Chapter 11 #2
I can’t tell if I want to be right and come face-to-face with my future, or be wrong and have no leads once again. Either way, I ask Peter, “When we’re done with classes today, will you go with me to the Shiloh Asylum in Astera? There might be someone there for you to talk to.”
“All the way out to the Idles?” Peter asks with a near gulp. “I didn’t even like you going a few blocks from here to look for Reid.”
“I’m not safe here if we never figure out how to get this thing out of me and I lose my mind in a few months.”
“Good point.”
“Thanks.” I sling an arm around his lanky shoulders and try to push past the fear snaking around my chest. “Come on. My New Year’s resolution was to stop being so late.”
When we sneak into the ancient stone stands of the coliseum, the class is too full for us to find spots next to Sophia and Elliot. Penny, thankfully, has a course load of entirely nonviolent, reading-heavy classes this semester as she pretends to be a student.
The rest of us have a whole new semester’s worth of classes starting right now with Combat Training II, followed by Advanced Underworld Studies, Alchemy for Hunters, and Runes, Relics, and Charms. Because Peter doesn’t know what joy is, he’s also taking Necromantic Biology and A History of Mythical Beasts with our favorite professor, Crowley.
From where we’re sitting above her, we have an unobstructed view of Sophia before I even get eyes on the new instructor. The look on her face when he walks out onto the coliseum floor is that of a treasure hunter who’s stumbled upon pure gold.
I can’t help but look at Peter, who is, of course, staring at Sophia like she is golden. I wish I could slap some sense into both of them. Losing Reid has made me even more of a cynic than I was before I knew what falling in love felt like. Go figure.
“Morning, hunters,” the instructor booms. His deep voice resonates in every dusty corner of the arena.
Tawny skin, jet-black hair—he looks like a fairy-tale prince with a bowie knife and a crossbow strapped to his back.
Demon Hunter Ken. “I’m Landon Prak, your new head combat instructor replacing Mr. Graveheart. ”
I bite my tongue at the words. It’s not this guy’s fault, but it still makes me angry. Landon could be the most talented Harker grad in the Citadel, but Reid was a demon. He taught us in ways no Landon ever could.
Sophia chews her gum with hooded eyes as Landon walks us through the course plan, the semester’s focus on expected weapons and makeshift ones, and the monthly classes that will take place in Astera where we’ll get the chance to hunt real deviants.
I realize I’m going to need Fiona to write me a doctor’s note or something to get me out of any classes that take me into the city.
It’s one thing to track down a patient at Shiloh who may or may not be a syrabraxa host who was never killed.
It’s another thing to run around with a bunch of rambunctious first-years like Matt Peverell until Finn and his men find me in their own backyard.
“Quick list of what I will not tolerate in my class,” Landon begins. “No sparring without proper protection. No talking while I’m talking. No wielding an unsharpened blade. No water breaks without asking first…” Man, he is really no-nonsense. A Citadel hunter through and through.
I lean down to Sophia in the row below us. “Mr. Rules might be the worst part of this semester, and I’m being hunted by like six different people.”
She snickers and whispers back, “Are you kidding?” She studies Landon’s neatly ironed Harker shirt and slacks. “He’s going to be the best part of this semester.”
Sophia blows a pink bubble beside my ear and I snort. “You just love a challenge as much as a vintage ca—”
A noisy pop sounds right by my ear, and Sophia and I gasp in unison. The class sucks in rolling breaths as everyone realizes what’s just happened. Sophia’s lips are splattered with pink gum, and in the stone behind us, Landon’s silver-tipped arrow pins the rest of the wad.
He shot a bow. Through her bubble gum.
“For first-years with perfect hearing…” Landon’s dark eyes glimmer. “I fear you missed what I just said about talking while I’m talking.”
My face flushes. “Sorry.”
“We were talking about how handsome you are,” Sophia says, wiping gum slowly from her bottom lip. “If that helps.”
More gasps and snickers across the class. Sophia Valentine—never one to be outdone.
“Laps,” Landon says, though he sounds a little amused. “Both of you.”
Sophia blows him a kiss as we take off, sneakers sinking into dead grass and crunchy snow. We run the circumference of the coliseum endlessly and I am sweating through my hoodie by the time Peter, Elliot, and the rest of the class shuffle out.
Elliot pulls off his oversized sweatshirt and tosses it onto Sophia’s shivering shoulders. “I like him.”
“Me too,” Sophia says, despite how she’s still catching her breath.
“On a bit of a power trip, don’t you think?” Peter says, sour.
I think of Reid’s casual, respectful command. He never made anyone run until they got shin splints. “I don’t like a stickler.”
“What’s with you two?” Elliot asks.
“Course load’s already a bitch,” Peter says quietly, keeping his eyes away from Sophia, hands shoved into his pockets.
“And I miss Reid,” I admit. One of us has to be honest, right?
“We knew this class would be tough.” Sophia squeezes my hand. “What can we do tonight to take your mind off it?”
“Actually, I was thinking of a field trip,” I say as we cross the sprawling plane of ice that is Lake Hellebore.
That stops Sophia in her tracks. “Off campus?”
“I want to go back to Shiloh Asylum. I think the woman I met there last semester might be like…me.”
Sophia lowers her voice. “Another aeon? Who would have put a syrabraxa in her in the first place?”
It’s a question I’d been ruminating on throughout all fifty laps.
Couldn’t have been the High Thane. He’d never have had Driscoll infiltrate Harker, find me, and brew another spell if there was a syrabraxa host out there already waiting to be killed.
“I’m not sure,” I admit. “But the best way to find out is to ask her.”
“I’m in,” Sophia says. “Obviously.”
“Me too,” Peter agrees.
We look up at Elliot only to find his lips curled in a grimace. “I can’t go with you guys. Marksmen practice starts up again tonight.”
The Marksmen were my father’s lacrosse team too.
I was almost as thrilled as Elliot when he was recruited off of Bat and Blood to play for them.
It always makes my heart warm to think of Elliot living in the same house my father did.
“That’s okay,” I tell him. “Go to practice and keep Penny company. We won’t be gone long. ”
“Call me if anything goes sideways?” He looks wary. A protector through and through.
“Nothing’s going to go sideways,” I tell him. “I’ll bet you twenty bucks.”