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

was no use. One could not grab a shadow; they could only guide it.

There was a shriek, a crash, and then June went tumbling into Delcan, pressing her hands tight to her ears. Sam snapped his attention toward his crew. Mattie was squinting at June and holding her hand up. Nobody could hear the sounds she was forcing into the air, only June. Drina’s lip was bloody and swollen, and she looked frighteningly giddy with rage.

The mess hall was quiet save for the furious noises Delcan and June were making. The rest of Delcan’s crew stood near, poised to leap into action, but they hadn’t moved yet. Some crew Delcan had there.

Suddenly, the double doors burst open and Franklin stood in the portal, his shoulders hunched and his face red with barely-contained anger.

“What is the meaning of this?!” He shouted it like somebody in the room would answer him.

Sam only realized that he and his crew looked like the instigators when the poisons master pinned him with a hard, disappointed stare.

Sam never thought that he would end up in Mode’s office. Not because he didn’t expect to get into trouble every now and again, but because the headmaster didn’t actually get involved with the students. Not even for discipline.

However, this was apparently a special case, considering the use of magic was involved. Hilda’s warning on their first day echoed through Sam’s head as he stood before the enigmatic headmaster. He kept his head bent and his eyes on the ground.

You will be expelled.

Being this close to the red-eyed northerner was uncomfortable. Sam had the sensation of standing atop the gallows, being measured for the rope. Mode hadn’t said anything yet, he just stared at the lot of them and tapped his desk rhythmically.

Another few minutes ticked by. June coughed delicately. Delcan shifted from one foot to the other. Drina sighed. Mattie and Sam were the only ones who didn’t make a sound. When Mode did finally speak, the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck prickled and he repressed a chill that shot through his body at the flat, icy voice of his headmaster.

“I would ask what brought on such an extreme scuffle, but I frankly don’t care.”

Sam looked up in surprise. Mode was massaging his temples with his eyes closed.

“The use of magic is expressly prohibited for first years for a reason,” he muttered, opening his eyes and eyeing them like specks of dirt. “I should expel the lot of you.”

Even Drina knew better than to speak up and specify that she didn’t use magic, just a fork.

“However,” Mode waved them off, “unlike my predecessor, I don’t like wasting valuable resources. I will let you off with a warning, but if this happens again, you will be escorted from the school grounds, kicking and screaming if need be.”

He sighed and looked to the side, staring at the wall, or maybe one of the many pictures on it. A beautiful vessar, black as ink and unsettlingly large, was propped on a shelf directly behind the headmaster, surveying them with an uncannily intelligent consideration. Sam had never seen a vessar up close before. They were all but extinct in Varin, and for good reason. They were deadly, fearsome beasts. The one propped on the shelf like a lazy sandcat must have weighed over five hundred pounds. Sam was sure that if it unfurled itself, it would measure three times as long as Sam was, and Sam was just shy of six and a quarter feet. The vessar must have been a little over three hundred years old to be so large.

Sam tried not to look at the thing, but it was as unsettling as the headmaster. Probably because it was far more deadly. Beautiful and regal but awful to behind. Its barrel chest housed a vast pit of venom. All it had to do was open its mouth and spit and Sam’s skin would melt away like wax.

“Get out. Report to Hilda for your punishment.”

Gladly. No forced apologies, no speeches about responsibility and following the rules, just ‘get out and don’t do it again.’ Mode might be ghoulish and unnerving, but Sam liked him very much in that moment.

There was a chance that Mode might be testing them to see who scrambled away the fastest. They must have all been thinking along the same lines because none of them moved.

“Now!” Mode snapped, suddenly swiveling his blood-stained gaze toward them.

Sam flinched back involuntarily, but he didn’t waste another moment testing the man’s patience. Instead, he turned swiftly on his heel and strode as briskly as his legs would allow until he was safely out of the dragon’s lair. Literally. His headmaster had a bloody vessar hanging on his shelf like a scarf.

If Mode’s power wasn’t apparent before by reputation alone, the giant reptile hammered it in. Those things were not supposed to be pets.

Sam exited the office behind Mattie, prepared to leg it back to the combat arena and resist the temptation to scream at Delcan for his stupidity. They were all lucky they didn’t get expelled. They didn’t even get demerits, but if Delcan did something so stupid again, they would all be paying the price.

Before he got more than two steps into the corridor, he was yanked roughly to the side.

“You and I need to talk,” Apelles’ familiar voice rumbled in his ear.

Sam had time to give Drina and Mattie a reassuring nod before he was practically dragged away by the tall spymaster.

Apelles stopped walking and spun Sam by his shoulders to face him when they were well away from Mode’s office.

“What are you doing?” He hissed, his hands squeezing Sam’s shoulders like he meant to shake him.

“I was defending myself,” Sam muttered, shrugging out of Apelles’ harsh grip.

“Really? Because it seems like you’re getting distracted by pretty girls and childish rivalries. A good agent does not lose his head like that.”

“What the hell do you know?” How dare Apelles lump Sam’s crew with Delcan and call them