Poseidon's Academy

Chapter 26. Revelations

One month later.

Hailey sat at a desk in the common room, attempting to commit her Monsters and Creatures of the World textbook to memory so she could pass the approaching end-of-year exams. She flipped the page, smiling when she saw the entry on griffins. Finally, she thought, something I already know and don't have to bother studying. Hailey snapped the book closed. Break time. She packed up her things and headed into the grounds, which were packed with students hunching over notebooks and textbooks.

Hailey found Demi and Jayden sitting under a seaweed tree, which had little seashell flowers blossoming on it, surrounded by textbooks. 'No Aaron yet?' she asked, toeing away a few books before settling on the diamond floor; a school of rainbow fish darted around beneath her.

'Not yet,' Jayden said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Hailey took his lack of appearance as a good sign. It was his turn to spy on the nereids, and he'd been gone for a few hours now, which she hoped meant he was learning something.

Hailey and her friends had spent the past month spying on the nereids constantly-except for when they were in class-they even took turns spying on them at night. But so far it had all been pointless. The nereids spent most of their time in the sea, and when they were in the palace, they didn't mention anything about Poseidon or killing students.

A book slammed shut. 'That's it. I can't do it anymore.' Demi pressed her fingertips to her temples. 'My head is going to explode if I have to read one more paragraph about the characteristics of a hydra. I mean how does me being able to tell if a hydra is male or female from the shape of its frills help me? It doesn't. Male or female, a hydra is always going to try and kill me. And what's the deal with-'

'Aaron,' Hailey said, cutting off Demi's rant, spotting him striding towards them from the palace. 'So?' she prompted when he plunked himself beside her.

'So they were in their room, and spent three hours talking about which fish scales make your hair gleam more. And I'm not exaggerating. Three hours!' He pulled the wand from his track pants and tossed it into Jayden's lap. 'Tag, you're it.'

Hailey's heart sank. This isn't good. If they didn't find out what the nereids were up to soon, everyone could end up dead. Of course there was always the chance Amathia had foiled her sisters' plans already-Hailey really hoped that was true, and that some sea-urchin bomb didn't blow her and everyone else up three days from now.

A mountain of books dropped in front of her, snapping her from her thoughts.

'I found some books that expand on the information in our textbooks,' Alec said, sitting down.

Demi's mouth fell open. 'You can't be serious.'

'Yeah, Alec, that's kind of overkill,' Jayden agreed.

Hailey was about to tell Alec he was taking studying a bit too seriously-they were only supposed to learn the stuff in their textbooks after all-but got distracted by the newspaper perched on top of the books.

She was vaguely aware of Alec diving into a lecture about how important doing well on the end-of-year exams was, and that a bit of extra reading could only help in their studying. But her main attention was on the paper's headline: "Erinyes Back in Business".

Hailey picked up the paper and started reading.

The Erinyes, who were believed to have died along with the gods, have been sighted in Sussex. Abigail Norris was bringing her husband, Joseph Norris, a cup of tea when she walked into the living room to find what she believed to be an Erinys grabbing him by the neck. She described the Erinys as looking like a rabid woman wearing a tattered red dress. Mrs Norris claimed the Erinys snarled at her before dematerialising with her husband.