by Abbie Lyons
“Oh my God,” I moaned. “You’re here to recruit me for some sort of computer programming school for women.” So that’s what Elysium Academy was. Mystery solved. “Well, I’ve got no interest. Zero. My fault, though, I probably should’ve at least Googled Elysium Academy before hauling my ass up here.”
At that, she burst into even more laughter. Normally this behavior might annoy me—after all, I’d taken my time to go to a stupid tourist trap and here the lady was just laughing and not giving me any answers. But there was something about her—call it good vibes, maybe—that kept me from just turning around and walking away in frustration.
“I’m sorry,” she said, holding the giggles back. “It’s just, you’re so right. Gosh, Elysium Academy does sound like some kind of tech startup school thing, but you’re the first one who’s ever pointed that one out.”
“Maybe Elysium Academy, whatever that is, should change their name, then.” I folded my arms.
Tavi shook her head. “I can bring it up to the dean, but something tells me he’s not going to be eager to overturn thousands of years of history.”
Ding ding ding. There’s my bullshit meter going off.
“Also, the whole guerrilla marketing with the hobo thing?” I said. “Kind of messed up. I know there’s a homeless problem here, but that’s not the kind of job they need, okay? It’s not dignified.”
“I...I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Tavi said.
Of course you don’t. “The letter delivery? The timing could not have been worse, too. My apartment was on fire and you thought that was a good time to hire some street person to hand-deliver your letter? I know you want to stand out and have a ‘unfair advantage’ or whatever, but God.”
She blinked, considering. “Well, again, I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean—but I’m not actually involved with the procurement and delivery of students. For those with a human background, the location and contact process can be extremely complicated, and usually faculty only find out who we’re speaking with at the last moment.”
Human background? I assumed she meant humanities. Which is probably what I would have studied if I’d bothered to go to college. So I gave her points for being close.
“Look, I know everything I’m about to tell you is going to sound absolutely crazy,” Tavi confessed. “There’s no easy way to explain this to somebody. So how about we just rip the bandaid right off? I’m what people often call an angel—”
“An angel investor,” I finished for her. “It all makes sense now! Are you one of the people who was going to invest in my brother’s startup? Is Elysium some sort of venture capital firm?”
Tavi laughed again. “Quinn, I think you need to let me talk.”
I unfolded my arms and put my hands on my hips. But I didn’t walk away.
“What I mean is...I’m a literal angel. We call ourselves guardians. Elysium is a school for guardians, and that letter is your invitation to enroll. It’s time for you to start your studies. It’s that simple.” She squinted. “Hmm, I guess it’s not actually simple. But that’s the facts.”
I rolled my eyes. “So now you’re here to scoop me up and take me to some faraway school for literal angels. Right.”
I paused, as my brain processed everything. Against all my better instincts, there was part of me that truly believed she hadn’t told me a single lie. Maybe I just wanted so badly to believe that there was a better life available to me. My brother was dead, my home had burned down, and I was primed to spend another night getting wasted in a shitty motel. Nobody could blame me for wanting to believe that something better was possible.
That’s how cults get you, right? They find you at your most vulnerable.
“Exactly,” Tavi confirmed. She could sense I was ready to buy in to whatever it was she was selling.
“Well, uh,” I started, with a bit of hesitation. I wasn’t quite sure how to con a con artist, to beat them at their own game, but I was sure as hell willing to try. Somehow, I could turn the tables on her and maybe scam a few bucks. I patted Meladryne in my back pocket for courage. ”This angel school...how much does it cost?”
“Elysium Academy doesn’t charge tuition,” Tavi said. She smiled, like it was her own private joke. “Everything is free for guardians in training—room, board, attire, schoolbooks—”
Okay, so they probably kill you and steal your organs as “payment.” I shifted my stance. So worst case scenario: I end up dead in a motel bathtub. Which, at this point, was probably what was going to happen soon anyway. It sure would solve plenty of my problems.
But best case scenario? I show up to their weird investor/cult/tech boot camp, steal everything that’s not nailed down, and go...somewhere. Anywhere but San Francisco.
It’s not good, but it’s not the worst.
And I had quite literally nothing to lose.
“Cool,” I said. “I’m in.”
“You are?” Tavi said. “Because it’s okay to have questions. It’s a lot to take in, I know.”
Right. Crackhead scenario: everything Tavi was saying was true, and she wanted me to go live amongst the angels in a cotton candy fairyland.
“I can get more explanation later,” I said. “But I’d kill for a shower.”
She couldn’t hide her shock at how easy I’d been won over, but at the same time, she had to accept it. My grungy attire was a pretty convincing argument. “You’re...not even going to ask to see my wings or something like that?”
“Huh?”
“I haven’t done a lot of recruiting of half-human students,” she explained. “But what I was told is that when you recruit a student who doesn’t know they’re a guardian yet, they want to see your wings.” If anything, she seemed a little delighted about my lack of objection. “But I’ve got something even more convincing than a set of wings.”
Sounds like the start of a dirty joke. “Fine? I guess?” Maybe she had to go through the whole sales pitch to get her commission. I was too busy thinking about sleeping on clean sheets. “Do whatever.”
“Have you ever ridden a unicorn?”
Chapter Five
Six hours later, I stepped over the threshold of my new home.
Well, “threshold” might be understating it. First I stepped out onto a pebbled white beach where the breeze was gentle and smelled at once salty and tropical (even though we hadn’t traveled long enough to have gotten too far away from the Bay Area). From the beach, a wide set of marble stairs was carved directly into an equally gleaming white cliff—not a super steep one, but more like the steps to a museum or a fancy library. Except at the top of this one was my new home—which still felt incredibly wrong to even think—Elysium Academy.
“Shit,” I whispered under my breath. Then I wondered if angels—sorry, guardians—were allowed to swear.
The problem was, I had no one to ask. Except the unicorn.
I side-eyed it briefly to see if it was still there. It was standing at attention, snorting gently from time to time and sparkling lightly in the sun.
Well, it seemed like there was basically no alternative to these steps—it was either that or climb back on the goddamn unicorn, and I’m sorry, but I didn’t trust that thing.
Then I felt bad for thinking it. What kind of fucked up girl doesn’t dream of riding a unicorn?
Me, that’s who.
Leaning gingerly to my left, I patted the thing awkwardly on the neck. “Uh...thanks?” Why the fuck am I talking to a unicorn? I wondered, feeling dazed. Meaning why was I talking to a unicorn as though it could understand me, and why was I in a situation where I was in a position to talk to a unicorn in the first place?
The unicorn didn’t answer. It just nuzzled against my hand as I patted it, its moonstone eye squinting shut like it was ready to doze off. It was so at ease, so relaxed.
I pulled my hand away like the unicorn had bit me, so quickly I didn’t even realize I’d jerked away until the thing nickered and whinnied and beat its wings.
I didn’t mean to scare it, I thought as my ride flapped and pushed itself into flight, soaring off in a whoosh that swiftly rendered it invisible in the blinking of the bright sun. I just didn’t want it getting too...comfortable.
I hugged my arms against myself even though it wasn’t cold and headed for the stairs.
Here goes fucking nothing.
As I crested the steps, I found myself face-to-face with a massive marble...temple.
Immediately, I got this panicky feeling of being lost. It wasn’t like being lost at the mall or lost at the airport. It was like being lost at the Parthenon. There was no visible kiosk or map stand or YOU ARE HERE sign because everything was so goddamn elegant and marbleized that there was no way any of this was practical for living and learning in.
There was no way any of this was real.
I slammed my eyes shut and hugged my arms around myself again, rubbing from shoulders to elbows. I still smelled faintly smoky—the result of not washing my hair since the fire—and my Oakland A’s shirt felt grubby compared to all the purity around me. I felt like I should be wearing a toga or an all-white pantsuit like a girl in a tampon commercial.
Once I’d managed to stop trembling, I opened my eyes again. The temple was still there, soaring up above me like a fancy old-time bank, catching more than its fair share of the golden late-afternoon sun. Beyond the temple, I could just make out more gleaming white rooftops and a sweep of green lawn. I wasn’t alone, either; there were people walking around, I realized, just in the distance, more toward what I guessed had to be the quad. With one final glance over my shoulder to the horizon, I stepped forward one sneaker at a time, head on an absolute swivel as the temple-like main building and the shining rowhouse-like surrounding structures drew nearer.
As I got closer to the quad, I could pick up more and more snatches of conversation, see more clearly what people were doing. A cluster of girls to my left squealed and leaped into each other’s arms, gushing something about summer break. They all looked pretty...normal, I supposed, although it’d been a long time since I’d hung out with a group of friends, let alone girlfriends. None of them looked especially magical or angelic, except for the fact that they all had really clear skin and frizz-free hair. But no wings or anything.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and kept going, grateful for the angular swath of shade that fell into my path as I drew close to the foot of the temple building. The place was gigantic, clearly important because it was heading up the manicured green stretch of lawn that made up the campus. I slowed my pace, getting closer to the steps and craning my neck up. The roof was classic Greek style, a triangle decorated with ornate curls and foliage carved out of...well, there was no way it was solid gold, but it sure as hell gleamed like it. Spotless columns towered down along the sides, except for the front edge—where I now huddled in the shade—where the roof was supported by four carved figures instead of columns. They each stood mightily and stared out with blank marble eyes onto the quad, taking in the lawn where a few students lounged, strolled, and chatted, the neat rows of more traditional white-stone buildings that ran on each side of the grass, and the distant grove of trees on the other edge of the rectangle, where the sky was just faintly purpling above the tops of the leaves, and God only knew what lay beyond.
I shivered again, and felt my stomach growl. What time was it? I hadn’t eaten anything since my Quarter Pounder, and unless being able to survive on nothing but air was a perk of being an angel, then I was going to need something for dinner and fast. I didn’t have much of an appetite, especially after the jostling of the unicorn ride, but I knew that not eating left my senses dulled and my movements sluggish, and even if this place seemed tranquil, there was no fucking way I was going to let my guard down.
I tore my gaze away from the staring faces of the four figures—which, incidentally, I could not discern the gender of; they all had that generic shoulder-length curly hair of Greek statues that could be guy or girl—and down to the steps. If this was the main building, then presumably there was some kind of...administrative office? inside. I couldn’t even imagine a place like this having an administrative office—it seemed like one of those startups where they didn’t have an HR department and instead just gave everyone unlimited vacation time and hoped no one filed a sexual harassment lawsuit. But no, surely someone was in charge, and if I were in charge of this place, then I’d want to have my office in this building.
Satisfied with my reasoning, I mounted the marble steps—my second of the day—and ascended up toward the landing, my smartwatch buzzing its approval as I reached the top.
Way to go, Quinn! You’ve broken your average step record for the past week!
“Talk about damning with faint praise,” I muttered under my breath, shaking my wrist to clear the message. The most exercise I’d gotten in the past week was probably bolting up the steps to the burning apartment.
Instinctively, my hand flew to the back pocket of my jeans, where my fingertips grazed the top of Meladryne’s sword. Still safe, if likely a bit sweaty from being mashed between my ass and a unicorn’s ass.
I wish you could see this shit, Scott, I thought. Your dorky ass would love it. Secure knowing that my figurine was safe in my pocket, I stepped past the sandaled stone feet of one of the column-people and into the cool, dark interior of the temple building.
Whatever this giant atrium was, it definitely wasn’t an administrative office. It was empty, for one thing—well, empty except for a giant cubelike thing in the middle.
I took a few steps closer, my steps oddly soundless even in this giant polished space, and cocked my head at it. I actually kind of liked modern art, with all its hard angles and sharp attitudes, but this—this I did not get. It was blueish, then purplish, and glowed inside with an ever-twisting curl of smoke. It wasn’t actually a cube, I realized: it was an altar.
Okay, just the slightest bit creepy. Definitely in the wrong place. I was just about to turn and leave when, somewhere to my right, I heard the murmur of voices. Of course, I realized. They wouldn’t just put a random information desk here in the middle of the temple. This isn’t a fucking museum. The offices—or whatever the angel version of offices were—would be off to the sides. I headed across the smooth stone floor toward the sound of the voices, which seemed to be coming from a shaded corridor that led...I couldn’t quite tell where.
“Hello?” I called out as I got closer, almost to the opening in the stone wall that curved in to the passageway, but my voice was surprisingly craggy, so I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hell—“
BANG. Before I fully processed what had happened, a snap and flash like a giant firecracker ignited in front of me. My vision went white, my hearing whining and distant, but only for a second. Then the world was back, the hard stone beneath me and the cool air whisking over my skin.
“What the fuck?” I said, but softly this time. Wherever I was, I doubted this was the administrative office. My danger senses were keying up to 11, and I wanted out.
I took one giant running step away from the corridor and back toward the outside, the grand staircase back to the quad, but I didn’t get far before I heard voices again. And more distinctly this time.
“Someone’s out there,” one of them said, far off but clear. Then a pounding set of footsteps. Getting louder. Toward me.
Against my better judgment, I froze. The way out was still a decent sprint’s distance away, and I wasn’t fast even on days when I hadn’t taken a long journey by unicorn. But one leap backward and I’d be back in the shadows.
Retreat. My body jerked itself back the way I’d came, back to the shadowy edge of the corridor, and flattened against the stone of the wall. I closed my eyes, like I was a three-year-old kid assuming that if I couldn’t see someone, they couldn’t see me—and flattened my back against the cold, hard wall, trying to make myself invisible. My breathing slowed and shallowed as the steps got louder, until finally I heard them thunder out of the
corridor and into the main atrium, and then a bit further away, toward the middle, away from me.
“Who is it?” A second voice, this one from within the corridor still. My heart pounded painfully in my throat, my eyes still closed.
“No one.” The first voice again, ringing clear and deep in the open air of the atrium. The steps began again, back in my direction, as whoever this was spoke. “Or at least I don’t see anyone.”
The steps were getting closer, but not disappearing back into the corridor. A trickle of fear ran down my spine. The shadows in here were dark, but not that dark. If this person got any closer to me, the only way they’d miss me was if I was literally invisible.
Heart still hammering, I cracked one eye open. And saw nothing.
That is, I saw the ground, and I saw the rest of the room, but I didn’t see myself.
I literally was invisible.
“Holy shit!” I whispered. And as soon as I did, my body reappeared, a feeling like a full-body headrush sweeping me from head to toe.
“Hey!”
The steps picked up again, and before I could move to flee, I found myself staring into a pair of smoke-gray eyes.
“Who are you,” said a voice that was deep and bitter as dark chocolate. “And what are you doing here?”
Tall. That’s what I could tell about the guy blocking my path. Tall and with shoulders too broad to see past. Hell, I was five-eight and I still had to tip my head back to see anything of him but the white button-down and loosened blue tie. Every muscle in my body still taut, I took him in: russet hair, fair skin gone sun-bronze, taut cheekbones and a serious set to his jaw that betrayed the curve of his mouth. And freckles. Just a few, over the straight bridge of his nose, but still.
Something about those freckles made me just a little less panicked.
“Who are you?” he repeated, his voice clear and commanding.
“I’m—“
I’m getting out of here.
I lunged to the right, but not fast enough. The guy caught me by the wrist and held me in place—firm, but not harsh.