We circled each other, both looking for the upper hand. Before my eyes, blue bled across his brown skin until he was the color of cobalt. Small horns grew from his forehead and spiraled away from his face. A barbed tail shot out from his backside. Jet-black wings sprouted from between his shoulder blades through the slits in his sparring uniform. He’d dropped his human mask and transformed into his true self—the darkbringer. Several kids swooned, which only made me roll my eyes. He was such a show-off.

Only last summer, darkbringers had attacked our neighborhood. Now I was friends with one. So much had changed in only a few months. I went from not knowing about magic to being a guardian of the veil in training. I found out that the Lord of Shadows had killed Papa’s first family over a thousand years ago, all except my half sister, Eleni. He’d put her in a deep sleep and used her godling power to tear the veil. This evil-overlord thing was serious business.

Zeran whipped out his tail, catching me off guard. It sliced through the air an inch from my face. “Hey, no fair!” I said, diving out of the way. “I can’t use my staff, so why should you get to use your um . . . extra limb?”

“You’ll have to deal with plenty of extra limbs when you fight the other darkbringers,” he retorted, his voice annoyingly calm. “And they won’t go easy on you.”

I didn’t know why he had to sound so sinister about it, like I didn’t already know that. And news flash: I didn’t expect or want him to go easy on me. I turned to Ogun, who glanced up from his clipboard. “I’ll allow it as long as you’re careful with your barbs, Zeran.”

“Careful with his barbs,” I murmured under my breath. The same barbs could cut through my uniform and rip the skin from my back. Okay then, but I wasn’t about to give up. I swallowed hard. Now that Zeran was in his true form, he would be faster and more agile, but maybe I could use that against him.

Underneath the basketball rim, General’s floppy ear fell from over his eyes and he let out a long howl. Ogun shook his head, looking particularly annoyed. “It seems that a godling at the high school has accidentally turned everyone, including himself, into guinea pigs. August, please officiate while I sort things out.”

“Nice,” someone remarked, followed by a bunch of snickering.

August, an eighth grader with a face that screamed straight A student, stepped forward when Ogun disappeared into thin air. “Carry on with your matches, godlings!”

When I hesitated, Winston blurted out, “Little Maya is a loser like I’ve been saying all along.”