“You trained with her before?”
Harlow made a disgusted face. “Before she got posted to the prison. Imagine this as an eleven-year-old. We learned fast or we suffered.”
Clearly, none of us thrived on the tough-love method. Or tough hate in my case. At six, Matilda blew a whistle and announced that we all had to go and get ready for the party with the Human League. Giselle seemed ready to scratch Matilda’s eyes out.
I made a mental note to introduce her to Andrei the next time he annoyed me. She’d take his head off without a second thought.
I wasn’t sure why, but I was slightly apprehensive at the thought of seeing Kai again. The entire human student body of Bloodline had been invited to this event. We were all instructed to congregate at the portal field.
Diana came to help Sophie and me get ready. I stood in front of her shaking the skirt as it remained a pretty but plain ethereal black colour. “Why isn’t it transforming?” Diana asked.
“Beats me,” I said. “Maybe it’s broken?”
“It can’t be broken!” Sophie exclaimed. My jaw dropped at the shimmer in her dress and the way it picked up the warm pigments in her dark skin tone. We were both going with natural hair tonight. Hers had grown long enough that it sat just below her shoulders. “You look so beautiful,” I breathed. “Max is going to just die.”
Diana cackled. “You should have heard what he said to her yesterday about the pointlessness of clothing.”
“He did not!” I said.
Sophie went even redder than her dress. “Can we please deal with the issue at hand?” she said. She stepped closer and bent down to inspect my dress. “I’m sure it’s fine. Celine has never steered us wrong before.”
Astrid came to get us when it was time to go. In contrast to us, she wore her hair in a tight braid. Her dress was a sensible black number that skimmed her calves. She could put on a potato sack and look stunning. But I was slightly concerned. “I’ve never seen you in black before,” I said.
“It’s a reflection of how I feel right now,” she said. I wasn’t sure what that meant until we reached the portal field and saw the figure waiting beside the portal. The cluster of minions around Chanelle had to actually stand a metre away. The circumference of her gown was that wide. It was a blinding sapphire green with a sweetheart neckline.
“Somebody needs to rethink all this grass,” Sophie said.
“Tell me about it,” Wanda said as she joined us. “My heels are getting stuck in the dirt.”
“Actually,” I said, “your heels are compacting the dirt and this poor grass is going to have to reshoot to patch up where we’re making diverts.”
They all groaned at me. “I really don’t need a Herbology lesson right now,” Wanda said. I wanted to tell them Herbology wasn’t just a lesson. It was a way of life. But I didn’t think it would go down very well. Just to placate them, I sent a sliver of hedge magic into the earth. It caused the roots of the grass to thicken and extract the water making the ground harder. We no longer sank into the dirt wherever we stepped.
“Ooh,” Alison said, “now you’re talking.”
The use of my hedge magic seemed to trigger something in the dress. Or maybe it was because we were approaching Chanelle. That wave of soft magic cascaded over me. The first strands of gold burst forth against my shoulders. This time instead of vines with golden leaves, they trailed and curled like the long canes of a rambling rose. Their thorns lanced out in all directions. As the canes scrambled past the bodice, golden roses blossomed all over the dress.
“Son of a bitch,” Harlow hissed. “I’ll never get used to seeing that.” Her eyes bugged out of her head.
“Way to make an entrance, Lex,” I heard Max say. But when I turned in the direction of his voice, he faded into the periphery. Kai stood there in his black tuxedo, the look on his face inscrutable. He swept his gaze over me and I felt heat blossoming in my veins.
“What do you think?” I asked.
He took three short steps towards me. I got a flash of something carnal that had goosebumps mottling my skin. He leaned down and placed his lips close to my ear. “It’s not safe to guess what I’m thinking right now,” he whispered. What suddenly frightened me was that I didn’t think I had to guess. Every molecule in me was suddenly blindly aware of how close he was standing, how hot his breath was against my skin, how hard every muscle in his body had become.
Alarm bells clanged in my mind. I took an involuntary step back and rubbed at my ear. “Did you put a spell on me last night or something?” I said.
“If I did it serves you right for whatever you’ve done to me since we met, Blue.”
Somebody cleared their throat. I turned to find Sean at the centre of a huddle with the Evil Three. He scowled at me. It made Kai reach out and curl his fingers around the nape of my neck. He leaned down once more.
“You better tell him to cool it with the displeasure,” Kai said. “Because the next time he makes that face, I’m going to break it.”
I swatted him away. “He’s adjusting. It takes some people a little more time.”
He laced his fingers through mine as everybody started going through the portal. I suddenly found myself flanked on all sides. Sophie and Max detached from each other to stand on either side of me. Astrid dropped back.
“I can see you guys, you know,” I said.
Kai grabbed me and stepped through the portal. We landed just outside a ballroom in Seraphina. How many bloody ballrooms did they have? This one was located somewhere different to the one that they had used to hold the Council induction ceremony.
