Supernatural Academy: Year One (Supernatural Academy #1)(84)

The rest of my days were spent trying to unravel the mystery of the missing library, going over the notes Asher had on his desk, reading Atlantean texts in the hopes of finding something that the guys had missed, and generally not sleeping, eating, or functioning because I was angry and sad and pissed and furious and devastated all at once.

The excavated spot in the demi-fey territory was behind their school, and even with all of the pushing and Mossie coming in to bat for us, we only just got permission today to finally check it out. The one thing that stopped me from just taking the permission myself was apparently they had some sort of scary-ass creatures patrolling their grounds at night, and they were the eat first, ask questions later kinda scary.

“It’s been over two months,” I complained to Jesse as both of us finished another lap of the pool. I’d taken to daily swims, going for hours in an attempt to quieten my mind. “Asher has been with them for two fucking months and we’re no closer to finding him or the library.”

I slammed my palms into the water, sending an arc over the edge. “I mean, how do I even know he’s still alive?”

“He is,” Jesse reminded me. “Axl is tracking his movements, and they’re still consistent. Whatever they’re doing, it’s deep in the ocean, and it’s a daily back and forth.”

Small comfort.

“Guys, come on,” Rone shouted from the back porch. “The official form with the final permission just came through.”

I was out of the pool so fast that Jesse got a decent splash of water in the face from my wake. Rushing into my—Asher’s—room, I changed into my clothes—which now hung next to his in the wardrobe—and was out with the guys in a minute. “Let’s do this,” I said, my voice higher than usual.

Mossie met us on the path between the academies. Demi-fey Academy was smaller than ours, housing about a thousand students. Mossie was a proud tour guide, pointing out their different facilities.

“This is the main arena,” he said, his green skin shimmering lightly, “where we have our weekly fight tournaments.”

It was a large stone stadium; through the open entrances, I could see an arena and lots of chairs for spectators.

“So the area this library is supposedly in…” I said, because right now that was literally the only area of this Academy I was interested in. “Is it clear? Or is there a building on it now?”

I was clutching a map in my hands. It was a rough sketch of both academies and was somewhat correct, but there were a few things out of place from my Academy, which made me worry that things had changed since Asher’s family had hidden their library.

“It’s clear,” Mossie confirmed. “I scouted it this morning but couldn’t see anything. I know that Princeps Linstar has also been looking, which is why it took him so long to grant permission.”

“He was hoping to find it first,” Axl said, nodding like he understood. “Priceless information would be held in those walls.”

Fucking asshole had delayed us for months. It was not good enough, and he better hope he wasn’t here today or he would hear all about it. I had a lot of pissed-off to get out of my system. My power surged, even though Louis had only repatched it yesterday. He’d told me that we were running out of time, and that the next patch would probably be my last. Which meant I would have to stop school and searching for the library to learn how to control my power.

When it rains, it pours. That saying was much more real to me these days. I mean, I wanted my powers free; I needed them for Asher. But I also didn’t have time to stop for months and train to control them. Always with the catch twenty-twos.

We reached the spot unscathed, passing a lot of interesting students along the way. I wanted to ask questions, I wanted to know what the different demi-fey were, but they were questions for later. We had started to learn about some of them in class. Race Morphology had briefly covered mermaids, trolls, and gargoyles so far, and we had a lot more still to come. Seeing them firsthand though, that was definitely better than learning about them from a textbook.

“This is where the perimeter starts,” Mossie said, waving his hand around. In front of us was a forest, behind us an outdoor workout arena with gym-like machines scattered about, but nothing I recognized. We only had general coordinates on the map, about a half-mile radius.

“Do we dig?” I asked. There was no building to search, and if they were trying to keep something secret, building an underground facility made the most sense.

“I’ll see if I can feel it first,” Rone said, striding forward. “My senses are strong, and I might be able to scent the Atlantean magic.”

I crossed fingers on both hands, because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait to get Asher back. I was unraveling. Not sleeping, barely eating, and only just managing to get my ass to class. I felt like I was failing him, and he would never have failed me.

Rone took his time, pressing his hands and then nose to the ground in different parts, but found nothing. Jesse shifted into his lion and sniffed around as well, but he didn’t scent anything either. Axl took the map and all of Asher’s notes off me again and started to calculate things.

I strolled off on my own, using the small flickers of magic I had access to, hoping to sense something. But I didn’t get even a single buzz of magic in the area. It was almost like we were in a magic dead zone.