by Jade Alters
“See, no. I thought I heard something… Maybe a finger snap?” I tense to think backward. Part of me already has my suspicions, not of where I might wake up, but with whom. Another part of me denies that he would do something like this. “There was a Demon named Bryant,” I remember, “He’d have seen what happened. Find him and-”
Any further communication with Lee is shattered by the sudden opening of my eyes. The Soul of Fire flies away from me, to the darkness of my mind. Rapid blinks adjust my eyes to the dull light of a room I don’t recognize. The walls appear glossy silver, almost like mirrors. They generate no light of their own, but reflect the rows of dim blue torches that mark the edge of the walls around me. There’s no door I can see, so it must be behind me.
Then physical sensation starts to return to my body, and I realize I’m standing. My feet are flat on the ground long before I have the strength to use my legs. An arm slips out from under each of my own to let me hold myself, now that I’m awake. A glance to my left shows me a young man I don’t know with tan skin and slicked back hair. A glance to my right shows me the truth of my worst suspicions. Serge. He did this, whatever this is.
“Cecelia,” a semi-familiar voice calls to me from the blackness between torchlight. I follow the sound to a spot in front of me, where a body bleeds into existence from the dark. He is followed by two, three, then four other bodies, all clad in a similar uniform. Each of them dons a long cape over their glamorously adorned dress clothes. As each of them passes through the light of blue fire, they glisten like sea glass all over. The one who leads them out, the one who spoke, steps into the dim light alone for me to see. Magister Horace.
“What the hell is going on?” I murmur. My rage is subdued to a simmer only by how sorely outnumbered I am. The setting and invitation I received are indication enough that the Magister’s intentions are less than virtuous at best. Despite my asking, I’m truly shocked when he parts his bearded lips to tell me:
“The Academy is splintered, Cecelia. Even in your short time here, I’m sure you picked up on the subtleties.” Horace’s husky, dark tone fills the room from edge to blackened edge.
“I think subtlety is more your specialty,” I dare to spit back, which inspires a few murmurs among the caped shadows around Horace. “Why don’t you enlighten me?” The Magister gives a haughty little hmph.
“Shapeshifters and Dragons destroy their rooms. Vampires sneak off to feed unsupervised. Beings that should never have been brought to this Realm in the first place are allowed to grow their unnatural powers without restriction. It’s a dangerous concoction we’re brewing here, at the Broken Academy, and the Council remains undecided on too much. Complacency will breed monsters here, not students,” Horace tells me. At this I give a little glance to Serge and my other babysitter, at my sides. I take a little test step forward to see if they’ll stop me. No one makes a motion. Serge only turns his face as far away from me as he can.
“I’m guessing you’re more the apartheid type,” I say. One of the caped figures behind Horace gives a little snort. The rest haven’t so much as breathed loud enough for me to hear.
“We’ve invited too many powerful beings under our roof. A roof that used to belong to Magicians,” Horace goes on.
“You mean to you. Your family goes all the way back to the beginning, doesn’t it?” I ask. The words Dalshak Academy are still a crispy, fresh brand on my brain tissue from what I read in the Library. Horace folds his hands over his belted waist.
“We would never have let things get this far,” confirms it by implication. Horace’s eyes are the same shade as Serge’s, yet they couldn’t be filled any differently. None of the doubt of the son is present in the father. He’s dangerously sure of his right to pass judgment. “But I embrace our responsibility to set it right. That is why you’re here. To make a choice; who you support.”
“What an honor,” I swoon with the back of my hand to my forehead. I catch Serge’s hands curl into a fist behind me. I drop the damsel act to demand, “what? Are you...asking every student?”
“Just the ones who would serve on our new Council. This is why I had my son watch you,” Horace announces.
“Watch me…” I murmur. My hand glides over my gut, like there’s an open wound pouring out. My eyes wander back to Serge, whose eyes are locked on a nondescript corner of the room. Then Horace raises an arm to invite one of the shadows from behind him forward. The caped blackness steps into the light. I have precious little time to process the nausea of betrayal before it implodes to a scourge of hate. Blue fire gives his gray, slender frame an even eerier, twisted look. The sight of him heats the air around my spinning head.
“You…” I bare my own fangs at Darius Jecks. I turn my rage back on Horace. “You really picked the wrong mascot to sell me on this new Council of yours.”
“You misunderstand,” Horace tells me, open palms up in an attempt to calm me. It does just the opposite. I take a solid, echoing stomp towards Darius. “Darius is only our ambassador to the VampKing. The Vampires are a willing ally to this new Council, but Darius does not represent them here.”
“Many of us still remember,” Darius hisses with such venom, I want to boil it out of him, “What did you learn about in class? When our kind was hunted like a plague? We were there. We aren’t a part of the Academy by choice. We’re punished for pursuing our natural needs. Like what I did, to your brother.”
“Shut your goddamn mouth right now Darius…” I warn him with a glare that could smolder through steel. “If you want to keep it on your face.”
“Darius. Tell her the truth,” Horace urges him, a gentle hand on the gray monster’s shoulder.
“You killed Jason when you incinerated him,” Darius says, and I stomp forward to burn a hole through his skull. My foot sticks to the floor when he adds, “but he’d have died either way. It wasn’t your fault. My bite was fatal. You just put him out a few seconds early.”
My blood turns to ice water. From the lips of the murderer, my mark for murder, my purpose. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t my fault, and Jason’s gone, and my parents left me, and I was whisked away to this insane fucking school to “learn control”. I suffered, bled and burned. And it was all a lie. It wasn’t my fault. My head creaks towards Horace like a steering wheel on a rusted column, when all I want to do is melt Jason’s confessed murderer. All that keeps me from indulging in that vengeance is a realization.
“Why is he here?” I ask. Horace raises an eyebrow, though he’s far too calculated a man to play dumb now, and we both know it. “If Darius isn’t one of your new Council members, why bring him here and have him confess? Why risk the life of your Ambassador to the Vampires?”
“Very good, Cecelia,” Horace spreads a toothy grin, “This is why we want you on the Council. This, and your immense power.”
“Get on with it, Horace. And if you call me Cecelia one more time, they’ll need a scraper to salvage anything for your funeral,” I warn him. Every time he says it, I hear my mother in my ear, reminding me to calm down. Cecelia.
“Ambassadors can be replaced. I’m sure the VampKing will understand if I explain what happens next as a simple case of revenge, enacted outside the Council’s control, before we ever tried to recruit you, Cecelia,” I wince at the sound of the name.
“Are you… What?” Darius blurts. Both my hands heat to a fluorescent red, torn between two men I despise. “You’re just going to sweep me away? You think the VampKing will forgive that, so easily?” Darius laughs. Horace shrugs.
“I think he’ll understand that, no matter the end goal of the Vampires in this new Council, you took a personal risk. Personal consequences came for you. The situation exists outside the parameters of our arrangement.”
“Father,” Serge’s voice pops from the darkness behind me. “This is-”
“Shut your mouth, boy!” Horace silences him with a thunderous boom.
“Why do you want me to kill him?” I ask. It’s a haunting transition o
f Horace, from a bloodshot scream back to the calm hum of business. He flattens the slightly disturbed collar of his suit jacket, under his cape.
“Choosing to exact justice for a wrong through action, rather than discussion, is your first step away from the Broken Academy. The first step towards our new Council and a better Academy,” Horace tells me. I look from him to Darius, to Serge only a step behind me now. I hold my searing red palm up at Darius. For a few seconds, I imagine what it would be like. Him, erased from the earth. Jason’s spirit, laid to rest.
Is it an even trade, for the place that brought me this far? For the people who stepped in, when the rest of my world stepped out?
“We’ve been here once before,” Darius tries to shake me. It’s hardly effective, with the mortal terror glimmering in his own eyes. “You think you’re fast enough now?”
“Don’t think I have to be. Not with all of them around,” I taunt him right back. I give him an open smile of jagged fangs, so he knows I’m serious. So he knows it could end any second, if only I will it. I let the heat surge into my fingers. Little tendrils of flame flicker around them like a glove. “You…killed my brother.” I open my hand wide and bright. Darius winces away.
Serge
I watch, somewhere between powerless and ready to snap. My one-time lover and my best friend - who’s apparently a murderer - are separated by inches of hot air that could combust at any second. My father waits behind them, forbidding me from intervention with his silent threats of the family legacy crashing down on my head. He’s brought all four of his siblings, along with my cousin, to keep me from doing something rash. But then Cece’s palm brightens red, and everything changes. I’ve seen this before. The fire is coming.
“You…killed my brother,” Cece grumbles. I lurch forward to stop her, family legacy be damned. Before I can so much as snap my fingers, she says, “and you’ll have to answer for that.” The tone of her voice is hardly that of an executioner. I hesitate for a second, in which she turns back to my father. “But the Broken Academy suits me better.”
Cece’s jaw snaps open wide at my father, while her hand jerks from Darius to one of my uncles. A flood of flame leaps from her throat and her hand at once. The room bursts into vibrant orange light while the Dalshak Magicians scatter in flight of her inferno. Darius tightens up, shoulders to toes, until he realizes he’s not on fire. She isn’t even aiming for him. The second Cece’s fire recedes, Darius makes a break for it. Five Magicians turn on Cece. My father blocks Darius’ lightning-fast escape with a solid illusory wall between him and the door.
“Serge!” Father screams. It’s a call to action. It’s an implied question: Why the hell aren’t you doing anything? I meet his wide eyes, which are so like mine in everything but intent. He watches me, bewildered, as I change before his eyes. Finally, he’s pushed me too far. He’s dug in the wedge too deep, tipped the scale of demand too far. Fuck him, and fuck this family.
“What?” I snarl at him. With a wave of one hand, I wrap Cece in an illusory cloak of protection. So long as it hangs in the air around her, no Magician can snap her into an illusory prison. With my other hand, I splinter the translucent wall blocking Darius’ way. “Serge - stop someone you care about from defying our design? Serge - help us kill your oldest friend because he knows too much?”
“How- how dare you?” Father bellows while he focuses the efforts of his other hand in erecting new illusory walls for each bullet-speed zigzag Darius makes to escape.
“Learn a new trick, Father,” I trudge straight towards him. Behind us, Cece flares out breaths and handfuls of hellfire, which flatten against similar illusory walls, or get sucked through portals. In his rage, my father loosens his attention from Darius to fling a semi-clear javelin of condensed light straight for me. I ensnare it in a light-whip of my own, which dissolves it to basic particles.
I buy just enough time for Darius to navigate the floating-glass maze my father created around him. His fist zips through the air like a hummingbird, straight into Magister Horace’s cheek. The kickback force blasts him right off his feet. Father’s back flattens against the floor just as Darius flies to my side.
“Serge-”
“Save it. Get out. We’ll talk later,” I tell him.
“What about…” Darius’ eyes shoot to Cece.
“I’ll take care of it, go!” I rush him away as Father crawls to his feet. Darius claps a hand to my shoulder, then zips through the portal I open for him. What I didn’t expect in the seconds the window is open, are the two bodies that come stumbling in.
Lee,
The instant the little speck of leftover illusory light in the Grand Library expands to a full-on portal, I know what I have to do. I sidestep the Vampire that comes shooting out, without a thought for who it is. This is the only chance I have. I jump through, into whatever temporal darkness the Magicians have Cece trapped in. I should have figured, long before I ever made it in, that they were the ones that trapped her.
The second my feet hit the blue-lit floor, I see Cece turning in flaming semicircles, fending off a small crowd of Magicians, alone. I see Serge Dalshak off on the side, deflecting bolts of light from Magister Horace with his own glassy, illusory shield. I hardly have a second to think what in the hell is going on here? Before a dark, orange-cracked body rushes past me.
“Cece! Behind me!” Bryant bellows. He must have come through the portal just after me. Cece falls back, spraying flame in a wide arc to force the Magicians to fan out. When she stumbles back behind Bryant, he kneels to slam his palms into the ground. Colossal splinters of orange energy spread forward like poison in veins. Black slabs of corrupted matter rise up to block the way of Cece’s many pursuers. I catch her when she trips backwards.
“You… You’re here…” Cece heaves.
“Of course I am. I brought your…friend?” I chuckle at the sight of Bryant raising walls of hell-matter to deflect every advance of the Magicians. I’ve never seen a Demon act outside of self-interest. “Do you have enough juice left to transform?”
“I… I don’t…” Cece tries to tell me.
Just then, Magister Horace gets a light spear past Serge. It sails at the guidance of his will, right for us. Cece and I separate to let it between us. I let fly a dense curveball of flame from my hand at the same time Serge hurls a translucent tomahawk. In a scrambling effort to dodge both, Horace’s cheek is clipped by the illusory axe just before my fireball blasts him back into the wall. The Magister turns a spiteful cheek against the cold mirror, only to finally snap his fingers and fall through the portal it opens. It closes behind him before his son can even hope to hold it open. That just leaves the Magicians spreading wide around Bryant’s wall of corruption. Serge rushes behind it with me and Cece.
“Here. Take some of mine,” Serge urges her. Cece and I turn him the same, confused look. “Juice, you need juice. What do you think is holding this place together?”
“This place…is a trick?” Cece heaves.
“Yes, the kind with a permanent twist, and I helped them pull it off. I can put some of it into you,” Serge tells her. He doesn’t give Cece the option again. He puts each of his palms on one side of her face and lowers his forehead to hers. I watch, perplexed, as silver light shines through every vein from his temple to his carpals. It transfers to Cece’s, then climbs her arms up to her eyes, which shimmer the same shade. In the Soul of Fire, I see her ember burn brighter blue than ever.
Bryant
“Bryant,” I hear Cece call out behind me. With the wall of hall-matter I’ve been managing to keep the Magicians back, I haven’t had much of a chance to check on the others. I’m not sure why I even came through that portal with Lee. I knew I had to put a wall between Cece and the Magicians who want to hurt her. When I turn back to her now, though, I find her looking completely rejuvenated. Her eyes shimmer with an odd silvery hue. “Let the wall down,” she tells me.
While every instinct tells me to wall off the threat, something even more
powerful brings my arms down. The slabs and crags of corruption begin to sink back into the floor. Lee and Cece straighten up, chests inflating with the flood of a huge breath. Their skin dimples to scales. Their hands and feet turn to claws. Long necks rise up from their shoulders with fanged snouts on the end. Wings snap open behind them. Violet and red, the two become a lumbering draconic pair, a whole head and a half taller than Serge and myself. For a second, I reflect Serge’s remarkably human expression - awe, I believe. Then the Magicians make their move, and their throat scales flare up with a crimson glow.
Serge swirls his tired arms to suck in every condensed-light weapon the Magicians can hurl at us. Cece and Lee fire out beams of smoggy inferno, powerful enough to split the walls. Powerful enough to shatter through glassy shields raised in vain by our opponents. Powerful enough to scorch a few of them before all five fall back into their own illusory portals. When the brilliant flare of scalding light recedes back into their throats, the mirror-walled chamber begins to shake. The very frame of it crumples inwards, as if in the grip of a giant.
“Cece!” Serge’s shout brings me to her side. She falls as her scales recede, into Lee’s already human arms. Her eyes flicker back to their usual, blue hue. Serge kneels to put an arm around Lee. His other one reaches for me. “Come on!” He shouts over the deafening crack of the very world around us. I bend down to join the three, however surprised I am to be included. Serge closes his other arm around both me and Cece.
Then the sound stops, all at once. On the other side of a blink, we’re back in the Grand Library. The little glimmer of light we came through twinkles out. In the numb quiet, while the four of us stay stuck together in shock, only one finds their voice.
“You… all…” Cece mumbles. Her eyes fight to stay open for another second or two, before she falls asleep in our collective grasp.