I scowled to myself.

The receptionist cleared her throat, nervously. “Uh, Miss Smith? You’re, uh, burning.”

I glanced down at my hands. Both were aflame with deep green light that danced over my skin. I sniffed and realised that not only had the bandage round my hand caught alight and burnt away almost to nothing, but now the sleeves of my robes were on fire too. Jesus. Couldn’t the bloody mages have been smart enough to pick some flame retardant cloth for their stupid uniform?

“The bathroom’s down that way,” the receptionist said helpfully.

“Great, thanks,” I muttered, before heading down the corridor to douse myself with water. This was not one of my better days.

When I emerged from the small bathroom, a man wearing a well tailored suit was standing outside waiting for me.

“Miss Smith? It’s a pleasure to have you here. I’m Jacoby Bryant. Please, if you’re now quite ready, perhaps you can follow me?”

I glanced down at myself. The sleeves of my robes were hanging down in ragged wet strips, slapping the edges of my bare skin, while the rip in the fabric up my leg was high enough now to not look out of place in any good stripper bar. One of the wounds on my hand had decided to open up and was oozing bright red blood so I quickly moved it up to my mouth to suck it away. Judging by what had happened so far, this was definitely an Otherworld venue so I’d have to be careful with where I spilt my blood. I smiled through my hand and curtsied with as much graciousness as I could muster and as if I looked like this every day of my life.

“Of course, Mr Bryant. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

For his part, at least, his gaze didn’t flicker. He just gestured me further along the corridor to a small room. Once inside, he pulled out a chair for me and then sat opposite.

“So Miss Smith, why don’t you tell me where you feel the problems are?”

I looked at the man, and felt a deep inward pain. I couldn’t even begin to tell him where my problems lay. How would the fact I’m secretly some kind of strange dragon human hybrid go down, I wondered? That I could barely control the hot angry blood inside of me? I was tempted, oh so very tempted to spill every little secret I had right there and then. But I knew deep down that no good would come of it. So instead, I rocked back in the chair and forced my body to relax. Then I looked him in the eye and just flat out lied.

By the time I returned retching to the academy, I had a whole host of calming techniques at my disposal. Bryant had recommended that I count to ten and practise some deep breathing and relaxation exercises whenever I felt the need to ‘lash out’ as he put it. It seemed like the sorts of things you’d tell an errant child having a temper tantrum, but he assured me that they really would work. I’d spun him vast and varied tales about what pissed me off and how I reacted to such situations. Not once did I mention that there was fire inside me that took over so I kind of had my doubts as to how effective such techniques were really going to be. And as much as I wanted to not fly off the handle at every slightest thing, and to be in more control of myself, I also knew that my bloodfire was what kept me strong. It was what kept me alive. I felt as if I was being torn in two separate directions: on the one hand I couldn’t trust myself to not hurt others whenever the bloodfire flared, and on the other I couldn’t trust myself to not personally get hurt if I didn’t let it happen. I eventually decided that context was everything. If I felt in danger – or if someone else was being threatened and I was there - then I’d let all hell break loose. If not, then I’d try counting and breathing, and if that worked, then great. Otherwise, watch out.

Needing to focus on something to keep Corrigan out of my head, I headed straight up to my little room and the mysterious book that kept tugging at me. I was bitterly aware of just how long it was going to take me to translate the sodding thing – but the one thing that I had ample amounts of now I was stuck at the academy was time. So I positioned myself cross-legged on my lumpy bed, opened both the book and the dictionary, and pulled out a pencil and notepad that I’d managed to snarf earlier on.

Unfortunately I was more than prophetically right at how slow-going my weak translation efforts were. Not only that, but looking up individual words on their own wasn’t aiding me particularly in making total sense out of what was on the page. After an hour of trying, I’d ended up with “In times past, tends steel dragon breathing fire was in the possession of the sky and the earth.” Ummm. Steel dragon? What the fuck was that? I supposed that I should probably be grateful that the book wasn’t actually some ancient romance or pulpy thriller, and actually was about something that seemed like it might be to do with me. But that just added to my overall frustation with the thing. If this sodding book kept trying to find me, and was indestructible enough to avoid being burnt to a cinder when the Clava Cairns bookshop burnt down, then why on earth couldn’t it help me work out what it actually said?

I kept Bryant’s techniques in mind, and took a few minutes out to breathe deeply. Somehow or other it did indeed have a calming effect, and I eventually relaxed, and tried the next sentence. Chewing hard on the end of the pencil, and furiously flicking through the dictionary from one end to the other, the end result was, “These majestic creatures ruled with no small scarcity of mercy and grace, their innate strength of mind and body power allowing the poise and compassion through every dimension.”

Okay, that seemed to make virtually no sense whatsoever. The dragon or dragons (made of steel?) were in charge but still full of grace and mercy? For some ridiculous reason, I had sudden visions of a benign dragon-shaped version of Ming the Merciless wearing armour and pirouetting down a street. Not helpful. That translation was then followed by, “Is written and said and passed down through generations, that one such creature breathing fire and fell under the spell of the witch who were so impressed this charming dragon force they needed to harness their capabilities. Thus, worked her magic and true woman was able to convert the beast to the human form.”

I paused for a while, biting my lip. Dodgy pronouns and bizarre grammar aside, I thought I might just understand what was going on. Some female mage (of course it was a mage – who else would be stupid enough to stick their nose in where it didn’t belong?) had weaved some kind of spell to turn a dragon into a man because she liked the look of him. This was all becoming just a little too Greek myth-esque for my liking. I sighed and gave up for the time being, heading down to get some food from the cafeteria instead. At least the weekend had virtually arrived so, other than my promised session teaching Mary and the few other Level Fours who weren’t too scared to talk to me some ‘real’ Protection, I was confident I’d have more time to attack the next few pages of the book with some renewed gusto and verve.

Chapter Nine

I had been tempted to sneak out again during the night to go for a run, as I’d done previously, however I’d had to admit to myself that my muscles were feeling more than a little tense and sore – surprisingly so – after the t’ai chi bout with Thomas. By the time I woke up on Saturday morning, with screechingly bright sunlight saturating my little room, I felt even more stiff. Cursing Thomas under my breath, I stood up painfully and did my best to stretch out the kinks and knots. I forced my fingertips upwards, aiming to reach high enough to brush the ceiling, then held that position for a few moments before curving first to my left side and then my right. My spine in particular felt sore, so I sank down to all fours onto the floor and worked on arching my back like a cat. Unfortunately doing this just put me in mind of Corrigan’s muscular yet lithe and feline like body, so I cursed again and instead got up to force myself into the daily torture of fighting my way into my blue robes. At least I now had some clean ones that weren’t ripped to shreds.

I’d arranged to meet Mary, Brock and the others out towards the end of the back garden, far behind what I now thought of as the ‘oath-taking’ statue. My midnight jog the night before at least meant that I was more confident at finding my way there and more able to get my bearings around the whole campus. I swung by the cafeteria, picking up one quick cup of steaming hot syrupy coffee and downing it, before re-filling it so I could take it with me on my way to meet them.

Overcome as I was with the simple yet heady joy of caffeine, I didn’t immediately notice that the Dean himself was blocking my path outside. I’d not seen him since the oath, and I was pretty sure that I didn’t really want to see him again so if I’d registered his presence in time I’d probably have found some way to manoeuvre round and travel via an alternative route. No such luck, however. When he saw me approaching, he raised his eyebrows and folded his arms, clearly waiting for me to get close enough. Giving myself up to the inevitable, I walked up to him.

“Initiate Smith,” he stated drily.

I inclined my head. “Dean Michaels.” I made to move past him but he blocked my way.

“So, you think that you can train our Initiates better than our own teachers, do you?”

One, two ,three, four, five. “Uh, no, I don’t. They asked me to give them some extra help, and I said I would. You know, in the interests of the academy and all. In order to make them the best possible graduates you can ask for so that when they enter the real world they are fully prepared.” Six, seven, eight.

“I hardly think that you are best qualified to do so. Your track record in the real world as you call it, is hardly exemplary.”

Nine, ten. It wasn’t working. Fucking Corrigan and his big mouth. “Well, if you think it’s a bad idea, then I will happily tell them so.”

“And have you turn my own students against me?” he hissed. “Don’t think I can’t see your own petty machinations for what they are.”

Wow, did this guy have a god complex or what? “I have no machinations, Dean. Nor do I have any designs or plans or ulterior motives.” I looked at him directly in the eye. “All I want to do is to get through your training so that the Arch-Mage will release my friend. That’s it.”