by Abbie Lyons
I grated one carpet square over the other, not exactly enthralled. Maybe Camilla had a point—this was kind of kid stuff.
Across the room, I heard Teddy's polite voice pipe up. "Um, excuse me? Camilla?"
My blood ran cold. Oh no.
I whirled around to see Camilla physically blocking the way between Teddy and the wrist straps. Her arms were folded, one hip jutting out, an eyebrow cocked.
"Do you need something?"
"Er, yes," Teddy said. "Just a grounding strap. You know, safety first."
He smiled his cheerful Teddy smile. Camilla did not bat an eye. "And what do you need that for?"
"Um...grounding?" Teddy said.
"You really think someone like you should be trusted with the power of electricity?" Camilla said. "Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't expel you. You almost destroyed the school."
Teddy went pale.
“Yeah, we all know,” she said breezily. “You think everyone’s not going to find something like that out? It’s your fault we’re all on probation.”
That was it.
"Hey!" I yelled across the room. "That wasn't him. That was Chaos. You should know that better than anyone, since you pick on Teddy exactly because you know he won't fight back. So just drop it."
Camilla sighed a long, heavy sigh. Then, in one swift movement, she lifted her palm towards me and shot out a crackling rope of pure blue electricity.
"Agh!" I leapt backwards, but the bolt stopped just short of my face. Camilla and her cronies cracked up.
"Oh, God. You flinch that easy?" She shook her white-blonde head. "You're toast. Literally. Here." She swiveled for the box of wrist straps and dumped them at Teddy's feet. "Take your pick."
I glared at Professor Donner, who had been way too focused on one of those brass electricity orb things to pay attention to the bullying going on in his own classroom. You'd think that someone as fearsome-looking as him would throw a little more muscle into classroom enforcement, especially when dealing with high voltage.
"Hey!" he said, as if he’d just remembered that he was teaching a class. "Watch it, Dewberry. No screwing around in here."
Teddy slunk back to our worktable.
"Thanks, Nova," he said dejectedly. "That was...ugh."
"Don't listen to her, Teddy," I said. "You didn't do anything wrong. Nothing that happened was your fault."
"I know," he said, his voice cracking. "I know. It's not that, not really. It's just..." He stared back across the room. "Gods, I just wish we could have Camilla insurance or something."
Morgan chuckled. "Protection against any loss of life or limb due to bitchiness."
"Maybe she's just forgotten I know how to throw a punch," I said. Except I knew that wasn't about to happen again. For one thing, Camilla could demonstrably zap my ass into dust before my knuckles met her cheek, and for another, with the school on primary probation, I was not about to be a make-her-an-example expulsion.
One strike, as Dean Harlowe had said, and I’d be out.
The rest of class passed with no incidents and the homework assignment of watching an upcoming thunderstorm, which struck me as hilarious until I realized I would have no idea how to pass a pop quiz after something like that. I stayed behind to help Teddy clear up the dropped wristbands, giving Professor Donner a low-key stink eye for blaming the wrong person. As I was gathering the last of them into their wooden crate, I felt a tingle on the back of my neck, one that had nothing to do with electricity.
I looked up to see Raines.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" he said quietly. Not like it mattered, because Teddy was definitely in hearing distance. And sure enough, Teddy gave me a questioning glance.
"Is this about the...thing?" I said, not at all smoothly. "Yeah, sure."
I brushed off my hands and stood up briskly only to have Raines literally grab me by the elbow and steer me out of the room.
"Hey!" I said, as soon as we were in the hallway and safely out of earshot. "What the hell? I'm not a shopping cart you can push around the school."
Raines didn't laugh, because of course he didn't.
"I thought I told you to keep a low profile," he growled. The knot in his school-issued tie was a little loose, so I could see his pulse thudding in his neck. The adrenaline rush that flowed into me was heady, and I almost felt dizzy. There really was no denying that there was something...well, sexual about being soul bound.
And that's even after you consider what we’d done in the binding ritual. I shivered.
He can feel your feelings, Nova, I reminded myself. Probably including this reminder that he can feel your feelings. God, just shut your damn brain up.
"So going to class isn't a low enough profile?" I asked. "What do you want me to do, find a tower to lock myself in? How is that fair?"
"Don't be smart," Raines said. "I mean talking to him."
"Who, Teddy?"
"No. You know who."
Oh.
Unbidden, memories of the turmoil of my conversation in the refectory overwhelmed me. I shook my head.
"I don't like feeling what you feel around him," Raines continued. "You're attracted to him, aren't you?"
"Wilder?" I tried to act shocked, but even though I hated it about myself, there was no denying that I felt...something around him. Maybe it was the power he had over me. I'm sure Professor Mantel would have a field day with that. Or Professor Freud. "Yeah, I mean, he's good-looking and I'm a heterosexual female. What do you want me to do? Wear a blindfold?"
"It's a start."
"Oh, for..." I clenched my fist. "Look, Raines, I'll do my best. I don't want to compromise this any more than you do, but the fact is, Wilder's responsible for my exetasis, so I can't not see him. And with this probation thing, I'm really not inclined to break any more rules than I already have this year."
Footsteps echoed in the hallway behind us. Teddy, leaving class. He was headed in the opposite direction, but neither Raines nor I missed the glance he darted in our direction.
Raines sucked his teeth. "That's the other thing. We can't be seen together."
My jaw fell open. "Are you serious? You're the one who dragged me out of class—in plain sight, I might add."
"I had to talk to you somehow," Raines said. "And I don't intend to make it a habit. But that friend of yours back there has already seen us together twice. People are going to start talking if I have to keep getting you back in line. You know how gossipy this place is."
I thought instantly of Morgan, and her hot goss of last night, about Collum and whatever her name was the third-year, the spectacular dumping. "No, it's not. People here mind their own business."
Raines lifted an eyebrow. "You're joking, right? You've met your own best friend, I take it."
I blew out a breath. "Okay, fine, Morgan loves to gossip. So what? She's not going to turn on me. Hell, she's probably more loyal to me than you are, soul binding or no."
"I don't care if she tells anyone. I care if she knows. You don't think she'll notice what her best friend is up to? Admit it—thinking that you and I are spending time together would be catnip for her. And anyone else."
I shifted from foot to foot. Shit. He wasn’t wrong. Morgan I could deal with, but if it got out to someone like Camilla...well, literal toast. Who knew what she’d do?
"It's not like we're dating," I said, at the same time I felt the exact sensation ripple through me.
"My thoughts exactly," Raines said.
"Very funny." I scoffed. "Okay, so say people think we’re dating. It's not like dating is an admission of being soul bound." I lowered my voice. "I mean, not that I would date you in the first place. I'm just saying. Hey, maybe this is a great excuse for you to get back together with Tavi. No one will think we're dating if you have a girlfriend."
Hot, sharp passion spiked through me. I winced. I should've figured that mentioning Raines's angel ex-girlfriend was not the way to go.
"Don't say her—"
"Sor
ry, sorry, sorry," I said. "Okay, you know what? I'm only too happy to make this the last time we talk for, I don't know, ever. How's that sound? Can you at least trust me that much?"
Frustrated, and already late to class, I spun on my heel before Raines could respond. It wasn't like I wouldn't know exactly how he felt about what I said.
"That's the thing, Nova," his voice rang out behind me. "I'm not sure I can."
Chapter Six
The Hades Academy library was quickly becoming one of my favorite places in the school. Not just my favorite—basically my haven. The room was huge, lush, and quiet, and, especially at night, beautiful, with just the flickering torch-, and candlelight illuminating row after row of intricately carved wooden shelves. There were even old-fashioned quills and jars of ink on each table, though they were for show more than anything. I still couldn't begin to understand the demon decimal system, or whatever, but I loved the atmosphere. I could sink into the feeling of the place as much as I could sink into one of its soft, comfortably worn armchairs—which was what I happened to be doing. Morgan, Teddy, and I were studying, except, in the way that we studied, we weren't getting a whole lot of work done.
I, for one, was easily distracted. Not just by the intermittent flicks of someone else's feelings that I still hadn't gotten used to, but by memories of the conversation Raines and I had. Or the one Wilder and I had. Really, take your pick. My life was a huge tangle. And I was still no closer to understanding if my teacher had tried to kill me—or whether he’d do it again, given the chance.
Morgan set down her pen (fountain, not quill. She thought feather pens were ridiculous) and said something I didn't quite catch.
"Hmm?"
"I said, do you mind flipping that Liber Officium Spirituum round this way?" She craned her neck. "I'm trying to finish my diagram from Mantel and your elbow's covering up the third tier of demons."
"Oh," I said. "My bad." I pivoted the book around. Morgan took it, but kept her eyes on my face.
"Someone looks distracted." She flashed a wicked grin. "Let me guess. Boy problems?"
My pulse stuttered. "Uh...no, God, no."
Morgan blinked her innocent, you're-quite-sure-about-that? blink. I huffed. "Morgan, give me some credit. I'm here to study. Seriously." I was, although at this point, I couldn't believe I'd ever thought school was going to be enough distraction to keep my mind at ease. “Why is your default guess boy problems anyway?”
"Hmm-mmm," she singsonged, and slid her eyes to Teddy. "What d'you reckon, Ted? Do we believe her?"
The stutter kicked up so I could feel it at every pulse point. Teddy looked up, staring first at Morgan, then at me, through his massive spectacles.
"Oh, I...I think so," he said. I knew he meant it, too—Teddy was no kind of liar—but my sympathetic nervous system didn't get the message.
I hated to admit it, but maybe Raines had been right.
"This assignment's a beast," I said, changing the subject. I nudged the textbook. "Why can't Mantel just, you know, tell us how demon stuff works?"
Morgan shrugged. "Guess she's more the Socratic type. Something about teaching us to think for ourselves. Real bollocks, don't you think?"
"I feel like I should let you figure it out on your own," I quipped. Morgan snorted and blew her bangs out of her eyes before looking back at the page. I followed suit. “Anyway, what I’m mostly understanding is that higher-tier demons get the important positions and lower-tier demons are more the...working class type, I guess?”
“Then you just about understand the basics,” Morgan confirmed.
I paused a moment to consider it. “It doesn’t seem fair that demons are just born into a tier that’ll determine the rest of their lives. It’s fucked up, actually.”
Morgan actually seemed a bit taken aback. “It’s how we’ve always done it. And plus, on rare occasion a demon can move up or down tiers. It’s uncommon, of course, but nothing is written in stone.”
It went against everything I stood for—that the situation somebody is born into shouldn’t determine their lot in life. Not a single day of my life before Hades Academy went by where I didn’t think about how profoundly unfair it was that I ended up an orphan moving between shitty foster homes. The idea that someday I could rise above my circumstances and make something of my sorry excuse for a life was the only thing that kept me going back then.
So the fact that the demon system didn’t allow much room for rising above the muck was decidedly not cool with me. I hadn’t thought about it until then, but it suddenly struck me that there might be things about demon society that were worse than the one I grew up in.
“Besides,” Morgan went on, “basically everyone you’ve met is going to be a lesser demon. I am, Teddy is, hell, even our blonde friend over there”—she nodded to where Camilla was pretending to study with her buddies—“is a lesser demon. None of us ever has a chance of ascending all the way up to being one of the four Princes of the Air.”
She tapped the page with a red-polished fingertip, where a diagram resembling a compass pointed out four names: Amaymon, Corson, Ziminiar, and Gaap.
“They’re basically appointed for life, or for...as long as they like. Where you might encounter someone is...” She flipped the page over to reveal a bunch of circles with angular lines and dashes inside, like a cross between a rune, a coat of arms, and a boy scout badge. “...these bad boys. And girls. Kings, Dukes, Generals, Counts, Marquesses, Presidents—”
“Presidents?” I said.
“Oh, you Yanks,” Morgan said. “Just in the sense that they preside over things, not that we vote for them. Gods, can you imagine demon elections?”
“People would die!” Teddy muttered.
“Right you are,” Morgan said. “Anyway, they’ve all got these sigils to represent their True Name. So it’s not like you’ll meet someone and they’ll just say, hey, I’m Marquis Andrealphus, nice to meet you.”
“So theoretically,” I said. “We could have met one of them. Someone from this tier.”
“I guess so,” Morgan said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if maybe Dean Harlowe was one. They’d probably want someone choice in charge of all of us, I’d reckon.”
“You think?” My spidey-sense—or whatever—was tingling. I still didn’t feel like I had the whole picture about the probation. “But if Dean Harlowe is a...demon duchess, or whatever, then how did we end up on probation?”
“Well, duchess or no, she didn’t exactly do her job,” Morgan said. “Namely stop Chaos from unleashing itself. And on one of her students, no less.”
Teddy looked very intent on his Latin.
“And our professors?” I asked. “They’re lesser demons, too?”
I was most interested in Wilder’s rank, of course. His obsession with all things demon-y made me think he might occupy one of the higher tiers. And after all, he was the one who originally mentioned the existence of this stuff to me in the first place.
“Gods, of course!” Morgan exclaimed. “A higher demon wouldn’t sink so low as being a mere professor! Unless they were just absolutely obsessed with the subject they teach, but even then, I just can’t imagine it.”
Obsessed with the subject they teach? Sounded like Wilder.
Stop thinking about him, I admonished myself.
But I also couldn’t help but think about what he’d told me–that the outlaw’s crossing on my palm represented that I was descended from a higher demon. That meant I could be one, too. Did I technically have some sort of silly title and sigil attached to my name that I didn’t even know about?
“So what exactly do the—”
I didn’t finish my question. Somebody bumped into the jar of ink on the table and spilled it all over my homework.
“So sorry!” a bitchy voice called out in a tone that made it clear they were anything but sorry.
I looked up to see Camilla and her friends already halfway to the door laughing hysterically to themselves.
“Wow,” Mo
rgan said. “What’s so funny about that? As far as pranks go that wasn’t even particularly clever or original. Just dumb and cruel.”
“I didn’t think it could be possible, but she’s even worse this semester,” Teddy observed. “She’s such a, well...you know.”
Now that made me laugh. Classic Teddy. “It’s okay,” I told him. “You’ve got my full permission to call her a bitch. I’m sure you have Morgan’s blessing as well.”
She nodded in approval. “Where I’m from, we’d call her something even nastier than a bitch, but I’ll avoid using those kinds of words in polite company.”
“Go ahead, Teddy, say it,” I goaded him.
His face turned bright red. “You’re not going to let up until I say it, are you?”
Morgan and I gave him hard stares.
“All right,” Teddy said. He gulped. “Camilla is a huge bitch.”
We burst into cheers, for which we received a death glare from Madame Lyra, the librarian. She would probably be well within her rights to kick us out, but I think she secretly loved us for how much time we spent posted up in the library.
“What’s all this commotion about, eh?”
Of all people, Collum Tavish was standing at our table, his dimpled smile spread across his face. Most striking of all, though, was who wasn’t with him—the other two members of the Infernal Three.
“Here all alone?” I asked. “What happened, did you get in a fight with your boyfriends?”
“You’re a witty one, Donovan, ya truly are,” he replied cheerily in that trademark Irish brogue. “All right with your homework, then?”
I stared back down at the ink-drenched remains of what had been my homework. A few black spatters had even gotten on the edges of my skirt—shit. I scowled. “Don’t ask.”
“I won’t.”
Instead, he pulled out a handkerchief—an honest-to-God handkerchief—and soaked up the ink.
I’ll admit that, despite how dumb I found the whole Infernal Three thing—why in the world did they ever think it was cool to give themselves that ridiculous name?—Collum had an easygoing charm. And while Raines might have been closest to my type physically speaking, Collum was the one most girls would go for. It was hard not to love that damn accent. That girl who had dumped him—what was her name? Aramind? Was that even an actual name?—had seriously questionable taste if she’d left him behind.