by Cara Wylde
“I’m sure you’re all wondering about what we’re studying in this class,” Headmaster Morningstar began once we all settled in our seats. “This is the first time History of the Human Inquisition is on the Academy’s curriculum, so I apologize for the lack of study materials. Don’t worry, you will receive an extensive bibliography in the next couple of minutes. We might not have a textbook, but we have a library filled with books, articles, and even research papers on the horrors humans have inflicted on the supernaturals through the years. Centuries after centuries of oppression, cruelty, and misinformation.”
I couldn’t help it, which was so, so unhealthy for me. I raised my hand.
“Mila.” The tightness in his voice signaled he hated to be interrupted. I already knew that about him.
“Sorry, I just have to ask. Are we going to study the Medieval Inquisition? As far as I know, the witches they burned weren’t supernaturals. They persecuted, burned, and hanged their own people.” That was one of two things I wasn’t proud of when it came to humans. The second one was our hobby called ‘making war’. Other than that, – and knowing the supernatural world a bit better now, – it was all good. Being human wasn’t all that bad.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Everyone here knows the Inquisition killed humans, not supernaturals. Next time you feel the urge to show us how smart you are, Miss Morningstar, please abstain. That’s 10 worth points.”
Whaaaat?! He just took 10 points from me because I asked a simple question?
“Moving on…” He turned away and looked at Francis, then at Merrit, Raziel, Caspian. Okay, I was finally starting to get it. He was going to ignore me, GC, and Pazuzu in every class he had with us. Fine. “We’re going to study the real history between humans and supernaturals. They staked our vampires, exorcised our demons, led our archangels into sin, caught our pixies and sold their skeletons to museums.” As if he cared about pixies! Also, what museums? Where? I was pretty sure this was just an urban myth, not history. “We’re going to be brave and look reality in the face. Humans are a plague. They have no powers, no skills, yet they work on this mind-blowing premise that they’re the most important beings on this planet. They don’t respect life, be it theirs or someone else’s, and their only true aptitude is that they breed like no other species on Earth. They have always outnumbered us, but the fact that they are many does not make them right. It’s time to look at their misdeeds and learn who we’re dealing with every day. Humans are not our friends. They are controlled by their fears, and when fear takes the wheel of their brain and emotions, no act against the supernatural world is too abominable.”
A knot formed in my throat. I looked around me. Some of the VDC students shot me dark glances when they thought Headmaster Morningstar wasn’t looking. I gulped. My phone buzzed in the pocket of my uniform blazer.
“this some bullshit hang in there”
GC, with his non-existent punctuation. I smiled and hid the phone quickly. Oh, this class was going to be hard. And we had it twice a week.
* * *
Finally, Psychology with Professor Colin, and then Literature with Professor Lovecraft. Even if Lovecraft’s theories about the Great Old Ones had proved useless so far, I didn’t give up hope. I couldn’t. I couldn’t live in a world where there were monsters sleeping and dreaming in the ground, asking for human sacrifices. A world where cultists, like Francis and his family, worshipped these beings and fed them in exchange for immortality. Francis was just honoring a long tradition, or that was what I liked to believe. If I found a way to kill his Great Old One, then I knew he wouldn’t stand in my way. Not even if it meant losing his life. Francis Saint-Germain was a good guy. The fact that he sometimes did heinous things didn’t change that. Right?
Right. I was just lying to myself. A cute, harmless lie so I could sleep at night. Not that I slept very well lately. Dream after dream, until the alarm clock went off in the morning. I didn’t pay much attention at first, but when the dreams started chipping away at my energy and sanity, I started considering talking to Professor Colin about some therapy sessions. If my father allowed it, that was. I doubted Valentine wanted me sane.
I sat at a desk between Pazuzu and GC. It was the closest I could get to them these days. Professor Colin entered the classroom, placed the textbook on his desk, and came to the front, hands tucked behind his back. He was wearing a well-fitted suit and a light cloak over his shoulders. The cloak was overkill, but I guessed he thought it reminded everyone he was a mage. It did.
“Today, we’ll work in groups of four.”
I thought I hadn’t heard him right. I stole a glance at GC, and the look on his face told me he thought the same. The Unseelie guard standing in the back of the class grunted in disapproval. That should have been enough to make Professor Colin change his mind, but instead, it made him turn to the fay and address him in a calm, firm tone.
“Mr. Galio, rest assured that I know what your orders are. However, this is a class activity and it does not go against the rules. You must understand that in Psychology, it’s important for my students to work together and develop their empathy and communication skills. Their line or work will often put them in situations when a good heart-to-heart will save lives.”
“I thought a heart-to-heart was between two people. Not four,” the Unseelie guard retorted in a low, grave voice that made chills run up my spine. Crassus was waiting for me outside the classroom, since there was no reason for two guards to watch over a bunch of students and a disgraced ex-Headmaster. Come to think of it, my Unseelie bodyguard was less scary than Mr. Galio.
“And you are correct. However, this is a more creative activity. Allow me to explain it to my students.” He took out a marker and started exemplifying on the white board. “One of you will play the victim who’s having dark thoughts and wants to end their life. Another one will play the Grim Reaper, of course. And I want the other two students to play the good voice and the bad voice, because Reapers are beings too, with feelings, wounds, fears, with their own problems. The Reaper will listen to these two voices, who will argue their stance, one for the positive and one for the negative, and then decide how to talk to the victim.”
I cocked an eyebrow. For real? What was this? Kindergarten? We were much too advanced for this exercise. It might have worked in year one, but in year three?!
Professor Colin pointed at me. I sat up straight at my desk, wondering why he was singling me out.
“Let’s say Mila is the victim. She calls for a Grim Reaper to sever her string of life…”
What a nice euphemism for trying to commit suicide.
“Mr. Apis is the Grim Reaper, and then… Hm.” He wasn’t actually thinking about it on the spot. He was just pretending. “Mr. Saint-Germain will be the good voice in her head, and Mr. Eremus will be the bad voice.”
“Because I’m a demon. That makes sense.” Pazuzu chuckled.
“Come on, get closer. Join your tables. Let’s try out this scenario.”
For the next five minutes, we showed the Unseelie guard how Professor Colin’s exercise worked. Since Galio’s job was to make sure the rules were respected and not to keep me away from my boyfriends, he didn’t protest. Eventually, he gave his consent, and the other VDC students were encouraged to form groups.
“The perks of the Unseelie doing one job at a time,” I whispered. I briefly wondered why Crassus had stayed outside. Was he having a bad day? Was I just being lucky?
“They can do more,” said Francis, “But they have to be paid for them separately, on separate contracts.”
“Told you!” Corri chirped. Not that I didn’t believe her, but it was nice to have confirmation.
“How do you think my father can afford so many guards? I heard the fays are expensive.”
Francis had the answer again. “He can’t. The Council is sponsoring him. My father told me he sent them his new set of rules, and they approved them. Then, they ap
proved his request to hire two dozen Unseelie soldiers to enforce them.”
“Why would the Council do that? They didn’t want to appoint him Headmaster, yet they did, and now this… Why do they keep doing things they don’t want to do? My father can’t possibly be that powerful.”
“You saw him,” Francis whispered. “With your own eyes. How he transformed…”
I didn’t want to admit that every time I thought about it, my blood froze in my veins. “A circus trick. So what? It’s not like he’s the only one who can do that.”
Silence.
“Is he?”
Francis shook his head. Pazuzu leaned in closer. “I told my mother what you saw.” GC and Paz hadn’t been there when Morningstar had pulled his fancy trick on the Council members, but I’d made sure I described every detail to them. “She told me it’s because he’s been reaping for so long. For sure, the other twenty-one Grim Reapers can’t do it.”
“What did he do, exactly? He looked normal one second, and changed into a glowing skeleton the next. He banged his scythe on the floor and made the ground shake. That’s all.”
“You’re right, he didn’t do anything,” GC said in a grave whisper. “He only warned everyone that he could, if he wanted to. You know what I heard?” He looked at me, at Paz, then at Francis. When no one said a word, he continued: “My mom told me there’s only one being in the world who looks like that and can cause an earthquake at a snap of their fingers. Death.”
“Death? Like… actual Death?” I giggled stupidly. “Isn’t Death a… metaphor? A concept?”
“No, Mila,” GC said. “Death is real.”
“So, like… what? Is it a she, or a he?”
“My mom says it’s both.”
“Okay, look…” I pushed myself away from the table and crossed my arms over my chest. At this point, I didn’t care if Galio heard we weren’t talking about Professor Colin’s exercise. “If Death is an actual person, then Life has to be, too.” My guys shrugged. Since no one was going to contradict me, I took it as a sign that I was onto something. But where would it lead me? This world I’d always wanted to be a part of was getting more and more twisted each day. One morning, I’d get up and not want to be here anymore. I just hoped it didn’t happen before I found a way to rid it of my father.
“Any progress on the prophecy?” Francis asked. Pazuzu and GC already knew I’d hit a wall when Morningstar kicked my butt in scythe fighting.
“No. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. How I’m supposed to do it. If a Grim Reaper doesn’t retire on his own, then the next one has to take him out. But I suck at scythe fighting.”
“Poison him?” GC suggested.
“Seriously? Do you think it would work?”
“You can’t know until you try.”
“It won’t work,” said Francis. “Grim Reapers are untouchable. Once you graduate and become one, nothing can kill you. Well, except for another Grim Reaper. But not with poison, or magic, or… fuck if I know… by pushing you over a balcony. It has to be with a scythe going straight for the string of life.”
I blew out my cheeks. “I need to learn how to fight. And then, I need to become good at it. But it doesn’t make any sense. If that’s the way to do it, then I’m sure some of the current Reapers are skilled enough to off him. Why does it have to be me? Because of some prophecy I never even saw with my own eyes?”
Paz chuckled. “You don’t see prophecies. You hear them.”
“No one writes them down?”
“Sometimes they do, but that’s not how they start.”
I shook my head. “So many things make no sense at all.”
“Maybe it has to be you because you’re the only one who has the guts to stand up to him,” GC suggested.
Well, it was true that even the Council had pissed itself, and I was pretty much the only one who could still tell him to go fuck himself knowing for sure she’d live to tell the story. Maybe I was overthinking this whole mess. Maybe it didn’t have to make sense, and the key was to simply believe. Although I wasn’t quite sure what I believed in. The prophecy? Not really. Myself? But when I didn’t use it for reaping, I was terrible with the scythe, and no amount of believing in myself was going to change that. God? Good one. Since I’d seen both Heaven and Hell, I’d completely lost my faith. I could totally understand why none of the other students were religious and didn’t care about visiting the two chapels.
“We need a place to meet,” Pazuzu said. He looked at me like it was the end of the world, and I was the last sip of clean water left. “Texting is not enough, and Professor Colin won’t be able to pull this off every Friday.”
“You guys are texting?” Francis asked.
“We have a group thing,” GC grinned, looking at me just as thirstily as Paz.
Francis bit the inside of his cheek. The sexual tension floating around the table wasn’t lost on him. Corri had flown off long ago, the whole discussion making her feel uncomfortable. She was perched up on the white board. I was plotting against my father, who’d bought her for me, and I was also actively breaking his rules. Since I’d made the decision to keep her with me at all times and not send her to the Blank, she’d gotten used to her freedom. The last time Morningstar had sent her to the Blank, she’d thought she was going to be okay with it. Instead, it had hit her hard. On the one hand, I was happy she’d finally come to her senses. On the other hand, I now needed her more than ever, and even though she had almost limitless powers, her fear of the Blank stopped her from doing anything illegal. Well, illegal by Morningstar’s standards. I had to respect her boundaries. I knew that if I ordered her to do what I wanted, she would. That was what pixies were for.
“I want in,” Francis breathed out. “I want in your group.”
“What?” GC snapped out of the sex fantasies playing in his head. “Dude, no. It’s not that kind of group. It’s just for us,” he motioned between him, me, and Paz, “because we’re together. I mean, because we’re with her.”
“We’ll make a new one,” I said, blushing. The truth was that I didn’t want Francis to see what the guys and I had texted back and forth since we started dating. There might have been some naughty pictures in there, too.
“Cool, whatever,” Paz shrugged. “As long as we keep ours secret.”
I stole a glance at the Unseelie guard, and when I was sure he wasn’t looking, I took out my phone. “Doing it right now. I’ll add Sariel, too. Have you guys talked to him?” Francis was the only one who nodded. “Well? How is he? I’ve been meaning to catch up with him at lunch or dinner, but he always sits so far from the VDC. I’m 60 worth points down already, I can’t afford to lose more.”
“He’s fine.” There was a strain in Francis’s voice. “Maybe don’t add him, though.” He motioned toward my phone.
“He doesn’t want to take Morningstar down? He outed him in front of the whole Council, and then in front of the entire Academy. He got him in big trouble with his parents. All’s well when it ends well, but my father humiliated him.”
“What makes you think it all ended well?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “He’s here. He’s in the MDC, which means he wasn’t expelled.”
Francis sighed.
“What? What aren’t you telling me?”
He shook his head. “A lot, but I can’t. It’s better if you hear it from Sariel. If he wants to tell you, that is.”
I ran a hand through my long, blue hair. “And how am I supposed to talk to him?” I saw the Unseelie guard move from the corner of my eye. “Give me his phone number. I’ll text him.” Francis complied, but I wondered whether Sariel would even bother to reply. We weren’t friends, so why would he? Whatever had happened to him after the Council, why would he want to tell me anything?
“I still think we need a place to meet,” Paz insisted.
I nodded, my eyes still in my phone. “You know what? I’m adding Klaus and Patricia to our new group
. But yes, I agree. We can’t come up with a way to retire Morningstar via texts.” Actually, we probably could, but I didn’t think I could stay away from GC and Pazuzu until we did. “Ideas? The Unseelie are everywhere.”
We were all silent for a minute. I looked at GC and Pazuzu hopefully. I didn’t know the Academy well enough to come up with suggestions, but they did.
“I know a place,” Francis said in such a low whisper that I barely heard it. “But you won’t like it.”
“No. No, no, no. We’re not going down there.”
“It’s safe.”
“It’s not safe, and you know it,” I hissed.
“What are you two talking about?” Paz asked.
I’d never told my guys about the cavern under the Academy. They knew there were tunnels and caves underneath, because we’d partied on the beach in front of the opening to one, but they’d never explored them. Francis had told me there was something there that kept the students away, something in the air. I knew what it was. The rotten smell of the creature sleeping inside the well. Only Sariel knew about the Great Old One, and he’d never told anyone, either. It was Francis’s secret, and as much as I hated it, I was going to respect it, just like Sariel did.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Because it’s not a good place. We’ll think of something. I’ll ask Patty and Klaus. Between the six of us, we have to come up with something.”
Francis didn’t say another word, and I was grateful. When the class was dismissed, neither of us had done Professor Colin’s exercise. However, I knew we’d done exactly what he’d actually wanted us to do: plot against Morningstar.
CHAPTER FOUR
PE was weird. On the first week, Mrs. Charon told us to put our scythes down and listen to her. It took her two classes to go through all the safety measures before showing us how to fight. Normally, we should have learned this in semester two, and not too extensively, either. She didn’t feel comfortable that the new Headmaster was making her teach it in semester one. She didn’t believe we were ready. Also, she thought it was more important for us to learn how to teleport without the teleportation devices than to fence with our very real, very sharp scythes. On the second week, she asked us to put our scythes down again, and threw us each a stick with another stick tied to it. The new toys barely resembled our scythes.