And what if you only have your bare hands? A different current of nausea churned in my belly. The normal, anxiety-driven kind—not the imminent-Purge kind—blending with the missing-pixie kind. I’d made it through several stages in the exam before the banshee happened, but what if I didn’t have a satchel to swing or a convenient lightning bolt at my disposal? We hadn’t even begun, and I already felt like I was at the bottom of the class. Not in a self-pitying way, just in a practical, logical sense; I’d come to a firefight with a blunt spear.
Hosseini raised the sea-green box in his hand. With a better view, I could see that each face of the box was covered in intricate silver designs etched directly into the matte metal. A sheen rippled across the surface like a mirage, the etchings glowing faintly.
“What’s in there?” said a meathead with enormous biceps, jabbing a sausage-like finger at the box. He was actually called Theodore Isherwood, I learned—or Teddy, to his friends.
Hosseini smiled. “Let us find out, shall we? Genie, if you would be so kind as to demonstrate for us?”
“Demonstrate?” Genie looked startled. I gave her a gentle push forward, setting aside my pixie thoughts for a second. Evidently, Hosseini had high hopes for my friend, and wanted to show the rest of our class what a remarkable magical they had in their ranks. He was giving her the platform she needed for the exposure therapy she’d been scheming.
“Yes,” Hosseini said simply. “If you come up, I will unleash the creature.”
“Go,” I urged in a whisper.
Genie stepped out of the crowd and took up her position in the open space at the far side of the room. Lines were drawn at intervals across the rough stone floor to mark out a pitch of some sort—much better for running and fighting than the smooth concrete. To test our capturing skills from different distances, perhaps? Without prompting, she moved behind the farthest line, while Hosseini went to the opposite side. He set the box on the floor and pushed down on a harp-shaped symbol. Then, he backed away, retrieving a baton from the trunk where he’d gotten the box. No, it wasn’t a baton… It looked, unless I was mistaken, like a shock stick.
That can’t be right. They wouldn’t use something like that here, would they? Maybe it was solely for the new recruits, in case anything went wrong. When it came to the safety of students or monsters, the students would always come first. Still, it left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Anger, maybe. Using a device like that was cruel, plain and simple.
Before I could think about it for long, black mist erupted from the box and started to take shape on the stone floor: stringy legs covered in dark, maroon scales, which gave way to a plump, slimy body and a set of leathery black wings that flapped furiously. Bulging, thread-veined eyes glowered at Genie, while glinting fangs the size of my index finger dribbled with an oily ooze. Its midnight-blue tongue slobbered around thin lips, like it had just eaten a blue-raspberry sucker.
A gargoyle… Immediately, I thought of my mom and my uncle. They probably wouldn’t have liked to hear that, but they had an affinity for these creatures. So many of their best stories included gargoyle sidekicks. Murray had been my favorite as a kid, though I realized later on that they’d PG-ed the tales about Murray and Davin for child-friendly consumption. Still, he was a hero to me, and I used to beg to visit his box in the Bestiary. He adored my mom and uncle but hated my dad, always lunging at the glass to try and scare him. I’d been so envious of my mom and uncle for their gargoyle exploits, so seeing this one in the proximity of a shock stick was a bit jarring. True, I’d Purged one of my own, but I hadn’t been given time to think about it the way I was thinking about Genie’s target practice.
Genie smiled at the gargoyle, already familiar with this type of monster. She launched into an attack without hesitation, green ripples pulsing down her body into the stone floor, where a crack formed and snaky vines slithered out. They twisted around the creature’s legs before it could even move.
Something’s not right about this. The gargoyle had my full attention, its expression contorted with a tangible fury that shouldn’t have been there. Gargoyles had a nasty streak, for sure, and they had no trouble getting aggressive, but this felt different. I could almost sense its frustration and wondered how often this poor thing got dragged out of its prison for the sole purpose of being battered into submission, only to end up back in that puzzle box at the end of it. I mean, no wonder it looked pissed.
“Look how ropey that thing is,” someone whispered.
Someone else chuckled. “You ever seen a punchbag after a few years? Same difference.”
Don’t any of you care? My heart broke for the gargoyle. It wasn’t much of a positive, but at least other creatures were taken care of and given some comfort in the Repository or the Bestiary. But this one was here, stuck in a box, waiting to be used over and over again. No wonder I could feel its frustration so potently. And a shock stick on top of that… It was inhumane.
The gargoyle hunched over and tried to rip the vines away with its sharp fangs, growling in exasperation. While it was distracted, Genie launched another burst of Earth at the beast. More vines wrapped around its body, constricting it. I wanted to shout for her to stop, but quickly realized that wouldn’t go over well. The trouble was, I could feel its pain. It couldn’t breathe and was starting to panic.
It thrashed wildly, trying to get free, but Genie was in the flow of the fight
