Page 4 of Messenger of Death
“Because you stabbed a professor, and he punched you in the head.”
“That’s cheating. I wasn’t even aware I was stabbing him. They’d better not have taken Doris.”
“You stabbed the reincarnation of Ares,” Morgana said. “He’s not like how they portray him in the media nowadays. He’s not some asshole hothead who goes looking for a fight. He somehow got missed as a reincarnation and didn’t end up in a school like this.
“He enrolled in the military and nearly died saving his platoon. He just happened to end up getting saved by a medicwho went to school here and saw the birthmark. The mission that went wrong wasn’t anyone’s fault but his commanding officer’s, but they pinned it on him to save face. They kicked him out once he was healed, and Headmaster Mykene scooped him up. She helped him awaken, and he’s been teaching us how to defend ourselves since. He’s not going to hit you again, but he’ll probably fuck with you.”
“What if I want him to hit me?” Liam challenged.
Elliot fell out laughing.
“I learned the hard way Professor Adamastus isn’t the one you want to fuck with. He’s not going to rise to a damned thing, but you’re still going to pay.”
“Challenge accepted.”
“I hope he does hit you again because I was awake for it and it was immensely satisfying,” Lucian said.
“I don’t know, mate, you just have this face that really makes me want to kick you in the kidneys.”
“Guys?” Khalid said. “We need to figure this out because if Sage is vital, then we are, too, if we’re connected. We need to figure out who is doing this while we figure out our magic.”
Except on this side of the school, most of us were strangers from different backgrounds. We could give literally any story about our pasts, and it would be really hard to fact-check it because aside from Ivar and Ari, none of us knew each other from before. Liam and I stayed at the same hostel, but we never spoke.
How were we supposed to tell who was lying and who wasn’t?
Imagically fainted, stabbed someone and wasn’t conscious enough to enjoy it, rudely got punched in the head, and Khalid made a move on my woman while I was out. Good for him. I didn’t think he had it in him.
I mean, the bloke was going to have to be fine with sharing because, obviously, she was mine, too. I was okay with it. I liked Khalid. I didn’t have much of a choice with Lucian, but maybe she’d decide we could just keep him around for me to poke and kick in the kidneys. Every relationship needed that.
But right now, there was some shit we needed to figure out because it was only cool to kill bad people. I didn’t know why that was hard for some people, but the world was full ofarseholes, and I guess I was going to have to correct some of them here, too.
“Who wasn’t at the tavern?” Khalid asked.
“Not sure if you noticed, but the reincarnation of an ancient fertility god was singing karaoke and doing an amazing job of it,” Morgana drawled. “No one was looking at anyone else.”
“Thanks, love, but I only have eyes for Sage.”
“A compliment doesn’t mean I want to fuck you, dick for brains. I’ve got eyes for other people, too.”
“Good, then you can proceed to compliment me all you like.”
“Hard pass.”
“I was only looking at Liam,” Sage said. “I didn’t notice anyone else.”
I could use that. I was going todominatethat karaoke stage for the foreseeable future. When I got to my dorm room, my guitar was there, so they must have grabbed it out of the hostel. Mixed tapes were romantic, but not really practical anymore. I was going to use the stage at the pub to sing her a curated playlist to romance her.
“I loathe admitting it since I hate him, but he was good,” Lucian said. “I wasn’t paying attention to anyone else, either. Someone could have used that to slip out and kill Kira.”
I hated killers who killed innocents with no rhyme or reason. I especially hated it if they used something Ilovedto do it. Music was a part of me, and I was good at it. I’d never tried to be famous at it because I didn’t want my family to find me and put a hit on me.
Our phones all went off at once. I looked down and there was an alert about Kira and asking us all to go back to our dorms.
“Excuse me, but how did these plebeians invade my phone?” Lucian demanded.
“They don’t go through your texts and photos, but they did put some apps on there,” Morgana said. “Supes have our ownsocial media, so if you want to post videos of you doing magic or announcing who you were in a previous life, you do it there. Ouroboros also has its own app designed by Headmaster Mykene. It’s got a directory where you can message other students, but it’s also got your schedule of classes.”
“I cannot stress how much I do not want anyone from this school except maybe Sage and Khalid to message me, and social media has made everyone dumber than they were before,” Lucian moaned.
