Zodiac Academy: The Awakening

Tory meets with her Liaison, Professor Prestos, who is determined to keep their meetings to email. She plans to send Tory worksheets to help her catch up on her Fae history, cultural and societal expectations, and abilities. On her walk back through The Wailing Woods afterward, Tory overhears the Celestial Heirs approaching and hides. She overhears their conversation. The boys discuss how powerful the Vegas are and say that they must ensure the girls fail The Reckoning. They plan to give Tory a rude wake-up call the next morning.

Seth, Caleb, and Max leave, but Darius gives someone a call and agrees to meet them. Tory risks following him. He meets Orion behind the faculty accommodations building. Darius asks Orion why they’re waiting when they could “find them while they’re sleeping—end this once and for all” (223). Darius wants to tell the other Heirs before the subjects of their conversation become too powerful, but Orion orders Darius to wait because he will see “her” again and confirm their suspicions by doing another reading.

Tory spends the night with Darcy to avoid the Heirs’ rude awakening the next morning. She also believes that Darius’s conversation with Orion was about them. They message Falling Star on Faebook for more insight. Falling Star claims not to like the company Orion keeps—Darius. Though Falling Star doesn’t know what Orion and Darius are planning, they claim that “anyone in allegiance with the Acrux family is bad news” (231). Falling Star believes that the Acrux family was involved with the murders of the twins’ birth parents and that the other Heirs’ families assisted.

They send the twins an article released the morning after the King and Queen were murdered. It reveals that Lord Lionel Acrux was the first person on the scene after receiving a distress call from his life-long friend King Vega. The Nymphs believed to have been behind the murder were still at large, and they possessed “the magic of the royal line,” making them “the most powerful and dangerous of their kind ever to have existed” (233). King Vega was nicknamed “The Savage King,” as his reign was termed “the bloody decades,” and his death was received with a mixture of grief and celebration. An advocate for the royal family, Hamish Grus, demanded that the throne be handed to the nearest royal bloodline, but with the remaining descendants being only distance cousins, the Celestial Council denied the proposal. Darcy and Tory determine that the Celestial Heirs’ families could have had strong motives to kill the King and Queen.

In Cardinal Magic class, Orion reads Tory’s palm and determines that her strongest Element is fire. He feeds from her, which a student posts about on Faebook. Caleb arrives, enraged that Orion has fed from his declared Source. Orion notes his claim to Tory but, in turn, declares Darcy as his Source, which Caleb agrees to.

Orion teaches a lesson about the zodiac signs, which he reveals influence Fae nature along with their Order, genetics, and life experience. Darcy meets with Orion after class, and he urges her to strengthen her mental shields against Coercion. When she expresses distaste at being declared his Source, he claims that she will be until she is strong enough to fight him off.

Tory’s daily horoscope predicts that she’ll invoke the ire of a Taurus and an Aquarius. She visits Pluto Offices to retrieve her packages but cannot figure out how to find her deliveries. Darius arrives to retrieve his own, using his Atlas. When Tory doesn’t react to his attempts to anger her, Darius becomes bored and surprisingly helps her navigate her Atlas to retrieve her packages.

Tory attends her Earth Elemental course, which Seth and Caleb are also in attendance for. Professor Rockford instructs them to roam a large cavern and let their magic do what comes naturally while she observes. Geraldine Grus is also in the class, and Tory realizes that she’s done her eyeliner to match Tory’s and that her lipstick matches Darcy’s signature shade.

Caleb and Seth corner Tory in a darker side tunnel. They pick her up and deposit her on a ledge above a pit of sharp stalagmites. They push her over but catch her hands, their grip the only thing keeping her from being impaled on the stalagmites below. They warn her against taking their throne, and she says that she and Darcy only want their inheritance money because they grew up with nothing. This information briefly softens the boys. Tory catches them off guard by using the Coercion ability she’s been practicing to make them pull her up. The power required to break past their mental shields shocks them, and Caleb feeds from her in punishment before they leave her.

Their first Friday night at Zodiac Academy arrives, and Darcy and Tory decide to go off campus with Diego and Sofia. They dress for a night out and walk to Diego’s car. Along the way, they happen across Geraldine, who has dyed the ends of her hair blue like Darcy’s.

They drive to Tucana, where Sofia claims to have grown up. They visit a restaurant bar called Andromeda’s Place. They see Orion at the bar with a beautiful, long-legged brunette. Darcy ignores the strange feeling in her stomach and attempts to avoid looking his way. Only once does she catch his gaze. Geraldine sees them from the street and invites herself to their table, where she presents new badges for the Almighty Sovereign Society club that she leads. After Geraldine leaves to join her club members, Sofia becomes drunk quickly.

Darcy approaches the bar to order more and overhears Orion telling his date that they would wait to kill “them” (280). His date believes that they should do so earlier before it gets out of control. When Orion realizes that Darcy has overheard him, he follows her to the women’s restroom and uses Coercion to figure out what she knows. He reacts with indifference when she reveals that she believes he’s conspiring to kill her and Tory. He instructs her to go home. She returns to her table, but Diego plans to take the intoxicated Sofia home.