Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Book 3 Chapter 14

14

I’m surprised when Fern offers to walk with us to Kratos’s class. “Are you the healer today?” I ask. Kratos’s classes always have a healer on hand since he likes to keep his student demonstrations very realistic.

“Yep,” she nods, patting the satchel at her side. “Got everything I need in case you set someone on fire again. They actually assigned two of us here for today,” she says, nodding toward another girl.

“But you permanently fire-proofed Val,” I remind her, smiling to myself at the memory of my first class here at the Academy…and the first time I saw Val.

“Not everyone here is so lucky,” Fern says, her gaze sweeping the classroom. “I’ll make you a list if you want any recommendations on who you should smoke next.”

Wow. The anger on campus is bad enough that even kind-hearted Fern has a kill list.

Fern and I slide into seats on either side of Cassie. On my other side, a Stymphalian bird hovers over his prey—the healer Fern nodded to earlier, whose face is bright red as she tries to act like it’s not there. It’s an attitude that is impossible to maintain, especially when it settles onto her shoulder, talons digging in. She cries out in pain, which only makes some of our classmates titter in amusement.

“Those absolute a-holes,” I mutter under my breath to Cassie, who nods in agreement. A familiar fire burns in my gut, and I want to let it reach full force, let it erupt from my throat as I shift into a dragon, burn all the birds, and carry the Moggies somewhere they won’t be persecuted simply for having the wrong parents.

But my heroic daydream is interrupted when Hermes blows through the double doors, sending the four Stymphalian birds in the classrooms into a flutter. Since the Stymphalian response to any sort of stimuli is to s**t, they of course, immediately drop most of their lunch onto the students below them.

All except for Tina’s bird, who tries to take off, but lands unceremoniously on the floor instead. “Easy there, Bowie,” she mutters, picking the bird up and dusting him off.

“Hello beautiful students,” Hermes croons as he strides into the room. He eyes all of us before him in the usual way—like he’s undressing us and likes what he sees.

Funny, the first time I met him, I found it almost flattering. He’s so handsome and was so obviously interested in me. Then, later, when it became clear Hermes would bag anyone or anything, it became more of an annoyance. The kind I’ve learned to roll my eyes at along with everybody else.

But now it pisses me off. The entitlement of this jerk. The way he goes through life using his power to just take and take and take.

He took me here, to Mount Olympus Academy, feeding me a bunch of lies on the way.

He took Mavis’s mother and then let her die giving birth to his child. I bet he never even gave her a second thought.

And he took my grandmother. A badass harpy who disguised herself in human form so she could help raise me.

“Alright, class,” Hermes says. “I know you’re all expecting Kratos to be your teacher for t*****e: The Transition from Lies to Truth class, but he’s been reassigned elsewhere for the time being.”

There’s some shuffling in the classroom, and Cassie leans into me. “Fern says Kratos has been assigned to guard Mavis in her cell. Apparently, the guards there haven’t been doing a great job. I guess Zeus found out Mavis had paper and pencil, and he threw a hissy fit.”

“That’s ridiculous!” I sputter, furious with despair.

Without pencil and paper, our notes will be at an end. They were the only thing keeping me from going crazy with worry. And for Mavis...I can only imagine they were an important lifeline for her as well.

“She’s got a magical collar that keeps her from shifting,” I add. “And she’s locked inside a cell that has multiple spells reinforcing the bars. Why does she also need a completely ripped jailor?”

Cassie shrugs. “I think Mr. Zee is super scared, Edie.”

“Good,” I say quietly, the fire in my belly reigniting as I think of the burns I saw on my sister. “He should be.”

“So,” Hermes says, glancing around. “Who can tell me what this class is about?”

We all look at each other, blankly. A vampire slowly raises his hand. “Um…torture?”

“Yes,” Hermes agrees. “t*****e. And when do we employ these techniques?”

“As sparingly as possible,” Fern cries out, coming to her feet. “Testimony given under t*****e is highly questionable. A victim will say anything to stop their pain. That doesn’t make those statements reliable!”

Quite a few applaud her words, but this is an assassin class. Most of the students boo her back down into her seat.

“t*****e is a tried and true method,” Nico says, standing behind his desk. “Believe me. I would know.” There’s a collective gasp as Nico raises his shirt to show off a crisscrossing of silvery, scarred skin.

There’s also a really decent set of abs under that, so I’m not sure that all of the gasps are purely sympathetic in nature.

“Wait!” Cassie jumps into the argument. “I was there when the monsters hurt you, Nico. You didn’t share any information. You stood firm against the pain and said nothing. That means t*****e doesn’t work.”

“It only means that it doesn’t work on the son of Maddox Tralano,” Nico says, his eyes sweeping the room. Quite a few vampires stare back with equal amounts of antagonism.

Hermes clears his throat. “I think that’s enough debating about whether or not t*****e is a viable—”

“No!” Fern says, coming to her feet again. “t*****e is wrong, period. It doesn’t gain any information from our enemies. If anything, it encourages them to make up something, just to end the pain. Then we chase down false leads, all because some bloodthirsty torturers wanted to get their rocks off.”

Hermes immediately brightens. “On the subject of getting your rocks off, I can certainly say that—”

“Oh gods,” Cassie says. “I don’t think Kratos gave him any lesson plans.”

Around us the rest of the class seems to have come to the same conclusion. Hermes has no idea what he’s doing and no idea how to control us.

Students at my old non-magical high school were the same way when a clueless substitute teacher walked into the room. Once it’s clear that the old rules won’t be enforced—anarchy rules.

Suddenly the t*****e discussion gets a lot more heated. Nico and a few shifter friends begin exchanging angry words with vampires. They’re threatening to use each other as a t*****e example.

We’re seconds away from a full out brawl and Hermes is sorta half-heartedly calling for everyone to, “Settle down. Nobody is going to be used as an example right now.”

Suddenly, I have an idea. It comes straight from the churning in my gut. Which probably means it’s the kind of idea best ignored.

Hermes laughs. “Okay, if you guys are gonna fight each other. I think we should put some money on it, to make things really interesting. It will be like a math lesson too.”

I stand up so fast my chair falls to the floor.

“Hermes?” I say, walking over to him with a big wide fake smile. “I have an idea for a project that will take up the entire class period.”

“You do?” he asks. His gaze swings toward the students ready to fight, then back to me, clearly torn.

“Absolutely,” I say. “And I’d hate for Kratos to be annoyed if we strayed too far from the lesson plan.”

This gets Hermes’s attention. I’m not surprised. He’s the silver-tongued type, who’s gotten through his centuries of life floating by on his charm. Kratos, on the other hand, is a man of few words. He’d rather use his fists to express himself. And if he decides that Hermes messed up his class, he will happily communicate that by temporarily separating Hermes’s head from his body.

“What are you thinking, my pretty girl?” he asks.

I bite my tongue to keep from telling him I’m not his girl. Instead, I blink up at him as if I’m the Edie of old. A girl who has no idea she has a dragon inside of her. “Well, the other students gave me an idea. Kratos really does like us to have hands-on activities. But in a controlled way, of course. So, I have an idea for us to settle the argument as to whether or not t*****e is effective.”

“By all means,” Hermes says, pressing me forward with a hand on my lower—much lower—back. “Please, share with the rest of the class.”

I make my way to the front of the room and lift a pair of manacles from the wall.

“May I?” I ask Hermes, one eyebrow raised suggestively.

“Oh, please do,” he says, giving my legs a sweeping look as I close the first manacle around his wrist. “Is this in relation to getting my rocks off?”

I only smile and take him by his chained hands, leading him to an empty desk. He takes a seat, looking up at me expectantly.

I turn to face the class. “What is something we can all agree is true?”

“Cat-shifters are perverts!” someone yells.

“Moggies belong in Hades!” comes the suggestion, followed by a muted but angry rumbling from some other students.

“Stymphalian birds stink!” Val says, reaching up to mock-affectionately give his bird’s nose a boop.

There’s a smattering of applause, which sends a few of the birds in question into a quick, circular flight pattern around the room, before returning to their captives’ shoulders.

“Stymphalian birds stink,” I repeat, looking over the room. “This is a true and indisputable fact.”

All the heads are nodding. This is one thing we can agree on, Moggy-lovers or not. Vampires or werewolves. We’re all being forced to smell these crap-tastic birds in tight quarters.

“Very well,” I say, turning back to Hermes. “Don’t you think that the aroma of these birds is particularly pleasing?”

“I…what?” Hermes asks. “No, they smell like a harpy died and ate its own body and crapped it out and then died again.”

“That’s what you really think?” I ask, leaning towards him.

“Hades yeah,” he says, nodding emphatically.

“Okay,” I say, and walk over to the wall where Kratos keeps the class weapons. I turn to the classroom and point to each student with a Stymphalian bird as companion. “Please come up here and select a weapon.”

Tina is the first up out of her seat, bird reattached to her shoulder, but the rest come as well. If I’m not mistaken, each one of them is almost certainly looking to hit something. Hard.

After everyone else has chosen a weapon, I select a mace.

“I’ll go first,” I tell my fellow Moggies. Val’s gaze catches mine and he raises his eyebrows in question. Doubt trickles through my stomach. I’ve been keeping my distance from him because he killed Maddox and now I’m plotting to overthrow Mr. Zee.

It’s hard to take the high ground with a mace in your hands. And even more difficult as I approach Hermes, who smiles up at me guilelessly.

“Hello again, my lovely girl,” he says with a bright smile.

I remind myself of all his sins as I lift the mace.

“Hey, have you guys ever played mace-ball?” Hermes asked. “It’d be a great way to kill time—er learn about t*****e and stuff—”

Whatever else he was going to say is lost. I bring the mace down in a violent arc, obliterating his right hand into a pulpy mess.

Sick rises in my throat and I quickly swallow it back down. The mace falls from my hands, clattering to the floor.

“AAAAaaaaaa!” Hermes screams, leaping to his feet. But he doesn’t get far because his legs are tangled in the desk. He falls forward, tipping the desk over and crawling away from me. Students in the back stand to get a better look.

“Tell me Stymphalian birds smell amazing,” I say to Hermes, my voice calm and low. “And please do not again refer to me as your lovely, pretty, gorgeous, or any other kind of girl.”

He stares at me wide-eyed and confused, like I’ve suddenly started speaking another language.

Turning, I gesture to Tina that it’s her turn. She smiles as she steps forward. This time Hermes knows it’s coming.

“No, no, Tina. Don’t do this, it will upset your bird—”

Hermes’s ankle explodes, shards of bone flying out towards our fellow classmates.

“Hey,” Nico says, brushing some of the bone from his shirt as he stands. “This does not seem like the sort of thing Kratos—”

“Sit down, Nico,” I say, my voice hard.

My eyes meet his. c*****g his head, he stares at me for a long moment. Then he grins. “You wanna prove a point? Okay. Go ahead.”

He says it like he’s indulging me. If it wasn’t for Hermes moaning behind me, I’d be tempted to pick up that mace and go after Nico this time.

I really need to set that boy straight soon and let him know that we are never ever ever getting together.

But first—I need to get through this lesson.

Hermes yells, again, frantically trying to heal himself. His hand was already mostly restructured, but now he’s got to redirect his energy to his foot, so his hand hangs in the manacle, muscle and sinew regrown, but not yet covered with skin.

“They smell like roses!” I yell at Hermes.

“But they don’t,” he responds, as behind my back I gesture to the red-faced healer from before.

Being a healer and not even a student in this class, I’d expected her to balk. But she grabbed onto a spear without hesitation and has been holding it tightly, waiting her turn.

Now, squeezing her eyes shut, she launches her spear. Lucky shot—it pierces Hermes’s midsection and pins him to the classroom floor. Unfortunately, the poor girl doesn’t have any experience at not vomiting in front of one’s peers. She runs out of the classroom with both hands pressed against her face.

Everyone is on their feet now, some students egging me on, some with pained expressions. It’s possible someone might have stepped in to stop this, except I’ve got the two alphas of the classroom on my side—Nico and Val.

And now it’s the latter’s turn.

Val steps forward with a sword in hand. He holds it with casual authority.

“They smell like ambrosia!” I say.

Val eyes Hermes and then with one clean move, slices Hermes’s leg right at the knee. Hermes screams and writhes, his hand now recovered, but his foot still a b****y mess. He tries to crawl away, but the spear has him pinioned to the floor. He pulls it out, inching back on his palms as a little owl shifter steps forward, a throwing star clutched in her hand.

“Like a Hawaiian luau!” I scream, and nod at the girl to send her throwing star.

She hesitates and it looks like she’s gonna bail entirely, but then a screech comes out of her that sounds like, “It smells like a pumpkin spice latte!”

The throwing star goes straight into his forehead.

“Oh gods, it’s true,” Hermes sobs, holding up his manacled hands in clear surrender. “Yes, like Athena’s robes, and Metis’s bedroom, and a moonlit garden of orchids and the strands of a maiden’s hair and all of the honey of all the bees in the world. Stymphalian scent should be captured and bottled and sold and I’ll buy every bottle. Please, please stop making them hurt me, Edie.”

As he listed the best smells he could think of, Hermes’s severed leg caught up to him and reattached itself, his ankle re-knitted together, as well as his forehead—though the throwing star is still jammed in there.

“There we have it,” I say, turning to the class as Hermes pulls the star from his head. “t*****e does work. If you want to get someone to admit to just about anything.”

A lot of students applaud me, though others give me a wide berth as they exit the classroom. Val carefully cleans his sword before putting it back into place.

Our eyes meet again and I expect a wink or even a nod of approval. But instead he looks…concerned.

A part of me wants to run over and defend myself. The other knows that there is no defense. I am not the sweet little Edie he first met. Maybe he’s not the only one wondering what his crush is capable of.

Or maybe not. Nico’s hand lands on my shoulder and he gives it a tight squeeze. “Damn, Edie. I love seeing that side of you. Let’s see more of the dragon in the girl and the girl in the dragon,” he growls, low close to my ear in a way that’s supposed to be sexy. I think.

Before I can finish shuddering, he gives me another squeeze and then bounds out of the room, saying something about rib sandwiches being on the lunch menu and he doesn’t want them to run out.

Honestly, a sudden buzzing in my ears made it difficult to hear. And now there’s spots in my vision too. I remember feeling this way after the Spring Fling. There was the euphoria of battle and then...the crash, as adrenaline receded and my battered conscience took its place.

“Edie!” Cassie comes running to my side. “That was…well, I don’t…I can’t decide if I’m proud of you or scared of you.”

“You don’t have to be either,” I say, pushing my hair out of my eyes with a shaky hand. “I didn’t do it to prove a point.”

“You didn’t?” Fern asks. “Because it felt very pointed. Well, the parts I was able to watch, anyway.” The same concern that was on Val’s face is in Fern’s too.

“No,” I say, eyeing a moaning Hermes as he pulls himself up off the floor. Stepping forward, I offer him my hand. He startles then scuttles away.

He looks at me like I’m a monster.

Maybe I am.

My dragon has killed, but I never have. I wondered if I was even capable of it.

I guess now I know.

“Edie.” Fern and Cassie lean into me on either side. “Are you okay?”

“Sometimes we have to do things,” I hear myself say. The room is empty now except for us, so I don’t try to stop the tears as they begin to flow.

I want to tell them more, but not in an open classroom. It could put us all in danger if I explained that I need Zee to believe he can die. And to do that, I need to create a convincing narrative of his death. Part of that is knowing exactly how fast a god can heal. If I was Mr. Zee hearing that, I’d be very afraid.

As my legs give way, Cassie’s and Fern’s arms fold around me.

I did this for Mavis, I add silently. And for Bella Demopoulous.

And my Grandma.