I c
an’t waste another year letting these boys torment me.
“Avery, I just—” Piers begins, but I growl angrily, cutting him off.
“Get away from me. Now.”
“Sure. Okay.” He walks backwards away, almost backing straight into a tree, and then turns and flees into the woods.
Good.
Cleaver growls beside me, but I finally sheathe my dagger and sit cross-legged on the forest floor. I hear Piers blundering away through the underbrush. My hound paces around me, ears alert, until he finally lays down and puts his head in my lap with a sigh. I scratch his ears and lean back against a tree.
I can’t have any distractions. It’s not just my grades or my place in the school at stake anymore. It’s so much more.
Chapter Two
The trials are much less amusing after my run-in with Piers, so I don’t stay long. A fitful night spent on a lumpy pub mattress doesn’t help my mood for the first day of class, but thankfully I spot Erin Helsing almost immediately across the courtyard as soon as I arrive.
This time, to stay.
“Erin!” I call to her, and she turns. I can’t stay mad around her long. She’s still thin, waifish, with wispy blonde hair pulled back into that same ponytail, but I can see some muscle definition on her arms now. She grins and waves at me, grabbing the girl beside her excitedly before running toward me.
I hesitate. Beside her is Luiza de la Cruz. She and Erin get along well … but she and I are another matter. I don’t dislike her, but I don’t like her either. More to the point, she isn’t supposed to be here.
“Avery!” Erin throws her arms around my neck in a crushing hug. “I missed you.”
“Missed you too,” I laugh, and glance over at Luiza again. “What are you doing here? Didn’t you graduate?”
The corners of Luiza’s red lips slip upward into a smirk. “I’m Professor Davies’s apprentice,” she tells me, flipping her dark brown, shoulder-length hair out of her face. It which was much shorter last time I saw her.
“The PW teacher,” I say flatly. Davies teaches Physical and Weapons Training.
“She’s more than just a teacher,” Luiza replies coolly. “She’s amazingly skilled with weapons. But yeah, I’ll be helping to teach you babies,” she adds with a grin, elbowing Erin.
I met Luiza last year at a little party thrown by Professor Waldman, our creature studies teacher. When we first met, she’d been calculating, antagonistic. But she’s skilled and talented, and she helped us against the monsters when they broke from the menagerie. She stayed with Erin and protected her. However strange it is to see her again, I have to be grateful.
I hear someone else call my name, and I glance over my shoulder. Piers and Bennett raise their hands in a wave as I spot them. My stomach turns, and I think about what Professor Helsing said yesterday, and my later interaction with Piers. It’s just like him to pretend yesterday didn’t happen. He’s the master of that sort of thing. I glance around to see if Owen is near them today, but he’s nowhere to be found.
“Let’s go find our dorm,” I say to Erin, turning my back to Piers and Bennett before either of them can try to approach. They need to know they’re unwelcome. “What?” I ask as I realize both she and Luiza are watching me carefully.
“Nothing,” Erin says quickly. She hooks one arm through mine and the other through Luiza’s. “Let’s go!”
I’m not surprised to see a new professor in charge of creature studies. Last year we had Professor Waldman, who was the mastermind behind releasing the monsters of the menagerie into the school and attempting to steal Saint M’s most prized possession—a phylactery containing a Djinn. It’s a powerful, manipulative monster that just so happens to have killed my parents.
The new professor doesn’t hang nearly so many dreamcatchers around the classroom.
“It’s weird to have this class in the mornings,” Erin says as we find two empty desks together.
I nod and cast a look across the room. Piers’ cold blue eyes bore into mine. He’s sitting next to Bennett, who’s focusing on his notebook. He’s avoiding looking at me now. Piers must have finally told him about yesterday’s little chat.
“Avery?” Erin asks. I turn to her.
“Sorry, what?”
She purses her lips and points. A few desks ahead of us, Sawyer is turned backwards in his seat, waving. At least he has the good sense to look dubious about it. I stare at him flatly before turning entirely to Erin.
“Warm outside, huh?” I ask her, trying to sound airy and nonchalant.