Page 4 of Challenge Me

Strike three. I considered calling it a day, but alas, I had classes today. Important ones.

Besides, they say misfortune comes in threes, don’t they? So that surely meant I was done with the day’s foul surprises.

All I had to do was go back for my cane. Cursing, I limped to my apartment, fishing my key out of my slightly-too-tight jacket pocket.

I didn’t get a chance to unlock the door. It swung open; my husband was standing there, fresh from the shower, wearing nothing but a towel. Water dripped down his gray skin, glistening over muscle that could have been carved from silvery marble. Normally, the sight of him waiting for me while wearing next to nothing would fill me with a hungry warmth, but today it only made me bitter. Damned elves and their perfect immortal bodies.

“You forgot this, love.” Finch handed me the cane with a soft laugh escaping him. “Made me worried. You okay there? Just going a bit senile?”

I fixed my husband with a withering glare that vowed divorce being added to my to-do list for the day. Fortunately for Finch, he realized the error of his ways almost immediately, his long, pointy ears drooping as he sheepishly offered me the cane. I tried to soften my scowl as I took the damn thing.

I might apologize later. Or I might make him apologize. That all depended on how the rest of the day went, but with the current track record, I didn’t have high hopes for classes.

◆◆◆

I watched as my students launched themselves one after another from the rooftop.

It was a simple exam. Run, leap, stab, land. That was all. A clean assassination drop from a height that was frankly tame by academy standards. The training dummy was stationary. The landing zone was clear. The mats had been checked twice. I had even given the kids a demonstration first, ignoring the snarl of my aching ankle and landing the hit on one foot.

Perhaps they assumed that because I made it look effortless, gravity would be equally nice to them.

Overly confident, the first student missed the target entirely, clipped the dummy’s shoulder with the flat of his dagger, and went down with a crack that made everyone on the roof wince.

The second managed the leap beautifully, forgot to stab, and only remembered halfway through the fall, flailing heroically before landing on his backside.

The third screamed before jumping, which was never a good sign.

By the fifth, I stopped correcting their form and started tallying paperwork.

Broken ankle. Failed grade. Incident report. Parent notification. Probable complaint from the nurse. Another failed grade. Another incident report. Sprained wrist. Possible concussion.

Then I watched my own daughter prepare for her leap.

Holly stood at the edge of the roof, dagger in hand, her yellow-blonde hair tied back with a ribbon that was far too cheerful for what was quickly becoming an academic massacre.

I did not have high hopes. I wasn’t being cruel; that was just fatherhood combined with an understanding of her coordination. Holly was clever, fierce, and perfectly capable of tripping over a rug that had been removed three days earlier.

Still, she was the only one who actually stuck her dagger into the dummy.

For one glorious second, I felt pride.

Then she promptly lost her balance, bounced off the dummy’s chest, and tumbled down the rest of the way, landing face-first on the mat with a muffled groan.

I slowly closed my eyes.

“That’s…” I raised my hand, silencing the wounded chorus of whimpering, groaning, and one student loudly insisting that his ankle was “not meant to look that way.” I took a slow breath through my nose. “Take yourselves to the nurse’s office.”

No one moved.

“With your working limbs,” I added, my voice dropping low. “While you still have some to crawl with.”

That got them moving. Slowly. Pathetically. In pairs and trios, leaning on each other, limping, dragging, sniffling, and complaining about injuries they had absolutely earned.

I waved them away and headed back inside the manor before I said something that would result in a closed-door faculty meeting.

The halls were blessedly quiet as I made my way toward the teachers’ lounge. The manor held its breath around me, all polished wood, old stone, and the faint smell of smoke that had never quite left the walls despite the decades between the fire and now. The quiet did nothing to soothe my aching ankle or my wounded pride, though, and by the time I reached the lounge, my patience had worn down to nothing but bone.

The room was empty. Good. I needed a moment to think.