And Lola was headed straight towards Liam like nothing happened. She had a look on her face that I was sure she thought was sexy. Liam was looking right at her with murder in his eyes and I guess she thought smiling at him was going to fix everything.
All of a sudden, Lola stopped with a shocked look on her face. She let out this weird squeal and turned into a pig right in the middle of our potions class. Her minions were all gasping like this was a big revelation as to who she might be, but I remembered back to our first day of class when Professor Thornheart told us his ancestor was Circe and that he knew how to turn people into pigs.
Honestly, I thought Liam was going to be the first student that got turned into a pig and it had nothing to do with Lola trying to mess up his potions. Every time Liam went to the supply closet to get ingredients for his potions, he kept sampling things he didn’t immediately recognize to see if it got you high so he could come back and steal it later.
It was pretty obvious he was doing it because he turned the color of a blueberry for our entire potions class once.
“Mr. O’Breene, you are relieved of your potions partner. I have no problem with you working in the trio of your choice. Miss Mallum, if you can find someone willing to undo that spell, you’ll be working on your own for the rest of the year.”
Damn. Professor Thornheart knew what happened. Headmaster Mykene probably gave details that protected Liam, but our professor figured it out. We thought we couldn’t do anything to Lola yet because we needed her to lead us to her mate.
Professor Thornheart did it in a way that everyone else would just think it was because she was such a disaster in potions and bringing Liam down with her.
While Lola was a pig, she couldn’t hurt anyone and her mate would be figuring out how to undo it. I just hoped our teacher didn’t end up paying for this.
The rest of my year eventually realized Lola wasn’t the reincarnation of some ancient pig god and revolted in potions class. They refused to do any of the lesson unless Professor Thornheart changed her back. We ended up having a very fun potions class because Professor Thornheart kicked them all out of his class, gave them a zero for the day, and we learned a potion to see in the dark.
I was pretty sure learning that potion was no accident. I wasn’t sure if it would help us see through the void, but no one would know that until they got stuck in it. The rest of our class could have used it if Lola and her mate turned on them.
And Professor Thornheart apologized to Liam for holding fast to the rule about not swapping lab partners when he could see Lola was making him uncomfortable. He thought it was just a crush, but he still should have done something.
We were in Magical Combat, which Lucian was taking a lot more seriously, and Liam couldn’t stop cracking pig jokes. Even Professor Adamastus brought it up.
“Professor Thornheart threatens to turn one of you arseholes into a pig every year, but hasn’t actually done it in seven years. Tricksters are generally a giant pain in the arse and not a single one of them has been turned into a pig. His precious Highness The Horned God turned up to my class looking like a bloody blueberry, so everyone knew he pinched some Touch Me Not from the potion stores andhedidn’t get turned into a pig.”
“In all fairness, I thought it said Touch Me Not because it got you high,” Liam said.
“You ate the chief ingredient in magical hair dye, you sentient pubic lice. Warm up.”
“I regret nothing,” Liam announced. “There are always mishaps in the progress of science.”
“Do you really want to get high that badly?” I asked.
“No. I want to get other people high with all natural psychedelics. People on a plant-based high are usually chill. They aren’t belligerent and violent like alcohol and some other drugs. I’ll bet if you can get Lola and Apep the right edible, a giant bag of cheese and onion crisps, some ice cream to dip them in, and park them in front of a telly playing a documentary about reptile dicks, they wouldn’t even think about murdering anyone.”
“Don’t think it works like that,” Khalid said.
“Mate, your Da’s a cop. Have you even gotten high before?”
“Pretty sure Sage is the only one of us who hasn’t gotten high before.”
“Uh, what do you think I did in Amsterdam?”
We all turned to look at Lucian, who was pointedly ignoring all of us and stretching. I just shrugged. He’d never do anything that put him in a situation where he wasn’t in total control. There was nothing wrong with that.
“If I don’t see you fuck faces warming up, you’re all running laps!”
I looked around. I was chatting with Liam and Khalid instead of stretching, but I was just about to get to it. Lucian, Mazen, Ivar, Ari, Alexios, Adrian, and Radames were all doing what they were supposed to be doing. Everyone else was buried in their phones and I just really didn’t want to get stuck doing laps for the entire class again.
“What the fuck are they doing?” I said, bending down to stretch my hamstrings.
“It helps to have super hearing. They think they can find the reversal spell to turn Lola human again on a supernatural search engine.”
“My Homer is a little rusty, but Hermes told Odysseus to do whatever Circe wanted. He slept with her and she turned them back, but I don’t think it works like that. I think if a powerful sorceress wanted to punish some men, it was going to take more than a good dicking to change them back. It sounds like a revision by a male author,” Khalid said.
“Did she breast boobily when she was breaking the curse? Because that would confirm it,” Liam nodded.
“Circe was crafty,” Alexios said. “She slipped a potion in their wine, but she also cast a spell. Professor Thornheart isn’t a reincarnation. From what I’m understanding, you have to be a reincarnation or exceptional to teach here. Professor Thornheart had to somehow get his potion in Lola’s food or drink and cast that spell.Inever saw him move his mouth or move his hands to cast it. I’m sure the staff are just as annoyed with the minionsas we are as they treat them like garbage. I’m pretty sure our potions professor just sent them all on a wild goose chase and he’s the only one who can turn Lola back.”
