Bloodline Legacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 4), стр. 31
Sophie blanched. The weak grip she had on my hand turned to steel. “These games aren’t a joke, Lex. You saw what it was like inside the Shadow Ball arena. Imagine that times a hundred. They won’t drag you out unless you’re in mortal danger.”
“I know! I’ve seen the bloody footage.” It made me consider quitting supernatural society.
She sighed. “It does feel like you can’t seem to go five minutes without getting in trouble. Sometimes it makes me think you might have a target on your back.”
I didn’t believe in premonitions. I steadfastly refused to. It was a slippery slope between premonitions and prophecy. But something she said made me shudder. Any of the supernatural sorceresses would probably swear that a shade had walked through my soul. I swiped at my nose. That couldn’t be true. I would have seen it if it happened.
At least that was what I told myself.
We were outside the dining hall now. Or what had become of the dining hall. Both of us were so scattered that we just walked in the general direction until we hit a gaggle of people.
“Did we take a wrong turn?” I asked.
Sophie scanned the area. “I don’t think so.” She pointed over the top of the crowd where an enormous pavilion had been erected. The layout of this place had changed while we were in the assembly. “Communal dining hall. Bruno told me a few weeks ago that we would all be eating together.”
“Does that mean you have to work with kids from the other Academies?”
Her grimace was becoming more leonine every day. “There are some Dominion kids,” she said. “But apparently Pantheon and Nightblood don’t lower themselves to working.”
“So who makes their food?”
“They hire workers. Most of them are para-human.”
I groaned.
“You can tell it’s a Unity year,” I heard Isla say behind me.
“It’s a Unity year,” I mimicked in a singsong voice.
Without turning around, I heard her gruff laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re over it already?” she said. “It’s only day one. Just wait until it ramps up closer to the actual games.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
She gave me a withering look. We might be sort-of friends but that didn’t mean she’d suddenly turned into a soft-touch. “Do you even think before you get yourself into these situations?” she asked. My blank stare said it all. “There is a tradition of pranks associated with the Games. I thought you already got hit by one.”
She scanned the crowd. Her gaze landed on the group of vampires lingering by the water fountain. Over here I couldn’t move an inch without invading someone’s personal space. Where they stood, it seemed like someone had erected a forcefield. The crowd was giving them a wide berth.
Andrei was amongst them. He sat on the ledge of the wall, leaning over and watching me walk by.
“He didn’t even get in trouble for it,” Sophie said.
“I didn’t rat him out,” I informed her.
Isla huffed. “Even if you did, nothing would have happened. You know he’s related to Victoria Amos, don’t you? A little prank means nothing to them. They summon demons in classes, for goodness sake!”
“How is that acceptable?”
“How do you think they train?” Isla asked. “Half of them are bloody necromancers. They have to invoke demons.”
“Are you saying that while they’re here, they’re going to be summoning?” She shrugged. “Jacqueline said they weren’t allowed to do it on Bloodline soil.”
Isla grabbed my jaw and turned it to where the new dining hall intersected with the vast lawn that ran around the area. “Bloodline ends just about there,” she pointed out. “Jacqueline doesn’t have jurisdiction over the rest of the land. What they do there is their own business. And I can tell you now, their business is messed up.”
I couldn’t believe it. So much so that I must have appeared shaken when we finally got our food and found the rest of our friends.
“What’s wrong with her?” Roland asked. “Something I need to worry about?” It would have been touching if he didn’t grab a mirror out of his pocket to get in touch with his supernatural version of a bookie.
“Did you guys know that Nightblood conjure demons in their lessons?” I blurted out.
“Yeah,” Trey said. “It’s why there aren’t any other species in their Academy besides vamps and necros.”
“Why are they allowed to do it at all?”
I could see Sasha’s eyes twitching. It occurred to me that my prejudice was showing. “Sorry,” I said. “Is that offensive?”
Sasha shook himself. “I forget sometimes that you didn’t grow up in our world,” he said. “There’s no doubt Bloodline’s curriculum is the best. That’s why we’re flooded with Nephilim and Fae. But there are some people in the vampire community who think Jacqueline does too much to try and shield us from the darker arts.”
It was true that in the scheme of things, Bloodline had a relatively small population of students from the vampire community.
“How come you don’t go to Nightblood then?” Diana asked.
Just then Andrei and his horde glided past us. They wore oppressiveness like a shroud. There was an air of gloom around them that was almost reminiscent of the despair I felt when I’d fallen into the Hell dimension.
Sasha jerked his head in their direction. “There’s a reason why only about sixty percent of Nightblood students graduate. The rest have to be put down before they even make it to this age. All that interaction with the forces of Hell eventually wears you down. I like my head where it is.”
Trey asked me the million-dollar question. “I heard Andrei left you a present last night. What in the world did you do to him?”
Sasha snorted. It was a strange sound coming from the often-composed vampire. “She doesn’t need to do anything to him. Her very existence is enough.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He