by Lucy Auburn
“Okay.” There’s an intensity to his gaze, one that unsettles me, like he’s trying to get at something, to pry it out of me. “Try to remember anything you can. Can you tell me the details?”
“I try not to remember it.” I can feel myself stiffen, turn inward, shut down. “I’d prefer we talk about something else.”
Behind me, I swear I hear the sound of a sword rattling in its scabbard. I don’t want to tell him; I don’t want to talk about it. I wonder if the demons sense this, but I force myself not to look back at them for reassurance.
“That’s fine.” Meyer’s voice softens, and his gaze takes on a pitying expression instead of prying into me intensely. “I get it, you don’t want to talk about your childhood. The headmaster told me some of what you’ve been through. We can focus on the here and now, the way your powers are manifesting themselves, but eventually we’ll have to figure out where you came from.”
I don’t want to, but maybe if I just refuse to talk about it he’ll be forced to move on. The things I saw when I was little, right up at the end of my mother’s life, are half-nightmare and half-reality. I don’t want to examine them too closely.
“Now, before I answer all your questions about Grims, I want to see what you can do.” Meyer falls into a fighting stance in front of me, right foot sliding back, hands up in front of his chest and face. “Show me your moves, Dani.”
Of course.
Here at the academy, the pulled punches never end.
Chapter 6
“Again.”
I fall back into a fighting stance, limbs loose with fatigue, and watch Meyer’s shoulders and hips to try to predict where he’ll move next.
“No.” He shakes his head, frowning at me. “You’re looking at me with your eyes. I need you to sense me with your Grim instincts. It’s a different kind of sight.”
Frustrated, I blow a sweaty piece of teal-tipped hair away from my face. “Metaphors are nice and all, but I only have two literal eyes.”
Meyer snorts, his mouth curling up in amusement—which only makes me that much more irritated. “The point of this is for you to stop thinking and let those instinctive powers take over. You’ve felt it before, right? Like you said, you knew that demon was a siren.”
“Yeah,” I reluctantly admit.
“Then the key is to get out of your head and just feel. Stop fighting it. Give in to what you are, and you’ll be able to fight me on my level instead of dulling your senses down to a human’s or even a shifter’s baseline.”
Easier said than done. Sure, that night in the club when the Grim was hunting me, I did that thing I do—I saw what was coming before it happened. But that was before I knew it made me different, before I heard Mateo mutter about Grims being evil or saw the way the students here look at me just knowing what I really am.
Give in to what you are. He sounds like a YouTube beauty guru in a no-makeup makeup tutorial. Try, but not too hard, you want to look effortless but also not ugly. Like I stole all my makeup just so no one could ever see it.
Okay, fine. I’ll look with my not-eyes and fight him with my whatever-inside-me. If it makes this endless torture of more hand-to-hand combat end, and gets me the answers I need, I’m willing to try-not-try anything.
I can feel the demons watching me. Judging my performance. No doubt wondering if I’ll even survive without them. I want to prove myself to them, for some reason; I want to show that I’m not weak, not vulnerable. I’m frustrated.
And I’m tired.
So when I fall back into my fighting stance and look at Meyer a second time, my limbs aching, muscles weakened from so much exercise, I kind of just... let go.
In the space where my hyper-vigilant, constantly-aware street rat senses were, something else takes over. An engine rumbles to life inside me. One that knows which hand the poker player to my left will put down, that senses a cocktail waitress stumbling a second before she falls.
As it comes to life inside me, I feel the whisper of power rising beneath my skin, black and red-orange, fire and darkness.
Without waiting a single beat, Meyer moves.
I feel the air stir before his hand strikes out towards my shoulder. I move, faster than I thought possible, and he responds not to my movement but my intentions. I strike out; he blocks me. I twist—he swerves.
He strikes; I’m out of the way before his hand flashes forward. Relying on the footwork I’ve learned in combat class, I step back and hold my own. I duck and weave, kick and twist, block and reset. He does the same.
Not a single blow lands on either side.
My breath seems to slow; time stretches, bending to my will, and I feel his every intention. Paths unfurl before me, predictions and moments in time. If I strike he’ll respond; if I move, he’ll be there—and vice versa. It’s a stalemate, and I’ve no doubt that’s what he wanted to teach me, that I need to get better at this to survive.
But. There’s a way to break it. There’s something I have that he doesn’t, that he can’t counter.
As he shifts his weight for a leg sweep I’m ready to avoid before it comes, I make an unexpected move: I let him strike me. Falling to the ground, I twist so my arms hit the floor, then push back up into a crouch and sweep out with my hand.
This time, I hold fire in my palm. Red-orange, built of the mind tricks Yohan has been trying to teach me for over a week, it comes to me easily in this quiet place where time bends to my will. It’s wrapped in the black stuff of my Grim energy, but it burns just the same.
I throw it through the air at Meyer, singeing the edge of his academy-branded blazer. The red wool blend sends up a puff of acrid smoke as the flame takes a piece of it and dies off in the open air.
We both freeze. Time snaps back into place, making me realize that every near-blow, every avoided strike, took only the span of a few breaths. Barely a handful of moments has passed since we began.
Meyer looks down at his singed jacket, hisses as he pats the black burned hole, then tears it off and throws it on the ground. Biting my lower lip, I hold back a snort as I watch him put out the whisper of the flame with his shoes, stomping on the blazer like a madman.
“You did say to use my powers,” I point out.
Behind me, there’s a whistle of appreciation. I glance back into Mateo’s gaze as he raises an eyebrow at me, lips turned up into a smirk. My heart soars—then plummets as I abruptly remember it’s almost time to say goodbye. I tear my eyes away.
Maybe I should dismiss them.
But they said they wanted to be here for this class, and I can’t bear to make them go away.
Meyer shakes the jacket off, seeming not to have noticed my attention wandering. He laughs as he pokes a finger through the new hole in it. “So, that’s maybe a lesson to me as well as you. Teaching a Black Phoenix won’t be like teaching a Grim. I didn’t realize you could call your fire at will.”
“That was the first time I’ve done it on purpose.”
“How? Tell me what it felt like, and maybe we can repeat it in the future.”
I try to remember the moment. “It was quiet inside my mind. Time was slower.”
“That’s a Grim thing.”
“I’ve done it a few times before, but mostly on accident, I think.” I remember the Grim who shot me in Sticky’s attic, how I avoided the bullet because everything froze but me and the demons, and power surged up around my hands, power I didn’t understand at all. “It was like it was just... there. Right beneath my skin. It didn’t even burn me.”
“Phoenix fire never burns its maker. Let’s examine this further.” Meyer’s expression turns thoughtful; he takes a seat on the shiny gym floor, and I join him, cross-legged and sprawled back on my hands. “When are the other times you summoned your fire?”
“When the White Phoenix attacked.” Remembering the moment on the staircase with Ezra, I shudder. “At least, I’m pretty sure I felt them for a moment, but I didn’t see them. The demons... they were fighting her off.”
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“Okay. Another time?”
“When I used my Grim powers to drain the necromantic energy from Victoria’s body.” I remember the boys in four points like a star, my blood on my thumb, the feeling of power unfurling at my back. “And just now, of course.”
“So every time your wings have come out, you’ve been using your Grim powers.”
I open my mouth to correct him, then stop.
That night on the stairs, when the boys were fighting Victoria and I felt my wings, maybe I did use my Grim abilities. I told Ezra to stay put, and he did. He obeyed. I didn’t realize it then, but I was using my powers on him, controlling him with my voice.
A flash of guilt goes through me, and I reluctantly nod. “So does that mean I can’t use my phoenix power unless I’m doing Grim stuff?”
“Maybe, maybe not. It could just be that the state of mind to use each is similar for you, so where you find one set of powers, the other comes easily.”
He leans back on his hands as well, looking more relaxed without the blazer on, the afternoon sun streaming in through the dirty panes of glass set high in the old gym’s walls. I’m reminded of a childhood dream I had once, involving a strong, warm father who, discovering for the first time that I existed, would sweep me up out of the system and take me home with him. Meyer looks so much like that distant, childish dream that I feel almost as if I know him. A stirring of longing goes through me, and I shake my head to dismiss it. Those girlish hopes are dead now.
“So maybe now you can answer my questions.” Biting my lower lip, I refuse to look back at the demons. “Like, how did I know the demons were demons after I died and came back? Why are they tied to me? What should I do to sever that tie, and... why are you so insistent that I have to?”
“Ah, yes. Your quartet.” He leans forward and glances behind me, eyes narrowed, as if he can sense them there. “Can I meet them?”
A strange shiver of reluctance goes through me at the question, so it’s a relief when Mateo spits out, “Not on your life, pal!” Ezra adds, “No way am I letting us be revealed to a Grim we barely know.”
I glance back at them, meeting Ezra’s steady green gaze, and try to ignore the flutter of anxiety that goes through me at the thought of being without them. “They don’t want that.”
“You could make them.”
Shaking my head, I tell Meyer, “I don’t... like the thought of doing that. Not after what that Grim did to me last night.” It feels suddenly so much more horrifying now that I’m thinking about it again, remembering the way my limbs stopped belonging to me, how I was helpless to say no, to resist at all. “I guess I’m into the whole free will thing.”
He frowns. “You’re going to have to come to terms with using demonic energy. It’s part of being a Grim.”
My mouth tightens. “Not like that.”
“Okay.” He studies me, something troubled in his expression. “You can swim in the shallow end before diving in. Quartets are high demonic forms in any case; trying to control four at once would be a strain. Once we’ve severed this bond of yours, I’ll show you how to summon other demons. Bestial, unevolved lesser demons. Ones you won’t have qualms about controlling.”
“Gross,” Mateo mutters. “He dismisses free will so easily.”
Lynx pipes up. “Get him to talk about the bond. I want to know about that. I’ve never heard of it being a thing before, at least not between Grims and upper demons.”
“So I have to sever the bond first in order to summon other demons?” I ask, impatient myself for the answer.
“Yes, you will—at least that’s what I suspect. You see, Dani, this bond you have with this quartet, who are visible to you but no one else most of the time, is a soul bond.” He bounces up onto his feet and paces back and forth, the soles of his shoes squeaking against the smooth gymnasium floor. “Soul bonds aren’t the normal way that Grims summon demons. They appear when you’re feeling anxious, correct?”
“Yes.” I frown at him. “How did you know that?”
“Last night, you told me they’re incorporeal and only you can see them. That kind of soul haunting only happens with a soul bond. I believe the bond was formed when you died—some kind of phoenix magic.”
“But they were summoned before then,” I pointed out. “They killed a bunch of people.”
“So they were corporeal?”
“Yes.” I blink. “And then I jumped off the cliffs, died and... they weren’t anymore.”
“Exactly.” He nods like this all makes sense, and somehow it does, even though it’s also the most confusing shit I’ve tried to figure out. “They became anchored to your soul. You won’t be able to do any summoning as long as you’re tied to them. That’s why you must sever this bond immediately and permanently—the longer you wait, the stronger it will grow, and you’ll never be able to use the full strength of your Grim powers.”
When he says it like that, it doesn’t sound so bad. I’d pick my demons over strange ones any time.
But then he continues, “This sort of thing has happened to Grims before, and it’s not pretty. A soul bond, once made, will weaken the Grim’s powers until they’re gone completely. And given the fact that your Grim powers and phoenix powers are tied together, feeding the soul bond will be disastrous to you.”
I frown at him. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll die,” he says succinctly. “That night on the cliff was the end of your life. Your phoenix powers are what keep you together. But just like old wounds on the skin reopen when the body has scurvy, your death will return if your powers are drained. If I’m right, these demons are killing you.”
Flummoxed, I lean back on my hands, then slip all the way down onto the gym floor, hair fanning out behind me. Glancing up, I see the demons arrayed near the wall, upside down from my vantage point.
Unhelpfully, Lynx says, “The thing about scurvy is true. Without vitamin C to keep the immune system going, old wounds reopen and fester. Human bodies are gross.”
“Great.” I close my eyes against the images that puts in my head. “So tell me how to sever the bond. I’ve got The Arcane Arts of the Living and the Dead, but is there something else I should know? Something I need?”
“Just a bit of blood, the right spell, and some of this.” Sweeping his blazer off the floor, Meyer pulls a little black silk sack out of it and passes it over to me. Sitting up, I stare at the thing and weigh it in my hand. “It’s death energy, created when a living thing comes to the end of its natural life. Used by a Grim, it can enhance power, heal small wounds, and focus Grim energy.”
“This is that black powder you put on the cut on your hand.” I peer into the bag at the stuff. “You harvest it from dead things?”
“Yes. As for the spell, I know the one—and the book in question. Page two hundred and seventy-two. I can walk you through it.”
Based on the way the guys grumble and frown at this, I know what their answer will be. Ezra shakes his head and gives Meyer a glare the teacher can’t see, but must surely feel.
“We’re saying goodbye alone. Just us and you, Dani.”
I nod, heart in my throat. Then I tell Meyer, “Thanks, but I think I’ve got it. I mean, I summoned them in the first place—surely I can un-summon them.”
“It may be harder than it sounds,” he warns me. “If you have any trouble, just let me know. I can train you on the spell casting involved. Given that you drained Victoria’s necromantic power, though, it hopefully won’t be much trouble for you.” Glancing at his watch, he adds, “We have twenty more minutes of class. There’s one more thing I want to show you—in the Great House this time.”
“What is it?”
“I need you to question a dying woman.”
Chapter 7
I stand outside the doorway, uncertain even as Meyer motions me inside. I can feel the demons’ quiet presence behind me; even brash, impulsive Mateo seems disinclined to walk into the room.
If death has a smell, it to
uches my nose, coats the edges of my lips and settles in my hair. It lives here, and I’m the reason why.
“Come in, Dani.” It’s Yohan’s coaxing voice that makes me take a step forward, into the threshold. He’s sitting in a chair by the bed, where his sister’s alarmingly thin form rests beneath a quilt that only serves to make her look smaller. “She said she wanted to see you.”
“I don’t know why.” Each step I take into the room is hesitant, gentle; I feel like my feet on the carpet alone might be enough to disturb her peace. “We don’t even know each other.”
My voice is pitched low, like Yohan’s, but as I approach the foot of the bed Victoria’s eyes flutter open. She cranes her head towards me, and her brother rearranges the pillows behind her neck, propping her frail body up.
“You saved me,” she says, in a voice that’s stronger than her weakened frame. “I was enslaved, forced to do terrible things to students I once protected, my mind warped into darkness, anger, and hatred. When you took away the necromantic power that kept me alive, you freed me.”
“And killed you.”
“Death is a blessing.” Victoria’s bluntness makes me uncomfortable, but I force myself to reach out and take the hand she places on top of the quilt. “Sit.” She inclines her head towards a chair next to her, opposite Yohan’s, and I reluctantly take it. “There’s one last thing I want your help with.”
I look at her brother, at Meyer, at the demons visible just outside in the hallway. Before I can get any reassurance from them, Meyer steps between us and closes the door on them.
I force my eyes back to Victoria’s thin frame, trying to ignore the guilt that thrums through me at her hollow cheekbones and brittle white hair. I may not have done this to her, but it doesn’t make me feel better. “What do you need my help with?”
“I want to know who did this to me.” Her frail hand moves beneath mine, palm turning up and grabbing onto my fingers. There’s a fever in her eyes, one that looks like it was born with her, somewhere in rural North China the day she and her brother had to flee for their lives. “I was meant to die that day. I should have died that day. But something happened. I came back to life. I just...”