Braving the Elements (Darkness #2)(20)

Her red lips pulled back into a sickly smile. “Oh, poor baby. You push your master to get you in school, but you aren’t ready for it.” She shrugged, gathering her students’ attention like flies to poop, which was exactly how this whole thing smelled. “I guess you’ll have to learn on the fly.”

Master, huh?

Anger licked at my awareness, surging. I didn’t know what the heck she’d just done, but I roughly knew the elements she’d called, and roughly the shape the magic took. Gathering all the ingredients to me, I waved my hands like I thought I’d seen her do, and then gave the thick cloud of red a little push with my palms, nudging it forward gently.

The chair exploded.

Oops.

Wood splinters rocketed out and sprayed the class like bullets. Some students ducked, some crawled away, and one guy, apparently a ninja, did a spider jump, turned it into a flip, and landed on his feet five feet away with his dagger out.

“Care to explain what the hell you just did?” Darla screeched.

I faced her with hunched shoulders. “Blew up my chair?”

Her eyes burned into me as the rest of the students drifted out of their sheltered places. “Who taught you to do that?”

Ninja warrior had not tucked away his dagger.

I shrugged, digging my hands into my pockets. My gut twisted. “I thought I was doing what you did…”

“What incantation did you use?” she demanded.

I grimaced. “I didn’t. I tried to just download the right elements, swirl them around, and kinda…drape them over the chair…”

“Download the right elements? Swirl them around?” Her long red nails tapped her crossed arms.

“That’s how she thinks of it,” Charles helped.

Darla’s cool gaze fell on Charles. “Ah yes, the boy wonder. Youngest Watch Commander in a century. And here you are, playing bodyguard to the Boss’s pet. How far have we sunk?”

It was Charles’s turn to hunch his shoulders. Unlike with the elements or with the sword stuff, Charles wasn’t packing a whole lot of confidence in this class. At least we were in it together.

Her gaze speared me again before she turned with a whoosh, her silky black hair flying. “Pair up. Dog and dog walker, break apart. Let’s do some simple spells. How about containment spells? Go.”

“That’s easy?” Charles mumbled.

I looked around the circle, knowing no one would want to pair with me. I knew I would have to wait until the least liked kid in class had to come shuffling over to pair with the dropout. God, this sucked.

To my horror, Darla noticed the situation, and took matters into her own hands.

“Doggy, pair up with Adnan. Go.”

The ninja, fortified with a glare, stalked up to me. Straight, simple movements bespoke an ordinary guy. The fact that he’d just flipped through the air had me intensely nervous. Unlike Gabe, this would be the wrong guy to accidently blast.

“Hi,” I squeaked.

He frowned in response.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I warned.

“Then stand there and look pretty. You’re apparently great at that.”

Ouch. But also, thanks for the compliment.

He held his hands out, palms facing each other. In that strange language, he began chanting. Well, he could’ve been spitting and hissing for all I knew, but I felt the magic collect and pull, fanning that heat in my chest. Pale red formed between his hands—now green—now red again. He straddled the cusp of power, but I felt more available within him.

“Can you just stop for a sec?” I asked as politely as I could.

His eyes flicked up with a glower. “Why? I’m not going to show you what I’m doing. You should have been here at the beginning of class for that.”

I grimaced to prevent myself from retorting like a wiseass. This guy could kick my ass—bad news with Charles on the other side of the room. “I just want to help.”

“How the hell can you help?”

Darla hung around near Charles, occasionally petting his muscles or rubbing her fingers across the base of his neck. She was occupied.

“Look, I’m an idiot, yeah, and I largely haven’t a clue, but I do somehow know how to help others grasp magic. At least, I can with Charles and Master Bert. And, uh, Jessiah.” This was not a time for my face to turn red when I mentioned a new crush.

His frown intensified. “What?”

“Just…do it again, and let me put my hand on your skin, that’s all.”

“Is this some weird attempt at seduction?”

“I can assure you, no.”

Frustrated—he didn’t seem to have a lot of patience—he shrugged me off with a, “Whatever.”

He started again, not allowing me to touch his arm, since that would distract him, so I put it on the side of his stomach. I really tried not to feel his bumpy lateral muscle.

It wasn’t me doing the seducing.

“Okay.” He concentrated, his intensity blocking off some of his magic flow. Charles did it constantly. Too uptight.

I closed my eyes, focused on his block as I drew in magic, and gradually pulled, forcing more magic through to break that block. “Loosen up,” I murmured.

He gasped. When I opened my eyes, the magic hovering in front of him, waiting for a command, was deep red.