She grimaces but nods. “I mean…better?”
I roll my shoulders, feeling the ghost of King Legend’s claim tug at my bones.
Almost.
“Ready?” she asks.
At my nod, she snaps her fingers, and the wall dissolves in a pulse of magic revealing two portals.
I look to Elena. “Now what?”
She frowns and steps up to the one across from her. “Did you pay attention to nothing back home?”
My grin stretches slow, and her expression grows wearier by the second. “Do you not realize where I’m from?”
Her frown deepens and a legit giggle bubbles up my throat. “Okay, if you didn’t pick up on it at that little announcement show, that’s your bad. You’re the one who has to sleep in the same room as me…” I cluck my tongue. “Maybe this is going to be a little more fun than I thought.”
“What does that mean?” she whispers.
My smile grows and I spin around, putting my arms out. “See you later,roomie.”
I fall into the portal, head-fucking-first.
Chapter Nine
Haide
The world spins sideways, then inside out. Magic tears at my skin like it doesn’t want me here either, which is fair—I wouldn’t let me in if I were them.
But then, that’s what makes it fun.
I crash to the ground like a meteor in heat.
Stone slams against my knees and palms, a shockwave of power whooshing through the lecture hall the second my body hits the floor. Gasps echo around the chamber—sweet, startled sounds—and it takes me a full second to realize I’ve landed right in the center of the room. Dead center. The eye of some shiny, sculpted hurricane of stunned silence.
Tables arc around me in clean concentric rings, tiered for maximum judgment, and every seat is filled with someone who looks like they’ve never seen a girl drop out of hell before.
Lucky them.
I pop up with a grin.
“Well, this looks like it’s going to be as boring as I assumed it would be.”
No one moves. Not the professor, not the students, not the glowing board behind me with floating notes mid-lecture. The only sound is a single rune quill that clatters to the ground near the front row.
I pick it up, and flick it back to the wide-eyed boy it belongs to.
“You dropped your stick.”
He doesn’t catch it. It bonks off his chest and rolls across his desk.
Someone snorts behind him.
A silver-haired girl narrows her eyes at me like she’s trying to determine if I’m diseased or just…uncivilized.
At the head of the class, the professor, an older male with curling bronze tattoos climbing his throat, clears his. “And you are?”
“Bored, thanks for asking.”
