As the class is slowly split into two groups, I wait to hear my name being called. I groan loudly when I’m separated from most of my friends. That headache is starting to return. I think I might need to get a sick note and head back to bed while this charade of a class is happening. I don’t need to worry too much, though. Thankfully, the group I’m in has been assigned teaching today, not the project work. I sit in the usual seat I take when in this particular classroom and put my feet up on the desk while we wait for Miss Bell to return from sorting out those working in pairs.
Juniper sits in front of me. She’s sat next to her friend Emmie, and the two of them are giggling together. A couple of pretty looking girls come to sit near me, daring to try and capture my attention while Taya isn’t around. I blow a kiss at them, and they blush and look down at their books. I turn to face the back of Juniper’s head once more. The murderous intentions within me rise again. She’s the reason I’m forced to do things I don’t remember.
Except for that last woman.
Her face flashes through my head again, and I want to scream. I rub at my temples to displace the headache before ripping a piece of paper from the notebook in front of me and popping it in my mouth. I chew it a few times to make it more pliable before taking it out, rolling it up into a ball, and flicking it at the back of Juniper’s head. The girls sitting next to me giggle loudly, and Juniper turns around with a monstrous glare on her face.
“What are you doing?” she questions, and I smirk at her with a devilish look on my face. It’s an expression I’ve developed and used a lot since my rise to power here at Caspian.
“Why would I be doing anything? I’m the one who should be here. Not you.”
“Shut up,” Emmie intervenes and leans back to look at her friend’s hair. “Yuck, you’re disgusting, Jacobi.”
“What is it?” Juniper places her hand on her hair and must feel the wet paper because she instantly recoils. “You are gross,” she complains as she removes the offending item from her hair and throws it back my way. I dodge to the side and it lands on the wall behind me.
“Just keeping myself amused while I’m waiting. You’re an easy target.”
The girls surrounding me giggle and start to rip off their own pieces of paper, but I hold my hand up to halt them. Only I get to torture Juniper. No one else.
I blow a kiss in the direction of my most hated person in the world, and she responds with her middle finger just as Miss Bell returns.
“Miss Ambrose, I don’t think that’s necessary,” the teacher scolds Juniper, who turns bright red at being caught. I let the devilish smirk flash again.
“I’m sorry, Miss Bell. It won’t happen again.” Juniper sucks up, knowing she’s already in trouble after the incident in the arcade a few days ago. Any more problems, and her father will be called in. The great King Ambrose. No one wants that, least of all Juniper. I know she hates him.
“See that it doesn’t,” the teacher rebukes as she takes her place at the front of the room.
The next forty five minutes pass in boredom for me as Miss Bell demonstrates a few spells I’ve known since I was a child. I’m sure I fall asleep at one point because when one of the girls puts her hand on my leg, I spring up in shock, knocking my books onto the floor. I apologise to the teacher, but she waves it away. The smugness which crosses Juniper’s face, though, sets me on edge, and I stare daggers into the back of her head for the rest of the lesson.
As we all wait, not very patiently, for the bell to sound so we can move onto more interesting subjects, Miss Bell draws the lesson to a close.
“Thank you again for all being so good today. It’s not been easy, but we’ll get there. We need to employ the spirit of the Great War and muck in together.” She smiles at the class, and a few people cheer her speech.
I gather my books up and stand, ready to move on to physical education. Several of the other students do the same.
“Before you all go,” Miss Bell stops us all in our tracks, and I slump back down into my chair. “There’s no point in you coming to the classroom tomorrow. I’ll give you your partnerships and what spells you need to learn, now. Let me see, where did I put my list? Oh, here it is.” She finds it amongst a great big pile of papers and starts to read out the pairings and the spells they need to research.
“Jacobi Ashdown, you’ll be working on levitation and transposition with Juniper Ambrose,” Miss Bell pauses, possibly remembering Juniper giving me the finger earlier. My heart sinks. I can’t work with Juniper. I hate her but the spells we’ve been given are two of my favourites, so I don’t want to argue against the partnership. Some of the other couples have pretty dismal things to study. “Is there going to be a problem with that?” Miss Bell looks directly at us both. I shake my head to signify I’ve no concerns.
“Is it possible to swap, Miss Bell,” Juniper tentatively asks. “I love the spells, but I’d rather work with someone different-”
“I’m not losing those spells,” I interrupt, making it clear what I’ll be doing.
She can work with someone else; in fact, that would be for the best, but I’m not going to change the spells I’m doing.
Miss Bell looks down her list. “Emmie could swap with you? She’ll be good at levitation and transposition. Let me just check what spells she has…” Miss Bell scans farther down the list. “Dissection and… oh… spider projection.”
Juniper slumps down in her chair. Those are two of the worst spells, boring and mundane in the extreme. I snort a laugh out of my nose but instantly silence it when Miss Bell looks at me. I bow my head but say nothing to indicate an apology.
“Keep your spells. They’re the best ones. I’m sure he can’t be that much of a dick to work with.” I hear Emmie whisper quietly to Juniper.
Emmie’s not the best at spells so she would be a hindrance to me. I’m not sure which one’s the lesser of the two evils: the person I hate, or someone who’s useless.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Juniper huffs before addressing Miss Bell, who’s standing expectantly at the front of the classroom. “It’s okay. I’ll stay in the partnership you gave me.”
Miss Bell’s expression breaks into a triumphant smile, and I wonder if she’s planned this since she saw Juniper flip me off. I might have underestimated this teacher. She’ll be on my watch list from now on.
“Good. Excellent news. You all have your assignments. I’ll see you the day after next.”
The bell rings, and we all start to file out of the room. I grab Juniper by the arm and hiss at her, “I won’t fail this project because of you. Be at my room at ten am tomorrow and be prepared to work.”
I storm off to my next lesson and spend the entire hour running my frustrations away around the track.
Ten am rolls around, and I glance at the clock, determined not to do anything, not move, not worry about the schoolwork I’m missing, and definitely not follow his damn orders. The sooner Jacobi Ashdown realises I’m not one of his stupid minions the better. He wants me gone, which only makes me more determined to stay.
Do I want to be here? I don’t know anymore. I’ve been desperate to leave the academy ever since I returned because of my mum’s condition, and her worsening health was the reason I left in the first place. But now she’s been miraculously cured by this ‘Guardian’, or whoever she believes it was, so the purpose of me wanting to leave is now redundant. And then there’s Emmie. I love having her back in my life. The combination makes me feel…free. Even though there’s still the issue of Jacobi.