I shook my head. “I'm not sure.”
“Well pay attention next time.” He stepped forward and I slammed a hand to his chest, my heart screaming.
“Don't,” I commanded.
“I wasn't going to bite you,” he said and my shoulders sagged with relief. He stepped back and pointed to my chair, flicking a finger to force it upright. “Stay. Finish the session.”
I glanced at the door uncertainly, unsure what to believe anymore. “Will you answer something for me first?”
“Depends what it is,” he said in a gravelly tone.
“Do you want me and my sister dead?” I pinned him with my hardest, most unwavering stare. For Tory. For me. I had to hear his answer, even if it was a lie.
His eyes softened, running over my face with the faintest of frowns. “No, Blue. I don't.”
THE WHOLE ACADEMY was buzzing with excitement for the dance this weekend and I couldn’t help but get a little caught up in the idea of it too. Apparently the Professors always went all out to try and beat the previous year with impressive magic to decorate the place and fulfil the theme which was going to be ‘fall’ this time to match the season.
I was a little apprehensive about attending a party with our classmates who ranged from the weirdly obsessed A.S.S. to the outright hostile mean girls and quite possibly murderous Heirs. But I was trying to convince myself that the presence of the teachers and the general desire to have fun would mean that Darcy and I could enjoy it too.
After the arrival of my new clothes, I finally had some running gear and I was burning off a bit of nervous energy with a workout before I had to meet my least favourite Heir.
I jogged down to the Fire Arena wondering if Darius would actually show up for our tutoring session today. He’d skipped the one that had been arranged for last Thursday and Professor Pyro had bought into his blatant lies about getting caught up helping out some other students saving a cat from a well with a glowing look in her eyes that told me she was firmly Team Darius. I on the other hand had been told off for not rearranging the lesson myself even though I’d actually shown up and hadn’t heard a word from Darius to excuse himself.
I was a little nervous about spending time with him one on one especially as I definitely had a few fuzzy memories of his hands trailing all over me on the dance floor the last time I’d gotten close enough to speak with him.
Each time I’d caught a glimpse of him in the Ignis House common room or The Orb since, I’d received glares from Marguerite which were toxic enough to cause physical harm. But she needn't have bothered; I had zero interest in approaching the possible-murderer/constant tormentor/crazy-hot asshole who had appointed himself king of the Academy. In fact if I had it my way I wouldn’t even be heading to this session with him but Professor Pyro had made it clear that I would be held responsible if we missed another one and it would have a negative affect on my Reckoning. And despite all the glaring reasons for me to be running as far from this damn Academy as humanly possible, I wanted to stay. I wanted this magic that ran in my veins and I wanted the knowledge to wield it. And I wanted my damn inheritance too.
How many people could say that they’d had two sets of parents up and die on them? And what had our reward been for surviving those two tragedies? We’d lost our birth-right, grown up amongst people who had no idea what we were and had never had anyone to call mom or dad. We deserved that money for our suffering alone. We were owed a better life. And I’d survive a few years of torture if that was what it took to claim it. Hell, I’d already taken eighteen years of emotional neglect and uncertainty, what were a few more years to add to my sentence?
I reached the Fire Arena and forced myself to keep my head held high as I strolled straight in. As I’d run before having to face this meeting I chose to stay in the pair of tight fitting red yoga pants and grey sports bra for our session rather than changing into the Elemental lesson outfit.
I could never mention it to Professor Pyro but I’d been growing to hate that fire-proof outfit. I felt almost certain that it was making me struggle more with my fire magic rather than helping to protect me from the flames. I wasn’t afraid of my own power hurting me no matter what form it took; it was such an intrinsic part of me that I just didn’t believe it could. And something about the material designed to protect me from the flames felt more suffocating than I could explain. I’d taken the chance at summoning fire without it on a few times and had had much more success at controlling the flames in my hands.
Whether it was in my head or not, I wasn’t sure but while she wasn’t here to tell me otherwise, I was going to attempt this class without the outfit. I doubted Darius could give a shit what I wore and I guessed the only thing I had to worry about was the chance of someone else’s flames burning me. But as Darius was only supposed to be helping me contain my own magic and not using any of his, I had to hope that wouldn’t be a problem.
I looked around at the wide arena as I arrived and unsurprisingly didn’t see Darius anywhere.
I resigned myself to waiting for him and eyed some of the other practicing students with interest.
The more I watched them creating different shapes and aiming their flames at various targets, the more my own magic seemed to build within me, aching to join them.
I glanced around a little guiltily, hoping I wasn’t about to lose control again before easing my palm up in front of me. I bit my lip as I focused on the size of the flame I wanted to summon and suddenly it appeared.
I stared in surprise at the handful of fire as I held the magic steady. It didn’t grow or shrink or reshape itself without me wanting it to. I felt… in control. A satisfied laugh escaped me as I banished the flame and I wondered if my theory about the Elemental lesson’s outfit had some merit to it. Or maybe it was just not having an audience that worked in my favour. Whatever the reason, I was feeling a lot more hopeful about this session. If Darius ever turned up…
“Excuse me, your majesty?”
I glanced up as a tall guy with dark hair pushed back in a carefully styled kind of way walked towards me. He stopped about a meter away and bowed - fucking bowed - to me.
“Don’t do that,” I snapped, looking about to see if anyone had noticed him.
“Apologies, your majesty, I didn’t mean-”
“And don’t call me that either!” I said with exasperation as I eyed the shiny silver A.S.S. badge on his chest with distaste.
“Oh, err, apologies again, Roxanya I didn’t mean-”
“Don’t call me that either,” I practically snarled. What was with these guys? What part of just treat me like anyone else and don’t bring up that royal bullshit was so hard for them to compute? If they really did think Darcy and I were their sovereigns then shouldn’t that mean they’d do what we asked them to?
“Right… Darcy?”
“Tory.” I frowned at him thinking go-the-hell-away-from-me thoughts but he didn’t pick up on them despite the shouty barrage going on in my head. I probably wasn’t any breed of psychic Order then…
“Tory,” he agreed finally. We were two minutes into this conversation and he’d only just landed on a damn name for me, how long was it going to take him to get to the point?