“It’s time to get real, guys,” I said. “We’re running out of time. The school year ends in six weeks, give or take. You have to heal yourselves by then.”
The students cast nervous glances between them. Ricky cleared his throat and scratched furiously at his scalp, a sure sign of his anxiety. Christina leaned back in her chair, rested her feet on top of the desk, and let her arms dangle at her sides. She wanted to look cool and disinterested, like she couldn’t care less what I had to say, but she couldn’t hide the sparks of fear aspects lodged in her aura like burrs.
“I don’t think I can,” a small girl in the front said. She peered at me through her mousy brown bangs, her green eyes wet and wide. “I’ve tried so hard, but I’m not getting any closer.”
“I know it’s hard,” I said. “I also know you can do it. You’ll have access to all the raw materials you could ever need. Hahen will work with you as long and as late as you’d like every day. I’ll do whatever I can to help, too. But this has to happen.”
“Or what?” Christina said. She slapped her feet flat on the floor and the twin reports rang through the room like gunshots. Cruzal jumped next to me, and I heard the locked door rattle.
“Don’t open that door,” I shouted. There was just enough jinsei in my voice to stun everyone into silence, and the students stared at me like I’d grown a third eye. “You really want to know what happens if you don’t do this?”
Christina challenged me with her stare. She thrust her chin forward, and her fists were clenched into tight balls on the desk in front of her. She was scared, and she hated that. Her rage took the place of the fear and left smoldering fires behind her eyes. She was tough, I’d give her that. Unfortunately, she wasn’t as tough as the Inquisition.
“You’ll leave the School,” I said firmly.
“Good, I can finally go back home,” Christina said sarcastically. “Finally, somebody’s listening to me.”
“You’re not going home,” I said. “If you fix your core, you’ll remain here, and you’ll be safe. I’ll keep training you, and you’ll attend classes with the rest of the students. You’ll have to work off your tuition, but it won’t be too hard. If you fail, though, they’ll take you to Atlantis.”
“Why?” Ricky asked from the front row. “There’s nothing there but temples and administration. There aren’t any schools.”
“There is a school,” I corrected him. “Not that it will matter to you. If the Church takes you, you’ll spend the rest of your lives in Atlantis turning out purified jinsei. You’ll never see your parents or families again.”
The students stared back at me with trembling lips. Their eyes were so wide they looked like they were about to pop from their skulls. I’d babied them for too long, I realized. I should have been harsh with them from the beginning. My mistake hadn’t been in pushing them, but in trying to make them feel comfortable and at ease.
I’d wanted them to trust me.
I’d been a fool.
I hadn’t progressed when I felt safe or comfortable. My progress always came hot on the heels of fear and anger.
I should’ve made them afraid of me from the beginning.
“You told us we were safe here,” Christina shouted. She shoved back from her desk and stomped toward the front of the class. Her face was bright red, her eyes leaking enraged tears. “And now you’re telling us we’ll never go home?”
“This isn’t what I wanted,” I shouted right back. Christina was only two years younger than me. She felt like a child, but only because I’d seen a world that she’d never imagined. “You want to be mad at somebody? Be mad at her.”
I jabbed a finger toward the headmistress. She stared at me, then narrowed her eyes into angry slits.
“How dare you,” she spat. “I worked with Sanrin to gather the resources for this project. If it wasn’t for me, these brats would still be in the undercity where they belong.”
Cruzal’s harsh words hit the students like a splash of cold water. We’d spent so much time together, they’d started to see the world as a battle between what they wanted and what I demanded of them.
Now, though, I’d given them someone else to hate. We were on the same team.
The fear and rage I saw in their faces, the turmoil I sensed brewing in their auras, was exactly what we needed to move forward.
And I hated myself for inflicting it on them. I’d never wanted them to suffer like this. It had nearly broken me.
But it was the only way to save them.
I had to keep telling myself that.
“This is what I’ve been warning you about,” I said, my voice just shy of a shout. “The world will use you. It will destroy you. But only if you let it. There’s a way out of this for all of you. Find your path. Heal your core. Do that, and I promise you, no one will ever get in your way again.”
With every word, my aura flared with dark energy. I cycled jinsei as I spoke, plucking fear and worry out of the air and feeding it into my aura until it clung to me like an oily shadow. “You can do this. I know you can, because I did it. But if you don’t believe in yourselves, and you don’t push yourselves, then Headmistress Cruzal, or someone like her, will steal your life. It almost happened to me.”
Cruzal glared at me. There was a strange mixture of anger and admiration in her eyes. She held my gaze for a long moment, then looked away, her cheeks flushed, eyes downcast.
The students stirred uneasily in their seats. They watched me cautiously, unsure of what I’d do next. Maybe I’d gone too far. The students needed
