Blog

“What are you going to do?” Delaney asked. “Show the profs his work and get him sent back to freshman year?”

Adria hung her head. “I’m going to fake him through without him knowing it.”

“Why not just give him the right answers?”

“Because he stood before Professor Luccio and told him he was wrong about using techniques to break prisoners and extract information from them.”

“And Elian is still alive?” Delaney asked.

I read what Elian had written. It was beautiful. Articulate. And completely impossible.

“You never negotiate with terrorists. There is only one response, despite collateral damage,” Adria said as she snatched the paper back.

“He doesn’t believe that.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true,” Adria said.

Delaney agreed.

“Elian?” Delaney asked.

“He doesn’t know anything,” Adria snarled. “He can’t handle basic hostage negotiation, much less how to overthrow a regime or legitimately usurp power.”

“That’s freshman stuff,” Delaney said.

“Yeah, I know.” She shoved his paper at me.

Delaney was studying late one night in the library when she came across Adria working a complex forgery spell.

“What are you doing?” Delaney asked.

“Trying to keep from failing, if you must know.”

Delaney flipped the assignment around and narrowed her eyes. “You could have this done in two hours, tops, and ace it.”

“Yeah, but they assigned Elian as my partner.”

Except the dark mages didn’t devour Elian.

They avoided him.

Even Adria.

Delaney wasn’t sure why.

But then she had never seen him use his magic. Maybe it put the rest of them to shame. If so, he should already be working for DARPA.

With how gorgeous Elian was, Delaney expected him to be a jerk.

But he wasn’t.

He was kind. A bit naïve. But genuine.

Adria and the senior dark mages were going to devour him.