“Is that a glamour?” Felixa continued while I continued to ignore her. “It must be,” she murmured to herself, blue eyes flashing. “And a powerful one, too. I don’t see what else could erase the sign of a god’s blessing …”
“Are you done yet?” I demanded, pausing next to the soft trickling of a fountain. The warning bell chimed in the tower as Professor Cross waited on the edge of the building’s stepped and looked back at us, anxious to go inside. He was a tad kooky, a bit strange, but he also hated being late. “Why are you so obsessed with me and everything I do?”
Felixa narrowed her eyes at me and spun away in a huff, smacking me in the face with her long, blonde hair. In my darkest fantasies, I reached out and snatched a handful of it, yanking her back and then elbowing her right in the boob.
Bitch.
A white feather drifted off and floated on the breeze. Trubble raised his head to give it a sniff as it passed, and it slide along the length of his nose. As soon as that happened, I could feel it; we were in for some trouble. The little purple and white fox twitched his tails—and his nose, once, twice, three times … and then he sneezed.
Once again, magic rippled out around us, causing Felixa and her handler to stop dead in their tracks. They gaped at me and my motley crew as Trubble went up in a swirl of smoke and lights … and then sat naked on the cobblestone pathway.
“Oh,” he mused, not at all concerned by the fact that his … balls were sitting on cold rock. “That’s how it works? A sneeze?” Trubble pushed to his feet and even though I couldn’t see him, I could feel Dyre watching us.
Jasinda reached out and poked lightly at the edge of one of my feathers.
“You’re back,” she said as I shifted my wings so I could get a look for myself.
Oh.
Ebony feathers drifted in an easy breeze as I blinked stupidly and tried to get a grip on the situation.
“A sneeze?” Elijah asked, shifting his own beautiful white wings in confusion and tucking his hands in his pockets. He was so good at playing the lazy slouch that I almost believed it sometimes. But there was this sense of cunning intelligence in his blues eyes that never quite went away. “How in the fuck did that happen?”
“Well, the rune for rebirth is awfully close to the rune for sneeze,” Trubble said, and he was grinning so wide that I couldn’t tell if he was joking or just seriously gods-damned excited. Feather, pop.
“There’s an ancient rune written by the gods that means … sneeze?” Elijah asked as Felixa stormed over to us, eyes flashing. She clutched at the Haversey steel hanging around her neck like she was all of ten seconds away from exorcising someone, anyone, if she could only get her hands on them.
“What in Heaven is this?” she asked, pointing at Trubble’s naked body … and his half-erect cock standing at attention in the cool air. “You’ve got a shapeshifting shadow that you carry around now?”
“None of your business,” I told her yet again, reaching out for Trubble’s hand … and touching his penis on accident. Oh flub. Oh, flub, flub, flub. I snatched my hand back and held it against my chest while Trubble threw his head back and laughed, holding his arms out on either side of his body and gazing up at the sky as it began to rain again.
“I’m free,” he whispered, and then with a satisfied, male chuckle decided to add, “and Brynn of Haversey is so excited she can’t keep her hands off my cock. This,” he continued, dropping his chin down to look at us, “is a cause for celebration.”
“It’s a cause to get you some clothing,” I said, trying again and successfully grabbing his hand this time. I hated to admit it, but his fingers were warm and felt so dang good against my own. Plus, that lotus blossom scent of his was driving me almost literally insane.
“If I don’t show up for class,” Spicer said, appearing beside us and completely and utterly ignoring Felixa and her handler, “then I’ll be fired for sure.” He gave me an apologetic sort of look as I shrugged out of my white jacket, cursing under my breath as I tied it around Trubble’s waist and let the dangling sleeves hide his dangling … well, you know. His dick.
“You are such an angel,” he said as he glanced down at his makeshift outfit. “Nudity is not the end of the world.” It wasn’t, no, and it wasn’t exactly illegal in Amerin, but nobody in their right mind walked around nude. Still, it wasn’t that part of the equation that was bothering me so much. No, it was the fact that I was attracted to all of that nudity that I was seeing. Not good.
“You can’t ignore me forever!” Felixa screamed as I dragged Trubble across the cobblestones and into the big building where Professor Cross had spent too many years of his life. I shoved the naked boy into a chair and then flopped down next to him, covered in sweat and flushed from head to toe.
A sneeze.
A flubbing sneeze turned a boy into a fox, and vice versa, turned my wings a different shade, and just generally flubbed my whole flubbing life around.
A smile curved my lips as I sat there, but I quickly pushed it back. It wouldn’t do to let anyone that I was actually enjoying this chaos. But if something as silly as a sneeze could cause a man to shift forms … then why couldn’t a spell sent by the gods bring one back to life?
Hour Three: Basic Combat.
The only time a spirit whisperer was required to take a combat class was in their first year. Back in the day, it’d been optional, but now, it was required. I guess the academy had finally realized that pumping their spirit whisperers with all that knowledge and power was a tad useless if they were so easily, like, stabbed by thieves or something.
Oh. Thieves. Talon.
I exhaled sharply and pushed my way through the doors of the Hand and Blade Arena, so-called because hand whisperers and blade whisperers were everything when it came to non-magical combat. Even though both professions were blessed with the powers of their own deities, they relied a lot on physical skill, prowess, and training.
Of course, there wasn’t a human, angel, or otherwise in Europia who could snap a dragon’s neck with their bare hands without being a hand whisperer. Their goddess, Stryke, was a serious bad-bum, fabled to be the one deity in the pantheon willing to stick up to bullies. Supposedly, she’d beat up and bound Mord, the god of murder, pain, and death, about a hundred years prior. Since the gods actual doings were complete mysteries to us mortals, we could only take it as spectacle. But, to be fair, there hadn’t been a single documented murder whisperer—yep, that’s a thing—blessed since then.
“I hate this class,” I said, and Elijah grinned at me, spreading his wings wide in the big open space of the arena. The ‘room’, and I used this term loosely, was about three times the size of my hour one class. It had a glass ceiling that glimmered gently with runes, like the ones on Professor Cross’ glasses, and was enchanted to keep magic both in and out.
For this particular class, we wouldn’t be using magic, but there were spectator sports held her that did. That, and the arena was sort of the last chance barricade in case the walls of the city and the Royal College were breached. Wars could—and had been—won here, such as the one with Scythia.
“There’s not a spirit whisperer in their right mind who doesn’t hate this class,” he drawled, putting an arm around my waist. As soon as he touched me like that, I felt the tiny bee in my belly start to buzz, wings fluttering. “Last few days, you’ve been lucky. The professors in this class get things off to a slow start with lectures and rules and safety tips … bunch of nonsense. Prepare to get your ass kicked.” He tried to pull away from me, but I held tight. Why not? Unless in my hour two class—ghost and spirits—nobody could see him here. May as well take some comfort from that, right?