Hunter Academy

Chapter 25

Over the course of the three weeks, Sophia and her team went through book after book, still finding nothing that could help them figure out what race the girl belonged to. The party was two days away and then they would be heading back to the human world where there is no library on the mythical races.

Sophia sighed as she sat her book down. She laid her chin on the table and leaned the book against her face. "I'm not having any luck," she complained and Zander laughed.

"It would probably help if you pulled the book away from your face," he replied and she rolled her eyes. A smile tugged at her lips as she pulled the book away and held it open on the table.

"Why can't we find anything about that marking?"

"We might not be looking in the right spot," Iris said as she held up two pictures. One of them was the girl with markings and the other was a man. He had long blonde hair that was pulled out of his chubby face. His gold eyes were similar to that of a cat's. "We know that he was the one casting the illusion." Sophia stared at the picture, actually taking a minute to look at it. The longer she stared at it, his eyes seemed to glow and she reached out and grabbed the picture. As soon as she laid her hands on it, a burning sensation ran through her hands and she let out a small yelp.

Iris's eyes widened as she released the picture but it wouldn't drop. "Agh! It burns!" she screamed, her scream gurgling a bit. Sophia glanced at her hands and noticed the burns.

"It's gonna burn the picture," she said grabbing the wand that was laid on the table. She pointed it at Iris's hands and the picture, mumbling a spell under her breath. The tip of the wand glowed gold and then shattered. The picture finally dropped to the ground a bit scorched and Iris cradled her hand.

"Are you guys okay?" Nixie asked running back to them with a man right on her heels. He had the same chestnut colored hair she had, except a bit darker and barely any on his head. He had a thick mustache and baby blue eyes full of panic.

"Yeah, we're fine. Just a tiny mishap," Sophia replied, not realizing that her hands were clasped together trying to stop the burning.

Nixie noticed the red welts starting to form on Sophia's hands. She looked over at Iris and noticed the same welts forming on her hand peaking out from under her unharmed hand.

"You guys were burned? What happened?" she asked.

"More importantly, how? There's nothing here that's flammable," the man said.

"Maybe not in the library itself,  but the picture we brought had a spell cast on it and something set it off," Sophia replied grabbing the pictures off the floor.

"A spell?" Nixie asked tilting her head to the side.

"I blame you, Sophia. You were staring at it too long and it got self-consious," Iris replied with a small grin and Sophia rolled her eyes as she looked back at the picture. Her eyes widened and she sat the picture down on the table.

"The guy in this picture has the Shadow Callers' tattoo!" Sophia pointed at the collar of his shirt. On his collarbone was a small tattoo.

"Wait, wasn't his shirt buttoned up a minute ago?" Zander asked staring at the picture in shock.

"He must be one hell of a Warlock," Iris surmised as she stared at the picture. "He cast a illusion over the woman, so we would be distracted by the markings, but we never thought that he may have cast one on himself and his picture."

"This isn't no mere illusion. It was a trap. The spell had to be set off by something..." Sophia glanced around the room and frowned. She walked over to Iris and scooted her out of the way.