A week later, I improved quite a bit. At least now I can lift a rock throw it across the room and somehow make a flower bloom again just because I want it too. If someone were to tell me I can do an actual magic I would tell them to check themselves to a psychic ward. But I actually can, which somehow make me so giddy. Jake gave me a few tips on how he does his magic thingy and it's quite helpful. Elara also somehow making me better in understanding my textbooks and fights. Which is a lot, complicated, and so many politics. Sometimes if I'm not getting beaten when it came to hand to hand combat, I was drowning in the library.
But today was different. Today was the first assessment match. Sparring with actual stakes, actual evaluation, actual chance to prove I'm not a lost cause.
I stood in the modified court, facing a boy named Kael with silver eyes and a smirk that suggested he'd already decided the outcome. Around us, other pairs had begun their matches. I could hear impacts, shouts, the occasional crack of magic making impact. The air smelled of air freshner and sweat.
"Begin," Morcant called from somewhere distant.
Kael didn't hesitate. He moved like Elara had, fluid, practiced, shoulders giving nothing away. His first strike caught my forearm, numbing it. The second, I dodged, barely, remembering Jake's lessons about reading hips rather than hands.
We circled. I reached for the basic telekinesis I'd finally, finally started to control. A loose stone near the wall twitched, lifted, flew toward him.
He batted it aside without looking, already closing distance. Too fast. I backpedaled, felt my heel catch on a ridge in the mat, stumbled and something opened.
It's similar to a line that Alexander do when he first took us to his office. But now I can feel it more, like something tore through reality like fingernails through wet paper, and I fell through it, screaming, the court disappearing behind me, Kael's shocked face vanishing into silence.
I hit solid ground hard enough to knock breath from my lungs. Rolled, gasping, found myself in an office. Dark wood, leather furniture, walls lined with books that smelled of age and expensive scent that I can't pinpoint. A single window showed night sky where seconds ago it had been morning. A fire burned low in a hearth I didn't recognize, casting shadows that moved wrong, too angular, too aware.
I scrambled to my feet, heart hammering, every instinct screaming that I was somewhere I shouldn't be. The air tasted different here. Thicker. Like breathing through honey laced with copper.
The room is empty except from the low hum of the AC which is too low for the night. I can fell chill running through my arms. But then I heard a footsteps from outside and followed by a voice. My heart thrummed in my chest while my eyes frantically searching for an exit but the window is at least ten stories high.
"I didn't tell you to be a professional hockey player." The voice quickly coming closer. "I specifically told you to find new things to be excited about, not whatever you're doing right now."
The door quickly opened by a man, dressed in black sweater and dark blue jeans. I can see the surprise in his face but he still talking to his phone. "I'll call you later, okay. We will talk about this."
"Well." He sighed and put his phone away while I stood still like an idiot, raising hands that held no useful defense.
He was handsome. The word arrived without my permission, but it's accurate. Pale skin that seemed to make his white hair even more brighter. His features arranged with the precision of classical sculpture, something Roman or Greek, and his mouth curved slightly at one corner. And his eyes is glowing red in the warm ambient light.
Not the bright blood-color I'd imagined. Deeper. Like the red of wine in shadowed glass. He's a vampire. A pureblood vampire. I'm looking at a vampire. Vampires really exists!
"You're not supposed to be here," he said. Not angry. Curious, maybe.
"I know." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "I don't, this wasn't intentional. I was sparring, and I was trying to dodge but something,"
"Opened." He finished for me, rising from his chair with the unhurried grace of someone who had never needed to rush. "Yes. I felt it around here but never imagined it to be here. Which is interesting, given the wards I put on this place."
He approached, and I should have retreated, should have reached for any magic I could muster, but my feet wouldn't move. He was taller than me, by at least two heads. But I'm not scared, or maybe it's just me feeling like if I move suddenly he will suck my blood and kill me.
"I'm Emily." The words escaped before I could consider their wisdom. "Emily. Hightower, I guess. I don't, who are you?"
He stopped before me, close enough now that I could see the individual shades in his eyes, the way they darkened toward pupil-edges like sunsets failing. Something flickered across his expression, surprise, maybe.
"Lucero," he said. "And you, Emily Hightower, is tresspassing."
He raised one hand, and I felt the power there before it manifested itself into a white bluish light swirling aroung his hand and it feels different than what I usually see or feel in the Academy. T think he wants to hit me with it. Okay. So, now I'm scared.
"However," he continued, and his hand lowered, power dissipating like breath on winter air, "I will forgive it this one time."
"I don't know how I did it," I whispered.
"Obviously," Lucero said it with a light tone that made it sound sarcastic but also derogatory. "So, tell me, how do you plan on going back." He turned back to me, and his expression had changed, become something I couldn't read.
"I don't know, really," I said.
Lucero laughed. The sound was unexpected, almost human, and it transformed his face from beautiful mask to something approaching genuine. "So, it seems like you need my help," he paused, head tilting like challenging me to disagree with him.
"I can figure it out on my own." I said instead.
"By all means," He walked back to his chair and waiting me for opening my own portal. Except, I don't know how to do it.
I closed my eyes. Trying to imagine the academy fighting ring. The smell of bergamot. The rough mat beneath my shoes. Jake's presence somewhere nearby. I tried to reach for it but nothing happen. When I opened my eyes I still see Lucero sitting in his chair with a smug look on his face and he clearly try not to laugh.
I feel my face warmed and quickly said, "Fuck this. I'm going to get a taxi." I walked toward the only door I see and hoping it was the exit. I can't stand another embarrassment but when I reached the handle I heard a click from the lock and flinched at the sudden sound.
"I don't think there's any taxi that can get you to LA from New York at this hour." Lucero said with his hand waving in the air. There's no doubt he just lock the door. Then, he pointing to the clock at his desk and it shows midnight.
"Fuck! I'm stuck in New York?" I yelled.
"Well, the gateway to the Academy in America is only in LA right?" He sip his wine and looking at me with amusement. Way to make me feel like an idiot. I hate him.
"How the hell am I in New York?" I whispered to myself and more importantly how am I going to go back. Not even Ethan can pick me up.
"I can help," Lucero chirps from his desk.
"I don't need your help." I quickly reached out for my phone. Glad that I kept it with me at all time even when fighting. Though now that it has a few cracks at the sides of the screen, it was all worth it at times like this.
I browsed through plane tickets and settle on the first one to depart at three in the morning. Then, after that I quickly went to another app to order a ride.
"Wow, so you choose the plane, not bad."
I jumped when his voice suddenly is so near to my ear and even more scared when he just casually standing by my side, peeking at my phone. I don't even hear him moving, how the hell did he do that.
"Don't do that," I took two steps back and goes back to my phone.
"I literally can open a portal to your precious Academy and you'll be there in no time," He said it with such a taunting tone that just irritates me more.
"Yeah, and what's the catch?" I quipped. Hoping he would just shut up and leave me alone.
"I mean, it's not a bad thing to have a Hightower owed a debt to me."
I sighed. Is this what the rest of my life will be? Hightower this, Hightower that. I suddenly want to crawl somewhere and disappear. I'm not what he or anyone wants me to be. Can they see that?
"Yeah well, you can shove that debt up your ass because I just got a ride." I proudly showed him my booking.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and Lucero waved his hand to unlock the door and behind the door I saw Alexander with another man dressed in a polo shirt and jeans. I heard Lucero sighed, "You can leave, John. Thanks."
"Are you alright?" Alexander asked me asked he walked in. His eyes looking at me, searching for something but I just so confused because how did he knew I was here. Part of me was glad that he is here but the other is anxious of some unknown tracking device he planted on me.
"Yeah, I–uh, I'm good." I awkwardly nodded.
Alexander's jaw tightened at my response, a microscopic movement I'd learned to read. He didn't believe me. But he also wasn't pressing, at least not here.
"Lucero." His voice shifted, becoming something formal and edged. "I apologize for the intrusion. The breach was unintentional."
"Unintentional." Lucero rolled the word in his mouth like wine, still seated, still amused. "Of course."
He hadn't stood. Hadn't offered greeting or even a drink. The power imbalance in the room felt deliberate, performative like two predators circling, pretending to be civilized.
"Rest assured this will not happened again," Alexander said. Not a question.
"I don't know about that. All I know is that a girl appeared in my private chambers, bypassing all my wards, accepted no hospitality, and attempted to order a taxi rather than accept my assistance." Lucero's smile widened. "This is probably the highlight of my day so far."
Something flickered in Alexander's expression. Something I couldn't name, but felt in my chest like pressure before storm. "She is not—" he stopped, recalibrated. "The Accords specify that unauthorized breach of sovereign territory constitutes—"
"Constitutes what, exactly?" Lucero finally stood, and the movement transformed him from lounging aristocrat to something older and more dangerous. His red eyes caught the firelight, seemed to deepen with it. "Your daughter opened a threshold accidentally. I will not consider it as violation. But only this one time."
Daughter. The word landed between them like a thrown blade.
Alexander's hands curled into fists. Released. "She is under my protection."
"Evidently." Lucero's tone suggested the opposite.
I watched them, forgotten in my own catastrophe, and saw what I'd missed initially. This was personal. The way Alexander's shoulders held tension he never showed. The way Lucero's amusement never quite reached his eyes, remained performance rather than feeling. They knew each other. Had known each other, perhaps, before I was born.
"We are done here," Alexander waved his hand and that familiar single line that slowly open quickly appeared. He stepped through the threshold. I followed, because the alternative was remaining in New York with a vampire who apparently, my father hates.
But I looked back, at the last moment. Saw Lucero standing in his firelight, red eyes watching me with something that I can't read.
When the portal closed, I stumbled into the Academy court, into Jake's arms that caught me, into the large arena that was swarmed by too many people and chaos that suddenly felt less real than that dark office with its impossible host.
Alexander was already gone. Sara found me later, explained that he'd been called to urgent Council meetings, that my schedule would be adjusted, that the incident was being formally recorded as "uncontrolled threshold manifestation requiring intervention."
I sat in my room that night, My mother's pin sat on my desk. My phone showed a cancelled plane ticket, a refunded car service. I wish I was somewhere else.