Page 29 of Shattered Illusion

“Are you alright, Miss Matthews?”

“Freaking peachy,” I mutter, already fed up with the lack of progress I’ve made so far.

“What’s wrong, Bailey?” Thaddeus moves in close, keeping his voice low to keep prying ears out of our conversation.

“I swear my magic is sentient or something,” I grumble, shaking my head. “It keeps playing games with me. That’s how I lit myself on fire.” I snort a laugh. Another thing I never thought I’d hear myself say.

“Why don’t you spend the rest of class seeing if you coax your magic to come to you easier. Don’t try to do anything with it; don’t worry about sending it to your runes. Just work on building a relationship with it. It might help.”

I spend the rest of class doing just that. A few times, my magic zips through my body, making me laugh. It disrupts the other students yet again, but they can all stuff it. They’ve had years to grow accustomed to their powers; I haven’t even had a week yet.

There’s one thing I know for sure, though. The magical containment room will be better for working on portals. So that way if I do burst out in laughter again, I don’t have to explain myself to anyone.

My feet dragacross the wooden floor as I make my way to my last class of the day. Transmutation class. It’s not that I’m not looking forward to it; I just hope I can accomplish something. Maybe shifting a claw will be enough for the professor to be happy. But I plan to stay after and ask the professor if he’ll give me some tips that might help me learn what my animal is—or if I have more than one.

I’ll have to be careful how I explain my magic since saying I’m a curiomancer will get me killed, but I’m hopeful that under their tutelage, the whole shifting thing will come to me with ease. Or at least easier than the others I’ve tried so far.

A cold wind whips across the academy’s property as I step out from the castle. With it being December still, I expected snow to be littering the ground, but there’s not a flake anywhere to be seen. One thing I can say about my new status is that temperatures don’t affect me as they once did. If I were still human, I’d be bundled up in a winter coat right now, but as it stands, my hoodie is plenty enough, if a little warm. WhileI’m thinking about it, I double-check that my necklace is secure before taking off my hoodie and tying it around my waist. Relishing in the coolness now fluttering over my body.

There are a few students who skirt around me and hightail it in the direction I need to go, so I follow a few steps behind them. I could easily find it without them, but at least this gives me some semblance of not having a massive loser status hanging over my head.

Because that’s what I’ve felt like all day so far. A huge loser with a capital L. People have been avoiding me—except Marion this morning at breakfast—and in the halls, they’ve been whispering and snickering about what happened in Spells and Potions. They probably don’t think I deserve to be here. And while a small part of me doesn’t want to be here, I want to prove them all wrong, and I hope that will start in this class.

Once I reach West Field, where transmutation is held, students are gathered in groups, chatting away as they wait for the professor to arrive. There’s no doubt that I stand out like a sore thumb in the sea of massiveness before me. Every single student waiting for class to start is gigantic in their own way, including the few girls in attendance. Each and every one of them towers over my five-two frame.

“Bailey!” a familiar feminine voice calls before she comes into view, ducking out of a group of guys who watch her every move toward me.

At least twenty heads turn in my direction as I join the class, making me uneasy with their unwanted attention. I shift from foot to foot as all conversations cease and silence descends upon the field. My gaze stays averted to the ground, the toe of my Vans digging into the dirt to avoid contact with anyone who may think I’m challenging their position.

Axel may have told me my kind is the most powerful in the supernatural world, but these people don’t know that. And sinceI’m currently useless with my magic, I don’t need to rock the boat with my fellow peers.

Marion slings her arm around my shoulders, pulling my gaze to hers. “I never would have suspected you were a shifter,” she giggles, giving me a friendly squeeze. “You know… because of the whole height thing.”

“Alright, class,” a deep voice booms across the field, “line up and get ready to shift.” There’s something about the professor’s tenor that seems familiar, but I can’t quite place it.

“Shit,” Marion hisses. “I’ll talk to you after class.” She releases me and jogs back over to the group she was originally with, leaving me to fend for myself.

The students form a line directly in front of me, blocking my small stature with their large frames. I scramble to the end of the line, keeping a little bit of distance between me and the person next to me.

“Ahh, fuck,” I mumble under my breath when I finally set my eyes on the professor. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect him to be a professor or one ofmyprofessors. I figured he was just a hot-headed, arrogant student who thought he was better than everyone else. I was freaking dead wrong. Luckily, he seems to be keeping his eyes on the other students—the ones who stand out while I fade into the shadows.

After our altercation in the dining hall yesterday, there’s no chance in hell he’ll help me after class is over. I’ll have to ask Marion to give me instructions so I can figure it out.

“Good, good. Today, we’re going to focus on the fluidity of shifting from our human forms to our animals and back again. Yes, you’ll be tired by the end of class, but speed is key when you need it. Here’s how I want this to go. A lot of you have half forms or partial shifts. So, if you do have one, I want you to go from human to animal to human to partial and back again. Each timeyou do a partial shift, I want a different one the next time you do it.”

Professor Asshole starts at the end of the row furthest from me as all the students shed their human guise and transform into magnificent creatures. I lose myself to the awe of it, watching as they do it so smoothly.

After every shift, the professor slowly starts making his way down the line, and that’s when I know eventually, he’ll come to me. So I need to do something. Attempt something. Try, at least.

Famous last words, I know, right?

From my and Thaddeus’ training session yesterday, I know my transmutation rune is on my right thigh, so I close my eyes and look for that sparking ball of pink magic, hoping it’ll finally come to me this time without a fight. My brows pinch, and I nibble my lip as I struggle to get a grip on it. It’s like water, yet again, flowing through my fingers instead of following my will.

“What the fuck are you doing here, little girl?” The scathing tone knocks me out of my deep dive, and I squeak in terror as my eyes open to find Professor Asshole staring daggers down at me from his impressive height. “Well? Are you going to fucking answer me?”

I steel my spine before answering. “I’m in this class.”

His loud guffaw echoes around the field, garnering the attention of the other students in class. “Prove it, little girl.”

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