Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,52

the metal. He spun them into a particular pattern, and the silver designs flared with white light before fading to a barely perceptible glow.

Applause exploded from the class. Even Teddy put his hands together for Genie’s flawless display. In fact, I was the only one not clapping. I wanted to be thrilled for my friend’s accomplishment, especially since this was our first class and she’d already aced it, but the gargoyle’s pain and anguish still throbbed in my chest. How could I applaud, knowing that gargoyle would spend its life as a punching bag?

In the end, I put on a smile and hoped Genie didn’t notice that my hands were behind my back.

Ten

Persie

An entire morning passed before I knew it, and barely a minute had gone by that I didn’t spend thinking about the escapees and my impending discussion with Victoria. Seeing that poor gargoyle had amped up my anxiety. If someone caught the pixies before I could explain to the head huntswoman, maybe they’d end up as training material. And though they might’ve pissed me off, I didn’t want that for them. Plus, the longer I spent in classes, the more time they had to cause some damage or get found.

The rest of Hosseini’s class had involved basic drills with artificial monsters: how to deal with preemptive attacks, surprise attacks, aerial attacks, every kind of attack. For the first, he’d made us sit and meditate, listening for the sound of a monster approaching to sense their incoming direction. I’d been pretty good at that, able to feel the artificial emotion coming off the hologram beasts. As for the surprise attacks, those had mainly involved retaliating with magic, so I’d been forced to improvise, which had mostly involved ducking and rolling, and aerial attacks weren’t much different in terms of how I could defend myself. Hosseini had unveiled different augmented reality scenarios at the touch of a snazzy button—woodland, desert, mountains, and water—and taught us how to use the surroundings to our advantage.

When he’d asked me to try and capture an artificial monster, I’d muddled through. He’d put me up against a loup-garou in a barren wasteland scenario that weirdly emulated an old dream of mine, minus the red sky and hot wind. The rest of the class, aside from Genie, had watched with smirks, waiting for me to fail. But I’d done my best, following Hosseini’s instruction to try and stun it with rocks. I’d missed, deliberately, but distracted the loup-garou for long enough to skim a puzzle box under it. Regardless, I’d definitely heaved a sigh of relief when it was over.

“You just need to find your own way, that is all,” Hosseini had told me. “Hunting is not about magical prowess. That merely simplifies the act because these beings stem from magic. Though your road may be more interesting in its challenges, a method will come to you, I am certain.”

Those had been Hosseini’s parting words to me. I let them bolster my resolve that I belonged there, even if the gargoyle display had left me unsettled.

After, sitting in Naomi Hiraku’s engineering lab with a view of the steely sea and its frothing whitecaps, the sour taste of the training session faded. The chic, silver, beech-paneled walls and clunky worn workbenches had a homier flavor than the glass training courts, and I knew no monsters would pop out unawares. Unless the pixies show up. I gulped with every reminder, unable to get comfortable. This should’ve been my zone, but I was too distracted to enjoy it. Still, this was where a non-magical hunter could find their “way.” And if I wanted to get an advantage over the pixies so I could plead with Victoria to let me help later, maybe I’d find it in this class. After all, when magic failed, everyone relied on technology. And the weird and wonderful stuff in here was enough to blow anyone’s mind.

“Here we have four options for capture. Can you guess which is my favorite?” Naomi laid out four objects on her personal workbench. She had an effervescence about her that proved infectious. When someone called her for help, she hurried to them as if the world might end if she didn’t move fast enough. She never walked anywhere, and I’d seen her sit for all of two seconds before she’d jumped back up to make herbal tea, which she’d then offered to the class. It would’ve looked exhausting if she hadn’t done it all with a bright smile on