Chapter 7
SADIE
Could be ox, she told me. Could be executed criminals. Nothing goes to waste in Lunova.
As a consequence, I was now a firm pescatarian. Fish would never let me down.
Breakfast had given me an opportunity to see the other slayers of Lunatic Academy, and I was surprised to see we were all from different backgrounds, with different body types and ethnicities.
I was right when I said our kidnappers didn’t have a type; I saw a woman in her forties who looked like she could fight a vampire and the vamp would be the one limping away; and then there was the bombshell redhead with killer curves and perfect hair who was absolutely a blood-drinking sort of student; the raucous group of men who found something to laugh or cheer about every two minutes; and of course no school experience would be complete without a group of people who walked with their noses stuck in the air, exchanged secret gossip behind their hands, and laughed as they swept judgemental glances over everyone else.
Their little clique seemed to revolve around a tall, rake-thin woman with clear skin, an oval face with generous features, and chestnut hair pulled into a gleaming ponytail.
2 She wore tight trousers and a leather jacket the colour of milk chocolate, and clearly she’d set a trend because the dark-haired Asian woman and the short, curvy girl with frazzled red-brown hair who couldn’t be older than eighteen both wore matching outfits.
How lovely for Lunova that they had It Girls, too.
We’d had a flock of them at my school now, marked for greatness, backed by mummy and daddy’s money or an ego bigger than the moon.
Not always bullies, but always superior, insufferable, and with a comment on every single thing in existence.
The It Girl of my school now worked in the pound shop opposite Direct Sports Shoes; school hierarchies were fictitious and delusional, but this Brown Jacket Brigade hadn’t realised that yet.
Or maybe they’d all banded together so they didn’t get eaten by wolves or beaten up by their fellow students; who was I to judge?
After breakfast, a fifty-something woman with warm skin, pale blonde hair, and kind eyes strode into the room in a long, red coat that flared behind her3 and called for all new slayers to follow her.
Elix and I exchanged a glance and got to our feet, quickly dumping our bowls in the tray of dirty dishes and approaching the woman. She smelled, inexplicably, of butterscotch, and her smile as she met each of our stares was equally warming and sweet.
Nose Ring Girl—Paige—hurried across the hall to join us, sulkily followed by the almighty prick Lawrence Montgomery-Sutherland.
Today, he’d arranged his golden hair into a swoop that made him look even more pompous, though he was dressed in the same basic shit we all wore.
What a shame that we were all equals now; I bet his ego was sobbing.
“Hello, ladies. I’m Professor Reed, but you may call me Sidonie.” I jumped when she set her hand on my shoulder, squeezing—not to threaten or hurt, more to comfort. That was… odd after our first day. “How are you holding up?”
“Not too badly to say I was drugged, kidnapped, and shoved into a box,” I replied, the words hitting her even harder with my casual tone. Good. She might seem nice, but she was complicit.
There was sympathy in her gaze, but I ignored it, crossing my arms over my chest as Paige muttered her response, and Sidonie repeated her question with gestures.
Huh. I wasn’t expecting any of these pricks to know sign language.
Although if they were going to abduct a woman who didn’t speak, it was the least they could do.
I wished I’d taken a Duolingo course, but how was I meant to know I’d end up in a new world with a half-vampire best friend who didn’t speak?
“Where’s Fioranna?” I asked, turning to scan the dining hall and absolutely delighted to see everyone’s eyes were fixed on us. I looked at them only long enough to double check Fioranna really wasn’t here before I put my back to the room full of killers.
With greetings out of the way, Sidonie led us down old, wood-panelled hallways, through chambers that looked like they’d been carved from a single chunk of a mountain, before a doorway appeared across the foyer she marched us through.
I couldn’t have found my way back here if I’d tried; the academy was a warren of hallways, alcoves, and crisscrossing staircases.
I didn’t even know which direction our room was in, let alone how to get back to the dining hall.
I was really hoping our trainers, professors, whatever they wanted to call themselves were understanding, reasonable people who’d give us leeway for our first week or two.4
Sidonie led the four of us down the blocky steps and across the yard where our prison wagons had been delivered last night and—
“Um. It’s still dark,” I pointed out. But I’d definitely tossed and turned for hours, so the sun should at least be on its way up even if it wasn’t fully out yet.
Yet, the sky was a dark, navy blue dotted with stars, and those seven incriminating moons shone, lighting the academy building, the rounded courtyard, and the fountains that spewed water on the lawn that Sidonie led us towards.
“She’s got a point,” Lawrence agreed. How nice of him to deign to agree with the common folk. “Why is it still night?”
“There are four hours of sunlight in Lunova, and all but humans are weakened by its rays, so we sleep while the sun is out.”
“You’re telling me there are only four hours of daylight,” I said, aghast, “and we slept through them?”
“Exactly.” Sidonie might have been sympathetic, but she wasn’t human, or at least not Earth-human, because she couldn’t grasp why I was so distressed by it. “There’s plenty of light from the moons to go about our daily activities, don’t worry,” she added, as if that was the issue.
“Humans are accustomed to seeing the sun,” Paige explained as if Sidonie was three years old, quickening her steps to keep up with Sidonie’s long strides over the lawn.
The grounds were bigger than I’d realised last night, with acreage that extended for what looked like miles, trees lining the far edge.
The boundary, I presumed, and made a mental note to avoid it.
I could have sworn I saw a shadow move within the trees, but that was paranoia getting to me.
“We go a little crazy when we’re in constant darkness. It messes with our mental health.”
“I’ve heard of that before,” Sidonie remarked, gesturing for us to keep up with her when we fell behind, Paige and I exchanging glances. “But your bodies will adjust to the extra moonlight, I’m sure. And you’ll get plenty of endorphins for your mental health from your training sessions.”
Sure, learning how to murder wolves seemed like a real mood booster. They should put that on mental health posters in doctors offices worldwide.
Elix signed something rapid-fire, her eyes so wide they dominated her face, and I followed her stare towards a flattened circle of grass with a border of smooth rocks.
Strange landscaping, but it looked harmless enough.
Yet, after Sidonie signed her reply, Elix threw a panicked look at me, and dread gathered at the base of my stomach.
“What is it?” I asked, scanning the flat expanse of grass around us, the dense treeline, and finding multiple flattened patches of grass, each outlined with a pebble border.
I was missing something. Maybe when we stepped inside those rocks, a vampire would burst through the ground and drink our blood.
Was magic real in this world? I hadn’t thought to ask, and that now seemed like a stupid oversight when I considered putting one foot inside that ring could magically incapacitate me.
Wait. Ring. A word that had multiple meanings—one being circular, and one a place where a boxing fight would occur. I knew, even before Elix hastily scribbled on the smaller pad she’d found in a drawer.
Our first test, she wrote. We’ll each fight a slayer.
“Oh, don’t look so worried,” Sidonie said, shaking her head. “There’s little risk. Your opponents are the lowest ranked slayers; they’re the ones who should be worried, because this is their last chance to impress their tutors.”
“So they have more to fight for, and more on the line,” I drawled. “Thanks, that really puts my mind at ease.”
“Ah,” Sidonie said, wincing.
Yeah. Didn’t think of that, did you?
“Where are our opponents?” Lawrence demanded, scowling at the nearest ring when Sidonie stopped before it, the four of us like lambs led to slaughter.
“They’re coming,” the woman replied, lifting a wrinkled hand to gesture at the field we’d crossed.
And sure enough, four leather-clad slayers strode across the grass. So did everyone else from the dining hall.
“Oh, good. It’s a spectator sport.”
Sidonie’s smile softened. “Try not to worry too much. You must all be strong enough to survive your first night; all you have to do is hold your own for a few minutes in the ring.”
I looked from the audience—like a pack of hungry wolves, slathering for the sight of bruises blooming, blood spilling, and teeth knocked from mouths—to the pebble-enclosed ring of grass. The coliseum where our non-existent slaying skills would be put to the test.
“What happens if we lose?” Paige asked, shifting her weight as she stared at the crowd, her deep brown face drawn and shoulders tight, arms wrapped around her soft middle.
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Sidonie’s smile was reassuring. “You don’t need to worry about pain or repercussions when you’re dead.”
My whole body jerked. “It’s a fight to the death?” I asked shrilly.
“Well, of course,” she replied, as if that should have been obvious.
A fight to the death against slayers who’d been training for… how long? Days? Months? Years?
How convenient that Mortem left this out during our orientation.
“Ah, here she is,” Sidonie said brightly. “New recruits, meet Winslow Reed, my sister and our resident combat trainer.”
Winslow Reed was a mirror of Sidonie only in height, age, and skin tone.
The rest of her was a hardened weapon. Her biceps bulged, exposed by her sleeveless shirt as she crossed them over a toned chest, no part of her absent muscle and strength.
Where Sidonie wore her hair loosely, Winslow Reed’s was a braid so tight it must hurt.
There were no smiles, no sympathetic looks, only a hard-edged glare.
“You’ll call me Reed, and only Reed,” she barked. “The first slayer to call me Winslow will get thrown to the wolves.”
Something told me she meant that literally.