Bloodline Secrecy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 2) Lan Chan (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📖

it to be fruitful. We low-magic users were getting such a beating in the supernatural world that we needed some kind of win.

For the first time in weeks, I felt like things weren’t as hopeless as they seemed. And then I walked into the dorm room to find the bulletin beeping. Sophie had left for the potions lab to return her cauldron. She had a Saturday evening shift in the dining hall and wouldn’t be back until after dinner.

I pressed my hand to the mirror. Basil’s stitched face was literally coming apart on the other side. “As you can see,” Basil said, “I need a little help.”

“How did that even happen?”

“I’m not sure. I think the constant ferrying back and forth in the portals between Rivia and Seraphina has started to weaken the threads.”

I scrubbed my face with my hand. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll see if I can get permission to port over there.”

Jacqueline was reluctant but I was adamant. “If he isn’t stitched up, he’ll die,” I said.

Her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Fine,” she finally relented. “Just be careful.”

If I had a dollar for every time someone had said that to me over the past few weeks, I’d be swimming in manna. Strapping the demon blade to my back, I grabbed Basil’s repair kit and jogged to the portal field.

There were people everywhere. With the Showcase just days away, the spirit of the season had finally started to kick in. The leaves on the trees had been magicked to mimic the natural autumnal cycles of nature. It was late spring in the mortal parts of Australia. Ruby reds, golden yellows, and burned oranges decorated the branches of the trees surrounding the Academy’s entrance.

The gorgeous pink cedar by the bay windows of Jacqueline’s office was glowing. The Fae had strung up hundreds of their bobbling, firefly-attracting lanterns. We’d been growing pumpkins for months in Herbology and now they adorned every entrance in the Academy. There was a huge cornucopia set up in front of the dining hall. In Potions and Alchemy, we were all working on our best mulled wine brew. The scent of cloves, cinnamon, and brandy spiced the air.

The vampires had started wearing cloaks. The shifters were letting their hair out, literally. Last time I’d seen Max, he was more lion than man. For a few moments, I forgot about the impending danger of Giselle and Skander on the loose.

I was smiling when I stepped through the portal into Nora and Mani’s apartment. My smile dropped as soon as I reached the other side.

Basil tottered in front of me. He was trying to hold his head together. “Oh my gosh!” I said, kneeling down in front of him. “It’s been half an hour!”

The red piece of thread that denoted his mouth was hanging down his shoulder. That didn’t impede his speech but it sure as heck was creepy. “I’m falling apart,” he wailed.

It took some finicky stitch work, but I managed to get him back together. As I worked, I fought back the oppressive tightening in my chest. We were running out of time. If Basil unravelled while someone wasn’t there, I would lose him.

“Maybe you should come back to the Academy,” I said through the sharp stone in my throat.

Basil patted my knee. He sat in my lap while I stuffed cotton into his head. The result wasn’t exactly a masterpiece.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just a flesh wound. Bethany is well.”

He sure knew how to change the subject.

“Any progress?”

“She has very good days. If you don’t count the fact that she breaks down at the slightest mention of you or her past, you wouldn’t be able to tell there’s anything wrong with her. She’s taken to the supernatural community quite readily.”

I picked at a ball of red wool.

“So the Nephilim haven’t made any progress with her condition?”

He sighed. “They’re trying all sorts of things, but nothing has been fruitful. Malachi wanted to see if they could reset her memories by wiping her mind completely, but he seems reluctant to actually do it.”

I twirled the red wool around my pointer finger. “What if she never recovers?”

“What if she doesn’t?” Basil asked. “I’ve been thinking about it. Perhaps you can still have a relationship with her as she is?”

My eyes were stinging by this point. I wiped at my face. That’s when I noticed Basil kept looking at the clock on the wall. “What are you doing?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Odette was meant to come over this afternoon,” he said. “I would have asked her to stitch me together, but she never showed up.”

“Maybe she forgot?”

I imagined the look he gave me would have been withering if he’d had a proper physical face. Pressing his palm against the mirror on the couch, Basil tried to put a call through to Odette. There was no answer. He tried some of their mutual friends. None of them had seen or heard from Odette.

“Something’s wrong.” He paced the living room floor. “I might pop around to her house. She only lives a few blocks away. Go back to the Academy.”

Was he kidding? “What if something’s happened to her?” I asked. “How are you going to help her?”

I looked pointedly at his misshapen repair stitching. “If she’s fallen over and cracked her head open, you’d never be able to lift her.”

This time he picked at his head. “Okay, but let’s be quick about it.”

I couldn’t get on to Jacqueline or Alex. So I left a message for Sophie to let her know where I was going. Odette’s house was a detached wooden dwelling right out of a child’s picture book. It was double story with a pointed roof. She’d pasted cut-outs of spider webs and broomsticks in her windows. Like the Academy, there were pumpkins and autumn leaves on her porch. In between the traditional Halloween getup, I could see nods to the underlying pagan rituals in there.

“There’s a light on,” Basil said, hurrying up the three