The Spirits' Guide

Chapter 17

Iris opened her eyes as the carriage rumbled to a stop. She hadn't even realized she'd fallen asleep.

Blinking away the dryness in her eyes, she glanced at Luka, who was staring at the school with a faint sparkle in his eyes.

She could understand why. It was large and it was ancient. It was once a castle for the royals. The stone had a glimmer as though it was a living being that breathed. Its towers reached to the heavens, their tips disappearing in the clouds. It was magnificent.

Iris shoved him out the carriage as she stepped onto the stone driveway of the Lockin. Looking up, she saw the tallest tower fade into the clouds.

Iris smirked as she stared at Josephine's office from below. She had little doubt that the demon saw her.

Turning away from the tower, Iris looked at Julia, gauging her thoughts on Luka. If Julia accepted him, then everyone else was going to.

"Miss, lady Josephine wants to see you immediately. Alone," A young witch, she must have only been fourteen, said. Julia gave Iris a confirming nod as she grabbed onto Luka's upper arm.

Iris shrugged, trying to appear calm. If Josephine wanted to see her before meeting Luka, she was in trouble. A thought struck her. Josephine didn't know that Owen was dead. So what would be the issue?

She swallowed as she walked up the three steps that led to the front entrance to the school. Pushing the ash-wood doors open, she stepped into the cold shadows of the building.

As she walked, she observed the other students walk through doors on either side of her. With each door opening, she caught a glimpse of what the student was learning.

A boy with blue-tinted blonde hair walked out a door that led to the school's waterways. Another was shoved through a different door, his arm covered in blood. The door must've led to the sparring room and from how he wasn't holding his arm, the boy must have won. Iris took a wide step further from the door. She hated that room.

As she made her way to the staircase that would lead her to Josephine's office, she was stopped by a teacher.

With seething eyes, and an even more livid voice, she spat, "Because of you, the best student in my class won't graduate. It should have been you, you bitch."

Iris shoved the woman to the side. She didn't know April, she wasn't going to feel guilty for the little training and preparations the teachers had given her.

Before she could take more than two steps forward, the teacher latched onto her upper arm. With her nails digging into Iris's jacket arm, she seethed, "Do you have nothing to say for your actions?"

Iris leveled a cold stare at the woman. They stayed like that for a solid minute. Slowly, she let go of Iris.

"If April had had the proper training a student at her level should have had, she would be walking up these steps with me. I won't argue that if I had been there in time, she would most likely still be here, but I wasn't. It was a test on her own ability and what you had taught her. Both of you failed." Iris told the teacher calmly.

With a strangled sob, the woman fell to the floor in a heap. Iris walked past her, not giving her a second glance.

Iris turned her focus on the hundreds of steps before her. She knew why Josephine had chosen such a room as her office, but it didn't make it any less annoying to have to travel so many steps just to give her a message.

With sore legs, Iris finally managed to reach the top. Straightening herself, she crossed the four-steps it took to walk through the doorway of her dean's office.

"What is it, Josephine?" Iris asked. She stared at the silhouette that was Josephine Borinda, the setting sun blinded Iris with brilliant colors.

She was a tall woman with luscious black locks of hair that fell down the curve of her back and skin that glowed with a deep, rich brown. She was a beautiful woman, but like everything in nature, that beauty should be feared.

"You failed your job. You failed this school. You failed me. I thought you capable of doing such a simple task, yet I was mistaken. Give me the details," Josephine said calmly as she continued to stare out of the window.

Iris gritted her teeth. She was trying to humiliate her. She was trying to discredit her for what she did. Even Iris knew that it would not have ended any differently if she had taken different measures.

"Since the last time we spoke, which was last night, I went to retrieve the boy, Owen, from the school. Only, the demon Abigail had been pretending to be me to gain Owen's trust. Because of this, it was easy for her to lead him to an alley. She took hold of him and killed him. I returned to where I was staying to meet his older brother, Gianluka. He has the rune that was damaged thirty years ago." Iris told Josephine through gritted teeth.

"You suspect that Owen's older brother had a hand in what happened?" Josephine asked, finally turning away from the window. Iris could still barely see her face, but, from what she could see, it was not kind. She could understand, Josephine lost quite a large number of students on that day.

"No. He's too young to have had a part to play. It seems that Belial was after an infant girl on that day. While we were all focused on the enslaved adults, he took what he wanted. I'm surprised no one realized this. No battle with a demon army should last only a day. It would explain why it was so easy to defeat them." Iris continued. She could see Josephine's face twist from annoyance to rage.

"Get that smirk off your face. Where is this woman now? I want you to find her." Josephine ordered. Iris shrugged as she walked to one of the ancient couches. The woman meant nothing to her. She had no use other than being the mother of Belial's bastards.

"Why?" Iris asked as she picked at her nails, her feet resting on the armrest of the couch. Josephine spat out, "I want more answers. Go out there and get that bitch."

Iris closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. Josephine was not going to like what she was going to say next.

"No. You and I both know that the woman is just a simple witch in Aneria. Whatever Belial wanted from her, we can find in Luka. I'm not going back. I did my job, I want my money." Iris spat at Josephine, glaring. Still, Josephine was a demon, a powerful one, and she was not going to be intimidated by a witch that wasn't even half her age.

"Get. Out. There. Now." She seethed through gritted teeth.

Iris looked away.

With a deep breath in, she turned back. Iris looked Josephine in the eyes and said, "No. It's a fool's mission. If you want her so much, go get her yourself."

Iris knew that that was the last straw for Josephine, she could see it in the woman's eyes. With glowing red eyes, she grabbed onto Iris and threw her out the window. Iris gasped as she felt herself fall.

She heard screaming as she hit the pavement. She knew it wasn't hers, she couldn't even make a sound.

Tears streamed down her face as she tried to move but couldn't. She couldn't even breath. Trapped in her own body, she struggled to get free. She couldn't feel the sticky blood that dripped from her cracked skull. She couldn't even see or hear it, but she knew it was there. Knew that her body was damaged so badly that it would take years to heal.

Slowly, she felt herself collapse into her own body, her ribs unable to hold her skin with all the cracks and fractures they had sustained.