The chilly breeze ripples through my hair. I force myself to breathe slowly and evenly, my ears perked and my awareness testing the ephemera around me.
Professor Jovak couldn’t have known which direction I’d head in or where I’d be most vulnerable. Whatever his plan is, it must be something that’ll happen in the moment rather than a trap already laid, or a different student might stumble onto it.
The second there’s a shift in the energies around me, I need to defend myself. The less damage he manages to do, the fewer of my own secrets will be exposed.
Will the attack even come from him? For all I know, he’s got allies all over the park, lying in wait for me. I’m not sure how many co-conspirators could manage to escape Cole’s notice, but this group has already pulled off magic beyond anything I’d have?—
My only warning is a soft warble that wavers through my thoughts. My muscles have only just started to tense when a wallop of energy slams toward my head like a sledgehammer.
The wallop would slam rightintomy head, except thebracelet around my wrist flares with sudden warmth, and the blast hits a shield that’s shot up inches from my skin. Both the barrier and the assault shatter apart with a hiss of scattered energy.
The impact shakes the air and the ground beneath my feet hard enough that I stumble all the same. My ears are ringing.
The flashlight slips from my fingers and rolls across the ground, splashing smears of light across grass and shrubs.
I’ve barely had time to cast out a shield of my own before a sharper lance of magic slices through it and knocks me right on my ass.
My gathered ephemera shudders apart. My hip jars against a tree root with a jolt of pain.
Wincing, I shove my back against the nearby trunk and grope for more energy from the forest around me.
Any doubt about whether this attack might be a regular part of the challenge vanishes an instant later. My hasty attempt at a second shield only partly deflects the next slash of caustic magic.
It scrapes across my throat to draw a burning line through my flesh. Blood streaks down over my collarbone to the top of my shirt, cooling in the night air.
Through the throbbing ache, one clear realization hits me. If I hadn’t managed to repel the blow that one small bit, it’d have gouged right through my neck.
My thoughts scramble. I slump as if the assault hit me harder than it actually did while yanking even more ephemera around me.
Let my attacker pause thinking they succeeded. Let them give me time to protect myself and my men time to reach me.
My glim doesn’t know how to wait. Even as I let my head droop, the unwelcome giddy heat blooms across my throat.
I aim my attention desperately in the direction the strikes came from.
My power races through my nerves, and my glim latches on to a body creeping toward me through the brush. It sucks the healing energy I need out of that body in a slash across another throat. A grunt reaches my ears.
The blare of one of the shocker machines goes off, splintering my concentration. As I harden my focus, footsteps thunder toward me—from more than one side.
“What the fuck is going on over here?”
I lift my head at Salvatore’s growled question. His immense frame has appeared between the trees some ten paces away.
Just a few paces from the bulky form that’s stalking toward me with a strange, serrated blade gleaming in the glow of Salvatore’s flashlight.
Captain Ross’s head jerks around, his jaw tensing against the gaping of the cut on his neck. Blood has already seeped into the collar of his jacket.
So he was part of the conspiracy. This whole time, the whole intensive combat program was aimed at getting to me.
His hand jerks toward Salvatore, and a protest leaps to my lips. But at the same moment, Byron charges over from the other direction.
“Elodie? What happened? You’re bleeding.”
He drops to his knees beside me and reaches for my neck, with a subtle twitch of his shoulder that tugs his sleeve up just a bit.
Just enough that a band of bare skin shows between his glove and the cuff of his sleeve.
Just enough for that skin to graze my jaw in his not-entirely-feigned haste.
