Page 13 of Demon Found

“I’ve drawn up a table of everything you’ll have missed and took the liberty of creating a study schedule for you to catch up. I justloveschedules, don’t you? Oh, and we’ll need to pencil in some quality girl time too. Oh! I so missed out not having aroomieat the start. We’ll make up for it now! We’ll be besties, you’ll see.”

She throws her hands up in the air excitedly and a shower of flowers and fireworks explodes across the room.

The air is full of her stupid flowery perfume, clawing at my throat. I can’t breathe. My head swims, and I stagger sideways. Images of all the shitty people I’ve met today flash before my eyes—glaring, disapproving, jeering. I can’t do this.

“Aaaaaah!” The yell explodes from my throat. Fireballs shoot across the room, setting the curtains alight in an instant. Giant flames race up the delicate pastel fabric to the ornate ceiling. What the hell? Seconds later Naeve’s bed, wardrobe, and the entire wall on her side of the room are ablaze. The flames burn an alarming incandescent white. A white so bright it’s mesmerizing.

Fuck.

The heat licks at my face. Squinting against the raging furnace, I fumble across the room to Naeve. She’s standing stock-still, mouth open, making little flapping gestures with her hands. What the hell does she think that will do? Grabbing her, I manhandle her out the door, slamming it shut behind us and banging my fist into the fire alarm. This girl has the reactions of a sloth. Hustling her down the five flights of stairs is like trying to move a stubborn-ass minotaur.

We finally make it outside into the courtyard, both of us puffing and panting and a little shocked. More students join us by the second. The flames are already visible, reaching up the outside of the building as far as the turret. Sinking to my knees with a groan, I let the alarmed voices wash over me.

My hands come back into focus first. Palms up, resting on my knees, they’re filthy—black and sooty. A waft of acrid smoke stings my nostrils and I choke back a cough.

Did I set our room on fire? Was that me?

That’s one way to find out I’m a fire elemental.

A giggle escapes me, then another, and another until I’m laughing hysterically, tears rolling down my face. A pair of plump arms fasten around my sides and brown hair swings in front of my vision, bringing with it a waft of flowery talc.

“It’ll be okay, Lorelei. The professors are tackling it. It’ll be okay.”

Shit. I’m so tired and strung out I don’t even fight off Naeve’s hug. I just hold myself rigid as she squeezes me tightly.

The longer the students wait, the louder the whispering gets, until I don’t even need to strain to hear the bitchy complaints.

“It’s plain dangerous having someone with no control here. They should never have let her emerge, never have let her come.”

“Do you suppose that’s what they’re all like? Venez citizens? Maybe they should ban the whole province from the academy.”

“It’s a crossbreed thing.” Camille’s snippy voice makes me bristle. “No control, any of them.”

I glare in her direction, but my brother steps directly into my line of sight. He holds my stare for a long second. The purple rings around his irises glint; his pinched face is shadowed. Eventually he shakes his head and turns away, striding off into the night without so much as a backward glance.

He told me to keep my head down. I screwed up already. But the ass didn’t even ask if I was okay.

The professors corral us back into the building in under an hour, their magic and the building’s fire-retardant properties having combined to douse the raging inferno. At least none of the other students’ rooms are badly affected. Apparently, it’s mostly smoke damage, which the air professor has already sorted. A trickle of relief runs through me. I don’t care so much about being unpopular, but I can’t afford to replace all these rich kids’ belongings.

The professors’ halfhearted attempts at reassurance doesn’t stop the bitching that follows me up five very long flights of stairs. I trudge slowly upward. I completely failed to make a good impression on day one. Go me. Poor Naeve trails along beside me, puffing and blowing, red in the face.

“Move it, weirdo.” Belinda barges past Naeve, knocking her back a few steps. “What a freaking pair you two are—a pyro crossbreed and a fatty radicalist.” She sneers and disappears onto her floor, followed by a little posse who’re all glares and nasty whispers.

By the time we get into our room, I’m ready to sleep on my feet. The state of it stops me in my tracks. Naeve’s stuff is a charred blackened mess. The building and furnishings may have some kind of weird fire-retardant magic . . . but Naeve’s stuff? I’vecompletelydestroyed it.

Maybe the girls were right. Maybe I am dangerous. What if she’d been standing over where her clothes were? I didn’t evenknowI was a fire elemental, but I still set the whole damn room ablaze. What the satyr shit is wrong with me?

A sudden scrabbling around my bed makes me flinch back, nearly tripping over a wheezing Naeve.

“It’s just the hada.” Naeve’s voice is low, with none of her previous excitement. “They’re changing the mattresses and putting on nasty academy bed sheets. I’ll get some decent ones sent from home tomorrow.”

“The . . . hada? Like fairies? Actual fairies? They work here?”

“Uh. Yeah, kinda. I mean, I’m not sure they get paid but . . .”

A dozen tiny flying creatures buzz around the room like angry wasps, and within moments the charred remnants of Naeve’s books and clothes are gone. Two new mattresses covered in starched white linens are set up, with precise hospital corners and not a wrinkle in sight.

Only once the tiny hada have vanished do I stop toeing the corner of my desk and try to catch Naeve’s eye. I’m no good at apologies, dammit, but I owe her this.

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