by Lan Chan
“You’re scaring the shit out of me,” Diana rasped. My ass was saved by the sound of a bulletin alarm that suddenly blared through the dorms.
“All students to the assembly hall for a special announcement,” the MirrorNet voice informed us. Sophie and Diana grabbed me on the way out.
“All students includes you,” Sophie snarked. Proving that she was anything but stupid, Diana snatched Gabriel’s Key from my finger and shoved it into her pocket.
Sighing, I used every trick I’d ever learned as part of my meditative practice to lock down all of my emotions.
“Oh, so you do still exist,” Roland said when we crossed paths on the way to the assembly hall. “I was beginning to think you were just a collective apparition we made up.”
“Ha. Ha.”
As usual, the assembly hall quietened down considerably once Jacqueline made an appearance. Celeste scuttled behind her. Jacqueline was in all black today, from the chiffon material of her blouse to her leather heels. Her face was dusted in neutral tones. The only spot of colour was the cuffs on her wrists. If I didn’t know better, I would think she was going to a funeral.
Feeling trapped, I counted all the reasons why I couldn’t diverge from my path. I had just gotten to the part about Jacob collecting human souls when a distracting murmur filtered through the crowd. Being closer to the back of the room, I wasn’t able to see what had happened to cause the ripple until a figure started gliding up the short steps leading to the stage. Ice crystallised around my heart.
The azure green of Chanelle’s gown was a sparkling contrast to the practical decor. She ambled up and joined Celeste who was standing three paces behind Jacqueline. The Nephilim and the Fae grinned at each other.
The opposed expression marred Jacqueline’s features for a second before she managed to get herself under control.
“Good afternoon,” Jacqueline said. “I know this assembly is an unusual occurrence and I want to assure you that all is as well as can be.”
“She should tell that to her face,” Diana said out of the corner of her mouth. Somebody shushed her but I thought it was a fitting comment.
“As you know,” Jacqueline continued, “next week is the Solstice Ball.”
An excited bout of chatter swept through the student body. Jacqueline’s steel-blue eyes flashed, and silence reigned once more. Right. I guess she wasn’t looking forward to the ball. Neither was I but for different reasons probably.
“Traditionally, the ball has been held in either the Fae forest or the Grove as a homage to the winter deities. This year, for a very happy reason, Seraphina will be hosting the ball.”
Sophie’s hand shot out and suddenly gripped mine as a cloud of angelfire sparked on stage. Chanelle’s smile turned megawatt bright as Kai appeared beside her. Without a lick of self-consciousness, she threw her arms around his waist and leaned into him. Kai peered down at her, his expression unreadable but not altogether disgusted.
Everywhere around me, students turned to witness my reaction. Pulling from the reserve of bullshit that I had always relied on while living on the streets, I forced my features to remain bland. The rest I masked using the Ley dimension to slow my heartbeat.
“I am very happy to announce that the senior solstice ball will have another cause for celebration,” Jacqueline said, looking anything but happy. “We will also be celebrating Kai and Chanelle’s bonding ceremony. It will be the first time in history where all of the seraphim will be in attendance.”
At that moment, Kai’s gaze panned the crowd until it settled on me. If Eugenia hadn’t already filled my head with strange notions, I would have completely missed the flash of darkness in his eyes. Confusion reflected back at me from the faces of the other students. But it was Chanelle’s faltering smile that really topped the cake. Because she had whipped her head around to watch my reaction as the announcement was made. But instead of cutting me to the quick, her beaming smile had transferred to me. I was grinning like an idiot.
The seraphim would be attending Kai’s bonding ceremony. Which mean for however short a period, there would be nobody watching Lucifer’s body.
49
Diana slipped Gabriel’s Key into my palm. I gripped it, knowing exactly what she was saying. But I didn’t need a getaway plan right now. Celeste went through some ridiculous set of rules for conduct inside Seraphina that I didn’t listen to.
Inside my head, I was already making preparations. Every few seconds, the vehement screaming voice inside me that was protesting Kai’s bonding to Chanelle tried to rear its jealous little head. Clamping down on it, I used a fraction of magic to shove it into the darkest recesses of my emotional pit. If I allowed it the slightest give, it would burst open and there would be no telling what the consequences were.
Focus was the only thing keeping me sane at the moment. I couldn’t give in to the visceral urge to strangle Chanelle until her eyeballs burst.
Nobody moved when Jacqueline dismissed the assembly. The unexpected nature of the announcement was secondary to the shock of my response. Not a single person made a peep until Chanelle suddenly materialised at the end of our row. There were six other students between her and where Diana sat on my left.
She raised her voice high enough that it was probably audible across the room. An envelope appeared in her hand. “I have a special invitation for you, Alessia,” she said. “I know we’ve never seen eye to eye, but Kai and I would really love it if you could make it.”
She flicked the envelope across the air towards me. Diana moved as though to catch it, but Sophie’s arm shot out past the side of my head. As soon as her fingers touched the envelope, it caught fire and disintegrated in a flash of hot pink.
“Really,” Chanelle said, her brow arched.
“Get out of my face before I rip yours off,” Sophie snarled.
“It’s okay, Soph,” I said, trying to hold her back.
“Leave!” Sophie shouted.
Chanelle’s arms crossed over her chest. And then a second later, she staggered backwards as a gust of wind caught her.
“You heard what she said,” Isla called from close to the front of the assembly. The wind hadn’t been hers, but beside her, Kieran and her Fae minions were watching me intently.
“That’s enough!” Jacqueline shouted. She pulled up beside Chanelle. “The assembly is over.” The dismissal was apparent but Chanelle jutted her chin out.
“Are you deaf or something?” Cassie snapped at Chanelle. The venom in her words had me taken aback. I’d never heard so much bile from her.
“Cassandra,” Chanelle said, suddenly fake pleading. Cassie took a menacing step forward, and I hissed, thinking that she was going to punch Chanelle. It was at that moment that Kai teleported into the fray.
“Stop it,” he said to nobody and everybody. He grabbed Chanelle by the forearm and teleported her away. Cassie kicked at the wall, the plasterboard and bricks buckling.
“Cassie!” Jacqueline warned. She turned back to me. “I need to have a word with you.”
Oh great, how was any of this my fault? “Come, Cassie.”
“Screw that!” Cassie said, stomping out of the assembly. As they followed her out, Charles and Luther threw me disparaging glances.
A shroud of both affection and dismay settled over me. Two years ago, most of these students would have piled on and smirked in my face as Chanelle tried to publicly break my heart. It never occurred to me that it would be more painful when they were on my side. It brought home the glaring reality that I would be leaving them soon.
“Just give me the word,” Dev said as I squeezed out past him, “Her neck is really thin.”
I turned my back on him to give myself a second to recompose.
Jacqueline didn’t bother with composure when she kicked the door to her office shut. It let out a hard thud of doom.
Not waiting for me to even sit down, Jacqueline parked herself on the desk right beside me. “I want an explanation,” she said. Though she
kept her tone neutral, her features were grim. Her anger had never been directed at me before.
“I don’t understa –”
“Cut the bullshit, Lex!”
If I could have burrowed into a hole, I would have. “I’m not –”
Her hands came down on either side of my chair, locking me into place. “I might have believed that you settled your differences and decided to part ways, but there is no way my grandson would agree to bonding with somebody else so soon. And especially not with that...” She trailed off at the end, her fury saturating my skin and sinking into my heart.
“I really don’t think that has anything to do with me,” I said, allowing my voice to raise above a whimper.
“What did you do to him?”
This called for the performance of a lifetime. “Nothing,” I said. Tugging at my sleeve, I pulled it over my hands, allowing the nervous shaking that had started when Kai’s bonding ceremony had been announced to finally take hold. “He wouldn’t break the bond, so I asked Eugenia to get an anti-love potion for me to take. It worked. I’m not sure how it happened but the bond is gone.”
“Are you saying you don’t feel anything for him? Because what kind of potion can turn my boy into a soulless drone?” Maternal indignity dripped from her voice.
“I feel....” Letting the thought hang in the air for a second, I pretended to clutch for the words. “An ache. But it isn’t painful. Also, relief. Like a weight has been taken off my shoulders.”
“I’ll bet. Meanwhile, Kai couldn’t care less whether it’s day or night. Whether he eats or starves. Do you know that he has been stood down from duty? They’re worried his judgement is off. That he’ll accidentally kill himself because he won’t know when to back off and when to attack.”
Outwardly, I blinked and gathered my features into bland stupidity. Inside, my heart withered. If Kai understood what was going on, being stood down from duty would be a cause for shame.
“Right,” Jacqueline said. “So you’re not disturbed by that at all? Is that why you haven’t shown up to any of his classes?”
“I was worried,” I said. Scratching at my arm, I allowed myself to visibly swallow. “Before I broke the bond, he was relentless. I wasn’t sure how he would react. If he would get violent.” My terrified little girl game was flawless before Bloodline. Sinking my mind into the memory, I pinched myself on the thigh until tears gathered around my eyes. She studied me, her attention never wavering. I hoped like hell that she saw the fear I was trying to replicate. The moment her left eye twitched, I knew some of it was getting through.
“Now that I know he’s moved on, I’m not worried about going back to class.”
If assaulting a student wasn’t a huge no-no, I imagined she would have strangled me right then. “You’re trying to tell me you’re afraid of him?”
Without missing a beat, I flinched at her words. “I wasn’t before but...” I rubbed my brow like I was struggling to remember the source of the fear.
“Who gave you this potion?”
I shook my head. “Eugenia bought it for me, but she didn’t give me the name of the maker. He took some of my blood as payment –”
The wood of the armrest cracked. My heart fluttered because I knew that underneath her rage, she was just worried about us both. That’s why I had added the part about my blood in the first place. “You gave someone your blood?”
I nodded. “You know how dangerous that is! They could do anything to you!”
My response was a slack-jawed, wide-eyed stare.
“Alessia.” Full name. I couldn’t remember the last time she had called me that. “Whatever mess you’re in, I will always be here for you.”
I’d never hexed myself before, but the spell was automatic. It wound around my misfiring heart and stopped the pulse of painful emotions from spilling out and causing me to break down.
“I understand, Jacqueline,” I said. Though the arch of my tone said I didn’t have the slightest clue what was going on, nor what had been going on for a while.
She dismissed me, the simmering anger in her now more of a slow boil. I made myself leave with no great haste and walked all the way back to the dorms as casually as I could. It was almost a stroll. If anyone was watching me, and I knew they were, it would appear like I wasn’t at all affected by the news about Chanelle and Kai.
The rest of supernaturaldom didn’t fare so well.
“The mirror is blowing up again!” Sophie announced when I arrived inside.
“Just leave it.”
“I’ve been deleting messages this whole time.”
“Don’t bother.”
She huffed. “We share a mirror. One or two of those messages might be mine.”
“Then block anything that’s for me. I don’t care.”
The only thing that saved me from getting a slap was the chime of the mirror again. Its resonance told me it was an external call. Despite what she said, Sophie answered it. Both of us were taken aback when Celine’s elegant face appeared on the other side.
“Oh good,” she said. “I was afraid you might screen me out again.”
“Ah hi,” I said.
“I know this is a trying time,” she said. “But if you have a moment, could you stop by the shop?”
“I can be there right now.”
“You have Potions,” Sophie informed me.
“I have all the potions I’m ever going to need,” I told her. We were making a habit of parting company abruptly. I tried not to let it disturb me that this was likely how it would end between us. I teleported right in front of Madame Familiar.
Peering through the glass to make sure the coast was clear, I froze as a dark-haired woman in a burgundy gown gestured wildly while Celine stood poised in front of her. Meryl Laurent must have had harpy ancestry because I could hear the shrieking coming from her despite the enchanted glass between us. She didn’t stop for what felt like forever. All that time, Celine just looked back at her as though they were having a pleasant conversation.
When Meryl’s wind finally died, Celine walked calmly to the front door and held it open. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said. “But as I have already stated, I am completely booked out with other commissions and I won’t be able to take on anything else for quite some time.”
As Meryl’s neck-breaking heels stomped over the hardwood floors, I made myself scarce so I wouldn’t make the situation worse. Only after counting to a thousand did I turn back around the corner and enter the store. Celine was at the counter. Her serenity never faltered but I saw her spine brace before she realised it was me and not Meryl come back for another round.
“Rough day?” I asked.
She smiled. “Some very persistent customers.”
“It’s the bonding to end all pairings,” I reminded her. “Are you sure you want to turn it down?”
“I would rather not have my brand associated with that...her. Not after the disaster that was the Unity Games.” She shook herself. “How are you, sweetheart?”
“Relieved,” I said, choosing to go with that rather than pretending I didn’t feel anything at all.
“I see. The news from the MirrorNet is that you’ve been personally invited to the bonding ceremony.”
“That’s right.”
Her lip quirked into the first signs of a sneer before she caught herself. “How very diplomatic of the Laurents. Will you go?”
I had to. It was my gateway into the chamber. “I don’t see why not. The rest of the senior Academy will be going.”
She placed a hand on my arm, her fingers cool. “Nobody would think less of you if you decided to sit this one out.”
That was the least of my problems. I thought on it for a second. Even if I wasn’t planning on my kamikaze run as Andrei called it, I would have gone. Because seeing the ceremony with my own eyes was the only way I would ever get it through my thick head that Kai and I were never going to happen.
When I glanced up, there was det
ermination in my eyes. She squeezed my arm. “I have something for you.”
“Oh no.” I knew it had been coming. “I’ll go, but it’s not really a dress-up occas –”
She disappeared and then came back from the dressing room carrying a cornflower-blue gown that flowed over her arm like a waterfall. “No,” I whispered again, even though my eyes refused to look away.
“I had this in mind for another occasion, but a bonding is a bonding. I want you to have it.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Try it on.” She pressed the dress into my arms. “For me.”
Knowing that she was looking for a reaction so she could cast doubt on the whole bonding, I marched to the change room and shut the door.
With my back pressed against the wall, I stood there taking even breaths. “Everything alright in there?” Celine called out.
Massaging my froggy throat, I assured her I wasn’t dead. Feeling like death anyway, I changed into the gown, knowing before I even zipped myself up what she had meant for it to be before she’d magically dyed it blue. I had no idea what Nephilim bonding customs involved, but over the summer, there had been a very comprehensive course on human weddings taught by none other than Laila and the Evil Three. If I hadn’t threatened to disown her, Nanna would have joined them.
The fabric was so soft I swore it must have been woven from gossamer. The bateau neckline and capped-sleeve bodice was so sheer you could see skin. To save my modesty, a beautifully intricate design of overlapping runes had been embroidered over my chest area. There was a thin ribbon of silk that sat around my waist and then it cascaded down in dozens of layers of the softest chiffon on the plant.
With quivering fingers, I ran my hands over the skirt trying to keep the dam on my emotions from erupting.
“Alessia,” Celine called. “I’m starting to wonder if you hate the dress. Come out so my ego doesn’t get bruised.”
Willing myself to be cool, I stepped out of the change room. As I walked, I realised there was a slit in the skirt where the layers of fabric overlapped. It was like stepping through clouds.