Perzys Āeterña | Hope Mikaelson

Chapter 11

She tried to internalize Kaleb's words.

His advice was the same thing being given by Raf, Hope, Jed, and even Landon when she asked them how they felt about Vardemus.

No one was suspicious of him, and he was already making things better for them, changing the curriculum to incorporate the offensive magic and fight training that they'd been asking Alaric for. The witches were glad that they could learn how to protect themselves in a classroom setting, and Rhysaenya could see how glad the wolves and vampires were to have weekly training sessions with her peers. She was given the choice to join only one of the groups, which made it difficult to decide between training out with Raf and Jed or MG and Kaleb.

"Hope gets to join whatever group she wants on any given day," she said, following Lizzie to the Old Mill after she insisted some mystery guy named Sebastian was there, but she needed Rhysaenya's help to find him. "I don't know what to decide on. I was used to training with her. The wolves are mortal, I have to be more gentle with them, but the vampires are less open to knowing me; only MG and Kaleb talk to me there."

"Can we focus on my problem for two seconds?" said Lizzie sweetly. "Here, right here. This is where he was standing. What do you sense?"

Rhysaenya inhaled. "I smell a thousand people who have stood in this exact spot just in the past twenty-four hours. How am I supposed to narrow it down?"

"Just focus! He's totally cute and I have to find him. Magic keeps failing me."

"Then how am I supposed to do anything here? I need a picture of him!"

"I don't have one. But just think... beautiful blue eyes, dark hair, a smile that could kill, a perfect jawline, dresses a littlestrange, kind of like he's a noble from your time."

"I want to kill somebody right about now," she said in a sing-song voice. "Lizzie, why are you focusing on some guy that just swooped in out of nowhere? Don't you have a football match to prepare for?"

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but there is something more important than that right now," she insisted. "I'm hunting bigger game this year."

"Aren't you literally the quarterback? The main player?"

"That doesn't matter right now. See if you can smell anything... different. We can't rule out this guy could be a monster. Would explain why he keeps disappearing."

"In which case you probably shouldn't be pursuing him. I don't smell anything in particular. All the things I do smell..." she inhaled one more time. "I recognize the smells, I recognize the faces! If there's anything I don't recognize... it just smells human. Maybe you need to check the high school."

Lizzie's eyes widened. "Then that means I should be at the game."

"Oh, wonderful that gets you to abandon this pursuit?"

"And I will need a backup," said Lizzie, wiggling her eyebrows. "In case I do find him and need to step out. Have you played football?"

"Does it look like I have? No, absolutely not. Vardemus said you guys can actually try to win. I don't know how to use my powers in moderation. I either fly and shoot fire or I don't. I can't participate in some silly game."

"You can catch and throw! And you run fast. You know how to tackle people. You basically have all the bases covered."

"I don't trust you. You couldn't even help me make a decision–"

"Choose the wolves," she said simply. "It will totally spice up your time with Jed. A word, girl to girl, he is so going to catch feelings for you if you give it a few more weeks."