“Twenty-seven? Wha… What?” Benedict stared at her, his mouth slightly agape as he looked like he was trying to process what she had just yelled at him.
“You heard me,” she shot back, genuinely hoping that he had heard her. It really wouldn’t sound half as good a second time, plus she wasn’t sure she could even remember what she had said. It all happened so quickly.
“I’m sorry, sir, I did try and stop her.” Benedict’s elderly secretary had now made it to the office door, and she was shooting daggers at Jaycen with her eyes. The phrase if looks could kill came to mind.
“It’s fine, Greta, Jaycen can be here. Please, shut the door,” Benedict instructed, waiting for the door to close before continuing. “Are you okay? Do you want to take a seat? Maybe, get a glass of water?”
She could tell by his small smile that Benedict was joking, but it actually sounded like a good idea. She really had worked herself up too much and was sweating a little bit.
“Maybe, you should take this seat; you’re looking a tad red.”
She jumped at the second voice, trying to hide it as she ran a hand through her dark hair.
She turned just a little to see Thornton standing there, just looking at her from the corner of the room, again completely expressionless. Was that even normal? The other man in the room was also sitting; Jaycen recognized him from the murder scene; he was talking to the police with Thornton and Benedict. She guessed that he had been the one to speak, since the voice that she had heard sounded friendly—definitely not Thornton.
“Oh, hi. I didn’t see you there.” She lifted her hand in a wave, pushing down her embarrassment as much as she could. This definitely wasn’t the right time for this discussion; now would also be a good time to leave. “I’ll come back.”
She turned and headed for the door when the older man spoke.
“Don’t rush out on our account. Take a seat, please, I insist.” The older man made a move to get up, but Thornton stopped him by putting his hand on his shoulder.
“If you want to sit down, take a seat.” Thornton motioned with his head to the empty seat closest to him, his feature still completely blank and unreadable. Is he always like this? Jaycen wondered, while at the same time already walking backwards to the now closed door.
“You may as well stay; this involves you.” Benedict sat back in his chair and motioned to the empty seat.
Involved her? Her interest was too piqued to leave now, so Jaycen walked straight over to the spare seat, which she hadn’t realised was so close to where Thornton stood until their shoulders brushed as she tried to sit down. He didn’t say anything to her, just carried on looking at her like he wanted her to burst into flames.
“You could have moved,” she said as she sat and crossed her legs. The others in the room watched the tense, awkward exchange.
“Have you two met?” Benedict asked, his finger bouncing between Jaycen and Thornton.
“No,” he denied at the same time Jaycen said, “Oh, yeah.”
Now the room fell into an awkward silence.
“Okayyyy,” the man in the chair drawled, widening his eyes at Benedict, while Jaycen stared up at Thornton, her mouth hanging open.
“Well, anyway, we already have a link with…” Benedict started talking, but Jaycen wasn’t listening. She was still focused on Thornton.
“Do you have an issue with me?” she cut in, turning in her chair to get a better look at him.
He didn’t even look at her when he mumbled, “No.”
Again, she stared at him, her mouth still open. The guy was just so rude.
“Well, you can go and shove…” she started when Benedict stood up.
“Someone’s called about the picture.” He held a picture of Jaycen’s attacker in the air. “Someone knows who it is. I’m going to go and see them tomorrow.”
“Oh, that is great. What a wonderful way of defusing the tension too.” The older man clapped, smiling widely as he turned so he was fully looking at Jaycen. “We’ve been in each other’s company a few times now, my dear, and I don’t believe we have been formally introduced.” He held out his hand for Jaycen to shake. “I’m George Krull, Thornton’s father.”
She took his large, slightly wrinkled hand in hers and gave it a shake. “Nice to meet you.” She then thought about what he had actually just said. “I think I’ve only seen you once though.”
“I’ve been to see you a few times while you were unconscious. Of course, I was there when Thornton brought you to Benedict as well; you were still unconscious, but still. I was there, you were there.” His light green eyes crinkled at the sides as he smiled, a lock of his silver hair falling loose around his round face. He didn’t look like Thornton at all. Or Thornton didn’t look like him, she mentally corrected, as his dad was older.
“We’ve met so many times we’re practically family.” Jaycen could see Thornton roll his eyes, so just to annoy him further she reached over and squeezed his dad’s arm.
“You are a dream, my dear. With a tongue like a whip and a face that could start a war.”
She wasn’t sure how exactly that was a compliment, but she’d take it anyway.
“Although I must say, Benedict didn’t mention that you were British.”
She shook her head. “I’m not; I just lived there for a while. I must have picked up a bit of an accent.”
“Dad, I have places I need to be. Are we done here?” Thornton crossed his arms, his face that same unreadable mask. Maybe, it wasn’t just her, Jaycen thought, maybe, that was just his face?
“In a moment, Thorn.” His father waved a hand, not paying his son’s scowl any mind.
Jaycen turned to Benedict who was still standing. “Who’s the lead that knows the attackers?”
He shrugged his wide shoulders as he held up the police sketch. “No idea, I passed the sketch on to the police as well as the council, and a human came forward, apparently they know who he is. Maybe, we were barking up the wrong tree all along, looking for witches and warlocks, or looking in the magic realm at all. Maybe, the killer and the attackers are human.”
“He used magic on me,” Jaycen reminded him.
“Only one of them. Maybe, the other isn’t a magic holder. It’s at least worth a look. Also, the council wants to know, if the sighting is correct and we find these men, are you willing to testify against them?”
Jaycen nodded.
“Give it some thought; these are dangerous men. I don’t want to you going into this blind and naïve, it could be dangerous.”
“Do you have any DNA evidence to tie them to the murders?” she asked, simply.
Benedict shook his head. “As of right now, no.”
“So, just my testimony that I saw them with the knife, talking about the murder?” The room fell silent. “Kind of looks like you need me to testify.”
No matter how scared she was of these men, of what they could do to her, they’d go free without her testimony. She really didn’t have much of a choice, and now, everyone here knew that.
“Okay. I’m leaving to go and meet with the council, and then tomorrow I’m going to meet with the source. I’ll keep you updated on what happens.”
Jaycen wasn’t sure if Benedict was talking to her, but she nodded anyway and watched as he moved around his office.
“This whole thing has been so interesting.” She waved her hand in the air. “But believe it or not, this wasn’t the reason I came here today.”
“I know the reason that you came here, and the answer is no.” Benedict gathered the picture of her attacker that he had held up earlier and shoved it into a black folder.
“What? Why?” she whined, not caring how she sounded, and most of her earlier fire now long gone.
“It would be dangerous and careless for me to put you in classes with students your own age. Students that are years ahead of you. You could be hurt, and that is something I cannot allow to happen.”
It was sweet, and it did make sense. But stil
l, Jaycen wasn’t finished.
“I’ll take extra classes; I’ll catch up with everyone in my grade. Just give me a shot to prove to you that I can do it.”
“Extra classes, huh?” Benedict asked, to which Jaycen nodded eagerly. “Tell me, what teacher has promised to give you these extra lessons? What teacher has time?”
“It doesn’t have to be a teacher; I could get a student to teach me,” she offered. “I’m ahead in all my normal classes, or I was before I came here anyway. I could spend extra time learning magic—you’ve seen my school file; you know it makes sense.”
“Oh, bravo, dear.” George clapped. “Give her a shot, Benedict.”
Well, at least she had convinced someone, Jaycen thought, watching as Benedict dropped the black file on the floor next a bunch of other files and reached into a drawer, pulling out another black binder.
“In the second year, our students do a test. It shows us what group to place them in for the following year. I’ll give you one month, and if you place in the top five percent, you can join the rest of your year. If not, you’ll stay where you are.”
Benedict had barely stopped talking when Jaycen said, “Deal.”
He smiled, and reached into the folder, pulling out two pieces of paper. “The exam is in two parts. Written, and active. Sadly, no teacher will be able to give up their time to give you extra training. You’ll have to somehow talk a student into helping you. Here is a quick guide to the test. One month, Jaycen, that’s it.” Benedict handed Jaycen the paper, then put the other sheet back in the folder and dropped it on the floor.
Jaycen watched it fall and stood. “Thank you, Benedict.” Her eyes scanned the sheet, not even seeing the words, instead she was focused on the folder that laid on the floor next to Benedict’s desk.
“Lovely meeting you, dear; we’ll run into each other again, I presume.” George waved, a small smile still fixed in his face. Thornton, unsurprisingly, didn’t say anything.
Jaycen walked across the office, dropping her bag just near Benedict’s desk. “Oops.” She dropped to the floor, scooping her bag and the black folder off the floor at the same time. She managed to shove it into her bag before she stood.
“Won’t let you down, Benedict,” she promised, already heading to the door and not looking back. She had been so focused on getting out the door that she didn’t notice Thornton eyeing her bag and the black folder that just barely peeked out of it.
Chapter 6
“I picked up the wrong goddamn folder.” She threw it on her bed then fell onto the mattress next to it. The plan had been so simple, well, in her head. Grab the folder, cheat on the test, pass the test. Boom. Job done.
“I can’t believe you tried to steal the test answers. That’s called cheating, and stealing,” Gemma reminded her as she swung around on Jaycen’s desk chair.
“Stealing sounds too harsh. I borrowed it, and I was going to return it. Now, all because Benedict is messy and doesn’t put his folders away when he’s done with them, I’ve picked up the wrong folder.” She flicked through the sheets that were inside, the face of her attacker looking back at her. Mmmm, interesting, very interesting.
“It kind of serves you right—you shouldn’t have tried to steal it, or borrow it. I think you could pass the test on your own.” Gemma smiled sweetly.
“Well, it looks like now I’m going to have to. Is it hard? The test?” Jaycen reached for her phone and typed ‘magic exam’ into Google, knowing that it was a shot in the dark, but worth a try. A bunch of useless pages came up like finding your inner witch or find what kind of witch you are. Unsurprisingly, none of them were helpful.
“It was okay, but I studied for weeks. I still only made it to level four though.”
Jaycen looked up from her phone. “Level four?”
“Yeah, the last few years are separated into groups, one being the best, nine being the worst. I mean, it’s an okay group but it’s not the best. Look at the bright side, at least you can study for this, back when it was the blood drop your fate would have already been decided.”
Jaycen’s face scrunched up in confusion. “What’s the blood drop?”
Gemma tilted her head to the side, her brows creasing together in a small frown. “You really don’t know?”
Jaycen shook her head. “No idea, all of this is completely new to me.”
“So, you really didn’t know about magic? That’s so crazy. I mean, it makes sense now why you’re with the younger students for all the magical classes, but it’s still a shock. I’d heard rumours, people saying that you’d just found out about your magic, but I thought they were just that. Nasty rumours. I can’t believe it’s actually true.”
Jaycen looked up from the file that lay open on her legs. “Why is it that shocking?”
“Magic runs in the family. It’s in our blood, passed down from our ancestors, no one just finds out. Some people have more magic running through their veins, some have less. It all depends on who your ancestors are.”
Jaycen couldn’t even hide the confusion on her face. “Right?” she drawled out, still having no idea why her not knowing she had powers was a big deal.
“Right, okay.” Gemma shifted in her seat, getting more comfortable before she continued. “Millions and millions of years ago, billions possibly, there was a war in Heaven.”
“Heaven?” Jaycen repeated, her mind working overtime, trying to figure out how they had gone from her magical past to Heaven? Was Gemma trying to tell a joke? Because if so, she wasn’t very good at it.
“Yes, Heaven. Shhh.” Gemma waved her hand in the air before continuing. “So, the war, it was brutal, and a lot of Angels fell to Earth. Now, Earth wasn’t made for magic; it couldn’t handle these eternal beings being here, so close to humans and their delicate lives. So, witches and warlocks were created, by whom or what I don’t know. But we were. Five men and women, the five originals. That’s where it all starts, where our powers come from. At some point, they separated into families: the Ravensmiths, the Krulls, the Emkas, the Okonas, and lastly, the Izya who have all died out.” She placed her hand over her stomach. Jaycen leant forward enthralled by the story. Surely, this couldn’t be real? It sounded like something from a fairy tale, made up. Like something she’d read in one of her books.
“Think of it like a big family tree, and at the top of the family tree there are five people; from them you will have direct descendants; we call them violet bloods. Then, there would be those who are like the fourth cousins twice removed or something. These are the people who are related but through a very faint bloodline. They are people like us.”
“Oh, okay.” Jaycen was just getting her head around it.
“Years ago, they realised that the generations were getting weaker, and eventually dying off altogether. The four remaining families realised this when the Izya family died off, and they have been working very hard to keep their names and their power since. They give the term, keeping it in the family, a whole new meaning. But of course, some people marry and have children outside of those blood lines, diluting the power even more.”
The original five, that was what Gemma had called Thornton when Jaycen had asked who he was. She’s said he was a Krull, one of the big five. Now, she knew what that meant—it was huge.
Just that simple, Jaycen thought, her mind automatically drifting to her own family. She didn’t even know who her grandparents were, never mind her ancestors’ ancestors.
“I really doubt that records go that far back,” she mumbled, mainly to herself, as she tried to process it all. She’d never know how close she was to an ancestor; was she someone with a faint bloodline, a distant cousins twice removed? The thought saddened her more than she expected. Her family had always been her mother, now she had found out she was part of a bigger family. A family she’d never know.
“Human records don’t, but ours do. Witches and warlocks live longer than humans. Well, we used to; now, it’s roughly the same, but back when the originals w
ere about, they lived for hundreds of years. Now, only one of us lives that long.”
Jaycen was too busy processing everything to ask any questions. She was still deep in thought when a loud bell rang out.
“What the hell?” Jaycen heard doors open and close in the hallway, and the chatter of students as they passed her door.
“It’s the night time bell; it means I have to go to my room.” Gemma stood, pulling her bag up with her. “Go through some of the study material. I honestly believe you can pass this test; I’ll help you.”
Jaycen smiled up at her. “You will?”
Gemma frowned before nodding, as if her not helping was just unheard off. “Of course I will.”
“Thank you. That’s really nice of you.”
“Well, we’re friends.”
They had known each other a day, not even a full day either. So, Jaycen wasn’t sure how they had become friends so fast, but she was happy that they were. She smiled widely, kind of liking having a friend that wasn’t her mother. As sad as that sounded, it was the sad, sad truth.
She watched Gemma leave her room, waiting for the door to close before she opened the folder in front of her. The file was full of papers, copies of police reports with what she assumed was Benedict’s handwriting scribbled in the corners and at the edges. She scanned the police report, skipping the gory details of the murder, scanning over it to see if there was anything she didn’t know already. There wasn’t. She put the police reports aside, and flipped through the other pieces of paper, stopping when she noticed a strange emblem at the top of one page. Jaycen ran her hand over the intricate detail of what she could only describe as a coat of arms. The banner in the middle was framed by two lions, one with its mouth open, the other’s mouth shut, but its eyes menacing. The words Inde Fit in Virtue were written underneath the coat of arms on a deep blue ribbon. She wondered what that meant.
It was another report, this one mentioning Benedict by name. Was this the council that Benedict had spoken about? The Cure. Her name jumped off the page, as if it had been shouted at her. How could she resist reading it now, Jaycen thought, as her eyes were already scanning the words. The report was from the police officer at the scene, and most of it Jaycen knew already. It mentioned her attack in detail, noting all the details she had told Benedict while bedridden. It was all correct, word for word. Apart from one line. The report had said Jaycen had seen the attacker’s knife fall into the road outside the alley. That wasn’t true. The knife had been in the alley. Had the police been looking in the wrong place? Had the knife been hidden among the rubbish of the alley this whole time?
Violet Blood Page 5
