Saving Year Three (Grim Reaper Academy 3)

“I am tired of your bullshit.”

“You are?” I sat on the edge of my bed, arms crossed over my chest, staring at an indefinite point above Morningstar’s head. He’d sent Corri to the Blank even when I’d specifically told him she hadn’t done anything wrong. And he was the one who was tired of my bullshit. Go figure.

The Headmaster was pacing the room. Crassus was standing guard on the other side of the door, like the good Unseelie soldier that he was.

“Where did you go? Who did you see?”

“I went for a walk. I didn’t see anyone.”

“Liar.”

I shrugged. “You’re not a mage, you can’t tell.”

“I have mages and demons who can look inside your head and tell me everything. Your thoughts, you plans, your dreams… Do you want me to do that? Bring them in for an interrogatory?”

That didn’t sound good. I knew him well enough to bet my life that he’d do it if I pushed him.

“I was with GC and Paz.”

“No, you weren’t. I took their pins. They can’t teleport.”

“They don’t have to when I can teleport to them. I was in GC’s room first, then in Pazuzu’s.”

He pointed his finger at me. “You’re lying again. But we’ll see.”

He paced some more. I knew my boys would cover for me. I’d told them I was going to meet Stepan Lazarov. I couldn’t wait to tell them the whole story, so we could put the pieces together. Speaking of pieces…

“How is your scythe?”

He tensed up, like I’d just punched him in the gut and he was trying to mask how much it hurt.

“What do you mean?”

I stood up and walked toward him, my eyes on the curved blade. Just as I’d thought, the soft cracks were there, but the blade was still in one piece. He shot me a suspicious look and backed away. That was when I realized he didn’t have things under control, not even in the slightest, and that was why he was trying so hard to control me. He wanted to know where I was at all times, with whom, and what I was up to. Because he could feel I was on to him. He knew about the prophecy all along. He tried to kill me when I was only a child. That had to be it. That had to be the reason.

“Nothing,” I said. “I just thought…” I shook my head and smiled apologetically. “A trick of the light.”

He cocked an eyebrow and looked at me as if he didn’t know what to think anymore. I decided to try and put his mind to rest. I’d just seen my adoptive father not half an hour ago, had found out that my real father had always wanted me dead, my pixie friend was in a cage surrounded by nothingness, and I was tired, confused, and angry. It had been a long evening. All I wanted wa

s to take a hot bath and text with my guys until I fell asleep.

“Look, I’m sorry, father. I just… I’m in love with them. I know you don’t like it, but it is what it is.”

“You broke one of the rules. Again. Students are not allowed in other students’ dorm-rooms. Not to mention the curfew… Two, you broke two rules.”

“I’m sorry. Do what you have to do. Take more of my worth points.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re at minus 240. I’ve come to believe the students at Grim Reaper Academy don’t take the worth system seriously. You lose points every day, and it doesn’t seem to affect you.”

I wanted to roll my eyes, but I abstained. No point in pissing him off even more. Not tonight. Tonight, I was even closer to a breakthrough, and I just needed him to leave me the fuck alone so I could think. So, no, I wasn’t going to tell him that we all used to take the system very seriously before he came along, fucked it up, and showed us that it didn’t matter what we did, good or bad, ethical or not, when the Headmaster himself took worth points from us on a daily basis just because he could. The rules were stupid. The way he’d chosen to enforce them was even stupider.

He held out his hand, and I stared at it, confused.

“Your phone. Hand it over.”

“What? No. Why?”

“Because from now on, all electronic devices are forbidden on Academy grounds.” He motioned toward my desk. “Your laptop, too.”