Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Book 2 Chapter 26

26

I’m exhausted. Mentally and physically.

I’ve learned so much from Mavis, but what now? Make a home with her on this island? We couldn’t even share a room back home, so it’s probably not a great idea for both of us to squeeze into this little cave and pine after a mom who will never remember us. And, unlike Mavis, I couldn’t exactly visit her in dragon form every evening. I don’t think I could get away with that!

“I’m going back to the Academy,” I tell Mavis. “If I stay away much longer, I’ll be missed.”

“How did you get away?”

“Themis snuck me a key.”

“Don’t trust Themis,” she said, shifting once more into bossy big sister mode. “She’s all for the Academy. If it came down to protecting you or protecting the school, she’s Mount Olympus all the way.”

“You’re the second person to tell me that this week,” I say. “Nico was the other.”

Her eyes widen. “Well, it doesn’t make less true.”

“Maybe not, but here’s a truth you probably don’t know. Themis is on the outs with Mr. Zee right now, so her giving me the key was a risk. And, despite outward appearances, she’s not an emotionless robot. She was concerned for Mom, and you too. Maybe if you had gone to Themis for help, Mom wouldn’t have gone to that cockamamie—”

“Cockatrice.”

“Whatever.” I flap my hand, waving Mavis’ correction away. She grabs hold of my hand, holding it high. Forcing me to look at her. I expect to see fury, but instead I see my tough older sister…struggling not to cry.

“I know I screwed up with Mom. I should’ve been watching her closer. I should’ve gotten her help…” She releases me and turns away. After a long silence, she adds in a quiet voice, “Edie, if you don’t trust me anymore, I can’t blame you. But please at least think about all I’ve told you.”

“Mavis…”

She turns around, head up, seemingly back to normal. “I’ll help you charter a boat.”

“You don’t have to,” I tell her. “I flew here and can go back the same way.”

“Edie, no!” She looks thoroughly scandalized.

“It was totally dark out.”

Mavis shakes her head. “Everyone has phones with lights on them. And cameras. All it takes is for one person to see you—” I am shocked when she throws her arms around me. “Edie, I can’t lose you too.”

For a moment, the pain and anger and uncertainty all disappear. My heart rises into my throat, making words impossible. We stand there a long time, squeezing each other in a tight hug. When we finally pull apart, I say the one thing I know is true. “Mavis, I’m glad my favorite sister is still alive.”

“You being alive is the best news I’ve had in a year,” she responds.

We grin at each other.

She walks me to the harbor and negotiates with a crew to take me back to the docks at the mainland. Instead of reminding her I do stuff like this for myself all the time, I relax. Once I do, it’s actually nice to have someone else taking care of things. Being in charge, leading missions, having to make big life decisions…super sucks after a while. It’s nice to get a break from it.

But when, I wonder, will Mavis get a break?

“Be safe! And careful going through the portals. The monsters have set traps at a lot of them.”

“Oh, I’m aware.” Wait. “Mavis, were the monsters working on a bio-weapon?” I ask. “Something that would make shifters unable to shift?”

Mavis shakes her head. “Shifters not able to shift? That sounds horrible. I don’t think my people would do that, but maybe the splinter group did. I can ask around. Will you come back and see me? In a week?”

I give her a tight nod, still unsure how I feel about her. But then I give her a big hug. My emotions are all over the place. I wave to her as I sail away. Then some tourist edges his way in front of me to take a picture. I blow some hot air at the back of his neck and then try not to laugh as he quickly scurries away. Back in my spot, I am disappointed to see that Mavis is gone.

Until I spot a cat running along the sand.

When I return to the Academy, Cassie is waiting for me at the portal. I am so glad to see her, I almost start crying again.

“I saw you’d be here, and I knew you’d be crying,” she tells me, handing me a wet-wipe. “But my vision wasn’t showing me much else, so…”

It’s not like Cassie to run out of words…at least the Cassie I used to know.

“So, I went to your room.” She takes a big breath of air. “I know that Tina is sick, and I know what that means. She was so pissed at me for showing up, she told Vee to bite me.”

“Sounds like her spirits have improved a little,” I say.

“Yes, well…” Cassie goes quiet again, and I nudge her.

“Out with it.”

“I had to dodge Vee—I had no idea her neck could extend that far—and I accidentally knocked some stuff off your dresser. A mug broke, so I stuck it in the drawer, and…”

Tears form in Cassie’s eyes. I put a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, that mug had no sentimental value.”

“It’s not that! It’s…I saw your picture, with your family!” Cassie says suddenly, the words pouring out now. “I saw…Emmie. I had no idea when you talked about your sister Mavis that she was Emmie.”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “Me neither. It’s been a long week.”

She offers me a small smile. She’s changed so much from the chatterbox I used to know.

“Cassie, you can always talk to me,” I tell her. “About anything. Even about what the monsters did to you.”

She only shrugs and pulls out from under my touch. It hurts, but I know I need to give her time.

“What did I miss while I was gone?” I ask.

“Priapus’ many descriptions of breasts—sorry, he calls them ta-tas. A bunch of grapes was my personal favorite. But he worked his way up to melons.”

“No…” I can just imagine Larissa meticulously drawing various fruit-shaped breasts.

“Don’t worry, I covered for you. Said you had female problems. Actually, he seemed really confused by that until I said you were having issues with your hoo-hoo.” She hands me a vial. “I also had Fern whip up one of her super energy potions; you’re gonna need it to get through Maddox’s class.”

“You know I love you, right?” I gulp it down, managing not to wince at the bitter taste. Almost immediately I feel better. All my exhaustion is gone, and my wings pop out a bright shade of manic yellow.

“We’d better go.” She starts to walk and motions for me to follow.

“Wait, I gotta check on Tina.”

“Val’s with her right now. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says Kiss My Grits, which makes me think he’s not worried about cutting. But Val is a rebel and you are not. And we both know Maddox won’t take ‘female troubles’ as an excuse to miss her class.”

That’s the truth. Maddox will probably just tell me it boosts my rage, or something.

By the time we make it to the amphitheater, it is filled to bursting. Maddox is in the middle of another rousing speech. Someone yells at me to put my wings away because I’m blocking the stage. Not that there’s anything new to see. Just Maddox, beating on her pulpit—er, podium—again.

There’s a map behind her, projected on the wall, with a skull and crossbones marking something. As she talks, Maddox uses a big old ruler to point at it. “This particular group of monsters is responsible for the assault on this very academy.”

Wait, is that the splinter group Mavis was talking about? I thought Nico wiped them out when we rescued Cassie? There must be more than one cell at work.

“Remember the students we lost that night?” Maddox asks, her voice suddenly dropping low. “Remember Felix?”

The map behind Maddox disappears, replaced by the smiling face of a werewolf boy who I saw torn in half that night.

“Remember Alyana?” Maddox asks, and the picture changes again, this time showing the cat-shifter I managed to save from being crushed to death by a cyclops, but whose spine was damaged. They sent her home in a wheelchair. The Academy put her out to the curb like trash. They have no use for a shifter who can’t fight.

“Remember Darcy?” Maddox asks, and there behind her, smiling, happy, and very much alive, is the merman Cassie loved.

I glance at her, but her eyes are cast downward.

Maddox pounds on the podium. “We will attack. We will fight. We will destroy. Let them show pictures of their dead. It’s their turn to mourn!”

The applause is deafening. I feel sickened by everyone’s glee at the thought of a battle. But also strangely pumped. My wings explode from my back, a dark, deep red. No one yells at me to put them away this time. In fact, someone yells, “Yeah, we got a dragon on our side!”

I tuck my wings back away, ashamed. The dragon in me instinctually wants things that the human part of me is sickened by.

After the excitement dies down, Maddox tells everyone that they will get their marching orders from Nico after class. She then goes on to demonstrate, on Kratos, the best ways to incapacitate without killing.

“Hamstring,” she shouts as she goes low and knocks Kratos on his a*s. “Now, if I flip him on his stomach and sever his spine, he cannot move and I can question him at my leisure.”

Kratos glares up at her when she mimics severing his spine, but even he is too intimidated to do more than that.

“Edie,” someone says behind me and I whirl to find Nico. All the things that Mavis told me fly through my mind. That he loved her. That she nearly killed him. It’s so messed up.

“You’re on my team, dragon.” He offers me a toothy grin.

“What?”

“For the raid,” he explains. “I made sure you were on the strike team. I’m the leader.”

“Raid? Like kill?”

I’m stunned. Students aren’t allowed to go on combat missions. I had to downplay all the killing done during our unauthorized mission to get Cassie, afraid that we’d get in trouble.

Nico’s grin disappears. Clearly, he’d expected high fives instead of questions. “Mr. Zee can see now that our students are soft. The way those monsters got the jump on all of you at the Spring Fling was embarrassing.”

“You weren’t even there, Nico!”

His eyes go wide with pretend innocence. “I’m just repeating what Mr. Zee said.”

I roll my eyes. “Mr. Zee…or your mom.”

“Maybe it was her suggestion,” Nico shrugs several times. Almost like a twitch. I’ve flustered him. “And she’ll be there, of course. Advising. But I’ll be the leader.” Before I can even mention the gross nepotism at work, he quickly adds, “Mr. Zee chose me because I set a tracker on one of the monsters. That’s how we know where to find them. And, well, I also know how to kill monsters.”

Beside me, Cassie has gone even more pale, and stone still. “Are you going to kill them all?” she asks between clenched teeth.

“I hope I get the chance,” Nico says, puffing out his chest.

Cassie whirls on him. “If I’d known…if I’d only seen how it would end up. Oh, Nico. I had a vision of you with a baby monster and I thought you’d changed.” She rubs her eyes with clenched fists as if she’s seeing it again, and it hurts.

“Cassie, I’m—” He reaches a hand to her, and it sounds like an apology is ready to come out. But Cassie shrinks away while at the same time Maddox booms from behind, “No mercy!”

Nico’s whole body changes as he looks toward his mother. And a little of the light goes out of his remaining eye. “MOA is a school of war. You were raised here, Cassie. You should understand that. And you should also know there’s only one way any of this ends.” Cassie’s eyes well up with tears, and Nico pauses for a moment, before pushing on. “Have a vision of this. Me, standing on a mountain of monster corpses. That’s always been the endgame.”

“Tone it down a notch,” I tell him as Cassie starts to shake. “Look, I’m going to take her to the infirmary. We’ll talk about the raid later, okay?”

“Wait, I’ll help you.” He puts a hand on Cassie’s arm, looking genuinely concerned.

“Nooooo!” A shrill, frightened scream comes out of Cassie. I quickly step between her and Nico—popping my wings out to create a wall between us.

Putting an arm around Cassie, I half carry her to medical.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I spot Fern speaking with Greg and Jordan in their corner of the sick room. I wave to get her attention and she hurries to us.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, immediately looking Cassie over.

“I don’t know.”

Cassie’s eyes are vacant and her skin is clammy. “I think the monsters…” No. That’s not right. I need to say what I really think. “I think when we rescued her she was traumatized. We…oh gods…we killed so many.”

Fern bites her lower lip to stop it from trembling. “And I helped you,” she says sadly, as she gently reaches toward Cassie who immediately leans on her. “I’ll see what can be done.”

“Wait!” I catch her eye again. “Tina?” I ask quietly.

“She’s not bad. Not good either. We’ll talk later.”

I watch as she leads Cassie away, feeling like the worst friend ever. I should’ve done more. I should’ve…

I don’t know what I should’ve done.

I join Greg and Jordan.

“Is Cassie okay?” Greg asks.

“I don’t know,” I tell him, sitting at the foot of his bed. “If anyone can help her, Fern will. How are you guys?”

Jordan hasn’t even looked up. He’s busy scribbling in a notebook.

“Fine,” Greg grumbles. “Except…”

“Hey, Edie, what rhymes with -itis?” Jordan asks, his head bowed over whatever he is writing.

“Um…lots of diseases, I guess?”

“Yeah, no. Those won’t work.”

“What’s happening?” I ask Greg.

“Jordan’s writing a love poem to Hepa,” Greg informs me. “He wants her back. And he wants her to tickle his belly again.”

“When I’m a panther,” Jordan inserts. Then he grins in a goofy love-struck sort of way. “She found the tickle-spot that makes my back leg go all thumpery.”

“Wait, didn’t she break up with him a while ago?”

“Yeah, but then Jordan got sick and convinced Hepa to give him a second chance. But then, many makeups and breakups later—all of which, mind you, happened in this very room—Hepa called it quits for good. You’ve missed a lot, Edie,” Greg tells me. “It’s like a soap opera in here.”

I laugh. “Really? I could use some drama that’s not mine.”

“Well,” he lowers his voice to sound like a TV announcer. “When last we saw our lovebirds, Hepa was angry that Jordan would not give up everything to be with her.”

“Right, I was here for that episode featuring the interspecies dating ban,” I say with a stilted laugh.

“Then in a shocking twist,” he continues, “Jordan decides that he is a one-woman man.”

“I don’t believe you.” My laugh is louder now. Gods, I missed my friends.

“It’s true,” Jordan chimes in. “Hepa is the only girl for me.”

“The problem is,” Greg explains, “Hepa says she’s over him.”

“The thrill was in the chase?”

“But I’m gonna win her back,” Jordan says. “With poetry.”

I shake my head. “Should I even ask?”

“Please don’t,” Greg begs.

“Don’t be a hater,” Jordan tells him, then mumbles, “tis, biz, jizz.” He glances down at his paper then scribbles something else. “Okay guys, I got it.”

“Let’s hear.” I steel myself. Please don’t let this be a poem about jizz.

He clears his throat. “Roses are red. Violets are blue. Hepatitis, I love you.”

Greg and I eye each other, then burst out laughing.

“What?” Jordan asks.

“No, it’s great,” I tell him. “I’m sure Hepa will love it.”

“Look, you try coming up with a rhyme for her name…” He looks so crestfallen. “It’s really hard.”

“Kiss!” Greg shouts suddenly. “Rhyme Hepatitis with ‘wants to kiss’!”

“Oh,” Jordan grins. “That’s good.”

Greg rolls his eyes. “This is what we’ve been doing. It’s so booooring, Edie. What’s going on in the outside world?”

“Nothing good.”

I fill him in on the raid Maddox has planned and the students’ fanatical reactions. “Basically, Maddox is the cult leader and too many around here have drunk the Kool-Aid.”

“Um…Edie…” Greg says, but I’m on a roll and don’t let him interrupt.

“It’s pretty gross.”

“Nico…” Greg says.

“Yes, Nico! He’s just as bad. I mean, he’s super-hot. He’s even got that tortured moody boy thing going for him. But I can’t even get into how complicated it is right now.”

Jordan looks up, past my shoulder. “Oh, hey Nico.”

I close my eyes. “He’s behind me, isn’t he?”

“I tried to tell you,” Greg says.

I turn and find Nico smirking. He definitely heard the part about me calling him super-hot. Hopefully he didn’t hear me talking smack about his mom.

“My mother…” he starts. s**t, maybe he did hear that. “…wants to meet you.”

“Huh?” I say dimly.

“I told my mom about you. Our mission to get Cassie. And about you being a dragon. She wants to meet you.”

“Now?” I ask, panicked.

“No, at dinner. We’re invited to the faculty dining hall.”

“No fair!” Jordan says. “They have the best food. I’ve been eating hospital grub for a week.”

“Take my place,” I mutter.

Nico shakes his head. “This invitation is non-transferable.” He leans in. “And my mother doesn’t like to be stood up.”

“Not so much an invitation as a mandate, then?” I say.

“Don’t worry.” Nico graces me with a wicked grin. “I’ll be there to protect you from the ‘cult leader.’”

Greg lets out a little terrified squeak on my behalf.

Crap. I really put my foot in my mouth.

“I was just venting,” I explain. “I’m sure your mom is great, once I meet her in person.”

Nico doesn’t seem angry, though, just amused.

“It’s actually a nice change from everyone being afraid of her. And Mom already told me she likes your spunk. But don’t be late,” he warns me. “She noticed you were tardy to class, and was not pleased.”

I give him a salute and he saunters away.

“That guy definitely has mommy issues,” Greg says.

“Yeah, for sure,” Jordan agrees. “I mean, can you imagine having Mad Maddox for a mom?”

“Nico isn’t that bad…” Greg and Jordan give me a look. “Guys, he was tortured for, like, a year. Give him some credit!”

“Just be careful at dinner,” Greg says. “Once that guy’s got a scent, he won’t let it go.”

I gulp, thinking of how he followed Mavis all the way to Greece. When she spoke about him she was genuinely scared. I don’t want to be on his radar, much less his fanatical mother’s.

Too late for that. I just hope they don’t serve Kool-Aid at dinner.