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

“He’s malcontent,” she said in warning. “This will have to be a very short visit.”

A quick scan of the room told me there were two extra guards posted by the door. “Can you please take off his handcuffs?”

She frowned. I could sense Kai and Astrid doing the same thing behind my back. “That’s not a good idea,” Kai said.

“I just need to test one thing out with him,” I said. “This place is guarded to the teeth. There’s no way he could do anything.”

Giselle’s shoulders were resolute. For a second, I thought she might refuse. “Five minutes,” she said. “No longer.”

She removed him from his stasis. When Skander had regained most of his cognitive and physical function, Giselle unlocked the magical handcuffs that kept his hands bound behind his back. Not trusting that he wouldn’t try something, I drew a protective circle around myself and the Nephilim.

“Well, little rabbit,” Skander said. It was more of a croak. Whatever they were doing to him with these drainings was sapping more than just his magic. I had to wonder whether this prison system was all that humane. “I didn’t think I would have the pleasure again.”

“I need you to test something out with me,” I said, ignoring his attempts at creepy small talk.

“And what is that?”

I laid the demon blade in between us. This time, it was within reaching distance of him. Over his shoulder, Giselle’s eyes grew narrow. She widened her stance. It became even more watchful.

“The blade has tasted your blood,” I said. “Could you please try and call it away from me?”

A spark of light ignited in Skander’s dark eyes. I had been practicing with the blade in the Fae forest for weeks now. Each time I weaved a little more of my binding spells on it. This idea that the blade required blood had begun to wear thin on me. Blood magic was essentially dark magic. It was the reason why Lucifer and Behemoth used it. I wasn’t a blood mage or a high mage of any other kind.

I was a hedge witch. A low-magic user. So I’d begun to switch out the blood for juice from the Arcana fruit as well as salt water from the mermaid wading pool in the catchment near the billabong. The nymphs had not been happy, but they remained tight-lipped so that I could try and tame this blade. If I had Sisterhood in my lineage and had managed to change my destiny, then there was no reason why I couldn’t change the nature of a blade that I owned.

Skander readily agreed. “Whenever you’re ready. May I?”

He reached out when I didn’t deny his request and nicked his finger on the tip of the blade. For a second, the blood soaked into the metal. It illuminated the polished silver in a crimson glow. There was a moment where the blade shuddered. And then the blood dripped back out onto the mat.

“Ready?” I said, seeing Skander’s eyes widening.

We reached out at the same time. I could feel the brush of his towering power pressing against the barrier of the circle I’d erected. He might have been drained of his actual magic but his will remained intact and very much dominant.

The blade rattled on the floor. I clamped down. I slipped into the Ley dimension in my mind and tugged on the fibre of light blue that I’d weaved around the sword. My eyes were still closed when I felt the hilt press against my palm. I laced my fingers around it.

Opening my eyes, I smiled at a white-faced Skander. “Thank you,” I said.

His expression blanked. Kai must have seen the intention in the mage’s eyes at the same time I did. Skander was still mid-lunge when I felt Kai’s arms around me. The impressions of Skander’s fingers around my throat were still imprinted on me when we landed back in the portal field.

“That was close,” Astrid said.

“No more meetings,” Kai barked. As if I didn’t know that already.

“Fine with me.” I didn’t need to spend any more time with the mage anyway. Aside from scaring me, he’d given me the most important lesson already. Even the nature of a sword forged by demons for death could be changed. If I could change the nature of the blade, then I could change my own destiny.

It had been Basil who had taught me that. Whatever he had done to incur the ire of my ancestor, he’d made up for it by being my friend.

“Still no sign of recovery,” Basil informed me that night through the mirror. I hadn’t said a word about my part in Nanna’s mental imprisonment. I was still coming to terms with it. At the same time, I was avoiding the inevitable conclusion which was that I might have to eventually speak to someone in the Sisterhood about what I had done to Nanna and how to get her out of the current bind.

In the week leading up to the Halloween Showcase, the final technological protections around the Academy were completed. The dozen or so low-magic users who were a decent age were called to a debriefing at the site office of the control room.

We would be driven there in the modified Academy bus. Jacqueline, Peter, and Nora accompanied us. None of the guards were allowed to participate. The Nephilim had too much magic in their blood not to trigger the fail safes in the technology.

Kai was not happy about it.

He pressed up right next to me while we’d waited in the parking lot to be picked up. It was the first time he’d become aggressive in his protectiveness since our encounter in my bedroom. We were back to our uneasy truce.

I tried to step away, but he snagged my arm. The hard line of his jaw told me he was trying not to blatantly forbid me from going. My heart broke a little for him. The anger I’d felt had eased into