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“Thank you.” I stare at Ghost Girl for a moment before shaking off the adrenaline and stepping carefully around the magic. Ghost Girl—or Aurora as I should start calling her—follows after me as I follow the trail down the hallway until we go around a corner and come to a dead end. I stare at the wall in confusion before reaching out to touch it, my eyes darting to Aurora before I make contact.
When she doesn’t jump in between me and the wall I don’t hesitate, pressing my fingers to the stone. It’s warm to the touch, but that’s not what grabs my attention or sends my stomach churning. No, that would be because the stone vanishes to reveal a leg. A motherfucking severed leg in a compartment in the wall. I tug my hand away, a chill creeping down my spine. My eyes slant from the very real and very severed leg, to look at Aurora only to find the spot where she was standing, empty.
Eyebrows drawing down I spin around, searching the space to confirm that she’s gone. Yep, nowhere in sight. Pursing my lips, I turn back to the leg and conjure a pair of gloves. Slipping them on quickly, I get to work.
This isn’t even close to the worst thing I’ve come across in my lifetime. That trophy is currently reserved forAnna.I swallow roughly and shake my head, focusing on the task at hand rather than the memories. The leg itself is fairly small, both in circumference and length. It’s been cut off mid thigh, and is discoloured at the base where the blood has pooled, which hints that it was left to sit in this position for a long while. Oddly there is no puddle of blood where the limb was severed at the thigh. The skin of the leg is pale, almost grey coloured and has no obvious supernatural features.
The foot attached to it is small as well and dainty, with a woven anklet around it. “Probably from a woman then, or possibly a teenage girl,” I say quietly. I work the best when talking out loud. The toenails are painted dark purple and my eyebrows furrow, a thought hovering at the edge of my mind that I can’t quite reach. It’s like a memory that’s all but forgotten, until someone brings it up again.
Blowing out a breath, I draw back and peer over the leg. Ethan has either created or found this hidden compartment in the stone wall, and it’s the perfect size for this leg.
Refocusing on the leg itself, I use a thin strand of my magic to examine it and snag on a spell. It’s a stasis spell so when the caster—Ethan—created the spell, the leg was frozen in time as it was in that moment. “Explains the lack of blood,” I whisper to myself, eyebrows drawn.
I sigh and tip my head back, groaning at the ceiling. If a stasis spell has been used then I have no way of knowing when the person was killed and the leg severed. Gritting my jaw, I barely suppress a snarl. I don’t know what the hell Ethan is trying to convey with this. Other than the fact that he’s escalated and is clearly killing again.
That same question that sits at the edge of my mind constantly, raises its head.Should I tell the guys?
Footsteps sound to my left and I jerk into action. Using my magic I bag the leg and create a mini portal to send it to my dorm room. I then create an illusion on the compartment in the wall to hide it and jog back to the door of my classroom, taking a moment to compose myself before ducking inside.
I lean back in my seat squinting at the instructions on the blackboard, and bite the inside of my cheek. The exercise we’re supposed to complete is a simple growing spell. We’re given a seed and we’re supposed to feed our magic into it until it’s grown into a seedling that’s a few inches tall. Then, next week we’ll go bury them and coax them a little taller and repeat the next week and so on, until the end of the term. It’s supposed to be an exercise of magical control because a small amount of earth power flows through all with magic, though some tend to be stronger in some elements more so than others. Unicorn still seemed to be quite anxious after what happened to me in potions so I sent her away after we left the infirmary, unable to focus with her nervous energy. Every few minutes I see her swoop past the classroom windows to give me a toothy grin. She’s definitely happier when she is not cooped up inside.
I twist my hands together and glance surreptitiously at Corin, who’s seated next to me. Unlike last term, he and I have quite a few classes together. He’s sprawled out in his chair, messy hair half hiding his face, fingers tapping out a lazy rhythm on his thigh. In other words, he doesn’t have a care in the world. My nostrils flare and he cocks his head to the side. I avert my gaze, but his eyes burning into the side of my head allude to the fact that he caught me staring at him. Stubbornly, I drum my fingers against the edge of my desk as the professor walks around handing out seeds and small pots filled with soil.Goddess, is it hot in here or is it just me?
“Did you know that dragons can’t fly backwards?” My fingers pause, head swinging around to Corin.
The corner of my lip tugs up into a half smile and my brows draw together. “I did not.”
“So, tiny earth realm hummingbirds can do something that dragons can’t,” he says casually.
I bite my tongue, amusement bubbling up in my chest.
He threads his long fingers together, setting them on his lap. “They can also be very touchy about the size of their horns.”
I choke on the breath I was taking and a bark of shocked laughter escapes me. Of course my dirty mind twists that up, but I know he’s referring to the horns on theirhead. I clear my throat, pursing my lips. “I’ll be sure to bring that up next time I speak to a dragon shifter. I’m sure it will make for an interesting conversation.” Corin grins and straightens up in his seat.
“Here, you go. I’ll be making rounds of the room if you need any help,” the professor says to the class and sets down two pots and baggies with a seed in each in front of us, before moving on to the people at the next set of desks. Corin and I are seated off to the side of the room with a gap between us and other people on our right and the wall to our left, so I utilise the extra room and get to my feet, leaning over the desk to grab my pot and seed. Corin stays seated, dragging his pot closer to inspect it.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I reread the instructions at the front of the room, rolling the seed between my fingers. Swallowing hard, I try to shove aside my nerves and poke a hole in the soil with my finger then plop the seed in. Gently covering it with a layer of soil, I pour some water onto it then lean back, fingers tingling with nerves. It’s a new experience for me, I don’t usually tend to encounter the vulnerable type of emotions very often. I’m finding out that I don’t love it. If it weren’t for the absolute disaster that was my previous class—AKA potions—then I wouldn’t be so stressed over this simple assignment. I have no idea how this newthinginside me is going to react. I’m still not quite sure what has activated it, but I have a creeping suspicion that it could have been touching Aurora’s casket. Coming into contact with magic as powerful as hers would be a perfectly plausible reason to have unlocked a new power inside me, or something like that. Maybe. It’s something I need to look into when I have a spare moment.
Huffing out a breath of air, I close my eyes for a moment, reaching for the usual calm I keep wrapped around myself. I let it fall over me and I stand tall, shoulders drawing back as I approach my pot.Okay Nessa, you can do this. I can do this.
Pulling the pot to the edge of the desk, I lean over it, tucking a stray strand of my dark hair behind my ear, and I once again close my eyes and reach for that well of magic in my sternum. My forehead pinches, finding it a lot darker than it usually is. Not only that but when I hone on it even more I can almost make out two separate balls of magic warring for dominance.What the actual hell is going on?Ignoring the weirdness, I refocus on the task at hand. My fingers curl into fists, determination flaring through me and I forge on not allowing the oddity to dissuade me.
I bury my fingers into the soil, the damp clumps gritty against my skin. The earthy scent wafts over me and I cock my head, touching my magic well. It jumps at my command, even though I only give it the tiniest tug, and it floods through me. My limbs burn at the sudden rush and the scent of ozone assaults me as the pressure inside me rises to unbearable levels. With a cry, it bursts from my fingers—much like in my previous class—and I gasp as magic floods into the seed. I flinch back, though, when the magic doesn’t die down but continues to build, wave after wave flooding through me until I’m struggling to stay upright. Itburns. Drowning in the power, my eyelids flutter and I fall to my knees clawing at my throat. “It-t is too m-much,” I groan, mewling in pain. It’s then that my eyes snag on the corner of the room where Aurora’s wavering frame is hovering. Her eyes are on me, expression blank, just watching.
Then hands are on my shoulders, dragging my attention from her and Corin is kneeling in front of me, pale face close to mine. “Nessa, you need to let it out or it’ll consume you.” His words waver in and out as though I’m under water, and I go limp, but he catches me, holding me upright. “The wards, Nessa. Push it into the ground and the wards will absorb it.” I falter, unable to focus and his lips tug up in a snarl. “Do it now, Nessa.” I jolt as the magic infused words roll over me and I slam my hands down to the floor, doing as he says automatically.
I shove the power out of me on a scream, the pain like nothing I’ve ever felt before. The force of it leaving creates an almost bomb-like effect and my body is thrown back by the blast. I slam into the wall, head cracking off it with a sickening thud, before crashing to the ground with a loud grunt, and the world goes dark.
Light filters through my eyelids and frantic voices ricochet around me, making my ears ring. Or that could be connected to the pain in my shoulder. I hiss as it is jostled, and startle when I realise someone is holding me. Their arms are thick, warm bands looped around my upper thighs and the middle of my back. I automatically tense before giving up on that idea when pain reverberates through me. I groan.Goddess I feel like shit. What the hell happened?
The voices seem to get louder before a menacing snarl rattles through me from the chest of the person who’s holding me. That gets my attention. I force my eyes open and they clash with twin kaleidoscopes of colour. Corin stares down at me with an almost feral expression, his features sharper and more animalistic than I’ve seen before. He looks more beast than human at the moment. Like he’s a hair trigger away from shifting into his other form. The one I saw the night we rescued Lexi.
I suck in a deep breath only to pause when his bonfire scent wraps around me, my toes curling and cheeks flushing with the intoxicating fragrance. It’s deeper and cloying, and my lashes flutter while I have to consciously fight the urge to press my nose to his throat.What the hell is happening right now?I lean forward, aiming to sit up a little more to take a look at the room to figure out what’s going on, only for my ribs to grind together sharply, and I fall back with a yelp, my head clearing enough for the memory of what happened to filter back in.Project. Magic going haywire. Another explosion.
People are still talking around us and Corin is still growling, a low constant warning to anyone that dares get any closer. I drag my focus from him and cast my blurry gaze around the room, my eyes widening when I do. Then I take a moment to process the utter chaos my magic has once again caused.
Rather than a cute little seedling in a pot, there is an entire mother-fucking tree in front of me. Its thick trunk is curled around the room like a roller coaster, the branches turning the room into a tangled prison. Leaves litter the floor and obscure my view in sections, but if the glittering shards of glass on the floor are to be trusted, I may have shattered a few windows.Whoops…
