While I had started feeling more at ease at the school, and I'd had a bunch of useful conversations with Minx about fencing, some students still made me feel uncomfortable.

The list narrowed down only to Evangeline and Jason. Evangeline had serious mood swings, and she was far less agreeable than her sister. One moment, she was very reassuring, the other she was cold and detached.

Jason, instead, was a bully and didn't have much of a brain. I wondered why he was even at the school in the first place. Of course, he had inherited Athanasios' Skill, but teaching him was like talking to a wall.

And then, there was Cypress. We had become friends, sort of, but I couldn't really tell if he liked me or not. I knew I got on his nerves every time I asked a stupid questions. And I knew for a fact he considered most of my questions stupid, so I stopped asking them.

I was starting to regret leaving Pablo behind for this new life. I could have been his apprentice, and, even though he wasn't forging swords anymore, there was no real rule that said I couldn't have grown up to become a swordsman or a forger. Instead, the Blood Tasks would change the whole course of my life if I passed them.

One day, Mira and Minx gave us pen and paper.

"You still haven't met any Creature," Mira said. "Because you're still human, and Minx and I can't bring you along until you've completed your training."

"We can't even see some of the smaller ones?" Matias asked. He was the same age as me, the same age as the younger students, but there was something in his mischievious dark brown eyes and the spontaneous things he said that made me think of him as younger than he was.

"Creatures don't attack us," Cypress told him for the hundredth time. "So, size doesn't matter. They are a manifestation of what is happening in the town at the moment. A Fadua might be a small creature, but it's really the manifestation of a tsunami, or of plague."

Fadua was another term for Adne Sadeh, which I had already recognized from the talks as one of the most common creatures.

"I know that!" Matias became very red in the face. "But Leviathans usually show up when there's something related to water, and Lilim when there are cases of insomnia..."

"No," I broke the silence. Everyone looked at me, surprised. "That is not true. I don't know what Athanasios told you, but it doesn't work like that. There was a plague in my city when I was little. A Leviathan showed up. The form of the creature doesn't mean anything, except maybe that the more common ones are the easiest to kill."

Mira and Minx looked at me at a loss for words. "Congratulations, Jonathan!" Minx finally cheered. "You'll ace the test, today. In fact, what Mira was about to say, is that you have to write down the name and the characteristics of the creatures you already know about."

I looked down at my piece of the paper. I knew about the Leviathan. There was a couple of things that I could write on that alone that might get me a good grade.

But I preferred not writing altogether, if it was possible. I looked at my pen, and gripped it hard enough that I thought it would break.

Mira noticed it too, and she made her way to my desk. "Is there any problem, Jonathan?" she asked.

I looked at the piece of the paper, at my pen, and at Mira. I suddenly felt very stupid, and I hoped it wasn't showing on my face.

"No," I lied.

"I think I can tell when my students are struggling," Mira said, though she did not look very confident.

"Okay," I admitted, lowering my voice. "I've never been good at reading and writing. I... I hate that. I've always wanted to be better, but it's like my brain works in a different way. I'd never been able to..."

Perfect, now I had trouble with words as well.

"I'm smarter in Tallyard," I explained to Mira. "Words never fail me. A good conversation is like sword-fighting. But reading and writing... I was never good at that."

"I understand, and, considering that I know you only speak Megleni because of your mother, I can tell Minx to go easy on you when we grade your paper," she said. "But, at least try."

I looked at the other students. Matias and Jason knew the language, because Ichorian was only a dialect of Megleni. The other younger ones, they grew up here. The older ones who were foreign, like Carmela, had had plenty of time to learn.

I felt as if I was sticking out like a sore thumb. I thought about using language as an excuse for how my paper was going to look, but decided to be honest about it.

"Okay," I told Mira. "I will. But I told you. I'd never been able to write very well in Tallyard as well."

Not being able to write very well was a nice way to put it. I soon noticed my essay had more words written wrong than the ones that had been written right. It looked like a mess. I wondered what Cypress would think of it.

In that moment, I heard somebody behind my shoulder.

It wasn't Cypress. It was worse -- it was Jason.

He took my essay. "Hey, everyone, take a look at Jonathan's essay! His handwriting! I haven't written like that since I was five years old!"

"I didn't know you knew how to write," Matias told Jason, looking impressed. "And we grew up together."

It wasn't of any consolation, since now Jason could write better than I could. The twins were snickering, and even Carmela, who laughed for just about anything, couldn't keep her laughter from escaping her lips.

"What is all the fuss about?" Cypress asked. He was writing on his piece of parchment -- he was the only one.

He then swore under his breath, and started writing on a different piece of parchment.

"When he makes a mistake," Evangeline explained to me. "He starts writing a new one. He hates making mistakes, and he doesn't want his piece of parchment to be stained in ink. How boring."

But I didn't think of it as boring, if anything I saw it as the ultimate confirmation that I couldn't possibly be in the same school of people like Cypress Macbeth-Spaulding.

Who was I kidding? He might have acted as if we were friends, for now, but of course he could eat me alive and swallow me whole if it came down to it.

I didn't want it to come down to it.

When Cora nudged Evangeline and laughed, "Imagine if Jonathan was like Cypress! If he started a new piece of parchment every time he made a mistake, there would be no more trees left with which to make the paper!", I ran for the door.

I thought I had left everyone behind, when I saw Jason facing me.

"You're not running away because I made fun of your handwriting, are you?" he asked, pressing me up against a wall.

I wasn't often out of words, but that time I did not reply.

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"Good," Jason said. "I'm not the only one who thinks you're too stupid to study here. People talk about it all the time."

I didn't know who people were, but I remembered Cypress trying to drive me away from the school. Well, if Jason wasn't lying, there was no doubt how Cypress felt about me.

It was better to leave before you were left, that was something I'd always thought. Too bad I couldn't leave my father before he left me, but I could do the same with everyone else if it really came to it.

I went out of the door of the school, and never looked back.

While I was walking in the countryside near the school, and damning myself for not having taken the easiest route, the one through the city, I heard something moving in the bushes.

I told myself to keep calm, and that I'd done the right thing. If I had been in the city, Mira and Minx, who no doubt were looking for me, would have found me already and taken me back to the school. While my plan, my foolish, reckless plan, was to go as far as I could on feet and then hitch a ride to West Tallya.

Easier said than done, but it was not like I had other choices. Even if the person who'd give me a hitch wanted to drop me in any other country, it was fine with me. I didn't have anybody waiting for me anywhere.

The thought wasn't very comforting.

The animal or thing that made the noises in the bushes came out, and I hid behind a tree. With my luck, it was probably a Creature. But, one good thing about the Creatures, they didn't attack you directly. I could get away.

However, I decided to steal one look at the thing before I got out from behind the tree.

"Shit," I commented, because the thing wasn't a Creature at all.

It was a demon, and, under my own eyes, it had killed a squirrel only with its gaze.

I didn't know a lot about demons, but one thing was sure -- it was very rare to meet one.

Another thing that came to mind -- Blood Drinkers learnt how to battle them too. It was less known than the fact that they battled Creatures because, as I said, it is a very rare occurence to meet a demon.

Legends said you'd have to have the worst luck, or you'd have to have something the demon wanted from you. I decided it was the former.

The worst thing was, I had read about that demon before. Its head looked like a bull's, but with one horn in the middle of the forehead. It crawled instead of walking. And yes, it killed its victims only with a gaze from its eyes.

They must have been hideous.

The name of the demon was Keteb, and legend said it would tempt you with power and wealth, but I was not going to let it say anything to me, admitting it talked in the first place.

How did I know so much about demons? Well, though I'd never been able to read very well, I'd had my mother read for me all the legends and stories about Meglenia, because that was where she came from. And Megleni stories always had Creatures, demons and Blood Drinkers in them. When she died, there was no one around to read for me anymore, but it didn't matter -- I had learned the stories by heart.

Something the stories didn't tell you? From what I'd been able to see, it looked like the demon Keteb only had one eye, and on his forehead, right under the horn. I seemed to remember that there was a very rare legend that said the other eye was in his heart. I didn't want to know how that worked, and whether it could use it to kill you as well as the one on his forehead.

In that moment, I heard somebody firing a gun. I turned around, and luckily didn't meet the gaze of the demon.

It was Cypress.

I grabbed him for the shoulders, thankfully he was smaller than me, and hid him behind the tree.

"Jonathan...!" he said, out of breath.

"What were you thinking?" I asked.

"I was looking for you," Cypress replied, and I realized how more immature than me he was in some things.

Or maybe, he simply was a better person.

"What were you thinking, firing your gun at... that thing!" I said, exhasperated. I wasn't sure the demon could hear us. "It's a Keteb demon. They live between dark and shadows, and can only be seen during certain hours, of certain days."

"And obviously, it's the time you pick for leaving the school," Cypress replied sourly.

"If you believe in luck, or fate, or things like that," I told him glumly. "My luck is the worst. But let's not worry about it now -- that thing kills you with its eye. If you look at it, you die from exhaustion. It's only powerful between darkness and sunlight."

"How do you know so much? Why haven't you written down things like that, on your essay?" Cypress asked crossly. I realized he cared more than I did for things like impressing the teachers.

I realized that maybe, it meant that I had impressed him.

"Because I can't write," I replied, gritting my teeth. Why would he make small talk, when there was that hideous thing still around?

"At all?" Cypress asked.

"No, a bit, but not very well. I can barely read, though," I admitted. "It's like not being able to read at all."

"And you thought people would judge you. You thought I would judge you," he sounded hurt.

"I'm not close-minded," he added then, with a certain disgust in his voice.

"No, but you made it clear before how much you couldn't stand me, and we're different, you love reading!" I said.

"Do you really think I want someone who's the same as me to be my friend? Besides I thought we had already made up, from that last time."

Cypress might not judge me, but other people did. I sighed. What was the point in arguing?

"I'm happy," I said. "That you don't judge me. I don't like people who do -- it says more about them than it says about me. But now, how do we get rid of this thing?"

"We wait for the sky to change," he replied. "You said it yourself it has power between darkness and shadows."

"We might not have to wait that long..." I realized. "I hope this works, though."

"What are you doing?" Cypress asked, when he saw me holding my sword in front of the sun.

"I want to blind it in its eye," I said. "Why wait? It's its eye we are afraid of."

"Even if you blind it with such a trick as this, it will remain blinded for how long? One minute? One second? Are you crazy?" Cypress asked. He had no faith in me at all.

The demon turned its eye in my direction, its scaly and hairy body crawling on the ground. But before it could rest its gaze on me, it made the mistake to look at the sword, that was shining in the sun.

The sword acted like a mirror, and shoved the sunlight back in the face of the Keteb. Of course, one needed to find the right angle to do so, but luckily when I went to the evening classes they held in my village for the poorer kids, I'd always been good at science.

I didn't wait a minute. I charged, and impaled the demon first in its eye, and then in its heart.

Cypress came out of the tree, and he looked weirdly impressed and tongue-tied.

"Your sword... it shouldn't be possible... I didn't think it could be used as reflector," he only said, after a while.

"It can, if you polish it enough to use it as a mirror," I frowned, when I noticed how it sounded. "Not that I'd done before, but I do spend quite a lot of time polishing it. I believe it must be treated with respect, almost like a person."

"And you have to be good at it," I added, after a while. "Poor polishing can ruin the blade."

Cypress didn't know what to reply, and I noticed he was almost teary-eyed. It wasn't a look I expected to see on him, but perhaps it was dawning on him how it was dawning on me how dangerous the demon was, and how reckless I'd been.

"I promise I think things through, even though it doesn't look like it," I said apologetically.

Cypress looked like he was about to hug me, but then he only pat on my shoulder.

I hugged him, and, while he looked stiff, he leaned into it.

"Thank you for saving my life," he finally managed to say. "But now, you must do something for me."

"Something else?" I grinned. "I saved your life already. Won't you let me come back home, where I belong?"

"You must be kidding me," Cypress replied hotly. "You do not belong in West Tallya selling seafood at the market. Yes, Minx told us about that. You belong in a school for Blood Drinkers. That was... easily the most amazing thing I've ever seen."

"Coming from the illustrious lady Cypress Macbeth-Spaulding?" I teased.

"It's only lady Macbeth to you," he replied, in the same teasing tone.

"I prefer to think it's Cypress, to me," I arched an eyebrow. "I won't doubt of your loyalty towards me anymore, Cypress."

He eased his mouth into an uncharacteristic grin.

"I thought you might be in trouble," he told me, when we could finally see the school from afar. "But I'd never thought you'd be the one to save me. I didn't exactly have more training, but I was born into this lifestyle and well... I wanted to be the one to save you."

"You can save me the next time," I said, feeling more cheerful ever since I realized that Cypress didn't hate me, and he didn't judge me, and he thought I belonged at the school.

"I think it was pretty unfair, the way the other students treated you," he added then. "I'll tell Mira and Minx exactly what I think about that."

I had no doubt they would listen to him. While Cypress was not the best student, he had a strange knack for breaking the rules, teachers seemed to rely a lot on his opinions.

When the school was finally in my sights, I exhaled.

This time, I was leaving behind West Tallya and my old life for good. I'd never thought about it until that moment, not really, but it was a heavy weight on me to become a Blood Drinker, like my father.

The man who left me before I was even born. The man who didn't even come back for me when my mother died. I remembered my uncle telling me they tried to contact him, but that he declined the offer.

He didn't want to look after me. He didn't even want to meet me. Weren't Blood Drinkers supposed to have honour?

Social workers did not let me stay with my uncle, because he drank too much, and so asked the neighbour if he would let me in. The neighbour was Pablo, a friend of my uncle who drank just as much -- he was only better at hiding it.

Well, he was better at it back then. But, after a while, even when the signs started showing, nobody cared anymore.

"I was thinking," I told Cypress. "If I come back to school, I want to become good. Maybe the best. I'm not letting this Blood Drinking job half done. So, I wanted to ask you something."

"What?"

"Would you like to become my study partner? We could spar together, I'd teach you a bit of swordfighting as well, since Minx and Mira said the best Blood Drinkers can wield more than one weapon. And most importantly...." I looked at my shoes. "In return, you'd teach me how to read and write a bit better."