by Abbie Lyons
She cringed at those final words, realizing the possible implication. I might not have to worry about my mom any longer if a conflict broke out between her people and the Regents, but that would be because she could die...and the death of the woman who birthed you is a tough thing to reckon with, even when she’s evil.
“Excuse me, professor,” somebody called from over by the door. There was no mistaking who that bitchy-ass voice belonged to. Camilla. “I was just wondering if there was anything we needed to do to prepare for our next class?”
How long has she been standing there? And how much did she hear? Her question was pretty damn innocuous, so I could only assume that she was here to spy. Needless to say, she was the last person in the entire world who I wanted to know about any of this.
Mantel gave Camilla the homework—a second time—and my stomach sank.
Because it was good to know the end might be in sight for the Children of Abaddon.
But Camilla knowing that my mom was one of their leaders?
That could be apocalyptic in its own way.
Chapter Ten
Somehow, Morgan had gotten it in her head that there was only one way to cheer me up again.
“Do not pass Go, do not collect $200!”
That’s right: Monopoly.
“All humans love Monopoly,” Morgan had insisted. “They’re constantly playing it on the telly. Granted I have to assume it’s only American humans who love it, because I bloody well have never heard of Marvin Gardens.”
Teddy scowled at the board. “What am I going to jail for? I didn’t even do anything wrong.”
“Welcome to the human justice system,” I muttered.
We were sitting in a circle on the floor of Morgan’s dorm room—just the four of us in the squad, since Morgan had made it clear that while she’d tolerate Zelda in more general social situations, she was persona non grata for our intimate gatherings.
For, again—and I am not shitting you—Monopoly.
Sighing, Teddy tink-tinked his marker (the Scottie dog, of course) to the jail square. Morgan was the cat (also made sense) and Karolina was the ocean liner (really, she could’ve picked anything and I would’ve gone along with it).
Me?
“Your turn, Madame Shoe.” Morgan handed me the dice.
Now it was my time to sigh. The gesture was totally genuine on Morgan’s part, and I didn’t not appreciate it, if only because the sight of my three demon friends attempting to wrap their heads around the most boring board game in existence was pretty damn funny. But even demon-team Monopoly was a little...lightweight to counterbalance all the shit that was going down in my mind.
Realizing I’d been musing for too long, I dropped my dice in the center of the board and reached for my goblet of wine as they tumbled. We’d worked up a nice little alcohol reserve after the party, seeing as most people had been too smashed to remember to take the various bottles of Hellwater and blood-red wine back to their own rooms. Morgan had insisted that was just the hosting tax.
My dice clacked to a stop.
“Oof,” Morgan said, frowning. “That’s not a good one, eh?”
“Snake eyes,” Karolina said sagely. She had changed into a pair of Hades-issued pajama pants—which was maybe the third time I’d ever seen her in something that wasn’t her uniform—and was sipping a mug of some tea that smelled pungent and earthy, like she was drinking boiled moss.
“Oh, uh, actually,” I tapped my shoe along the board. “It’s a house rule. Roll two ones and you get one of each bill from the bank.”
This was total bullshit, of course. But luck was on my side: wherever Morgan had gotten this Monopoly board, the instructions were missing. So was the tiny iron, which would’ve been my first choice.
Anyway, I didn’t really give a shit about winning Monopoly per se, but it’d been so long since I’d had a chance to scam someone out of money, well...this felt like a nice low-stakes way to get the same rush. And my friends had made one of the worst mistakes a mark can make: admitting they don’t know how the game works in the first place.
“If you say so,” Teddy said agreeably. He was also the banker, so he started to count out a bunch of small, colorful bills.
“Yay me!” I did an internal fist-pump as Teddy handed me my neat pastel payout. Still got it.
“She is looking happier,” Karolina observed.
“Because,” Morgan said seriously, “all humans love Monopoly.”
I cracked up. “I love you, you goofs.”
Morgan spread her arms and took a deep, seated bow, before swigging her custom Hellwater-and-cider cocktail. “Thank you, and I know, and it’s mutual. But Gods, I’ve got to get myself a man. I haven’t been on a date since Matthias.”
At the sound of his name, Karolina’s chalk-white cheeks got the faintest tinge of pink.
“I saw you and him talking it up at the party, Karo.” Teddy said. He grinned. “And I know you’ve also got a crush on a guy in the orchestra with you. Maybe I can offer some manly advice. In the ways of flirting.”
Karolina spat out a mouthful of her tea back into the mug and started giggling. Teddy looked a bit put out.
“What? I am a man. And a seduction demon besides.”
“And you’re the only one of us with a proper girlfriend,” Morgan said. “I mean not that the three of us want girlfriends. I don’t think.” She eyed Karolina, who was too enchanted by the tiny Monopoly top hat on the tip of her pinky to notice. Then she slid her gaze to me. “We are more into boyfriends. Unless, of course, we already h—”
“Your turn,” I said shortly, and handed Morgan the dice, which she took, but didn’t roll.
“You have to drop them on the board,” I explained into my glass of wine. “To see which number you get.”
“I know that, you absolute dork,” Morgan chided. She clasped her fist tighter. “I just mean, well, you know.” She lowered her voice. “What happened after you and Raines snuck off? At the party, I mean. We’ve all been wondering.”
Teddy and Karolina gave her a don’t drag us into this face, although I could tell they were curious.
I put down my goblet.
“Nothing,” I said. “Honestly.”
“But you do...” Morgan rolled the dice around in her palm. “You do go see him, don’t you? And have a snog?”
There was no point in lying. I blew a strand of hair out of my face. “I mean...I did. That doesn’t mean I’m going to...it’s not exactly a habit.”
“Not exactly a relationship, you mean,” Morgan said. I could tell she was disappointed—for all her “always a bridesmaid” moaning, I knew she’d be just as delighted for me to have a real-deal main squeeze.
But that was not happening.
“I don’t know that it’s good for me,” I said. I blew out another breath. It wasn’t like my friends would narc on me and spill all my secret anxieties to Raines, after all. “Just...given what my mom was like. Is like. I just don’t know...I might be capable of terrible things.”
“No!” Morgan shook her head vigorously. “Not my Noves. You’d never.”
“You don’t know that, Morgan,” I said. “She killed her own husband, remember? She almost killed me. People like that...they don’t have relationships. They have victims. They have...marks.” As soon as the word escaped my lips, a guilty twist settled in my stomach. “See, like here. That thing, when I rolled snake eyes? There’s no rule about getting all that money. I totally made that up. I ripped you guys off, and you’re the people I care the most about.”
“Oh, Nova, it’s just a little scrap of paper,” Morgan said. “No one minds.”
“But that’s just it,” I said. “If it’s someone I let myself fall in love with and let fall in love with me, and it’s life and death...”
I trailed off.
“I still don’t...” Morgan’s voice was hushed, way less boisterous than it had been. “I really don’t think you’d be able to do that, Nova.”
“It’s a little more complicated for seduction demons,” Teddy offered. “Which I am one of. Of which I am one.” He frowned, and stared into the bottom of his glass. “How many of these have I had?”
I felt a rush of gratitude to Teddy. Sometimes, with Morgan, it was like trying to reason with a brick wall, especially when your reasoning was essentially talking smack about her friends.
“We’ve been learning about it in class,” Teddy went on. “That’s basically the entire semester, so far. Our feelings and our, uh...victims’ feelings can really muddle everything up.”
“See, you definitely don’t want to be a seduction demon, Morgan,” I said. “I’m jealous of you.”
“Seduction’s not really all it’s cracked up to be,” Teddy agreed, staring mournfully at his Scottie dog. “We’re not really meant for the long-term.”
“I would like to seduce Matthias,” Karolina announced. “At least I believe I do.”
We all stared at her. Then, like a spell breaking, we all burst out laughing. Outside, the wind howled a little less menacingly.
“Well, everyone’s got their work cut out,” Morgan said, completely forgetting the board game. She pouted. “Except me. D’you reckon the other Infernal Two are looking for a friend with bennies?”
“Collum has Amarind,” I reminded her. “And I don’t really want to throw you my sloppy seconds anyway.”
“And I would like to seduce Aleks,” Karolina piped up. “Also.”
The other three of us goggled at her.
“Karo, luv, you are full of surprises,” Morgan said. “But hey, you get it, girl.”
Karolina sipped her tea.
“Here,” I said. “I’ll pay the money back.” I started peeling the tiny bills out of my pile of loot, but Teddy grabbed my wrist.
“It’s okay,” Teddy said. “You didn’t steal from us, just from the bank.”
“But stealing from the bank means there’s less for you,” I pointed out.
Morgan groaned and drained her cocktail. “Gods, I wanted a nice game, not a tutorial on capitalism.”
“I’m afraid Monopoly is kinda both,” I said.
Morgan looked me hard in the eye.
“All I know is, Nova, that one day, you’ll find someone you cannot scam.” She smiled like the Cheshire Cat. “And that is the one for you.”
Chapter Eleven
The day had finally arrived to do some good ol’ fashioned necromancy. Sure, we were only going to be using the so-called soup method, which Professor Mantel had warned us was often unsuccessful, but still, there was a part of me that was absolutely thrilled at the possibility of communicating with a real-life—admittedly, maybe not the best phrasing—dead person. I couldn’t wait.
We were stationed in a different classroom today, solely because it would’ve been impossible to fit a cauldron for every student in Mantel’s usual room. Once again, I found myself in part of Hades Academy that I’d yet to explore. This new room was down a random, little stairway hidden in the corner of a hallway. I swear, Hades Academy was like a clown car with all the places it could fit that I had no idea existed. This new room had the feel of somebody’s slightly gross basement—dark and dingy, with an unidentifiable fungus-y smell.
“Welcome to the dungeon,” Mantel called out. “It’s not actually called that, but that’s totally why it feels like down here, right? Choose a cauldron and take a seat.”
Scattered throughout the room weren’t only the cauldrons, but also big wooden chests that looked like the kind of thing you’d find on a pirate ship.
“Inside these trunks, you’ll find possessions of people who’ve recently kicked the bucket,” Mantel explained. “Give them a quick look, and choose one of them. Try to find one that speaks to you in some way, but really, any of these things should do just fine. You can’t go wrong.”
The stuff in the first chest I looked through mostly looked like junk: an old broken watch, a blue necktie, a dolphin-shaped earring, stuff like that. But I reminded myself these boring things once belonged to a demon who was no longer alive. Just knowing that imbued these otherwise unremarkable items with a weird energy
After just a bit of shuffling through the second chest I tried, I landed on a relatively normal-looking red sweater. It seemed like it probably belonged to a man, but it was indistinctive enough that I really couldn’t be sure. Something about it just made it feel like a safe choice. If I somehow was successful in making contact with a dead person, I wanted it to be a nice one. Something about this sweater just exuded Mr. Rogers-style friendliness.
Mostly everybody settled on something relatively quickly and returned to their cauldrons, but Morgan was clearly savoring the opportunity to choose the perfect thing.
“It’s like thrift shopping!” she cheered to nobody in particular as she rummaged through a chest. “I love it!”
“Like I said, it’s not a very important decision,” Mantel repeated, although the smile on her face seemed to indicate that she found Morgan’s antics almost as endearing as I did.
“Just a minute longer,” Morgan promised.
All eyes were on her as she threw various things aside—first a baseball, then a pair of neon green sunglasses, and even a toothbrush.
“This!” she screamed, pulling a leopard print jacket out of the box. “It’s so gaudy...I love it!”
Finally, with everything chosen, it was time to give honest-to-goodness necromancy a whirl.
“Beside your cauldrons, you’ll see a jug of Morteria potion,” Mantel instructed. “Go ahead and pour that whole thing in, and then light your flames.”
At times like these, having the ability to produce fire right from your fingertips really came in handy. I’d gotten pretty good at it by now.
Remember last year when I sucked at this and thought I might get kicked out of school? Feels more like a million years ago.
The Morteria potion began to boil almost instantaneously. It was a nearly transparent liquid, almost like water, but a little bit gooier. Translucent Slime, if you will.
“Now you’re just going to go ahead and throw whatever you chose into the cauldron!”
It felt a little ridiculous throwing a sweater into boiling potion, even by Hades Academy standards. Once it hit the cauldron, it began dissolving almost immediately. Just like whoever owned it, the sweater had moved on from the world of the living.
“Tragic!” Morgan moaned as she watched the jacket she picked out boil away. “I should’ve just chosen something else and kept that one for myself.”
Camilla raised her hand, but started talking even before she was called on, because of course. “Professor Mantel, what happens if one of these items belonged to a demon who was, for lack of a better term, evil? Could it possibly be dangerous to summon such an individual? I’ve heard there are some demons who try to use necromancy for horrendous purposes.”
She asked it so damn pointedly that I was beginning to feel positive she’d eavesdropped in on a lot of the conversation Mantel and I had. My guess was that she was still thinking of the best way to use her information against me—for now she was content to ask questions like this one just to fuck with me.
“This method is almost never dangerous,” Mantel said, seemingly unbothered. “If one of you does happen to make contact with some sort of unsavory character, they’re not going to be able to do anything to hurt you.”
I wondered if she realized what Camilla was trying to do asking a question like that. But she was a savvy lady—even though she would probably never explicitly talk shit on one of her students, she had to know that Camilla totally sucked. Regardless, I made a mental note to pay extra close attention to Camilla for the next few weeks. She was a bitch, but she wasn’t dumb. I was almost certain that she’d find the perfect time to expertly deploy the whole “Nova’s mom is in a devil-worshipping cult!” gossip to a devastating effect.
But the time to worry about that wasn’t now. Not with the prospect of bridging some sort of gap between t
he worlds of the living and the dead sitting right in front of me. The potion actually looked beautiful as it boiled. It’d gone from boring translucency to taking on some of the properties of the sweater—bright little specks of red began to appear, almost like extra pretty glitter.
“Your concoction should now be taking on a life of its own,” Mantel explained. “Morteria potion is particularly good at absorbing other properties. That’s what you’re seeing right now. It should be looking more and more like the object you added. For the next few minutes, just keep an eye on it.”
Sure enough, those little glimmers slowly began to multiply, until the whole cauldron was eventually filled with a brilliant, glowing red liquid. I’d never seen anything quite like it. it was entrancing.
Around the room, the other cauldrons shined similarly. Most incredible of all, obviously, was the glow of leopard print emanating from Morgan’s station. It almost made me wish I picked something a little more exciting than a boring one-color sweater.
Mantel walked through the room, observing all the different cauldrons. “Now,” Mantel continued, “let me reiterate a few things about necromancy. One: nothing is likely to happen. In all likelihood, your potion will just continue to boil and nothing more. Two: even if you do succeed in making contact with the dead, you’re likely to simply see an image of them and nothing more. They very well might not be able to speak. And three: necromancy is an inexact science. The person who appears in your cauldron might not even be the one whose personal item you chose. Opening up a line of connection between the living and the dead creates a channel that anybody who’s died can possibly jump on. Yes, the likeliest person to make contact with is the one you’re attempting to reach, but creating that rift between the two worlds is enough for weird things to happen.”
As usual, Mantel seemed to take delight in explaining all the complicated rules. Made me wonder if we should’ve invited her to play Monopoly with us.