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A red one dive-bombed me before I could get down off the statue. I fell to the solid floor and rolled under people’s feet—the vicious little creature had lit my tunic on fire.
That’s the second tunic I’ve ruined, dammit. The school’s gonna start charging me for these things.
Hannah was on her feet, returning the sprite attacks with double the force, launching energy balls of her own at them.
Everyone else was fighting one way or another—spewing fire at the ice sprites, throwing ice at the fire sprites, electrocuting bunches at a time. The students were talented, but most of us weren’t very well trained yet. So when a pair of demon mages combined their magic to create a massive energy ball, they didn’t watch out for the electric fingers of someone else’s lightning magic before tossing it.
The energy ball flew toward the bolts of lightning, and even before they collided, a threatening buzz pulsed in the hallway.
“Shit! Get down!”
It was like a bomb. The wall exploded in front of us, taking a lot of sprites with it. Stones and bricks flew wildly. As I ducked, I could hear the sickly thwack of rock chunks hitting flesh. Then everything was silent. We all stayed still as the statues lining the walls, waiting for another wave of sprites.
But all I heard instead was a rhythmic zap…zap…zap…coming from down the hallway.
Tentatively, I lifted my head to look. More teachers had arrived to belatedly save the day, armed with wands and color-coded jars. One by one, they zapped the remaining sprites into the containers.
“Just like high school all over again,” I remarked as lightly as I could. “One little thing goes wrong, and all of a sudden they have to call an assembly.”
Hannah smiled at me weakly. She had been next to a man who had taken a brick to the head. He was in the infirmary now and would probably be fine, but she had been a bit traumatized by the whole thing.
I elbowed her gently. “You fought like hell out there. You did great.”
“So did you,” she murmured. “Excellent call, using persuasion.”
“You work with what you got,” I said with a shrug.
We found seats in the big hall and watched the rest of the students file in. Everyone looked dirty and grim. A lot of faces were missing. I told myself they would be fine, and that nobody died that day. I couldn’t be sure if that was actually true, but I wanted to believe it. As the doors closed behind the last student, Toland took the podium.
He was silent for a long moment. So was everybody else. It was eerie to listen to so many people just… breathe.
“You all know how serious this was, so I’m not going to waste a lot of time telling you. Many students were injured. An outer wall was compromised. Our defenses are compromised.” His voice had grown louder and angrier with each word he spoke, and he paused to compose himself. From where I sat, I could see the muscle in his jaw working.
“Someone in this school is responsible. Someone in this school released the sprites. This was a premeditated attack on our students, faculty, and the school itself. This is not a transgression we can ignore.”
He paused again to take a deep breath, bending at the waist and leaning on the podium for support. He looked broken, but the fire in his eyes told me he was merely folding under the weight of his fury.
“Each of you will be subjected to questioning over the mid-year break. We must find the person responsible. Am I clear?"
A mumble of yes, sirs rippled through the crowd.
“I said, am I clear?”
“Yes, sir!” the entire room barked in unison.
“Be prepared to come immediately when you are called.” He cast one final look over the assembled crowd, as if he could somehow pick out the culprit right now. Then he jerked his chin toward the back of the room. “Dismissed.”
Classes were cancelled for the rest of the day. Students and staff alike seemed to be trapped under a somber cloud, walking through the halls or languishing in the library, not sure what to do with themselves. The main hall was a mess, but had been cordoned off by the time the assembly let out. Everybody reacted a little differently. Some isolated themselves, and I envied those.
That’s how I would have handled situations like this before. Isolate, disassociate from reality for a while, just withdraw and sooth myself. But it didn’t work that way anymore. M
y distress, no more apparent than anyone else’s, was like a beacon to my four. My guys stayed nearby—even Kai, though he would have denied it. Jayce stuck firmly at my side, his body in some form of contact with mine all the time. Kingston walked beside me, out of reach but close enough for eye contact. I felt Xero behind me at all times, and Kai on the very edges of my consciousness.
Hannah stayed with me too. I almost appreciated her presence more, because I knew there was no magical reason for it. The six of us ended up in the library after a lot of mindless wandering, tucked away in a comfortable little corner full of couches and a few solitary chairs. For a moment, I thought that Kai had split off from the group, but when I reached out with my feelings, I found him on the other side of a big bookcase.
Jayce tucked into the corner of a couch and I lay against his shoulder with my feet on the cushions in front of me. Hannah wriggled in under my knees and leaned into me. Kingston perched on the arm of the couch by my feet, and Xero sat on the floor with his back to me. I absently ran my fingers over his close-shaved black hair. He didn’t pull away. I called it a win.
I’m not sure when we all fell asleep, but a cold sun was dawning when I opened my eyes. I carefully slid out from between Jayce and Hannah and stepped over Xero, feeling nimble and alive like I’d just slept for a decade and had a belly full of coffee. It was incredible.
