Page 92 of Gemini Wicked

Neo nudges his glasses up his nose and gives me a serious look. “It’s a group assignment. We work in teams. Final exams are designed to synthesize everything we’ve learned over the semester and probe the power and limits of our witchcraft. We’re supposed to build teams that capitalize on each other’s strengths and compensate for each other’s weaknesses.”

“We do the test as a team?” On the one hand, that makes me feel way better, because obvi my warlocks and my court and me, we’re the bomb. We’re the BFD on campus.

On the other hand, this Academy can be lethal.

If the Dean really is throwing her weight behind Cleo, my guys and Dez and RT could be in actual danger.

Just for teaming with me.

“Bugger me.” Alerted by my telepathic leakage, Ronin swings toward me and levels a warning finger at my chest. “Don’t even think about trying to ghost us and pop off alone on the sly after that artifact. We’re a proper team, love.”

“Well, except for Lucius.” Neo’s picking up my thoughts too, because fated mate. Now he too is starting to look and feel worried. “He has to proctor the test, so he’ll have to be neutral. And Vasili’s a graduating senior, so he’s not allowed to intervene. He’ll do qualifying exams this summer instead.”

Welp, there go my two strongest warlock allies.

Plus Max has performance anxiety and gets all up in his head over any kind of academic test.

Except I’m not gonna say that out loud.

And I’m definitely not gonna bring up the wild card.

Zephyr.

He’s not even a student here. Him getting involved at all would be against the rules. I’m pretty sure accepting outside help of any kind would be considered cheating. We’d all get disqualified and fail the test.

Now I just need to explain that to Zephyr.

I level a look at all three of them—Ronin, Max, and Neo. “Guess it’s the four of us then. Plus Dez and Racetrack. We’ll kick ass and take prisoners. And Lucius will make sure no one cheats. Right?”

Maybe it won’t matter that much if the Goblin King sits this one out. Maybe it’ll give him the space he needs to work through all the shit his dad’s drive-by visit is sure to dredge up.

While I’m trying to convince myself on this front, and trying to convince myself that Zephyr will wait patiently like a model citizen on the sidelines while we’re all testing and not cause problems (like trying to kidnap me again), Neo frowns at the bulletin board. He’s reading the fine print—the exam instructions.

“This is more than a race,” our bookworm says softly. “It’s a mortal combat.”

“What’s that then, love?” Ronin saunters over to hover at his shoulder and slides an arm around our bookworm’s waist.

Neo snuggles into him with a pensive sigh. “What I mean is, to ace the test, we need to be more than the first team to find the Horn of Ceres. We also need to be the team that fights off the other competitors—who can get kinda violent—and the team that returns the artifact safely back to the Academy Vault where it belongs.”

Except maybe that Horn doesn’t belong in the Vault at all anymore. I mean, it’s a fertility object, right? And the witching world needs witches.

But I figure I’ll keep that sedition shit to myself for now.

At least till I kick Cleo’s ass.

Besides, I can’t just go around collecting magical artifacts. I’m already toting the witching world crown around in my backpack because I’m afraid to leave it behind at the domus with my thievish ex-bestie at large.

I slice a hard look across the commons at the Tiberius clique. They’re all #TeamAquarius, natch, I bet they’ll all compete with Cleo. They’re badass witches in their own right. Plus they’re the biggest residential college at Icarus, like three times our size, because Lucius is really finicky about who he lets into our domus.

Which gives Cleo all kinds of advantages.

Max follows my gaze and the direction of my thoughts and scowls at our rival house. “They will be the favorites, will they not?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” To project a degree of confidence I’m definitely not feeling, I force a stiff shrug and summon up my queen voice. “Guess the witching world betting pool at the Double Gem in Vegas is gonna go wild over this one. We’re definitely the underdogs.”

“Same as always,” Ronin mutters dourly. “Bollocks.”

Chapter Eighteen

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