Astrid leaned forward. “You don’t have to win,” she reminded me. “All you have to do is survive longer than Chanelle.”
I glanced down at my aching body. “There’s still a couple of months,” Sophie reassured me.
That was little comfort to me when I couldn’t sleep. Before bed, Sophie made me drink a vile-tasting potion that she swore would help me heal faster. Now I lay awake going over all the ways I would probably end up dying. The most obvious was that Chanelle would kill me.
When I finally fell asleep, I was too tired to even dream. Small mercies, I guess.
In the morning, my bruising had almost gone but I still felt achy. I lay there breathing quietly until I could get motivated enough to get out of bed.
Dawn’s light was only just piercing the sky but there were way too many people walking around outside. When I saw two pairs of red eyes and nothing else hovering towards me, I shuddered. The bats flapped their wings and swooped to land on the gargoyle statues on the roof of the Academy.
I wasn’t technically allowed to bring Phoenix into the Academy, but someone was allowed to breed bats. They were just rats with wings. Unlike what popular culture would have you believe, vampires could not turn themselves into bats. They had no ability to shift. But they were able to compel the bats the same way they could mortals.
Everywhere I turned there were vamps. At Bloodline I had gotten used to seeing one or two of them. Now they were strolling about the school as though it was the middle of the day. Past the quad, a streak of gold up ahead caught my eye. It was followed not long after by a silvery shape hovering over the billabong. Adam waved at me as I sauntered past. During first semester, if I had been caught outside my dorm, there would have been all kinds of questions asked. Now the guards knew to look out for me on my walk to the Grove.
“What are you doing up so early?” I asked him.
He eyed the group of vamps who were loitering close to the edge of the billabong. I made a face at Adam who pointed at the demon blade strapped to my back. It didn’t escape me that he was being mute. Vampires had supersonic hearing.
A rustle in the low border drew my attention. When I was living on the streets, that kind of ground disturbance used to mean either a stray cat, or a rodent.
I couldn’t help the involuntary prick of apprehension that lifted the hairs on my arms. It turned out to just be Phoenix scrambling through the saltbush plants with a couple of his yowie friends. He yelped when he saw me.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” I asked him. The yowies rolled along the ground. I couldn’t help laughing. When the one on the left lifted its belly to the moonlight, I frowned. The hairs on one side of its body were singed.
I crouched down and brushed my hand over the area. It lay still, allowing me to inspect the damage. Up closer I scented something strange about the burns. It was an acrid sweetness. I sighed heavily.
“Have you been trying to get Arcana fruit again?”
Phoenix barked once as though answering the question. The yowie made a grabby motion. I found the whole situation off. The nymphs were all kinds of protective about the Arcana fruit but going so far as to set the yowies on fire was new. The yowies rolled to their feet and grabbed my sleeves.
I was already headed to the Grove, but they seemed in a hurry to show me something. A hundred metres away, I felt the first ward brush up against my skin. And then the sickening scrape of unknown magic pressed over it. Ten metres from the first circle of trees, a group of Fae and other magic users were testing the strength of the wards. I didn’t recognise any of them. Our Fae wouldn’t dare infiltrate the Grove like this. They were probably Pantheon students.
“What the hell?” I said.
The yowies placed their hands in the air and made a pushing motion. When I frowned, the one on my left took a running charge. It struck something invisible mid-air and was thrown back. A spark ignited in its hair. It rolled around on the ground. Phoenix licked at where it was blowing at its palms. Concerned, I held my hand out. The second my fingers touched the barrier, electricity ran up my arms. It was like the previous wards around the fence only ten times stronger.
I gritted my teeth as I fought not to topple over. It was only through sheer force of will that I didn’t cry out. Over to my left the Fae were attempting the same thing. Where I was just trying to test the magic present, they were actually trying to attack it. Why wasn’t anyone doing anything about this? I suspected there was a reason why they were doing this in the middle of the night.
I blinked and dropped into the Ley dimension. My aura almost saturated the landscape. I tried to drag it back so I could see the Grove. It became bathed in green mixed with warm overtones of brown and orange. I felt the rightness of it settle over me. As much as the nymphs loved to torture me, this was the place I felt most comfortable in the Academy. This and the kitchen garden. The nymphs had erected an arcane circle around the Grove. It shimmered in all the colours of the spectrum, imitating their own personalities. With the added sight of the Ley lights, I watched the circle of protection being worn away where the Fae were battering it with their magic. Inside the new circle, the red that denoted my blood protection was still active.
The Fae laughed as they tore away a
