Bloodline Alchemy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 6), Lan Chan [free ebook reader for android TXT] 📗

that I was more than just the great-granddaughter of a criminal. Before I was any of those things, I had been a kitchen witch. It was time to remind myself of who I was.

19

Noah’s face twisted into a scowl. “Are you allowed to be in here?”

“Can you carry this?” I asked, ignoring his reticence. We were inside the Academy’s stock room where all of the potions paraphernalia was kept.

Noah held up his hands. “Relax!” I hissed. “It’s not stealing.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Well, do it while you’re helping me carry things.”

“Do you really have to take this from the Academy?”

I gave him a pointed look. “Would you like to take me to Rivia instead?”

His arm whipped out and he took the paper bags from me.

There really was a lot of stuff. “On second thought,” I said, “maybe we should borrow a trolley instead.”

“No way. This is bad enough. What are you going to do with all this stuff?”

“I’m going to make a potion that will burn you alive.”

I did a double take when he rolled it eyes. It was the most expressive thing I’d seen pass over his face. As I watched him, his eyes kept darting to my neck.

“What?”

His nose flattened. “You’ve got troll blood all over your collar.”

Oh, that. The troll had been absolutely still when I’d removed the hook from the rough skin on his underarm. But the tip of the hook had hit an artery. Blood haemorrhaged everywhere.

Shrugging, I finished getting what I needed, and we headed back. On the way out, I spotted the rare-ingredients trolley that Professor McKenna loved to wheel out on special occasions. Stacked on all of the glass shelves were ingredients that made my mouth water. Without supervision, it was so tempting to just swipe all of it. The contents of the trolley were worth a fortune.

“I never figured you for the thief,” Noah said.

“I never figured you for a snitch,” I shot back. He let out a soft growl, and I knew he’d keep his mouth shut even if it killed him now. Placing my palm over the painted rune on the top of the glass, I whispered my name and the word of light to open the cabinet. Noah groaned.

“You have the opening spell.”

I grinned at him. “Professor McKenna gave it to me in third year when I started becoming a nuisance asking for stuff all the time.”

Thinking of her made it harder to swallow. Instead, I busied myself taking only the ingredients I needed to make my health elixir. At the last minute, I decided to pocket all of the winterflowers as well. It wouldn’t hurt to see if I could transmute them into some kind of sedative. On the way out, my eyes landed on the glass cabinet stocked with sealed beakers of blood. Shuddering, I increased my steps.

We arrived back at the mansion to three cheerful faces. Noah unloaded the potions ingredients onto Charles and Luther before saying, “I will supervise when you mix the potions.”

I scowled. “Okay, well then you better start camping here too.”

Neither of us was particularly happy with that prospect. “He’s so weird,” Charles commented.

“At least he’s not jumping like I’m about to stab him in the back to harvest his essence anymore,” I said.

“Do you mind if I sleep on the floor of your room?” Cassie asked while we stashed all the ingredients inside.

“There’s more than one spare room,” I noted. She rubbed the back of her neck. “But if that’s what you want, be my guest.”

I was halfway through cooking dinner when there was a knock on the door. Eyes narrowed, I stuck my head out of the kitchen and craned my neck around the corner in time to see a statuesque brunette with hair down to her butt handing Charles a paper bag. She smiled slyly, looking him and up and down too before Cassie slammed the door in her face. Cassie grabbed the paper bag without looking at the contents, marched into the kitchen where I was suddenly preoccupied with the soup in the cauldron, and tried to toss it into the fire.

Charles leaped out in front of her, grabbing for the bag. “Hey!” he said. “Whatcha doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? This is garbage.”

Luther came into the room, his eyes ringed in red capillaries. “You don’t even know what’s inside,” he said. “It smells good.”

“It’s garbage.” She shoved Charles in the shoulder and tried to get past him.

“Cass,” he said, voice suddenly amused. “You can’t do this.”

“Do what? Since when is it a crime to throw out trash?”

She kept pushing at his chest. He wouldn’t budge. When her skin began to emit that strange glow again, I had to intervene.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Just put it into the cooler.”

“But–”

“I said, it’s okay.” That it was pushed out through ground teeth wasn’t lost on anybody.

It was unfortunate that the doorbell rang again while I was chopping up salad ingredients. This time it was an ebony-skinned girl with thin braids in her hair. She was almost as tall as Charles. A sweep of metallic silver dots were painted across her brow and cheekbones. Luther swallowed as she handed him a single golden apple. “For Max,” she purred. I felt the warm sensuality in her voice like a slap in the face.

As soon as Luther closed the door, Cassie swiped the apple from his hand, dropped it on the floor, and stomped on it.

“Cass!” he shouted. Charles grabbed her and pushed her behind him at the same time Luther and I threw up circles. The detonation of magic crawled over my circle like an intimate caress. It kissed the skin of my wrist and sank into a low heat in my gut. Luther scrunched his face and tapped at his temple as the amorous spell dissipated.

My face must have been like a storm because Charles didn’t say a word as he cleaned up the remains of the spelled apple. “What did she think was going to happen?”