Chapter 28: Bad Wolf
WINTER TERM - January 8th
It's been a few days since the love potion incident with Aries. He's hesitant to try it again, not that we really need it. Now that he knows I'll let him, Aries kisses me often- my knuckles, my cheek, my mouth. We didn't talk about it with anyone exactly. But Aisling tried, "So you and Aries are...?"
"I don't know yet," I said.
Aisling's smile faded. "I was about to say I was happy for you. Maybe figure out if I should be happy first, alright?"
I rolled my eyes. At least Aries was happy. He was getting semi-regular blowjobs for the first time in his life, so happy might be an understatement.
In Divination class, Aries stole Aisling's seat beside me, but instead of getting mad, she just flipped through her tarot deck and took the chair next to Noodle. She held up one single card to me. The Fool - she'd meant it as an insult. And later, during the lecture, when Aries, a little bored, took to hanging on my shoulder, Marblebrook smirked at the two of us, more fond than it warranted.
And then there was Blackclaw's Hostile Scenarios class. We'd had two field lessons interrupted by poor weather, so this was our first where Blackclaw would have our groups take on simulated "hostiles." My group was, just as Nadine and Stellan predicted, the two of them plus me and Aries. Maybe Blackclaw really did want to keep all his monsters in one place...
But even then, it was hard to say I wasn't looking forward to the class. For this term, while there was a textbook and we were encouraged to read it and learn to cast the spells in it, we weren't held to a set schedule for learning them. And more than that, casting spells that came from independent study outside of class were also encouraged. I wasn't going to be pulled into remedial lessons just for opting to learn a cooler spell this time around. It was one less thing to worry over. Especially given that I was still trying very hard not to rely on wolfsbane solution. I kept it on hand, of course. But I'd gone a little over two weeks without taking any of it.
The wolf in my head was always awake these days, chiming in with its half-formed thoughts, willing me to linger longer on new scents and sounds. It was mostly unhelpful.
"We're starting off easy with this one," Blackclaw said to the class. "A team of four against one construct. Your objective is to protect yourselves as well as the other members of your party while you and your party neutralize the hostile in any way you can." Easy enough.
I didn't see a construct yet. The practice field was empty but for two barrels. I already assumed that the barrels must have contained the constructs. It couldn't have been especially large to fit inside, and for that alone, I felt pretty good about it.