“I know,” he wheezed and trotted up to us. “I was going to bring her by the book archives after this class.”
Priscilla nodded as if approving this notion. A few more students began to trickle in. Her eyes went to the enormous clock hanging over the blackboard up front. “Class will start soon.” She smiled at me. “Good luck, Fiona. Maybe we’ll have another class together today.”
I nodded as she trotted off. Theo threw himself down onto the bench beside me. He lacked a notebook or any writing utensils, which I pointed out.
“No worries,” he said and tapped his temple. “It’s all up here.”
A towering figure in billowing black robes came into the room. I stared at the man with a thin face as he glanced around the room. My breath caught, wondering if he would force me to introduce myself, but he simply shook out his long sleeves and got to work on the board. For an hour, the professor lectured us on shifter mechanics or the rough science behind a shifter’s powers. They were on a chapter about involuntary shifting.
“Shifters will change automatically when in danger,” the professor drawled as his gaze swept over us all. He seemed largely unimpressed by his class. “If a shifter cannot control his or her emotions, then the chances of shifting into a rage state are much higher.”
I wrote down “rage state” in my notebook with a question mark. When the lecture was over, I asked Theo about it.
“Rage state is when your animal has completely taken over for survival purposes,” he explained. “It’s extremely rare. I’ve only seen it happen once when I was a kid.” He shivered. “It wasn’t pretty, but that’s why shifters have to learn how to control their powers. You’ll learn to do that when you shift.” The way he said it was like a promise, an assurance that one day, I will shift. I wasn’t so sure.
We swung by the book archives with my schedule and a small woman with a hunched back got to work on my list. When she emerged with a massive stack of books, I sucked in a breath. I didn’t even have a backpack!
“Thanks.” Theo grabbed the stack with ease and glanced through them. “You’ll only need two today. I’ll carry the rest until we get to a servant station.”
“A servant station?” I asked, watching the stack wobble in his arms as we made our way down the hall.
“Yep. We have a network of servants here. They’ll take all the other books you don’t need and deliver them to the manor.”
“Do they go into our rooms?” I asked, thinking of the unlocked door and window from last night.
He shook his head fiercely, nearly sending the books careening down a staircase. “No. It’s strictly forbidden to enter people’s rooms like that even by servants. Shifters are quite powerful and territorial, you know.”
“I’m learning,” I assured him. Before the next class, we came across a gentleman standing in a servant’s uniform with his back against the stone wall. With a smile, Theo casually set down the stack next to the guard.
“Could you get someone to deliver this to the Council Manor?” he asked with a beaming smile. He caught my eye and winked. “Thank you!” The guard seemed surprised by the thanks but merely nodded his head.
“Was that for me?” I asked.
He snorted. “Well, I know that our behavior here can be, well, off-putting by some standards.”
“Well, you’re not as bad as Dracus.” We laughed as we turned the corner. I checked my schedule again, glancing at the next class. Shifter History through the Ages.
“Ren is in this class with us, but he probably won’t show up,” Theo said. “He’s still somehow one of the top students in school thanks to his exam scores, though.”
“Maybe he spends all of his time alone with books,” I suggested and then stared at one of the remaining books in my hands. International Shifter History: A Guide was a thick tome made out of hard-bound leather with gilded book edges. I hoisted it into my hand. “What section are you guys in?”
He blinked lazily. “Past Middle Ages?”
“Do you remember?”
“…No.”
He didn’t strike me as the best student at the Academy. We went into the classroom. This time, more students were already stuffed into a similar auditorium-style room. It was much busier than the last class. He added, “We’ve got a great professor for this course.”
Indeed, right after we sat down in the middle of the room in a free spot, a plump woman dressed in a black suit with a violet cape came waltzing in. Her sharp-heeled boots danced across the wooden floor. She turned to regard us through hot pink eyeglasses.
“Good morning, students.”
To my surprise, this was met with a cheery response from most of the class: “Good morning, Professor Sahni.”
I wrote on the top of my page, Professor Sahni. Her eyes roved over my face and then settled in the back corner. The corner of her mouth twitched upward into a smile. “I see that we have the rare pleasure of having Ren in class today.” A quiet chuckle ran throughout the class. I glanced over my shoulder to see Ren in the farthest corner.
As if sensing my stare, he inclines his head towards me, stubbornly meeting my gaze. I immediately looked away and stared forward at the professor again. Luckily, nobody seemed to be watching our exchange. Except maybe Theo, who sighed heavily and muttered something I couldn’t make out under his breath. Perhaps another lecture would be waiting for Ren tonight from Dracus. I paid attention to every single word coming out of Professor Sahni’s mouth.
Theo was right. She was a good professor. First, she reviewed their last lesson. It wasn’t exactly Middle Ages but Renaissance. Second, she moved on to a fascinating lecture about how shifters began to emerge in society as a force to be reckoned with. Her lecture style was unlike anything I’d ever heard. If she taught every class at Beast Academy, then everyone might be a top student.
“As a reminder, you’ll need to be up to date from chapters one through eighteen,” she announced towards the end of class and began to draw a few symbols on the board. I gulped, glancing inside. Chapter Eighteen was nearly half the book. I definitely needed a pot of coffee and some quiet time for homework tonight. Quickly, I marked the page in the book by shoving my schedule inside.
“Now, I want to discuss some questions I’ve had from some people concerning our next exam,” Professor Sahni said and jokingly pointed at a few faces near the front of the class. A collective giggle erupted throughout the class. It was nice to see the shifter folks seeming a bit more human and casual. Like real college students! “There are certain people who have asked me if we’ll be covering the origins of rare and unusual shifters. Of course, I say yes, because I want you to know anything. So, everything from the elusive Calm to double-shifters who have two symbolic animals will be on the exam.” A hand flew up. She waved the student away. “Yes, I know that some people may count this among conspiracy theories. It’s in the book. It’s on the exam.” The hand went down. I nearly snorted at the ease she maneuvered the class.
An hour passed quickly. Before I knew it, Professor Sahni was saying her goodbyes to all of us as we filed out of class. I peeked at my schedule, my new bookmark for this history book, and saw that we had a lunch break.
Theo glanced at his watch. “I actually have something I need to do, but you can go back to the manor for lunch if you want. It’s a bit nicer than waiting for the main cafeteria.” He took off down a hallway without much explanation. I caught the back of Ren’s head further down the same corridor and frowned. Were they meeting about something?
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