“Hey—I’m pretty sure my presence is required at Plymouth High. Someone has to keep you and the Charmers from breaking out the boxing gloves and slugging it out during lunch hour.”

  “Oh, I don’t need boxing gloves for that. If Miranda tries anything, she’ll find herself face to face with Murphy.”

  “Murphy?”

  “That’s my dagger,” I said, pulling it out of its sheath and holding it up to glint in the sunlight. “I named him.”

  “Him? So…you two have grown close, huh?”

  “Sort of. I mean, it’s not like I ever actually stab anyone with him. But I like to know he’s there for me if I need him. For instance, if the colossally annoying Miranda decides to make googly eyes at my boyfriend…”

  Callum laughed. “Well, I promise if your arch-nemesis Miranda tries anything with me, I’ll simply remind her I’m madly in love with the most beautiful girl in the universe, and that she’s of no interest to me whatsoever. Though I’ll admit I would love to watch you two pull each other’s hair and let out some high-pitched squeals. You know, just for the spectacle of it.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Of course I am,” he said, rising to his feet. “I expect at least a little slap-fighting, too.”

  As I joined him to head for the door, I punched him in the arm.

  I drove us to school in the Rust-Mobile, if for no other reason than that it was the first time in my years at Plymouth High that I had the privilege of parking in the designated seniors’ section of the lot. Not to mention that it gave me an extra chance to show off my extraordinarily handsome boyfriend.

  Even better was the moment when Miranda pulled into the lot in the Lexus her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday only to discover that there were no spots left for her.

  She glared out the driver’s side at me just as I reached for Callum’s hand. If looks were acid, her window would have melted into a smoking liquid mess.

  “It’s so strange now, to think how many years I let her intimidate me,” I said to Callum as we walked away. “She drove me nuts. And now, she needs me, whether she likes it or not. My whole life is about protecting people like her from my actual nemesis.”

  “Funny how the tides turn. When you’ve faced war, petty matters become all the more trivial.”

  “That’s very deep. You should write it in a history essay or something. Of course, the teacher would probably accuse you of plagiarism, because no teenage boy would ever say something like that.”

  “Don’t worry. I intend to be completely and appropriately obtuse when working on my assignments. Maybe I’ll write an essay about how the French Revolution took place in Australia in the prehistoric past.”

  “Excellent. I was worried that you’d get better grades than I would. I’m glad to see you’re going for Fs.”

  When we stepped into the school’s main foyer, the first people I spotted were Liv and Lachlan, who were walking toward the stairwell leading up to the seniors’ lockers.

  We followed them from a distance, careful to stay far enough back that we didn’t appear to be stalking them.

  When we reached the second floor, Callum and I wandered over to the lockers that had been assigned to us: 235 and 236. Liv and Lachlan were down the hall by then, chatting by the water fountain.

  I opened the door to my locker, noting the remnants of old stickers inside and the marker-scrawled declaration of true love, “M.L. + J.R.” that would remain eternally etched in the dark gray metal. Who the owners of the initials were, I’d probably never know.

  I stashed my homemade lunch onto the top shelf and turned to Callum.

  “What should we do about Lachlan?” I asked in a whisper. “We still don’t know who he’s working for or what his actual plan is, other than worming his way into my best friend’s life.”

  “The best thing is to do nothing at all. We let him make the first move. Figure out what he’s really up to. Let him slip up. We’ve been assuming he’s working for the queen, but what if he’s not? We need to find out what he’s up to, and the only way to do that is to keep an eye on him.”

  “But what if he tries to hurt one of us?”

  “Even if he wanted to, the likelihood that he’d succeed is pretty slim, don’t you think?” Callum lowered his chin and threw me a look that said, Have you met my dragon?

  “Maybe. But still, I—”

  “What are you two commiserating about?” asked a perky voice from behind me.

  I tightened and turned around to see Liv, a fat physics textbook squeezed to her chest, a backpack slung over her shoulder, and a smile on her face.

  “Nothing,” I said, looking around in an attempt to figure out where Lachlan had disappeared to. “I was just…warning Callum about some of the teachers here. They can be serious hard-asses.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Liv agreed. “Mr. Moore especially. Geography. A walking nightmare. He’ll make you feel like a war criminal for not knowing the capital of Botswana.”

  “Will had him in senior year,” I replied with a nod, “and he hated him.”

  Just then, the school’s infamously deafening bell rang loud enough to vibrate the floor tiles under our feet.

  “You headed to English first?” Liv asked me.

  I nodded. “Mrs. Burns?”

  “Yes! Oh, perfect. We can sit with Lachlan.”

  “He’s in our class?” I blurted out before I had a chance to hide my disgust. “I mean, that’s good, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s good! He switched classes so we could have the same first period. Romantic, right?”

  “You two are getting serious, then?”

  Liv sighed. “We haven’t gotten anything,” she admitted. “We’ve hung out a few times, but he doesn’t…do anything. No kissing. No hugs, even. Just that adorable smile of his. I think he’s playing hard-to-get.”

  Callum’s eyes wandered up and down the busy hallway. “Well, much as I’d love to hear about your love life, Liv, I’ve got to head to History class. I guess I’ll see you two at lunch?”

  “Of course,” I replied as he leaned in to kiss my cheek. “I’ll see you then.” As I pulled back, I threw him a desperate look, hoping he got the Please save me from the Hell I’m about to endure message.

  “So it’s just you, me, and my would-be-boyfriend then,” Liv said, taking my arm and guiding me up the hall.

  I turned around to throw Callum one final look, but he was already gone.

  Old Foes

  When we got to our class, I made a beeline for the back of the room to sit in the corner by the window. It was a habit by now, putting myself in the greatest strategic position to keep a watchful eye out for enemies. Every time I entered a room, I was acutely and instantly aware of any potential threats. I assessed my position and plotted what defensive gear I’d summon in case of an attack.

  Slowly but surely, I was becoming a reluctant warrior.

  Even between the walls of my own high school.

  Oblivious to the tension overtaking every inch of my body, Liv sat down to my right, slinging her bag onto the seat in front of hers. When Lachlan walked into the classroom, he headed straight for the seat she’d reserved, grinning an admittedly charming smile at Liv before throwing me a narrow-eyed look of warning.

  Liv greeted him with a flirty wink. She lifted her backpack so he could sit down and then opened it up, only to curse under her breath.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Forgot my pencil case in my locker.” Helpless, she turned my way. “Do you have any extra pens?”

  “Sorry, no,” I replied, gesturing to the laptop I was pulling out of my bag. “I’ve gone fully digital.”

  “Me too,” Lachlan said, flashing another deceptively friendly smile. “But you probably have time to run to your locker before class starts.”

  “I know. I was just hoping…” Liv clammed up and bit her lip, then darted out of the room.

  The second she disappeared, Lachlan turned to face me and leaned forward.

  Any and all traces of friendliness were gone.

  “Look,” he whispered. “You know who and what I am. I know who and what you are. So let’s not play any games, all right?”

  “Who’s playing games?” I hissed. “I’m not the one who stares up at a stranger’s window at night like some insane stalker.”

  “You should be grateful that I do, Vega.”

  “Really?” I laughed. “Because I’ve actually been wondering why I shouldn’t get a restraining order against you.”

  “Good luck getting a restraining order against a stray wolf that wanders out of the woods and hangs out on your street. I’m sure the cops would have a field day with that one.”

  “Good point. I should probably call animal control instead. They have some pretty high-powered tranquilizer guns. Though maybe if I told them the wolf has rabies, they’d show up with something more potent.”

  A crooked half-smile slithered its way over Lachlan’s lips. “Look, I know you won’t believe me, but I’m not the threat you think I am. There are people—if you can call them that—who want to hurt you.” He lowered his voice still further as more students filed in to seat themselves around us. “They’re closer than you think.”

  When I didn’t respond right away, he leaned in even closer. “You must know you’re not the only one looking for the Relics of Power.”

  “I’m well aware of that. There are a lot more of the Academy’s Seekers, not to mention the queen’s…minions, or whatever. That’s not exactly a newsflash, genius.”

  “Oh, my God. You really don’t know, do you?” he asked, furrowing his brow in a way that made me feel like he was trying to gauge my intellect.

  “Know what?”

  Lachlan looked as if he was about to reply, but just as he opened his mouth, Liv sprinted back into class and slid into her seat.

  “What are you two talking about?” she asked, breathless.

  I shot Lachlan a look, but he’d shut his mouth and seemed to have no intention of answering her.

  Which meant I had to tell yet another lie.

  “We were…” Unable to wrap my head around what he’d been telling me, I failed to come up with a plausible story for Liv.

  It was Lachlan who saved me. “We were just discussing the importance of a good education. I was just saying knowledge is invaluable. I think Vega agrees.”

  “I…do,” I replied, glaring at him. “Knowledge is, um…power?”

  Liv looked back and forth between us like we’d both lost our minds. Shaking her head in an exaggerated show of annoyance, she rolled her eyes and turned her attention toward the front of the room.

  Lachlan gave me a side-eyed glance I couldn’t read before he turned away and joined Liv in focusing on the teacher.

  I spent the next forty-five minutes completely unfocused as I tried to figure out what Lachlan was up to.

  What did he mean by others looking for the Relics of Power? Was that a warning?

  Or a threat?

  After a second period spent in Creative Writing class, I made my way to the school’s first floor, hoping to find Callum in the cafeteria so we could eat lunch together.

  I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what Lachlan had said about the relics. Questions kept raging through my mind.

  Did I have an enemy I didn’t even know about?

  No. It was ridiculous. He was the enemy, and he was trying his best to scare me. Yes. That was definitely it. There was absolutely no reason for me to listen to a single word he had to say.

  Distracted as I jogged along the wide, crowded hallway toward the cafeteria, I dropped my cell phone, which I’d been holding clumsily in my right hand. I reached down, picked it up, and kept moving.

  But as I glanced down to make sure it still worked, I collided with someone.

  “Sorry,” I muttered as I tried to step around the figure—a tall, slender woman—without bothering to look at her face.

  “Are you, though?” a strangely familiar voice said. “Sorry, I mean?”

  I froze.

  In one quick flash of horror, all the training I’d endured, all the experiences I’d had confronting enemies…just flew out the window.

  I hadn’t heard that voice—the lyrical timbre, the smoothness, the malicious purity of it—since the day I’d first found my way to the Otherwhere.

  I drew my eyes up to the speaker’s face, nausea slamming into me as I scanned a head of platinum white-blond hair and a pair of red lips curled into a smirk that smacked of abject hatred.

  Even as my eyes met hers, the world around us stopped.

  Students who’d been walking were frozen in awkward, gravity-defying one-legged stances. Locker doors stood slightly ajar on their way to closing. A girl a few feet away was in the midst of blowing a pink bubble that now looked as solid and fragile as glass. A boy, tossing his textbook in the air, stood under it as it hung weightless above him.

  Silence filled the space around us like a vacuum.

  “Hello, Vega,” the woman said. “It’s so nice to see you again. I’ve heard that you’ve made some progress since we last met. The Academy has always trained its people well, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “You,” I replied, pulling my chin up as I regained some of the confidence that had temporarily deserted me. I yanked up the leg of my jeans to reveal the gleaming silver dagger I’d never successfully used against a single enemy, hoping it would be enough to convince her not to come any closer. “You heard correctly. I have made a lot of progress. For one thing, I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

  When I’d first met the Waerg woman in the Commons, Fairhaven’s large downtown park, I’d fled from her, terrified.

  The second time we’d met, I’d summoned a door to the Otherwhere and leapt through, escaping into a life I’d never dared imagine.

  But this time, I had no intention of running.

  I knew now that, for all her tricks and taunts, she was less powerful than I was.

  She wasn’t here to kill me. She wouldn’t dare. Not in my school.

  Not in my world.

  Not after what she and others of her kind had done years ago to my parents.

  “What are you doing here?” I snarled.

  “Why, I’m teaching, of course,” she replied, holding up a chemistry textbook. On its cover, written tidily in marker, was the name “Ms. Maddox.”

  “Chemistry? Great. Maybe you can start by teaching fourteen-year-olds to replicate that shade of lipstick out of pig’s blood,” I retorted with a sneer.

  “If you think mocking my makeup is going to break me…”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what breaks you,” I snapped. “I don’t want anything to do with you. I’ve told you before that I have no intention of helping the Usurper Queen. Who, by the way, is lucky I didn’t kill her when I had the chance. So I suggest you stay the hell away from me, because I’m not feeling as generous now as I did that day.”

  The woman’s eyes flared bright yellow for a moment, like a dose of jaundiced rage had shot its way into her irises.

  It seemed I’d hit a nerve.

  But after a few seconds, she seemed to settle down.

  “You haven’t found the first clue yet,” she said, her body relaxing. “You’re desperate. You don’t know where to begin.”

  With that, she let out an irritating, velvet-smooth chuckle.

  “You do realize there are a whole bunch of other Seekers out there looking for the Relics, right? There’s no telling if one of them will find the clues before I do. So you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  You mangy mutt.

  She shook her head and let out a frosty laugh. “We both know you’re the Chosen Seeker, whatever ridiculous misdirection tactics that wretched Merriwether may be employing. Without you, the Seeking will fail, and the Academy will fall. You know it as well as I do, whether you admit it to yourself or not.”

  “You’re wrong. Merriwether named the others himself. We all took the vow together. I’m no more the Chosen One than any of them.”

  For some reason, Ms. Maddox—if that was her real name—seemed taken aback by this. But after a second she shook her head. “No matter. You will all be stopped. If not by me, then by others of my kind.”

  “Well then. I suppose I’d better not let that happen.”

  She laughed. “It’s not as if you have a choice. I am a Waerg. You know I don’t work alone. And my pack will keep you from succeeding, if it’s the last thing we do.”

  “The last thing you do? Is that a promise?” I asked with a scowl. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to meet my boyfriend for lunch. I believe you’ve met him. Tall, good-looking, breathes fire?”

  “Ah, your…boyfriend,” she said, purring the words. “You’ve done well to hook him and tame him, but you know as well as I do that Mr. Drake will not stay tame for long.”

  “Keep his name out of your disgusting mouth!” I shouted, my hands curling into angry fists. I would have given anything to have the nerve to punch her right in the smug face. “Don’t you dare pretend to know who or what he is. You have no idea how strong he is.”

  “Oh, I’m so very sorry. It seems he’s a sensitive topic for you. Not surprising, given the circumstances. It must be difficult to see him growing weaker each and every day.”

  Tears began to rim my eyes, but I forced them back. I refused to let this woman—this creature—hurt me.

  She didn’t deserve my tears.

  “I am a Shadow,” I said. “And a Summoner. I have confronted the Usurper Queen and come out on top. And you will not injure me. You will not stop me. You will not win. I know perfectly well that you’re powerless here. You may have frozen time, but you will not stop me. Not here. Not anywhere.”

  With that, I called on my Shadow form and raced down the hall away from her.

  When I was some distance away, the world began to move again. Students continued on their way to lunch as if nothing had happened. Objects in mid-air landed in waiting hands, and locker doors slammed shut.

 

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