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

to standing position. “Speak for yourself. I thought you’d be a faster study than this. It only took Harlow two hours to get the hang of it and she’d been nine at the time.”

My jaw dropped. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Maybe you should think about doing motivational speeches.”

She drew her hair back and wiped at her brow like she’d just been doing strenuous exercise rather than sitting on her ass insulting me. “I don’t know how much more motivating I can be but to tell you we’re in a bit of a shit situation at the moment. The supernaturals know their attempt to eradicate us failed. They have one of our best in their guarded city. How long before they decide they’ll try to exterminate us again?”

I thought about it all the way through dinner. When it came time for me to be dropped off at the teleport spot, I was really out of it. Samantha came to see me off. “I know it has been a difficult few days,” she said. “But I hope you’ll take it with a bit of perspective. We want to survive and this is our world.”

For a week it was all I thought about. Sophie and I were studying on one of those rare nights we were actually in the one spot at the same time. Actually, I was studying, she was trying to research the ingredients in Hilary’s diary.

“I can barely read some of this,” she said.

I stopped reading my Elemental Magic textbook. “Tell me about it! She’s written stuff over the top of other people’s writing.”

Sophie bit her lip. Something in the way her eyes kept tracking to her ingredients chest had me alert. “What?”

She rubbed her hands together. Not in an evil genius way but in a nervous, fearful way. “The only ingredient I can make heads or tails of is the dual blood,” she said. “It’s repeated a few times.”

I scratched at my head. “What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure. But the last time I saw something like that, it was in my great-grandfather’s diary.”

I pulled a face. Sophie’s great-grandfather was a mass murderer. “Maybe we shouldn’t be looking into that part of the diary,” I said.

“What if that’s how Hilary bound Gaia?”

I groaned and fell back onto my bed. What was with all these stupid spells and blood? Sophie promised to keep looking into it in between all her other activities. There was no change by the time I went back to Terran the week after.

I was changing into sweats so I could take Phoenix on a run when somebody knocked on the bedroom door. Frowning, I went to it. Rachel wouldn’t knock. I found the Evil Three on the other side. They didn’t have the courtesy of appearing contrite. Harlow’s hand was on her protruding hip.

I blinked slowly. “Whatever it is you’re selling, I’m not buying it.” She jammed her foot into the crevice when I tried to shut the door in their faces.

“Jeez,” she said. “We did a prank and it backfired. Get over it. Sam told us someone at Bloodline stabbed you. That’s much worse.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I’m not on friendly terms with the person who stabbed me, thanks very much.” Her stilettos were made of steel or something because as much as I tried to push her out, she wasn’t budging.

“We’re sorry, okay!” Alison said. “How were we supposed to know you can’t swim? We live in Australia for goodness sake.”

As far as apologies went, it was completely lacking. Throwing my deficiencies in my face was definitely the way to get me to ease up.

“Fine,” I said. “You’ve said what you have to say. Can you get your foot out of the doorway?”

Having had enough of my theatrics, Winnie pressed her palms to the wall. The aura around her shimmered. As many times as I had seen a phase, it didn’t stop my heart from leaping into my throat when the brunette walked through the wall and into my room. “Get out!”

“Relax!” Harlow said. “Hear us out.”

“Why should I?”

There was a beat of silence. Obviously they hadn’t thought this through. Clearly they had expected me to accept whatever they wanted. I remembered Rachel muttering under her breath about how the Evil Three were spoiled. I could see how that might happen. They were the last in a line of what was supposed to be humanity’s protectors. I thought of the new set of guards posted around Terran by the Council. How would the Evil Three cope against the supernaturals?

I eyed Harlow’s slight figure inside her skinny jeans and spaghetti-strap singlet. The outfit didn’t exactly scream demon slayer. All in all, I felt much safer with Rachel at my back despite her being a simple hedge witch.

It was the way Winnie stood with her back pressed against the wall she’d just phased through that snagged at my attention. Her hands were tucked behind her, the soft fluttering of her maxi skirt a foil to her wider hips and ample chest. She was looking at Rachel’s weapons cache with a mix of awe and…fear.

“What do you want?” I asked, releasing the door at last.

Harlow leaned her shoulder against the frame. “Sam told us you’re a bone witch. We’ve been trying to use a searching circle to find Gaia for months. We haven’t managed to connect with much. But you might be able to make a connection with a spirit from the underworld who might know where Gaia could be.”

Before she even finished her sentence, I knew what she wanted. At Bloodline, the practice of raising spirits of the dead was strictly forbidden. Opening those kinds of portals attracted demons by the bucketload.

“Are you joking?” I asked. “What if we make a mistake and a demon comes through from the Hell dimension.”

“That’s why you’ve got us as backup. We’ve tried everything. But we’ve never been able to make contact with your great-grandmother. It’s like her spirit is being sheltered or something.”

“You