Bloodline Diplomacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 3) - Lan Chan (thriller books to read .txt) 📗

He laughed. It was a full-bellied sound. It reminded me of Peter. I bit down on my tongue to keep the sadness at bay. “How about Red Dog?”

“Are you just going to quote movie names at me?”

“Maybe I better stop helping you.” He left to tend to the horses. The dingo yipped at me. He chewed at the side of the fence. I knew the sign for I want out plain as day.

“I can’t,” I said. “Not until you learn to play nice with the other animals.” Mind you, I hadn’t had any evidence to the contrary. The dingo growled. He was getting impatient.

“Alright fine!” I said. Before I could open the latch on the gate, he padded away, turned, took a running start and leaped right over the fence that was as high as my shoulder.

“Normal animals aren’t meant to be able to do that,” Rachel said. She came up beside me. I wasn’t sure what to say. Everything felt incriminating.

“I’ve seen dogs jump over fences before.”

“Not a fence this high.”

I shrugged. “Then I guess he’s just unusual.”

“Hey, I’m not knocking it,” she said. “Just making an observation.”

“If you had seen the state he was in when I found him, you’d think it was a miracle he’s walking.” The dingo sat down next to me. I ran my hand down his back. I realised what I was saying was the truth. The difference between how he had been and what he was like now was remarkable. It made me wonder whether it was the conjuring that had changed him or whatever Kai had done while he healed him. A name suddenly hit me. “Phoenix,” I said.

“Huh?” Rachel asked.

“That’s his name. Phoenix.”

“That’s like calling him, Cat.”

“I like it.”

“He’s your dingo. Is he going to be able to stay calm while we have our lesson?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Either they were very relaxed here or there were other methods of containment. She led me around past where I had walked when Ashton caught up to me. The dingo matched my stride and didn’t even run off when a rabbit sprinted across the lawn. Now that was self-control. A glass house came into view shortly after. When we pulled up next to it, I saw that it was attached to another building that doubled as a potting shed. There was a small rectangular table and two fold-out chairs. The table was littered with potting mix. Rachel swept it all clean with her sleeve.

“I’ll give you some time to take this written test,” she said. She placed a few sheets of paper on the table and a pen. Both of these she took from a cubby in the wall that held various other bits and pieces like seed packets and secateurs. It wasn’t very organised and made me think of Peter again. Thalia was the one who kept the Herbology classroom running. Peter had a tendency to leave things lying around. Nanna would have died if she saw a pair of gloves left to the whim of the elements.

“What’s with the look on your face?” Rachel asked. “You heard that you have to do a test, right?”

I sat down and picked up the pen. “I was just thinking about my Herbology teacher at Bloodline,” I said. “His organisation skills could give you a run for your money. You’d like him.”

I wasn’t sure what I’d said, but the same vicious look she’d given Sean was now directed at me. “Trust me,” she said, “there isn’t a single monster on this planet that I like.”

“He’s human,” I objected. Her eyes flashed.

“I like traitors even less. You’ve got half an hour.”

She turned on her heels and walked away. Great. I’d been here less than a day and I’d already managed to piss off my roommate. I didn’t even know what it was that had pissed her off. I resolved to keep my mouth shut about the supernaturals in her company.

The test was a cinch after all of the things I’d been learning in Herbology. Not least because this test was based on a human perspective on plants so there were no curve balls thrown in. Where I got stuck was the industrial side of things. If I had wanted a plant at Bloodline Academy, we just tended to ask for them. The land was magically fertile and the Fae kept everything in order. I knew nothing about cultivation or the amount of water that would be used in medium-level irrigation. I hazarded a guess anyway based on the rations I had been using for the nymphs in the Grove.

Rachel was in a better mood when she returned. “This isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” she said. “Just some of the business side of things that you need to brush up on. Any ideas about what you’d like to do once you’re done studying?”

For as long as I had been in Bloodline, it was pretty much a given that I would end up being a guard somewhere. Before that I was just hoping to live another day. Now that she said it, I was drawing a blank.

“I’m not sure.”

“But you definitely want to work with plants though, right?”

“I like working with plants…”

“Great,” she said. “Another teenager with no ambition.” Maybe she thought she was speaking low enough that I couldn’t hear. She eyed me in an annoyed manner. Maybe not.

“Well, sure or not, this is the path you’re on right now. You can figure out exactly what you want to be eventually. I’ve loaded the subject course work and sent it to your Academy email. You’re going to have to go through it and catch up on all the basic subjects. For now, throw these gloves on and help me inside the greenhouse.”

Helping her entailed the propagation of masses of seedlings. She told me they owned a nursery that one of the older hedge witches ran. Some of the other produce that was grown went into the kitchen. Everything was organic.

By