this.” The provost brandishes the medal in front of him like a weapon, like if he could use it to kill me, he would. “And it’s about time someone taught you a lesson, you little bitch.”
My eyes narrow. “Wow. Original insult, truly.”
You know, Mom always told me I should take a second to think before I speak, and I probably should’ve listened to that advice. Because as soon as the words leave my mouth, Johnson’s face purples and his stance shifts.
Then he hurls a spear of rock at me.
Ah, fuck.
Chapter 24
I manage to dodge Johnson’s magical rock spear, tucking and rolling. Thank God, the one thing I’m damn good at is fighting; it’s the only thing saving my ass right now.
The crowd has lost their minds, chaos erupting around us. I launch myself to my feet and unleash a sonic boom at Johnson as several people—not just my guys, I notice—try to reach the stage to get to us. To help me or to help Johnson, I don’t know, but it almost doesn’t matter because a war is brewing in the crowd.
To my shock, Kendal’s at the front of my fellow Unpredictable students, yelling something. I’m pretty sure it’s a battle cry or at least an outraged speech of some kind about how this competition was rigged, or how Unpredictables are treated, or both.
But, damn. Okay then. You go, Kendal.
Some of the visiting mages are siding with Kendal and the rest of my classmates, but others are looking pretty damn hostile, and people are shoving and yelling. Then someone from Terra Academy conjures a massive ball of earth and stone and hurls it into the crowd.
Both sides lose their collective minds, and it’s an all-out melee.
The Unpredictables will be hugely outmatched, I realize with terror, because of their cuffs—but then Tamlin pulls something that looks almost like a whistle from a chain around her neck. She blows into it, and although I don’t hear a sound, it sends out a blast of magic like a wave, and I see all the cuffs on my classmates glow briefly before they tumble off.
She’s deactivated all of their cuffs so they can fight fair.
Okay, I definitely can’t hate her now.
It’s heartening to see that a lot of people are on the side of the Unpredictables. It looks pretty evenly divided, actually, between the ones helping us and the ones attacking us, and if that isn’t a goddamn symbol of the magical community in a nutshell I don’t know what is.
I search the crowd, trying to see if any of the guys are near me, but Johnson sends a whip of fire at me and I yelp, dodging, just barely avoiding the lash. Fuck, that would’ve hurt. I can feel the heat from it as the thin strand of fire misses my face by inches. Shit.
How the hell can he control both ice and fire? That should be impossible for an ordinary elementalist.
That’s when I notice him manipulating one of the rings on his fingers, and it hits me—those aren’t just obnoxiously garish jewelry. They’re enchanted objects. I’m pretty sure he’s a water elementalist, but with the help of all those charms, he’ll be able to throw all kinds of other shit at me.
Scrambling to regain my footing, I try to gather my wits. Okay, what do I do? I’m not sure where the guys are, or how long it’ll take them to reach me. I have to stop this somehow, and I’d like to get out of this alive, if that’s not too much trouble. My magic’s strong—or at least some of it is—but this guy’s wearing a fuckton of charms, and he has more experience than I do.
Don’t use your emotions, I remind myself. Focus. You’ve been coached by six different people by this point, for fuck’s sake.
I can do this. Or at least, I can hold my own until someone with more actual experience gets here.
Johnson claps his hands together. Some of the charms decorating his fingers glow, and a wave of water hurls itself at me.
I yank my hands up and think wall, and my sonic boom emerges, blasting the water backward, keeping it from hitting me and sweeping me away.
“Just hold on, Elliot!” It’s Asher in my head again.
Doing my best here, Ash! I shoot back. What does he think I’m doing, just lying around and letting Johnson walk all over me?
“You were supposed to die!” the balding man spits at me. “Just die already!”
Fuck, this guy really has