Tu's gaze bored into mine. "Here, around the Temple."
I swallowed and scrunched my hands into fists on my knees. The silence thickened, and several sharp intakes of breath sounded throughout the room.
"Do we know why?" asked Devlin.
"No," Tu replied. "But we can make an educated guess. This is where the greatest protectors of our race are trained. A demon gaining access to this Temple would be disastrous. They know this, and since we first came here we've suffered the odd attack." He pushed his hands out in an open and calming gesture. "And that is why you should not worry. Every attack made by a demon on this Temple has failed. The Wall keeps us safe, and when it is breached we erase the danger."
He paused and paced back and forth across the classroom floor, hands behind his back, and his eyes on the floor. His face had become drawn, dark. Is that what he thought he'd done earlier, erased a danger? My stomach lurched as my eyes wandered over his crimson blazer. It was hard to look at him straight. I wanted to stand and shout and point and tell everyone how sick and twisted he was.
"Tell me, how you would identify a fairy?" he asked as if plucking the question from the air.
"Textbooks say fairies are the most diverse of all demon kind," Jono started. "Some have bright colored hair and funny colored eyes but all are noted to have an in-depth connection with nature, and possess inhuman strength, speed and regenerative ability." Jono's mouth opened, breathing in deeply, no doubt about to spew more statistical nonsense.
My hand shot up.
Dark eyebrows climbing at the forceful thrust of my hand, Tu jerked his chin at me. "Rae, you have something else to add?" There was faint surprise in his tone.
I could admit I was a more sit in silence then ace all my exams type. But just looking at him had all sorts of questions swirling around my mind.
"Lord Cleric," I said thickly then had to grunt a few times to clear my windpipe, for bile had risen at having to address this man with the honorific. "I know despite the reports of sightings that fairies are rare, but have Have you ever seen one? Up close, I mean? "
He stopped pacing, and his mouth opened then closed. He stared at me hard before rubbing a large hand over his face. "No. I have never seen a fairy. They are incredibly rare demons."
I cocked my head and my mouth won out over logic. "Have the Clerics ever caught a fairy? They hunt vampires and shifters all the time, but I've never heard of them actually catching that particular type of demon."
From the corner of my eye I saw Devlin shift in his chair. I was not surprised. People didn't question Clerics like this. The only reason I was managing it is because I'd seen Tu in his most base form. He had lost all my respect so it was nothing to talk to him as an equal.
His eyes went wild, glassy with repressed panic. Could no one else see it? "Like I said they are so rare-"
The direction of my thought changed abruptly, "If they haven't," I interrupted and tapped Alex's textbook with a finger, "how does the Sect know to put such detail in our books?"
Now I'd looked, they'd even described different variations of fairy coloring. Once you'd seen it, it was so striking it was not something you could ever forget. How could the Sect know that, and why had I not noticed before?
His eyes darted to and from mine. He placed his palms up, pushed them out. "Such beings are commonly-"
My mind flashed to the fairy in the clearing, all that blood and sizzling skin. The ruthless way he had behaved made my gut churn and my expression darken. "The Sect is lying." Someone to my left made a choking sound of disbelief. "They must have studied these demons, and for some reason you don't want us to-"
Tu slammed his beefy hand on the desk. "Enough," he barked.
I jumped, snapped my mouth shut.
Stunned at his own outburst, he blustered around with some papers on his desk and cleared his throat. "That is enough on this subject for today." His voice was quiet, distracted. "Team up and turn to page sixteen of your textbooks to discuss and summarize the proposed vampire reproduction. Start. I'll be back shortly to check your progress." He spun on his heel, avoided looking at me and left the class.
