I’d been waiting for this. Sucking in a breath, I went to where the mirror hung on the wall. I took a couple of deep breaths to steady my nerves. Not feeling even slightly ready, I placed my hand on the reflective surface nonetheless. I spoke my name in slow syllables. It came out much more calm than I felt inside.
A tingle ran up my hand as a soft pink glow inched along my skin. The reflection wavered. Jacqueline’s face appeared. I could tell it was a pre-recorded bulletin because I moved to stand to the side and her eyes didn’t follow me.
“Sophie,” the recording Jacqueline said. “I am going to assume you have a good explanation for why you were out of bed last night. As it is the first day of semester, I don’t have the time to speak with you directly. Peter and Thalia would love to hear why their classroom looks like it has been hit by a hurricane. You’ll explain it to them and then help them fix it every day after school for the rest of the week. I will speak to you when I get the chance.”
Her face disappeared and the mirror turned back into a mirror. I blew out a breath. That was one call over. Now I just had to wait for the real-time one from my parents. That arrived as I was getting ready for school. For about ten minutes there, I thought I might have gotten away with it. But just as I was putting on my shoes, the mirror beeped again. Mama went right off. “I can’t believe this!” she said.
“Will you let me explain?” I bounced from one foot to the other. Now I was going to be late for first period on top of everything else.
“I mean for Gaia’s sake, Sophie. Couldn’t you have kept a low profile?”
I throw my arms in the air. “Which is it that you want, Mama? For me to lay low or to prove I’m not a lunatic. They’re mutually exclusive.”
“Don’t you take that tone with me, young lady.”
I bit my tongue so that I wouldn’t say anything I’d regret. “Sorry.”
She huffed. “At least it was Max and not one of the weaker shifters. You could have seriously hurt him. If your grandmother was alive, I’d kill her for showing you that spell. You know you’re not supposed to use your power to change the composition of ingredients like that.”
“I know.” I also knew why it was so dangerous. Last night’s spell proved that. When I used my magic to perform that kind of alchemy, it had unintended consequences. I was just so relieved that I hadn’t hurt Max more than I already did. “Should I have just stood there and let him chew off my face?”
Her lips twisted into a grimace. I knew I had her when she pretended to have something urgent to do. After shaking her finger at me once more, she disconnected the call. I decided right then that I hated mirrors.
Of course everyone had heard about it by the time I slipped into my seat for Demonology. Max wasn’t just gorgeous and popular by birthright. He was also one of the most dangerous shifters at the school. The fact that he didn’t show up on the first day had tongues wagging. They wagged all the way from the senior campus to the junior campus.
I heard a hiss as I took my seat in the left corner of the room. “Just can’t help yourself, can you?” the redhead in front of me said. She was some kind of fox shifter. Her name escaped me as I tried to concentrate on the picture of the three-headed demon in my textbook. “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she leaned over and whisper-shouted to her desk-mate. The seat beside me was empty.
I swallowed past the stone in my throat. I was more than relieved when Professor Gordon arrived. He was an ancient dwarf with more lines on his face than a painting. His hair hung in a thick, black braid all the way down to his calves. If we stood side by side, he would be slightly shorter than me. His had a deep voice that made me think of melted dark chocolate. It helped to close my eyes and listen to him when the demons we learned about proved extra terrifying.
“I’m going to be positive on our first day and assume you all did your assigned reading over the semester break,” the professor said. “So I’m just going to dive into it.”
A lot of eyes lowered to the ground. Like me, most of the students had probably gone home over the break. There were students from all over the globe. Unlike me, they probably didn’t have stickler parents who made them study before they were allowed to leave the house in the morning. I was more than prepared for anything the professor had to throw at us. Or at least I’d thought so. To my dismay, he walked up to the desk of one of the Fae in the front row and closed her book.
The Fae, Isla, glanced up in confusion. “Professor?”
The professor walked back to his desk and hopped up on it. He was pretty spry for an old guy. “I know we’ve covered the Book of Beasts extensively this year. As we have for many years now.”
I shuddered. The Book of Beasts was a catalogue of every single notable demon and supernatural creature in existence. That was the book where my great-grandfather’s crimes were listed in detail. It also housed information about demons that gave me nightmares. The
