Bloodline Secrecy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 2), Lan Chan [readict TXT] 📗

I had thought her assessment was a bit premature, but over the next few days the snide remarks shifted from the ones about me to ones about her parents. I went to the dining hall one day to find that she hadn’t turned up after half an hour.

“Where’s Sophie?” Roland asked.

“I’m not sure.” I craned my neck around like I thought she might be hiding. “You guys need to get a better way to communicate besides mirrors. If I were a normal person, I could have texted her.”

“I thought you lived on the streets,” Trey said. “Did you even have a cell phone?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Look who I found,” Diana’s voice called behind me. She pushed Sophie into the chair beside me.

“Where have you been?”

Sophie screwed up her face.

“She was hanging outside the potions lab.”

“What were you doing there?” I asked. Then it clicked. “Were you trying to make your own meals so you didn’t have to come here?”

Her face turned beet red. “We can’t avoid people,” I said. “I tried that, remember?”

A roar of laughter erupted from the popular table. One of the Fae girls was doing an imitation for the others. There was no need to guess what the imitation was of. Sophie dropped her head on the table.

“Screw them,” I said. Over at the popular table, I caught Bradley’s eye. He held my gaze for a moment before dropping it. He’d come back to the Academy a few days after having had his arm broken but he’d still been in a sling. The Nephilim healed faster than humans, but without Kai’s help, he was still laid up for a little while.

“Uh hi.” All our heads turned to see a dark-skinned girl in light-blue jeans and a pink sweater. “Are your parents the ones who are running this low-magic campaign?”

“Sadly, yes,” Sophie said.

“I’m Wanda. Would you mind if I sat with you? I have some questions.”

“Why?” Sophie said.

Wanda cocked her head to the side. “I’m a light witch,” she said. “Third year. My mum is the witch in the family. Dad is human. I don’t know if his vote counts.”

Sophie drew a blank.

“It does,” I said, recalling the information from the reams of notes Nora had tried to impart on us. “As long as he’s aware of the community, he’s allowed to add his signature.”

Wanda sat down despite not getting express permission from Sophie. “Awesome. Because I’m tired of having to explain to people why it matters that I’m a low witch.”

Sophie put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been to this Academy since I was in the junior school,” she said. “Why is this the first time you’ve spoken to me?”

Wanda’s presence seemed to have touched on Sophie’s raw nerve. Wanda looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just didn’t want to draw any attention to myself.”

“You have other friends, don’t you?”

Wanda grimaced. “Yeah.”

“And you didn’t think to invite me to join you?”

“Soph.”

“I’m just saying,” Sophie said, “It’s all well and good to come out of the woodwork now that my parents are on this mission, but it might have been nice to have a bit of support for the last six years!”

“I’m sorry,” Wanda said. “I didn’t want to make myself a target.”

“Target?” I said.

She nodded. “Sophie has always been a bit...visible.”

I gathered this was related to Sophie’s great-grandfather.

“So instead of being my friend, you let me cop most of the heat for being a low-magic witch,” Sophie said.

“I think I should probably leave,” Wanda said.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “Sit your butt back down.”

She stopped moving, her eyes downcast. The tray of food she’d brought with her sat uneaten. I grabbed Sophie’s arm and yanked her towards the wall. We weren’t obscured but it was enough to stop Wanda from hearing us.

“Give her a chance,” I said.

“Why?” Sophie shot back. “She totally avoided me for years.” I understood both perspectives. It sucked being the one to stick your neck out. At the same time the homeless kid in me questioned whether I would have done exactly as Wanda had to survive.

“At the end of the day, nobody wants to stick out,” I said. “She was scared. It sucked that you had to be alone for so long. But if we get her on board it means we might be able to change something. Don’t you want that?”

I waited however long it would take for her to come around. She was generally a lot more reasonable than I was. When she sighed, I wrapped my arms around her. “You’re the best!”

“I bet right now my mama is wishing you were her daughter,” Sophie said.

“As well,” I said. “She’s probably wishing I was her daughter as well. Your parents adore you.”

She grinned. “Yeah, they do.”

Back at the table, she peered at Wanda. “Okay fine,” Sophie said. “You don’t have to leave the premises. What else do you want to know about the campaign and how many other low-magic users do you know in this place and outside of it?”

“A few,” Wanda said. “I can get in contact with them if you’d like.”

“We would love that!” I said.

“What’s happening with the anti-petition?” Trey asked.

I shrugged. “I’m trying to ignore it,” I said. “Amongst other things.”

We stayed so long chatting to Wanda that I didn’t get to bed until much later than I usually did. I was half dead in the morning when I dragged myself into the Grove.

Rubbing my eyes, I carried water to the Arcana tree and inspected its leaves for any sign of distress or disease. I was in the middle of another yawn and decided to lie down on the lawn for a quick cat nap. There was still a bit of time till I had to leave for class. I set the demon blade down next to me. I’d taken to carrying it with me wherever I went these days. Kind of like a security blanket. Not that I knew how to