SpellShocked (SpellShocked Saga: Book 1)

Chapter 24 - Screwing Things Up

Over the next couple of weeks, my magic ability continued to grow. I had been able to cast some of the simple spells thanks to Hunters' advice and had become fairly proficient with baseline channelling; I had even started to be able to release tiny amounts of magic throughout the day to keep my Vessel drained.

I had also become closer to Olivia, Azim, and, especially, Hunter; we had spent most days together during class and in our free time, and I had continued to run in the mornings with Olivia and Hunter. Maya had joined us occasionally for meals, but she rarely said anything beside a few snide comments here and there.

But everything else seemed to be going badly. I was still missing Zac and our calls every few days weren't nearly enough to make up for not having him with me whenever I needed him.

Monday morning had been a bit of a nightmare. I had come into class brandishing a newly altered Focus Mark, with a small Kitsune perched on my shoulder; Ryo had insisted that he couldn't be left in my room because he was, 'Much too important to be locked up in a smelly dorm room.' The result was that most people were giving me strange looks throughout the day, some of them even hostile. Then again, some people – particularly girls – approached me and tried to pet, 'the cute little foxy,'; comments that were met with a growl and a snarky remark from Ryo.

Mr Beck pulled me aside after Evocation to ask me about Ryo and my Focus Mark changing. I felt horrible for lying to him, but I had promised Merlin and I had already broken that promise once before for Hunter. He seemed to think that I was just an extremely powerful sorcerer and would probably develop one or two more Foci over time. 'If only he knew,' I thought bitterly. Thankfully, Mr Beck decided that two Focus classes were more than enough to be getting on with, without making me take Focus lessons in Conjuration too.

Things really started to take a turn during lunch one day; I had been walking with Hunter, Olivia and Az when I suddenly felt myself trip over something on the path. I would have fallen flat on my face if Hunter hadn't have caught me on the way down.

"Steady on!" Ryo has yelled as he dangled precariously from my shoulder. I ignored him and looked down to see what I had fallen over and saw that a small mound of rock was slowly sinking back into the ground. Someone had clearly raised it from the ground to try and trip me up and judging from the chuckles coming from where Theo and his sycophants were huddled together, it had been him.

"Just try to ignore them," Hunter muttered, walking in the opposite direction.

But that was just the first in a string of 'harmless pranks' that Theo and his friends started to pull, not just on me, but on Olivia, Azim and Hunter too. Olivia had been the recipient of a spell that had turned her hair blue – a colour which she assured me she could pull off, so really the joke was on them – and Az had been pelted with an orb of water while walking between classes. But what they did to Hunter pushed me over the edge and made me do something stupid.

It was on the weekend at the end of my first month at MerPrep, and the four of us were sitting under a large tree in front of the school. Olivia was amusing us by divining the location of a coin under one of five cups, while Ryo snoozed off to the side. We were pulled from our game by a sudden scream from across the grounds.

Startled, we all jumped up, looked at out other nervously, and ran in the direction of the scream. We turned a corner around a hedge and the sight in front of us made my blood curdle. Lying on the ground, a gaping wound in her shoulder, was Maya.

"No," Hunter gasped, his face paling. We all began to run towards her; already I could see the Focus Mark on Hunters' hand glowing a bright white as he summoned what I could assume was healing magic, ready to try to fix the damage done to his sister. We slid to our knees around her body. The grass was already beginning to turn red and blood gushed from the wound.