Cursed Academy (Year One and a Half) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  There's More!

  Cursed Academy

  Year One and A Half

  Book Two of the Cursed Academy Series

  By Holly Hook

  Chapter One

  "Are you sure about this?" I asked, stepping over a tree root jutting out of the trail. I could barely stay on my feet in these dark woods.

  Maria looked over her shoulder and smiled at me, brandishing the fancy lock-breaker she bought off the dark web two weeks ago. She continued down the trail while Mikey held up the flashlight. The lock breaker was huge, like a big iron pincer I wouldn't want to get my arm stuck between. It must have weighed at least forty pounds. But Maria was strong. Monstrously strong. We just didn't know what type she'd become yet.

  "Look at this thing," she said, walking backwards. "The seller said it was made by the Hephaestus Society. They make good stuff. I guess they sell things like this on the black market for extra money all the time. We'll get into the library. Don't worry."

  "Watch your step," Mikey said, adjusting the flashlight for her.

  "Yeah. You don't want to trip like Giselle does." Ronin grinned beside me.

  "Shut up." I slapped Ronin on the arm. Yeah, he picked on me, but now that we were together, he did it in fun. "Maria, the seller said that. You don't know if we're getting any forbidden books tonight. Or figuring out how to get me admitted to Olympian."

  "Well, look at the metalwork here." Maria held up the claw to my face without much effort. "This must be good if it cost me my college savings."

  "Your college savings?" I burst. Maria hadn't had to do that for me. And I'd been afraid to ask how much it cost to have it shipped past the Academy guards.

  "Well, monsters don't go to college, do they?" she asked, eyes darkening with worry.

  "You don't know what you're becoming yet." Mikey tapped her shoulder.

  "Look. I can swing a club and throw people. That's my future," she argued.

  Ronin frowned at me and stepped up, lowering the claw with his outstretched hand. "Now, don't hand that to her. Giselle will just drop it and fall over."

  I raised my voice to a squeak. "I agree." I silently thanked him for defusing the tension.

  In the couple of months since I had defeated the misery goddess who pretended to be my grandmother, Ronin hadn't let up on his sarcastic comments. And I was glad. Now that I knew I'd eventually mature into a full immortal--possibly even a dark immortal--I craved his ability to make me feel normal. Of course, Ronin could have the opposite effect, depending on his tone, but since Achlys, he'd shifted from real jerk to pretend jerk. The pretend jerk kept the lid on my powers.

  But even with Ronin's help, if I didn't find a way to remove Prometheus's mark from my wrist and get out of Cursed Academy, my chances of becoming a dark immortal weren't just high. They were like, dead certain. Training around budding monsters and descendants of dark gods could mold me. Ronin and I had talked about that after Achlys. We'd even stopped training after school every day and agreed not to continue until I got admitted to Olympian. That was safest for all of us. And we got away with slacking because Zeus had gone across the world on business.

  And the trick would involve breaking the oath made by the immortals on the River Styx. No sweat. The library had to have answers on that.

  We came to the now-familiar hole in the fence between campuses. The lights from Olympian Academy colored the night just beyond. I shuddered with a certain memory.

  Ronin seemed to know what I was thinking. “The Lower Order's not coming back here. They're no match for my hotness.”

  “I'm the one with the suave." Mikey slicked his hair back.

  “Hey, shut up,” Ronin told him.

  “Look, I'm strong, but this device is still freaking heavy,” Maria said. “Let's bust into that library and see what the gods like to hide from us all. And how to get Giselle into the right school."

  Was that sour grapes?

  Maria continued through the hole in the fence, ducking through.

  I had been worried about ditching my friends.

  Especially after she spent her college savings on me. My stomach turned as I had my first doubts.

  We crept through the hole since the approved gate to the other campus was closed at this time of the night. And not to mention, the Olympian students didn't want Prometheus's cheap werewolf rent-a-guards wandering onto their perfect lawn. Spotlights lit the front of Olympian's main building and showed off every subtle color in the marble pillars. Maria said nothing as she waved us along the wrought iron fence and away from the colored lights that made the fountain come alive. We stayed in the dark, where we monsters-to-be and descendants of dark gods belonged.

  "Maria, I'm seriously not doing this to ditch you," I hissed.

  She stopped beside the fence and whirled. "Look, it was my idea to break the lock. And we still need to see what kind of immortal you could become."

  I swallowed, suddenly without spit.

  "Giselle was supposed to go to Olympian." Ronin's breath caressed my ear, sending tingles down my spine. "Once she's here, she'll be on the way to becoming a cool goddess. Well, maybe. And then you won't have to be my secret anymore."

  "Secret?"

  "Come on," Maria hissed.

  We crept around the perimeter of the Olympian campus until at last, we reached the locked door of the long library building. The heavy lock hung on the thick wooden doors just as it had before, and I kept checking behind me to make sure the Lower Order wasn't walking through the front gate. Check. At least there were no spotlights on the library, which shocked me, but it was about to work to our advantage.

  Maria walked up to the doors, breath spiraling in front of her face, and grimaced as she lifted the giant claw to the equally massive lock on the library door. The cold night stayed quiet. The three of us watched in silence as Maria worked her arm muscles, grunting in a very non-feminine manner as she closed the claw around the lock.

  "Are you sure this is going to work?" I asked.

  "Hey. I can always try," Ronin pumped his biceps. "I bet that lock will break for me."

  "Stop being such an alpha," Maria hissed.

  Snap.

  Metal squealed and sent a shiver up my spine. Maria eyed the device like she couldn't believe it had worked, and backed off, letting the lock fall to the marble porch.

  "Whoa," Mikey said. "I thought we were going to huff and puff for hours on this."

  "Well, that looked too easy," Ronin said, eyeing the building and the pillars. "We have to be careful even when we go inside. The gods like to protect these old books, and I'm sure Athena must have done something magical to keep people like us out. Any of the gods could have cursed the area." He patted his belt, which he had hiding under his leather jacket. And then I saw the outline of the Chaos Dagger, my birthright weapon. He'd brought it tonight.

  "They're just old books." Panic swirled in my chest. Since the incident with Achlys, I hadn't handled the Chaos Dagger much. Sure, it made me feel all powerful, but after what Achlys had told me--that I'd become a full immortal--I had let Ronin keep it on his person. Using my weapon made me feel...dark. And it scared everyone else.

  Maria lowered the claw. "We'd better get in and out before someone hears. Mikey, you got the flashlight?"

  He held up his phone. "Yep. Look for books about oaths. Or the Underworld. Breaking Giselle's mark comes first."

  I agreed.

  Maria stayed silent as we pulled open the library doors. I tensed, but nothing jumped out at us. Maybe the gods thought the huge, forty-pound lock now lying on the ground had been good enough. Or they thought Olympian kids wouldn't want to bother with books. It was insulting either way.

  Ronin put his hand on my back as we stepped inside. "Don't trip on this ramp," he whispered just as I did exactly that. He caught me by the arm, sending electricity under my skin.

  "Thanks," I said.

  He just grinned.

  Mikey shone the flashlight on the inside of the Olympian Academy library. "Whoa."

  The building was long, seemingly going on forever, with a red carpet going up the center walkway. Old-fashioned lamps decorated wooden tables and a few chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

  And the books.

  Shelves upon shelves rose to the ceiling. Knowledge and the smell of old paper hung in the air. Ronin's jaw dropped. Mikey took two dazed steps ahead and stopped. Maria dumped her claw on a table.

  "The black market would salivate over this," Maria said, walking to the first shelf. She ran her hand down a green spine that read Tales of Arachne, Atalanta, and Other Women of Ancient Greece. "None of these are from Athena's publishing company. They're all pre-Awakening books."

  Ronin picked one up. "The Odyssey," he read, ope
ning the book. "Never seen this before." He turned on his own phone flashlight and flipped through the pages. "Wow. I didn't realize Poseidon had such a temper. Did he really punish a guy for twenty years because of a missed thank you?"

  "What?" I asked. It was weird, seeing Ronin get absorbed in a book.

  "Hey. I told you I'm capable of reading," he said, slapping the book shut. "Just don't tell anyone." He tucked The Odyssey under his arm. "I doubt anyone will realize this is gone."

  "That book must be fifty years old," Mikey said.

  "Well, since we're not dead yet, we need to find something about the rivers of the Underworld," I said, scanning the shelves with my own flashlight. I was glad the library didn't have windows.

  There were hundreds, no, thousands of books here, and it turned out Mrs. Allenson, said to man the library during the day, had an old-fashioned card catalog. Heart racing, I sifted through it until I found a card labeled Underworld. Good enough. The others scattered through the library, opening books, closing them, and putting them back again. Whispers made up the backdrop of my search. I shuffled over to the Underworld section, which was way in the back, as Maria stuffed a bunch of books in her backpack. I gulped. She was going to get us in trouble by taking so many.

  Then again, I was about to do the same. I ducked into the U aisle, heart racing. We were about to find answers.

  The Five Rivers of the Underworld.

  Yes. That was it. I grabbed the narrow book off the shelf, unzipped my own pack, and stuffed it inside. It would have information about the River Styx and how to get around oaths made in it for sure. And maybe, how to get this green mark off my forearm.

  "Did you find something?" Ronin asked from behind me.

  I jumped. "Yeah. Maybe."

  "Good. We shouldn't stay in here too long. I might be hot, but I won't be able to hold off the authorities."

  "That makes me feel better."

  Ronin leaned in and kissed my temple. Hot tingles ran over my skin.

  "You've got talent. Okay. Got what I wanted. Did you see anything about Chaos?"

  "You're telling me you know nothing about the force you came from."

  "Well, I don't. Just that it created the first gods."

  "I looked. No one ever wrote a book on the force. It's just, well, a dark void that spat out everything that ever exists."

  "So I'm spit."

  "Technically yes."

  "Get out of here."

  "Guys," Mikey said, peeking his head into our aisle. "We should leave. The door's just hanging open and I thought I heard voices. Could be a curse working for all I know."

  My stomach lurched. I might be a budding immortal, but I was probably still able to die until I matured. And definitely able to be punished. "Coming this way?"

  Mikey frowned. "Maybe?"

  "We should hide," Ronin said. He turned, leather jacket opening on its own, and the black handle of the Chaos Dagger waited. A hint of the void's groan filled me, urging me to take it and let it help me channel my power, but it was dangerous. The more I used it, the faster I'd become something beyond dark.

  "But where?"

  Maria shoved Mikey into the aisle with us. Yeah, that was bad.

  "You think she's in here?" someone asked from the front of the library. "If she is, this is our chance. We can tell Prometheus she ran away and he'll never know."

  A sense of dread settled over me.

  Wendy.

  My rival. The descendant of Hades and the girl I threatened to knock off the top of the first years' class. She had followed us and come to finish me.

  Chapter Two

  Ronin grabbed my arm. His electricity grew intense. Nervous.

  "I saw them coming this way, and the lock is on the ground," another girl said. Serena, a descendant of Nyx. Wendy's left hand girl. She hated me by default, too.

  Maybe this library was cursed. But instead of turning us into statues or something, the curse brought us any trouble it could. Wendy's gang had followed us, despite us being super careful and never drawing them out before.

  Feet scraped against the floor and then carpet. Yikes. No. Wendy was in a class by herself when it came to me. She could have alerted Achlys about my growing powers for all I knew. The two had the common goal of keeping me down. And we still hadn't found out who stuck me with the misery goddess in the first place.

  "We shouldn't be in here," Percival, her friend, said.

  "We're fine. I just got this today," Wendy said, loud enough for anyone in the library to hear. "New birthright weapon. Prometheus ordered it for me when Giselle cheated and destroyed my last one. I stole it out of the weapons shed."

  Uh, oh. Ronin's grip on my arm tightened. I heard the thrumming of Wendy's terrifying sword, the one with the skulls on the handle. She'd reached the middle of the library and was just a few aisles away.

  And I was about to find out what that sword could do.

  I ducked behind Ronin. Maria and Mikey crouched beside us. I could grab the Chaos Dagger right now. Ronin lowered too, just a shadow in the dark, while he reluctantly held open his coat, offering it. Maria and Mikey slipped behind me, like I was the one to defend us. Great. I had to defend us all? This wasn't Achlys. Wendy and her gang were people. And I could seriously, seriously kill them.

  A faint green glow fell on the bookshelves from the main aisle. A low thrumming followed. She had a new sword, all right, just like her old one.

  Her threat hung. I can banish you to the Underworld.

  But what I could do was worse.

  "Giselle," Maria hissed in my ear, terrified.

  For the first time in weeks, I grabbed the Chaos Dagger from Ronin's coat.

  And remembered why I didn't like handling it anymore. A low, terrifying groan filled me as I rose, pointing my weapon at the end of our aisle, waiting for Wendy. I filled with icy, electric plasma and I could barely breathe. I'd drown. But strength filled me. Chaos.

  Destruction.

  Ronin rose beside me. He frowned at me.

  Wendy turned the corner and stared us down, glowing green blade turning everything sickly.

  She froze.

  I remained in place, pointing my weapon, trying to suck air into my lungs. The low groan within begged me to use it. Destroy. Kill. Wendy flinched. The skulls on the handle of her sword stared me down with pit-like eyes. Shadows elongated under Wendy's eyes. Silence dragged out.

  I barely noticed Serena, Duncan, and Percival cramming in behind Wendy. They were mere shadows. Spectators.

  Wendy stared at my dagger.

  She swallowed.

  I trembled, barely able to hold back the power.

  Destroy.

  I could end her. Give in to the dark. I had already started the process and now I just had to finish it.

  "So, hey," Ronin said, stepping in front of me. "How are things on the dark side?"

  His words snapped me out of it. I loosened my grasp on the dagger. Instantly the darkness and the ice retreated, but it hung in the background, ready to strike. Gulping down air, I stepped back into Maria. No, no.

  And then she did something brave and grabbed my arm, squeezing so hard the pain made the darkness flee. I was Giselle again. For maybe the next thirty seconds.

  "R...Ronin?" The sting in Wendy's voice was evident. "You know, you can do better in the friends department. What does Zeus think? And yes, I know he's your father. And it would suck if he found out about the company you keep. Don't you think?"

  "I don't care what Zeus thinks." Ronin looked away from Wendy as he spoke. "If we all get caught in here, we're rolling boulders uphill for the next six months."

  Wendy ignored him. "Only three of you are going to get caught." She peeked around Ronin, snapping her blade back up to point at me. The green glow intensified.

  "Leave her alone," Ronin shouted, going to shove her.

  But Wendy struck him with the blunt end of her sword, sending him into the bookshelf. Ronin grasped his side, open-mouthed, as a green glow faded around it.

  "No!" I shouted, dark plasma flooding me again. The klutzy art girl retreated as the low groan filled my head. I was a channel. Destruction itself. And this girl would pay.

  Maria let go. My voice echoed through the whole library. I held up my dagger to face Wendy's sword as she whirled on me.

  My prey trembled. Her pupils widened in fear as she lifted the blade of her weapon to face mine. "To the Underworld!"