Saving Year Three (Grim Reaper Academy 3)

I puffed out my cheeks and exhaled slowly. There was so much work to be done…

“Let’s start with teaching the guys how to teleport without those stupid pins. They need to be free, like us.”

And so, it all began. A false god, a demon, a fallen archangel, a lazy mage, and a… Francis were going to learn true teleportation from two badass chicks. Yeah, that was me and Lorna. We were badass.

CHAPTER TWENTY

We practiced until early morning, it was hardcore, but when it was time for breakfast, everyone was able to teleport on their own to their rooms. We’d succeeded. In the dining hall, we ate in silence, each at his or her own table, then we went to class without exchanging as much as a glance. We had our leaves, but we’d decided not to use them unless it was something urgent. Corri was with me at all times, flying around, snoozing on my books, and bringing me snacks when I got hungry between breakfast and lunch, then lunch and dinner. Nowadays, that was pretty much all I asked her to do for me. Snacks and blue hair dye to cover my blond roots. She was a decent hair stylist.

After curfew, we all teleported down in the cavern. Patricia and Joel joined us shortly.

“Okay, what do we know so far?” Lorna asked, taking control of the conversation. She was super organized, and the more I got to know her, the more I understood why she was so good at what she did.

“A lot. Let’s get it all down. Corri, white board.”

The pixie clicked her heels and saluted me military-style, then twirled in the air three times, spread a bunch of pixie dust all around her, snapped her fingers and made a white board appear out of nowhere. With markers and all.

“Stole it from Mr. Lovecraft’s office,” she snickered. “He won’t miss it.”

Since I was the one who had gathered the most information but hadn’t yet had the chance to share it with them, I went first.

“I want to start by telling you what I found out from my adoptive parents and from Morningstar’s dream journal.”

“He kept a journal?” GC cocked an eyebrow.

“That’s your question?” Sariel shook his head in disbelief, then turned to me. “How can he dream? He’s a nephilim! He’s supernatural!”

“A nephilim is a hybrid,” said Patty. “Like me. I can dream sometimes, too. But I’m not as good as he is.”

“Dreaming is not a skill,” Lorna huffed. Of course, just like Sariel, she didn’t like that I could do something she couldn’t.

“I’m starting to believe it is,” I smiled knowingly. “And I’m starting to believe that the more you dream, and the more consciously you try to dream, you get better at it. And you start having dreams that can show you… the past. Or the future. I have a theory.”

“Wait, what?” Pazuzu stood up, grabbed a marker, and shoved it in my hand. “Start from the beginning. Theories go at the end.”

I took a moment to put my thoughts in order, then launched myself in a long monologue. I told them everything, starting with what my adoptive dad had revealed to me. Valentine Morningstar had tried to kill me when I was merely a toddler. His scythe broke, he somehow got a new one, and two months before, he’d tried to hurt me again. His scythe cracked. If he’d tried harder, I was pretty sure the blade would have broken into a million pieces again.

So, first order of business: find out why he couldn’t kill me. Oh, and how had he gotten his scythe replaced? Questions, questions… One, this was the first time any of us had heard of a scythe breaking, and two, scythes were attuned to their original masters. If I broke my scythe today, I had no idea how to get a new one. I couldn’t just go to Mrs. Charon and ask her if she had a spare I could try to attune to my energy.

Next was young Valentine’s dream journal. But first, I told them about the dreams I’d been having all year. The one where I met the girl who looked like me and told me that she wasn’t me, but there were other universes where I could find versions of me. I wanted to add more details and theories I’d come up with after that dream, but I could see I’d already lost my audience. The white board was filled with my writing, plus a couple of drawings. So, I moved on to the next dream. I could understand why it was so hard for them to follow me when I talked about lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences. They’d never had any. Sariel was tense all through my tirade, and Lorna was silent. I was relieved to notice that GC, Paz, and Francis couldn’t give a damn that I was capable of doing something they couldn’t.

I showed them the dream journal.

“Do you keep a journal, Mila?” Klaus asked.

“N-no.”

“You should.”

“I don’t have time for it.”

“Morningstar kept one for a very good reason, I’m sure. And if your dream was real and you saw the past, it’s safe to say he kept more than one. Maybe he took them with him when he graduated.”

“And left this one behind? Why?”

He shrugged. “Maybe this was the first one, and not as important. This stuff he dreamed seems pretty random.”

“What does PU mean?” Francis asked.