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

“Stop it!” I screamed. The nymphs hissed at me, their teeth pinprick points. Basil made muffled sounds of distress as the nymphs tried to rip him apart. Stupidly, I stuck my hand in between them and got scratched for my troubles. “Ow!”

Their claws were as sharp as their teeth. A gash opened up a fissure along the thin skin on the back of my hand. Blood pooled around my wrist. “Dammit! What’s your problem? I told you he’s not a demon. Kai already tested him!”

The swarming ceased immediately. Purple turned her head to the side and chirped. I couldn’t begrudge them their reaction to Kai’s name. But I was bleeding quite heavily at this point. I braced my other hand around the wound and put pressure on it. The stinging was making my eyes water. It was only when I saw the amethyst glow along my skin that I realised their nails were poisoned.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” I said. Purple snagged my sleeve and yanked me into the Grove. Basil followed without any further harassment. The wards around the Grove shuddered for an instant as he passed, but he was so wrapped up in layers of my magic that I doubted the spells could tell us apart. I was led to the reflective pool where the nymphs made me dip my hand into the water. Bracing myself for the sting, I was perplexed when the tingle of pleasure ran up my arm. When I pulled it out of the water, my skin was no longer broken.

Of course the water was enchanted. I didn’t know why it had never occurred to me. No wonder the Arcana trees grew so quickly. Speaking of Arcana trees, I hadn’t forgotten why I needed Basil here in the first place. “If you’re done having a mini meltdown,” I said. “I would like to get this over with.”

I’d drawn so many protection circles now that it had become almost second nature. The problem was that I had never tried on something this large scale. “Remember that blood magic is very potent,” Basil said. “You only need a little if you have enough conviction.”

The Grove was nowhere near as big as the Fae forest. For some reason the nymphs hated the Fae with a passion. Relations back in the origin dimension were obviously not good. “Drop into the Ley dimension,” Basil instructed. “It’ll be easier for you to get an idea of how big a circle you need to draw.”

The one good thing about learning to meditate was that it made it much easier for me to access the web of Ley lines. I didn’t even need to draw a circle to slip into the realm of power that held the image of the lines. I never got tired of watching the lights that splintered out into a web so intricate it was like looking at the cities on the Earth from space. Locating myself was always an exercise in pinpointing the throb of blue light.

There I was inside the Grove surrounded by the glow of a dozen smaller lights. I unsheathed the demon blade from behind my back and nicked my finger with the tip. The pain was acute, but I bit my lip and breathed past it. Anyone who deployed blood magic all the time needed to get their head checked. It was not in any way a fun exercise. But it was effective. And very personal. The nymphs had to have known that. They wanted me connected to the Grove so that if the Sisterhood came, my magic would be alerted.

Without waiting to contemplate everything the way I did with my other lessons, I let all of the tension ease from my mind and began to draw.

“Imagine the Grove being surrounded by a sigil,” Basil said. “Let it be linked to your well of magic.” I placed a circle metaphorically in the grass. To my surprise, a red line appeared in the web. It flashed as I moved my fingers, encasing the grove in blood magic. The red glowed brightly for a second once the circle was complete. And then the red began to morph and distort. Blue seeped into the crimson and ate it away until the whole Grove glowed in the dark blue and black of my magic.

Opening my eyes, I reached out and placed a spot of blood on the forehead of each of the nymphs. More of them appeared to be anointed. As I touched each one of them, I imagined a circle around them. If everyone was right and the Sisterhood were indeed low-magic witches, then I wasn’t sure how much protection it would give them. All I could hope for was that they would be given a second’s notice if they were being attacked. That might be enough to give them time to get away.

I was about to cut off my connection to the web when I caught something dark flare on the edge of it. But it was far away, and I was distracted a moment later but a spot of bright green that was circling around the Academy.

It was six in the morning. I knew Kai didn’t have a guard shift. He and Astrid were working together in the evenings to try and get her used to the pace of a rotating shift. Yet there he was patrolling. So much for everything being pointless.

I hesitated for a moment. If what Nora had said was true, it could be that the Sisterhood was targeting all of the Councillors. I knew he would rather die than have guards babysitting him. He was a Nephilim, after all. But Artemis had been Nephilim too. Look what happened to him. My mind made up, I cast the same circle around Kai as I had around the Grove. There was a slight chance that he would feel the circle but that didn’t matter. As long as it protected him if