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“It’s about my secret nature. If I’m going to drink something, you have to make sure it won’t kill me, although I have to say, I’m not crazy about being experimented on.”
She nodded and pulled out her phone. “It’s not weird, it’s necessary, one estranged parent to another parent who raised the child with nothing but faith and prayers.”
“Don’t ever underestimate faith and prayers.”
She gave me a slight smile and texted the message containing a list of ingredients and proportions without sounding remotely personal, without even giving her name or the fact that she was my mother.
After she’d sent it, she pursed her lips and stared at the phone, waiting for him to respond. I picked up the glass and sniffed it. When the phone beeped, it kept beeping five times, because his response was five times as long as would fit in a single message. She frowned as she studied the text before she nodded and smiled at me brightly. “It should be fine, but he gave me a few suggestions for the future. He’s very knowledgeable about potions.”
“So glad that someone so knowledgeable can find a worthy cause to experiment on.” I downed the drink, which tasted nice, lemon minty, with a hint of soap, so worlds better than his crap sludge, which probably meant that it wasn’t as effective.
Now for the fun part of my day. The sooner I got this demon training with Percy thing out of the way, the sooner I could go hang out with Rynne. I had a pretty good idea that this would be the last time in a long time I’d have weekends free of homework, not that I was free, but I’d only just started classes, so the work hadn’t piled up yet.
I pulled on my usual black slouchy clothing, hat pulled low, bag over my shoulder, and headed out, leaving my mother tinkering in the kitchen with different ingredients for her next revitalizing potion for me.
I did feel slightly more energetic as I rode my board, aware of the car behind me, keeping pace, filled with my dad’s bodyguards. They weren’t the most subtle entourage, and like a demon would attack me in broad daylight, but it wasn’t hard to ignore them.
Poe circled me then flew to my right, outstretched feathers brushing my cheek for a moment.
Good morning to fly.
Why yes, it was a good morning to fly. I kicked my board and went even faster, jumping up curbs and sliding down rails. I enjoyed myself as much as possible until it was obvious that I was delaying the inevitable, and then I headed directly to Gray College instead of cutting through a particularly skatable business building’s courtyard, where no one would tell me to get lost on a Saturday morning for hours.
I was tempted to climb the wall and knock on his window, but that would be ridiculous with my bodyguards in tow. They’d made it clear yesterday that they weren’t here to chat with me but to watch for danger, so I had to feel like an idiot, not like we were just hanging out.
I knocked on his door for a long time, just kept knocking until he opened it looking all rumpled, messy hair, soft pants, and bare chest. He froze when he saw me, glancing past me at my bodyguards, and then smiled at me, a studied smile that was somewhat sweet.
“You didn’t come in the window. That’s new.”
He’d said that just to let my bodyguards know that I was accustomed to being in his room without four bodyguards who would tell my dad all about it. He was so annoying, always playing angles.
“I have stuff to do later. Can we get the demon training out of the way now?”
“Stuff? Like homework? You should study with someone who can make sure that you aren’t overextending.”
I gave him a look. “Not homework. Why do you sound suspicious about homework? No one accuses other people of doing too much homework. That’s just unnatural. I’m going to the skate park with Rynne.”
He nodded, expression lightening. “Good. Exercise and fresh air will be help you recover from yesterday’s magic practice.”
“Or it’ll be fun. Fun is okay to have for absolutely no reason. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that? Your whole music thing is about magical recharging, isn’t it? I think that the only fun you’ve ever had was tying knots in my hair.”
“Probably. Give me five minutes, and I’ll meet you down in the gym in Renser’s Hall. I think you mopped there last night.”
“I have Friday nights off.”
He grinned at me. “Ah, now I remember.”
Of course he did. I rolled my eyes and headed off, having to wait for my bodyguards to part so that I could go down the hall. This was all so awkward. I probably hadn’t been sweet and idiotic enough around Percy if we were still trying to sell this betrothal story, but I wasn’t working that hard for something that weird. Yeah, I owed Percy for getting me to my dad before I turned to stone, but I didn’t like lying, even if I did keep too many things from my mom.
The training was so much longer than I wanted it to be. For someone who warned me to take it easy, and who had told me not to study too much, he pushed me to the edge and kept me there for hours, until I was completely wiped out, mind, body, and that new magic muscle that could barely crawl, but he expected to perform at full capacity.
I was lying spread-eagled on the ground, staring at the ceiling of the gym, at the metal beams, basically a glazed over vegetable that wanted to sleep for a year.
“Good. Now we’ll work on physical defense,” Percy said, grabbing my hand and dragging me upright. I fell forward into his arms, chest to chest, nose to nose, and for a second mental exhaustion fled, leaving me with a fluttering awareness of the lack of space between us, no, of him, of his warmth and strength, and silky skin.
He stepped back, clearing his throat, and leaving me wobbling. “Attack me.”
“After you had me draw circles on the mat in chalk for hours, you want me to attack you? I’m done, Percy.”
