Jealousy

It was the only school I’d ever been to where I actually looked forward to gym class. At the other Schola the directive had been to stop me sparring with anyone. All part of the plan to keep me dumb and vulnerable, and poor Dylan hadn’t known what to do. I hadn’t been there long enough for him to figure out how to go about breaking the rules over me either.

Here, though, things were different.

I hit the mats hard and bounced up, warmth flooding my body as my teeth tingled. “Very good!” Arcus yelled, teeth white against the darkness of his face. “Turn, turn turn!”

I did, instinctively throwing an elbow up to catch his strike. My arm went briefly numb; his fist headed for my face. I ducked aside instead of back, grabbed his wrist with clumsy fingers, and pulled. My teeth stopped tingling and ached, a bolt of warm sensitivity crackling along my jaw, and the fangs would have dimpled my lower lip if my mouth hadn’t been open while I gasped for air. Sweat flew as I helped him fly past me, my knee bolting up. The strike had no weight behind it because I had to fall back and get my balance.

He whirled on the balls of his feet, the change rippling under his ebony skin. Wiry dark hair sprang loose, crawling up from his flesh like a fast-forward of plants growing. He was built like a football player, and pretty graceful too. His wide nostrils flared, taking in quick sharp breaths. “No! Press your advantage while you can!”

“Don’t have the footing!” I snarled back. “You’d knock me over!”

“Then you shouldn’t lose your footing, girl!” He spread his arms, the crackling of bone receding as he dropped back into human form, hair retreating along his cheeks.

I skipped back half-nervously, hands up and ready. Watched him.

He feinted; I didn’t fall for it. Moved closer, looked like he wanted to close with a jab or two, but I faded to the side. As long as I had plenty of room I wasn’t doing too badly. He hadn’t pronounced me completely hopeless, at least, which I’ve heard he sometimes does.

They had me sparring with wulfen teachers here because the happy stuff in a svetocha’s blood—the same stuff that will make me eventually toxic to suckers after I hit the girl version of the drift and bloom—tends to drive djamphir a little crazy once it hits oxygen. Wulfen can smell it, sure—but it doesn’t drive them nutzoid.

Not any more than just-plain-human blood does. Which is to say, just a little. But I wasn’t bleeding yet. And Arcus was careful.

All the same, I wondered why Dylan hadn’t just had a wulfen teacher start training me. But he’d been a by- the-book sort and terminally indecisive as well. I couldn’t hold it against him, though. Seeing as how he’d done the right thing and given me the unedited transcript.

And seeing as how he was probably . . . dead.

I ignored that thought, too. While I was fighting I didn’t have to think about any of that. It was pure action and reaction, and sometimes I even forgot what was going on and thought it was Dad pushing me to work harder, be faster, think better.

And at the end of gym class, I could usually steal ten minutes or so for t’ai chi in the locker room’s echoing damp-fogged space. The familiar movements soothed me, and after the first half-minute I didn’t care so much that I was basically practicing in a bathroom. Do it where you gotta was one of Dad’s mottos.

Or was it a mantra? That’s one of those questions that’ll drive you crazy.

Arcus blurred in, with the spooky streak-on-glass speed wulfen use, and I went down hard. But my sneaker came up, socked a good one into his midriff, and he tumbled over me with a short growl of surprise. I rolled, gaining my feet in a graceless lunge, and skipped back some more. A curl had worked loose of my braid and fell in my face, blonde veining along its length as the warm-oil feeling of the aspect flooded me in fits and starts.

It was doing that more and more lately. I was closer than ever to “blooming” and having the real fun begin. When I hit my drift, I’d suddenly be faster, stronger, harder to kill. I’d become toxic to suckers. I might even get a bit taller or have my weight distribution change, which I figure was a fancy way of saying might get more breasticles maybe. My face might change, too. It would happen over a week or so, and afterward the real fun would start.

Yeah. Couldn’t wait. Not.

Arcus should have been coming after me like a freight train. Instead he’d frozen, looking up over my shoulder. I didn’t snap a glance to see, but the silence filling the long windowless room wasn’t normal. Usually, this gym is full of first-year students learning katas or doing light sparring. The mats covering the floor are in good repair, and there are even bleachers pushed up against the walls, ready to be pulled out for basketball games.

I hear wulfen are really big into hoops. Hadn’t seen a game yet, though. Djamphir are supposed to play polo or lacrosse. I mean, what the hell? I’d rather watch werwulf basketball any day.

Arcus straightened. He cast me an unreadable glance, and I was vaguely gratified to see he was sweating a little too. I must’ve given him a run for his money.

The head gym teacher, a djamphir with short feathery platinum hair, appeared to my left. “Milady. A moment?”

I still didn’t look away from Arcus. Never take your eyes off’n ’em, Dad always said, and it was good advice. I swallowed hard against the stone in my throat, pushed the thought of Dad away, and kept my stance loose and easy.

“Milady?” The teacher sounded nervous. I backed up another two steps. Arcus did, too, and I could swear the wulfen looked pleased. He dropped fully into human form, the extra bulk sliding away and a brief flash of orange lighting in the center of his pupils.

“What’s up?” I finally swung my gaze around and discovered the teacher was pale.

“I’m to clear the room. You’re to wait here.” He paused, his blue eyes darting nervously. “Milady.” His eyebrows rose significantly.

I wished they wouldn’t call me that, but then I cottoned on. My stomach twisted up into a high hard knot. “Oh. I . . . okay, I get it.” And I couldn’t help myself—I looked around for Benjamin. Didn’t see him. I did see Shanks across the room, idly leaning against the wall near the double door heading out to the east hall. The emo-boy swoop across his forehead, fringing his dark eyes, was shaken down even more emphatically than usual. “I just wait here?”

The teacher—I remembered his name, Frederick—lifted his eyebrows, and a little of his color came back. “Yes, ma’am.” He turned on his heel, and the news had traveled by jungle telegraph. Boys looked curiously or gratefully at me and left, heading for the locker room. When I glanced back, Shanks was gone.

Crap. Here it comes. I should have backed up to the wall. But I just stood there. Whatever happened now I’d ride out; then I’d get Graves somehow, and we’d go.

I couldn’t say I was sorry.

The gym emptied out. Dust motes danced in the air under falls of fluorescent light.

I felt curiously naked. It was the first time I’d been really truly alone in forever, and the gym was a huge empty space. The boys’ locker rooms were huge as well, with at least twenty communal tubs full of the weird waxy bubbling stuff that soothed hurts and made everything heal up like crazy.

But the girls’ locker rooms were tiny in comparison, though big enough to do a complete Yang long form in. None of the three or four gyms I’d gone to sparring practice in had more than a three-tub girls’ locker room.

Because svetocha were so rare. I shifted my weight nervously and tried to figure out what she would want from me now.

Maybe I’d get a chance to tell her Christophe wasn’t my thing.

Yeah. That’d be real fun all the way around. And the more I thought about it the more I knew Graves was right. She wouldn’t believe that.

Sweat itched all over me, and I pulled my T-shirt down. There was a scrape of rug burn on my forearm, past my elbow. Or would you call it mat burn, since I’d gotten it scrambling to get up while Arcus—

“Hello, Dru.”

I half-turned, and there Anna stood in a pair of clinging pink sweats and a red tank top. Slim and pretty, her