I SAT IN the Ignis common room with Sofia on Thursday evening, practicing my defence against Coercion with varying degrees of effectiveness. I’d basically mastered the art of maintaining a mental shield against attacks while I was concentrating on it. But if I was distracted, she was able to slip commands past my defences. At least she was kind to me; only demanding I draw a line on my arm each time she Coerced me. So far, I had nine lines marking my forearm, one for each time she’d gotten past my guard.
I was trying to keep her commands out while creating ice cubes with my water magic at the same time and concentrating on the two tasks was frustratingly difficult.
I swilled the ice around the glass I was using to contain them, releasing a breath as I tried to focus again. Sofia was trying not to smirk at me and failing. I knew she got a kick out of it every time she got past my defences but I wouldn’t begrudge her her fun. Besides, I needed the help and at least she wasn’t making me dance on the table or strip for everyone.
The doors opened and I looked around as a group of six FIB agents dressed in black filed into the room alongside Professor Orion.
“Everyone shut up!” he yelled, bringing the room to silence. “As a part of the investigation into Professor Astrum’s murder and the fire in Darius Acrux’s room, the FIB will be carrying out searches of everyone’s rooms. This is not optional. I don’t want to hear any whining. You will be docked ten House Points for every complaint that reaches my ears – and I have exceptional hearing. None of you are to return to your rooms from this point on until they have been searched. You will remain here in the common room until further notice. Questions?”
Marguerite got to her feet. “Sir, I don’t understand why I’m being treated like a-”
Orion cast a gust of wind at her that sent her flying over the back of the couch she’d risen from and crashing onto her ass on the far side of it. A smattering of laughter broke out as she shrieked in surprise.
“Good. No questions then. The agents need to conduct a final check of Mr Acrux’s room and then the searches will begin.” Orion motioned for the agents to head for the stairs and my mind began to whirl with panic. My heart was thundering an unsteady rhythm in my chest, my palms were slick and a little voice in the back of my head was very unhelpfully screaming no, no, no, no, no, no!
If they searched my room they’d find those coins and that dagger. There was no way I could explain having either which didn’t involve me being caught out for setting that fire. And death by supremely pissed off Dragon asshole was not what I’d envisioned for my evening. Hell no. I needed a plan. And fast.
“I think we need to try something a bit more motivating,” I announced to Sofia, looking away from Orion and the two agents who were still standing in the room as if they didn’t interest me in the slightest.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, why don’t you Coerce me to drench myself with freezing water and I’ll see if I can fight it off?”
“Are you sure?” she asked hesitantly but I could tell she was a little tempted to try.
“Why not?” I said with a smirk which probably covered my panic. Hopefully. “What harm can a little water do anyway?”
Sofia frowned, clearly thinking of what the Heirs had done to me the other night but I smiled encouragingly until she relented.
“Okay then. Drench yourself with freezing cold water.”
Her command slid over me and I made no attempt to shield myself from it. My arms instantly lifted into the air and I conjured a torrent of water to slam down over my head.
I leapt up with a shriek in response to the icy kiss of the water and my teeth began to chatter at once. Every head in the room turned my way and I stumbled away from the table we’d been working at as Sofia started babbling apologies. I waved her off, muttering that it was my own fault.
Now for some class A acting skills.
“Holy shit that’s s-so cold!” I exclaimed.
“Miss Vega, what the hell is going on over there?” Orion demanded.
I headed straight towards him without hesitation, shivering as the icy water plastered my uniform to my body. The white shirt had turned transparent and a puddle was forming beneath me.
“S-sir, can I please go and get changed?” I asked, giving him an imploring look.
“You command the Element of Fire, I’m sure you can dry yourself out,” he said flatly.
Damn.
I nodded slowly. This was about to get a lot more embarrassing, but needs must. I called on my fire magic and let it heat my skin until the water began to steam out of my uniform.
Orion offered me a hard smile that seemed to say see and I smiled back before ramping up the power I was exerting. My shirt burst alight first and I shrieked as my long socks followed suit. I held enough control over the flames to stop them from burning me but I screamed like I didn’t.
“Oh for the love of the moon!” Orion exclaimed before dousing me in water again with his own magic.
I gasped as my heart lurched with terror for a moment as I found myself at the mercy of someone else’s water magic again but Orion stopped the torrent as quickly as it had begun. A hole had burned right through the front of my shirt and the hem of my skirt was a kind of blackened glob of synthetic goo.
“Maybe you should just let her get changed,” muttered the agent closest to me. He offered me a friendly smile and I returned it, simpering just a little. Damn I was a good actress when I had to be.
“Fine,” Orion snapped, clearly not falling for my damsel in distress act quite so keenly as the agent. “Lead the way, Miss Vega.”
He motioned for me to go ahead and I scurried in front of him, heading to my room. I pretended to fumble with the key as we arrived, dropping it to the floor and apologising as Orion sighed impatiently.
“I need to assist with the search, get moving now.”
“Right. Sorry.” I managed to unlock the door and headed in, unhooking my remaining shirt buttons as I went.
Orion moved to follow me inside and I raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you coming in here while I get changed, sir?” I asked. My shirt was already unbuttoned and I was guessing him seeing any more of me would be a pretty bad look for a teacher. He narrowed his eyes at me as he stepped back out of my personal space.
“Hurry up,” he demanded before closing the door between us.
I ran across the room and lifted my mattress to reveal the coins and dagger I’d taken from Darius’s room. I quickly snagged a black sock out of the drawer beside my bed and shoved them all inside it before moving to the window and throwing it open.
I took a deep breath and focused all of my attention onto my magic as I pulled it to the surface of my skin. I called on the power of air and tossed the sock out of the window, catching it on a breeze and guiding it down to the ground outside Ignis House. Next, I drew on the power of earth, aiming all of my attention on the ground around the black sock as I begged everything and anything around it to grow. The brown grass which grew throughout the Fire Territory thickened and grew taller to hide my stash and my thundering heart quieted a little as the sock and its contents were hidden.
As quickly as I could, I wrenched my ruined uniform off of me and changed into a pair of leggings and a grey sweater.
“What’s taking so long?” Orion demanded from outside and I jammed my feet into my sneakers.
“Just coming!” I called back.
My gaze caught on the black jacket which still hung on the back of my door from the other night and I grinned as I snatched it into my grasp.
The door opened and I came face to face with a rather angry looking Orion.
“I was just getting this,” I explained, holding his jacket out to him.
He frowned at it for a moment before clearly remembering draping it around me after he’d pulled me from the pool the other night.
“So… thanks, I guess,” I added as I stepped into the corridor and closed my door again.
Orion took the jacket from me, raising an eyebrow at my tone. “You guess?”
“Well, you dragged me out of the water and all so I’m grateful for that. But you did only give those assholes a few weeks detention for attempted murder… so I’m not exactly falling all over myself with gratitude to you. It’s kinda obvious where your loyalties lie.” I shrugged as I turned away from him but he moved with his Vampire speed and caught my wrist to stop me.
“You and your sister don’t have a lot of friends around here. Maybe you should think a little bit about your attitude if you’re wondering why that might be,” he warned.
I stepped closer to him, smiling sweetly. “Thanks for the advice, Professor, but we’ve never needed anybody else to look out for us before so I’m not going to start expecting it now.”
I pulled out of his grip then turned away. He let me go but I could tell he was half tempted to say something else. I kept going until I made it back to the common room, concentrating on breathing normally and slowing my heart rate. The last thing I needed was Professor Grouchy Vampire catching onto me before I could retrieve that stash.
The other agents returned from their latest inspection of Darius’s destroyed room and the whole group of them including Orion headed upstairs to start searching rooms.
Sofia began working on a Cardinal Magic assignment and I feigned interest in it as I let the seconds tick by. I scrolled through my FaeBook feed, smirking as I noticed a few posts mentioning Caleb Altair’s secret Pegasus fetish. Our plans against him were starting to take shape. Sofia had started spreading that little rumour amongst the Pegasus herd and we’d been stoking the flames of it through the A.S.S. whenever the opportunity arose.
Once fifteen minutes had passed, I got to my feet.
“I just realised I have a parcel waiting for me in the Pluto Offices,” I said casually. “I might as well go and grab it while I think of it.”
“You want me to walk with you?” Sofia offered and I could tell she was a little worried about me wandering around campus alone after what the Heirs had done the other night.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, waving her back down into her seat. “What’s the worst they can do to me anyway?”
Sofia looked at me like she was about to start a list and I shrugged as I headed for the exit.
As soon as I was out of sight I practically sprinted for the door that led out to the Fire Territory, forcing myself to slow my pace once I was outside again. I skirted Ignis House as casually as I could, wandering off of the path to the area of land around the back of the building that my window overlooked.
I hesitated, leaning my back against the cool, glass wall of Ignis House as I looked towards the spot where my stolen goods were hidden. Every nerve in my body was begging for me to race forward and snatch it but I refused to obey.
I’d been in too many tight situations to let my nerves get the better of me. I needed to be sure I hadn’t been followed. I needed to know no one was watching me.
I pulled my Atlas out of my satchel and started scrolling through FaeBook posts like I didn’t have a care in the world.
I gave it a few minutes and was about to give it up and move to retrieve my loot when a prickle travelled down my spine. I suddenly had the very real belief that someone was watching me.
I resisted the urge to look around for the source of my discomfort and continued to scroll through the FaeBook feed. There wasn’t much to catch my interest today, a few bits of gossip about an earth student who had been cheating on her girlfriend. Some conspiracy theories about Astrum’s death. I noticed a group dedicated to finding a way to cheer Darius up after the fire in his room. It looked like they were going to throw him a party… and quite possibly offer him an orgy too by the looks of it.
I scoffed in disgust. I guessed I couldn’t have expected to have ruined his fun for long but at least I could look back at that photo of him literally bursting with anger any time I wanted to.
A harsh wind gusted down on me and I flinched in surprise as my hair was blown back and the light of the moon blotted out for a moment.
My heart leapt in panic as I spotted the golden Dragon diving from the sky towards me and I pressed my back against the wall of Ignis House, almost dropping my Atlas in fright.
I fought to keep my features as neutral as possible as Darius landed in front of me, the ground juddering beneath his weight.
A deep growl emanated from his throat and he swivelled his reptilian head so that one, huge, golden eye could survey me.
I swallowed thickly, looking over his enormous body in awe. He towered above me, forcing me to tilt my head right back to look up at him. I couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty of this beast, the way the moonlight glimmered on his scales and his eyes flashed with untamed power.
He spat something from his mouth and I glanced at the wad of material just as his body retreated back into his Fae form.
“Oh for the love of crap,” I swore as he stood before me butt naked. Again. “You could have landed anywhere you liked, why did you choose to flash your goods at me?”
Darius smirked at me as he prowled forward, apparently not the least bit embarrassed by his body being on show. Not that he should have been, he had sculpted muscles and shoulders that just screamed touch me. His skin was tanned and kissed by his tattoos and just looking at him had heat rising across my body.
Bad Tory. Don’t look at the jackass like that. He might look good enough to eat but he’d sure as shit give you indigestion.
“Why are you hanging around out here?” he asked as he stooped to gather the clothes he’d dropped. He stepped into his pants while keeping his gaze fixed on me.
“Well, I was enjoying some time away from assholes, but we can officially count that as being over.”
Darius shrugged his t-shirt on, covering up that beautiful body and allowing me the clarity of mind to look away from him.
“It kinda looks like you were reading about me,” he countered, pointing at my Atlas which was hanging loose in my hand.
I glanced at the screen and spotted a picture of him which had been posted by the girls organising his party. It looked like a posed shot for a photo shoot and he was gazing wistfully off of a bridge without his shirt on.
“Oh yeah, you caught me. Secret fangirl right here. I just love to stand about staring at photos of you, daydreaming about your oh so dreamy body and imagining what it would be like if you had a halfway decent personality.”
Zero truth to any of those comments.
Darius actually quirked a smile in response to that remark and my bottom jaw practically hit my sneakers. Or at least it would have if I hadn’t perfected the art of resting bitch face and stuck it into place with superglue at the start of this interaction.
He glanced up at the sky and held a hand out like he was checking for rain.
“Well, don’t hang around out here too long, Roxy,” he said, using that irritating as hell nickname for me. “We wouldn’t want you to come close to drowning again.”
I scowled at him as he strode away from me towards the House, my heart skipping a beat as he moved past the clump of scraggy grass which concealed the sock of stolen goods from his bedroom.
Darius didn’t so much as hesitate as he passed right by it and I waited for him to disappear inside before finally moving forward to claim it. I shoved the lot deep into the bottom of my satchel and took off across the grounds towards Aer House.
It was getting late but that was alright; we’d need the cover of night to move the stash of stolen goods from Darcy’s room.
As I hiked up the hill, that prickling sensation ran along my spine again and I paused, certain that someone was behind me.
I dropped down, pretending to re-tie my sneaker and looked through a curtain of my hair back towards Ignis House.
It didn’t take me long to spot Darius lurking on the track. He was vaguely trying to blend into the shadows but beneath the light of the full moon his broad frame was pretty impossible to hide in the open, rocky landscape of Fire Territory.
My heart started pounding a little as I wondered what the hell he was doing. He’d only just arrived at Ignis House and he’d seemed intent on heading inside a few moments ago. It was like he’d waited for me to walk away and was now following me.
A shiver of unease ran down my spine at that thought. I was confident he hadn’t seen me reclaiming the treasure outside because he would have confronted me already if he’d figured out I’d stolen from him. So he must have had some other reason to follow me. While I walked alone. In the dark. At night.
I’m not going to let him spring another goddamn attack on me.
Just ahead of me, the path split in two directions, one towards The Orb and the other to Aer House. I wasn’t going to lead him to my real destination and the open meadows of Air Territory weren’t going to help me lose him so as I straightened, I turned towards The Orb.
I pulled my headphones out of my satchel and placed them over my ears but I didn’t actually turn any music on before I started jogging. I was tempted to sprint, wondering if the Dragon asshole could keep up with my top speed but I decided that would look suspicious.
I didn’t look back again as I ran but I could feel him following me, his gaze on my body feeling almost like a physical sensation.
The Orb loomed ahead and I darted straight inside. It was fairly empty, but several students were around having a late dinner or enjoying a coffee and slice of cake with friends.
I snagged a bottle of water from the frozen ice cooler as I passed it so that I had an excuse for coming in here then crossed to the exit on the far side of the room. I glanced over my shoulder before I stepped outside and saw Darius striding through the room. I caught his gaze for a fleeting moment then slipped out into the dark again.
I sprinted to the right of the exit and into the shadows surrounding Mars Laboratories, pressing my back to the wall as soon as I reached it and ducking behind an arch in the brickwork.
I looked back at The Orb just as Darius stepped out and he fell still, looking all around with a frown on his face. I smirked to myself as I waited silently in the shadows. I’d given the cops and several security guards the slip more than once and I was sure Darius Acrux wouldn’t be much of a challenge.
He looked left and right, swearing beneath his breath as he tried to figure out where I’d gone.
“Have you seen Roxy Vega?” he snapped at a group of girls as they appeared from the direction of Jupiter Hall.
“No,” they replied, lingering in case he wanted anything else from them.
Darius snarled irritably and headed the other way, moving closer to me as he searched the shadows.
As he stalked past me and on towards Earth Observatory, I slipped along the wall and kept going until I reached the far end of the building. The Wailing Wood spread out beyond me but I’d have to make it across another path and a long stretch of grass before I would reach the trees.
I glanced around to see if Darius or anyone else was close enough to see me then made a run for it. My heart pounded as I sprinted for the trees and I passed between two huge trunks before making it into the darkness beneath them.
There wasn’t an official path here but I kept running until I came to one deeper into the trees. I pulled up short on the dirt track and caught my breath as I listened for the sounds of pursuit. Silence greeted me and I grinned to myself as I turned in the direction of Aer House. Whatever Darius had had planned for me, he was going to be disappointed.
I started running again and didn’t slow until I reached Aer Tower. I threw a gust of air magic at the lock to let me in and jogged up the curving stairwell to Darcy’s room.
I hammered on the door and she opened it with wide eyes. I stepped inside without waiting for her to ask why I was here.
“Has something happened?” she asked nervously, looking me over like she expected to find something had been done to me.
“Not yet,” I said. “But Orion just turned up in Ignis House with a bunch of FIB agents and started searching every room for evidence to do with Astrum’s death. They’re bound to start on the rest of the Houses once they’re done there so we need to move Darius’s gold, like yesterday.”
“Oh crap. Okay,” Darcy agreed. “But what the hell are we going to do with it?”
“Bury it I guess?” I offered, having no other ideas.
I dropped down onto my knees and started dragging the gold out from under her bed, checking inside the huge sports bag and making doubly sure that I hadn’t missed so much as a single coin. Darcy checked it all too and once we were sure that we had every piece, we moved towards the door again.
“I’ll go ahead and check that no one’s lurking outside,” she said. “I’ll send a message to your Atlas if there is. If not then follow two minutes behind me.”
“Okay.” I heaved the heavy bag over my shoulders and waited as she disappeared into the hall.
I counted two minutes and no message came through so I slipped out after her. I tiptoed down the stairwell, careful not to jostle the bag and make a sound. When I finally reached the bottom, I found Darcy waiting for me in the shadows by the door.
We headed outside and moved north into The Wailing Wood. The trees were thick and ominous around us, their branches whispering in a soft breeze overhead that set my skin crawling with anxiety.
“I vote we bury it in here,” I said. “We can set some kind of marker to find it again if we need to but at least this way no one will be able to prove it had anything to do with us if it’s found.”
“Good plan,” Darcy agreed. “Look, there’s a few animal tracks that lead through the trees away from the path. If we follow them they’ll probably lead us to the heart of the forest.”
I followed her as she led the way further into the trees and took the route off of the path. When she was sure we’d gone far enough, she stopped and I dropped the heavy bag of treasure between us.
“Now what?” I breathed. Our Earth Elemental lessons had all been about the power of growth so far. We’d created flowers and vines, even encouraged trees to grow new limbs, but we’d done nothing with the actual earth yet. I imagined we had the power to dig a hole in the soil by our feet with magic but I wasn’t really sure where to begin.
“Let’s just try and create a hole and see what happens,” Darcy suggested.
I didn’t have any better ideas so I followed her lead and aimed my hands at the soil by our feet. I imagined a hole in my mind, the soil parting to create the perfect hiding place for our treasure…
Nothing.
Darcy was clenching her teeth so hard in concentration that it looked like she might burst a blood vessel.
I dropped to my knees and pressed my palms flat to the ground to see if that might work better instead.
A faint tremor marked the path of magic flowing into the dirt around me but no hole appeared and without a shovel we were going to really struggle to get this done.
“Crap,” Darcy cursed. “We could just throw it in the lake?”
I balked at the idea of all this pretty treasure sinking to the bottom of the lake. “The Sirens might find it again,” I reasoned, though part of me refusing was just because I couldn’t bear to part with this hard won prize so easily.
“Well I guess we’d better start digging then,” Darcy said, sounding resigned.
I nodded my agreement and began to claw at the dirt around me.
Darcy joined in and I continued to try and throw my earth magic at the task. Sometimes it seemed like the clump of soil I broke away was bigger than I’d expect and I wondered if my magic was aiding me a little even though it clearly wasn’t doing everything I wanted from it.
Darcy was breathing heavily beside me and sweat was lining my brow alongside the smears of mud from the countless times I’d swiped my hair away from my face. Heaven only knew what the hell I’d look like when we were done here but I’d have to worry about that once our job was complete. The hole was still only half dug and we needed to get the treasure into it yet.
I was so engrossed in our task that I didn’t even notice the footsteps approaching until it was too late to hide what we were doing.
“Holy guacamole, your majesties!” Geraldine exclaimed and Darcy squealed in fright.
“Shit Geraldine! Don’t sneak up on people, like that!” I barked as my heartbeat thundered in response to her arrival.
“What in the name of Santa sunbathing in a thong are you up to?” she asked, her eyes wide and wild.
I couldn’t help but laugh in response to that. She’d caught us red-handed anyway. We had no choice but to come clean and hope for the best.
“Well, I didn’t want to drag you into this, Geraldine,” I said slowly. “But I think I’m going to have to trust you with our secret.”
Darcy shot me a look to say ‘are you sure about this?’ but I could only shrug hopefully.
“The honour of keeping your secrets would be the single greatest accolade I have ever achieved,” Geraldine gushed. “I will take it to the grave. I would hold your confidence even if I was tortured on the rack, fed alive to starving rats, boiled in a vat of week-old gravy, beaten by the fists of-”
“We get it Geraldine, we can trust you,” Darcy said to stop her. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night anyway?”
“I was just replenishing my magic,” she explained, brandishing a basket of purple flowers at us while still peering at our half-dug hole curiously. “I’m of the Cerberus Order. We have to eat aconite, which you might know better as wolfsbane, to replenish our magic. I was just gathering fresh supplies of it which is easier to do at night. It’s deadly poisonous to all other Orders though, so no snacking! What are you doing?”
“I’m guessing you heard about the little fire in Darius Acrux’s room?” I asked her quietly, glancing about in case any more late night wanderers were in the woods. “Well, that was kinda… me.”
“Well pull my tail and call me Miss Whiskers!” she exclaimed. “So this is his gold?”
“Yeah.”
“And we need to bury it before the FIB or the teachers find out,” Darcy added.
“Look no further! Geraldine Grus is a firm friend and trustworthy protector of the true Heirs to the throne of Solaria. Your scandal is my scandal, your war is my war and your enemy is my enemy. Darius Acrux should burn in the fiery pits of the afterlife for what he did to you. If he was on fire and I was in my Cerberus form I wouldn’t even extinguish the flames with my urine. Please allow me to assist you with my earth magic, your highnesses.”
“Please do,” I begged as she stepped forward.
Geraldine raised her hands, commanding her magic to do her bidding and a deep hole sank into the ground. She grabbed the bag of loot and threw it into the hole like it weighed less than nothing.
“Wow, Geraldine, you’re ripped,” I commented.
“Thank you,” she said, flushing red in the moonlight. “I do like to dally in the Pitball arena in my spare time. It would be my absolute pleasure to introduce you to the sport some day.”
“I’d love that,” Darcy said enthusiastically.
“Well that would just be the toad’s pyjamas,” Geraldine squealed excitedly. “Would you perhaps like to come and watch me play at the next match this Sunday? I just know I’d knock your diamond encrusted socks off if you did!”
“It’s a date,” I agreed. Anything to pay her back for saving our asses here.
I snatched the sock from my satchel and took the coins from it before tossing them into the hole too. As I held the dagger out over the hole though, that weird presence it seemed to hold begged me not to release it and I paused.
“What are you waiting for?” Darcy hissed.
My grip tightened on the blade instead of loosening.
Why should I have to toss it away? I like it, it’s mine now… I want to keep it.
I exhaled slowly, all of my instincts warring against the insane idea to keep hold of the dagger. I’d been in enough scrapes to know that wandering around with a stolen dagger while an investigation into who stole it was taking place was an absolutely terrible idea. I shook my head fiercely, shrugging off the desire to keep the blade and flinging it down on top of the bag.
That thing is really weird.
Geraldine raised her hand before her and with a surge of movement, the soil covered the stolen treasure and the ground flattened out above it. She encouraged a patch of pink and gold flowers to bloom over the spot and I dropped a pin on the map on my Atlas at our location so that I could find it again if necessary.
“X marks the spot,” I joked, feeling like we were a bunch of pirates.
Darcy released a breath of laughter.
We all grinned at each other as we moved away from the scene of the crime and Geraldine reached out with her magic to remove every speck of dirt from our clothes and bodies. She even managed to drag the dirt out from under my fingernails and I marvelled at her power.
We kept quiet as we made it back to the path and paused within a clearing where the moonlight spilled over us.
“We keep this secret among the three of us,” I reiterated just in case Geraldine got any ideas about telling the rest of the Ass Club about what we’d done.
“I swear on the sanctity of our friendship that I’ll never breathe a word of this to another soul,” she agreed seriously.
I couldn’t help but smile at the strange girl who had offered us her loyalty so completely. I’d found her disturbing and downright annoying at times but I couldn’t help but feel the truth in those words as she spoke them. We were friends. The kind who met up and buried secrets in the depths of the woods in the middle of the night and never told another soul about them. The kind who trusted in each other’s motivations and forgave their worst behaviours no matter what.
“Here’s to a long and beautiful friendship,” I swore, holding my hand out between us.
“To friendship,” Darcy agreed, placing her hand on top of mine.
“Friendship,” Geraldine agreed, completing the pile with a sniff that announced the arrival of her tears.
We smiled conspiratorially at each other one last time before parting ways and heading back to our individual Houses. I hadn’t expected to spend my evening burying evidence in the middle of a forest. But it wasn’t the worst way to spend a night either.
