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Then my eyes fly open. I’m back in my room, in my bed. I can hear the shower, and I know Laila is getting ready for breakfast. I’m glad she isn’t here to see me panting, tangled in my sweat-soaked sheets.
Dragging myself out of bed, I rub the sleep from my eyes. All I can do now is go to classes, but I don’t know how I’m going to stop thinking about what I just experienced in Cyrus’s dream.
The first lesson today is meditation, where we’re all supposed to try and find some sort of inner peace. Octavia Pax teaches this one, and I’m mostly glad to see her again… only every time I look at her, I feel like my secret is obvious. Like I’m silently shouting about how I resurrected a vampire.
There’s still no news about Jenny Valetta, and the class seems restless through the meditation. Octavia herself seems distracted, like she’s just going through the motions. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused as she mumbles instructions and we attempt the lotus position on the lush pillows spread out around the classroom.
Finally, we head to ritual class, where Laila gets very excited about blood magic. I’m less than enthralled about carving runes on my arms.
“Isn’t this unhygienic?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “The magic always cleanses the blood. Unless it goes wrong.”
I regard the knife in my hand with some trepidation. “What’s the deal with spells that are broken by blood? How do they work?”
Laila takes the tip of her ceremonial dagger and runs it along her arm. It’s strange how it works, not like cutting at all. I can see the magic in the arcs she makes and the hint of a spark glowing from the metal tip.
“The person who sets the spell creates the rules,” she explains, setting the knife down. “If someone else wants to break the spell, they either follow the original rules or find a loophole.”
“How common is it to break a spell? It must be pretty hard, right?”
“I guess it depends on the spellcaster. They might want the spell to be broken. They might not, which makes it more difficult. But there is no spell that doesn’t have some sort of magical loophole. It’s impossible. I guess you just have to lookreally, really hard.” Laila grins as the petals fall, one by one, from the red rose in front of her. “Your turn.” She glances at the dagger in front of me.
It’s my own personal dagger, handed to me at the beginning of the class. What a weird gift. And now I have to look after it, because apparently, I only get one.
With blood magic, you have to be gentle,Cyrus says in my head.Let the knife do the work.
I’ve never been great at drawing. Writing is more my thing. But the runes are fairly simple to follow. Taking Cyrus’s advice, I allow the knife to do the work. I barely even touch the skin. It’s like carving through butter, with only the slightest hint of pain.
“See?” Laila says as my rose sheds its petals. “It’s not so hard. Maybe this is your affinity.”
“Blood magic? Really?” I shiver. “It’s so weird.”
She shrugs. “You get used to it.”
“And your affinity is wind, right?” I lay the knife down on my desk and stare at the runes still shining on my flesh.
“It’s my element.” She nods. “But I want to be an all-arounder. I’m hoping to improve on my blood magic and necromancy skills. Some auras concentrate on their affinity and never learn anything else, but I don’t want to do that. My brother is a Guardian, and he says it’s best to have some knowledge in all areas of magic.”
Before I can respond, I hear, “Look at the new girl and the weirdo.”
We both turn to see Gabrielle standing next to our desk. I roll my eyes. I’m growing less and less sympathetic to her every day.
“A match made in heaven.” Gabrielle smirks. “Though I thought Laila had more sense.”
“Jog on, Gabby.” Laila waves her hand idly.
“I think I will. Wouldn’t want to catch anything.”
As she walks away, I turn to my roommate. “I thought she’d start leaving me alone, but it seems as though she’s not giving up. And she’s being a bitch to you now.”
All of a sudden, my knife flies up off the desk. I try to catch it, but it keeps going, heading straight for Thaddeus, our teacher. I cry out, but I’m too late. The knife misses him by barely a millimetre, catching his dark shirt at the cuff.
“Whose knife is this?” he booms.
Reluctantly, I raise a hand.
He raises two bushy grey eyebrows. “Did you throw this knife at me, Ms Belvedere?”
