Chapter 29: The New Normal

I woke up to find Celestria rubbing a minty ointment into my temples. In the meantime, Administrator Dawson was making sure I didn’t fall off the chair I was sitting on.

My head was pounding. I couldn’t remember how I ended up in this room in the first place.

“Breathe in, then breathe out,” Celestria coached me.

I did what she said, and slowly, everything Administrator Dawson told me before I blacked out came rushing back.

“You’re in shock,” he said. “Let us take you to the healing quarters. I want the healers to examine you and make sure you’re all right.”

“I’m fine. I just need to lie down in my room for a little bit,” I told him in a weak voice. “But before I go, I do need to ask you one more thing.”

“Anything,” he said.

“Who were my birth parents?”

“We have a file on every family that has ever been targeted by Arachnid and its devious spies. The queen’s personal assistant is sifting through them and looking for any families that have ever lived or had connections to Madison. The queen will not rest until we know exactly where you come from, Drake. That is a promise.”

I tried to be grateful, but it was hard to focus on positive emotions right now.

“I don’t even know who I am,” I muttered once Celestria and I got back to our room.

“You are still my best friend and my sister. This doesn’t change anything,” she said.

“It changes everything, Celestria. Those evil people killed my parents. They raised me!” I shouted, my voice getting louder and louder with every word. “What if they put some of that evil inside of me and I brought it to Oswalda? What if I’m responsible for all the bad things that happened here this year?”

“You weren’t even at the academy when the tower exploded. You were with me and our family. How could you have been responsible?”

She was making a lot of sense, but I didn’t want to listen to reason right now. I was so angry, my throat and hands burned.

I flinched and jumped in front of Celestria right as a flower vase that stood on her desk shattered into smithereens. Water poured down onto the floor.

“How did you do that?” Celestria asked after she walked up to the desk and picked up one of the pieces of glass. “That was amazing!”

I blinked hard. “It was not amazing. I could’ve hurt you.”

“But you didn’t. You shielded me.”

“You didn’t believe me when I said there was something evil about me. Here is your proof,” I said, pointing at the mess on the floor.

“This simply means that your powers are starting to kick in,” she said. “Look, I know how you feel, but you are Drake Aurora Jolenta. You’re my best friend and a smart and powerful student. How many more times will I have to tell you that what I heard back there doesn’t take away from who you truly are?”

Even though she was right, it didn’t change the fact that I didn’t know my parents, and that I would never know them. I was mad and I needed to be alone.

“You have no idea how I feel. Your parents weren’t murdered, and you weren’t kidnapped, so you have no idea how I feel.” I kicked a piece of glass. It landed under my bed. “I’m going for a run. Don’t come after me. I don’t feel like talking to anyone right now.”

The sky had already turned dark by the time I slipped out of the dorm building. Typically, I would’ve been scared to wander around at night, but tonight, my mind was trained on much scarier things.

I ran for a good twenty minutes. I only stopped when I felt eyes on me.

“Are you going to keep running all night?” Master Carleton asked.

He was wearing his black training uniform. I couldn’t help but wonder whether he slept in it.

“You’re going to wear yourself out,” he told me.

“I need to blow off some steam. Didn’t you once say that exercise is the best way to do that?”

He chuckled. “At least someone pays attention in my class. And you’re right, I did say that. I follow my own advice, which is why I’m here,” he told me and fell into a deep lunge. “By the way, the administrator called all the masters in for a meeting before speaking to you about the situation.”

There it was—the very thing I was afraid of.

~Everyone knows that my parents are dead and that I was raised by the enemy. Great!~ I thought. ~What is the queen going to do to me? What are Tanner and Hunter going to say when they find out? Is Hunter still going to want to kiss me, or is he going to find another girl to love now that the queen decided to release him from his engagement?~

“You do realize this makes me a traitor by association,” I said, keeping all the other dark thoughts to myself.

“Do I look like a traitor?” Master Carlton asked.

I cocked my head to the side, confused. “What kind of question is that?”

“A simple one,” he said as he put his foot up on a tree stump, the buckle on his boot glistening in the moonlight. “Have you ever thought of me as a traitor?”

“Only the most honorable get to teach at Oswalda,” I said. “Of course not.”

“In that case, let me tell you that you’re not the only person the Arachnids have ever kidnapped.”

I sucked in a breath. “You were raised by spies?” I muttered.

The master nodded. “And yet I’m still here, the academy trusts me, and I’ve never seen myself as the enemy. That’s why I don’t ever want to hear you call yourself one. You had nothing to do with what happened to you, but you do have control over what you will become. Don’t ever forget that.”

Just as he was about to walk away, he stopped and glanced over his shoulder at me.

“And if you want to keep your romance a secret, tell Hunter to stop making eyes at you during combat practice, or I’m going to have to smack him.”