Ocean of Sapphires (Jewel Academy Book 4) Read online

  “Thanks."

  I liked being part of a pack, but I was born a witch and I wanted to be accepted into a coven in the worst way. Of course all of the heads of the witch covens, didn't really want me part of their group. I hoped my roommate Priscilla had come around and was going to invite me into the coven after seeing what I could do at the Sigil games. But so far, she hadn’t said anything. When I got back to the room after classes, Priscilla and her coven were complaining about having to go on the field trip.

  "You're so lucky, Lola that you don't have to do this with us." Maya Giles said. She was one of the founding families, back when the Jewel Academy wasn’t a reform school.

  “Yeah,” Abigail Rayne said, leaning back on Priscilla's bed. Abigail was a skip generation witch and hadn’t even known she had powers until she summoned things she shouldn’t have and wound up here. Come to think of it, she was still summoning things that ended badly. “I'd much rather be fighting ghouls."

  "If had your lightning bolt attacks, it would be a lot easier than hiding behind Stefan and Andrei while they did the bulk work."

  "You can cast lighting. You just need to practice," Betty Towers said. Of all of the coven members. I liked Betty the best. She had been my cousin Delia’s best friend. And after Delia had been killed, Betty took her place in Priscilla’s coven.

  "Your offensive spells at the Sigil games were weak and you made the school look bad." Priscilla sneered.

  “We took third place." I resisted the urge to throw my pillow at her, because I was still trying to get into their coven.

  They made me a pledge, which meant I was a glorified maid, waitress, and errand girl. I had been hoping that our third-place win would have allowed me to become a full member of the coven. But when they found out that I had to give back my emerald participation necklace, they weren’t as interested in promoting me to a full coven member position.

  Speaking of which, I probably should go down to Hellion Falls with Andrei and Stefan so we could offer the emerald necklaces up for tribute like I promised. Queen Aaralyn the Savage wasn’t going to wait forever for her tribute that we had promised her. However, we have been watched like a hawk ever since we got back, and there hadn’t been a chance to get away. At least with the entire Junior class gone, once we finished with ghoul duty and our daily studies, no one would really be around to notice us slipping back into the woods to fulfill the contract agreement I had with the fish queen.

  Chapter Four

  Stefan and I sat outside on the uncomfortable stone benches and watched silently as our entire class boarded three large orange school buses. When they chugged out of the main gates, I broke the silence.

  “Are you mad at me?" I asked Stefan.

  “Why, what did you do now?" he said in a growly voice that was thick with sleep. Had he been napping while I’d been brooding?

  I gestured to the heavy exhaust clouds that were lingering in the air from the buses. "Because of me, you're not getting out from behind these walls for two whole days."

  “Yeah, I'm also not freezing my butt off in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."

  “Long Island Sound isn’t the Atlantic Ocean."

  "Close enough."

  “Besides, you’re a lion shifter, you’re always warm." I slid closer to him, because it was like sitting next to a heater.

  “Cats don't like water.”

  “Tigers do."

  “I'm not a tiger.”

  "Why are you not mad at me?"

  “Do you want me to be mad? We could spar and I could bat you around like a mouse. Would that make you happy?”

  I glared at him. “You really aren’t upset that you’re stuck here with me and Andrei while the rest of our class is out having fun.”

  “I think you need to reevaluate your idea of fun. Besides, I think you need to practice your non-mind magic more than you need to look at birds.”

  “You sound like Headmistress Magee,” I grumbled.

  “Use this time to concentrate more your spell work. While Andrei and I fight the ghouls, I want you to stay in the back and conjure up spells to help us."

  "I thought you guys want me to work with swords and stuff."

  "You can still do that."

  "I'm hopeless."

  "Not hopeless, but a beginner. Eventually you’ll need to have a working knowledge of self-defense either with hand-to-hand or with a weapon. But Andrei and I have that covered. You need to cover us when we need magic back up.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. "Too bad the ghouls don't have a brain for me to control." I hated feeling useless, and lately ever since we got back from the Sigil games all I felt was useless. “I’m not a warrior.”

  “If you can't use your magic, and you’re overpowered in a fight," Stefan said. "What’s your strategy?”

  “Hide behind you and Andrei."

  "What happens when Andrei and I aren't there?"

  "I’ll run."

  "Good. But what happens when you can't run? Or your back is to the corner, and you have to fight?"

  "I see your point."

  "You need to be able to react fast without thinking about what you would do. You have to have a plan. And these ghouls give us a chance to practice that. That's much more valuable than keeping flowcharts about how long birds sit on their nests."

  "You never know. That could become handy, right up there with math word problems and reading about three ghosts giving Ebenezer Scrooge a hard time."

  “That's the spirit."

  "Did you just make a joke?” I looked up at him. “Are you lightning up?"

  "Everything comes with practice."

  Chapter Five

  Andrei, Stefan and I snuck out that night. It was easy. We didn't even have to watch out for the Enforcers because most of them were on the fieldtrip, and the others were busy keeping the freshman, sophomores and seniors in line.

  The dining hall was empty during our meal slots, and while I loved having the dorm room to myself, it brought home the notion that we were excluded. So I didn't feel bad about sneaking out and breaking curfew yet again.

  Stefan was in lion form, and no one really bothered him when he patrolled the forest at night. Andrei was a vampire, so he took to the skies in his bat form and was almost indistinguishable from a regular bat. Since I didn’t want to appear as a human walking alone in the forest in the middle the night—Hello! Target! — I decided to switch over to my raven form and fly to Hellion Falls.

  Flying at night is one of my favorite things. The feel of the wind in my feathers in the cool night air made me forget I was locked up in a magical school for juvenile delinquents. Of course if I tried to fly over the walls, there was a magical force field. It was a good thing that the powers that be hadn’t figured out how to put a barrier underneath the school.

  “After we give the emeralds to Aaralyn the Savage,” Andrei spoke to her mind-to-mind. “We could stay as fish and join the fieldtrip in progress.”

  “I don't want to go to the fieldtrip,” Stefan replied. “It'll be boring.

  “Yes, but it would show them that we’re not going to just sit here and be treated like prisoners.”

  “We are prisoners,” I sighed. “No matter how they try to portray this as a school.”

  “We worked very hard not to be punished,” Andrei said.

  “Is it really a punishment not to freeze our butts off and sleep on the ship at night? I’d rather be sleeping nice and warm in our own beds.”

  I had to admit it was kind of luxurious to have the dorm room all to myself. Nobody complained if I burned my popcorn and I could read as late as I wanted without being interrupted.

  “Let’s just concentrate on not being caught leaving the grounds or coming back. Where is your Mom tonight?”

  “I assume she's home”

  “Do you think she’ll do a bed check on us?” I asked.

  “She might,” Andrei said. “So we should conduct our business and get back to the dorms before anyone notices t
hat we’re missing.”

  “Does everyone have their emerald?” I really didn't want to give up my emerald. I worked hard for it. Aside from it being the only piece of real jewelry that I owned, I earned it. And so did Andrei and Stefan. But the cost of us getting to Ireland were emerald pendants.

  When they held up their necklaces, I turned the base of the pond. “Nixie,” I called. “We’ve come to deliver our tribute to Queen Aaralyn the Savage. Please grant us passage to the waters that will take us there.”

  The nixie popped her head out of the whirlpool. “You three again. I would've thought you had learned your lesson about traveling to the waterways.”

  “We need to fulfill promise we made to the queen and give her these three stones as payment for her help.”

  “Very well,” the nixie said. “You may come in and outs of my whirlpool, but should I wish a favor, you must agree to help me.”

  I looked to Stefan Andrei. They nodded and shrugged. We really didn't have a choice. We had to get to the fish queen and weren’t going to get there by going out the front gates. Aside from that, I didn't mind helping out people, and the nixie always treated us fairly.

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “Then dive into the pool when you're ready.” The nixie disappeared below the surface.

  “Are you sure you remember how to do this spell?” Stefan said.

  “Yes, I've been practicing.” I turned him into a fish. He flopped around on the bank.

  Andrei picked him up and tossed him into the river.

  “Right,” I said. “I probably should've made him get in the water first.

  Andrei held a finger up. “Let me do that.” He got into the knee length water. “I need to do this again in the summertime, when it's a low bit more pleasant.”

  “You don't feel cold like the rest of us do,” I said. “So stop complaining.”

  I turned him into a fish, and he dropped out of my sight. Now was my turn. The last time I became a fish, I lost sight of where I was and what I was doing. I worried that the same thing was going to happen, but the fish queen wanted her tribute, so it was in her best interest to keep me on the right path like she had the last time. I stepped into the frigid waters at the bottom the falls and cast my spell with chattering teeth and lips.

  I couldn't breathe for a moment, and then I was underwater, and my gills expanded. The quick panic that had engulfed me, faded away. I saw two other fish that hopefully were Stefan and Andrei circling around, as if they were waiting for me. Then we all swam down the nixie's whirlpool and spun around until we reached the outside waters beyond the Jewel Academy's border.

  Stefan seemed to know the way. Or at least the fish in front of me that I hoped was Stefan did. I was followed it anyway, and the other fish swimming along next to me had to be Andrei. It was rather companionable, and it really beat fighting ghouls, so I tried to enjoy myself.

  This was another taste of freedom and one of the few times that I would be leaving the Jewel Academy until I graduated. Whether that was next year or the year after, it depended on how they felt my magic levels were. I knew if it was just based on academics, I would graduate as normal. However, since I had been homeschooled in magic for the first part of my life, I wasn’t as up to speed as the rest of my classmates, and that could hold me back.

  It wasn’t fair that all the people I went with at my mundane high school before my father died would be picking out colleges this year and next year applying for them. Maybe college wasn't even in my future. Or it would be a magical college, one that would help me hone my skills as a mind bender. There was a great demand for my powers.

  However, I couldn't think of anything more boring than sitting behind a screen while people negotiated contracts and marking down who was lying and who was telling the truth. Although being a police investigator might be more interesting, but there were laws against reading people's minds, and I tended to color outside the lines when it came to rules.

  While I understood the rules were there for everyone's protection, and protect people's basic human rights, I also thought that there were people taking advantage of the people who followed the rules and twisted what should have been common sense laws into something that they could manipulate for their own purposes. Those people I wouldn’t mind bending the rules as I bent their minds. Unfortunately, I was one of those people. And that's why was I was at the Jewel Academy.

  So until I had an attitude adjustment or the powers-that-be got a recent epiphany that I could be trusted with my magic. I doubt they were going to let me leave anytime soon. My only way out would be if a Cypher put their reputation on the line, and locked their destiny to mine, so that if I got in trouble, they got in trouble. A Cypher needed to be a respected or feared member of the community and he or she would be my handler. It was in their best interest to make me toe the line.

  I wasn't sure if that was just another cage or my only way out the Jewel Academy and into the world. I would be a commodity for government agencies like the FBMI or the CMIA that my father had worked with before he was killed by the mad Russian blood mage who planned to break a dragon named Obsidian out of his prison.

  All I knew about Obsidian was it would be a bad idea to free him, and I didn't know what having a dragon flying around on the loose in the world would mean. There were no dragons, but anyone in the supernatural community that I talked to about it seemed to think that was a very bad idea. There was a reason he didn't see dragons flying all over the place. They tended not to care about humanity and if they wanted something, they took it. And it seemed to me that what Obsidian wanted was humanity to be his slaves. He was imprisoned for a reason.

  I might decide to join the CMIA like my father had, because they didn’t seem to worry that some of their mindbenders bent the rules. Of course my mother still hoped that I would learn the error of my ways, but I didn't feel very close to her after she had abandoned me yet again in the Jewel Academy with no outside contact. I didn't deserve that, and it made me wonder if my aunt and uncle were the good guys instead of the bad guys that my mother was trying to paint them out to be.

  I was broken out of my thoughts to see that we were being escorted again by the two seahorses that had flanked me the last time I wound up on the fish queen's doorstep.

  A few minutes later and the three of us were under the bridge in Hartford again. We must be getting better at this because the trip seemed to go a little faster. I popped out of the water fully dressed, but soaking wet. Andrei and Stefan did the same.

  The chill December air sliced through me and I couldn't get wait to get back into fish form and back in the water where it was warm again. But I remembered my manners and bowed deeply to the fish queen.

  “We have returned victorious, your majesty. While we didn't win first prize, we did make a good showing of ourselves in the competition and we found out the information that we're looking for.”

  “I'm glad,” the fish queen said. “Although, it would have been better for everyone if you got first place.”

  I nodded. Andrei had managed to parlay us an extra wish because of his rule lawyering, though, so I couldn't complain too much. “As you requested, your majesty, here are our emerald necklaces as tribute to your greatness.” Each one of us took off our necklaces and placed them the hands of one of her guards. He looked them over, and then nodded at the queen.

  I wasn't sure what to do next. Did we wait for the queen to dismiss us? I looked over at Andrei and he shrugged. So I said, “If that will be all your majesty, we really should be getting back to our school before we are punished for leaving.”

  This fish queen looked up from her emeralds reluctantly and said, “Why are you not at the lighthouse island with the rest of the humans from your school?’

  “My friends and I were deemed to have been away from Jewel Academy too long this semester, so we had to stay behind and catch up on our studies.”

  The queen sniffed. “And by fighting ghouls.”

  I was hor
rified that after all my showers and swimming through the river, she could still smell ghoul stink on me.

  “It’s probably for the best that you didn't go,” she said. “I'm hearing that there's been a great deal of strife in that neck of the undersea area well.”

  “They’re not diving. It’s a camp out on a large ship and then they’re going ashore to do research studies.”

  “Like talking to the ghost of the lighthouse keeper?” her guard asked.

  “That would have been so cool,” I said. “But no, just bird study.”

  The queen waved her hand. “You may leave us, but should you find yourself going out to that area, beware of the blue dragon. He sleeps fitfully and I would not want him to wake. Luckily a song eases him back to slumber.”

  “Thank you for the warning, your majesty.” I curtsied again. I knew I should offer her something for the information, but I didn't have anything so I said, “If there is something I can do for you in the future, or a favor I can help with, please let the nixie now and I'll be glad to assist to the best of my ability.”

  Andrei shot me a look, but didn't say anything.

  We returned to the water and I cast three spells to turn us back into fishes. I was tired and it was more difficult, but it worked. Our seahorse escorts brought us back as far as they could and then swam off.

  I followed Stefan again back to the nixie's whirlpool. We popped up at the base of the falls and dragged ourselves to the bank. I was beyond tired and cold. If I didn’t think I would freeze to death, I’d fall asleep right here.

  Andrei, however, was nearly vibrating with rage. He stood over me. “Never give away favors for something as trivial as information that we might not even need.”

  “I didn't have anything else to offer.”

  “A favor from a mind bender is huge,” Andrei said.

  “I pay my debts.” I was getting cranky and I wanted to go back to my dorm room. I turned into a bird and flew out. Stefan turned into a lion and Andrei turned into a bat and flew after me. The argument continued all the way back to the dorms with me almost falling asleep twice and dropping out of the sky. Unfortunately as we flew into the foyer of the dorm rooms, Andrei's mother was standing there, her arms crossed and her feet tapping.