The Hidden Court Page 9

  My left arm burned, and sweat trickled into my eyes. I ignored the stinging and continued, gritting out my response. “Nobody should have to tolerate disrespect like that.”

  “I usually don’t, but she isn’t worth the bad energy, Sky. Just leave it be.”

  “I’m supposed to be learning from her, but all I’ve seen is how inept she is.”

  “Welcome to the real world. When you’re dating an advisor’s favorite nephew, you can do whatever you want. It’s not about talent or aptitude. It’s about who you know and what family you belong to.” He paused. “If you have enough breath to talk, you’re not working hard enough.”

  I put all my frustration into the next strike. Catching him off guard, he stumbled back. “Was that hard enough?”

  He grunted. “Better. I think next time, I might have you go bare knuckles. Toughen your hands up for a real fight.”

  We dropped the depressing subject and focused on our lesson. By the time Gabriel finally called an end to the session, I could barely grab my sweatshirt from the ground. Stupid bobbing and weaving drills. Stupid kicking. He’d made me repeat the same movement over and over until one minute seemed like an hour.

  “Hey, what’s that Wild Hunt thingy you talked about at orientation,” I asked once I could breathe again.

  “It’s probably not as exciting as your imagination is making it out to be.”

  “Try me.”

  “It’s mostly a chance for us shifters to show off our speed and compete against one another in races and games. Sometimes we have the mages make us a lure for tracking and hunting.”

  “So basically you’re saying I would be left in your dust.”

  He grinned. “Pretty much. We always make the offer, though. There’s a junior yaksha, a junior baku, and a senior cat sith who keep up pretty good. Julien Ascended over the summer, so we’re planning a deep hike into Tir na Nog to test out his new body.”

  “Really? What is he?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Why not? Did he swear you to secrecy?”

  “Nope. It’s just no fun if I warn you.”

  I blinked at him. Warn me?

  Before I could question it further, he stretched his arms over his head, giving me a tantalizing peek of his abs. Man, I wanted to run my hands over them so bad. The moment was brief, arms dropping back to his sides almost as quickly as he’d raised them. “Have a good weekend, Sky. Try to hang with your friends and do something fun. You deserve it.”

  “Thanks. You do the same.”

  7

  Magic School Has No Dull Moments

  Professor Gaspar celebrated a 92 percent pass rate on our class’s first exam by issuing a written essay on the qualities of ancient magical items. For extra credit, we could visit the Field Museum of Natural History and receive an additional fifteen points if we described how we felt about the current special exhibition.

  Students with older siblings said she would have assigned the essay regardless of our scores, but probably without the extra credit if we’d bombed it.

  While I could think of a dozen better ways to spend a Saturday afternoon, the museum wasn’t a bad way to conclude the first month of college courses. Deep down, I was happy to escape the campus to do something that didn’t involve Monica or lengthy shopping trips with Pilar. Now that we’d come to a friendly understanding, she’d made it her personal mission to add acceptable fashions to my closet. It hurt my meager savings, but I appreciated her effort.

  Besides, visiting a museum guaranteed we’d have a harmless afternoon of fun sans graveyards and vampires.

  After convincing Pilar to join us—primarily for the free ride to the city—we paid our way into the museum and dropped an additional fee to see the Terracotta Warriors.

  My arms broke out in goose bumps the moment we stepped into the dimmed gallery, flesh tingling from head to toe each time magical ripples ebbed from the artifacts arranged in the display cases.

  As the crown jewel of the entire exhibit, the statues had been arranged in neat rows on short platforms. Translucent, protective guard rails prevented anyone from getting close enough to touch them. I parted the Veil and peeked at them in the Twilight. One of the statues glanced back at me.

  Creepy.

  Ben and I read their history while Liadan drifted away to examine a terracotta war chariot drawn by four horses.

  “Why are we here again?” Pilar sighed and examined her perfect manicure. “This exhibit is not even accurate. It was a prison, not a tomb. Xu Fu confined men against their will to serve Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s army.”

  Ben shot her a bewildered look. “As far as the humans know, it is, and that’s what matters most. Who cares about what the tags say?”

  Some of our darker history hadn’t exactly been shared with the mortals when we came out to the world. They were still freaking too much over vampires to be let in on the secret that necromancers could rip souls out of bodies on a whim.

  “It’s still cool to read their version of the story,” I agreed.

  According to human history, each piece of art had been crafted by master artisans to decorate the Emperor’s tomb. The truth was that a forbidden ritual had bound the souls of the deceased inside each clay piece, often imprisoning the men for real or imagined slights against the ancient royal family.

  Pilar scowled and turned her back on the museum display, as if it offended her. I rolled my eyes and leaned in closer to read the plaque beside an item that looked like an old witch’s cauldron with three round legs and two sturdy handles jutting from the rim. The ancient piece was called a ding vessel and had once used by the magician Xu Fu himself before he disappeared on his journey to discover the Elixir of Life.

  While I took notes, another small group edged up near us and blocked the light I’d been using to read.

  I dragged my gaze away from the pamphlet at the same moment Liadan nudged me with her hip. Gabriel and the other two shifter mentors lurked behind us. Heat crept up my neck when recognition flashed in his brown eyes and a wide grin spread over his face.

  He raised his chin and nodded to me. I returned it and hung back to listen to his two companions. The wolf shifter with the legs that I’d envied, stood back with hands on her hips while glowering at the massive bear shifter beside her.

  Wasn’t the bear shifter Gabriel’s cousin or something? I searched the depths of my memory and dragged two names out of the fog. Amalia and Rodrigo.

  “You may as well not be here if you’re going to keep your face in your phone, Rodrigo.”

  Bingo, I was right, although he disagreed with her sentiment. “This is boring. Why are we even here? We’re all at the top of the class already.”

  Amalia shook her head. “It’s fascinating.”

  “What’s so fascinating about thousands of souls trapped in clay?” he demanded.

  “She’s right,” Gabriel cut in. His deep voice kind of wrapped around me like auditory sex, the perfect hint of southern charm coloring each word every time he spoke.

  Liadan giggled. Damn her empath abilities. I wished I’d never told her about my secret lessons with Gabriel at night. She kept stealing glances at me. “What a pleasant surprise to run into the three of you here. Isn’t this collection amazing?”

  “It is dull,” Pilar muttered, as if Liadan has spoken to her instead. “We should go see the Halls of Jade instead.”

  I frowned, but before I had the chance to set her straight, Gabriel added his two cents.

  “If you find history’s most notorious use of black magic boring, I don’t want to know what you think is a good time.”

  “Be nice,” the wolf shifter said. She offered a wave. “Hey, I’m Amalia.”

  “Skylar,” I replied. Waving my hand, I introduced the others. “Liadan, Benjamin, and Pilar.”

  “Are you three here for the extra credit too?” Ben asked. He pushed his glasses up his nose and edged closer to Liadan. I tried to imagine him wrestling Rodrigo for her affection, but a
ll I could picture was the shifter squishing him into jelly under his thumb.

  “Yeah. Dr. Ghastly teaches the advanced-level artifacts classes for sophomores and juniors too. She suggests it to everyone,” Gabriel said, only to emit an oof as Amalia’s elbow buried in his ribs.

  “You shouldn’t call her that. It’s rude.”

  “Sorry.”

  To direct attention away from his faux pas, I spoke up and pointed to the display. “I think I saw that one over there—the fifth one back in the third row—looking around earlier.”

  “Really?” Ben’s eyes lit with interest. “I knew not all of the statues had been freed, but I didn’t think they’d send any live ones over here.”

  Gabriel leaned forward and studied the figures, chuckling. “Yeah, looks like you’re right. That guy’s pissed, and I can’t blame him. He must be one of the two Professor Gaspar sent us to inspect. I heard the Circle of Sages sent in their strongest white enchantress to break the curse, but they’re still here. After a few decades of soaking in some positive energy, the Circle will try again.”

  I peered over at the trapped soul again. Once I actively paid attention, waves of revulsion and fury pulsed outward from the statue, a gentle ebb and flow of negative energy manifested as sparkling motes of scarlet and black sand.

  “Positive energy? Is that why they loaned the display out?”

  “Yeah,” Gabriel replied. “Positive energy, like the excitement of museum visitors, weakens the curse, especially if he’s become a foul spirit. It means when they do free him and his pal, he’s likely to go to the afterlife instead of becoming a lunatic poltergeist on the rampage. Were you snoozing in class?”

  Behind him, Rodrigo feigned sleep on his feet. He even snored.

  “Ugh, you’re awful,” Amalia said. “Maybe Gabriel and I should have come alone if you think the entire museum is dull.”

  Rodrigo’s face fell, reminding me of a chastened little boy who’d had his hand swatted for stealing from a cookie jar. After weeks of bearing painful witness to Ben’s inept flirting, I knew unrequited affection when it was in front of me.

  Poor guy.

  “I’m going to head over to the next area with Pilar,” Liadan spoke up. Pilar stood in the entryway tapping her foot.

  “I’ll come too,” Ben said. He trailed after her.

  Gabriel cocked his head and studied me. “Not going with them?”

  “Nah, I wanna get my twenty bucks worth out of this exhibit first, you know? Plus it’s beautiful in a… morbid kind of way I guess.”

  Rodrigo turned to Amalia. “Hey, I heard Sue just returned from a loan to another museum. Wanna go see?”

  She raised a brow at him but went along to see the museum’s famous T-rex skeleton, leaving Gabriel with me. He frowned as if their departure had been a betrayal of friendship.

  The nerve, leaving him alone with a lowly freshman.

  “I don’t sleep in class, by the way,” I grumbled to break the awkward silence.

  His easy smile returned. “Not what I heard. Otherwise you’d know all this from your lessons.”

  “Well, whatever you heard is wrong. We’re a few days behind schedule because Professor Gaspar went off on a tangent about brownies after some idiot in class called them worthless. She had us write a five-page essay on their importance in the world and the magical items they’ve inspired.”

  Gabriel laughed, and the rich, warm sound of it set off butterflies in my middle. I preferred his teasing playfulness over his brooding silences. Since he didn’t seem to mind sticking around with me, I wandered closer and pointed out some of the fae objects in a nearby display cabinet.

  “You have a good eye. I didn’t notice that one myself. Most of the relics are counterfeits and replicas, but I didn’t expect to see much of the real thing.”

  “They sound like music to me. Liadan says she sees them in colors.”

  “And the warriors?”

  Twisting around at the waist for another glance at the trapped soldiers, I pointed to the one in the back row. “I see the curse shifting around them like a turbulent sandstorm. It’s black and red but concentrated the most around that guy.”

  “No music?”

  “Discordant notes mostly, but no… Huh?” The angry soldier had moved, I was certain. Then again, maybe it had only been a trick of the light. “Wasn’t his left hand over his right?”

  Gabriel’s brows pinched together. After a while of staring at the same soldier, his spine stiffened and he thrust a hand into his pocket, only to bring it out empty. “Shit. I left my phone in the car. You got yours? We need to call about this.”

  “Yeah, but shouldn’t there be someone here we can talk—”

  The power dropped and plunged us into silent darkness. I froze as emergency lighting flickered on, casting pools of eerie red near the exits. The rest of the room remained in ominous shadow. Blinking did nothing to help adjust my vision, but I stepped back into a hard, masculine body and sighed in relief.

  Gabriel had more muscle than I’d anticipated.

  “That was pretty creepy, huh?” I asked.

  His response came from a yard in front of me. “Mind letting me use your phone, Sky? We could hunt out the curator, but that means leaving this dude unsupervised.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

  With one hand, I reached behind me and found unyielding clay instead of denim and cotton. Turning brought me face-to-face with the cursed terracotta warrior, its features outlined by the red glow of the emergency light.

  Throwing both hands up, I channeled an instinctive Blinding glamour, the multi-hued flash erupting from my palms. It might have worked against a living being, but against the warrior, my ineffective light flickered and fizzled out.

  Gabriel crashed into me, taking me to the ground as the warrior brought both fists down in an overhand blow that would have flattened me like Play-Doh. He struck a cabinet and sent shards of glass and wood flying.

  “What the hell did you do?” he demanded. He’d tucked me beneath him, shielding me from the debris.

  “Me? I didn’t do anything!”

  When it came after us both, Gabriel rolled us across the floor through shards of ruined history. My last daydream of rolling around with the hot shifter didn’t have anything to do with getting pieces of glass in my hair and slicing my arms. Maybe this was karma’s way of telling me to find a single guy to ogle.

  The moment we scrambled to our feet, the warrior lunged. It knocked Gabriel aside and reached for me, closing a hand around my wrist. Fire danced in a molten ring where its immovable fingers touched me.

  “We’re under attack!” someone shouted.

  “The statues are coming alive!”

  A camera flashed because some teenager couldn’t help but pause to take photos with his iPhone instead of running to safety.

  Between the hysterical screams of panicked visitors and my own terror, I froze, unable to do anything more than sob from the pain dancing up and down my arm, little electric sparks of agony sizzling in my nerves.

  “Security! Someone call security! The statues are alive, they’re alive! Someone help us, please!”

  The few human spectators shouted and raced from the area, but no one came to help us. The big bastard dragged me, walking with a jerky, marionette kind of stride until Gabriel came to my rescue with a baton in hand. Hell if I knew where it came from either, but ravens were crafty tricksters, and he’d probably had it in his jacket.

  He struck the warrior’s arm until it released me and turned on him.

  “That’s right, pick on someone your own size,” he taunted. “Go and get help, Sky! A former professor named Margaret French works as a curator here. Go find her and call the hotline for help.”

  As much as I wanted to appreciate his courage, I couldn’t leave him behind—even if I had promised to listen to his instructions in situations like this. “But I can help you.”

  “This isn’t time to play sentinel. Go!” />
  Unfortunately, the warrior had other ideas. When I moved to run for the exit, it turned away from Gabriel toward me again.

  Its focus on me gave Gabriel the opening to act. He exploded forward, spun, and kicked out with one leg. He planted the sole of his boot against the warrior’s back, and with physics in his favor, the soldier’s forward momentum propelled it past me and into the wall. The crash that should have demolished the ancient relic only left a network of fine cracks along its carved face, hairline fractures but no serious damage.

  A noise creaked behind us. Whirling around brought me face-to-face with a second cursed soldier, the enormous clay figure now free from magical bondage. It advanced on me only, its neutral, unchanging features chilling in the dim light.

  Gabriel swore and twisted his body to keep both in view. He’d moved in between me and the magical constructs. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Why the hell are these things fixated on you?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe they have a thing against pink and green sneakers!”

  His gaze dropped to my shoes. “I do too, but I’m not trying to fuck you up for it.”

  Asshole.

  Weaving left and right between them, he blocked then slammed the baton into one clay figure while evading a kick from the other. One opponent brought his enormous clay fists down in an overhead slam, but Gabriel dove left and led them in circles.

  Blood ran down my arm, a shard still embedded in the skin from when the display shattered.

  “You any good at shadowstriding?” he called.

  “So-so. I could probably cross the room.”

  The game of cat and mouse continued like a choreographed fight scene in a martial arts flick. Relentless, they moved in again to surround us until Gabriel intervened. The aggressive statue punished him with a sharp chop against the right shoulder, which he returned with a crash of his baton into its arm. This time, it lost fingers and part of its hand.