “Oh, don’t even start.”

  “What part of stay out of my domain do you not understand? Suthering hasn’t relented his policies. You have zero supervision in here to pull something like this off.”

  “Uh…” I raised my hand, knowing this was only the start of Wolf’s ranting, fierce rebuke of the Zoology instructor. “Do you need my help with anything? Can we go?” I gestured to myself and my friends.

  Wolf waved at me. “Go ahead. And again, thank you. Class is dismissed, you all.”

  “I’m the one who says when my students are allowed to leave.”

  “And I’m the one,” Wolf said and stalked closer to her, “who tells you to leave. As soon as you explain what the hell you were trying to do in here. Without my direct approval.”

  “I don’t need your approval…”

  Flynn took my hand and we motioned for our friends and classmates to head out first. I didn’t care to listen to any more. Leaving sounded too good. This class, this school, all of it.

  Only six more months to go…

  Chapter Twelve

  The day after the animal abuse exam, which was how I’d always remember it, I received an email from Suthering. An apology for being unable to be there for our scheduled monthly meeting and assessment.

  “Oh, not again…”

  I didn’t typically begrudge the headmaster when he couldn’t make my assessments. His guidance was the only one I trusted, and he’d only had to miss my meetings during the last year.

  “What’s up?” Paige asked as we lunched in Lorcan and Flynn’s room. Just the three of us—Flynn was helping Marcy at the greenhouse. One of the perks of senior year were unscheduled meal times. With so much of my agenda more like college life than high school, we weren’t told when and where we had to eat. Granted, everyone who wasn’t cramming for a test or finishing homework last-minute usually was ready to eat in the hour break in the middle of the day.

  “Glorian’s doing my assessment.”

  Lorcan exaggerated a wince at me. “That sucks.”

  “Where’s Suthering?” Paige asked. “Mom hasn’t said anything about him being gone.”

  I hadn’t read that far in the email yet, delayed with the annoyance of having to face the headmistress instead. It wasn’t entirely surprising Suthering had to bow out for at least one assessment. We had eight of them this year, rather than the four. I skimmed through his brief paragraph.

  “Oh. Whoa. He says Nevis might have a lead on where Griswold is.”

  Paige shimmied, straightening her pose from the floor pillow she sat on. “Nevis? He’s looking for Dr. Griswold?”

  “Why’s that so shocking?” Lor asked.

  The door opened before Paige could reply. Sabine stepped in. “Jeez. You guys couldn’t wait for me?” She entered and claimed Lorcan’s desk chair. When she scanned the wrapped bundles on the floor, I picked up her meatball, pepperoni, and triple cheese cholesterol log and tossed it to her. She caught it and grinned.

  Yuck. So much grease had leaked through the wrapper, I wiped my fingers off on the napkin in my lap from merely having picked it up. I checked the floor to see if the grease had worn a transparent hole through the carpet.

  And how does she stay so freaking skinny eating that junk?

  “It’s shocking because when Nevis left, he’d basically ended all ties with this place,” Paige went on.

  “Not really,” Sabine said around a mouthful of food.

  I gagged at her bad manner.

  “It seems like he’s always in contact with Suthering”—she kept her gaze on Paige and jerked her chin at me—“and your mom and the whole Pure A Team Squad were trying to help him when we’d gone after Aura and Stu last year.”

  True. I suspected Suthering might simply be hanging on to his old friendship while respecting that our uncle didn’t want to be affiliated with Olde Earth. And hiding the fact he kept up to date with him from Glorian.

  “And he came back here to save Layla,” Lorcan added. He smirked at Sabine then chuckled and slid napkins to her.

  “Oh, shut up.” She covered her chin and mouth with her hand. “I missed breakfast. I’m hungry.”

  “Of course he came back then. He wouldn’t let his niece suffer from something he was one of very few to remedy,” Paige said.

  “Nevis, Griswold, and Aura.” I counted them off with my fingers, turned off from finishing my sub from Sabine’s gross devouring of hers. “They’re the only ones who can connect their energy with fungi?”

  Nodding, Paige wiped at the corner of her mouth. Such a dainty eater compared to the beast in the room. “Yes. I mean, there are lots of Diluted elves. But Mom looked into the archives. Those three are the only recently recognized Pures with fungal powers.”

  I ran a finger along the edge of a wooden bead on my bracelet, relishing the smooth, cool feel. When I’d explained this bracelet to Flynn, he thought maybe he’d look for one, an accessory to be able to test himself with. Although, he’d developed his floral powers before his elven date. Other than hiding his hands as much as possible, he’d learned little tricks to try to conceal and test his energy much longer than I had.

  “Well, I’m glad there might be a lead on Dr. Griswold then.” Lorcan sighed as he settled back in his seat across from me on the floor, resting his back against Flynn’s bedframe. “Maybe that will lead us to Stu.”

  Never minding the firm set to his lips, Sabine pounced. Well, first she choked a little on her food, then coughed harshly, followed by swigging water from her bottle. “Say what?”

  I filled her in on the email.

  She huffed. “Good luck.”

  I probably needed it. Glorian once said there was no room for luck at Olde Earth. But I wanted something positive on my side if I had to sit down and listen to her after Bateson’s twisted exam yesterday. All last night, I’d thought about what happened, and the more I overanalyzed it, the clearer it was to me that the Irish teacher had done it as nothing more than a way to insult and dig at the Andeas family. Using birds—Glorian’s sect. Singling out Ren among three Pures—emphasizing his weaker power.

  It’s all messed up.

  “So what happened with Aura?” Sabine asked.

  “Oh, I stuck around for that part,” Lorcan provided. He scooted to sit up, and with a scowl trying to line his usually charming face, he said, “When you guys left, I asked Wolf if there was anything else I could do to help. You know, I was sort of excited for yesterday’s test when Bateson said we were going to the aviary.”

  We gaped at him and he held up a hand. “No, no. Not excited for it. If it were a test anyone else had designed, I would have been…curious. My bloodline is from the bird sect too.” He shrugged. “But so far, nothing’s really sparking with me.”

  I softened my face, letting him see my concern. Lorcan hadn’t been very vocal about wanting his powers to show. At least, he wasn’t whiny about it taking a while like Sabine had been before her Impressor skills were revealed. Yet, I could tell he sometimes felt left out of our little group, perhaps like a fifth wheel.

  “Nothing?” I asked. Granted, we’d been in the condors’ room. There were many birds out there in the world. Perhaps his power was specific to a certain family or species. It was too easy to forget about the Wright family’s bloodline. Whenever I thought of birds and who was bound to that sect, I always thought of the Andeas family first.

  He shook his head. “That’s why I was interested in what happened yesterday. I always pay extra attention when we’re in the aviary.”

  “It’ll come,” Paige said.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Anyway, I asked Wolf if I could help him and he had me help put a few things away in the supply room near where you guys did the test. I overheard Glorian talking to Aura and Ren, well, mostly Aura.”

  “And?” Sabine insisted.

  He deadpanned at her impatience. “And she was crying another innocent little girl act. She said she wa
s just doing what Bateson had told her to do. It wasn’t her fault. She was only following orders.”

  “Oh, come on!” Paige slammed her hand down to her thigh.

  “Well, she was,” I agreed.

  “Never thought you would side with Aura,” Sabine snapped.

  “I’m not. But she was. She was doing exactly what Bateson wanted her to do. She told her to keep the condor from eating, and in her own way, she had.”

  She’d done two things, really. Aura had proven that she had zero animal powers and that she had no qualms about injuring them. The first, I was glad for, the second, I loathed her for.

  “What did Glorian say?” Paige asked. “Tell me she didn’t buy it.”

  “It seemed like she did. She didn’t sound happy at all and was really worked up about the injured condor, which a Menagerie worker had already taken off to the clinic.

  “When she began scolding Aura about how she’d used her powers, Aura started crying.”

  “Oh, please.” Sabine rolled her eyes.

  “And went on and on about not knowing what else to do. She was scared for Ren—”

  “And there’s the winning ticket,” I quipped.

  Lorcan nodded. “After she said she was only trying to keep him safe because his powers weren’t working fast enough, so she did the only thing she could to keep the bird back.”

  Ren’s powers weren’t working fast enough? He didn’t have any powers to rival a Pure’s.

  I continued tracing the wooden beads with my finger and really poked at this news while the others continued hashing out the details of yesterday’s exam.

  What was in it for Aura? She really liked Ren and wanted to keep him from harm? I doubted it. Her comment about me screwing up everything she did… I had never tried to do anything with Ren. Since we were cousins, the most I could do with Ren was form a friendship—which wasn’t in the cards.

  She had to have meant beating this test? Appeasing Bateson by keeping her condor back? I’d already ruined her “final exam” last year, interrupting the exposure of mold that Griswold had tasked her with.

  Somehow, it wasn’t about tests, and scores, and passing. Was it as simple as preventing her from succeeding, regardless of the challenge? I was nothing more than a constant thorn in her dark ploys?