“You’ll be allowed to flee to the nurse after class ends,” the professor said with a blasé tone of voice. “For now, fight through your pain. Push past it and learn to deal with it. You’ll be paired off with…” he glanced around the room. For just a moment, his eyes settled on Irene.
She shook her head back and forth as subtly as she could. Irene did
Eventually, Zagan passed her by. “Anderson,” he snapped. “Hold back and you’ll be in detention every weekend for the rest of the year.”
Jordan frowned, but nodded.
“For your detention…” He turned back to the crying Kristina, Drew–who obviously was wanting to look tough in front of his girlfriend but not quite willing to attack the professor–and the bewildered Max. “I’m sure the dean’s secretary would be perfectly willing to supervise tomorrow at noon.”
The slight smile on Professor Zagan’s face slipped.
It didn’t take Irene long to realize what he was unhappy with.
While both Kristina and Drew looked aghast–at the professor’s actions or detention, or both–Max had a wide smile on his face.
“On second thought,
Irene let out a small shudder. Professor Zagan could be scary when he wanted. He had assigned a number of detentions over the course of the year. Not once had he supervised them himself, choosing instead to delegate to Catherine.
And then the nose breaking. Callously harming the students like that had to be against the rules. Yet as Irene watched him pick up where he left off before the interruption, she couldn’t detect the slightest hint that he cared about either Kristina or the consequences.
And vanishing the door.
Irene hadn’t the slightest idea how he had managed that beyond preparing ahead of time with some enchanted instant-wall item. Or a complicated bit of order and earth magic to conjure an entire wall.
Either way, scary.
Thankfully, she was paired off with Shelby. She had managed to avoid drawing any extra attention to herself.
So long as she kept her head down until the weekend started, she might just escape unscathed.
A heated glare from Drew partway through class told her otherwise.
A Read Letter Day
Eva tossed a book over her shoulder.
Worthless.
It didn’t matter how many tomes she went though, none of them described anything remotely similar to the enigmas. A number of creatures had violet blood. Humans could have blood that appeared purple under the right lighting and oxygen levels. A very select few mundane creatures even had natural purple blood.
As such, blood wasn’t much to go off of. Not for her at least. Wayne had taken a sample from the iced enigma to use in alchemy and regular science in an attempt to identify it. Thus far, Eva hadn’t heard back from him.
That left its appearance. Dog-shaped with snake-like tentacles growing from its spine, a round head that opened to the point that Eva’s entire leg could fit within, and a thin tail tipped with a triangle.
Though the color of its blood discounted demons, the shape of its tail and the fact that the creatures were associated with Hell both times Eva had seen them led to her pouring though every demonology book in her library. She even scoured all the books Devon left behind.
No results.
After exhausting that library, Eva moved on to books pilfered from the school library. Several at the recommendation of Bradley Twillie. Though he hadn’t been brought to the creature, Eva had described it to him just to see if he knew anything. He didn’t.
The books he suggested were dead ends as well. Surprisingly, a good number of them–the ones written in the last thirty or so years–were authored by Juliana’s father. That, in and of itself, had pushed Eva’s idea to contact him back to the front of her mind.
She was growing increasingly nervous as the days passed by with no response to her letter.
Eva pulled a fresh book from the pile to replace her tossed book. Before she had the chance to crack it open, Zoe stepped into the room.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Zoe said as she lifted up a thin piece of paper. “Hunting you down in Ylva’s domain is tedious.”
Eva’s breath hitched in her throat. Her eyes homed in on the paper and did not wander.
It wasn’t any regular paper. It was an envelope.
Since arriving at Brakket, the total number of letters she had received could be counted on one hand. All of which were missives from the school itself for book lists, schedules, or other announcements.
Using her extraordinarily sharp fingers in place of a letter opener, Eva broke the seal and pulled out the contents. A handwritten letter. The words were something of a cross between chicken-scratch and the loopy cursive of a calligrapher. In short, somewhat unreadable.
Still, Eva narrowed her eyes and concentrated.
