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“As you wish,” he said, surprising her. “But we’ll meet again soon, my dear Alexandra.” And then he was gone, vanishing in front of her as if he’d never been there.

“I’m not your ‘dear’ anything,” she whispered into thin air.

She looked up and made eye contact with the librarian whose face was pinched with worry. But he wasn’t looking at her, or even at the space where Aven had been standing. Instead, he was looking over at the oil painting. Or rather, he was looking at the pool of water on the floor underneath the painting.

The librarian turned back to her, took in her appearance, and then finally pointed at the watery mess on the ground. “You’ll be cleaning that up, I suppose?”

It wasn’t a question, but Alex nodded anyway and followed his instructions to find a mop and bucket.

By the time she’d finished wiping up all the water she was ready to collapse. She didn’t even bother grilling the librarian for information about Aven before she hurried out of the Tower and up to her dorm for a steaming hot shower.

Questions, questions, questions. Her head was full of them.

Judging by the lack of light outside when she finally left her bathroom, Jordan and Bear would be due to arrive back at the academy soon. But she was too tired to do anything other than fall into bed and try to forget the events—and the choices—of the day.

The last question that flitted across her mind as she drifted off to sleep was perhaps the most important:Did I make the right decision to stay?

Thirty-Six

“Alex.”

“Alex?”

“Alex!”

“Huh?” Alex looked up from where she was doodling in her notebook. “Oh, yeah. I completely agree. She’s an absolute toad.”

Bear looked at her for a moment before he gently said, “Alex, we stopped complaining about Luranda a full five minutes ago.”

“Oh,” she said sheepishly. “Sorry, guys, I’m not really with it.”

“You’re thinking about Aven again, aren’t you?” Jordan guessed.

It was true. She’d been distracted ever since speaking with Jarvis first thing on Monday morning. He’d completely dismissed her concerns, telling her that the librarian had already met with him to discuss Aven and she didn’t have to worry about anything. Despite his reassurances, he hadn’t been able to meet her eyes during their entire conversation, which had made Alex believe that he was hiding the truth from her. She just couldn’t figure out why he’d decided to keep her out of the loop, especially when it seemed like shewasthe loop.

When Jordan and Bear had seen Alex that first morning back at breakfast they’d known straight away that something was wrong, and not just because she’d been absent the previous night. She’d been forced to tell them every detail of her Library encounter, and while they were pleased she’d decided to stay in Medora, they were furious about the way Aven had treated her. In the few days since then they’d remained as close to her as possible, just in case he’d decided to make another surprise appearance. Their obsessive-compulsive tendencies weren’t necessary, but she appreciated the support all the same.

“We can worry about him later, but for now we should get going,” Bear said, breaking into Alex’s thoughts. “We don’t want to be late for Varin’s first class back.”

That was enough to motivate Alex to forget about Aven for the time being. She’d been looking forward to her first Species Distinction class ever since meeting the teacher on the weekend, and she eagerly followed Jordan and Bear as they led the way across the campus. They walked for what felt like forever until they finally approached a massive barn-like building at the border of the grounds. A huge sign labelled it as ‘The Clinic’.

“Welcome students!” Varin called out once their entire class had arrived. He was again wearing the horned Viking helmet and armour, but no one else seemed weirded out by his strange attire. “Come on in!” He opened the large doors and beckoned them to move inside.

Alex’s eyes widened when she stepped through the entrance and found a massive grassy arena surrounded by a solid steel fence. Around the perimeter of the room—outside of the fence—were raised seats overlooking the enclosed space.

“I know I’ve been away for a while,” Varin said as soon as they were all seated, “but that just means we’ve got a lot to catch up on. I’ll be moving through the material quickly, so make sure you ask questions so you don’t fall behind.”

Alex was certain that no matter how many questions she asked, she would likely still be behind.

“We’re going to carry on where we left off last year,” Varin continued. “Who remembers what species we were learning about?”

A tall blond girl named Kimberly raised her hand. “Dertfoots, sir?”

“Dertfeet,” Varin corrected. “Plural, they are ‘Dertfeet’, on their own they are a ‘Dertfoot’. They can get rather touchy about that, so it’s important you remember.”

Alex looked at Jordan. He just winked at her and motioned to the front where Varin was typing into a TCD panel mounted on the fence. A groaning noise rumbled throughout the arena as the steel boundary slowly rose higher until it touched the roof of the barn.

Alex couldn’t see anything through the barrier and she wondered what the point was until Varin clicked at the screen again and the solid metal faded until it was completely transparent.