“Goodness,” I commented loudly, in a bid to draw attention away from the pair of them. “And what has happened to make the great mage trainers deign to honour us with their presence?”

Thomas scowled at me, although Alex winked. It was easy to tell that he was desperate to find out what had happened the night before with Corrigan, but after putting me through that horribly embarrassing episode, despite the satisfaction I felt at it now, I wanted to let him squirm for a little time longer.

“Oh, we thought we’d come and see how you dudes were doing,” drawled Alex with a hint of mischief flittering its way across his eyes. “You are all looking so fresh and well rested.”

“Mmm,” agreed Thomas, reaching over to grab a roll from the centre of the table. “It’s great that you all take your studies so seriously and use every opportunity you can to get a good night’s sleep so you can put your energies towards the day.” There was just the faintest hint of sarcasm in his voice, that was so barely there that for a moment I thought I’d imagined it. All three of the Initiates looked incredibly uncomfortable at his words though. I smirked. It appeared that the great and mighty Thomas actually had a bit of a sense of humour. Well, who knew?

Despite her over-powering excitement at sitting next to Thomas, the fear of their night’s proclivities being revealed was clearly too much for Deborah, and she stood up along with both Brock and Mary. The three of them made their apologies and quickly left the cafeteria, Brock tripping over a chair leg on his way in a manner that was incredibly reminiscent of his attempts at walking home the night before.

Thomas rolled his eyes. “They always think that they’re the first to sneak out and get pissed.”

Alex grinned and put his palm up as if to high five Thomas. When all he got was a stony faced response, he shrugged amiably and brought his hand down instead and looked at me. “So what did you get up to last night, Mack Attack?” The hopeful tone in his voice was amusing.

I took a sip of coffee. “Not much. Had an early night actually. I can’t keep up with these young folks.”

He kicked me suddenly under the table and I hissed in surprise more than pain. Thomas stared at me hard. I quit beating around the bush and put Alex out of his misery. “Besides, I wanted a quiet weekend now because next Saturday night I’m going to be rather busy.”

He tried not to look too interested. “Oh yeah, dude? And why’s that?”

Making a show of nonchalance, I waved a hand dismissively and said airily, “Oh, the Lord Alpha has invited me to some old party so I’ll need to get my glad-rags on.”

He almost leapt out of his chair, but just managed to restrain himself in time. Thomas frowned. “I don’t think the Dean will be very impressed that you are off gallivanting with head of the Brethren.”

I raised my eyebrows at Alex who nodded vigorously in understanding. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about the Dean, Mack Attack. I’m sure he’ll be reasonable.”

Thomas appeared particularly skeptical but let it go. I stood up, pushing my chair back. “Well, I’ve got some extra studying that I need to do. If you gentlemen will excuse me?”

Both the mages acknowledged my departure, Alex trying to communicate something to me with his eyes, but failing miserably. However, I was quite sure I’d catch up with him later so we could come up with a clear plan for what I’d do once I was at the party. Right now, I needed to spend a bit of time on myself. And that meant finally getting back to the Fae book.

Chapter Thirteen

I spent virtually the rest of the day holed up in my room, just me, a seemingly sentient Fae book and a dictionary. A couple of times there were knocks on the door, but I ignored them all. I was in the zone and determined to find out more about myself and my lineage.

I was getting faster and more adept with the translations. It was still painstakingly slow, of course, however I was starting to recognise some of the more common runes and their meanings and, while some sentences were pure gobbledegook, for the most part I thought I had a good understanding about what the book was telling me. I discovered that the dragon that had been changed into human form by the less-than-forward-thinking mage developed a “most egregious temper and vicious bouts of rage” that cast fear into the hearts of anyone who came across his path. Said dragon was clearly unimpressed with his new body and ended up killing his would-be benefactress by burning her to a crisp. He then proceeded to rape and pillage his way through various towns and villages, occasionally impregnating the poor maidens who got caught up in his violence.

I smoothed my hands over my shorn head, feeling the soft prickles of the newly grown hair against my fingertips, wondering yet again whether I was reading pure fantasy or whether the story was actually rooted in some form of fact. That was the difficult thing with the Otherworldian histories: you never really knew for sure what was real and what just mere legend. Part of me did feel rather buoyed up by my discoveries, however. If this ancient (and rather frightening and nasty) creature was indeed my great-grandfather several hundred generations removed, then it meant that maybe it wasn’t my fault that I had such a nasty temper. I sobered up slightly with the sudden idea that it might mean I’d never have any control over my temper or my bloodfire, and I still didn’t really know how the dragon-man had developed into a race called the Draco Wyr, although I thought I might be starting to get the idea with all of his sexual rampages. Eventually, when my eyes were starting to smart and the words were beginning to swim in front of me, I snapped the book shut and went in search of Alex, hoping we could have another real conversation without the hovering presence of Thomas or the Initiates around.

I picked my way around the grounds of the academy, trying first one direction and then the other. I must have passed hundreds of other Initiates, most of whom managed to suddenly remember that they’d forgotten something and wheel around abruptly in the opposite direction when they saw me coming. A couple did smile tentatively at me at least, which made me feel a little bit better. I avoided the garden area where Mary, Brock and the others would be, not really in the mood for getting caught up in another teaching session just yet. At one point, however, I even saw Mage Slocombe, whose eyes widened as soon as he caught sight of me. He all but tripped over his daft black robes in his haste to get away from me before I decided to engage him in conversation. I rolled my eyes. Whatever.

Thirty minutes later, I’d circled the entire compound, garden aside, and had seen absolutely no sign of Alex anywhere. I could feel heated coils of annoyance curl themselves through my intestines. Not only did I want to talk to him about the impending party, I was also desperate to confide in someone about what I’d read in the Fae book. Alex could potentially have some new insights that I’d not thought of before. He might even have a more effective way to get the book translated. Fuck. For all I knew he could read Fae. It wasn’t something we’d ever spoken about before.

Coming out from behind the back of the Protection block, I pursed my lips and considered my options. I wasn’t in the mood to continue to spend the last remaining hour of daylight searching for him. I tried to think logically about where he might be, but I was drawing a blank. The only thing I could think of would be that he’d gone off to catch some waves. That, however, was patently ridiculous. I knew that he had been desperate at breakfast to find out more about what had happened with Corrigan so there was no way that he’d have bunked off for the day. Besides anything, we were in the middle of the sodding countryside. I didn’t exactly know where the academy was, but I’d lived beside the sea for long enough to know that it was definitely miles away from here. Otherwise I’d have sensed the tang of salt in the air. I equally doubted that the Dean would allow portals to be created just so that various mages could go hobnobbing off on personal sojourns around the country.

I wondered whether I could create a short cut for myself for finding him. Yes, my previous Divination lesson had ended badly, but we’d been in a small enclosed space then. I was an outdoors kind of girl. There were no priceless paintings or nervous mages around who might inadvertently get hurt by my trying to see if I could invoke my inveniora to find Alex. A tiny insistent thought nudged at the back of my mind, telling me that out of all the ideas I’d ever had, this was by the far the stupidest, but I pushed it away. After all, aside from Protection, Divination was the only discipline that I’d so far even had the faintest flicker of success with, even if that success had somewhat ended in disaster. At some point, if I ever wanted to leave this place, I’d have to get better at the magic stuff. Otherwise poor Mrs. Alcoon was doomed forever.

I chewed my lip, deciding. There wasn’t a soul around me so I really didn’t see what harm it could do. I sat down on the damp ground to begin. Then I stood back up again. Maybe it was better to try it standing? Damnit, I really didn’t know. I tried to concentrate, reminding myself what Higgins had done the previous week to get me started. All I had to do was reach inside myself, find the so-called energy that he’d spoken of and imagine it as a thread so I could pull it out. I reckoned that where I’d gone wrong before was trying to pull it out with too much force. If I just tried to be a teeny weeny bit more gentle, then surely I’d have more success.

Closing my eyes, and that seemed oddly to help, I pictured a smoky ball inside of me. I thought that perhaps I could feel the energy that I’d yanked on before, so I gave it a little tug, trying to pull it through my body. I felt a slight burn as I did so, but it was different to the usual sensation of my bloodfire heating up so, emboldened, I kept tugging. I felt it snake its way up through my chest and across my shoulders then filter out slowly down through my arm. Then I flicked my fingers and opened my eyes.

Almost immediately a bead of red smoke appeared, lazily casting itself out into the air. Yelping with delighted surprise, I watched it curve its way around my body, almost as if it had a mind of its own. I couldn’t believe it! I’d actually done something right for once. Realising that I wasn’t quite sure now how to make it trace after Alex so I could find him, I silently willed it to track him down. The inveniora ignored me and just lazily continued to spin round me, creating odd shapes in the still air of the early evening.