Chapter 240
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When I walk into class, I grin to see that everyone else is here. Rafe and Jesse joke casually with Jacks while Tony lounges at his desk, his long legs sticking out from under it as he flicks through a book.
Of course, my smile fades as soon as I hear Alvez’s voice to my left.
“Very nearly late…Clark.”
My head turns sharply to see him grinning at me, as he so often does now, like he holds all my secrets in the palm of his hand. And I frown at him because, I mean, he’s not holding those secrets over my head anymore, is he?
So why is he still grinning at me like a cat? What on earth does he have up his sleeve?
“Sorry,” I say as the room falls silent, everyone looking towards me. I pushing the door shut. “Lost track of time.”
Alvez waves a magnanimous hand towards the desks and I hurry in, sitting in an open spot between Rafe and Jackson that they very obviously saved for me.
“Good,” Alvez says, folding his arms over his chest and looking around at us. “I must say it is rare for a professor to come back over winter break at the Academy to find his class still entirely intact. I might have the singular claim to that this
semester
I raise my eyebrows at this, realizing that it’s probably true, and I lean around Jackson to glance at Tony- the only one who I thought may actually have been at risk of not coming back. As I do, I find him already looking for me, and I grin as I realize that we simultaneously had the same thought about each other. His own face breaks into a smile as he nods to me, letting me know he’s glad I’m still here. I do the same,
“So,” Alvez says, drawing my attention back to him. “In such an impressive group, I have to admit that I’m a little… displeased. There should have been more progress in the development of your gifts this past semester.”
“Perhaps,” Tony drawls, a little bored, “If you gave us more instruction than ‘hold hands‘ and ‘try, we’d be making more progress.”
My eyebrows raise at the gall of him for a moment and I fight a smile. When I glance at Rafe, I’m pleased to see that he’s doing the same.
“Do I hear a critique in your words, Davis?” Alvez drawls.
“You can hear what you want,” Tony says, much more relaxed than I’d be confronting a professor. “But if you’re looking for a blatant critique, I’d say that this class is pretty much a waste of my time. No offense to my classmates,” he glances at us here, and I see the honesty in his eyes, “but I already know what my gift is and how to use it. I’m just sitting around while they figure out what they can do I’m not learning anything”
“And how would you suggest I adjust my pedagogy?” Alvez says, leaning casually against his desk.
“More individualized attention, I suppose,” Tony says, crossing his arms over his chest and staring steadily at the professor. “Or just letting me take a study hall, if there’s nothing more you can teach me.”
“Individual attention,” Alvez says, a wicked smile taking his face as he turns his eyes to me. “Sounds like a wonderful idea.”
A shiver runs up and down my spine as I stare at the professor, as he stares back at me. As he makes his meaning perfectly clear with the way he lets his eyes drift away from my face and down my body. I tense in my chair, glancing to the left to see how Rafe and Jesse are reacting to this, but they look…completely normal. Just…staring at Alvez, waiting for him to go on.
On my right, though, Jackson lets out a low and rumbling growl that snaps everyone’s attention to him.
Alvez’s mouth curves into a pleased smile as he meets Jackson’s eyes, almost…almost daring him to make a move against
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Chapter 240
him.
1 gape a bit, wondering what the hell is going on.
“Seriously,” Tony says, staring around the room at all of us, “what the hell is going on?”
I start a bit, turning to stare at him, wondering if he read my mind or something.
But when I see his expression, I realize that he’s just reacting to the vibe in the room the same way that Jackson and I are. Jesse and Rafe blink and stare around, confused.
But Alvez claps his hands together, breaking the tension and ignoring Tony’s question. “Let’s move on. I’d like an update, please, regarding the status of your magic and if there has been any progress over the break. Davis, I’m assuming by your rather irritable protest regarding my teaching methods that you’ve had no progress on your abilities?”
“No, I’ve made no progress on my fully formed abilities, which I’d say is unsurprising,” Tony says, dry. “What do you want me to do, take deeper breaths underwater?”
I laugh a little, unable to help it, and he shoots a smirk my way.
Alvez ignores it, turning to Jesse and Rafe, who report that they have not.
When the professor turns his eyes to me, I bite my lip a bit, torn about what to say. Alvez’s eyes shine. “I’m sensing, Clark,” he murmurs. “That you do have an update.”
And then, even though I don’t trust him, I decide to spill. Mostly because this is the only place we can really talk about magic as a group, where we can keep it a secret.
“I can light stuff on fire,” I say, giving a casual shrug.
“What!?” Rafe bursts out, sitting up straight and staring at me.
“You didn’t know?” I ask, turning to frown at him.
“Ari!” he sputters, Jesse looking around him at me likewise shocked, “No! I didn’t know! What are you talking about!?”
“Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you,” I say, grimacing a little. “I mean, Midwinter was really busy!”
Jesse and Rafe burst out at once, shouting at me for not telling them and demanding to know more information – what I can do, what I lit on fire, how I did it. But Alvez claps his hands together, again drawing attention back to him.
“Details, please, Clark,” he says, slow and curious.
I glance at Jackson, who gives me a little encouraging push down the bond, and then I quickly tell the story of accessing my magic, and concentrating on the wood in the fireplace, and drawing on my magic to heat the wood to the point where it burst into flames. I’m quite careful to keep Jackson out of the story, though, implying that I was alone by the fireplace.
“So is your power fire?” Alvez asks, raising an eyebrow at me. “Or heat?”
I turn my head to the side, curious as I consider the question. “Heat, I suppose,” I say eventually, remembering how Jackson, Seraphina and I spent the majority of the morning experimenting with how fast I can melt chocolate and candy, licking both off our fingers courtesy of my magic. None of it burst into flames, though it melted before it got to a flashpoint.
f
“Fascinating,” Alvez says, reaching for a notebook on his desk and tearing out a page, crumpling it up into a ball. “And would you mind providing a demonstration?”
“Um, okay,” I murmur, sitting up straight.
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Chapter 210
At your leisure, Cadet Alveg says lazily, putting the crumpled paper on the desk and looking down at it. Almost as one. everyone else in the room leaps forward to stare at it, almost as if they’re afraid they’ll miss it.
My stomach squirms a little under the sudden pressure, but I suddenly hear Jackson’s voice in my head.
You’ve got this, Princess, he murmurs, proud. Don’t let him shake your confidence.
I send a quick pulse of happiness and thanks down our bond and then exhale slowly, concentrating on the paper, reaching for that well of magic that I accessed so easily on Midwinter mourning.
But even when I find it, I discover that it’s…well, it’s kind of…tiny
I blink in surprise at myself as my wolf walks over to the little pool, both of us wondering where the hell it went. Because on Midwinter–god, it felt like an ocean.
Still, I pull on it, drawing from its strength and its power, and I feel the heat start to build within me, concentrating it on the little ball of paper.
But god it’s…it’s nothing like what it was. About a minute into the process, I realize that it’s just not going to work paper is, at best, going to get warm. That I just don’t have enough power within me to make it happen.
I scowl, slumping back in my seat, frustrated – because where the hell did it go?
