Page 31 of Angel Lost (Fates Academy #3)

Chapter Thirty-one: Lorelei

If I thought leaving Chano was hard…leaving both of them? Damn near impossible.

I shiver and push forward, the night air biting as I slip toward the portal. Get back, get changed, get to the lake—preferably before any professor notices I never made it back last night.

The first rays of light spill across the surface of the water, casting a soft silvery hue over everything. Cold sand presses up between my toes, and the icy water laps higher. My muscles are tense, threatening to cramp. I take a deep breath and a step. Then another. The water laps against my thighs, washing away the ache from last night. So cold my breath catches. I close my eyes. I’ve got this. I won’t let the Angel King make me afraid.

Raising my arms over my head, I’m aware of the students around me quietening. Heaving in a lungful of air, I throw myself forward, smashing through the surface of the water, submerging entirely. I cross my legs and sit on the bottom. Forcing my eyes open I absorb the quiet calm. The current sways the dull green fronds on the bottom, the only sound reaching me muffled, distant. I breathe out slowly, a few bubbles escaping my nose. Eventually, when I can’t hold my breath anymore, I push upward and flip to float lazily on my back. The dawn breaks across the lake, and despite being fall, it’s warm.

By combat class, my lack of sleep is catching up with me. No regrets—I’d trade a thousand nights of rest for last night with Chano and Farrell—but my limbs feel like lead. Worse, I forgot to warn my allegiance about this .

The professor calls my name. I square my shoulders and step forward. Gray cliffs loom on three sides, the lake stretching out on the fourth. I move into the rough ring scored into the ground.

The boys have no idea what’s coming. They have to pull from me, now, whether they like it or not. Wherever they are. No slip ups, not in front of all these aethers.

“Aether Reye, step in with Aether Lorelei. She needs to see what making full use of your capabilities looks like.” The professor sports a small wrinkle between her brows. “The dean instructs you not to hold back.”

Reye steps forward. The professor starts to wring her hands but catches herself, clasping them tightly behind her back. “I’ll add a condition of my own, ladies. No one dies today.”

Reye settles into a fighting stance, her hand trembling, just slightly. I tug on my aether. Once. Twice. Three times. Our signal. Help. Now.

I brace myself. I’ve barely healed from my run-in with the Angel King, and now this? It’s going to hurt.

My magic swirls, energy rising up to meet Reye’s, dancing, feeling her out. We circle. She sends a ball of aether straight for my face and, instead of blocking, I duck. The students around us scatter, booing at my tactics. Too scrappy for the elite aethers? Tough shit. If I can prevent the boys having to draw too much aether, I will. Reye pauses, her hand drifting up. She touches the center of her forehead, thanking the goddesses, and then she comes at me. She fires off lightning bolts with such speed, such ferocity, I have no choice but to run, duck, and block. She has me backed up against the cliff. I turn, slowly, to face her. Both her hands are raised, palms aimed straight at me. I shake my head minutely. Her lips firm, the only tell before she sends wave after wave of aether straight for my heart.

I close my eyes, dropping into the ley lines, folding them around me. I duck. She can work the lines too. She’ll find me. My fingers trail the ground, looking for something, anything. A fragrant aroma reaches me from the crushed leaves under my fingertips. Sage. I see the innocuous gray-green plant. That’s it.

Standing, I drop the ley lines, throw a handful of the tiny oval leaves into the air and mutter an incantation. My barrier crackles as Reye’s attacks hit it. Only this time, it doesn’t disperse, instead it reflects, firing backward, straight at the sender. Straight at Reye. She yelps and throws up her own shield. I dive out of the corner, away. We continue, throwing casts and aether at each other, gradually draining ourselves, when I feel it. Something gives on the boys’ end.

Zephyr. Hurt. No. He shouldn’t have helped.

My shield wavers, and I feel a deep, nauseating ache in my gut. Please let him be okay. Reye’s head snaps up like she sensed it, and she comes at me. She steps through my barrier, into my face. She grabs my head, hands pressing in on either side, and fires a bolt of energy deep into my brain.

I’m floating, somewhere and nowhere. Darkness is all around me. Nice darkness. Not evil. Not demanding. It holds me, weightless. Safe. I wiggle my fingers, letting dark smoke drift between them. Fingers. I have fingers. I inspect them, noting the blood that drips onto my palm. I have a palm. Hands. Wait. Where is the blood coming from?

I sniff. Copper hits my senses, sharp and metallic. Hunger stirs. My fangs pop out. Seems like I’m a body. Floating in space. But space doesn’t have voices, does it?

Someone peels my eyelid open, shines a light in. That’s not right. My eyes are already open. The person doesn’t care. They do the same to the other eye. The darkness around me thins, lifting away in wisps. As it goes, waves of pain slam into me. This isn’t right. I reach out, grab for the darkness, pull it back. But it flits from my grasp. Slipping away.

“Wake up, Lorelei Bal,” a desperate voice hisses in my ear. “Wake the hell up .”

“Language, Aether Reye.” I open my eyes to see anxiety written over the petite professor’s face as she shoves Reye aside .

“Mmph,” I say, spitting out blood. “Hurts.”

“Yes, well. That will happen when you fight a first aether,” she says as if she didn’t order the fight to happen.

Slow clapping draws my attention. At the limit of my focus Dean Davina throws an arm around Reye and leads her away. Reye, however, casts a look back, eyes locking with mine. We both know this was a punishment for me. From Davina.

The professor slumps, pulling a bottle from her bag, gulping down some sort of luminescent blue energy drink. Her wide eyes stare straight ahead, unseeing.

One of the other students edges closer. I squint, forcing my eyes to focus on her face.

“Nyx!”

She scowls but reaches down to help me sit up. My body is heavy, floppy. My core doesn’t want to keep me upright. Nyx stands with a leg behind my back, propping me up.

“Polly?” I say, shaking my head. “Pollyanna!”

“Poppy,” she hisses.

“Don’t look like a Poppy,” I mutter. My head bobs sideways briefly before I can manage to hold it up again.

It takes a good hour before my limbs are my own again. And through it, Nyx props me up. The other students in the class linger, chatting idly, sending sympathetic glances my way, and for the first time I feel I might fit in after all.

By the time Nyx helps me to my dorm, my thoughts are more cohesive. Kinda.

“Don’t feel too bad,” Nyx mutters, wrapping her arm around my doorpost, supervising as I fumbled my way into bed. “Reye is the Promised.”

Even in my confused state, something about that sounds weird. I peer at Nyx. It takes a few seconds to bring her into focus. This better wear off .

“I-I-I mean, she’s the favorite. We can’t hold it against her—she has to do what the professors say, what the dean says.”

I nod jerkily.

“Get a good night’s sleep.”

The door clicks behind her, and I wriggle deeper under the covers, the sheets blessedly cool against my burning temples.

I awake in the darkness. Everything hurts.

Nyx knows.

The thought comes to me, sharp and clear: Nyx knows Reye is promised to the Angel King. Tossing and turning, I eventually give up trying to get back to sleep. My brain’s wired, and my body aches. I pull on plain black clothes, slipping on a pair of Fates trainers.

There’s one advantage to being beaten up—no one is going to expect me to be out of bed.

I retrace my steps to the corrections building, flitting from shadow to shadow. The paths are deserted. Not a soul to be seen or felt. Prowling around the monstrous building, the same foreboding stains the air, but tonight there’s no easy way in. No professors coming or going. And I haven’t managed to swipe an ID badge. Yet. Some thief.

With a sigh, I give up on the building and pad along the beachfront, away from the facility. The waves lap quietly against the shore, and I trail my fingers across the bark of the only oak tree on the academy grounds, vaguely recalling a professor telling me about how old it was. Spontaneously, I give it a hug, the bark rough against my face. Then, I start walking again.

Chano’s sister, the lack of new leads, Farrell and the rebellion. Farrell and me. My aether. Dean Davina’s threat to have me thrown out. My allegiance. Kai. The choice I made in front of the Angel King. The chance Kai knows. Zephyr.

I trudge on, my aching limbs loosening only slightly as I go. The silvery sand is almost iridescent by the light of the moon, but the tree line swallows all light. Even my vamp eyesight is struggling with the contrast. Put me in the trees though, and no problem. I wander aimlessly toward the shrubbery, coming face-to-face with an oak tree. The goddess-damned same oak.

I let out a slow hiss and put the corrections building at my back again. Facing away from the oak, I drop into the ley lines. The energy flows, beautiful, snaking, sparking, until…it doesn’t. I shuffle forward, letting my feet have their way again, following the pull but careful to stay grounded in the physical. Slowly, I creep forward until I feel where the lines tangle. I ease myself around them, between them. Whoever hid something here might be alerted if I untangle it. Instead, I slip inside. A thief again.