Chapter 20
I’m not sure if it’s the confidence I’ve gained from finally telling Sophia what I am or the relief that killing wraiths and a vampire in the same week has offered my aeon itch, but when we sit down for breakfast in the dining hall the next morning, sunlight pouring through the sky-high windows, I feel reinvigorated.
Not only on my stalled-out key card hunt but with tracking Kitty down.
“What’s new on the Kitty front?” I ask Peter.
“Nothing,” he says around a piece of toast. “Service’s been shut off on her phone. No response to any of my emails. I even tried a pager number that was definitely not hers.”
“Jeez.” Elliot takes a sip of his juice. “And she has no family you can call?”
“Nope. As parentless as I am. No siblings, either.” Peter shakes his head. “I even went back to the registrar this morning to ask if those textbooks ever came in. Turns out she formally withdrew from all her classes.”
“That’s good,” Sophia says. “Right?”
“Maybe,” Peter muses. “But I pushed for the date. It was days after Mila got the letter.”
“Why is that a bad thing?” Elliot asks.
“Kitty was a t crosser and an i dotter,” Sophia says. “She wouldn’t leave school and then withdraw from classes almost a week later.”
“Exactly.” Peter’s eyes look pained. Ashamed, maybe.
“Hey.” I wrap my hand around his across the table. “This is in no way your fault.”
“Yeah,” Peter says. “I know.”
But I can tell he doesn’t. “Why don’t we go back to her room and search for clues? First thing tomorrow, after Elliot’s big game tonight.”
Sophia snorts. “Who are you, Scooby-Doo?”
“No,” I say pointedly. “All four of us are the people here who knew Kitty best, and we also happen to have superhuman eyesight, senses of smell, and attention to detail.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Peter says to Sophia. “I’m not sure what else there is to do.”
It only takes Sophia seeing the pain in Peter’s eyes to change her tune. She swallows her bite quickly and nods. “Okay, yeah. Let’s do it.”
“You guys can go tonight,” Elliot says. “You don’t have to come to the game.”
Sophia whirls on him. “You think we’d miss your first Harker lacrosse game? Not a chance.”
Elliot’s soft smile makes my heart warm. “Where else am I going to practice my heckling?” I ask.
He narrows his eyes at me, even as his mouth has curled up in a grin. “I’ll hurl the ball right at you.”
“We’ll catch it and scream like rabid groupies,” Sophia tells him.
“I have that study group tonight,” Peter mopes. “For Crowley’s class.”
“Viv and I will act out every single play for you afterward,” Sophia tells Peter, patting him on his back. “It’ll be like you didn’t miss a thing.”
I will absolutely not be doing that, but I smile and nod anyway.
When we enter the coliseum for Combat Training, there’s a large tarp spread across one-half of the stone stands we usually sit on. Gleaming against the dark plastic are short swords, long swords, crossbows, knives—a treasure trove of carnage. My blood thrums.
“Take a seat,” Reid instructs. He’s in another faded sleeveless shirt, this one a cornflower blue that makes his eyes gleam.
From my spot, I can read little labels beneath each weapon: Vampire Blood, Holy Water, Mermaid Tears, Naga Venom. And some more mundane: Salt, Ash, Buckthorn Oil. One blade is frozen solid while another is perched over a small, contained flame.
“Today’s your first test. Only two grades: pass or fail.”
Peter swallows hard beside me.
“As you can see, to your left, our armorer has been kind enough to loan the class thirty weapons, each coated in a different substance. I’ll give you a deviant, you grab the right weapon and land it on me, and you pass. Pick incorrectly and fail.”
I have the sinking feeling that Reid’s not going to tell anyone they’ve failed until they’re writhing on the pebbled floor in pain. But maybe he’ll surprise me.
“Thompson,” Reid calls out. “You’re up first.”
Elliot lumbers across the stands and observes the weapons. The fighting portion will be a breeze for him, but he’s not in Dawnmere’s Potions and Salves class with Sophia and me, so I cross my fingers that he gets an easy one.
“Wraith,” Reid offers.
Jackpot. Reid might know Elliot wasn’t there when they attacked our floor in Elkfore, but Sophia, Peter, and I told him all about the salt-filled leaf blower. And the low-slung sweats.
Elliot swipes the hunting knife dipped in salt with an easygoing grin. Reid’s expression doesn’t change even as Elliot leaps down into the arena and charges. Reid evades his first few swipes, but Elliot manages to land a quick nick of the blade against Reid’s arm.
“Good.” He’s not even out of breath. “Pass.”
Elliot nods, pleased with himself, and heads back up to sit beside Sophia.
By the time the next student has gone down—ghoul, arrows dipped in sage—the cut from Elliot’s knife has already healed. That’s why none of the weapons on that cloth are silver. Reid is in no danger today.
For Peter, Reid is a “vampire,” and Peter picks a stake dipped in holy water.
A layup for him. I wish Reid had given Peter something harder, given his encyclopedic knowledge of this stuff.
At this point, sage, holy water, sugar, wolfsbane, graveyard dirt, and salt are all off the table, and things are looking more and more difficult for Sophia and me.
I peer over at the items remaining—I’ve never even heard of a bunyip, let alone what its fat might ward against.
Peter struggles to land a hit on Reid, and eventually, when Reid’s nearly pummeled him to the ground, gets a slice on his hand.
Sophia, Elliot, and I breathe sighs of harmonious relief.
A strange part of me wonders if Reid gave him the out.
I’d never have let my palm get so close to someone’s stake.
Matt makes the first real mistake of the class.
“Troll,” Reid gives him. I know from Crowley’s class that the answer is crowberry juice.
It’s an evergreen fruit native to Scandinavia, where trolls have migrated since the Chasm’s split.
Something to do with the abundance of caves and mountains.
But Matt falls asleep in Crowley’s class a lot.
With utter confidence, he grabs an axe slathered in mermaid tears. Wrong. So very wrong.
I can see the amusement in Reid’s eyes.
“So if I hack your arm off,” Matt says, swaggering down to the arena floor, “will a new one just grow back?”
Reid doesn’t even smirk. “Swing and let’s find out.”
Matt gives it all he’s got. Spittle flying, muscles bulging. None of it matters—Reid slams him down to the ground with one smooth blow. The axe goes skidding across the chalky pebbles, and Matt coughs until air hits his lungs again.
“That’s a failure, Peverell,” Reid says, offering the sputtering kid his hand up.
Matt swats him away, storming back to the stands.
“Abbot,” Reid says, ignoring him. He gestures to the arena as if to say The water’s fine.
My body tightens. I have a bad feeling I know what he’s about to say. “What am I fighting?”
Reid assesses me, something mischievous in those blue eyes. “Hydra.”
I knew it. The answer was mermaid tears. Hydras are sea monster deviants thwarted by sea-dwelling lymantrian pain, the cosmic balance. But Matt’s mistake screws all of us. Now I have to take something that serves its best purpose against something else.
My eyes survey the options. Hydras are in the serpent family.
My father taught me to fight them on land as well as in water, which means I have a few weapons that just might work, but I don’t want to pick anything that leaves another student screwed.
I settle on a crossbow with arrows dipped in shattered mirror dust. As close to pixie dust as I can find, without actually taking the pixie dust–laced knife that I know someone will need when Reid tosses out “basilisk.”
When I step into the arena, he looks impressed.
And I want to be irritated that he tried to stump me.
That he set me up to fail. But after our subway ride last night, it almost feels more like a thoughtful challenge.
Which is why when he studies me, that slight smile playing on his mouth, and mutters, “Well done,” I can’t help the flush that rises up my cheeks.
I combat the strangely prideful feelings by shooting at him with my bow until I pierce him clean through the shoulder like the nasty little aeon that I am. I even offer a curtsy as he glowers at me, yanking the bolt out with a subtle wince. “Pass,” he grunts.
After another twenty students—most passing among a handful of miserable failures—Sophia is called last. Reid gives her “hellhound” and Sophia grabs the only weapon left. A long sword coated in buckthorn oil.
“This isn’t fair,” Sophia says, folding her arms. “Someone else took the blade that was on fire.”
Reid only shrugs. I’d expected him to look a little worse for wear after being hit with so many weapons, but his demon healing has exceeded expectations. He looks as battle-ready as he did when he entered at the top of class. “Part of hunting is working in unideal circumstances.”
Reid charges Soph without another word, and Elliot allows me to squeeze the ever-loving crap out of his forearm.
All I can hope is that this will be over quickly.
Ice baths for us all tonight. But Sophia’s eyes are roaming the coliseum.
I want to yell at her to focus on the ex–Brood demon hurtling toward her, but before I even open my mouth, she’s taken off up the stands.
“What are you doing, Sophia?” I mutter to myself.
“Valentine,” Reid calls, leaping after her. “Stay in the arena.”
But she ignores him, bounding up to where a torch burns brightly at the very top row of seats.
“That’s so smart,” someone murmurs behind us. It might be the kid who unintentionally screwed her over in the first place by taking the flaming blade.
It’s beyond smart. It’s so Sophia—risky, outside the box. The sword she chose was coated in oil. All she needs is a flame.
But it’s also dangerous.
“She could light herself on fire,” Peter mutters as we watch Sophia race to the top, Reid hot on her tail.
Sophia reaches the torch and stands on her tippy-toes to dip the end of her blade into the fire. In an instant, the roaring flames lick down her sword and she swings it on Reid.
“Drop the blade, Valentine,” Reid grunts as he reaches her. The entire class is now facing the top of the stands rather than the arena floor. “You pass.”
“I have to land my hit on you,” she says with a grin, bangs fluttering perilously close to the fire. She swings masterfully, and Reid dodges out of instinct, curls of hungry fire nearly swallowing his shirt.
“Valentine.” Reid dives for her, though she moves away. “You’ve made your point. Put it down.”
The fire begins to crawl down the length of the sword toward the hilt. Toward her hand. “Why? You scared?”
“Yeah,” Reid says, eyeing the flames that are snaking toward her fingers. “Of you burning alive.” Reid lunges for the sword, but Sophia swings it away. Students have begun to cheer for her.
And I know she isn’t giving anything up. Sophia isn’t just wild and hungry for a good fight. She’s like a hellhound herself: reckless, impulsive. She acts first, thinks later. With drugs, with boys, with hunting.
Reid knows it too. He dives for Sophia, sandwiching the blade between the two of them and snuffing out the fire. I didn’t need a hunter dad to teach me that one: stop, drop, and roll. It’s exactly what they do, tumbling through the stands until they come to a halt.
It’s so simple. But…kind of brilliant. Low effort on Reid’s part—pretty sure he didn’t even break a sweat—and the perfect way to give Sophia the win. The blade was pressed up against Reid’s chest, and he made sure she never got hurt in the process.
When Sophia stands and raises her sword in the air, the class claps for her, and she beams her radiant smile at them.
She bested the beast. Slayed the monster.
Won for her fellow hunters. When she reaches our spot in the stands, Elliot pulls her into an impressed hug and Peter tries not to look like he just saw his life flash before his eyes.
When we’re making our way down to the arena floor and toward the exit, I can’t help but look back at Reid, gathering all the discarded weapons.
And as much as I hate to admit it…I’m impressed.
Not because he stopped Sophia from setting herself on fire or because he keeps putting Matt in his place.
Not because when he reaches for a short sword, I decide his arms were crafted by angels specifically for shirts without sleeves.
But because he’s actually kind of a good teacher.
Demanding, cold, tricky…but fair. And if he truly abstains from souls as he claims, he’s still whooping hunters left, right, and sideways with about a third of the juice.
As I watch him pack up, my heart gives a shocking, unexpected achy tug.
Just as I can see blood in a demon’s eyes when they’re ready to devour a soul, I can see something pained in Reid’s.
I wonder if, even though he could best the whole class without a second thought, he’d rather be cheering along with us. Fighting as one of the good guys.