Bloodline Diplomacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 3), Lan Chan [best way to read an ebook .TXT] 📗

“Nice night,” I said. Tony the gargoyle crossed his bulging arms over his chest.

“What are you doing out here?” he all but grumbled. Even his speech sounded like rocks scraping against each other.

“I had a nightmare. Can’t go back to sleep.”

“You’re not supposed to be leaving the dorms.”

Except this wasn’t the first time I’d done it, and I certainly wasn’t the only student who had ever slipped out of their bed. I had a feeling he was unconcerned with what the other students did.

“I’m going to the library. Unless your orders are that I’m not allowed out of the building.”

The scowl on his face deepened. I imagined a craftsman gouging his expression out of a lump of clay.

“You can tag along if you think that’s going to help you,” I suggested. I wasn’t sure how I felt when he started to pace forward behind me. So I wasn’t allowed to be alone at night but I wasn’t banned from going places either. This new set of rules was confusing. Inside the library, I used the mirror network to look up books on demon possession.

Tony’s caterpillar brows shot up to the sky. That he knew what books I wanted to read said a lot about how close he was standing.

“At least they’re not books about the Sisterhood,” I grumbled.

He stood outside my reading corral the same way he had stood guard in front of the dorms. I’d purposefully tried to pick books that we hadn’t gone through in class, but they didn’t tell me much more. Mostly it was the same rules that I had heard already in Demonology 101.

A true demon’s power lay in perverting the mind of the person it possessed. They poked and prodded the person until that person could no longer distinguish whether it was their own thoughts or that of the demon. Sometimes, the person didn’t have a clue as to what was happening. The ones who did often suffered in ways far deeper than the ones that were oblivious. I thought of Nanna. It was difficult to tell which camp she fell into. The pictures of the ones who fought the possession were gruesome. There were people who lashed out physically at either society or themselves. Their behaviour became erratic until their families swore they didn’t know them anymore.

Nanna hadn’t fought, but she hadn’t given up either. It would seem that the reaction all had to do with the demon in question.

There were no accounts of a possession by Lucifer himself. I thought of his extreme focus. There was no way he would settle for possessing a person’s thoughts. He was the type to want everything. Body and soul.

I held my hand out in front of me and drew a small circle. I heard Basil’s voice assuring me that no being from the Hell dimension could reap the benefits of the Earth. If I were possessed by Lucifer, I shouldn’t be able to draw the invisibility circle. The door of the corral opened. Tony stepped in. I let the spell drop.

His gaze landed on me. The frown was justified.

“No spells,” he said. That was new.

“Says who?”

The gargoyle ground his teeth. “Just don’t do any spells.”

I rolled my eyes and picked up another book. Mostly they all repeated the same ideas. The Academy had a wealth of information but most of it wasn’t accessible to me. Next time I was in Rivia, I made a mental note to pick up some books that were outside the scope of this place. I blinked and found my head was rested sideways on the table. Somehow I’d fallen asleep with the page stuck to my face. I was pretty sure I’d woken myself up with a snore. Tony was still guarding the door. I could see the edge of the skylight from where I was sitting. The first grey hues of dawn were beginning to light up the sky. If Tony stayed here much longer, he would turn back to stone.

I opened up the corral door and rubbed my eyes. “You can stand down now,” I said. “I’m going back to the dorm.”

He followed me all the way back. I had a feeling if I snuck back outside, it would be to the disgruntled annoyance of him right outside the door. I wasn’t sure what he thought I would be doing with the Academy coming alive for the day.

I got in an hour of meditation, packed my things into a small suitcase, and left it beside my door. When I arrived at the Grove, the nymphs were in a frenzy. I had told them that I wouldn’t be able to look after the trees for the next four days, but they were acting as though they were only just coming to terms with the news. I watered everything to the distinct sounds of little sighs and moans.

For sure they were lamenting the fact that I was a work shirker. When I was done, they turned their backs on me while I marched back down the path leading out of the Grove. They were acting as though I’d made the choice to go to Terran.

I reported to the portal field as set up by Jacqueline to find her and Kai waiting for me. He held on to a leash that attached to a collar around the neck of the dingo. I was sure some of the dingo shifters would take exception to that.

The animal’s head lifted. His nose twitched when I got close. H lunged towards me, straining against the leash. Kai didn’t move an inch. He was miles stronger than any human animal. I wasn’t sure why, but the sight of it irritated me.

When I got close enough, I held my hand out for the leash. Strangely enough, the dingo had stopped tugging and was now starting at me out of his brown eyes.

“Can’t you let him off the leash?”