14
Max and I parted ways as the sun rose. He was bored out of his brain but managed to pass the time reading comics.
“How often do you hang out there?” he asked.
“All the time.”
He made a face that showed all of his distaste. “And you wonder why you don’t have any friends.”
“I don’t wonder. I know exactly why I don’t have friends.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Maybe it’s because you make so much effort.”
“Excuse me? I’ve made plenty of effort.”
“C’mon, you won’t even eat with them. How’s anybody supposed to get to know you when you’re always hiding away? It’s suspicious behaviour.”
Thankfully there was no time for further discussion because the first warning bell rang. Max bolted. With his speed, it wouldn’t take him long to get back to the senior campus. I had a feeling he wanted to hit the dining hall before he went to class.
I opened the door to my room with an impending sense of trepidation. My pulse only slowed when I saw the magic circle was intact. Okay, I admit that some of the reason why I’d stayed away last night was because I was afraid of what might come for me in the middle of the night.
I hurried to shower and change into fresh jeans and a white cotton shirt. I had every intention of skipping breakfast after the big meal I’d had late last night. But as I speed-walked past the junior campus dining hall, I paused. Max’s words came back to me. There was no way he was right. I mean, I’d tried to eat here at the beginning. After three months of being a complete loner, I’d given up. Three months was a fair effort.
For some reason, my feet turned to the left instead of taking me right past. I found myself at the end of the buffet line. A very short buffet line. I glanced around me. There weren’t many kids here. Sure, it was after the warning bell, but most of these supernaturals possessed inhuman speed. They could be in classes in less than twenty seconds. Normally, the place should be swarming. The ones who were around seemed to be dead on their feet.
A pair of Fae girls sitting close by had their heads in their hands. Even in this dimension the Fae had retained their ethereal beauty. The dark-haired one on the right had bags under her eyes. If that didn’t ring alarm bells, nothing would. I picked up a muffin and ditched my tray. When I arrived at Potions class, it was to find the place almost deserted.
Funnily enough, the dingo shifter and Kieran were among the few in class who had made it. Kieran sat sipping on a box of Ambrosia nectar. It was a vitamin-rich drink the Fae concocted that was almost pure sugar mixed with magic. The dingo shifter chewed on a bar of Vitality chocolate that was made in Rivia, one of the supernatural towns. He rubbed his eyes and yawned.
Almost every second desk was empty. Those who were here weren’t working on their potions either. What struck me was that nobody else seemed alarmed that there were so many absences. It was almost as though they hadn’t noticed. Normally, Professor McKenna allowed us to work at our own pace. We could start our cauldrons before she arrived.
I wasn’t sure what possessed me, but I walked up to Kieran. “Umm…hey.”
He barely lifted his head. “What?”
“Are you having trouble sleeping?”
He sucked on the straw. “Does it look like I’ve slept?” There was no way in hell one of the Fae would admit weakness in normal circumstances. The fact that he didn’t immediately recoil in my presence was another bad sign.
“Are you having strange dreams?”
His eyes widened for a second. Something cold wrapped around my forehead. My own magic pulsed up my neck to meet it. The coldness eased. Kieran blinked. “Do you want something?” he asked, like I hadn’t been talking to him this whole time.
I retreated back to my desk. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach turned into a scaly knot when it hit the fifteen-minute mark and Professor McKenna hadn’t arrived. Nobody else reacted. They all just sat there staring in front of them as though this were the normal order of things.
The professor never showed up. Rather than bother with my second class, I bolted to Jacqueline’s office on the senior campus. Max was insane if he hadn’t noticed how bare the senior campus was. If anything, it was worse than the junior campus. The whole place seemed deserted. As I raced past the Fae forest, there were signs that the grass hadn’t been tended to. Over in the billabong, a funny smell clung to the air. The water in the billabong was stagnant. It often gave off a slight sulphuric scent that never quite went over to the dark side of a stench. The bunyip liked it that way. In fact, he needed it to remain healthy. When I sniffed as I ran past, it was tinged with bitterness.
I arrived to an empty desk outside Jacqueline’s office. Her assistant Alex was a mage. Unless his arm was hanging off and he was haemorrhaging blood, he was supposed to be here. I knocked on her office door. My heart beat a staccato rhythm in my chest. Glancing at Alex’s empty desk, a feeling of panic gripped me. It washed away the last of the fogginess in my mind. Something was badly wrong with the Academy.
I bit my lip and knocked again. Where was she? Just when I thought I’d leave, the door creaked open. For a second, relief flooded
