by Abbie Lyons
“You’re damn right,” I said before I could stop myself. Dean Harlowe’s mouth twitched again, but not in an angry way—I didn’t think. “Sorry. I just mean, uh...” I could feel my folded-up bills, in all their slimness, pressing against the pocket of my jeans as I sat. “Look, I don’t know what the deal is here financially, but I’m broke. Like, ramen and ketchup soup broke. So if I can’t stay—”
Dean Harlowe laughed a rich laugh. “Oh, Nova, there’s nothing to worry about. All our students attend Hades Academy free of charge. We demons have little use for human money. Who can keep up with all those currency changes?” She shook her head. “Somewhere we still have a giant vault of Greek drachmae from the old days...utter waste of space if you ask me. No,” she went on, “your tuition, room and board, and other needs will be met in toto by the Academy. It’s the least we can do in return for the services you’ll eventually render to demonkind—and the whole world.”
“Yeah,” I said. “So about that...can you explain, like, what this is all about?” I waved vaguely around me.
“Of course,” Dean Harlowe said smoothly. “Naturally, much of this will be covered more in-depth in your classes, and those students here who were raised in full-demon households will have a bit of a head start on understanding, I’m afraid. But, in short, Hades Academy exists to train and foster the powers of demons so that we can stand our ground against the forces of Chaos.
“You see, ever since the ancient times, and even before—that is, before the advent of written human record—this world has been in constant battle for balance. Almost every human creed and natural law has its version of this balance: good and evil, light and darkness, yin and yang, and so on. But the key principle behind this natural law is that every positive must have a negative. Every energy must be met with equal and opposite energy to sustain existence. Otherwise, Chaos takes over.”
Somehow I could tell that she meant Chaos with a capital C. Even the sound of her voice saying the word sent a shiver down my spine.
“And so, as you might expect, our role as demons is to create what some might term that ‘negative’ energy. Specifically, fear, although it takes many forms and manifestations in non-supernaturals. And our so-called supernatural powers are in fact some of the most natural forces on earth. We, along with our”—her voice lowered a few ticks—”colleagues at Elysium Academy are responsible for using our powers to their greatest potential, thereby keeping the forces of Chaos from overwhelming all of existence.”
Oh, so no big deal. My eyes felt wide as saucers. How could this possibly be real?
Then again, given what I’d seen so far, how could it not be?
“I understand this is a lot to take in,” Dean Harlowe cut into my thoughts, “and you’ve had quite an eventful day already. Besides, as I said, the purpose of your time at Hades Academy is to gain the full understanding of what this all means. You’ll soon learn—well, over the next three years—what your place is in this, ah, very grand scheme of things.” She folded her hands on the polished surface of her desk, her nails gleaming an impressively rich red.
I blew out a breath. “Okay,” I said. “Got it. I mean...okay, I think I’ve gotten it. So this place, the Academy...it’s like demon college? Because, in the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t graduate from high school. I don’t even have a GED.”
I was deadly serious, but Dean Harlowe just chuckled. “Ah, I do so enjoy you human-born. No, the only requirement for entering our Academy is demon blood, which, as your powers demonstrated, you clearly possess. We were able to home in on you quite efficiently after that little incident—and just in the nick of time, since the semester begins imminently. But yes, in terms of analogs to your human educational system, you could say that this is the equivalent of college. Many of our students attend human schools at some point in their upbringing, to gain a deeper understanding of how the human mind—the human soul—works.”
“Ah,” I said. “Well, my reading and writing is top-notch, I can assure you.”
Of all things, my actual intentional joke was the one thing that she didn’t laugh at. But honestly, I was too exhausted to mind.
“I can sense that you’re tired.” Dean Harlowe rose. “There’s just one more matter to tie up, and then I’ll dismiss you to the dormitories.” She walked to one of the bookshelves, one with a bunch of drawers at the bottom, and waved a hand. A drawer flew open, and out of it emerged a long sheaf of what I had to assume was parchment. Which I had to admit was pretty cool.
“You’ll need to sign your scilicet—essentially our enrollment agreement.” Another wave of the hand and the parchment flew into my lap. The letters were small and curling, and, I couldn’t help but notice, not in English.
“Uh...what does this say?”
Dean Harlowe blinked. “Oh. I suppose you haven’t received Latin instruction, then?”
“Oh yeah, Latin was a huge priority at ol’ PS 316.” My sleep deprivation was clearly getting the better of me. Dean Harlowe smiled, her first genuine smile.
“So your reading and writing isn’t truly up to par, now is it?”
Demons, I thought. Guess backing me into a corner was what gave her the ultimate joy. I stared her down right back.
“Is that gonna be an issue?”
“Not at all.” She looked at the whatever it was—scilicet. “As long as you sign.”
I glanced down at the paper again. “Got a pen? Or a quill, or whatever?”
Her smile widened. “I’m afraid ordinary ink is insufficient for our purposes.”
“So what am I supposed to do, sign in blood?”
A few moments of silence.
“Oh, shit,” I said softly. “I have to sign in blood.”
“Indeed.” Dean Harlowe waved her hand a third time, and a thin-bladed silver dagger appeared on the arm of my vine-chair.
My heart pounded. “Seriously?”
“Serious as the grave,” she said, and she sounded it.
I swallowed hard. I wasn’t a wuss. I’d been through worse. Besides, the dagger was a relatively small dagger.
At that, I almost had to laugh. I was bargaining with myself to sign a demon-contract in my own blood. My life was really off the deep end.
With a deep breath, I picked up the dagger in my left hand, wrapping my fingers around the slim handle.
“Okay, Nova,” I whispered. “On three. One, two—”
And then I jabbed myself.
The pain never came. I could feel the blood, but none of the sting I’d been expecting. With my eyes narrowed to a squint, I did my best to sign a full Nova Donovan on the bottom line. When I’d finished, Dean Harlowe hand-waved the parchment to her desk and hand-waved my stab-wound back to whole.
“What the hell?” I stared at the tip of my finger. No blood, no nothing.
“You can say that again,” Dean Harlowe said drily. She produced some kind of official-looking seal and chunked it against the parchment.
“Nova Donovan, welcome to Hades Academy.
Chapter Four
Dean Harlowe instructed me to go back the way I came, then climb the “Grand Stairway” in the “Great Hall”—because the name of everything had to be preceded by some descriptor saying how awesome it was, apparently—and then take a left. That would put me in the common room—actually, I guess that was kind of a boring name for a room—in which I “couldn’t miss” the entrance to the girls’ dormitory. “Simple,” she said as she shook my hand and sent me back off.
Unfortunately, that whole “going back the way I came” thing wasn’t exactly “simple.” And judging by the little twinkle in Dean Harlowe’s eye when she said that, I couldn’t help but think she knew finding my way back wouldn’t exactly be easy. Even without the three absurdly attractive guys who’d distracted me on my way to Harlowe’s office, a giant gothic manor was—can you believe it—not the most straightforward place to navigate.
Not to mention the creepy portraits that covered the walls. The st
ares from paintings of demons long-dead felt almost as real and penetrating as the looks I’d gotten from the hot guy with the red eyes. And yet, unlike him, they were kind of comforting to see. I didn’t grow up with family photo albums or anything, and even if I had, it’s not like I knew I was half-demon as a kid, so even seeing a trace of where I might’ve come from was oddly reassuring.
That painting of a lady in an imposing black corset hanging on the wall was, for all I knew, my great-great-great-great grandmother or something. She at least had killer fashion sense.
But on your mother’s side or your father’s side? Where’d that demon heritage come from?
I shook my head and I continued my quest down the winding hallways. At this point, I was totally exhausted, and I had no idea what time it was, thanks to a phone that was both dead and out of prepaid minutes. Occasionally I’d end up back in front of a painting that I’d already seen a few minutes before, which seemed impossible, but given the events of the previous few hours, “impossible” was a word I should probably just toss out of my vocabulary forever.
After what felt like twenty minutes of aimless walking, I entered a section of the corridor that looked familiar—something about the way the moonlight was shining directly through the window creating a little patch of light stuck in my mind. If I was remembering correctly, all I had to do was turn left there and I’d be back on my way to the Great Hall.
Or so I thought, anyway.
I shook my head again, my trashy Jersey girl waves clouding my vision until I swept them out of my eyes. Nothing I thought made sense anymore. Yesterday I was, if not a master criminal, at least smooth enough to earn a kind of hand-to-mouth living without selling anything shady (or myself).
Now I was...
I looked at another portrait, this one of a guy in a full Jane Austen getup, his pupil-less eyes boring into me.
...I didn’t know who I was.
I was about to give up and just sleep on the floor when an overpowering, well, instinct took over, and a single thought filled my mind.
Just trust your intuition.
Well, why the hell not? I followed the patch of light, and sure enough, I soon found myself back in the Great Hall. I breathed a sigh of relief. Still would’ve been nice for somebody to hand me a map of the damn place before shuffling me off on my own, if maps were something that demons actually used.
Clearly, I had a lot left to learn.
I stared up at the staircase as it rose imposingly in front of me. “Well, here we go,” I mumbled, though my words echoed louder than expected in the otherwise empty hall.
And with that, I climbed the stairs and turned left, as instructed, to enter the common room.
I felt like I was the last one to arrive at a party that, until a few hours ago, I didn’t even know I was invited to. It was late by now, but I guess that didn’t matter as much to demons. The common room was a huge, arched atrium, and boasting giant windows and bookcases spaced in between. It was bright, but not from regular lamps (of course) or even torches, but from brass braziers dangling from the rafters and crackling with blue flames. Lots of students were already lounging about and socializing, all spread out on cushy leather couches and the kind of big, puffy armchairs that you’d just pleasantly sink into if you sat in them. Others were playing a game that looked an awful lot like ping-pong except the ball was literally a small ball of fire. One of the walls was lined with, I swear to God, glass-fronted wooden cases filled with delicious-looking snacks and drinks on shelves—many of which were unrecognizable to me—and better yet, it seemed all you had to do to get your item was press a button. Demon vending machines, no money required.
Fuck yeah, free snacks, I thought. I could get used to this.
As I stepped fully in through the archway, I could feel a few eyes turn on me, and I quickly took in the relative position of the crowds—force of habit. Other than the three specimens I’d (almost) run into earlier, these were the first fellow Hades Academy students I was laying eyes upon. And while the common room itself was a sight to behold, I realized I was more curious to know what the attendees of a prestigious school for demons looked like. I couldn’t help but be just a little bit disappointed by the answer: they just looked like regular rich private school kids, right down to the blazers and pleated skirts. The same kinds of jerkwads who’d scoff at my ratty-ass clothes when I’d pass them on the streets of New York.
Figures, I thought. Was it really so wrong of me to assume that demon kids might be a little edgier? This was looking more like the kind of crowd you’d see at a Mumford and Sons concert and not at—oh, I don’t know—a school for hellspawn.
And God, I was already getting stares from all directions.
Maybe demons just don’t have a single shred of shame.
I’m sure they were making comments to each other like the 1950s called, they want their leather jacket back or a whole family of birds could nest in that gigantic hair or...never mind, no, they didn’t look like the types who could come up with insults that were actually clever.
I scanned the room, hoping to find at least one other student who looked out of place. Again, force of habit: find the wounded gazelle, and band together for survival. No dice. Everybody was happily chatting with big dumb smiles on their faces, as if they hadn’t just stabbed themselves in the finger for some ink-blood and signed away everything they’d known about their own existence.
But maybe that was the case. I had no idea how long the other students had known they were demons. Dean Harlowe mentioned something about how some of them were raised in “full-demon households.” Was this some long-awaited day that little demon children looked forward to? Maybe going off to Hades Academy was a big part of the pop-culture they grew up with. Stupid comedies about going off to school and getting into all sorts of hijinx. Animal House for supernaturals.
I snorted at my own stupid joke, which drew more stares. Great.
I needed sleep, and I needed it six hours ago. And as pleasant as the common room looked, aside from the looks being thrown my way, finding my room and achieving at least some semblance of “getting settled” was sounding like just what the doctor ordered.
On one end of the common room, I could make out two doors, each with gold lettering just above them. Unfortunately, the lettering did not appear to be in English. Dormitorium—that much I could figure out. So these were the dorms. But there were two of them, and presumably whatever the other words were indicated which was for dudes and which was for ladies.
Just trust your intuition.
I strode briskly toward the entrance for the dormitory, working my hardest “I’m walkin’ here!” attitude, and, thank God—or whoever demons thanked—a slim girl with a pixie cut slipped into one of the doors just before I got there, definitively showing me which one was which.
Of course, once I stepped on through to what I now knew was the chick side, finding my room was another story entirely. I was in a long-ass hallway that seemed to stretch into forever. Door after door along the hall was marked with a shiny platinum nameplate. Those, at least, were in English. But each one had two names.
Damn. Even at a magic school, you had to have a roommate. Guess using their powers for something so mundane as everybody getting their own damn room is frowned upon.
Not that it mattered. I was positive the digs at Hades Academy would be worlds better than my normal living situation. I spent most of my nights squatting at apartments I knew were empty. The kinds of places where somebody had just moved out and nobody new had moved in yet. Or a spot some slumlord had snapped up to renovate into an AirBnB before running out of cash. I’d gotten pretty good at picking those little door-hanger lockboxes, and I could fall asleep even on a solid concrete floor. But while my accommodations were often short-lived, I did get the benefit of having entire empty apartments to myself. No roommates necessary.
As I probably could have predicted, I didn’t find my name until the very end of the hallway. The last to arrive, t
he last to get a room. Listed below Nova Donovan on the nameplate was Morgan St. Germain.
I crossed my fingers she wouldn’t be too much of a bitch.
I didn’t have a key, I realized, or even anything to pick the lock with, but I heard the thud of a deadbolt releasing as soon as I placed my hand on the knob—presumably the result of some sort of fancy spell that kept the room inaccessible to anybody other than this Morgan girl or me.
“Oh, hell yeah,” I couldn’t help but say aloud when I stepped in.
The place was legit: two queen-size beds with dark red linens that I could tell from sight alone would be incredibly soft to the touch. Two beautiful golden vanities to match the two golden wardrobes. At the foot of each bed was a chest that looked straight out of a fantasy novel. An ensuite bathroom with an enameled clawfoot tub. A view of the trees and spires out the bedroom window—like a fucking postcard. And as indicated by a placard with my name on the headboard, I could see that the bed facing that window was mine. That was my view to wake up to.
All that alone would’ve been enough. Hell, a mattress and a quilt would’ve been heaven. But the wardrobe, the chest, the vanity—they were all absolutely loaded with stuff. There were several school uniforms exactly my size, as I guess was to be expected, but also so much more: some leggings and athletic shirts, presumably for whatever demon exercising we had to do, a leather schoolbag, stacks of blank parchment books and—thank God—pens, fancy soaps, and shampoos that smelled tantalizingly like leather and smoke, and even a midnight-blue silk bathrobe with the Hades Academy crest. The kinds of girly things that I always kind of secretly wanted, but usually scoffed at because I thought I’d never have them.
God, I love free shit.
On my bed was a small stack of parchment paper. A whole Welcome to Hades Academy packet with lots of information about the history of the school and such that I’d save for when I actually needed to put myself to sleep. I settled on the bed and flipped through to see if there was anything particularly interesting, or at least a map, and on the third page, I found a sheet labeled Nova Donovan: First Semester Schedule.