The Shadow Student (Wraithwood Academy #1) - Teresa Hann Page 0,4
his glasses were bumping into the pages. He was doing a good job of navigating the winding path despite it—long experience, probably. I was surprised to feel a ghost of a smile on my face, at the sight of a kindred spirit.
Cly marched forth, running purposefully into him.
“Hey!” she yelled, as he stumbled back. “Watch where you’re going!”
“But you ran into m—”
Cly rounded on him. “Do you know who I am? I don’t think you know who I am.”
“Actually, I don’t—”
Cly clenched her hand around empty air. The front of the student’s shirt scrunched up, as if being grabbed. And Cly lifted her arm.
But she wasn’t me. She didn’t have the experience necessary to control that amount of magic. The student merely stumbled backward as his shirt slipped right out of her invisible fist.
“Look, can we just talk this out?”
Cly’s face was reddening from her own failure. She wasn’t pretending anymore; her shame and anxiety had transmuted into genuine rage.
She tried again. This time, it worked. She lifted the student kicking and flailing ten feet into the air.
A crowd was gathering around them. “My name is Clytemnestra Redbriar,” she shouted incoherently. “You may have heard of me. Probably lies! Maybe some of you think you can get away with crossing me. I want all of you to know! Fat! Chance!”
She punctuated each word with a shake of her fist. The student jerked around like a rag doll. His glasses fell, shattering into pieces against the paving stones.
“What the hell?” I hissed at Aegis. “This is what you wanted? Bullying some random nerd? I’m stepping in—”
“She needs to uphold the family name,” Aegis insisted, grabbing my hand before I could point it at the scene below. The rune tattoos glowed along his arm, making my hand go numb. “She might not be going about it the best way, but it’s necessary—”
“You! Do! Not! Cross! Me!” To my horror, the student’s shirt was starting to slip again from her grasp. And this time, the drop was going to hurt.
“Let go of me!” I fought against Aegis's grasp.
His grip was iron. “Someone’s going to notice if you do magic!”
The student fell.
But slowed, just before he hit the ground. An invisible hand lowered him into the grass.
The crowd parted like the Red Sea in front of two handsome, cold-eyed boys.
“I heard the name Redbriar,” said the older and taller of the two.
“I see a dumbass,” said the shorter.
Cly wheeled on them. “Do you two need me to teach you a lesson too?”
The shorter one grinned viciously. “You can try. But let’s introduce ourselves first.” He gave a mocking bow. “Hello. My name is Acubens Nightfeld. This is my brother Arcturus.”
Even from this distance, I saw Cly go pale.
Chapter 3
The black-haired, silver-eyed Nightfelds were the only mage family that could rival the Redbriars for might and influence. Well, it was more complicated than that. Once, the Nightfelds had been more powerful, but Priam had wrecked them in his day, due to a weak head of the family whom he’d suckered at every opportunity. Priam used to love to tell those stories around the dinner table, the rare times he was home; the one about the cave full of giant spiders ruined my appetite every time.
But it was a year since his death, and from the bits and scraps I’d heard, House Nightfeld was well along its way to recovery. Deneb Nightfeld’s sons, Arcturus and Acubens, were the new terrors of mage society.
“The arrogance of Redbriars never ceases to astound,” said Arcturus.
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” said Acubens, cracking his knuckles. Where his brother’s face was as still and cold as ice, his smile promised hellfire.
Aegis swore. He turned and ran out of the room, footsteps thundering down the stairs.
Cly was muttering frantically under her breath, spinning up a more complex spell. Suddenly, there were three Clys, all identical. One held her ground, hands upraised and ready for casting, while the other two ran away in opposite directions.
I narrowed my eyes, recognizing her escape plan from our shared childhood. Her illusions were crude, but often worked in the moment. She was always good at weaseling her way out of trouble.
But Acubens wouldn’t be as easy to fool as a manor servant. He strolled forward, still smiling. The first Cly tried to dodge, but he was faster. “Boop,” he said, flicking her on the nose, sending her head spinning on her neck like a globe. A few nervous giggles rose from the growing audience.
He pointed