Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,50
with delicate gold patterns sewn into the cuffs and high collar. His pants were white and flowing and his feet were bare, maybe to give him some freedom, or to keep him in touch with the ground. I’d never seen a person with more natural nobility—aside from Victoria.
Please don’t expel me, Ms. Jules. Please… I just needed a few more hours, and I’d reveal everything to her. The pixies just had to hold off until then.
“Good morning. I trust everyone rested well and took pause for self-reflection?” His voice was lilting and musical, but the inference in his words was anything but soft. A grumble of assent made its way through the class of twelve. His obsidian eyes glanced at Genie for a moment, as if offering her the opportunity to speak. When she didn’t, he continued.
“I am partial to the saying: ‘This is the first day of the rest of your lives.’ However, that would be untrue, in this instance. Instead, I will say that this is the first day toward saving your lives. Monster hunting is complex and uniquely personal, as you will discover throughout your education here. There are the basics, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach.” He gestured to the group. “You each have your own set of skills and talents, of varying levels of intensity and utility, and you must decipher which are of the most value to you when facing a monster in the field. Monster hunting is as much about the mind as it is about the physicality, for one lapse in judgment can cost you everything. Now, you will find that I have a very practical approach to teaching. It’s easier to learn by showing than telling, though textbooks do have their uses.”
And what if you only have your bare hands? A different current of nausea churned in my belly. The normal, anxiety-driven kind—not the imminent-Purge kind—blending with the missing-pixie kind. I’d made it through several stages in the exam before the banshee happened, but what if I didn’t have a satchel to swing or a convenient lightning bolt at my disposal? We hadn’t even begun, and I already felt like I was at the bottom of the class. Not in a self-pitying way, just in a practical, logical sense; I’d come to a firefight with a blunt spear.
Hosseini raised the sea-green box in his hand. With a better view, I could see that each face of the box was covered in intricate silver designs etched directly into the matte metal. A sheen rippled across the surface like a mirage, the etchings glowing faintly.
“What’s in there?” said a meathead with enormous biceps, jabbing a sausage-like finger at the box. He was actually called Theodore Isherwood, I learned—or Teddy, to his friends.
Hosseini smiled. “Let us find out, shall we? Genie, if you would be so kind as to demonstrate for us?”
“Demonstrate?” Genie looked startled. I gave her a gentle push forward, setting aside my pixie thoughts for a second. Evidently, Hosseini had high hopes for my friend, and wanted to show the rest of our class what a remarkable magical they had in their ranks. He was giving her the platform she needed for the exposure therapy she’d been scheming.
“Yes,” Hosseini said simply. “If you come up, I will unleash the creature.”
“Go,” I urged in a whisper.
Genie stepped out of the crowd and took up her position in the open space at the far side of the room. Lines were drawn at intervals across the rough stone floor to mark out a pitch of some sort—much better for running and fighting than the smooth concrete. To test our capturing skills from different distances, perhaps? Without prompting, she moved behind the farthest line, while Hosseini went to the opposite side. He set the box on the floor and pushed down on a harp-shaped symbol. Then, he backed away, retrieving a baton from the trunk where he’d gotten the box. No, it wasn’t a baton… It looked, unless I was mistaken, like a shock stick.
That can’t be right. They wouldn’t use something like that here, would they? Maybe it was solely for the new recruits, in case anything went wrong. When it came to the safety of students or monsters, the students would always come first. Still, it left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Anger, maybe. Using a device like that was cruel, plain and simple.
Before I could think about it for long, black mist erupted from the box and started to take shape