“But the second,” he urges.
“The second time was…fun,” I admit, and my own lips pull up into a smile. “I might be a little jealous now. You’ll have to tell me all about it so I can live vicariously through you.”
“Hah, deal.”
I sidestep around him and drop down, kicking his legs out from underneath him. “How are you able to get out without being caught?” I ask as he lands on his butt.
“Professor Dal opens the portal in his office.” He springs to his feet so fast it’s almost like he never went down, and I have to jump to avoid another swing. “He goes between realms quite often to study demons.”
“Right, I remember him saying that.”
He unleashes a barrage of attacks on me, and there’s no more talking. He puts me through my paces furiously, forcing me to use every strike, block, and move he’s taught me over the last two weeks. I hold my own reasonably well, but half an hour later I start to slow down, my movements growing clumsier with exhaustion.
“Running out of steam?” he laughs.
“A bit. I had to get up early today so Maxon could quiz me over level eight spell casting. I passed with flying colors...but yeah, I’m beat.”
“Let’s call it an early night then. I’ll still fill out the form saying we trained for the full seven hours. It’s not like you need it, though.” He puts both scythes away. “And honestly, Addy, I wouldn’t be surprised if you get to go down to the human realm early too. You have natural talent, and now that you’ve been trained by me, you’re even better.”
“Way to stroke your own ego,” I laugh, though I hope it to be true. Maybe that’s why Professor Dal meant when he said we would move to the next level. He’s going to let me go back to the human realm.
I’m going to get to kill demons.
15
“You know,” Cass starts, and pulls the blankets off of me. She’s the realm’s most annoying alarm clock. “You can’t always depend on your roommates to bring you breakfast when you oversleep.”
“I’m sleeping in, not oversleeping,” I grumble, and reach down, yanking the blankets back up out of her surprisingly strong ghost-grip. “And I’d rather skip one meal than get up. Now let me sleep.”
“Fine, but I’m not letting you miss the match today.”
My eyes fly open. “Crap! I forgot.” The first Captura game is taking place today and starts at eleven this morning. The games can last anywhere from hours to days. The longest on record lasted ninety-seven hours, but Professor Messor has since capped the games since she took charge of the school. If no one has won by eight PM Sunday night, whoever has the most points becomes the winner. She doesn’t want anyone missing class.
“Let me sleep for like two more hours and then I’ll get up.” I roll over, curling my legs up, and close my eyes. “Then you can get me up.”
“Okay. I should probably go check on the teams and make sure they’re properly warming up.”
I chuckle softly as I’m pulled back to sleep. An extra two hours should be all I need to wake up feeling totally recharged, though when Cass comes back two hours later I still don’t want to get up.
But I’m not missing the match.
I get up, shower, get dressed, and go down to the house common room. Kaia is sitting on the couch, book in her lap and a box of puff pastries on the coffee table next to her.
“Hey, girl!” She closes her book and waves me over. “How are you feeling? You’ve been going nonstop.”
“I’m done with my crazy schedule now, and got all my hours in.”
She beams. “You’ll get your scythe! Just in time too, because there was a rumor going around the mess hall today at breakfast that we’re going to start going on missions next week!”
“Yes! I cannot wait to kill another demon.”
“And I can’t wait to kill my first.”
I sink onto the chair next to Kaia and she slides the box of pastries over. “I got up early to go to Grimsby to get these. It’s the traditional food of champions, so there’s a chance I’m jinxing us into losing.” She laughs. “But I saved three boxes for later. They’re too good to resist, and I haven’t had any since last year’s tournament.”
“Who won last year?”
“Arbiters,” she says bitterly. “They hold the best record.” She rolls her eyes. “But this year, we have some really good new team members. Several of the senior players from last year were good—really good—but started getting competitive with each other, which totally negates the point of a team sport. It was so irritating.”
