matter from what she told me.
“Not funny?” she asked with a pained expression.
I shook my head.
She sighed. “Yeah, maybe not.”
We turned our attention back to the instructor, and I wondered if we were supposed to wear combat clothes for this class, too, because if we were, I didn’t get the memo. I wouldn’t mind trying her outfit on for style though.
It looked so much more and less constricting than the kilt and starched blouse I currently had one.
“You can call me Sloane. Not Professor Sloane. Not Miss Sloane. Just Sloane. Got it?”
No one replied, but a few in our large group nodded.
“Now, since we had to split everyone into two groups, I only get you two days a week. That’s two days a week to try to teach you what I learned in my first year at the Officers’ Academy. And they want you to learn it all in the next four weeks.”
She was an Arcane Officer? I wondered if there were many females in the same position. If there were, they must’ve been shoved behind desk jobs, because Sloane was only the second I’d ever seen, if I included Elias’... friend. And we’d seen a lot of them around lately.
There were some grumbles from the group, and some genuinely excited looks and whispers from the others.
“Yes,” Sloane continued, bellowing out her speech so it echoed all through the cavernous room. “It’s going to suck. You’ll be sore, and tired every day by the time we’re through, but it’ll be worth it when we’re done.”
As if I wasn’t already sore and tired anyway. Bring it.
Sloane clapped her hands together, and the floor vibrated before two straight lines of training dummies sprang up from the floor out of nothing. We had to jump back to avoid getting hit by the one closest to us.
“Everyone square off in front of a dummy. Let’s get started.”
I was a ball of hurt later that evening after I’d hauled my aching bones to the showers and then back down to the library. Sloane decided it was best to focus our efforts on the physical aspect of Magical Defense for the first day. Like reflexes, and strength.
Turned out those dummies weren’t just any ordinary practice dummies. When Sloane blew her whistle, they came alive with swinging arms and kicking legs. Almost life-like save for their faceless, square-shaped heads and footless legs and fingerless hands. Try to strike the dummy, she’d said. And it was the only instruction she’d given to the class as a whole.
So for two whole hours, all we tried to do was hit the stupid things. Marcus managed to hit his twice, and Bianca and I each once. Which, from what Sloane said, wasn’t awful for our first try. Only a handful of others even managed to skim theirs with poorly aimed fists or weak kicks.
I took the compliment, but Sloane hadn’t seen me fall on my face three times before I managed to hit it. If she had, I doubted I’d have been recognized for one punch that was more than likely sheer dumb luck.
I clutched the railing a little harder than usual on my way down the stairs, needing the extra support. My thighs were on fire, and with each step, my legs shook from overworking the lazy muscle within. I hoped the next lesson was more focused on the magical aspect of defense. I didn’t think my body could handle another evening lesson like today’s.
When I hit the bottom of the stairs, I sighed and limped the rest of the way up the east corridor and down the north one into the library.
Cal and Adrian had left to go for that long run I’d wanted them to take. I wished they hadn’t gone at night, but now that we knew it was someone inside the academy and not some beast outside that was to blame, it took some of my worry for them away.
They were big boys—they could handle themselves. Besides, their absence gave me time to think of a good way to tell them what I’d learned from Draven. Once they found out it was some psychopath student or professor that was killing people, they wouldn’t leave my side. And I didn’t want them to be subjected to the same suspicion that was thrown at me on the daily.
I didn’t think Adrian had it in him to sit there and take it. I didn’t think I did either if it came down to defending them. The other spoiled rich