Careless Magic book 1

Chapter 37

The substitutes presiding over mid-terms were clearly human. Having been raised human my entire life, as I was reminded almost daily, I never noticed a difference between the two species. But after half a semester of Immortal teachers who not only knew everything, but saw everything, the humans they found to replace them were clearly blind and deaf to all of the activity around them.

Thankfully for them they were not actually teaching anything, otherwise I would have been afraid for them. The Immortal students left at Kingsley took advantage of the poor souls at every opportunity. They lied, they cheated and they just got up and left all together. It was a cruel joke to human teachers assuming they still had complete authority. The teacher monitoring our Chemistry final was particularly sad. A woman in her late fifties, and nearly blind to begin with, didn't seem to notice any of the chatter and foul play happening around her. I did my best to focus on my test, remembering that not too long ago that poor human was me.

It wasn't easy however, since Mr. Hayman had left a particularly nasty mid-term for us to take. To top it off Adelaide Meyer and Evangeline Harris sat behind me in constant conversation. Their high, excited voices scraped my nerves like nails on a chalkboard and it took everything inside of me not to turn around and give them a piece of my mind.

I did my best to focus on the test in front of me and refrain from magic. It would be easy to magically remember the answers, but that somehow seemed like cheating. I knew that the other students used magic for all of their classes, but I was determined to learn on my own.

"No way," Evangeline's shriek pulled me away from concentration once again.

"What?" Adelaide amazed me with her dramatic concern.

"We're not going now!" Evangeline was near tears and her voice found a painfully high pitch.

"What!" Adelaide repeated in an equally high voice.

"Dad and Mom have to fly to India instead. Apparently it's on business for the King, but that means I can't go to the Festival!" I could hear her voice crack. I peeked over my shoulder to confirm the tears running down her cheeks. I saw her frantically typing on the small keyboard of her cell phone.

"But that's not fair!" Adelaide confirmed Evangeline's spoiled attitude. Maybe Evangeline and I should hang out while everybody else lived it up in Romania.

"I know! They said I can't go unsupervised. It's not like I'm flying coach, its first class for god's sake." Evangeline cried.

"You could go with us on Daddy's private jet. We have plenty of room! Daddy's jet is super posh; we don't even bother with customs!" Adelaide was bubbling over with excitement at the solution to Evangeline's problems.

"That would be so much better than flying on those dirty planes and standing in line!" Evangeline perked up and I heard her return to frantically texting. "They said that would be fine! Mom is going to call your mom," she shrieked again, only that time in an excited even more irritating way. "I even brought my things! We were supposed to leave right after this test. Where are you staying?"

Adelaide began rambling on and on about their swanky accommodations inside the Citadel, while I rolled my eyes. But then suddenly, a plan formed in my mind that was so ingenious I would have been a fool not to follow through. I glanced at the clock, only twenty more minutes left. I knew I said I wouldn't use magic on a human but this was different. It was life or death.

I quickly filled the rest of my test in, giving it a once over with magic before standing up to turn it in. The substitute shot me a curious look and opened her mouth as if to decline my gesture. I gave her a worried smile and walked quickly to her desk.