Cruel Magic (Royals of Villain Academy #1)(42)

Shelby shook her head vehemently. She ducked to grab a premade sandwich out of one of the fridges. “They’ll either say I’m fine or tell me I need to stay in for treatment, and I can’t risk missing any classes. It only takes a couple and they kick you right out of the program.”

“Even if you’re sick?”

“I don’t know. They’re pretty strict about dedication and all that. I don’t want to take the chance.”

She was running herself ragged to stay in a place where nearly everyone treated her like dirt. The pressure around my heart clenched tighter. “Is it really that important, if they’re going to be assholes about it?”

“Yeah,” Shelby said simply. “It is. There’s no other school that offers the kind of specialized individual training they do here. Lots of people end up dropping out because it’s tough, but the ones who make it through—I could get a spot in any orchestra I want, pretty much. I’m not losing that opportunity. I promise, it’s nothing serious anyway.” She sighed as she headed back to her room. “I just wish they’d fix that tree.”

“Tree?” I repeated.

She waved toward the far wall. “There’s a big oak by the west field. When the wind picks up, it’s making this weird sound. That happened back home once, and it turned out the tree had gotten hollowed out by a parasite—it crashed all of a sudden when I was walking home and practically gave me a heart attack.” Her eyes glazed in memory or maybe with the fever. “I told one of the maintenance staff, but I don’t know if they cared. My skin keeps jumping every time I hear it.”

She drifted into her bedroom with her sandwich and her music book. I debated marching her down to the medical center myself, but maybe it was just a cold, nothing serious. She’d know better than I would.

Of course Villain Academy would have to offer a huge reward to offset the torture the university put its Nary students through. I couldn’t blame Shelby for wanting to hang on. But would she still think the torment was worth it if she knew just how much she was being used?

I wavered for a minute, torn between the impulse to help her somehow and the worry that I’d ruin her dream if I intervened. In the end, I headed out of the dorm.

My own pickings in the kitchen were getting awfully slim. A walk into town to get away from this place and stock up on groceries—including plenty of cheese for Deborah—sounded appealing. I could take the path through the forest where I’d send plenty of wild creatures scurrying and stockpile some more magic.

Some seniors were playing a casual game of football on the field by the front of the school. It was warm enough that a bunch of the guys had pulled off their shirts. Most of them were pretty fit, but Connar’s brawny form still stood out among them, the planes of his muscular shoulders and chest as much chiseled perfection as his face was. I watched him for a moment, wondering if I’d catch a hint of the connection that had seemed to be there yesterday, but his gaze slid right over me.

It’d be silly to expect more than that. I let all thought of him and the other scions go as I started along the winding woodland path.

It had rained overnight, but I only had to dodge a few puddles. As the rustling quiet of the forest closed in around me, something in my chest released. I drank in the fresh spring air and the tiny quivers of nervous wildlife.

I could keep doing this. I’d held firm this long. I was learning, getting stronger. Soon I’d be fully enrolled in the school, and as I expanded my powers, I’d be able to figure out how the teachers kept the campus protected. How to bring those protections down. How to remove whatever tracing spell the blacksuits had placed on me.

One step at a time, all the way home.

Browsing the grocery store alongside all the ordinary shoppers grounded me even more. By the time I set back off toward campus, two bulging bags slung over my shoulders, a little spring had come into my step.

The past was the past. I just had to let the garbage they threw at me roll off me and move forward.

Then a dark shape hurtled out of the woods with a growl and a flash of gleaming fangs.

A shriek escaped me with a lurch of my pulse. I stumbled backward, not fast enough to dodge.

The creature sprang at me, its massive paws shoving me back under its weight. I fell in a patch of mud by the side of the path with a smack of pain through my back and hot breath by my throat.

I lay there frozen as the creature glowered down at me, still growling. It was a wolf. A large one, with mottled gray-and-black fur and gleaming amber eyes. It snapped its teeth at me, and I flinched.

A whistle cut through the forest. The wolf’s head shot up and around. A cool, smooth voice tinged with amusement reached my ears.

“I see you’ve met my familiar.” Malcolm gave a shorter whistle and snapped his fingers by his side, and the wolf wheeled. It leapt off me and trotted over to join the Nightwood scion where he’d come to a stop on the path.

“Good boy,” he said, scratching the fur behind its left ear. The smile he gave it was the softest expression I’d ever seen on his face. I couldn’t expect him to aim anything like affection at me.

I shoved myself upright, abruptly aware of the damp stickiness coating the back of my shirt—and, ugh, my hair was full of mud too—now that I wasn’t in imminent danger of having my throat torn out.

“Maybe you should keep it on a shorter leash,” I snapped. I wanted to keep my composure, but my nerves were frayed. Fuck, he’d probably gotten ten times more power from my terror in the last minute than I had during the entire walk through the forest.