Elemental Darkness (Paranormal Public Series) (18 page)

Paranormal Public rose in front of our group. We’d been driven to the school on buses, much like the ones we had used when we came back after Caid’s end of summer party, and we were now standing outside the gates.

Sip and Lough had waited for me to board the bus they were on, and Risper had melted into the crowd. I’d been so preoccupied with what he had said about my father that I had forgotten to press him about where the Globe White was. I regretted that omission, because I had a feeling I wouldn’t have another chance to see him before he left.

“What did he say?” Lough whispered as we stood in front of the gates.

“A lot,” I said. “Come to Astra and I’ll tell you.”

“Sip, who stayed behind to look after Public?” This was Trafton, who stood casually holding his bag. Even now he looked like he should be a model.

Sip grinned. “A friend of Charlotte’s.”

I groaned. Instantly I guessed who she was talking about, and as the gates swung open and a short woman came out, her hair in a bun and a ridiculously colored pink and brown dress covering her round frame, I knew I had guessed right.

“All’s well,” cried Martha, waving to us. “Come on in.”

Martha was Public’s last defense mechanism. Effective, but also a bit dotty.

“I bet she’s been baking,” said Lough happily. “I’m definitely coming to Astra.”

The students streamed in. I could barely believe that I was a senior at Paranormal Public. Somehow, I had never thought I would get this far, but now that I had, I had a mission. Actually, a dual mission. We needed to get to the archive, and we needed to find Lisabelle.

Those two goals would be made significantly more difficult by the fact that Caid had said that the mass murder of paranormals by the Nocturns was my fault, and Sip’s. How that accusation was going to affect this semester was anybody’s guess, but I wasn’t optimistic.

That night we all stayed in Astra together. Sip didn’t like staying in Airlee without Lisabelle, and Lough said we both needed protecting. I told them everything Risper had said, including the part about my dad and the archive. Sip promised that we would go the second we could.

“I don’t even know what classes we have this semester,” said Lough, yawning.

Sip nodded agreement. “They start tomorrow, and we’ll get our schedules in the morning.” Her lids were heavy and she could barely keep her eyes open. “I wonder if the other students will come after us with pitchforks and try to use us as bait.”

“That’s why you need protecting,” said Lough sagely.

“I’d like to see them try,” I muttered.

The next morning we made our way to the new dining hall in the new building in the center of campus, which was finally finished. At one point Dacer had intended to move the Museum of Masks there, but in the end he decided that he liked his place in the Long Building just fine.

I had to remember to test Alixar at some point, since Risper had warned me to keep it close. It was the only thing I owned that I knew to have belonged to Queen Ashray, and it was all the more precious to me because of that.

Once we were seated at a table in the dining hall, our class schedules simply appeared in front of us. They were on light blue paper, the writing ornate and silver. Light streamed down from the large windows, blanketing our table, the breakfast trays, and our class lists.

Sip eagerly leaned forward to read her schedule and immediately groaned.

“I was hoping to have one semester here without a class with Zervos,” she said bitterly.

“There’s always next semester,” said Lough, squinting at his own schedule.

“As a senior, don’t you have a thesis to write?” he asked Sip.

She shrugged. “Yes, but since our majors are predetermined by our paranormal type, I don’t think it will prove much of a challenge.”

“What classes do you have?” I asked Lough.

“The History of the Paranormal Strange, with Zervos,” said Lough. “Advanced Pixie tactics with Korba, Advanced Spell-Casting with Professor Erikson, and Advanced Elixirs with Professor Dacer. Do you have the same?” he asked hopefully.

Sometimes we had electives, but since we’d been gone last semester and the amount we had learned at Golden Falls was in serious question, Oliva had decided that we were to return to basics for our senior fall.

“I have that plus thesis,” said Sip, looking focused as usual.

“What’s your thesis topic? Have you already chosen it?” Lough asked.

As seniors we had semester-long writing projects to complete, but my plan was to do mine next spring, and Lough’s was as well.

“Whatever will give me access to the archive,” Sip said seriously, lowering her voice. “Something to do with the evolution of werewolf transformation. It wasn’t always so easy for us to slip back and forth between forms. It took time, or we were only able to do it during the full moon.”

Lough nodded. “Sounds fascinating.”

Sip straightened her shoulder blades. “It’s a difficult subject,” she said. “It requires an advanced understanding of the dynamic between werewolf and form.”

“Sure,” said Lough. His eyes darted behind Sip’s head and I saw his cheeks flush. It was the only warning I had before Camilla Van Rothson stormed up to us, glaring at me as usual. We might be seniors, but some things never change.

“You saw Cale?” Her voice was high and shrill and her eyes burned. She wore jeans and a green shirt, her long blond hair cascading over her shoulders.

“Camilla,” said Lough evenly, “didn’t you graduate?”

I sighed and put my fork down. I had thought I might still see Daisy and Dobrov, since Dobrov had been on the ship, but Camilla was supposed to be finished and gone. She and Cale had dated as freshmen, before I’d gotten there, and she had never forgiven me for being his friend. It didn’t matter to her that we knew each other from having grown up in the same town.

“I’ve been kept back,” she hissed.

I was surprised she even answered the question, and even more surprised that she offered some details.

“I went to Golden Falls to get real world experience, but apparently I didn’t get enough of an education to count as my senior spring, so here I am.” She threw her arms up, bitterly taking in the campus.

“It’s your own fault, isn’t it?” Lough demanded. “You’ve been helping the Nocturns.”

Camilla’s eyes sparked, and for a second I thought she’d hit him, but instead she turned her attention back to me.

“Cale?” she asked.

“What about him?” I picked up my muffin and started to break off pieces of it to put in my mouth.

“Did you see him?”

“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t,” I said, meeting her angry brown eyes.

She leaned forward and I saw Sip shift, ready to fight if necessary. I didn’t move; I had no problem holding my ground in the face of Camilla’s anger.

“You think you’re so cool because you’re the last elemental,” she said, her voice hard. “You aren’t. President Caid knows the truth and he finally called you out for what you really are, which is a danger to all paranormals. It won’t take long for everyone else here to realize that.”

She stormed away from our table and back to her own. I watched her go, mostly to see who else was at her table. “I’d be cool even if I wasn’t the last elemental,” I muttered. Sip and Lough grinned at me.

To my intense dismay it was exactly who I thought it would be: Faci, Daisy, and Dobrov.

“Ah, home,” said Sip, taking another bite of eggs. “Lovely to be back.”

Our first class of the day was Professor Erikson’s Advanced Spell-Casting. As a fallen angel she was well versed in healing and flying spells. Fallen angels were also known to get along with most paranormal types and had therefore been exposed to many different types of magic. If ever there was a time when this class was appropriate, that time was now, and I was glad we were in it. But I felt the stares of my fellow students as we headed out to the Dash field for this first class session.

“They’ll come around,” said Lough, reading my mind. I wasn’t so sure.

“Caid said the exact same thing Malle wanted them to believe,” I whispered, “that if they just get rid of me they’ll be safe. It’s not true, and I don’t know why they fall for it.”

“They’re scared,” said Sip. “Most of the students are on your side. Remember everyone waiting for you in Astra last spring? If anyone tries anything, we’ll fight, you can count on that.”

Before we reached Professor Erikson, though, Dacer appeared. He slung his arm around me and bent down to whisper in my ear. “We need to speak regularly,” he said softly. “Come to the tea room. We have much to discuss. I just spoke with Risper.”

And with that he released my shoulders and was gone.

After he strode away Lough raised his eyebrows at me. “Did you ask him why he didn’t defend you to Caid?”

I sighed. “Not yet. I’ve barely had time to think, let alone talk with him privately.”

Meanwhile, Professor Erikson stood in the center of the field, her robes whipping around. “Advanced Spell-Casting,” she said, “is serious business. All of you here are seniors, and I expect that by now you know enough to take this seriously. There are many different kinds of spells, but what I find most compelling about this group is that there are two dream givers in it. I heard what you did last semester at Golden Falls, dreaming back to a battle.” She nodded at Lough and Trafton, both of whom were pink with pleasure at being recognized, until she continued with, “If you do anything so reckless and undirected this semester I’ll have you expelled.”

Murmurs went up among the students as my friends’ faces fell.

“In order to use power, you must control it,” Professor Erikson continued. “Without control you have nothing, which is why such unchecked displays of magic will get us all killed. Now, line up across from each other.”

Sip and I moved to stand opposite each other, but Professor Erikson stopped us.

“Do NOT line up across from a friend. In order to use an advanced spell, you must be detached. You cannot expect your friend to be forever bailing you out.”

I couldn’t be sure, but I thought her last remark was a shot at Lisabelle. Keller’s aunt was tough, there was no doubt about it. This was going to be an interesting class.

I lined up across from a student named Darrow, a quiet fallen angel who had always just gone about his work and returned to Aurum without socializing much. He nodded at me once, but otherwise said nothing. Both of our rings were pulsing.

“Now,” said Professor Erikson, her face stern, “I want you to perform a lifting spell. You take turns. I want you to lift nothing but your partner. If your partner gets hurt while you try to perform this spell, you will each owe me a lesson on behaving responsibly, and you will also report to the Long Building for paint duty.

“I’m surprised that whole building hasn’t been painted seven times over, given how often they use it for punishment,” Lough muttered.

I nodded, watching Darrow closely. He was taller than Keller, but thinner and kind of gawky, with tawny hair and wide-set eyes. Sip had once said he was cute in a nerdy sort of way. Regardless of that, I was nervous. It was one thing to throw wind indiscriminately at the huge sails of a ship, but something else entirely to lift a specific object a specific distance, never mind a person.

My other worry was that Faci had lined up across from Trafton and was smiling cruelly, while Daisy had lined up across from Vanni and Rake and Dobrov were paired with each other. Sip was paired with a girl named Tissy, a vampire from Raor.

“Begin,” Professor Erikson cried.

We all failed miserably except for Sip. Then, when Daisy complained that the only reason Sip was able to lift Tissy perfectly into the air was because Tissy was a vampire who could already float, Sip lifted Daisy into the air. The hybrid screamed and cried and Professor Erikson informed Sip that she would spend the coming Saturday painting the Long Building. The werewolf didn’t argue, she just clenched her fists and studied the ground.

After that we kept practicing. By the end of the hour-long class I had managed to make Darrow’s hair stand on end, but that was about it. I felt sweat dripping down the sides of my face as we trudged back toward the main part of campus.

“Don’t feel bad,” said Sip. “What she wants, the specific stuff, is really hard. It’s much easier to just use power as a hammer.”

“That’s what the demons are doing,” I said. “It’s exactly what we don’t want.”

“I’m hungry,” said Lough, rubbing his stomach and keeping his mind on the essentials as always.

“It’s ten o’clock in the morning,” said Sip incredulously. “We just had breakfast!”

“So?” Lough asked. “Come on, let’s go back to the dining hall and get a snack.”

While my two friends did that, I returned to the coffee shop in search of Dacer. I found him sitting in the same chair he had used a couple of months ago, sipping tea from a cup.

“Good morning,” he said as I slid into my seat. “How was your first class?”