Not one of them moved.
Sammie glanced around, frowning when not one professor stepped forward to side with her. “Challenging me directly challenges the Council.”
“Then I’m directly challenging the Council.” Professor Dobbs, the Advanced Elemental instructor in a bow tie, his eyes hidden behind bottle-bottom glasses, broke free from the crowd.
“As am I.” Professor Anderson, the fire primary instructor with the terrible dye job, soon followed.
Professor Geoff Gallen—GG—joined her. “Ditto.”
Professor after professor combined forces, standing against the prophecy. This…I hadn’t anticipated. Had Stace done this? Had she rallied the troops in case our plan to take down Samantha Reed failed?
Sammie rolled her eyes and addressed the crowd, turning in a circle, the jewels in her crown catching the light as she moved. “Oh, please. Do any of you think you’re a match for the prophecy?”
“No.” Professor Fowler, the rotund shop instructor who’d taught me how to control my light elemental as well as serving as my very first faculty advisor, stepped forward.
She smiled triumphantly.
“But you’re not the real prophecy,” he added.
“What did you just say?” She glared at him and slowly approached. He thrust out his chin as she stopped in front of him. “Are you challenging me?”
“I suppose I am.”
“Stand down. This is your one and only warning.”
“Sammie, perhaps—” Stephens stopped abruptly when she brought up her hand, her attention never leaving Fowler.
She tilted her head as she studied the professor, who refused to back down.
Damn, I didn’t know he had it in him.
“I won’t stand down to the likes of you.”
“Well, then.” She turned from him. But then she whipped around, her arm extended, and hit him with a blast of air, knocking him to the ground. She opened the ground beneath him, dropping him into a deep hole. It swallowed him and closed up again as if it’d never appeared.
“Professor Fowler!” I raced to the spot and called the earth to open up and release him. It wouldn’t listen. “Bryan!”
He appeared at my side. We joined hands, combining our powers. The professors with the power to call earth circled the spot and did the same. Even then, it wasn’t enough to call the earth to spit him back out. Her call was too strong. How was that possible with this many elementals calling on earth to answer? I swallowed my panic and kept trying. I swear centuries ticked by, and still, the earth wouldn’t release him.
“Stand back.” Professor Groote pushed us aside and created a shovel out of roots, using it to dig him out. When the top of Professor Fowler’s head appeared, Groote and another professor reached in and pulled Fowler out of the hole. Dirt clogged his nose, mouth, covered his eyes. A thin layer clung to his ashen skin.
Syd rushed forward and checked for a pulse. He then placed his hands on Fowler’s chest and called light. I dropped to my knees next to him and did the same.
Nothing happened.
I increased my call. The professors surrounding us all backed away, some staggering as the power of our combined element hit them. Still, nothing happened.
“Syd?” I whimpered.
He rested his hand on my arm and lowered his head. “He’s gone.”
No. No! Not Professor Fowler. He did nothing wrong. He didn’t deserve to die for standing up for what’s right.
I whipped around to face her, this woman I now realized I never knew. I now realized I was nothing like. “You killed him.”
She straightened, perfectly poised, as if on stage in the middle of a performance. “He turned against the Council. You all saw that. This is what happens when you make the wrong choice. We can’t have that sort of dissention, especially among the professors of the academy.” She met each and every gaze of the remaining professors. It was a clear warning, one they all took seriously as they stood down.
All but Stacey Layden.
The three projected Stace’s disappeared, leaving the real 3C professor addressing the prophecy. “You could have locked him inside a cage of roots or trapped him in an airfield. Instead, you chose to kill him. How…interesting. And illegal. Being the prophecy doesn’t excuse you from breaking the law.”
Sammie jerked her attention to several Council members as they faced her.
“Wait.” She brought up her hands. “I’m making this world a better place by ridding it of the doubters. The tainted.”
“The dilutes?” I asked as I stood.
“Exactly.” She nodded enthusiastically. “Dilutes are unnatural. Abominations to our kind.”
“I’m a dilute. You chose to marry a Nelem and have a kid.” I motioned to myself. “That’s not the kid’s fault.”
She smiled, which was…unsettling. “Ask the ones in Carcerem whose fault it is.”
Wait. What? I’d never put it together until now. Here I’d thought those magically enhanced all had magic in them. I never thought it had anything to do with their lineage. “You convinced the Council to call out any elemental not a pure.”
“Who do you think has been magically enhancing all the dilutes? It’s surprising, really, that you never put that together.”
Oh my God. Oh my God! My mother was pure, unadulterated evil. And batshit crazy. “Why would you do that? They’re just innocent kids.”
She shrugged. “I did what I had to do to keep our world pure.”
“Include destroying your own bloodline? That’s why you were so disappointed that I passed my tribunal. I’m your daughter!”
She shrugged again. “You are only one.” She rolled her eyes. “You aren’t the only one.”
Holy fartnarking shit mammas. Did she just admit to having other kids? Did I have siblings?
“I can’t believe…” I didn’t know what else to say.
“What? That I had a life outside of the Nelem world with you and your Nelem father?” She laughed, the sound shrill and unsettling. “Yes, I do. I
