“Keep away from me,” I warn, stretching out my shoulders and tugging off my stretchy mini dress. “I’m not in the mood for talking tonight. I’ll rest once every three hours. Who is my partner?”
“Me, my lady.”
I nod, and shift into dragon form. Beak explodes into his eagle form reflexively, getting out of the way by diving down. I spear upwards and through the blue dome, leaving beak to use the avian guards’ exit in one of the watchtowers. He’d told me the best way to patrol the academy was for two fliers to do that, one flying clockwise, and the other anticlockwise. I’ll be flying a lot higher than him with my bigger size, but this way, we won’t get lazy-eyed by the unchanging landscape.
My nighttime vision as a dragon is superior to anything else. I can see heat signatures in tiny specs below, so anyone in a moving car would flag my attention right away. It takes me over an hour to settle into the patrol. I’m hypervigilant and lockedin from the get-go, and the agitation from the awareness of my possible oncoming enemies never fades.
With the lockdown, I can’t talk to my friends except by phone, and Minnie was in no mood to talk today. Yeti graciously told Sabrina and Stacey about what had happened while I brooded in my room. I don’t even get the comfort of Henry or Eugene for the next three days while I wait for the consequences of what Minnie and I had done.
The council had been all too keen to request my execution before. They had been all too keen to take Savage to Blackwater Prison. I’m sure my father will use this as a way to spin the story to make me look mad and in need of putting away or something worse, and they would surely come to the academy to confront me.
Rufus and Marduk rang me this morning and asked if I wanted to go into hiding somewhere else. Their voices had been cautious, as if already knowing the answer.
“I’ve done the passive thing,” I’d said. “I’ve tried hiding. I’ve tried waiting. I even gave myself to them. Enough of that.”
My phone had rung again after Marduk, the number unknown. I didn’t pick it up. Instead, I rang Hyacinth Dabu and asked her some more questions, then I consulted some of the serpent textbooks Beak had brought me from the library.
I’ve made observations. I’ve had…thoughts.
There are no Council of Beasts trucks blasting down the road for the rest of the night. It’s not until the 5 p.m. news the next night that my spoon halts five centimetres in the air above my microwave-ready meal. Beak sits straighter on the armchair next to me.
Minnie’s name flashes across my phone, and I pick up. “Turn on the news,” she says.
“Already watching it.”
My father is on the screen, his gaunt face covered in makeup to give his ashen complexion colour back. Darkness hovers around him, coiling like a cobra ready to strike.
Hasstruck. Because the headline reads:
NEWLY APPOINTED COUNCIL OF BEASTS AUDITOR HRH MACE NAGA SAYS CORRUPTION MUST BE STOPPED AND CHANGES MUST BE MADE.
My father smiles, and it gives me the feeling of being yanked under water. “We’ve discovered several concerning things regarding the running of the council. I’ll be conducting a full investigation. Until then, I’ve been given full license to ensure everything continues to run smoothly. The safety of the human population has never been a priority. The event a few nights ago proves that this is out of hand. Things need to change. We’re going to do it together.”
He shakes hands with the human state premier, a woman with long brown hair, who smiles widely while everyone claps. Flashes from multiple cameras light up their faces and white teeth.
“He’s been given full authority,” Minnie says in disbelief. “Who authorised that?”
“He did,” I say simply, sitting back on the couch as venom suddenly burns in my gums. “He’s always wanted this. Always planned it. This was his long game.” I laugh, and even to me, it sounds cold. “He actually fucking did it with our help, Min. He’s got the council members in a hole somewhere, using what we did as his excuse.” And he’d twisted our carnage to his advantage. We’dacceleratedhis plans.
“I’ll find out what I can.” Marduk’s voice is faint on the line as he no doubt stares at the TV like we all do. “But I’ll need to leave.”
“They could be dead, for all we know,” I say. “Some of them, at least.” My mind wanders to my fifth mate.
Chapter 15
Aurelia
“Maybe we made a mistake that night, Lia,” Minnie says, her eyes red-rimmed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have killed Tiberius.”
The lockdown is over, and we’re sitting with Raquel in their hospital room again. Henry and Eugene are perched on the wolf anim’s legs, gazing at their face. This is not the first time that Minnie has said these words to me. “It’s normal to doubt yourself after killing someone, Min,” I say gently. “But you did the right thing.”
She’s not sure of herself. But I am. Especially after seeing the state of the medical wing with the number of poisoning patients who are still here, including Stacey. The place is still in chaos, and short staffing is such a problem that I’ve been charting Raquel’s observations for them while we’re here. We’d helped shower Stacey this morning and put her safely back into bed to rest so the nurses could attend to the sicker patients.
Tiberius was not only responsible for them, but for the Lily Institute’s destructionandCassius Clawson’s death, and by the look Sabrina is giving me, she thinks the exact same: The Clawsons needed to be put down. “You’ll get over it, Min,”Sabrina says darkly. “Blair and Blade say you get used to killing beasts after a while.” Wisdom from assassins doesn’t help Minnie in her fretting.
“I’ve never been more sure of something,” I say. My best friend looks at me like she’s not sure I’m well. “I understand you think I might be biased,” I say evenly. “But my father’s new political position has only proven me right. He means…” I don’t want to scare my friends. I don’t need them more fearful than they are. But they don’t know Mace Naga behind closed doors. They don’t know the level of his ambition and the lengths he’ll go to. The lengths he’s been planning since even before he became the leader of the serpent court. I take a deep breath. “I’m just going to say that the signs are all pointing things out to me. We need to take action.”
“Like what, Lia?” Minnie breathes.
