Saving Year Three (Grim Reaper Academy 3)

“I’ve been wracking my brain… I have no idea. Maybe we can figure it out together.”

“Do you have any more clues?”

“Not really. Well, I had another dream recently, and I think it showed me the future.” I blushed. No, I wasn’t going to tell them about this one. They got the gist already, so there was no point in describing to them every dream I’d ever had. Especially not when in that dream I was dating all four of them. Lorna didn’t need to hear about it, either.

“Let me guess,” GC said. “One of your theories is that you and your dad can see the past and the future in dreams. And the ones where you travel to the future are…”

“Prophetic dreams, yes.”

“That’s how prophecies are born,” Patty came to the same conclusion I’d come weeks before.

“Maybe PU comes from prophecy something?” Lorna suggested.

Second order of business: find out why Valentine Morningstar considered dreaming so important that he started keeping dream journals.

“Okay, this is all I’ve got.” I looked at the white board. It didn’t make much sense, sadly. “Who wants to go next?”

“I’ll go.” Pazuzu stood up and pulled a crumpled paper out of his pocket.

A chill ran up my spine. “Is that… what I think it is?”

“Yeah. It’s your genealogy. Well, on your mother’s side, at least. Fucking Morningstar remains a mystery.”

“I tried to dig up dirt on him and his family, I swear,” GC said quickly. “But he cut off all communication with the outside. I asked my mother what she knew about him, she said not much, but she’d look into it. If she found out anything, maybe now I can teleport to her and get the info.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“No trouble at all, goddess. In and out. Quick.” He snapped his fingers. “No one will ever know.”

“What we’re doing now is dangerous enough.” Two or three times a week, Headmaster Morningstar had the Unseelie guards check the dorm-rooms to make sure all students were where they were supposed to be – in bed. We’d learned their schedule by now, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t switch it up at any time.

“So, are you ready for this?” Paz stepped up to me, hand out waiting for me to pass the marker.

I looked at the paper in his hand. Names. Just names. People I’d never met, people who didn’t mean anything to me, even if they were my mother’s ancestors. Relatives. Some of them could still be alive.

“I don’t know, but I guess we’re about to find out.” I gave him the black marker and went to sit with the others.

Paz found a clear spot on the board and started drawing the family tree he’d put together at the end of year one, when we all found out who my real parents were, and he decided to go investigate in Bulgaria. Just as I thought, there were only names. Names that didn’t say anything to me. He reached the bottom, where he wrote Katerina Angelov and Valentine Morningstar, connected them with a line, then drew another perpendicular line and wrote Mila. I appreciated the lack of a surname.

Katia’s mother was Rositsa, and her father was Boris. Paz drew a cross next to both names. Rositsa had a sister, Natalia – another cross, – and Natalia had a daughter and a son. The son never got married, apparently, but the daughter, Anelia, had married a guy whose name Paz hadn’t been able to find, and together they had a daughter – Yolanda. There were a few more names that didn’t have crosses after them, but I’d already lost interest.

“How’s this supposed to help?” Patty asked what I was thinking. “Mila, do you know any of these people?”

“No. Not even my mother.” I was staring at the name Katerina Angelov like I was waiting for something to happen. For it to start glowing or cause a vision. Anything. This is stupid.

“I agree,” Paz said. “There are a few more names, but it doesn’t matter. There’s one thing I believe could be important. I don’t know how yet, but I have a feeling.”

“What is it?”

He fixed me with his green eyes. “Mila, there’s a disease that has run in your family for generations. Only women suffer from it. Your mother was particularly affected.”

I straightened my back. That was the last thing anyone wanted to hear. Really! A disease running in the family? Did it mean that I had it? If I didn’t have it yet, would I get sick later?

“Schizophrenia.”

“What the hell?” I jumped to my feet and started pacing. “Schizophrenia? Are you saying my mother was crazy?”

He rolled his eyes. “Schizophrenia is a real thing, Mila, and it has affected many of your female ancestors, apparently. Your mother wasn’t crazy. She was ill.”