Spycraft Academy B. Miles (new ebook reader txt) 📖

her, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid the fire altogether like in the arena. This was close quarters. This was a place where he couldn't escape. The smell of crisping skin crammed into Sam's nostrils and his shoulder was suddenly a pulped bag of weeping meat, throbbing and cringing away from the fresh air that stung like a million sharp needles.

"Don't worry." Delcan came to a stop a yard away from Sam, too close for comfort. "I have at least some honor. I'll let you try your hand at defending yourself."

Sam bared his teeth at the two girls who had cut them off. June and Brie. They darted for him and grabbed Mattie. She hissed and spit, but the other girls managed to drag her from underneath Sam. He lurched for her, stretching to catch her, but he was yanked back by his shirt.

His ass hit the ground and he bolted to his feet, grabbing the side of the pond with one hand and his knife in the other. The two other men standing behind Delcan sniggered at the small, rusted weapon.

There were only four others with Delcan but he usually ran with five. Was the other girl, Prin, lying in wait, ready to slice him open if he got a hit in?

And the real question, just as it always was—would this be the day he died?

"You know..." Delcan took a few steps and Sam's muscles tightened even further. "There's something about you that I just don't like. I can't seem to put my finger on it. If you want to know the truth . . ."

Delcan held out his hand and a small flower of flame burst into his palm.

The truth.

"The truth is, I'm doing this school, this country, a favor by taking you out of it. Spirits know what you might fuck up if you're allowed to fight for it."

The truth was that Delcan had all but said he was going to kill Sam. Mattie too, if he had to guess. The sea wasn’t far from the end of the alley. Delcan's crew could just throw the two of them into the churning waters. The school would write them off as deserters, wipe their hands, and be thankful they didn't have any families to notify. The truth was, if Sam didn't think of something, this was where it all ended.

Mattie's screams for help were muffled by hands over her mouth, her movements stilled by tight holds on her arms and legs.

Sam's lungs pumped out heavy billows of air and sweat gathered along his hairline. He was going to die. He was going to let Mattie get killed. He had to do something, but what? What could he do? What could he do except die and welcome oblivion?

He was exhausted. He'd been exhausted since he was a kid. It was a soul-deep, unshakable sap of strength and energy, whispering for him to just close his eyes. A man's cracked voice, It's time to go to sleep, Sammy-boy.

The figures around him blurred into blobs of color. Not the color of their clothes, their hair, or their skin, but the colors of a prism. A smudge of yellow at Delcan's right shoulder, a smudge of indigo at his right. An unruly slash of red where Delcan used to stand. Blackness closed in on them like a window, getting smaller and smaller until he could only see red and black.

The truth . . . of oblivion!

Black trumps red.

Sam sucked in a lungful of air as reality crashed back into focus. He didn't know if he'd ever closed his eyes, how long he'd been zoned out, or what had happened, but he suddenly wasn't worried about the 'why' of anything right now.

He curled his fingers, his knuckles like jagged rocks to slice flesh. Instead of swinging, instead of doing something that would see him consumed in fire, he called for the shadows, and they answered.

The midday sunlight was suddenly gone.

Delcan jumped back and looked up, but the shadows were already over the top of the alley, sealing the mouths of each end, floating between and around them like playful snakes made of vapor.

The fire in Delcan's palm stuttered and Sam homed in on it, shooting his Will around Delcan, above him, and the blackness shrunk until it was only the two of them in a world of nothing. In Sam's world. He flicked his fingers and the arms of his encasing shadow stretched for Delcan's hand.

The blonde's eyes were huge. He looked legitimately frightened.

He yelled when the arms curled around the fire. The flames bled from red and yellow to purple and black and midnight blue, and then neither of them could see anything. Sam felt the fire in his own hand as if he were holding it too, but it was only the shadows binding him to Delcan, as if Sam himself were the noble's shadow.

It felt like ice in his hand.

Sam took a deep breath and directed the fire to Delcan. He knew exactly where the other man was on an instinctive level, felt it as if he were standing in both places at once. The flame left his hand. Delcan yelled.

Then the spell was broken.

Sam's beautiful black world was gone in the blink of an eye. He stared at Delcan, then he fell backward, his limbs not bothering to try and prop him up any longer. He stared at the sky, past the tall alley walls.

The Sheet's face was above him, blotting out the sun.

Then, nothing.

8

He got his first demerit. So did Delcan, thankfully. The blonde couldn't exactly claim innocence when Sam's shoulder was singed to all hells.

At least The Sheet got Sam to the infirmary and let him have a rest before laying into him.

And now . . . now he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do except wait to be released. He missed most of his classes but Mattie dropped in to give him the day's assignments. Today was supposed to be fun and