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A tentative hand went up. “What does that mean, sir?”
“It means if you get an answer wrong, the entire class will be assigned a two-scroll paper on the correct answer due tomorrow. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Captain,” everyone chorused.
I sank low in my seat.Oh no. This won’t be good.
“Let’s begin.”
Hondros plucked a clipboard off his desk. His workspace was no less impressive than ours. A podium, a desk, a worktable, bookshelves lined along one wall, and on the other, a collection of tapestries featuring more famous battles.
“Beginning here.” Hondros pointed at Alexander. “What is a sphinx’s weakness?”
“Knowledge. She will kill herself if you answer all of her riddles correctly.”
A curt nod was his only praise for a job well done. “Cirillo, how would you identify the true form of an empousa?”
“By looking at it. Empousas are demons that take the form of beautiful women to lure foolish men to their deaths. They don’t adopt these forms for women.” Sirena tossed him a wink. “That’s why you army boys can’t ride without us. You need the girls to protect you.”
That got a laugh out of the class and nothing from Hondros. He continued on, asking each student a question.
I got sweaty under the collar the closer he got to me. Everyone was answering correctly and easily to questions about monsters I’d never even heard of. I did read a little bit from the textbooks Luca bought me, but I only discovered I was attending the academy when they kidnapped me. I didn’t have time to learn everything these demigods knew their whole lives.
“Vanda.”
I sat up straight. “Yes, sir.”
“We’ll address why you’re sitting in the wrong section later,” he barked. “How do you kill a kampe?”
I scanned the depths of my knowledge, searching for one mention of a kampe at any point in my life.
It turned up its answer. “I don’t know what a kampe is, Captain.”
A muscle ticced in his jaw. “Then it’s fortunate you’ll learn what they are in the process of writing me a two-scroll essay. Same goes for the rest of you.”
Groans tensed me in my seat. “Useless fuck! You can’t read either?”
“Enough,” Captain sliced in. “Next question, Vanda.”
What? Me again?
“How do the offspring of the Calydonian boar differ from their forefather? Why does this trait make them harder to kill?”
I felt it coming before I opened my mouth. Squeezing my eyes shut, I said, “I don’t know what a Calydonian boar is, sir, let alone how the offspring are different.”
“Idiot!”
“Everyone knows this!”
“Captain, give the useless the essays,” one of the girls clinging to Jason begged. “Not us.”
“It does not work like that,” Hondros replied. “In battle, the failure of one brings the ruin of many. You are responsible for each other now, as you will be when you march side by side. Vanda decided she was too good to pay attention in her classes.”
I burned to correct him. Shout that I didn’t know this world existed a week ago!
“I’m certain you’re all now motivated to help her learn what she must know before she enters my class again.”
I could feel the hostility like a restricting band across my throat. I wanted to believe he wasn’t inciting them to do what it sounded like, but this man didn’t look naïve to me.
