“She is the 3C professor.” Leave it to Leo to state the obvious.
“Not after today.” Rob moved in next to me and kissed my cheek, the whiskers dusting his chin poking me. “Miss seeing you every day, Reed. Come over tonight?”
I was still processing what he’d just said. “What do you mean not after today? Did they finally find another quad to take over the class?”
“That’s what she wants to talk to us about.”
Why wouldn’t she talk to me about that? I was her TA, for crying out loud. Whoever took over the class would technically be my new boss. I deserved to know.
“Come on, Katy.” Bryan took my hand. “I’ll grab coffee with you before heading back to the lab.”
“Maybe you can have Merle show you how to turn iron into gold.” Rob grinned when Bryan flipped him off. “Let’s go, guys. Stace is waiting.” He grabbed Clay’s arm with one hand and Leo’s with the other, and teleported out. Poor Leo.
Bryan and I hadn’t even finished pumping the coffee into our cups when the guys popped back in. All three looked ready to punch a hole in the wall.
“I can’t believe they’d do this,” Rob growled. “The Council crossed the line this time.”
“This time? What about all the other times?” Clay folded his arms and jutted out his chin. “I’m not doing a damn thing to help him. Someone attacks him, I’m letting it happen. Hell, I may even help kick his ass.”
“Why take us off patrol? Why not have someone else do it?” Leo shook his head, sending his crazy blond curls into his face.
I glanced at Bryan. We both shrugged. I asked, “Guys, what’s going on? What happened in your meeting with Stace?”
Rob squared his large shoulders as he riveted a glare to me. “You’ll never guess who the new 3C professor is.”
I braced myself. “Who?”
“Spencer Dalton.”
2
“Virgil Graves is trying to rebuild the Council.” Stace flattened her hands on her gray robes, brushing out the wrinkles, her upgraded wardrobe since becoming the headmistress at the academy. It was an improvement over the black robes all professors wore. Dean Carter had dressed impeccably, never so much as a hair out of place. Stacey Layden followed suit, her long brunette hair pulled back in a tight bun, her petite slender frame appearing even smaller swimming in all that gray fabric.
“I can’t believe you’re okay with this.” I sure as hell wasn’t. Spencer Dalton had tried to kill me on multiple occasions, had partnered up with the grand poohbah of dark elementals, who’d also tried to kill me on multiple occasions, and had paired up with my mom—in every disturbing sense of the word—who’d also tried to kill me. And let’s not forget the fact he’d magically enhanced me by accident when his attempt to bind my powers backfired.
“I never said I was okay with this. I’m not okay with this, not at all.”
“Then why are you allowing it?”
“I don’t have a choice. The Council governs our world, and that includes this school. Virgil said this would go a long way in rebuilding our world and hopefully bridging the gap between the two sides. That’s something I happen to agree with him on. The lines are blurred between the sides. There is no good versus evil anymore. We can’t keep up this civil war. Fighting our own kind is depleting our numbers. If we can’t find a way to coexist, we’ll annihilate ourselves.”
“That’s why they took Rob and Leo off patrol? Is the Council no longer hunting clans of dark elementals?”
“Oh, there are still those who resist the merging of the sides, but I need Rob and Leo here. Let the more experienced hunters continue to patrol for those opposed to the merge. I need the quad squad back.”
“For what? More extractions?”
“No. I need them protecting the school. Spencer being appointed to a professor and in charge of teaching new elementals how to call, control, and conceal their powers is…” She paused and lifted her gaze, searching for the right word. “Concerning.”
That was so not the word I had floating around in my brain. It started with an F and rhymed with ducked. After storming off, leaving the guys to do their guy things, I’d charged into Stace’s office to confront her over this terrible decision to trust a leecher. So far, our convo wasn’t going the way I’d hoped.
I fell into the chair on the opposite side of her giant oak desk. I’d been in this office more in the five months since she’d taken over the school than I ever had when Dean Carter sat behind that desk.
I rested my head on the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling. “How is he going to get past the wards?”
“That’s the other concerning thing. The Council wants to bring down the barrier as an act of faith.”
I shot forward. “They can’t do that!” Not only would that leave the entire student body vulnerable to attacks by dark elementals, it would extinguish the founder’s essence. Cressida Clearwater had cast a spell to become one with the academy so she could always keep watch, always protect us. Removing the barrier removed Cressida.
I couldn’t let that happen.
“Stace, listen to me. If they drop the protective wards, we’ll lose Cressida. She gave her life to protect this school. She’ll have sacrificed herself for nothing.”
“I know. That’s why I’ll fight this, but I’m only one person.”
“So was Cressida.”
She nodded and dropped her head. “I’ll speak with Virgil.”
“Thank you.” I went back to staring at the ceiling. “What do we do in the meantime? We can’t have a dark elemental teaching 3C.”
“A leecher on top of that.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Spencer definitely fit the description of the parasitic lowlife we thought had been eradicated years ago. Instead of having strong calls of their own, leechers got their powers by sucking them from others. They were elemental vampires.
“He’s always
