He’d slept over at my little rental last night, although we hadn’t done a lot of sleeping.

“Nah.” Lachlan pulled an envelope out of his pack, cocking an eyebrow at me. “Representatives from the school must keep an eye on all the students who go home for the break. They’ve obviously been watchin’ us. When I left the clubhouse to come here yesterday, I found this note on the door telling me that our portals would be near each other. Yers and mine. Thought that was interestin’.”

“Huh.” I shook my head and walked over to stand next to him. My portal was due to appear any moment, and I supposed his was too. “Doesn’t surprise me all that much, I guess, even though it’s creepy as hell.”

“Yeah.

We both glanced up at the clock and then over at the space where the portal was to appear. This time there was no delay, and the swirling and hissing of the magic arrived quickly. I nodded at Lachlan, who pulled me in for a hard kiss before stepping through his own portal.

Gritting my teeth, I stepped through mine too. I was getting used to the feeling of my feet leaving the ground, and this time I didn’t stumble as badly when I was spat out on the other side. Looking to my right, I caught sight of Lachlan as he arrived. He shook himself, brushing off his arms and rolling his shoulders as he stood straight. We were in a large open chamber, and there were multiple other students arriving at the same time as us.

“Welcome, students! Welcome!” Miss Avery, the woman who worked in Student Affairs, was greeting everyone as they arrived, ushering returning students out of the portal room and greeting new first-years with a short, prepared speech.

As Lachlan and I followed the flow of students out the door, Dean Frost’s voice resonated throughout the chamber, magically amplified as if on a PA system.

“Welcome back, Magic Blessed students. We’re glad to see you. Please check in and then find your way back to the dormitories where you were housed last semester. If you are a new student, please speak to Miss Avery or one of her staff members to receive your room assignment. As always, get a good night’s sleep. Classes will start first thing tomorrow.”

My reaction to the dean’s voice was a bit different this time than it’d been the first time I had heard it. This time, it sent chills down my spine.

“Watch out,” Lachlan commented mildly as we turned a corner in the hallway.

“Wha—?”

Before I could finish the word, I was bombarded by a body. I tensed for a second, my fighter’s instincts putting me on alert. But blonde hair flashed in my vision, and I recognized the scent of Eden’s lavender shampoo. I smiled as I hugged my friend back, surprised at how happy I was to see her.

“I’ve been waiting and waiting for you!” The petite girl was smiling from ear to ear as she leaned back. “I was seriously waiting for my portal for about two hours before it arrived. I couldn’t wait to get back. My family was driving me absolutely crazy.”

I laughed, although I honestly couldn’t relate to what she was saying. I hadn’t had a family to drive me nuts in years. My dad had died when I was twelve, and it’d been only the two of us for years before that. My mom had passed away when I was really young, leaving me with pretty much no memories of her.

“How was your break?” Eden asked, her gaze flicking curiously from Lachlan to me.

I could feel the unspoken questions hovering in the air. Up until right before the break, the guys and I had been sort of avoiding each other—well, I’d been avoiding them. Eden knew things had changed between the four of us, but I could tell she was dying to ask just how much they’d changed.

“It was… good,” I said evasively.

Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure what to tell her, and I definitely didn’t want to talk about it in front of Lachlan. I wasn’t big on “girl talk,” but I knew I’d have to tell Eden at least some of what was going on. There was already so much I couldn’t tell her. I hadn’t told her what I’d overheard Dean Frost and Miss Avery talking about, or suspected about the school. She was so innocent and sweet, and her magic wasn’t nearly strong enough to face some of the things that we had faced in the Gods’ Challenge. I figured keeping her out of the loop would keep her safe—or at least safer—for the time being.

“You should’ve seen the place I rented in Boston,” I said, sticking to a safe, easy topics for the time being. “I’m pretty sure someone died in there, or maybe several someones.”

Eden wrinkled her nose, giggling. “Next time you need to just come stay with me. You can help me avoid my parents, and you won’t have to live in a murder house.”

Lachlan chuckled at that, stepping a little closer to me until his arm brushed mine. He didn’t mention that we’d spent our entire break together either, and I was glad he followed my lead on that. I’d tell Eden when I was ready.

As the three of us spoke, a large group of students elbowed their way past us in the hall. My gaze lifted as one of the guys at the front, Wesley Marshall, muttered something under his breath.

He was tall, with dirty blonde hair and a sneering look on his face. There hadn’t been a time since I’d arrived at Magic Blessed when I’d seen him smile, at least not in my direction. After the other competitors and I had returned from the Gods’ Challenge last semester, he had made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing to do with me. He’d made sure not to be my partner in anything, and he’d glared at me from across the room pretty much every day.

I had never paid much attention to it, not giving two shits what he thought about me—and too distracted by my own shit as I tried to process everything that’d happened in the godly realm.

It looks like nothing changed over the break.

“Ugh. Wesley. He’s kind of an asshole,” Eden said in a quiet voice, noticing me watch him walk past. “I’m not really sure who his friends are, but whoever they are, they have to be assholes too. I’m convinced of it.”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. I had real things to take care of this semester, actual life and death stuff. I didn’t have time to get dragged into petty high school bullshit.

As I turned back toward Eden, my gaze caught on two figures striding toward us. My heart seemed to skip a beat in my chest, as if my whole body had frozen in time for a second.

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