“Aren’t you going to do something?” Edmund demanded, looking at Professor Gefn.
“Well, I’m not your mother for one. Secondly, you’re the reincarnation of some powerful being who’s nearly completed their first semester of magical training. You’re also twice his size. If you paid more attention to your studies instead of your friends, you’d realize how embarrassing it is to even ask me to fight your battles for you.”
Damn.
Edmund had been pretty loud about being nasty to anyone who hinted Lola’s story wasn’t adding up, but I guess he couldn’t back it up magically or with his fists. She also didn’t make a peep to defend him back as he stomped out of class to see the healer.
“Now that’s settled, pay attention. Healing is complicated.”
Ialways had high marks in science, but that was because I busted my arse studying. It didn’t come easy to me at all, which was why I changed my mind about being a doctor when I got older. I had the bedside manner, but my brain just didn’t work like that.
But I could heal now with magic if I got this right. I’d never be a doctor, but I could help my family and the people I cared about. I hadn’t told my family any of this yet because I thought it was an in-person conversation.
The concept of healing was fascinating. Professor Gefn said it was magicks we all shared. She said when we got better with it, we could just look at someone and sense if they were sickor injured if it weren’t completely obvious. For now, we had to place our hands over people and let our magic sense it.
Thing was, aside from me getting yanked in the veil or Sage screaming when someone died or Liam exploding and healing nature, we hadn’t really had many magic mishaps. Lucian had most of his magic figured out except for shifting.
And it was weird. Lola wasn’t a pig anymore for reasons only known to Professor Thornheart. Lola was paying attention for once. She was participating in class and seemed like she actually wanted to learn. I thought it was the contest, and that she was confused how the trusts worked, but at least we wouldn’t have to deal with her disrupting lessons with snide comments.
But I was wrong. I thought potions was going to be a bit calmer now that I didn’t have to keep an eye on Liam and Lola. Professor Thornheart made sure Lola was nowhere near Liam and someone finally told Liam nothing in the potion stores was a psychedelic, so I didn’t have to worry about him putting things in his mouth anymore. At least, I hoped I didn’t. For all I knew, he wanted to see if he could turn himself orange this time.
“So, it’s lottery time and I know you’re all about to start learning healing. You can learn the concepts all day, but you actually need magic to do it. I’m going to give you a leg up today. Your magic flows all through you. It’s like an extra nervous system. We’re going to make a very complex potion that is like a nervous system stimulant. It’ll boost your magic. If it doesn’t help you figure out healing, it might give you a clue who you are,” Professor Thornheart said.
“Mate, are we making meth?” Liam asked.
“We are absolutely not making meth in my classroom.”
“That sounds like what someone who is teaching us to make meth would say.”
“Mr. O’Breen, would you like to be the next student to get turned into a pig?”
“I’ll probably never get another chance to be porcine. I’d make a sexy hog.”
“You had to be reincarnated while I was still teaching,” Professor Thornheart sighed. “The potion recipe has been sent to you through the school app. This recipe isprecise.If you get it wrong, it will explode. The effects are different for everyone, but something bad is going to happen to you when the potion explodes and gets on you. Potions is just following a recipe, so there’s no excuse for some of you to be this terrible,” he said, cutting his eyes at Lola.
I noticed Liam was glaring, too, and considering he broke Edgar’s nose less than an hour ago just so Sage had someone to practice on, I couldn’t imagine what he was going to do with that look in his eyes.
“If your potion explodes, you’d better make sure one of your minions jumps in front of it because I already owe you for drugging me and trying to rape me. Ifanyof it gets on Sage, you aren’t going to like what happens.”
It felt like something important was about to happen. I didn’t even have Sage’s magical intuition built in, but Liam was pissed and this was the first time he even brought up what Lola did to him. We tried to get him to talk about it and he refused. He was finally bringing it up now in front of the entire class, but I could feel magic coming off of him. From what I understood, Liam’s original was one of the oldest gods and held a lot of power.
Lola tossed her hair over her shoulder and laughed.
“Don’t be silly. Men can’t be raped. You just don’t want Sage to know you’re into me. Why are you lying?”
That was when everything changed. Liam was vibrating with rage so hard, some kind of pulse went out in the entire classroom that shook the apothecary jars full of potion ingredients. The rest of the class wasn’t awake in the sense that they remembered who they were and how to use their magic, but they were all rapidlyblinking and shaking their heads like they’d just woken up from some kind of stupor.
We still hadn’t figured out how Lola had all their loyalty no matter what she said or did, but we knew it was magical. Whatever Liam had just done had broken that enchantment and they actually realized what Lola had said this time.
Men could definitely be raped, and it was gross saying they couldn’t. Anyone with half a brain knew Liam was obsessed with Sage and didn’t particularly give a shit about anyone else in a romantic sense. You couldn’t ask Liam how he was doing or comment about the weather without hearing a twenty-minute soliloquy about Sage.
You’d have to be completely delusional to think Liam was into anyone else. Lola could actually be that delusional, but with a little help from Liam’s magic, it was just a bit much for the rest of our class. Professor Thornheart was just leaning on his desk watching us with his arms crossed instead of demanding we get to work. I guess he knew something was happening, too.
The rest of the class started talking at once and it wasn’t going well for Lola. For once, that smug look on her face was gone. Yeah, she’d been power tripping as one of two people in our class who were secretly fully awake and she’d been abusing it.
That was the thing about power trips. There was always someone bigger and badder out there. We might not know how to kill her or Apep yet, but I felt better about our chances now.
Lola got up and stormed out of class. Professor Thornheart was just smirking.
