Page 15

Right as those giant forcipules closed in, Emelle sent out a sharp hum.

The branches of the gnarled tree curled around my waist, scooping all three of us up before throwing us onto the nearest sloped rooftop.

We rolled across shingles, coughing and spluttering. My whole body shook, but I still gripped the eave of the roof and peered over the edge to witness the monster scuttle right on past down below.

“That’s no monster,” Lander panted. “Some asshole Shape Shifter must have enlarged a centipede, that’s all. I could feel the magic holding its size.”

“That’s all?” Emelle repeated, mouth dropping open. “Ms. Pincette taught us about centipedes. Their venom can paralyze insects and small rodents, even at a normal size. If that thing had stung Rayna, she might be…”

Her head cranked toward me, where I was breathing in small spurts through my nose, trying to calm the panic seizing my limbs.

Not a monster, not a monster, not a monster.

A centipede. Just a centipede.

It certainly didn’t sound like just a centipede, though, when someone else screamed to our left. Our heads whipped toward the noise, and my eyes widened. Emelle gasped, and Lander cursed under his breath.

From this vantage point, we could see the giant centipede curl around another classroom, its back legs smashing into a wall and sending crumbles of stone spraying everywhere when it surged forward again—

Toward a lone student cowering at the end of the alleyway. The same one who had warned us it was coming.

“Shift it back, babe!” Emelle cried. “You have to shift it back!”

“I can’t!” Lander squeezed his eyes shut. “Whoever’s enlarging it is actively keeping it at its current size. We need an instructor to…”

At that moment, the lone student sent a ball of flame toward the giant centipede. Fire exploded in its face, and it thrashed, screeching with rage.

Get up, I told myself. If I didn’t snap out of my current emotional paralysis or whatever the hell was happening to me right now, that student was going to face actual paralysis in the next ten seconds.

I hummed. The same gnarled branch from before curled around us again, dropping us to the cobblestone, and the three of us broke out into a full sprint.

More fire flared from up ahead—the cornered Element Wielder, no doubt, throwing every ounce of magic at the centipede’s face. My hands still didn’t seem to want to reach for my knives, but my other powers stirred in response to the threat, waiting for me to grab hold of them.

“Do you think we can convince it to back down?” I shouted at Emelle.

She shook her head. “Not when it’s this pissed off.”

We skirted around the bend, coming face to face with its back legs that loomed over us like metal archways. I lowered my mental blockade and threw a single command into the centipede’s mind.

STOP.

The centipede froze.

Its mind thrashed within my hold, but that was fine by me. As long as the student could use this time to escape…

Emelle’s head whipped toward me. “Are you doing that?”

I nodded, sweat running in trickles down the back of my new dress.

“By the orchid and the owl, Rayna. Okay. Hold on tight. Lander and I are going to make sure that Element Wielder gets away and then we’ll be right back.”

They ran off, squeezing past the segmented body hand in hand.

Panting with effort, I found myself yearning for a bond with Coen that would let him sense my distress. Together, the two of us would have been able to take down this thing within seconds. As it was, the centipede’s enlarged brain made it harder for me to keep the strings of my command hooked in place. Even its thoughts were screeching and thrashing in my grip.

My control slipped a notch.

When footsteps pounded behind me, instructors shouting at each other as they assessed the threat, a bolt of fear caught me around the throat again.