Conspiracy Boy (Angel Academy) by Cecily White

into the screen. “Shall I call it up?”
    Yeah, because I needed yet another installment of What Not to Wear: The Immortal Edition .
    I’m not even sure why she bothered mentioning the Thread . The Immortal Synod leaders had basically forbidden me from getting my own passcode to the online news magazine. Something about information in the hands of an idle young lady being a dangerous tool.
    Uh-huh, the governing body of Immortals called me idle .
    And a lady.
    “Pass.” I smiled sweetly. “Delightful things give me a headache. That’s why I so enjoy listening to you.”
    By the time we pulled up at the front gate of St. Michael’s Guardian Training Academy, a small crowd of gossipy teens had gathered on the front lawn—along with a giant, semi-Rastafarian guy.
    It’s not that Tyrannus was cruel, or even especially rude. In fact, compared to Annabelle, Luc’s head guard had always been a bit of a sweetheart. Over the past few months, I’d grown used to seeing him in his casual guard uniform—black jeans and a white button-down. Today, he’d apparently brought his A game.
    Crisply ironed black chinos ran the length of his legs, topped off by a dark brown overcoat that perfectly matched his tightly braided cornrows. Chocolate-brown eyes sparkled under a matching skullcap, and gloves covered the battle-scarred skin of his hands.
    All in all, he made a nice impression—quite a bit nicer than the stuffy white dudes who usually passed themselves off as Immortals. Still, something about him kept my hackles on alert. Maybe it was the scars down his arms. Or that, in the past four hundred years, he’d allegedly guarded dignitaries and ambassadors, princes and sovereigns—people way more important than me—and never lost a charge. Whatever the reason, if he gave an order, I followed it.
    “Wassup?” I said, as casually as possible.
    Tyrannus climbed in beside me and shut the door. “The press is here.”
    “Cool beans. Did they bring me Starbucks?”
    Tyrannus shot Annabelle a look and reached into the plastic bag Bertle had sent. “You must put it on, please.”
    I couldn’t see the thing yet—wasn’t even touching it—but I could feel it. Energy pulsed out of his hand like a deep, dark heartbeat held captive under an ocean. Luc must have dialed up the power level on it. It deafened me.
    “Please,” he repeated.
    My eyes dropped instinctively as I let him fasten the metal clasp around my neck. It was one of those sensations you have to exhale through—like a flu shot or a vaccination, only way weirder. The moment it touched me, my skin began to warm. My heart twitched a bit then began to vibrate.
    “This is ridiculous,” I breathed as the buzz spread through my chest, up to my head. “I’m not a child.”
    “You’re a security risk,” Tyrannus replied.
    “And a bloody annoyance,” Annabelle muttered.
    I shut my eyes and let my fingers rest against the green stone of the pendant. Flickers of sound and light flashed into my neural synapses, fogging me. It wasn’t anything I could latch on to—not in any comprehensible way. More like a susurration of tree leaves in the back of my neck, with a hundred fairy voices tucked into the branches, laughing at me. I shut my eyes for a minute, until the rustle quieted.
    One of the most annoying things about Luc Montaigne—bearing in mind this is a man for whom annoyance is an art form—was the fact that I carried at least a couple pints of his blood inside me. Immortal blood. Inferni blood. Like it or not, that linked us. Sometimes in very uncomfortable ways.
    “He knows I’m safe,” I said. “Can I take it off now?”
    Tyrannus lifted a flat palm in a gesture I recognized from the dog-training seminar Lisa and I watched online. Stay.
    I gritted my teeth as the tracking charm wormed its way through my consciousness.
    After a second, Tyrannus said, “Gather your things. I’ll walk you to class.”
    Fully irritated, I snatched the carved metal pendant