Chapter Twenty-Eight
I flew to the end of the street, cutting the corner too wide, and almost crashed into incoming traffic.
I stopped moving, struggling to maintain a sense of my students’ direction.
Cars honked. People shouted. I had no time for their aggravation.
I needed to save my students. This couldn’t be happening again.
I couldn’t have led my students to their deaths a second time because of my foolish, impulsive selfishness.
If I’d let it go, this need to fix the world around me and let the work go to those who actually could, they wouldn’t be here right now.
Or if they were, Milo would be here. No.
Milo would’ve detained the gorgon, studied the hidden outcomes linked to the demon.
Everything would be fine if I’d simply not involved myself.
As always, I managed to ruin everything.
And all my doubt, fear, and regret synced to my students .
There was no way I could chase them down while all three had such erratic, sharp horror in their thoughts.
I shook away the terrified minds of Tara and Gael.
Tightening my telepathy, I linked over Caleb’s shoulder.
Calling out would only distract him. He needed his wits and entire attention fixed on this dire situation.
Of the three, Caleb handled his panic with the most composure, evaluating the golden snake eyes and sapphire scales that shimmered against the setting sun.
“ A gorgon which means we have to be vigilant if we want… ” Caleb blinked, and the gorgon vanished. “ Shit. ”
Not just a gorgon. The very same gorgon that killed Finn.
The one Milo banished twelve years ago. The one I’d banished.
Some powerful demon continued pulling the strings from behind the scenes, resurrecting demons, and now the gorgon who took Finn from me, a piece of my heart, intended on slaughtering my students.
The demon reappeared behind Tara, the jagged teeth forming mouths on his palms, and snatched two of Tara’s weighted blocks. He shattered them in a single chomp. It forced her to immediately quell her branches.
Caleb’s peripheral scanned their surroundings. They were at the corner of Lux and Lathe. Less than five blocks. I’d be there in minutes. But that gorgon could eviscerate them in seconds.
“ Gorgons can only slow down physical bodies through their line of vision, not magic itself. No time to hesitate. ” Caleb released a steady wave of banishment on the area. “Both of you—over here.”
Tara and Gael levitated toward Caleb. The gorgon’s eyes flitted, and Caleb felt the pressure of the gaze hitting his banishment and attempting to slow everyone and everything on this near-empty street.
“Can you use that big banishment on this thing?” Gael asked, his spikes shrinking from anxiety .
“I highly doubt this kid has it in him to banish a demon.” The gorgon grinned, his yellow razored teeth evoking fear. “Even if he accidentally cast a perfect banishment.”
Caleb gulped, every thought scrambling to decern how this demon knew him. How did the gorgon know him? Was the gorgon watching me?
Caleb had no idea how to control the perfected root magic and casting a steady wave of banishment locked him in one spot.
His banishment continued pulsating against the gorgon’s attempts to slow their bodies.
If Caleb took a single step, his magic might falter.
If that happened, the gorgon would petrify their movements and kill them.
My flight floundered. How’d the gorgon know Caleb had used a perfect banishment? Had he been watching my students? Was he attacking them because of me? Because I killed him? This entire thing was my fault.
“ I need a plan of action. Something that’ll let us retreat. ” Caleb eyed his classmates, drawing me away from self-pity and to the task. “ Tara’s branches would all be fantastic at obscuring us from sight and creating enough distance for an escape. ”
I ground my teeth. Probably why the gorgon destroyed her weighted blocks. He must’ve known about her branch overlap, too. I took a shaky breath and turned another corner. One street away.
“ Gael’s spikes are strong, but few things can cut through a gorgon’s scales, ” Caleb thought. “ Plus, that’s an offensive move that won’t block his line of vision. ”
Caleb knew a lot about demons for a first-year student especially considering demonology courses didn’t start until the second and third year at the academy.
Tara stepped in front of Caleb, twirling her hands round and round as shadows seeped from her palms, carrying a golden sheen as they slithered toward the gorgon .
“What’re you doing?” Caleb asked.
“Ending this.” In mere seconds, a black sphere swelled around the gorgon, encasing him within all three of Tara’s channeled branches.
Good. That’d hold long enough for me to reach them. Caleb studied Tara’s clenched teeth while she cast shadows, intangibility, and ward sealing in tandem. This was the one technique she’d mastered, conjuring all three together as a defensive measure, but it didn’t cause her this much strain.
A searing burn flooded her thoughts, boiling her ocean of doubt as her arm shook. The struggle of all her branches pulling at the muscles in her arms sent a sharp, stabbing pain through her broken wrist.
“We need to go.” Tara inched back, bumping Caleb and knocking his banishment flow off momentarily.
The sphere burst, and shadows swept in a strange formation against Tara’s direction. She wove her arms, attempting to reshape the sphere, but the gorgon inhaled the entirety of her casting in a deep breath.
“I feast upon unique branches regularly.” The gorgon locked his gaze on Caleb. “It’ll take a lot more than that to contain me.”
Caleb couldn’t move, blink, or channel.
He was trapped in the gorgon’s stare as a blue blur raced toward him. Jagged teeth lining the gorgon’s palm reached Caleb’s face, an inch from snapping shut.
I fucking refused this outcome.
Severing the link of telepathy, my dual vision faded, and I mentally recalibrated my surroundings.
I shouted, channeling everything into my telekinesis and releasing the burst from overhead.
Intercepting the gorgon, I knocked him into the pavement before he touched one of my students. Asphalt cracked beneath him while I maintained a powerful telekinetic burst fluctuating to keep him pinned.
“Mr. Frost,” Gael shouted.
“ Thank god. ”
“I need you three to get out of here now.”
“ Can he really hold a demon like this? What if… ”
“Go, now.”
“No, stay.”
My telekinesis waned. The gorgon pushed himself upright, resisting the steady burst. Tensing every single muscle in my body, I unleashed all the telekinesis possible.
The gorgon slammed back into the ground but slowly twisted his neck.
Bones crackled and snapped as he turned so his gaze landed on me. Fuck.
I lessened my root and redistributed magic into my banishment to block his petrification. My body stilled.
“The fun’s just beginning.” The gorgon stood, brushing off rubble caught on his scales. “Which kid should I eat first? I’m leaning toward the branch buffet, but then I’d be stuck with the prickly augmentation or branchless witch as a palette cleanser. Neither sounds particularly appetizing.”
“Get…out…of…” I struggled to speak, locked in the gorgon’s sight.
Electricity surged, coursing through the air, and whipped across the gorgon’s face. He roared, covering his eyes as lightning trickled and sparked along the scales of his head.
“Please don’t disrespect Mr. Frost by willfully ignoring his instructions.” Chanelle’s heels clicked along the pavement. “I believe he told you three to leave.”
Tara, Gael, and Caleb all stared in awe while Chanelle sauntered past them, holding lightning conjured into the form of a whip.