Chapter 2 Irene
IRENE
“Your exam begins…now.”
The boy standing at the center of the room let out a shaky breath.
His eyes scanned the rest of the classroom, terror etched onto his face as he took in the rows upon rows of students looming in front of him, waiting.
A cloud of tension permeated the air. A heaviness that seemed to linger over the anxiety-riddled students like a storm cloud.
Some of them wanted him to succeed. Most wanted him to fail.
Irene Manette Bamford, however, mainly wanted him to hurry the fuck up.
She glanced over at the grandfather clock on the other side of the room. Tick. Tick. Tick. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat next to Housemaster Marigold, crossing her legs with an impatient huff. The boy was moving at a glacial pace, hands shaking as he raised his palms in front of him.
Irene groaned.
Honestly, Marigold should just fail him now and get it over with.
The boy shut his eyes, grimacing, and the faintest gust of wind flickered in his palm, an almost indiscernible vortex materializing in his hands.
He gritted his teeth, sweat dampening his temples, and the swirling gust of wind grew in intensity, transforming into what almost appeared to be a miniature tornado.
Irene snorted. Marigold shot her a quick glance, clearly biting back her own smile.
The boy’s eyes snapped open and the swirling air in his palms vanished. A few students seated in the front row snickered into their notes. Others looked on with palpable pity, faces pulled into apologetic smiles.
Marigold cleared her throat.
“That’ll do, Tao.”
A deep blush bloomed on the boy’s pale cheeks. He tugged at the hem of his olive wool sweater, feet still firmly planted on the ground.
“Wait…I—I can do it again.” He peered over his shoulder, looking between Irene and Marigold with pleading eyes. “Let me try again. Please.”
Marigold pushed the sleeves of her lace blouse over her elbows.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I can do better. I can prove it to you.” He raised his hands once more and the air around him barely moved—just the faintest flicker of wind, which sent a pathetic little wisp of air floating over his palm.
“Tao.” Marigold spoke his name with a bit more force this time. “I said that’s enough. You know you cannot retake an exam. Your grade is final.”
But Tao was proving to be a bit more stubborn than either of them had anticipated.
“No,” he choked out, desperate, face turning beet red from effort. “I can—I can do this. I just need…a few more…seconds.” The veins running along his neck bulged as he pushed harder, his entire body trembling as the faint wisp of air began to swirl faster.
Jesus Christ. He’s going to knock himself out cold.
Marigold leaned in toward Irene, dipping her voice lower. “Do you mind taking care of this?”
Irene smirked. “Oh…it would be my pleasure.”
As Tao continued to ignore Marigold’s instructions, resolute about making an absolute fool of himself, Irene stood up from her chair, dusting her hands along the sides of her silk dress.
She stepped forward, her heeled boots echoing against the floorboards.
As soon as she stood up, the other students straightened in their chairs, clearly sensing what would happen next.
Some of their faces blanched in fear. Others leaned in closer, eager to see how the scene would unfold.
Tao, however, was too busy casting the world’s most pathetic air manipulation spell to notice Irene standing behind him.
That was, of course, until she’d sent him flying across the room with nothing but a flick of her wrist.
Tao hit the eastern wall of the classroom with a loud and echoing thud. He let out a strangled cry of surprise, the noise garbling in his throat as he scrambled to push himself onto his feet.
“Your time is up.” Irene’s lips curved into a smile. “You can leave now. Unless you’d like to spend the next month locked in reformatory.”
Tao hesitated for a moment, eyes flitting across the other students. But nobody was coming to his rescue. He dragged his gaze back to Irene, sheepishly nodding his head before skulking out of the classroom.
Honestly, the boy should be thanking her for not snapping his neck out of sheer annoyance.
“Thank you, Irene.” Marigold turned to address the rest of the class. “And a reminder to all of you that there are no redos in this classroom. You have one chance to take your exam. No exceptions.”
Irene was about to gesture for the next student to take her place—a trembling girl who had gone three shades of green during Tao’s exam—when a sudden knock at the door interrupted her.
It creaked open, revealing another Ascended that Irene vaguely recognized.
Samira Heydari stood at the doorway, an annoyed look in her dark chestnut eyes.
“I apologize for the interruption, Housemaster, but I need to speak with Irene for a brief moment.”
Marigold let out a sigh of understanding. “Yes, yes. Go on. But make it quick.”
Irene fixed Samira with a perplexed look before walking across the room and following the other Ascended out into the hallway.
“What’s this about?” Irene asked once the door had closed behind them.
Samira spun on her heels, her berry lips lifting into a smirk.
An array of freckles dotted her dark brown skin, traveling across the bridge of her nose and down her cheeks.
Her wavy black hair, which she had braided and secured with a ruby ribbon, had a silver streak that slithered over her shoulder.
She was offensively pretty and a monstrous bitch, a combination that Irene couldn’t help but respect.
“I have a gift for you.”
Irene raised a brow in suspicion. “A gift?”
Samira reached into her coat pocket and produced a black envelope, dangling it between them. Irene rolled her eyes, snatching the envelope from the other girl’s hand, and ripped it open. Inside, she found a letter.
Pleasure awaits at the heart of Blackwood.
This evening, celebrate a new round of Council initiates.
Bring your most depraved desires and feast upon the forbidden.
A rush of excitement burst through Irene as the letter’s message echoed in her mind, though it had less to do with the ridiculous party she’d been invited to and more to do with what the party represented.
The Council—Blackwood’s enigmatic secret society in charge of all the school’s defenses—was about to select a new group of potential initiates in a tapping ceremony, which was exactly what Irene had been waiting for. What she and Mateo had been planning for since the beginning.
Join the Ascended.
Infiltrate the Council.
And take Blackwood Academy down.
“Well?”
Samira’s voice drew Irene back to the present.
“Well what?” Irene asked, clearing her throat.
“Are you going to go?”
Irene managed a nonchalant shrug. “I’ll consider it.”
Samira chuckled, as if she saw right through Irene’s feigned indifference.
“Well, if you ask me, I think you should go,” she said, slowly sauntering away from Irene, a coy smile on her lips. “Who knows…you might even enjoy yourself.”
Enjoy myself? Irene doubted it. But before she could snap back with a rebuttal, Samira was gone, waltzing around the corner and vanishing deeper into Elysium Hall.
Irene detested how the other Ascended had been treating her ever since she’d joined them. As if she were beneath them simply because she was new. As if they knew something she didn’t. Samira was no different—always watching Irene with a smug grin. Speaking to her with purposeful condescension.
Not that it mattered. There was business Irene needed to attend to.
And—more specifically—someone she needed to speak with.
Despite the circumstances, Irene had grown rather accustomed to the sight of a Demien sprawled across her bed.
When she finally made it back to her bedroom after her Ascended duties, she opened the door to find Mateo lying there, scribbling in a red leather-bound journal marked with the Demien Order’s sigil—three interconnecting circles bathed in black flames.
He was always jotting things down in there…
writing late into the evening. On most nights since she’d joined the Ascended, Irene had fallen asleep to the sound of pen scraping against parchment, the faint crackle of a burning wick echoing from Mateo’s side of the room.
“How was your day?” the Demien asked now, eyes still glued to the pages of his journal.
Irene let out a snort, slamming the door closed with a flick of her wrist. “Riveting.”
She stalked across her room and paused by the arched window overlooking the grounds.
The dormitories of Blackwood Academy loomed in the distance, a sprawling maze of pointed towers and stained-glass windows.
Late afternoon gave way to the familiar silver glow of night, mist coiling around the ground in thin rivulets, welcoming the haze of dusk.
Far across the other side of campus lay Ivory House, the dormitory Irene had once called home.
She could barely see it from where she stood now, a dark and foreboding skeleton wrapped in a web of vines, but even so… she missed it.
Though it had been weeks since Irene had been forced to move out of Ivory House and into her new room within the Ascended Quarters, she still hadn’t entirely settled in. Perhaps she could admit that it wasn’t Ivory House she missed, but something else.
Someone else.
A memory sliced through her mind, sharp and sudden.
Masika staring back at her in the clearing. The disbelief in her eyes as Irene turned away from her and tore their friendship in two.
Irene flinched as the present came rushing back in.
Thinking back on what had happened was useless.
She couldn’t change what fate had already carved into stone.
Masika, her only friend—if she could even call her that anymore—had gone missing after the third Decennial trial, buried under rubble and devoured by rock and ice.
And after nearly two weeks of searching, two weeks of scouring the outskirts of purgatory, her body had yet to be found.