Page 25 of Angel Lost (Fates Academy #3)

Chapter Twenty-five: Lorelei

Stepping out of the portal into Fates feels like coming home—almost. I pause, soaking in the familiarity, but then my stomach clenches. Farrell. I have to face him. I deserve whatever’s coming. The Virrey was in the king’s prison, and the rebellion had no idea. What if he’d broken? I’d never have forgiven myself.

A student darts past, chasing a hada with a giant butterfly net. What the hell? I step between him and his prey, letting my incisors drop over my lip and my wings unfurl. I hiss, long and low. My tail whips out, taking the kid’s feet out from under him. He lands hard on the leaf-littered ground and I’m on top of him in an instant. The insignia on his blazer shows his breed. Angel .

“What the fuck are you doing?” I force out past my fangs.

Eyes wide, he stares up at me. “It’s all the rage.”

I snarl at him, and he gulps, quickly adding, “It’s for social media, for magabook. It’s trending. Ha-ha-hada, it’s called.”

My fingers curl around his throat. “And what exactly does that involve?”

“You’ve not seen it?” He sounds shocked. “It’s just…poking a little fun at the hada. No one gets hurt, mostly.”

“Not good enough. I see you doing that again, in person or online, and I will personally watch every single one of these clips and re-enact them on you. Every. One. Then you can tell me if they hurt.”

He swallows. I yank the kid up by his collar and make him delete the video clip he just shot, then send him on his way .

Little punk.

Shaking my head, I accept the single flower the hada has plucked for me. She buzzes once around my head, twittering in a pitch too high for me to understand, bares her teeth at the back of the departing angel, and flutters off.

I flick open my phone and scroll. Some of the clips are lighthearted, but there’s a darker side. I watch one clip, then the next. The perpetrators are all angels. There’s been a subtle power shift at the academy since term started, one I really don’t like.

The boys are still in class and I’m free to find a quiet corner and get some aether practice in. Thank Hecate I was scheduled for an afternoon of self-study. Practicing my aether here is a damn sight easier than hiding my strength at Gifted. It’s not like anyone here is going to know what I should and shouldn’t be able to do.

I trail down the quaint cobbled paths, enjoying the rustic turreted buildings in all their imperfections. It’s not the sleek, put-together look of the Gifted Academy, but it’s more honest. Though I’m not liking how busy it is. To go from a few handfuls of students in each year back to this…My head spins with the cacophony of voices, the bustle.

I trail out from between the buildings, toward the woods. The campus’s one and only mountain looms in the background. Slipping between the professors’ quarters, the hada graveyard, and the vegetable gardens, I heave a sigh of relief. Except for a few earth students, there’s no one out here during classes. I trail down the rows past the broccoli, swiping the occasional late raspberry from the canes, and slowly my energy settles.

The fields at the back are probably my best bet for a quiet spot. A lone hada, tending the beds, watches my progress.

Leaves crunch behind me. For the second time. Third.

I stalk quickly around the side of the walled garden, plastering myself to the stone. Waiting .

The moment my stalker sets foot around the corner, I pounce, tackling them to the ground. We roll over and over, finally coming to rest in the strawberry beds. The hada gardening there shrieks and boxes my ears as I pin my stalker to the ground, instantly realizing who it is.

Jess.

I jump up, pushing myself off her with a snort.

Stupid, goddess-damned fae.

The hada dives toward my face, brandishing a tiny garden fork. I duck, hands up, but she’s having none of it. Only after we faithfully promise an afternoon’s work each in the gardens does the hada stop poking at us.

I march Jess into the field. “I don’t have time for that.”

“Wasn’t my fault,” she snaps. “Anyway, what are you doing wandering around in a daze?”

“I wasn’t. I was looking for somewhere to practice my aether,” I say. “Somewhere people won’t interfere.”

She claps her hands. Oh no, no, no. She doesn’t even know I’m first aether.

“I’ll help!”

“Oh, for hell’s sake. I don’t need help. I need quiet.” I stare pointedly at her. “To be alone.”

She pouts. “I’ve not seen you in days, killer.”

I open my mouth to read her the riot act, and she just stands there, smiling, waiting. Guileless.

Jess was there for me all summer.

Slowly—against my better judgment—I nod, and she dances on the spot. “I’ll be lookout,” she says. “I can turn students around, confuse them enough to make them go back the other way. You’ll just need to worry about any professors. My magic won’t work on ascended. You got this, killer.”

I smile despite myself and settle down in the middle of the field, watching Jess trot off to perch on top of one of the archways of the walled garden. True to her word, not a single soul tries to pass her. The few students heading this way halt, peering around themselves, patting pockets like they lost something, then return the way they came. With a contented sigh, I settle into my meditation.

Shoes and socks off, I wriggle my toes in the cool grass. Eyes half-shut, I allow myself to drift, watching carefully for the ley lines. Slowly, the bright colors of fall dim, and instead I see the throbbing energy pulses that make up the essence of everything.

I drop deeper, feeling the energy humming from the earth, the vibration in the air. Here there isn’t the same insistent pull I got lost in before. Sure, the urge to follow the ley lines is there, but I can resist it. I concentrate on practicing bending the lines, manipulating the energy. I hide a tree, then pop it back out, vaguely aware of Jess cheering in the distance. I try the whole field, me included. It pulls, strains a little, and then flows into the pocket I created. Invisible to the rest of the world. Simple really, when you know how. Slightly breathless, I untuck the field, releasing the grass, revealing it and myself once more.

I fling myself backward in the grass, forcing my breath to steady. A dot moves in the sky above. A bird? No—it’s too fast, too direct.

Sitting up, I blink against the low evening light as the shape solidifies. Bigger. Closer.

My muscles coil, instinct kicking in. Whatever that is, it’s not flying—it’s falling.

A giant scaly lizard hits the field. It bounces, careening forward and skidding a few yards before coming to a halt under Jess’s perch. It shrieks, its round predator eyes locked on her, pupils like slits. It bellows again, flapping its wings and snapping at the little fae.

The air around the wyvern warps, distorting in a heat haze as its body shrinks, morphing slowly into a very angry Camille. Jumping up, I run toward them .

Camille grabs Jess by the ankle and yanks. Jess lands in a heap at her feet, groaning and rolling over. “Classes are out, Lorelei. Camille’s entourage is coming,” Jess gets out before Camille smacks her across the face.

Camille points a finger at me. “You shouldn’t be doing aether here. That shit is dangerous.” She kicks out at Jess. “And you shouldn’t be helping her. You could have killed me.”

My blood boils. Jess didn’t do anything. Beyond confuse her wyvern, in the air, while flying. Camille didn’t land that badly. Stupid lizard. I make a split-second decision, dropping back into the ley lines, yanking a giant hole open in the ground under Camille’s feet.

In the same instant, students stream around the corner, taking the shortcut to the dorms.

Camille yells out, teetering on the edge of the gap. I stretch the ley lines, ripping them open, making sure she falls. Behind her, students eager to escape class press forward. Shit. I bend and weave the air, trapping only Camille inside the ley lines. Barricading it from any other students following. I can hear muffled shrieks from inside the pocket.

Jess appears at my side, wide-eyed. She places a hand on my arm.

“Point made, killer?”

I chew my lip, my anger still simmering. She had no right to attack Jess. Another shriek. And another. Hecate. It’s Hewie. I’ve trapped Hewie with Camille.

I crouch on the ground, hands to the dirt, and focus. The chatter of alarmed students is distracting, and it takes several long minutes to see the ley lines again. Even longer to persuade the energy to untangle, to undo the knot I tied in the chasm I buried Camille in. Camille and Hewie.

The first to emerge, however, with a strong flap of white feathers, is Zephyr, one arm looped under Hewie’s shoulders, the other around Camille. Quickly, I sew the ground back together under them, weaving the energy back the way it ought to be .

Zephyr’s expression is one of wry amusement. Hewie, however, is terrified. His face is a horrid blank, a telltale bloom of liquid on his trousers.

Camille pulls herself together with the rapidity only a cold-blooded lizard can. “She’s a danger!” she shouts to the crowd of onlookers, a slight waver in her voice.

“Did you see what she did? She tore open the very founds of reality.”

Er. No. “I bent it.”

“She tore it open, rent it open. Just like a rip.” The atmosphere changes. Students look uncomfortable, they lean toward Camille. “This aether is unstable. She has no control. This was a prank to her, and yet she could cause rips right through to the demonic realm.”

“That’s ridiculous! It’s nothing like the same,” I protest, as Hewie shakes.

He looks up, face streaked with tears. He lets out a loud, agonized shriek. “I believed in you, Lorelei!”

My heart squeezes. There’s anger building among the students.

I try to protest. “It doesn’t work like that.”

There’s a tug on my sleeve. My gray sleeve. My Gifted robes. Idiot. Why didn’t I change?

“You’re protesting too much,” Jess hisses. “You sound guilty.”

The crowd is moving, wound up by Camille, by the media terror of rips that’s been playing on TV on repeat. They storm toward us.

Jess tugs on my arm again. “Let’s go, now.”

Zephyr places a hand on my shoulder, steering me away from the crowd. My insides twist. These are not my fellow students. Not right now. Right now, they’re a mob, and I’m the witch they want to burn at the stake.

We turn tail and run.