Page 89 of Angel Lost

I close my eyes, dropping into the ley lines, folding them around me. I duck. She can work the lines too. She’ll find me. My fingers trail the ground, looking for something, anything. A fragrant aroma reaches mefrom the crushed leaves under my fingertips. Sage. I see the innocuous gray-green plant. That’s it.

Standing, I drop the ley lines, throw a handful of the tiny oval leaves into the air and mutter an incantation. My barrier crackles as Reye’s attacks hit it. Only this time, it doesn’t disperse, instead it reflects, firing backward, straight at the sender. Straight at Reye. She yelps and throws up her own shield. I dive out of the corner, away. We continue, throwing casts and aether at each other, gradually draining ourselves, when I feel it. Something gives on the boys’ end.

Zephyr. Hurt.No. He shouldn’t have helped.

My shield wavers, and I feel a deep, nauseating ache in my gut.Please let him be okay.Reye’s head snaps up like she sensed it, and she comes at me. She steps through my barrier, into my face. She grabs my head, hands pressing in on either side, and fires a bolt of energy deep into my brain.

I’m floating, somewhere and nowhere. Darkness is all around me. Nice darkness. Not evil. Not demanding. It holds me, weightless. Safe. I wiggle my fingers, letting dark smoke drift between them. Fingers. I have fingers. I inspect them, noting the blood that drips onto my palm. I have a palm. Hands. Wait. Where is the blood coming from?

I sniff. Copper hits my senses, sharp and metallic. Hunger stirs. My fangs pop out. Seems like I’m a body. Floating in space. But space doesn’t have voices, does it?

Someone peels my eyelid open, shines a light in. That’s not right. My eyes are already open. The person doesn’t care. They do the same to the other eye. The darkness around me thins, lifting away in wisps. As it goes, waves of pain slam into me. This isn’t right. I reach out, grab for the darkness, pull it back. But it flits from my grasp. Slipping away.

“Wake up, Lorelei Bal,” a desperate voice hisses in my ear. “Wake the hellup.”

“Language, Aether Reye.” I open my eyes to see anxiety written over the petite professor’s face as she shoves Reye aside.

“Mmph,” I say, spitting out blood. “Hurts.”

“Yes, well. That will happen when you fight a first aether,” she says as if she didn’t order the fight to happen.

Slow clapping draws my attention. At the limit of my focus Dean Davina throws an arm around Reye and leads her away. Reye, however, casts a look back, eyes locking with mine. We both know this was a punishment for me. From Davina.

The professor slumps, pulling a bottle from her bag, gulping down some sort of luminescent blue energy drink. Her wide eyes stare straight ahead, unseeing.

One of the other students edges closer. I squint, forcing my eyes to focus on her face.

“Nyx!”

She scowls but reaches down to help me sit up. My body is heavy, floppy. My core doesn’t want to keep me upright. Nyx stands with a leg behind my back, propping me up.

“Polly?” I say, shaking my head. “Pollyanna!”

“Poppy,” she hisses.

“Don’t look like a Poppy,” I mutter. My head bobs sideways briefly before I can manage to hold it up again.

It takes a good hour before my limbs are my own again. And through it, Nyx props me up. The other students in the class linger, chatting idly, sending sympathetic glances my way, and for the first time I feel I might fit in after all.

By the time Nyx helps me to my dorm, my thoughts are more cohesive. Kinda.

“Don’t feel too bad,” Nyx mutters, wrapping her arm around my doorpost, supervising as I fumbled my way into bed. “Reyeisthe Promised.”

Even in my confused state, something about that sounds weird. I peer at Nyx. It takes a few seconds to bring her into focus.This better wear off.

“I-I-I mean, she’s the favorite. We can’t hold it against her—she has to do what the professors say, what the dean says.”

I nod jerkily.

“Get a good night’s sleep.”

The door clicks behind her, and I wriggle deeper under the covers, the sheets blessedly cool against my burning temples.

I awake in the darkness. Everything hurts.

Nyx knows.

The thought comes to me, sharp and clear: Nyx knows Reye is promised to the Angel King. Tossing and turning, I eventually give up trying to get back to sleep. My brain’s wired, and my body aches. I pull on plain black clothes, slipping on a pair of Fates trainers.

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