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“Enough,” someone shouted, and it wasn’t Vasili.
I flicked to a very angry Alex. “All of you, sit down and shut up.”
They all sat down and shut up. Except for Jason, who blew me kisses and mimed a few things for me. The man had no shame.
“If it’s all right, sir, I’d rather not demonstrate,” I said.
Vasili flapped a hand. “That’s fine. There’s no need anyway. You can hardly go around kissing monsters. Sisyphean.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Selene said as I walked off. “Not so stupid after all.”
I LEFT THE STADIUMalone, not staying for the rest of the placements. Making my way out of the shadows, someone called my name.
“Aella, over here.” Ionna waved me under the awning. She, Nitsa, and Daciana sat on the steps of a side entrance to the academy. “Are you finished? How did it go?”
“Sisyphean,” I replied, leaving out the details.
“Nice,” Nitsa said, giving me a smile that trembled. “We’ll be together.”
“Are you okay?” I put my arm around her. “Were you hoping for something different?”
She shook her head. “I knew I would be in Sisyphean, but that doesn’t make it any easier to tell my parents. They and my three older brothers were Titans. Having auselessdaughter doesn’t go down easy.”
“You’re not useless. The way they think about these things is ridiculous. You have one of the most incredible powers out of the bunch.”
She snorted. “I’m acow, Aella. There are thousands of them grazing the fields. What exactly is so incredible about turning into a lowly, common animal?”
“Do you retain your mind when you change? Do you see and understand everything that’s going on?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Then you’re not a lowly common animal. You’re a spy, Nitsa. You’re the best spy in the land,” I said. “Monsters will pass you by, dismissing you as a lowly cow, and it’ll be the last mistake they make. Sounds pretty fucking useful to me.”
“I... I never thought of it that way. A spy,” she whispered, rolling it around on her tongue. “A tracker. No one would see me coming.” Nitsa bumped my shoulder. “Thank you.”
“I’ve got to go back,” Ionna announced. “I don’t want to miss it when he calls my name. You guys are done. Get us a good dorm room before they’re all snatched up.”
“She’s right,” Nitsa said. “No point sitting around here when we could be scoping out the place. Three brothers and I’ve never been inside. Can’t wait to see what’s real and what’s one of their silly tricks.”
Her good mood was back in full force. Nitsa took off, hurrying to grab her bags and begin her first day in the academy that labeled her useless. I followed at a slower pace. Daciana fell in step with me.
“Thank you for that. We’d been trying to cheer her up all this time. You did it instantly.”
“I meant everything I said. I can think of a great way to utilize every person who was shoved in the Sisyphean class. For one thing, the guy who can grow wheat from stone is a marvel. He can keep everyone in his squad fed with a wave of his hand. No one wants to fight a monster on an empty stomach.”
“Wise thinking.”
“What do you think?”
She shrugged lightly—pretty face serene. “It’s not for me to have an opinion. It wouldn’t hold any weight if I did. I am a stranger to this land. One that was plotting her escape home until you.”
I looked around. “What? Me?”
“Yes, you,” Daciana said with a laugh. “Demigods don’t know much about werewolves. Or they do and they don’t care that my heightened hearing heard everything they said about me when I shifted. From the graphically lewd remarks to the comments that I was a disgusting beast, should be put down like the other monsters, or be captured like a wild animal and forced to serve the army.”
“They said what? They’re the fucking beasts!”
