Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Paranormal; Demons; Paranormal Romance; Fantasy; Angels; Witches; Vampires; Magic; Romance; Shapeshifters
Description: Hedge witch, bone witch, forsaken, and Angelical: Too much for one tiny human. The price of survival in my world is high and the universe is gearing up to make me pay. This time, there is no escape from being Alessia Hastings. For two years, I’ve been a supernatural pariah. The human with Lucifer’s blood and unpredictable power. After the Unity Games, I became House Pendragon’s bond mate elect. At this point, I’m not sure what’s worse. What Malachi Pendragon wants, Malachi Pendragon usually gets. But there isn’t enough money, charm or Nephilim healing in the world that will stop the Angelical

Bloodline Fallacy

Bloodline Academy Book 5

Lan Chan

Copyright © 2020 by Lan Chan

All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, (electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

All names, characters, groups and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and all opinions expressed by the characters, whose preferences and attitudes are entirely their own. Any similarities to real persons or groups, living or dead are coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover by Christian Bentulan

Editing by Contagious Edits and Lorie Collins

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Did You Enjoy This Book?

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1

I’ve always had a sketchy relationship with hospitals. The same cold dread gripped me when I stepped through the doors of Terran General as it did when I entered Nanna’s psychiatric hospital. Both were meant to be places of healing, yet my chest felt hollowed out by a broken sense of loss.

I almost did a double-take at the sight that greeted me. Last time I was here, the waiting room had been deserted. This wasn’t a public hospital. They didn’t just take random patients. Yet almost all the seats were filled with people. Most of them were vacant-eyed.

An old lady by the wall to the left clutched a set of black rosary beads and was mumbling the Lord’s Prayer. By the potted ficus plant in the corner was a girl about my age. Her ash-blonde hair was braided into a circlet that looked like a halo around her head. It was an appropriate hairdo. She was positively angelic. Too bad she kept flinching at everything and nothing. When she lifted her head and caught me staring, her whole body stilled. Colour drained from her cheeks in contrast to the sudden wildness in her eyes. I’d seen that look on deer in nature documentaries just before a predator leaped at them from the bushes.

Some of the other patients were swaying in their chairs but they sure as heck weren’t praying. There was only one explanation for this kind of behaviour: demon contact.

Despite their best efforts, the Dominion and the elite guards hadn’t been able to round up every demon released when Jonah escaped. The low demons were easier to ferret out but most of the others, the ones that could possess humans, were still at large. If it was this bad at Terran, what did the other hospitals look like?

I approached the admissions desk. The receptionist kept her head down, furiously scribbling on a notepad. A cordless phone was cradled between her neck and shoulder. “Can I help you?”

Now probably wasn’t a good time to tell her that she had macaroni stuck to her brown curls. The phone rang right beside her ear. She grunted and picked it up before I could answer her.

“Terran General, can you hold?” She returned the phone to its cradle.

“Hi. I’m Alessia Hastings,” I spat out before anything else could interrupt. I was already having second thoughts. “I’m here to see Doctor Daly.”

I knew she’d found my appointment and read the reason I was here when her sharp expression softened. Pity: the gift that nobody wanted.

“She’ll be out in a sec, love.”

Unsure where to wait, I hovered by the edge of the reception desk, playing with the band of Gabriel’s Key on the middle finger of my left hand. The swinging door on the other side of the room opened. Jessica barged through with a clipboard in her hands. She had on a nurse’s purple scrubs.

Out of all the Terrans, Jessica was the only one adamant that she wanted nothing to do with Bloodline. Unlike Rachel, who had killed supernaturals, I couldn’t get to Jessica with guilt. Especially not after Samantha was murdered. So Jessica had transferred to Terran Hospital while the Academy was being rebuilt.

She saw me, paused, and then ran stubby fingers over her pageboy hair that had turned a little shaggy on the sides. Finally, she nodded at me before heading towards the praying woman. Well, hello to you too.

Two minutes after Jessica disappeared with the old lady, a woman with close-cropped, dark hair came down the open corridor. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties but her sensible knee-length skirt and buttoned blouse would have met with approval from Nanna. As opposed to my faded blue jeans and black singlet which Eugenia had dubbed my “moping getup.”

“Alessia?”

I jumped like I’d been electrocuted. She smiled and waved me over. I followed her into a small examination room. The hum of machinery set my teeth on edge. Or maybe it was the fact that I was here in the first place.

“Take a seat,” the doctor offered.

Her desk was set in the right corner from the door. The patient seat sat next to it and backed up to the wall. I eyed the blood pressure machine warily but did as I was told. “Matilda filled me in on your situation,” she said. “Did you get a chance to read the pamphlets I emailed?”

I nodded. Best not to incriminate myself by opening up my big mouth. Nobody but Matilda knew I was going to get my eggs tested and she only knew because I needed her help to make all the arrangements. I only had an email address from my time at Terran, but I couldn’t very well check it while living in the Reserve.

For once, luck was on my side and the doctor went through the process again. She checked all of my vitals and measurements with calm practicality. Not once did she mention the pink supernatural elephant in the room. If she had an opinion about how I’d ended up like this, she kept her mouth shut. I decided I liked her.

I was inside the change room putting on the scratchy hospital gown when the nausea rolled over me. Bitterness and iron coated my tongue. All the strength in my legs disappeared. I landed butt first on the filthy plastic bench and doubled over. Bracing on my knees, I forced air into my lungs while at the same time surrendering to a fit of coughing. Something popped between my ears like firecrackers. The bursts coincided with dark splotches appearing in front of my eyes. Pain radiated down the back of my skull. My eyes watered. The hand I used to cover my mouth came away coated in blood and bile.

Instinct took over. I turned my attention inward to the pool of magic inside of me and hissed. Both layers were swirling together in a whirlpool of unease. They crashed against each other as though an invisible tornado was blowing though my body. Gripping onto everything Peter had taught me about hedge magic, I tried to force a measure of calm. What happened instead was a burst of bright green that saturated my body. It separated the blue and black magics, soothing them with its calm nature. Almost as though Kai could sense that I was unstable, and he was sending me comfort. Any illusions I’d harboured about the bond fading just because I hadn’t been in contact with him for a month disappeared.

That thought forced me out of my stupor. I focused on the white sock I’d dropped on the stone floor. The material where my big toe sat was browned with dirt. There was a ladder forming at the base of the heel. These mundane thoughts helped the pain in my head to subside. I managed to take a deep breath without feeling like my lungs were full of burning liquid.

Somebody knocked on the door. “Everything okay in there?” a male voice asked.

No, everything was not okay. It was getting harder and harder to rationalise these attacks as anxiety. Not when I was now coughing up blood. This wasn’t the time to freak out, though.

“Just a second,” I called back.

Rubbing my wet hand on the side of the gown, I swiped the wetness from my cheeks and stuffed my things into my backpack. Then I stowed that in the blue square bucket that I was told to leave in the change room. The former homeless girl in me didn’t like the thought of leaving valuables unattended. Unfortunately, this gown didn’t even have a back. There was nowhere to stash anything. So I stuffed the ring into a sock and buried it at the bottom of the backpack. Not exactly secure, but the action calmed my nerves a little.

Doctor Daly was waiting for me when I was done. She’d changed into pale blue scrubs and now wore a surgical mask and gloves.

She led me to a room with a pair of hospital beds. “Hop on,” she said, indicating the one closest to us. When I was secure in the bed, an anaesthesiologist swabbed my arm and injected me with aesthetic.

“Okay, Lex,” Doctor Daly said. “Can you count backwards from ten for me?”

Ten. Nine. Eight. Sev...

If ever there was a test to determine my humanity, this was surely it. No supernatural would have been this susceptible to human medication.

I woke to the sound of earth shifting. When I begrudgingly forced my eyes open, the ceiling refused to stay in one spot. Cold bit at my extremities. The left side of my body was no longer covered by the blankets, but that seemed negligible. My breath came out in puffs of condensation. According to the clock, it was just past one in the afternoon. I’d been unconscious for almost two hours. The pitch-black darkness outside the window said otherwise. My skin prickled as a swathe of metaphorical brown sludge poured over me. The hedge magic vibrated against my chest in a panicked hum. I cast it in a wide circle, expanding it until I hit upon a foreign presence.

“Shit!”

The trees in the courtyard around the hospital were shuddering in response to demonic energy. The liquid in their cells hardened as the temperature continued to drop. Cell walls burst as their roots constricted and choked inside the rapidly compacting earth.

Ice crystals traversed over the window, turning the glass opaque. When they reached the corner, they crawled over the plaster, draping themselves along the windowsill into icicles.

This could not be happening. But just in case it was, I grabbed the sheet of ice that passed for a blanket and pulled it aside.

The floor gave my toes frostbite. I yelped as I waddled over to the armchair that now held my backpack. The first thing I did was make sure Gabriel’s Key was still there. Check. The second thing I did was attempt to teleport. No need to be a hero when my butt was hanging out the back of the gown. The air hummed around me. I felt the attempted tug of teleport magic in the pit of my gut but that was where it ended. Dammit.

Dressing as quickly as I could, I tried to call out to Morning Star. Yet another dead end. What was the point in having a demon blade if I couldn’t access it half the time?

The protection circle I drew around myself flickered. I stared it down, forcing my will to keep it intact. Now wasn’t the time for my brain to misfire. The circle had only just stabilised when my door was flung open.

Jessica raced in, her chest heaving. When she saw me, her face pinched for a second before evening out again. She had probably expected me to still be passed out. A gooey black smudge decorated the front of her scrubs. It gave off an abrasive scent that I knew from my time at Terran. She wore a thick brown utility belt on her hip. Holstered to it were two toxic poison guns.

“We’re under siege,” she hissed. My hackles rose at her accusatory tone. The ground rocked as though to highlight her statement.

“I’m not forsaken anymore.” Triggered.

She shot me an impatient frown. Right. She didn’t know about that. “We need to get to the recovery wing,” she said. “It’s got the most warding.”

We ran down the corridor past other rooms. Most of the doors had been flung open and the rooms empty. “Have you tried contacting the Sisterhood?”

“No communication in or out. There’s some kind of dampening spell blocking everything.”

“What about other weapons?”

She shook her head. “This is a hospital, not an armoury.”

“Any idea what we’re dealing with?”

“Demons are demons.”

That wasn’t good enough. It would help immensely if I knew what type of demons they were. Unfortunately, time wasn’t on our side. We turned a corner and I spotted a trolley of trays and glasses that had been abandoned. “Kitchen?” I asked.

She pointed to a pair of double doors to my right. I ducked in and almost broke my ankle on a pool of water that had iced over. My knee hit the industrial cooker as I skidded.

Trying not to curse, I ransacked the kitchen for salt. There were two great big sacks of processed table salt in the pantry. Not ideal. Table salt had a lot of random chemicals in it that diluted its potency. “Would it kill you to buy something a little purer?” And then, “Can you help me carry this?”

That was me all over. Insult someone and then ask them for help.

Jessica picked up one of the bags that I was struggling to even move. At the last minute, I slipped a paring knife into my back pocket. A poor substitute for Morning Star but beggars couldn’t be choosers. We got to the recovery ward just in time to watch the sky light up in a fiery mushroom cloud. Doctor Daly closed the door behind us and barred it with a metal chain and padlock. Seeing her snapped something in my chest.

“The eggs?” I asked, rather selfishly.

She didn’t miss a beat. “Storage facility. Lower right wing.”

I abandoned the circle around myself and drew one around the location she’d provided. The last thing I needed was for the hospital to blow up and take my eggs with it. Priorities. There were white candles burning on metal candelabras in each corner of the room. The metal had been worked into an intricate pattern of runes and sigils for protection. Craning my head upwards, I saw that the ceiling was also decorated in a series of protective markings.

Jessica handed the bag of salt off to some other nurses. “Draw an unbroken circle around the room,” she said. Someone had the wherewithal to move the recovery beds into a corner. The occupants of the beds still lay unconscious. It left a big open space in the centre of the room where the rest of us congregated. While the hospital staff scrambled to secure the room, the conscious patients huddled together shaking. At the front of the group was Angel Girl. She stared straight ahead, unseeing. That was until she must have felt me staring again. Then she turned away and tried to melt into the group.

A quick headcount said we were coming up short.

“Ummm…where is everybody else?”

Half a dozen pairs of eyes cast to the window. Outside, it wasn’t a pretty picture. Smoke wafted from the broken structures of the hospital. The entrance had been caved in. Shadows bled into the surrounding atmosphere, blanketing the sun in red.

In the courtyard, not ten metres away, stood a being with deep crimson skin. It was naked, unashamedly male, built like a footballer on steroids, and sporting a pair of thorned black wings. Lying prone around its cloven feet were the bodies of a dozen humans. It yanked the rosary beads from the old woman’s shaking hand and crushed it to pieces. She fainted as it lifted her to its eye level. It grinned a sharp-toothed smile.

All of the breath left me in a rush. The old woman’s legs flapped beneath her unconscious body. I threw a protection circle around her at the same time the demon brought his palm down on her forehead.

2

Pain splintered through my mind. I gripped the windowsill in an effort to remain upright. Confusion blanketed my thoughts. Why was I so weak? The demon pressed down harder, shouting words in a demonic dead language. My circle cracked at the seams. While I tried to seal it up, I countered with words of light. It was like a buzzer went off in my head. The ineffectual words released my circle.

The old woman groaned as her mouth opened. An iridescent glow poured from her in a crashing wave that had me sobbing. I tried to latch onto her soul and keep her intact but couldn’t find purchase. Screams peppered the air behind me. The demon shaped the old woman’s soul into an orb. It flexed its clawed fingers around it like it was holding a ball, dropping her body unceremoniously onto the ground with the others.

Taking an ambling step forward, the demon’s mouth stretched into a smug smile.

Somebody grabbed my shoulder. I jerked backward and came face to face with Jessica’s fervent gaze. “What’s happening?” she said. “You should have been able to hold her!”

Panic made my voice tremble. “Does anybody have a permanent marker?”

A Sharpie was pressed into my hand. Casting aside every reprimand I’d ever gotten from Nanna, I started writing on the walls. The Angelical word for protection spilled from the tip of the marker. The earth shook once more, making my second scrawled word take a squiggly turn. The intent was there. I just hoped it would hold out.

When the demon tested the strength of the wards with the added Angelical protection, it raised its head to the dark sky and let out a soul-crushing bellow. The force of its fist slammed into the window. I staggered to the side like I’d been struck by a sledgehammer. Thankfully, the wards held. Twice more it beat at the building. Each time the collective shriek grew louder.

If I had Morning Star, I would have phased through and taken it on. Without a weapon, the circles were all I had. Unfortunately, the circles didn’t like me at the moment. They hadn’t been cooperative since after Christmas when I’d had my first magical seizure. We were sitting ducks in here. The demon knew it too. Jessica passed one of her poison guns to another nurse.

The group of patients huddled closer when the demon’s head turned as though it was scanning the room for something...

“Girrrl,” its gravelly voice pushed out. Jessica grunted in my direction, believing I’d brought this down on them. Not again. I was about to repeat that I wasn’t forsaken when the demon’s interest passed over me and landed on Angel Girl. Yay! Not it for once!

In typical human fashion, the huddled group retracted around Angel Girl, leaving her hanging out in front on her own. She shrank into herself, shaking all over and crying silently. What was it about her the demon wanted? Soul reaping seemed to be the answer.

My knee hit the floor the next time the demon attacked. Though the wards held, the impact reverberated throughout my body. Blood trickled down my nostrils. If this kept up, I was going to pass out. This time, the demon tore its attention away from Angel Girl and fixed it on me.

Its coal black eyes held no light. But the way the leathery skin around its darkened lips stretched made me think it knew who I was. Was that a good or bad thing?

The demon held the old woman’s glowing soul in front of it and reshaped the orb into a hammer. Bad thing. Very bad thing!

I swiped the blood from my nose. It was quick but I was motivated. The soul hammer smashed into the glass at the same time I completed the blood circle. My command for protection echoed in the recesses of my mind. A thunderous roar chased behind it. Light flashed from the point where the soul hammer hit the glass. My body rocked forward. I held the demon’s gaze for a fraction of a second.

The cracking sound began as a slow crawl across the inside of my mind. With each second, it gained momentum until the hairline breaks in the glass were mirrored in the painful stabbing in my head. I couldn’t hold it. The blood circle effervesced, taking with it my protection circle.

Glass spat into the room. Its velocity turned each shard into a knife that cut into my side. Pain made me slow. I barrelled into Angel Girl, trying to drag her out of the way. My touch reanimated her. She screamed and lashed out at me. I copped a slap on my left cheek. There was hardly any strength behind it, but it highlighted that I didn’t enjoy friendly fire. I shoved her in the direction of the crowd.

She staggered a few steps and then stopped abruptly as though she’d hit a forcefield. A moment later, the same invisible force cinched around me. It was useless trying to erect another circle. I was haemorrhaging blood from both nostrils and my mouth. Pain thumped in my head. When I tried to reach out for my bone magic, it snapped and snarled at me without cooperating. We both flew backwards through the air at odds with the earthly laws of physics.

I choked on the smell of brimstone. Then I was just choking where the demon caught me around the throat with its left hand. “Lucifer’s sacrifice,” the demon cooed. Its head swivelled over to Angel Girl. Her eyes bugged out as though the demon was squeezing her innards like a tube of yoghurt. She beat pathetically at the demon’s wrist, mouth opening in a silent scream. Idiot! Keep your mouth shut!

I had my lips pressed so tightly they were going to cramp. As predicted, the demon muttered foreign words. This time it felt like something was scraping a knife through my chest. The scream lodged in my throat as lights gathered in the corner of my eyes. I bit my lips together and kicked out involuntarily.

Pain washed over me. It set my insides on fire. My body became limp with the effort of trying to hold my soul intact. Angel Girl’s mouth became a gaping void lit up by soulfire. The pressure inside me threatened to tear my body in two. Something inside me broke apart. I gave an involuntary scream as my bone and hedge magics drained. Darkness appeared in my periphery. I was on the verge of passing out when a green spark ignited in my chest. It latched onto my tearing soul and tugged back. The demon’s attention returned to me. It shook me and tightened its grip on my throat.

With the added strength of the bond, I managed to draw a circle around my throat before the demon decided to crush my windpipe. It dragged me close until there were bare inches between our faces. The scent of brimstone was unbearable. So was the hideous expression on the demon’s face. Up close, its skin was covered in a fine layer of spiny hairs. Almost as though whoever made it couldn’t decide whether it should be a mammal or a reptile. The demon opened its mouth wide and gave a soul-chilling roar. As it lifted its head, I noticed a circular rune on the side of its neck. A possession rune. Who did it belong to?

Thwarted in its attempt to snap my neck, the demon went for easier prey. We lashed out at the same time. It rattled Angel Girl in an attempt to divest her of her life. My magic circle snapped shut around her and the half of her soul that was feathering in the air outside her body. While the souls I’d seen over the years were a blistering white, hers had a mesmerising pearl glow to it. Like it was lit up from inside with tiny specks of glitter. Her eyes had rolled back in her head.

The effort to contain her soul made my entire body shake. Fear choked me in its grasp. I had grown used to the certainty of my power. Without it, I felt vulnerable. I felt helpless. Never again.

Rage sparked inside me. The aqua blue of my hedge magic turned into the cold blue of a flame. Splotches of black blossomed in front of my eyes but I ignored it. Throwing out a net of hedge magic, I forced the birch trees in the courtyard to grow. The demon shook me like a chicken whose neck it was going to wring for dinner.

The earth rumbled in tandem with my rage. Concrete and pavers cracked as the roots of the trees boiled and rolled. They grew thicker and longer until they burst from the earth and coiled around the demon’s waist and torso. They climbed over its back and tightened around its neck.

When the demon squeezed me again, I gave back as good as I got. See how you like it! Panicked, the demon attempted to release me so it could use its arm. But by now the roots of the trees had fused us together. The darkness had almost blanketed my eyes in black when I gave the command for the roots to burrow into its body. The demon roared. It squeezed tighter in an effort to weaken me. Angel Girl screamed once more. The circle around her had cracked as I funnelled my hedge magic into killing the demon.

It was a slight miscalculation. I preferred revenge to protection. So sue me. Angel Girl gave a distressed whimper. I had made the decision to draw some of my magic back when a flash of green cut through the air between us. There was a second when everything stood still. The demon’s unearthly roar preceded the arm holding Angel Girl falling clean off.

Black smoke coiled around Kai as he caught hold of Angel Girl. Without its other prey, the demon took its rage out on me and crushed. The fury that had sustained me shattered. Instead, I grabbed the paring knife out of my back pocket and stabbed it in the eye. I sank the knife in as deeply as I could.

The demon bellowed again but its hold wouldn’t slacken. Without thinking, I yanked the knife out again and began carving the Angelical word for death into the demon’s chest. “Blue!” I heard Kai shout, but I was too intent on my mission.

The world turned into a funnel of rage. I was halfway through my bloody artwork when I realised the demon was no longer trying to squeeze the life from me. Red and black magic swirled around us. I landed badly on my left knee as the demon died. Despite that, my hand continued to carve. The maelstrom of magic whipped around me, shattering in places and then reforming. I gave up all pretence of control. Shouts and screams rose up. I had the distant impression that everything the magic touched was being destroyed, but I was trying too hard not to pass out to notice.

“Blue!” His voice sounded strained. When he appeared in front of me, there were deep cuts all over his skin. I saw it through the darkness that still overlayed my vision.

“Let go of the magic,” Kai said. He reached out and tried to pry the knife from my grip. Over his shoulder, Angel Girl stood clutching at her throat. Fresh out of patience, Kai’s palm landed on my forehead. The world flipped upside down.

I turned towards Angel Girl. Her mouth opened but nothing came out. Something felt like it was burrowing into my brain.

Your time is running out, Alessia, a Caribbean-accented voice spoke in my mind. You can’t dodge this prophecy forever. One day soon you will have to make the ultimate sacrifice. My eyes rolled back in my head. The last thing I heard was the sound of Angel Girl screaming.

3

A weighted sigh woke me. I blinked and my eyelids peeled open. The marble walls closed in on me. “No,” I croaked. I could not be inside Seraphina again.

Raphael sat at the base of the bed. He reached out and tapped my ankle gently. His downcast expression said it all. Over by the window, Michael stood like an overgrown sentry.

I swallowed past the thorn in my throat. When I dissolved into a fit of coughing, I tried to reach for the glass of water on the small table by the bed. My hand shook so much, I retracted it. Staring at the offending limb, I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Besides the involuntary shaking, an uneven tattoo of blue and black lines was etched on my skin.

“What the hell is this?” I whispered, more to myself than anything.

Michael took it literally. “What the hell indeed.”

At another time, I would have made a big deal of him kind of cursing. But the meaning of what he’d said had started to sink in. Hell. For a second, I recalled the voice telling me I couldn’t run from the prophecy forever.

“Do you know anyone with a Caribbean accent?” I asked them.

Both shook their heads. Great. I had more unwanted guests in my head. Throw in an open bar and it would be a party. I supposed I should be grateful that it wasn’t Lucifer in there. Small comfort.

It didn’t escape my notice that neither of them had said a chastising word to me since I’d regained consciousness. Right about now they were usually laying on the guilt trip because of whatever stupid thing I’d done to get myself into this situation. I gave myself a moment to brace for their answers.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked. “For a second there, it was like I didn’t have any control over my powers at all.”

Raphael sighed long.

“You’re really freaking me out right now,” I told them.

Michael turned away from the window and stepped up beside Raphael. Even the tall ceilings in this place couldn’t dwarf his majestic frame.

“Raphael has searched for the root cause of your breakdown,” Michael said. “He has not been able to find it.”

I cocked my head to the side. Raphael was a world-class diagnostician. The original, in fact. If he couldn’t find anything wrong with me, wasn’t that a good sign? He shook his head when I posed the question.

“No, little one. The reason I can’t pinpoint the problem is that it’s not localised. It appears to be an issue with...all of you.”

I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. Everything was still fuzzy. But when it finally sank in, I deflated like the pillow I was choking in my arms.

“The Angelical?” I asked.

Michael nodded. “At least that’s where we think the issue might stem from.”

It made sense. It was about time things caught up with me. Somehow, I just convinced myself there would be no consequences to speaking words no human should hear. Hmm. I was an optimist. Who knew?

“I suppose it’s a little too late to stop using them.”

Raphael straightened. “It couldn’t hurt.”

I lay back heavily. “He’s still under lock and key?”

“Lucifer is very much secured.”

I smashed my fist against the mattress. I was tough like that. “I’m so sick of being at his mercy!” I snapped. “There has to be a way to destroy him!”

“If it could be done, we would have already done so,” Michael said. “But the ramifications of unmaking a seraph would destroy your world and possibly the other dimensions around it.”

“Surely you can do something!”

Their silence was answer enough. Not for the first time, I wanted to beat my fists against the wall. I would settle for kicking the snot out of Lucifer’s comatose body, but I doubted they would look too kindly on that. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” I told them.

“I know it’s hard,” Raphael said. “But you can’t allow yourself to lose hope.”

“How can I lose something I never had?”

I wished Azrael was here. Of all the archangels, Azrael would be less inclined to have an issue with me going postal on his brother. But he’d been unusually quiet lately. The last time I’d tried to check in, he’d sighed heavily and told me that the souls were restless and numerous. I hadn’t liked the sound of that, but I had problems of my own to contend with. Like how I was going to do the impossible and ice Lucifer.

The problem was that I was severely under resourced. The only real books I had access to were the ones at Bloodline or the ones Basil and Andrei were able to procure. I had to be doubly sketchy with Basil because if he caught wind of me trying to do something dangerous, that would be the end of it.

“I need access to the archives,” I told the archangels. “I’m done stealing books from the Academies.” Plural. What books I couldn’t find at Bloodline, I got Andrei to lift from Nightblood. It was an inefficient system. These supernaturals really needed to get on board the eBook train. Lugging around their tomes was backbreaking.

I could tell by the way Michael’s face clouded over that he didn’t approve of me sneaking around either. Well, tough. If they weren’t going to do something about the black sheep in their family, I would have to do it.

“What would you hope to find?” Michael asked.

“Anything other than nothing,” I told him.

Raphael tugged at my foot. “I’m afraid you search for something that doesn’t exist.”

I threw my arms in the air. “Then what would you have me do? Run away and hide until I’m old and wrinkled?”

His solemn expression told me that was exactly what he thought I should do. “You are Lucifer’s best chance of freedom,” Michael continued. “If you would remain cloistered, he would have no avenue of escape.”

I was about to contradict him when a figure winked into existence beside Michael and did it for me. “And what would happen after Alessia is gone?” Azrael asked. Hallelujah! “We would be back to the beginning. You know he will not rest until he has broken free.”

Azrael surveyed me with an odd tug on his lips. Like he was trying not to smile in case it encouraged me. “We run the risk of his next scion being more susceptible.”

I swallowed hard. As much as it rubbed me like sandpaper that I had Lucifer’s blood, I hated the idea that if I died, he would repeat the process until he found someone to release him. If that happened, my ancestors would have died for nothing. From what I had gathered, the Soul Sisterhood had assassinated any of the past scions who showed signs of being susceptible to Lucifer’s will. None of them had had a prophecy hanging over their heads.

“This is a dangerous road,” Raphael said.

“All roads are dangerous,” Azrael reminded him. “You are on precarious ground yourself, brother.”

My head bowed at his reminder. It was bad enough that I had the prophecy to contend with. Kai’s constant battering at me from the bond was the last straw. I felt the world around me waver as I tried to blink back hot tears. “Alessia,” Raphael said.

I balled the blanket in my left hand. “I’m trying to break the bond.” My voice was wet. “He won’t leave me alone!”

I felt the caress of Azrael’s power along my cheek before the air popped twice. He and Michael left me alone with Raphael. The bed dipped where the seraph shifted his weight. I heard the scrape of wood on stone. How the frame didn’t break was beyond me. Raphael reached out to clasp his enormous hands around mine.

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” he said.

I wanted to box his ears. When I glanced up, I could tell he’d heard my thoughts because he was smiling. A single tear beaded down my cheek. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

“Malachi has been through more than anyone should for one so young,” Raphael said. “He...neither of you, should have to give up any more.”

My lips quivered. Raphael squeezed my hand.

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine.” He raised a brow at me. We both knew I was lying. I sniffed. “How many people do you know find their soul mate in high school anyway?”

I would bet plenty. But right now, time was my lifeline. Chances were my life would end violently and shortly. But I hoped time would heal enough that Kai could be happy one day.

I almost shrieked when Raphael moved to gather me in his arms. It was like being enveloped by a big teddy-bear. I dug my fingernails into my palm to stop myself from bursting into tears. The soothing glow of Raphael’s power settled over me. It manifested in a dark, forest green that softened the edges of my grief. “You are Lucifer’s worst mistake,” Raphael spoke against my hair. “One day soon, he will regret it.” And then, when I glanced up: “I do not fear the veil.”

That was okay. I had enough fear for the both of us. His eyes flicked to the door. “Tell him.”

I had a feeling his power had been the only thing keeping Kai from the room. “Why don’t you?”

We both knew the answer. It was bad enough that I knew the secret of the interconnectedness between Kai and Raphael. I hadn’t breathed a word to anyone, and it would stay that way. To tell Kai would be like cutting his wings and asking him to fly. It wasn’t knowledge anyone should be privy to. I just didn’t know how else I could justify to that idiot that we couldn’t work.

“I’ll figure something out,” I pressed. Raphael gave me a disbelieving nod. He disappeared at the same time the door burst open. Two bodies rolled into the room. I saw Sophie for the briefest second before Kai flicked the tip of her nose and she disappeared.

“Hey!” she shouted from outside the room. Kai slammed the door shut. Green light chased around the outline of the door, sealing it.

Before I had a chance to protest, Kai was all up in my face. Would it have killed him not to be so heart-stoppingly gorgeous? I wasn’t asking for much. A zit. A bad hair day. A scar...no! Not a scar. Don’t focus on the scar above his left brow.

Kai’s dark blond hair was tipped golden like he’d been drenched in sunlight. What set my teeth on edge was that I didn’t have to guess why he was almost glowing. Thanks to this stupid half-bond of his, for two weeks, whenever I closed my eyes at night, I scented coconut and lime on sun-kissed skin. I heard the low rumble of his chuckle that masked the simmering determination of a patient hunter. While I’d been trying unsuccessfully to break the bond, that jackass had been on a vacation.

I tried to draw a circle but that proved futile. My magic wouldn’t manifest at all. That settled it. No more Angelical for me.

Kai sat down heavily beside me. He reached out a hand that I promptly slapped away as I scuttled back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He just grinned at me. The bed dipped as he uncurled and stalked me. My back was suddenly pressed up against the headboard. Kai folded his ridiculously big body around me, hemming me in with his palms splayed on the wall either side of my head. The black T-shirt he wore inched up his bicep, exposing just the slightest hint of the tattoo on his shoulder. I breathed through my mouth in an effort not to inhale his scent. His gaze flicked to my parted lips.

A smile threatened to tip the corner of his mouth. “What were you doing at the hospital?” he asked.

I tried to count nymphs in my head to keep my temper in check. One nymph. Two nymphs. Three. He smirked. “Get out of my way,” I snapped.

His head dipped down to block out the light. It cast shadows over his masculine features. For a second, the charming mask he wore gave way. Something dark lurked beneath his unrelenting gaze. The green of the bond sparked inside me, attempting to break my resolve and force me to accept an intimate connection that would surely kill me. Or at least I would wish I was dead. My bottom lip trembled.

He studied my face as though drinking in the small details. “I missed you,” he murmured, giving life to the unspoken tension between us. The air felt supercharged. Every inch of my skin was oversensitive. Like he was rubbing me raw with just a look.

It occurred to me that I was trapped. The worst part was that I didn’t appear to be in any hurry to escape. The complacency snapped me out of his hypnotic pull.

“I said, get out of my way.”

Kai accepted my hostility and raised me a side of arrogance. His finger grazed my cheek. I jumped a mile and smacked my head onto his chest. His arms circled around me. Oh hell no!

Without thinking, I smashed my elbow into his gut. Ow! A jarring pain spiralled up my arm. I was getting really sick of being at a physical disadvantage. His laugh made it all the more abrasive. Kai reached out and tipped my chin up to meet his gaze. His hand splayed on my rib cage. The heat seeped through my thin cotton shirt and settled into the bond, reinforcing it. Angelfire spiralled through me, bathing the bond in comfort and a heady sense of belonging. It took away the remnants of nausea that coated my throat. The magic revelled in his presence. Despite my best efforts at resistance, I might have sighed audibly.

I couldn’t help studying his broad hands. They looked so strong and capable. Yet he was always so gentle with me. There was a small bubbled scar that ran from the knuckle of his thumb to the base of his nail. I frowned, sure it hadn’t been there before summer.

“How did you get that?” The question slipped out. My mind couldn’t reconcile the idea that anything could leave a scar on Malachi Pendragon.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said. “Even after you passed out, you wouldn’t let go of the circle around part of the hospital. Why?”

Mayday! I tried to jerk away but he held firm.

A serpentine smile danced across his lips as he cupped my face in both hands. And then, in a feat that shot pure excited terror through me, I heard his voice in my mind. I told you I would come for you, Blue.

I slapped his hands off me as alarm bells rang in my head. For him to be able to speak to me telepathically meant that yet another piece of the bond had slotted into place. Panic sharpened my tongue.

“Only until I can figure out how to eject you,” I growled. “If you had done your job properly, the demon wouldn’t have been at the hospital in the first place.”

Even for me it was a new level of bitchy. Without the bond, the sentiment could have been devastating. I had few talents but half my lifetime on the streets had taught me to lie convincingly. Duty was his kryptonite. For me to question his ability to protect was like somebody questioning my loyalty: unforgiveable.

The damn bond negated everything.

Safety was an illusion that I couldn’t afford but being near Kai came frighteningly close. Kai latched on to my hip and yanked me forward. The whole world faded as he curled one arm around my waist. The light stubble on his chin grazed my ear as his lowered his head. “One of these days,” he rasped, sparking electricity in every nerve in my body, “that mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble.”

I just couldn’t be around him too long. We were like sandpaper rubbing against each other. Eventually the sharp bits would be filed away. It would only take so long before the snark wore itself out and I was terrified of what might happen afterwards.

The way Kai’s green eyes sparkled made me think that was exactly what he was angling for. My throat locked up. Nope. This wasn’t happening. I squirmed and ducked under his arm, then hopped out of the bed.

“If you’re not leaving then I am!”

He chuckled. “Okay, relax. Wouldn’t want you to get your panties in a bunch.” The flare of green in my chest furnished me with a series of images that told me he’d been thinking other things about my panties. I was going to punch him for real. If I had magic at my disposal right now, he would be on the ground. Kai seemed to find the whole thing highly amusing.

“Could you please leave?” I asked, the last of my bravado seeping away.

He raked his gaze over me one last time. I curled my toes to stop from shivering. “You can’t run forever, Blue.”

I blinked and he was gone. Collapsing back on the bed, I felt more worn out from that interaction than from my battle with the demon. With him went the magical lock on the door. It flew open and Sophie staggered inside like she’d been banging on it this whole time. She took one look at my face and blew out a breath. “You’re screwed,” she said. “Pun intended.”

“Don’t even go there.”

We’d had this conversation a thousand times in the last few weeks. It never ended satisfactorily. Sophie knelt on the bed and hugged me.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

I grabbed Gabriel’s Key from my back pocket and slipped it onto my finger. A single thought and we were transported from the recovery wing in Seraphina to Basil’s living room. I heard the sound of puppies barking before we fully materialised.

As soon as I turned solid, one chocolate and two tan-coloured Labrador puppies converged on me. “What the hell?” I screamed. Wet noses sniffed in private places.

Nanna was only a second behind them. She had a black puppy under each armpit. “They’re everywhere!” she screeched.

Sophie nudged a tan puppy away from the base of Basil’s prized leather armchair.

“What’s going on?” I shouted back at Nanna. But then I finally noticed the roses. Hundreds of blood-red roses in all kinds of vases on almost every surface in the room. It was like a florist and a pet shop threw up in here.

“I’ll give you one guess,” Nanna wailed.

I was going to kill Kai for real.

4

“This is too much!” Nanna said, when we finally rounded all five puppies into the living room and confined them with the door closed. “It has to stop.”

“What do you suggest I do?” I asked. “He won’t listen!”

Nanna arched a brow at me. “For starters, you can forget about keeping any of them!”

“C’mon, Nan!”

She raised a finger in the air in front of her. Classic Nanna. We’d had the same argument about me getting a pet my whole childhood before she was institutionalised. “For another, you can get that smitten look off your face if you’re going to have a chance at rebuffing his advances.”

I scowled. “I don’t have any look on my face.”

From her spot on the couch, I saw Sophie bite her bottom lip and turn away so I couldn’t see her laughing. It occurred to me then that I was sitting on the floor with puppies crawling all over me. They were just so small and soft and cute....

I got up abruptly and tried not to melt as the puppies tumbled away comically. “You were saying?” Sophie asked.

I tapped my foot as I counted to ten. “How do I get rid of them?”

“Beats me,” Nanna said. “I don’t understand how they’re here in the first place. Mortal animals shouldn’t be able to get past the wards of the Reserve. At least that’s what Shayla told me. Maybe we can ask –”

Something struck me in the middle of her speech. I marched to the mirror by the front door with puppies trailing behind me. They nipped playfully at my heels. I slapped my hand on the mirror. “Yolanda Egan, please.”

I didn’t know why I was always polite to the MirrorNet personality. It wasn’t like it understood. The mirror swirled and Yolanda appeared on the other side. She was holding her cub and swaying from side to side. I saw right through it.

“This isn’t funny,” I told her.

“What isn’t, dear?”

“Yolanda!”

“Alessia!”

“What’s all the yelling?” Durin’s voice rumbled from the other room. He came into view looking rumpled and scratching at his beard. Oh great. If he was in residence, then it meant he was in on it too.

I pointed a finger at the mirror. “Cut it out!” It didn’t matter that I was giving orders to the alpha of the shifters. I was in no mood to observe social niceties.

“Ah,” Durin said. “I see you got your present.”

“I mean it!”

“Of course you do, dear,” Yolanda cooed.

I wanted to kick something but managed to restrain myself. “Listen, I’m having a hard enough time getting Kai to back off as it is. I don’t need you piling on as well. This isn’t some shifter mating ritual.”

Both of them stared back at me with innocent expressions before they broke out into laughter. I was going to pick up the mirror and smash it over their heads.

“Sweetheart,” Yolanda said, “if we don’t help him, don’t you think he’d push ahead regardless? At least this way we have some control.”

“What the hell are you even saying?” I seethed. “I don’t want to be with him. End of story. And get somebody over here to clean up this mess.”

I cut the connection before their grinning faces could raise my blood pressure higher. They took their damn sweet time sending reinforcements. It was almost dinner time before the cleanup crew arrived. The party included some of the human mates, one of them being Trey’s mum, Laila.

“Lex, honey,” she said. “You’re going to have to let go of the puppy if you want me to take him away.”

I didn’t notice until she said it that I was clutching the puppy tight to my chest while she was attempting to pull him away. I dropped my arms. She reached out and patted my cheek before stealing my puppy.

The house felt morbidly silent without them. Nanna deflated onto the couch. “What about the roses?” she asked.

“Burn them,” I told her.

“I think you mean compost,” Nanna interjected.

I shook my head emphatically. “Who knows what other spells are in them?”

Nanna got up and placed her hands on her hips. “It’s such a shame. They’re stunning.” I gave her a pinched look and she lifted her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I get it. Before I forget, two dozen or so other merchants have tried calling. The messages are in the mirror.”

Screaming into a pillow was no longer cathartic. I did it anyway.

It incensed me that my nearest and dearest were a bunch of disloyal, MirrorNet gossips. Less than an hour after I’d opened Kai’s Christmas present, the news had spread like a plague through supernatural society. Since then, I’d been receiving calls and drop-ins from every wedding vendor in all the supernatural towns. Any time I set foot in Seraphina, some stick-up-their-ass lackey managed to intercept me and try to verse me in Nephilim custom. Apparently, no did not mean no where a Nephilim bond was concerned. “From now on, just delete them all.”

“Are you sur –”

“Deadly.”

“You can’t blame them for trying,” Sophie reasoned.

“I know who I do blame, though!”

While Nanna got rid of the evidence, Sophie and I trudged up to my bedroom. Once the door was shut, Sophie rounded on me. “Which question do you want to answer first?” she said.

“Soph, I’m really tired.” I extricated myself from her and made a show of flopping limply onto the bed.

Sophie crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t give me that crap. You’ve spent half the summer moping about and the other half chucking up in the bathroom. What were you doing at Terran General?”

“You sound just like Kai!”

“With good reason.” She stalked up to the base of the bed. “The Angelical is backfiring, isn’t it?”

I sat bolt upright at the half-truth she had guessed. She shot me a smug smile. “How bad?” she asked.

I scrubbed my palm over my face. “Bad. As in catastrophic.” Maybe it was an overstatement but losing control of my magic was just about the worst thing I could think of happening. Sophie sank down onto the bed beside me.

“Mama has been in a Council meeting all night,” Sophie divulged. “I think there were some complications with cleaning up the scene in the hospital. When I left, the elite guard had just arrived.”

I groaned. “This is all I need right now.”

“Why else were you at the hospital?”

Why in the world had I chosen to make friends with all these nosy people? “Lex?”

All I did was scowl at her. She crossed her arms over her chest. “You can make that face all you like. But we’re back at school in two days and I’ll be around all the time. I’ll find out sooner or later.”

It was less threatening than she had intended. She’d gone back to Zambia for a few weeks with her parents and I’d missed her like crazy. They’d asked me to come but I’d declined because I wanted to hit the books. Being a nerd was really cramping my style.

The prospect of living together again made me insanely happy. So why was I reluctant to tell her the truth?

I curled into a ball at the base of the bed. “If I tell you, you can’t make any comments, okay?”

She nodded. I swallowed down the apprehension. Each word as I explained what I had been doing was like carving out runes on a stone. When I was done, I couldn’t decipher the expression on her face. It made me jittery. I was about to try and cover up my vulnerability with sarcasm when Sophie grabbed me in a hug that threatened to crush my lungs.

“You have absolutely no reason to be embarrassed,” she said, hitting the truth of my feelings in the centre of the target. “There’s no shame in hoping things might work out.”

She pulled away and punched me lightly on the shoulder. “That’s for not telling me to begin with and not letting me go with you.”

I pretended to rub my arm. There were other words on the tip of my tongue that I wanted so badly to share with her, but I bit them back. No matter how difficult it got, I would never tell anyone about what would happen to Raphael if Kai died.

Sophie squeezed my hand. “I want to know everything about what’s wrong with your powers.”

I ran my hand through my hair. “It’s really hard to explain. It’s like it’s fluctuating or something. One minute it’s there and the next it isn’t.”

“When did it start happening?”

“A couple of weeks after Christmas.”

“And the seraphim can’t find anything physically wrong with you?”

“Nope.”

Suddenly, I was so tired. I eyed the stack of textbooks Nanna had stacked neatly on my dresser. “Are you packed for school?”

Her face contorted. “I am not looking forward to Restricted Magic. Have you gotten your timetable yet?”

“No!” Everyone else received them last week. Mine hadn’t turned up. Truth be told, it had gotten shoved down on my list of things that needed attention.

“I’ll call Alex tomorrow,” I said. “Did you cave to Jacqueline’s request?”

She snorted. “I would rather die than be House Captain.”

I had to smile at that. With Kai and Max as well as Drake and Bradley gone, Bloodline students were campaigning heavily to be the next House Captains. Jacqueline has asked Sophie to nominate herself, but Sophie had flat-out refused. I suspected she believed she would lose badly.

“There are more reasons than one for not wanting to be House Captain,” she said. “I don’t have time to design the entrance trials with everything else happening.”

Over the course of the summer, we’d tried to do as much research as we could into the fall of the archangels and had come up with diddly squat. Our best bet was still to find Lucifer’s blade and use it to kill him. There were problems all around with that plan, though. The most immediate being containing the explosion afterwards.

But there was nothing I could do about that right now.

After Sophie left, none of my thoughts were pleasant for the rest of the evening as I packed my things ready to return to the Academy. I was just about to get into my pyjamas when Nanna called me from downstairs.

“Lex!” she said. “You’ve got visitors.”

“Haha,” I screamed out my open door. “Very funny.” She was always making up reasons to get me out of my room these days. For weeks now, I had been an unholy terror. Nobody wanted to be around me.

“She’s not joking,” Jacqueline’s voice responded. Uh oh. A visit from the headmistress this late at night was never a good sign.

But Jacqueline was the least of my problems. I stomped down the stairs to the living room to be greeted by Jacqueline’s reserved smile and Angus’s stoic stare. Basil was also sitting on the edge of the armchair looking slightly harassed.

“I didn’t do it,” I blurted.

Jacqueline’s smile turned amused, but it didn’t reach her eyes. I hedged my bets. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” she said. “The Council have asked us to escort you to a meeting that requires your presence.”

Nanna interjected. “It’s eight-thirty at night. Can’t this wait until the morning?” Or not at all, I wanted to add.

“No,” Angus said.

Nanna’s left eye twitched. Here we go. I braced for Hurricane Nanna. Luckily, Basil sensed things were about to go south. “I’ll take her.”

“That’s not the point,” Nanna snapped. “They can’t just sweep in here in the middle of the night and drag her off whenever they feel like it! Besides, you look like a sneeze could bowl you over.”

Angus crossed his arms. “With all due respect, Bethany –”

Nanna turned her back on him. “Don’t talk to me about respect, you maniac. I haven’t forgotten what you did to her in the Unity Games! I have half a mind to –”

I pressed down frantically on her toes with the heel of my foot when Angus’s features darkened. “It’s fine. I’ll go with them.”

Nanna bristled. “Well, then I’m coming too.”

Basil peeled himself off the armchair and stood up as well. Angus’s nostrils flared. On him, that was akin to stamping his feet and tearing his hair out. “There really is no need.”

Jacqueline waved her hand at him. “It’s quite alright. What’s another couple of people anyway?”

Angus swallowed the harsh words I bet he was going to bark. Finally, he nodded and gave Basil coordinates for a portal. Angus walked through first. While I waited my turn, I hissed at Jacqueline.

“Why are the elite guard here?”

She gave me a bland expression. “I believe you may have complained to Angus about the restrictions at Bloodline and how it’s stifling your ability to learn to use your powers to defend yourself. And that the Council are always scheming for your untimely demise. After the investigation, did you think that was going to go down well?”

Oh that. I’d just come back from the dead and found out about not being able to have kids. I was saying all kinds of crap. How was I supposed to know he’d take me seriously? Jacqueline didn’t buy the excuse.

“A word of advice? Always take an elite guard seriously.”

She was preaching to the choir.

5

I blamed the complete lack of foresight on being tired. It didn’t hit me that I’d be going to see the Council until I landed on the other side of the portal and came face to face with a room full of people. That wasn’t the problem. I’d faced down the Council enough times now to know how this rodeo worked. What tripped me up was the blaring of the bond as it reacted to Kai’s presence. It was a low hum of awareness at the best of times, but when he was close, the damn thing spasmed completely out of control. It took me precious seconds to contain the flare of green that washed over my senses. By then I’d taken an involuntary step towards him.

I hadn’t even noticed until Basil clamped his hand on my shoulder. He was the only one who was still incensed that Kai had unknowingly bonded with me. Whether or not the bond had saved my life wasn’t the point of contention. They had definitely had words behind my back because Basil bristled whenever anyone mentioned Kai. But when I’d asked about it, Basil had just muttered something about plausible deniability and hating Nephilim before swiftly exiting the room.

Ever since the investigation, Council meetings were being “watched over” by the elite guard. The stick-up-his-butt expression on Orin’s face left no doubt about his feeling in that regard. Rather than the usual interrogation bench that greeted me at these “meetings,” the room had been set up to resemble a conference room. An enormous rectangular boardroom table sat in the middle of the room. Kai leaned on the table, his arms gripping the edge loosely. My jaw clamped hard as his lips pulled up into a smirk.

I turned around to find the same shit-eating grin on Durin’s face. He was standing in the middle of the room speaking to Griff and Dorian, one of the shifter elite guards. I gave the alpha the stink eye that only made him grin wider. I was ready to follow up with a rude gesture, but Nora grabbed me in a hug that mirrored Sophie’s earlier choke hold.

“We need to put a magical leash on you,” she said when she released me.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying,” Nanna agreed.

Behind Nora’s shoulder, I spotted somebody I hadn’t been expecting. Declan Summers nodded solemnly at me. The grim set of his face was an omen that poured apprehension over me. Now what?

My presence caused a hush to sweep through the room. Jacqueline ushered me to the head of the table. She pulled out the chair on the left and took a seat on my right.

Basil sat on my left with Nanna next to him. One by one the seats filled until the table was full. Rather than allow myself to become unnerved by them all staring, I busied myself adjusting my chair. It wouldn’t budge. Far be it for me to be comfortable in their presence.

Somebody cleared their throat. I glanced up to find myself the focus of everybody in the room. The whole supernatural council was in attendance. Besides Angus and Dorian, there were four other elite guards stationed around the table. One was Ivan, the head of the Midnight Guard, the vampiric arm of the elite guards. There were two women, one a Fae with ice blonde hair and a dark-eyed shifter woman sitting beside Orin Harcourt down at the far end of the table opposite me.

It was the man sitting next to Nora who caught my attention. He didn’t bear the usual markings of the Fae or vampires and I didn’t sense a shifter heart in him. Probably a mage then. His eyes were a deep golden colour ringed in a corona of black. He wore a long-sleeved T-shirt even though it was relatively warm. My eyes tracked over the back of his right wrist where I thought I spotted scales before he retracted his arm into the sleeve.

Jacqueline tapped my arm. It forced my attention back to the table as a whole. Victoria’s puckered mouth was hanging slightly open like she’d been speaking while I was spaced out. Oops.

“As I was saying,” she said, “we’ve run into a slight difficulty with securing the scene at Terran Hospital. They say their wards were impeccable. It was held together by the same spells that created the soul gate. Yet somehow a demon managed to not only infiltrate the surrounding area, but it also managed to break through the wards. We need to know how.”

It was obvious in their line of questioning that they shared Jessica’s chagrin. My circles had always been strong enough to withstand a demon siege. Why hadn’t they this time?

Feeling like I was being backed into a corner, I had no choice but to offer up my vulnerability. “The seraphim believe the Angelical is affecting my powers. For a little while there, I had no control of it.”

“Like what happened in the ocean while you were at Terran Academy?” Walter asked.

“Sort of. That time it was an overabundance of power.” I glanced down at my own hands, feeling somehow betrayed. “This time it was a complete lack of control.”

“Hmm,” Megan said. “I assume they’ve cautioned you against continuing to use the Angelical?”

All I could do was nod.

“What can you tell us about the girl the demon was after?” Victoria asked.

I scratched my ear. “Ahh…” Truth be told, I had forgotten about Angel Girl. There was only so much a person’s mind could take and I was at my limit. Still, I tried to dredge up the memory. “There’s not much to tell. She seemed human and suitably terrified.”

“You said somebody spoke to you in your mind. Why?” Ivan stated.

How long was a piece of string? “Because I’m nice?”

“Alessia.” Angus gave a long-suffering sigh. “It would be helpful if you could keep your answers factual.”

“I don’t know why,” I said, trying to keep the petulance from my voice. “It just happened. Don’t you think I would stop it from happening if I knew how? Do you think I like it when random people invade my mind without my consent?”

That one I shot directly at Kai. He returned my warning with a wink. In my mind, I imagined sailing over the table and punching him in the face. It was oddly unsatisfying.

“We’re not here to question your motives,” Ivan said. “We only need the facts.”

“I don’t know what more you want me to say,” I shot back. “I already told Raphael everything.”

“Did you get a sense that there was anything odd about the girl?” Scott Brandis wanted to know.

My top lip curled at the thought of speaking to him. Being interrogated by the elite guard wasn’t so bad. Maybe I had a soft spot for soldiers. But speaking to the Nephilim wasn’t on my list of fun things after what happened last semester. The last thing I wanted to do was throw another girl under the bus. It was obvious there was something not quite right about her. “No,” I said, deciding that less was more in this instance.

“Are you sure, lass?” Durin piped in. He leaned forward to block out the Nephilim sitting to his right.

“Yes.” They all grumbled and spoke in low voices to each other. That was the problem with being human in a room full of supernaturals. They could whisper and still communicate while I strained to hear. “What’s wrong?”

Angus nodded at Orin. “The girl can’t be wiped,” Orin said. “We’ve tried several different tactics to remove or replace her memories of the attack, but she has resisted them all.” Wiping was the supernaturals’ top tactic to keeping their existence a secret. The Fae and the vamps were best at it. They worked any human witnesses until the memories either disappeared or became like a dream you couldn’t quite grasp.

I looked to Nora for confirmation and found Declan with a small smile on his lips. Score one for the humans, I guess. Though at the end of the day, living with the knowledge of supernatural society was going to be difficult. Seconds later, something dawned on me.

“You want to try and integrate her.”

Declan nodded emphatically. Victoria’s shrivelled frown was less enthusiastic. “There’s still too much uncertainty,” she said.

“What would you like to do instead?” Declan snapped. “Keep her in a cell until you can work out how to wipe her? How long will that take? You’ve had people working on her day and night.”

The enormity of what he said hit me. Memories of how frightened I’d been when I’d stumbled into this world washed over me. My brows knitted together. “Did you try to have my mind wiped?”

Orin snickered. “Of course not. You resisted a direct attack from an angel blade. We couldn’t risk removing your memories and letting you run wild in the world with that kind of power.”

Was I supposed to be flattered by that concession? “So you want to keep this poor girl in a cage because she’s unfortunate enough not to have powers?”

Megan stepped in then. “Let’s not forget that she’s been marked by demons. We can’t very well send her back into the human world to be a target.” And because they wanted to keep her if there was something useful about her.

“There’s only one clear choice,” Declan said.

The whole table paused, their features showing a range of emotions from disdain to resignation. Finally, Angus nodded at Jacqueline. “Given that Alessia was the last human to be integrated into our world, we’re asking you to take Emily on as well. It would be less disruptive.” Translation: Bloodline was the least prejudiced of the Academies.

Jacqueline’s hands threaded together in front of her. “Bloodline is still recovering from the aftermath of the Unity Games. We will need additional resourcing. Our guards are stretched as it is.”

“We’ll arrange suitable replacements,” Angus said. “For now, our top priority is making sure Emily doesn’t upset the balance.” He turned to me. “It would be helpful if we could have your cooperation. She will need human companions to settle her.”

Great. A babysitting job. As if I didn’t have a million things going on at the moment. But I found myself agreeing nonetheless. I’d gotten lucky and Sophie had taken me under her wing. Now was the time to pay it forward.

I thought the meeting had ended when the rest of the Council got up to leave, but when I tried to move, Jacqueline held on to my seat. “What’s going on?” I asked.

Angus motioned for Kai to come closer. My half-hearted attempt at breaking free from Jacqueline’s grip turned into a fully fledged attempt at escape. She rooted the chair in place. If Jacqueline were a shifter, she’d be a shark in fire-engine-red lipstick.

Kai sat down beside Nanna. He had the audacity to settle his arm around the back of her chair. She paused for a moment, caught between loyalties. He leaned down and spoke quiet words in her ear. Lines formed around her lips where she was failing to keep the smile under wraps. Traitor!

When only the elite guard were left, Angus finally filled me in. “We’re aware you’ve been making enquiries into the Popescu massacre,” he said. “And that you’ve been acquiring reference books illegally.”

He took my silence as confirmation. “The Popescu matter was settled a long time ago,” Ivan said. “We don’t need old grudges dug up. Especially not now while things are so uncertain.”

“No offence,” I said evenly, “but I’d rather not take your word for it. Things have a nasty habit of jumping out of the closet and trying to kill me around here. So you’ll understand if I want to be sure. Also, I made a promise to Andrei that I’d raise his family to find out the truth.”

“What makes you so sure you haven’t been told the truth?”

“Past experience?”

Angus regarded me for the longest time. His physical appearance was no older than mid-thirties but something ancient lingered behind his eyes. A wariness that spoke of untold hardships. “There will be some who will create obstacles for you.”

“No kidding!” Victoria had already blasted Andrei and me because we were ruffling feathers in the vampire community. They just wanted to bury the past and move on. “Makes me think there’s definitely something going on.”

Over Angus’s shoulder, Ivan sat like a marble statue. In direct contrast to Angus’s sharp features, Ivan was heavy-set and darkly brooding. The air felt like it literally stopped moving around him. I swallowed, averting my gaze in case he decided I was too much of a pain in the ass. “You insist on performing a summoning?” Ivan asked. “That is dangerous magic.”

“All of my magic is dangerous. I can’t just sit quietly and pretend it isn’t.”

“Agreed,” Ivan said. If Jacqueline weren’t still holding my chair, I might have fallen off it. As it was, her back went rigid.

“Come again?” For the briefest second, I thought I saw light spark in Angus’s eyes. Jacqueline opened her mouth, but he forestalled her.

“We understand you’re protective of her,” Angus said. His gaze flicked to Kai. “But we agree that Alessia can’t be kept sidelined while we wait for the demons to show their hand.”

“We can’t just allow her free rein either,” Jacqueline said.

“I’m sitting right here.” I was categorically ignored.

“If we continue to take a defensive stance, we will be overrun,” Ivan added.

Kai leaned forward. The arm around Nanna dropped as he brought his hands together in front of him. “What do you want?”

The frost in his voice sent chills racing down my spine. In the connection of the bond, I felt his protective instincts flaring to life. Basil’s boot landed on my toes. He pressed down and pretended to stifle a yawn to cover up his eye roll. I pinched his thigh under the table because now I was fighting not to laugh.

“We’ve known for a time that the demons are mobilising themselves,” Angus said. “There have been reports all over the world that populations of demons are gathering into cohesive units unlike anything we’ve seen since the assault on Seraphina. If Jacob Buchanan is back in the picture, it’s safe to assume that they’re planning something. Their numbers far outweigh ours. If they possess the humans as well, we will be overrun. It is likely that the demons will factor Alessia into their plans. If anything happens, we want to know about it as a matter of urgency.”

Kai didn’t respond. He sat there like a seething boulder, waiting for the penny to drop.

“We would be stupid not to hone Alessia’s gifts to our advantage,” Angus said. “She’s proven she’s more than capable of taking care of herself.”

Even Basil’s sensibilities were ruffled by that statement. “No thanks to any of you,” he shot back. “She almost died because of your antics in the Unity Games. Now you want her to do what exactly?”

Angus leaned back in his chair. “The demons are predisposed to seek her out whether she is forsaken or not. Her bone witch abilities allow her to move unseen –”

“You mean to use her as bait.” Kai reared up. In reality, nothing much happened besides the cording of muscles in his shoulders but the sweep of aggression both physically and in the bond was staggering.

“She would be protected at all times.”

“No,” Kai bit out.

“You want to lock her up and throw away the key when her powers could be the greatest asset we have against the demons,” Ivan said.

“You’re using her for your own motives.”

“We are using her for what she was born to do,” Angus said. “You envision an ivory tower. I suspect Alessia doesn’t want to be a princess.”

Whoa! In the cold light of day, I had to admit I was more wicked witch than damsel princess. But still, way to stomp on my illusions.

Angus returned Kai’s hostile stare before shifting his attention to me. Basil leaned in and invaded my personal space to break Angus’s line of sight. “No,” Basil reiterated. He shook my arm for good measure.

“Yes,” I said, ignoring the death glares from my so-called protectors. “But I have my own terms.”

“Name them.”

“Blue!”

I absolutely refused to acknowledge him. “I’m done skulking in the shadows trying to find information and sneaking into places. I want free access to everything.” I turned to Jacqueline then and cringed at the stark lines of her face. “And I want the freedom to access it at any time.”

Jacqueline was not a happy camper. “You’re a Bloodline student. You’re not permitted to leave the premises unchecked.”

“I think we can make an exception under the circumstances,” Angus said. Jacqueline’s jaw turned to stone.

“How do I explain this to the board?”

“Remind them we’re at war,” Ivan said. “Their bureaucracy is superseded. If they will not comply, we will make them.”

Note to self: Next time I wanted something, tattle to the elite guards.

“And what happens when her experiments go awry?” Basil said.

Angus pierced Basil with the full force of his Fae haughtiness. Jacqueline copped the same. “When did our policy become about coddling our young?”

“She’s human,” Jacqueline reminded them.

“You’re not functioning objectively,” Angus shot back. “You’ve allowed your affection for her to cloud your judgement.”

The cuffs on Jacqueline’s wrist began to emit a golden glow. “And you’ve allowed your duty to override your empathy.” His right brow twitched.

Holy shit. They were going to come to blows. I waved my arms out in front of them and snapped my fingers. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I know you all mean well, but I’m sick of sitting around waiting for an anvil to drop on my head. If Hell wants a fight, then I want to bring it to them.”

Never mind that the prophecy distinctly stated that I would be on the wrong side. Doing something was miles above twiddling my thumbs.

Jacqueline wouldn’t be dissuaded. “Her timetable is full.”

That was news to me!

“Then free it up,” Angus said.

Nanna shook her head. “She’s already in enough danger as it is. I want checks in place.”

“What kind of checks?” Ivan asked.

“She is to be guarded at all times –”

“We have already made those contingencies,” Angus said.

“–by Malachi.”

I choked on my own spit. “Nanna!”

Kai beamed. Before I could leap out of my chair to slug him, Jacqueline restrained me by grabbing hold of my top.

Angus nodded. “That is acceptable. We will send a backup just in case Malachi is indisposed. Tyler knows the Bloodline terrain.”

“No!” I said.

He surveyed me with slightly creased brows. Like he couldn’t understand why I was making a fuss. Argh! “It is strategically sound,” he said. I’d give him a strategic knuckle sandwich if Jacqueline would just let go of me. “He knows you best and the bond will alert him if something goes wrong.”

One nymph. Two nymphs. Three nymphs. As I counted, I imagined what the nymphs would do in this instance. No doubt somebody’s eyes would get scratched out. I folded my fingers into fists. “The stupid bond shouldn’t even be in place,” I spoke through gritted teeth. “It’s only there through coercion.”

Angus cocked his head to the side. Kai chuckled at the elite guard’s confusion. “She doesn’t know,” Angus said. Smug was too light a word to describe the way Kai balanced his cheek on his fist like he knew a secret I didn’t.

“What?” I glanced between them. When Kai’s lips remained sealed, Angus coughed.

“Alessia, a Nephilim bond isn’t a compulsion. If you wanted to remove it, you can at any time.”

My jaw dropped open. If Kai winked at me one more time, I was going to run him through with Morning Star. “What are you talking about?” I stuttered. “I’ve tried to remove the damn thing! It doesn’t work.”

Angus’s lips pressed together. He shrugged as though bored. Beside me, Basil’s top lip was curled in disgust. By this point, my face was flaming as comprehension exploded in my head. Lucifer’s voice filled my mind.

“You would have said yes,” he said. “The bond. You would have eventually agreed to it.”

Had I? Was it possible that I’d unwittingly latched onto the bond? Was the reason I couldn’t remove it because I didn’t want to? I glanced inside me at the pools of magic and the answer came back resounding in aquamarine. Like a covert operative, the hedge magic had assimilated the bond. To remove it, I would have to somehow convince myself that I didn’t want that jackass. I was made up of ninety-percent stubbornness, but this might be beyond me.

“No matter,” Ivan said, choosing to ignore the fact I’d turned shell-shocked. “Bond or not, if you choose to give your services to protecting our world, you will need to be guarded. This is war, not playtime. If you two can’t work together objectively, then we may as well lay down our arms now.”

How the hell was I supposed to get out of that now without looking unprofessional? The answer was that I couldn’t. That’s how I ended up saddled with that Nephilim jackass as a bodyguard.

I almost tripped over my own feet when I heard Kai’s voice in my head as I was about to step through the portal Basil created.

Do you want to break the news to Sophie that you’re getting a new roommate? he projected. He might have been chuckling when he teleported, but in the depths of the bond, I could tell that if he got his way, that was exactly what would happen.

6

We landed back inside Basil’s living room. Jacqueline bailed me up on the spot. “We need to settle your timetable.” I guess I wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight then.

We retired to Basil’s office. There were papers everywhere. Not to mention blueprints of the newly constructed Dominion prison. “Umm… I’m not sure we’re supposed to see these,” I said.

“Avert your gaze,” Jacqueline told me. She unceremoniously swiped everything besides a notepad and round mirror from Basil’s table into a pile and dumped it on the couch. I took the guest seat in front as she sat down behind Basil’s desk. Placing a finger on the mirror, she spoke her name. “Transfer Alessia Hastings’ timetable,” she commanded.

The mirror hummed. Before my very eyes, markings began to appear on the notepad. It took a few minutes, but my timetable was all there when it was done. Jacqueline peered at the notepad, her expression grim. Finally, she pushed the timetable over to me. “They are nothing if not efficient,” she noted.

I inspected the timetable and spotted what she was referring to. There had always been a thin red line around my weekend slots that had now disappeared. It meant I would be able to go anywhere, be anywhere on the weekends without Bloodline being alerted to my disappearance.

Jacqueline was not amused by my smile. “These safeguards are in place for your protection,” she reminded me. I blinked slowly but wouldn’t lower my gaze.

“I know. In any other circumstances, you know I wouldn’t push.” For all of my railing against authority, I trusted that Jacqueline and the professors had my best interest at heart. But good intentions weren’t going to hold back the tide of the impending war.

Jacqueline blew out a long breath and forced a smile. “I wish you had more time.”

“I’m human,” I reminded her. “This is all the time I get.”

After a beat, she nodded and cleared her throat. “No electives this year,” she said. “Third year is a core curriculum year.”

As she spoke, I glanced down the list of subjects. Advanced Potions and Alchemy. Herbology. Restricted Magic. Supernatural Species Integration. Arcan – wait, what?

“What the heck is Supernatural Species Integration?” I stammered.

Jacqueline grimaced. “It’s a history of supernatural cross-breeding and how that has played out in our society.”

Oh dear me. “It’s sex education.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

I raised a brow that could have hit the roof. “I hate to break it to you, but I think that ship has well and truly sailed.” I wasn’t sure if the board was walking around with glamours over their eyes, but the many times I’d turned a darkened corner in the library to catch a couple overtly species integrating couldn’t be counted on both hands.

“It’s not just about sex,” Jacqueline insisted.

“Whatever you say.”

I ignored the pursing of her lips. “Why are these squares opaque?” I squinted. “I’ve already taken third-year Arcane Magic.”

“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about,” she said. “Bruce and I think it’s about time you got some personal tutelage. We’ve kept you in the lower-year classes as long as we can. Your abilities are beyond anything the Academy can reach in its usual syllabus. Now it’s time for you to branch out.”

“With Professor Mortimer?”

She nodded. A lump formed in my throat. “Is he okay with that?”

Jacqueline took my hand and squeezed it. “He doesn’t blame you for what happened.”

“He doesn’t need to.” I had been blaming myself for months.

Jacqueline shook her head. “They set you up,” she reminded me. “It’s not your fault.”

Logic. Sometimes I wish it would do what it was meant to and cut through the irrational guilt. My life would be so much simpler. Jacqueline cleared her throat. “Given that the elite guard seem hell bent on dangling you in front of the forces of Hell, I want to make it clear that you are to be vigilant at all times.”

“I’m not going to run into snapping jaws if that’s what you mean.”

When I was done glancing over the timetable, Jacqueline pocketed the piece of paper.

“There will be a copy waiting for you upon your return to the Academy,” she informed me. As I tested the returned strength of my circles before going to bed, I couldn’t help thinking that even though I’d been given free rein to research anything I wanted, I might not be prepared for what I would learn.

* * *

Sophie and I were in the middle of unpacking our luggage into our dorm room the next night when there was a knock on the door. Thinking it was Diana, I opened it to find Isla standing there with the Evil Three behind her.

“You shall not pass,” I said, barring their way. “I told you I’d vote however I please!”

Rather than push her way in, Isla leaned on the doorjamb. “This is payback isn’t it?” she said. “It’s punishment.”

“You know what’s punishment? You calling me every five minutes over the summer and harassing me to vote for you. I get it, you want to be House Captain.”

“What’s the problem? Do you want James to be Captain of Obsidian House? That hulking idiot with a pea for a brain?”

Behind me, Sophie was attempting to stifle her laughter. Easy for her. Trey was in Sapphire House, and as a predatory shifter, he was a natural successor for Max.

Isla was right on both counts. James was one of Ariel’s Nephilim. He spent a lot of time on the lawn outside the dorms playing touch football with his buddies. He was an idiot. And I was so punishing Isla by withholding my vote until the last minute. Truth be told, I didn’t care who was House Captain. A tiny part of me was still getting used to the idea that it wasn’t Kai anymore.

Admitting that took all the fun out of it. “I’m not leaving until you pick,” Isla said.

“Down to the wire, huh?”

“I’m so sick of all these Nephilim getting a free ride. I’ll wipe that smug look off his face sooner or later.”

Over her shoulder, Harlow grimaced. “I think she’s gone off the deep end,” Harlow said. “She hadn’t done anything but campaign all summer.” Isla rounded on her. I threw my hands up before they could get into an argument.

“Okay. Okay. I’ll vote for you. Don’t lose your shit in the hallway.”

She stood over me the whole time, only leaving once she was sure my vote had registered. “I’m going to check on Phoenix and the Grove,” I told Sophie. “I’ll meet you in the dining hall for dinner.”

We had teleported in using Gabriel’s Key. There had been no opportunity to survey the layout of the Academy after the rebuild from the destruction of the demon attack. That was why I did a double-take when I stepped out past the dorm doors to find the roof of the junior Academy almost smack bang on the other side of the ornamental lawn.

“Freaky, isn’t it?” Kieran said as he marched past with his friends. “I still can’t get used to it.”

Sophie had told me the board had decided it was safer for the two campuses to be closer together. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. It felt like every time I turned around, something changed.

I was closer to the Grove, so I jumped the fence and then immediately heard voices. There were two distinct timbres. The sound of one voice stopped me dead in my tracks. I cursed silently and did an about face only to run right into Kai’s chest.

“Going somewhere, Blue?”

I took an unsteady step back and was about to snap at him when I noticed what he was wearing. A pair of navy-blue Bloodline sweatpants and matching T-shirt. I frowned. Was that normal guard getup?

“Feeling nostalgic?” I asked. “Or is the word tragic?”

His grin turned feral. “I take it you haven’t heard. Professor Eldridge was transferred to Dominion to help Basil re-establish the prison. Since I’m here anyway, the board asked me to take over some of her classes. Not to mention all our one-on-one training sessions.” He leaned in close, his mouth just a fraction from my ear. “You can call me sir.”

I took an involuntary step back. This just couldn’t be happening.

7

Before I could assemble my thoughts into something that resembled a fitting comeback, somebody behind me chuckled. “You’d better clear some space,” the deep baritone rumbled. “She looks like she’s going to take a swing at you.”

As a distraction, I turned to face the newcomer. It was the other elite guard from the meeting. I had to tilt my head up to look into his face. Like Kai, he had on a pair of Bloodline sweatpants but his T-shirt was long-sleeved.

He offered me his hand. “Tyler Jackson.”

I shook it emphatically, stepping away from Kai. “Alessia Hastings. Call me Lex.”

Sometimes I thought I should walk around with that on my forehead.

Tyler’s palm was freezing. I’m talking glacial. I couldn’t help shuddering a little. I was used to the vamps being slightly chilly when they hadn’t fed for a while, but the only time I’d ever come across someone else that cold was when Doctor Thorne examined me. That was when I figured it out.

“You’re half para-human,” I blurted.

Tyler’s smile dropped for the briefest second before he regained equilibrium. It then became overly bright. I froze in place, mesmerised by the way his eyes narrowed into slits. Eep! I didn’t have heightened senses but even I could tell when I’d put my foot in it.

Kai cleared his throat. He grabbed me gently by the shoulder and pulled me back within his orbit. “Mind if I have a chat to her for a second?”

“It was nice to meet you,” Tyler lied before he melted into the background. And now I was stuck here alone with Kai.

It was almost a relief when the purple nymph appeared in my periphery. A posse of other nymphs trailed along in the air behind her. Their game faces were on. The hideous, long ones that they had shown when the Grove was under attack. Uh oh. I couldn’t catch a break tonight.

I tried to run but Kai grabbed me around the waist. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I slapped at his hand. “Get off!”

He would not. And then the screeching began. They came at me from all directions, their fingernails now long spines with serrated edges. They swiped at me where they could as I ducked and weaved with Kai still holding on to me. It didn’t occur to me to draw a circle until the first acorn started flying.

I thought of the circle as I always had in my mind, but when I went to make the sign, nothing happened. Not again! A long claw slashed my shoulder and I yelped. Only then did Kai cotton on that this was serious.

“Enough!” he shouted. His wings sprouted out to shield me. The nymphs countered with their own chorus of rage. A fireball of angelfire launched itself at them from his palm. They scattered and then converged. He had to shoot a few more flames at them to get them to disperse completely for the time being. I had to seriously reconsider whether I was still employed anymore.

“What was that about?” Kai hissed, holding me at arm’s length. His palm clamped over the shoulder where I’d been injured. Angelfire poured into my wound. I gave an involuntary sigh as the pain eased and then disappeared altogether.

He held on for much longer than it took to heal me. “You can let go now.”

“You haven’t answered me.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

He grunted. “Then we’re going to stand here all night.”

I knew better than to try and attack him physically. I didn’t need a broken hand or foot on top of everything else. But I sure as heck wasn’t going to tell him what happened. Especially not while his nostrils were flaring like some enraged bull. A stubborn bull at that. He would be true to his word. I’d bet he would stand here for longer than the night if I didn’t say something. My mouth clamped shut and wouldn’t budge.

We became locked in a standoff. If I could pull off not blinking, I would have. Neither of us moved for the longest time. Of course my bladder decided now was the precise moment to make itself known. I crossed one foot over the other and held it.

Kai smirked, knowing I was uncomfortable. “Having fun?”

“Not even clo –”

The bond flared in a flash so bright it blinded me. I gasped and stupidly covered my face with my hands even though it happened inside my mind. Distracted, my restraint on the memory slipped.

With my senses scrambling to find reason, the bond opened up and my soul offered up the explanation of why the nymphs wanted to turn me into mincemeat. A few weeks after Christmas, I’d come to the Grove in a last-ditch attempt to see if the Arcana fruit might be able to heal me. After eating the first one, I wasn’t healed but I felt better than I had since Lucifer ordered Jacob Buchanan to stab me. Thirteen or so Arcana fruit later, the nymphs found me passed out in the Grove. I managed to make a run for it when I woke up, but I hadn’t been back since.

Once the effects of the Arcana fruit wore off, I was in worse turmoil than I had been beforehand. Now the very scent of it made me want to hurl.

I shoved at Kai’s chest with all my might.

“Blue,” he said, his expression grim.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Yes, you do.”

I grit my teeth. “Stay out of my head. In fact, stay away from me altogether. I know you think this is some big joke, but I meant what I said. And no, we won’t be training together or anything else for that matter.”

He leaned back, arms crossed. “I’m your guard now, Blue. Either you do it my way, or you don’t do it at all.”

“Excuse me? Have you got wax in your ears? I’m allowed to go anywhere I want.”

“You get to go anywhere I clear you to go. That’s what checks are for.”

“Only because Nanna got sneaky. I don’t need protection. Especially not in Seraphina.”

He took a step closer. The inch that now lay between us might as well have been a mile. I’d be damned if I backed down. “After what happened with the Council, I’m not letting you go there alone.”

Steam boiled in my lungs. “News flash, I’ve been there non-stop over the summer without you and I’m still standing. So you can stop with this macho overprotective crap. And I don’t appreciate all these nosy elite jerks annoying me with their agendas either. Guess whose fault that is?”

He just stood there listening to me rant. When I finally took in a breath, he raised a brow. “How is Christopher?”

The question gave me whiplash. “Huh? The librarian? Why?”

“Do you want to know where he worked before he was repositioned to the archives?”

Not at all. But I could guess it was probably for Kai’s family. The level of smug in the atmosphere could have set off an explosion.

“If you tell me that you’ve had me watched over the summer, I’m going to punch you so hard my fist is going to shatter.”

He grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me closer. “Be my guest. The bond will just heal you.” Despite his assurances that he’d allow me to hurt myself, he locked my arms against my side so I couldn’t move.

Rage simmered beneath the surface of my indignation. These walls were closing in too quickly. He was everywhere and it scared me. When I glanced inside at the pools of magic, they were enveloped in green. His hold was restraining but not tight. Still, I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. The bone magic churned wildly, demanding to be freed.

For the first time in a long time, my flight response overrode my senses. I wanted to run. Did I want him? Yes. There was no disputing that. Did I want me more? Hell yes. Everything I had told him months ago remained true. Bond or no bond. I had been Alessia Hastings for too long and I would never give her up to be mistress of House Pendragon. Not if it meant losing myself in the process. And in the stark green light surrounding me, I saw that happening. I couldn’t move an inch without him monitoring me. That wasn’t love. It was obsession. It was fear. We were both meant for more than that.

Kai relaxed his hold on me, his scarred brow arched. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Yes.” For once, I agreed. How many times had I seen that future? His fingers clenched tight to my upper arms.

“Blue.”

“I’m not yours, Kai. Not in the way that you want. So you either make peace with it, or I walk.”

“Where do you think you’re going to go?”

“Where I need to.”

His top lip curled. There was a momentary glint of blue shards in his eyes before they dimmed. My breath caught as coldness settled over him. The laughter died and everything turned hard. It had been so long since I’d seen this Kai that I shuddered.

“You want to play at being a martyr,” he said. “But you don’t know the first thing about what you’re looking for. Did you really think Seraphina would hold information about how to destroy a seraph? Our city was built to protect them.”

“I’ll eventually find the answers I need.”

“And how long will that take you? Is that before or after this thing that’s happening to you takes hold?”

I wanted to dispute it but the flat look he gave me made the excuse wither on my tongue. “Level with me. Do you think this hurt that stalks you is the Angelical? Or do you feel it on a cellular level, like I do?”

When I didn’t answer, he tugged at my arm. “I think the Angelical started the cascade,” I said, not bothering to hide the truth because he would see right through it. “But I don’t know if it’s the only thing now.”

“So what you want is for me to set aside all of that so you can go off alone and get yourself killed.”

“You don’t know that.”

His left eye twitched. Fear-induced rage poured over me through the bond. “You don’t know the first thing about demon hunting. In terms of raw power, you’re stronger than anyone else I’ve ever known, but this thing is eroding your power. When it cuts out like it did at the hospital, all it would take is for one demon to get lucky and you’ll be gone. Is that how you want to die, Blue? Because you were too stubborn to accept help?”

“I don’t have a problem accepting help.”

The smile was ruthless. So sharp it felt like it cut me to the core. “Only when it’s from me. But you’ll happily run to that layabout vampire who doesn’t know his ass from his head most of the time.”

All true statements. They rankled all the same. “Maybe because Andrei doesn’t act like I’m made of glass.”

“I love you. Sue me. I’m not going to apologise for that. So you can break the bond if you want. But if you think it’s going to change anything, you’ve got another thing coming.”

It was like an emotional merry-go-round I couldn’t get off. “You picked the wrong girl to go all in with, Malachi. Do you know what’ll distract me at a crucial moment? Your henpecking through the bond. I don’t need you second-guessing everything I do.”

His face paled. “I never mean –”

“Good intentions don’t mean squat when I can’t trust my own instincts. You’re a better fighter than I am. You’re a better everything in most cases. How do I trust myself when my head is so full of questions about what Malachi Pendragon would do in any situation?”

He peered at me for the longest time, his green eyes unblinking. “I can teach you to do all the things I do.”

“I could teach myself if you’ll just back off.”

“You’re dreaming. We both know you don’t have the experience or the time to devote to intense physical training. Not to mention the fact that you keep resisting the healing when you get injured.”

“It’s not the healing I’m resisting.”

That statement said it all. The world stilled around us. Ivan’s words rang in my head. Right now, there was no way we could work together without personal stuff getting in the way. It should have felt better that I was less at fault than Kai. But it didn’t. Because it all amounted to the same thing really.

“You allow the healing and I’ll back off,” he said. I didn’t think I heard right. My eyes widened. “Not all of it. Enough so that you don’t feel like you’re under a microscope. But in return, we keep training. When you hunt, it’s with me or not at all. If I give an order, you follow it. No questions asked.”

Tearing my hair out just wasn’t going to cut it. “This isn’t a negotiation! You have no right to impose any of this on me.”

His eyes narrowed. With preternatural speed, he grabbed me. One hand threaded through the hair at the nape of my neck. His other arm cinched me around the waist. All of the air rushed out of my lungs as his mouth pressed against mine. The flick of his tongue sent shivers fluttering through my body. His lips moved with contained hunger, nipping at me in between sensuous stokes of his tongue. His steely grip loosened but only because I was moving with him now.

My brain had locked down in favour of the blood rushing furiously through my veins. I hooked my arm around his neck, holding him in place because I didn’t know what I’d do if he pulled away. His low groan poured into my mouth, making my chest vibrate. Kai’s grip on my hair tightened as the bond saturated my body.

An electric shock of images flooded my mind. Me tearing a hole in the ground of the Fae forest during my first-year trials. The moment when I had phased while fighting Giselle and it was revealed that I was part of the Sisterhood. Me kneeling broken on the ground as Gaia egged me to sacrifice myself. My body as a tiny nucleus around which hundreds of demons circled. The Angelical bursting from me and destroying the Dominion Prison.

The images shifted: Kai arguing with the Council to keep me out of a jail cell after my association with Lucifer became known. Kai and Durin refusing to budge on my containment after Artemis Gilbert was murdered. Kai using every trick and favour the Pendragon name could elicit to stop me from being locked up forever because my blood and my thoughts could unleash the forces of Hell.

He broke the kiss with a rough jerk of his head. His breath was ragged but I couldn’t hear it over the thundering of my own heart.

“Kai –”

He let go of me. His hand scraped through his hair. “I can only keep you out of one cage,” he said. “I’m sorry if that’s not good enough.”

He teleported before I could stop him. In the strained silence left in his wake, I wanted to scream. Why was it that I could never win?

8

One great thing about being friends with supernaturals was that they could read me when my emotions were off. Nobody said a word about why my face was splotchy when I arrived at dinner. Halfway through, Trey put his arm around me.

“Guess what I had for dinner last night?” he asked. I found it an odd question.

“What did you have?”

“Labrador stew.”

His rumbling laughter had the others joining in. The ridiculousness of his statement took some of the sting out of the touchy subject matter. I found myself smiling along with them. As supernaturals, their species all had trouble conceiving in this dimension. It was uncommon for them to have more than one sibling. The Thompsons were an anomaly. I knew they felt my loss as keenly as I sometimes did.

“Very funny,” I said. “Seriously, though, what happened to them?”

Trey wiped the laughter from his eyes. “Honestly, I have no idea. Kai came for them before Mum could figure out what to do.”

I nodded. However he had gotten them, I trusted Kai to send them back safely. That was the whole problem. I trusted him. Who knew whether I would ever feel this way about someone again? I might be young, but I wasn’t that stupid. I’d won the lottery and now I had to hand it back to continue living in emotional poverty. Story of my life.

By the time Sophie, Diana, and I walked back to the dorms, I was feeling marginally better. “What did you do with the ring?” Diana asked as I constructed my usual salt circles around the room. A few days after Christmas, Diana and Roland were shipped off back home. They missed the glorious fight I had with Max during New Year’s Eve. Sophie made a coughing sound that was suspiciously like laughter.

“Tried to chuck it at Max’s head when he suggested I just surrender,” I informed Diana in between sprinkling salt. “Odette took it after that. I think Basil has it in a magical safe somewhere.”

Diana whistled. “It must be worth a fortune. I mean, you –” She faltered. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

I had done a semi-circle and had my back to them, but I suspected Sophie might have signalled for Diana to drop the topic. “What gives with the new human?”

She made it sound like we were discussing an object. I kicked off my shoes and jumped into bed. “We’re not pets, you know!”

“Pardon me if I’m curious about yet another mysterious human at our school.”

Sophie halted in the midst of rearranging her books. “What do you mean mysterious humans? This is our dimension, remember? There should be more of us!”

Diana flicked a grain of salt at her. “Yes, yes. Sorry I stepped on a nerve.”

“Mama says she’s been put through the same tests as any other human. She comes up clear. The only thing is her ability to retain memories when she’s wiped. And it doesn’t look like she’s susceptible to vampiric compulsion or glamour.”

Diana pointed a finger at me. “So the opposite of this one then?”

It would be pointless throwing something. I settled for sticking my tongue out at her. Totally unsatisfying. Sophie continued. “She’s a year older than us but the board are going to enrol her in our classes.”

I couldn’t help feeling cheated. “She knows nothing. Why don’t they stick her in the junior school?”

“Can you imagine?” Diana gulped. “They’d eat her alive. Every time I see her on the MirrorNet bulletins, she’s cowering behind Declan or Nora. Except when she’s making love-heart eyes at Kai.”

That last part she threw at me. Nice try. I wouldn’t take the bait that easily. If I reacted every time a girl looked at Kai sideways, I’d never get any respite. Not that it should matter anymore.

I crawled under the covers as the girls continued chatting. I wasn’t sure why, but fatigue had started to set in and I was suddenly exhausted. The last thing I remembered was Sophie talking about how she was taking the fourth-year Potions class. The next thing I knew, I was standing on a precipice looking down at Melbourne city drenched in spitting rain.

I wasn’t alone. Lucifer might have given the order, but it was Jacob who had stabbed me. The look on my face must have displayed my utter hatred of him, because when Jacob turned in my direction, he smiled.

“Nice night for a little mayhem,” he said. He put one foot forward onto the building ledge. It was the tallest in the block.

My eyes tracked to the street below. Despite the rain, faded streetlights blossomed on arching metal poles. People dashed across the street with and against the green light. Some had umbrellas, others with coats or newspapers to dampen the impact of the droplets. Getting caught out in a flash torrent of rain was a rite of passage in Melbourne.

For all its grime and brashness, I missed the city sometimes. The fond smile was extinguished as each of the streetlights on the small city block winked out. A woman hesitated as she approached the curb to find the footpath suddenly treacherous. It was human nature to glance up when light suddenly disappeared. That was why I had a perfect view of the emotions that cycled through her when the winged demon appeared and circled in the air above her. Confusion caused her to shield her eyes despite the dimmed light. She blinked twice as the demon lowered itself silently to the ground.

Around her, other pedestrians froze in place, mesmerised by the sudden appearance of other shadowed beings. Cars crept by, rolling slowly across the dangerous intersection. Too intent on getting through without being sideswiped, they paid little attention to the horde of demons descending on the street.

In vain I tried to draw a circle around the woman and the other pedestrians. My magic churned but wouldn’t manifest when I attempted to release it. There was a disconnect between my brain and my body. Just like when I tried to run in a dream and nothing happened.

Jacob lowered himself into a crouch. I would almost class it as a reverent pose if I didn’t know he was doing it to get a better view. My heart kicked as the woman’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened but she never got the chance to scream. The demon lashed out with the tip of its serrated tail and slashed her neck. The horrified noise I would have made stuck in my throat as her head flopped to the side, slid off her neck and rolled to the ground.

I tried to take a running start off the ledge as other demons overwhelmed the people on the street, but nothing would cooperate. In reality, the massacre would have taken no more than mere seconds. In my mind, it played out in long stretches where I was helpless to act.

And then the worst part came. Six bodies lay motionless on the ground. All of the demons disappeared. The lights came back on in quick succession. More people streamed into the intersection. A pair of teenage girls walked right past. One moment their lives were normal. The next, everything changed.

The image faded along with the drawn-out screams of the girls below. The city softened at the edges and morphed into that grassy field that filled my heart with sick dread. Jacob scuffed at the grass with his boots.

His smile was forced like something a clown painted on because he’d forgotten what real humour should be. While I stood motionless, Jacob stepped into my personal space. He held the palm of his hand an inch away from where he’d stabbed me.

“That was just the beginning,” he said. “You are his, your blood knows it. Sooner or later, you’ll return to him.”

I finally jerked aside when he reached up and tried to place his hand on my forehead. “Resist all you like. I’ll be seeing you soon.” He snapped his fingers. Fire ignited at the site of my wound. I shot up in bed and doubled over screaming.

Sophie scrambled out of her bed. The floor was a mess of broken, pulsing arcane circles. “Lex?” She rubbed at her bleary eyes as she stumbled onto my bed. I had rolled into a foetal position, protecting my abdomen as a hot lance of pain dragged through me. A cough burst from my throat. Pressing my face to the blanket, I let it out. Sophie jumped off the bed to switch on the Fae lantern.

“What’s going on?” She returned to kneel by the base of the bed where I had almost landed. I felt her intention to place a comforting hand on my back, but something made her hesitate. Maybe it was the gasping, groaning sounds I was making. Maybe it was the way my magic kept sparking in haphazard bursts. Maybe it was because I was sobbing like a dying animal caught in a trap.

The world might as well have been a gaping void because I couldn’t see through the pain. Every atom in me was on fire. Just when I thought I might pass out, the slow creep of pain reached the chamber where my pools of magic resided. Where the sweep of magic from the bond had once intertwined with mine, it now sat reserved in the corner. Darkness blossomed like ink stains behind my eyes. It soaked my vision until I blinked, and the light was gone.

My skin was numb where Sophie’s hands touched me. I heard her panicked scampering and then the smack of her palm on glass before she wailed. “Kai!”

There was a pop like air being sucked into a vacuum. Strong, warm arms cocooned me. “Blue.” His voice was a deep scrape of sound. “Let me in.”

It wasn’t even a choice. My will was mush. As soon as he commanded, I sank into his embrace. The bond kicked in. It lathered cooling angelfire over my soul, throwing up a barrier against the pain and allowing me to think.

Slowly, the shaking subsided. Kai slid out from around me and I was laid down on my side. After a lifetime of laboured breathing, the world decided it would stop spinning. Somebody lifted my left eyelid. Sophie’s lined brow was prominent.

“Kai?”

“He had to leave.”

“How long?” There was light sneaking through the crack in the blinds.

“Three hours.”

The worst one yet. A few seconds more and I could push myself into a crouch. Where my mouth had been pressed, blood decorated the blanket.

“Holy shit,” Sophie gasped. Something cool and wet pressed against my cheek. I leaned into the damp cloth and inhaled the herby scent of Sophie’s healing concoction. It was a grounding spell. One that played on my sense of smell and dragged me back from the brink of hysteria. Salt, vanilla, burnt orange peels, and coconut. All of the smells that her relatives used to cleanse the compound in Zambia. I breathed in deeply, letting the pleasant memories wash away the lingering pain.

Sophie dabbed at my tear-streaked face. We sat there breathing deeply. Somehow, I imagined I could hear her heart beating almost as frantically as mine. I let my head slump onto Sophie’s shoulder.

“What happened?” she asked.

Her frown burrowed deeper as I detailed the nightmare. “The Academy has wards. I don’t understand how he can get to you in here,” she said. We both glanced towards the broken circles at the same time. “Crap.”

“I think what should and what is are becoming a little murky,” I said. “At least when it comes to Lucifer’s reach.”

“Then we need to find a way for you to block him out. I thought you expelled Lucifer from your thoughts for good?”

Her focus flicked to where I was rubbing my abdomen. Self-conscious all of a sudden, I sat on my hands. “Lucifer is subject to the free will clause just like all the seraphim,” I reminded her. “Jacob isn’t.”

“He’s just a mage,” she insisted.

“We don’t know what he is besides the current ruler of Hell while Lucifer is contained.”

She stuck her legs out straight in front of her. “One thing’s for sure, we can’t just keep letting him walk into your head whenever he feels like it.”

“I don’t know if we have much of a choice.”

“What about the bond? It might be able to lock him out.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. Sophie shifted so we were facing each other. There was metal in her gaze. “I get that you need time to figure out what’s going on between you and Kai. But you’re breaking apart. If his healing ability can help you, then stop being stubborn. This is who he is. You’re only getting preferential treatment because he’s in love with you. If anybody else was Lucifer’s scion fighting to keep their magic in one piece, he would do the same.” She actually slapped me in the shoulder when I hesitated. “I said stop it. You’re not being weak by accepting help.”

I wanted to tell her that weakness was the least of my worries. But we both knew my options were limited. And something she said shone a light in the darkness. For all his moronic behaviour, Kai wasn’t a tyrant. If I wasn’t me, he would still heal me. Therefore, the issue of the bond was negated. I could still refuse it and not be subjected to the pain. While we sat there ruminating, the first bell for assembly rang.

“Go on,” I told her. “I’ll catch up.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

She took her time getting ready in case I changed my mind. After she left, I didn’t bother checking to see if I could reach Kai through the mirror. The bond furnished me with details of his current whereabouts. No mirror could reach into the human world.

I scrubbed damp palms against the blanket. Kai.

There was no learning curve. It was like the bond instinctively knew that I needed to get in contact with him. The world in front of my eyes rearranged into an image of Kai standing atop the same building from my nightmare. I held my breath but the flashing of red and blue lights against the walls of the city told me everything I needed to know. Kai loomed over the scene as police and emergency services scrambled to make sense of what had happened.

I was too late, he sent me. The depth of his regret echoed through the bond.

You can’t save everyone, I sent back, even as the first hot tear slid down my cheek. If I hadn’t been useless with paralysis, I could have done something. I could start doing something now if I would just get out of my own way.

Okay, I sent him. You’ve got a deal. We train. Only training. But you have to back off.

He turned in my direction if not in the same physical space as me. I’ll keep up my end of the bargain, Blue. Let’s see if you can keep yours.

I was regretting it already.

9

Feeling like death but knowing I would be missed if I didn’t go to assembly, I forced myself into the bathroom and splashed water on my face. Both my eyes were puffed up and there was blood caked to my chin. Deep breathing could only do so much, but I clung to the meditative practice like my life depended on it.

By the time I used Gabriel’s Key to teleport to the assembly hall, everybody was seated. Luckily, I had focused on Sophie when I began the teleport and came through just down the aisle where she was sitting. You could tell she’d been late too because she and Diana were only a dozen rows from the front. We were third-year students now, but we’d still never be the cool kids. Rather than squeeze through all those bodies, I teleported right onto my seat. Trey sat directly in front of me. His big head completely blocked my view.

“You okay?” Sophie asked. I shook my head but gave her a resigned smile. She put an arm around my shoulders. I sat there wondering if I would ever be okay again.

In my peripheral senses, an aching awareness of the bond tugged at me. It tried to force my head to turn to the front rows on the far right of the hall where Kai’s immutable presence throbbed. He was already back from the human world.

Right at the front of the seats in our row, I spotted Isla’s dark hair. She and the Evil Three were also turned in their seats. “What’s all the ruckus?” I asked.

Trey wiggled in his seat, a feat now made difficult by his ever-expanding frame. The beaming smile he shot me could only mean one thing. “Take a look at the House board.”

Casting my attention to the wall behind us, I saw what had gotten everyone so jazzed. In smaller writing below the title of each house, there had always been a plaque with the name of the House Captain.

Trey’s name now replaced Max’s. Without looking, I reached out and squeezed his arm. Kieran had taken Bradley’s position. As I watched, Isla’s name appeared for Obsidian House.

An unsportsmanlike whoop went up in the front row. “Hell yeah!” Isla screamed.

“Isla,” Jacqueline’s voice called from the stage. “Contain yourself.” She fixed the sleeve of her steel-grey pants suit. “Students, welcome to the new year.”

The whole student body erupted in applause. “You will note the structural changes to the Academy remain in place. In addition to these changes, I want you to make yourselves aware of the upgraded security measures and the new evacuation procedures. Please be reminded that while both campuses are now in closer proximity, the rules about student behaviour and propriety remain the same.”

I snorted. Tell that to your Supernatural Special Integration class.

“As you might also be aware,” Jacqueline continued, “Professor Eldridge has been seconded to the Dominion prison for the time being. In her place, the elite guard and the board have sent us replacement teachers. Those of you in the senior Weaponry and Combat classes, please make sure you extend the same level of respect and conscientiousness to Mr. Pendragon and Mr. Jackson as you did to Professor Eldridge.

“No doubt some of you will have noticed the upgraded security and the addition of new guards to the rotation. If the attack on the Academies had any silver lining, it is that we are now better prepared for the unexpected.”

My grip on the back of Trey’s seat turned white with unwanted memory. Dread at the prospect of facing Professor Mortimer bubbled in my chest. Sometimes, I woke in the middle of the night with Bran’s murder fresh in my nightmares. The world turned soft at the edges as my breathing became laboured. Sophie’s dark hand came down on mine. She laced our fingers together. The small comfort dragged me out of my momentary grief. I mouthed a silent thank you.

Up on stage, I’d missed part of what Jacqueline was saying. “...have been preparing for war, it is no longer feasible for us to remain defensive about what might be coming. To that end, some of you may hear that students are now being allowed to leave campus to participate in assisting with the protection of our world. Those of you who have been given permission know who you are. The rest of you, I ask that you remain vigilant.”

She cleared her throat once more. The back of my neck was burning from peer inquisitiveness. I rolled Gabriel’s Key around my finger, so the teleport stone wasn’t so noticeable. It wasn’t smart to broadcast to everyone that I had a ring that would allow anybody to go anywhere.

“Congratulations to those who were voted House Captains,” Jacqueline said. “I know you will do everything in your power to follow in the footsteps of those before you.” She shuffled in her spot. “Please note, this year’s senior end-of-semester trials will be overseen by the elite guard. I have, however, received the utmost assurances that they will not be in similar vein to the Unity Games. And finally, the committee for the Solstice Ball is recruiting new members. If you have a particular interest, please see Celeste Goodwin.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sophie make a face. I took it she wouldn’t be volunteering for the ball committee any time soon.

Jacqueline had just dismissed us when Alex appeared out of nowhere at the edge of our row. Class wouldn’t begin for another twenty minutes and the rest of the students were taking the downtime to catch up on gossip.

Alex crooked a finger at me. What now?

“Jacqueline wants you to meet Emily,” he said. Was it bad that I had forgotten about the girl? I thought we would meet in Jacqueline’s office, but Alex began marching towards the stage.

“Ahh, was she here at assembly?”

“Sure was. Jacqueline thought it might be a good way for her to get a feel for how things work.”

“Right.” A courtesy I was never afforded on account of being stuck inside a celestial jail cell. We reached the front of the stage. It was unnerving to witness the sea of faces from this side of the room. Isla gave me a Cheshire grin as I stalked past. Please Gaia let my vote not have been cast in vain.

This close to the front of the stage, the blaring awareness in the bond reignited. It niggled at me like a Chinese water torture device, one annoying droplet at a time.

Kai’s here! it kept insisting. The scent of him tried to infiltrate my olfactory senses. The sound of his voice whispered down my spine like a caress.

Everything around me bleached of colour in his presence. Kai was the sun that cast the rest of the world in shade. As a result, everything in his general direction was a blur in my senses. There was a flash of pure white near him, but I wouldn’t allow my attention to settle on it.

Doing everything I could not to look at him, the jittery nerves in my gut turned to surprise when I noticed Declan and Nora at the edge of the front row near the professors. Both of them were in matching dark suits. They looked like accountants. Did the human branch of the Council get a rebrand while I had been distracted?

I waved at Nora. “Hey! I didn’t know that you would be here.”

Jacqueline appeared beside me. “We thought it might be best that Emily had some moral support on her first day.” It was only then that my attention fixed on the girl sitting with her hands demurely clasped in her lap. The effects of my Kai blackout had spilled over to her because she’d been speaking to him a second ago. She had on a white skater dress that served as a pure complement to her golden hair and clear blue eyes.

“Emily,” Jacqueline said, “this is Alessia. She’ll be your guide for the year.”

“Lex.” I offered her my hand and tried not to dislocate my jaw at the dumbstruck look on her face when she turned away from Kai. A shadow crept over her serene expression when she spotted me. Her pupils dilated as her eyes bugged out of her head. She swallowed hard.

My arm was getting tired. She was going to leave me hanging.

It occurred to me that the assembly hall had gone preternaturally quiet. Great. I had a couple hundred spectators as I was being publicly snubbed. Just as I was about to drop my arm, Emily scrambled back in her chair and screamed.

She practically jumped in Kai’s lap as the world around me shifted. The assembly hall melted away and in its place was the great grassy expanse that always preceded a prophetic vision.

10

My heart leaped into my throat. It took me precious seconds to spot the differences in this vision to the ones I’d been subjected to previously. In this iteration, the grassy field was less artificial. There were dips and mounds in the terrain as well as various weeds growing amongst the grass itself. As I watched, the landscape shifted once more. Trees and shrubs erupted from the ground and materialised from mid-air.

In the canopy of the enormous trees, a rope and wooden walk bridge connected to raised platforms. Interspersed around them were guard towers. I would know this place anywhere. The Reserve.

Once the flora was in place, the animals came out to play. Birds darted from amongst the branches. Squirrels jumped through the air and disappeared in the brush. When the first shifter melted out of the shadow of the forest, I stepped back.

At the head of the procession was Durin. His face was a distorted amalgamation of man and bear. His lower jaw protruded out, displaying finger-length teeth. Patches of black hair erupted from his chest and made him look like he’d been in a fight with a chainsaw. Big red welts marked his skin where the change had taken place but hadn’t quite transitioned smoothly.

My heart continued to thud unevenly as more shifters spilled out behind him. Alastair, a monstrous lion head on his straining shoulders. Max - copper eyed and foaming at the mouth. Trey with his tiger stripes carved into his skin with a knife rather than from the shift. My breath hitched as a massive figure darted out in front. It halted just two feet from where I stood, man and beast in a state of unbearable flux. The tanned hide and furry crown had me stepping back.

Charles. Thrashing was just about the only thing he could do as part of his body shifted, reformed and shifted again. The sound of bones snapping and tendons tearing made my stomach revolt. Interspersed with it was the strained keening of a soul that was on the brink of turning rogue.

Charles lashed out with a pawed fist that I was too slow to evade. My muscles contracted, bracing for the impact, but all that happened was his paw sliding through me. Where I had thought I was the focus of their ungodly march, I now turned to find another being in my place. All of the breath left me.

At the centre of the enormous clearing that sat at the edge of the treeline was me. Not this version of me but one that was steeped in a fireball of blue and black light. My dark hair was scraped back and tightly braided. Morning Star’s hilt protruded from behind me, the leather strap of its holster crossed over my chest. Hugging my thighs were two hunting knives. A smaller set was buckled to the side of my leather boots. Suffice it to say, I was looking pretty badass.

Rising up in the air behind the circle of light was a being that sucked the happiness from my soul. Lucifer’s blazing white wings were usually a spectacle that forced the eyes to focus on them. But today, they were overshadowed by the orb of blistering blue that manifested around me. My circles were usually a ring of colour that lit up the ground and created an invisible force that couldn’t be breached. This circle was an opaque dome that crackled with gold and silver sparks. Lightning streaked through the circle.

Static electricity caused the wisps of hair that escaped the braid to halo around my head.

What frightened me more than anything were my eyes. I stared straight ahead unseeing. While the procession of shifters shuffled towards me, I didn’t move an inch. And then it happened. The inevitable flash of bright green that heralded Kai’s presence. He appeared in the sky facing Lucifer wearing Bloodline sweats. Where was his armour? One by one, the Nephilim blinked into existence. Astrid on Kai’s left. Adam on his right. Bradley with a swarm of guards at his back. On and on it went until there was barely any free aerial space.

Still there was just Lucifer and me on this side of the divide. The fallen seraph glided through the air. He came to a soft landing just to my left.

“Nice try,” Lucifer scoffed at the forces of the supernaturals. His angel blade appeared in the grip of his hand. “Alessia. Let’s show them why this is pointless.”

He rolled his wrist in a slow circle. Kai had just enough time to draw his own blade before Lucifer whipped his sword. But it didn’t slice through the air between them. Instead, it pierced the arcane circle around me and embedded in my chest.

The lack of reaction from the me of the vision caused all the warmth to bleed away. Vision me coughed. Blood spouted from my mouth and nostrils. It trickled in crimson tears out of the ducts in my eyes.

A rumble ripped through the clearing as the circle lost its structural integrity. Kai shouted and tried to throw angelfire at the crumbling circle, but it was too late. My magic exploded in rippling waves of power. It roared over the supernaturals, stripping the skin from their bones and crushing them to dust.

Both versions of me fell to our knees. A warm hand clasped my shoulder and shook me violently. I blinked and looked up into Sophie’s concerned brown eyes. Pink flared around the palm she had pressed to my chest.

“Hey,” she said, helping me to my feet. “Breathe. You’re okay.”

The thin set of her lips sent me the opposite message. Trey loomed up behind her on the left and Sasha on the right. Their broad shoulders blocked out most of the rest of the assembly, but I caught glimpses of terrified faces staring back at me.

Somebody was sobbing uncontrollably. My legs threatened to buckle again at the rumble of Kai’s low murmur. Diana weaved her arm under my lower back. The trembling of her fingers only served to amplify my unease. They’d seen it too.

“That’s enough,” Jacqueline ordered. “Everybody to class.” They only started moving when she threw them a skin-peeling glare. “Take them both to the infirmary.”

Sophie refused to be dislodged by a new Nephilim guard who attempted to reach past the wall of my friends.

“You heard what the headmistress said.” He was young, barely graduated I bet, with the kind of sickening fervour of somebody out to prove themselves.

“Touch her and you’re going to be eating the rest of your meals through a straw,” a deep voice snarled. It would have been menacing if it didn’t break at the last second, pushing the register up an octave.

Breaking voice or not, Charles sprouted from behind the Nephilim. The sight of him towering over a fully grown Nephilim shocked me into speech. “Seriously, is your mum giving you growth potions or something?”

His chuckled laughter was both throaty and thin. Puberty at its worst. He shoved the Nephilim guard aside with his shoulder. By now I was standing on my own.

Charles shrugged. “You would have known if you weren’t avoiding the rest of the Reserve like a human plague.”

“Maybe if your brother wasn’t such an overbearing jerk,” I shot back. He threw his hands up in a surrender gesture.

“Hopefully once he’s inducted to the elite guard, Durin will ship him far, far away.” A flash of something cold shot through my chest at the thought of Max. It was gone a second later, but it left behind a kernel of foreboding. Great. Now I was having prophetic flashes of my own.

Two other supernatural weeds drew up beside Charles, wedging the guard out completely. Luther gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Hey, Lex. Way to make an entrance.”

True to his placid nature, Luther was taking to his growth spurt at a more sedate pace. Ironically, the mage rather than the shifter was the one who was sprouting coarse hairs on his chin.

Cassie was still Cassie. Much taller now too and growing splendidly into the bone structure that had always caused her to feel awkward. Her angles were softening, giving her a dewy appearance. In a couple of years, Kai would have to quit the elite guard for a full-time job killing all the boys who tried to come near her. If Charles didn’t get to them first.

Cassie was the only one of the three of them I’d kept in contact with over the summer. The shifters in the Reserve had been insufferable about the bond. It was the equivalent of their mating link and they were obsessive about me claiming it. Thanks to their heightened senses, they gave zero shits about my refusal to accept the bond because they could feel in my aura how much I wanted it. By the time Max went on holiday, I was giving the whole Reserve the silent treatment.

Cassie had more tenacity than a shifter. She called me every second day to know if I had reconsidered Kai’s maybe proposal. It was like they were pretending the whole unable to procreate thing wasn’t happening.

“Lex,” Jacqueline called. The severe downturn of her lips snapped me back into the present. Sophie tried to file out with me. “Alone, please.”

Sophie’s back became ramrod straight. Her mouth opened like she was going to argue but then Nora held up a warning finger and Sophie deflated.

“I’ll be okay,” I told her before following Jacqueline out the door. Nora took up the position of rear guard. The headmistresses inspected me as we exited the assembly hall.

“Do you need the infirmary?”All of my limbs seemed to be intact. Internally, the pools of magic were behaving accordingly.

“No, I’m fine.”

“What was that?” Nora piped up.

“Beats me! I thought the elite guard said she had no powers!”

“Clearly they were mistaken.”

What else were they wrong about? We lapsed into silence as the infirmary came into view. It had been shifted farther afield to accommodate the junior Academy.

As we pulled up closer, somebody inside shrieked. The rich nectar of Arcana fruit clung to the air. I almost dry-retched. Well, that was Arcana ruined for me. Yet another thing Lucifer had stolen.

Sandra, one of the dwarf nurses, bustled out of the private wing with Doctor Thorne and Tyler. Something impassive passed over Tyler’s face.

“Emily?” Jacqueline asked.

“Inside,” Doctor Thorne said. “She had a little fright when she woke and I was there, and she won’t let anyone besides Malachi near her.” My lips pursed before I caught myself.

“Stay put.” With that order, Jacqueline and Nora entered the private wing.

Doctor Thorne’s reptilian mouth shaped into a smile. “At least you’re on the other side of it this time. Come here and let me have a look at you.”

“I don’t know if being the one to cause injury is better than being the one injured,” I told him. Tyler’s attention rested on me as I subjected myself to Doctor Thorne’s ministrations in the communal recovery area.

The rest of the place was empty. Now that the other Academies were no longer here to play pranks on each other, the place had gone back to its usual quiet calmness. Soft whimpering filtered out from the private wing.

“Draw a circle for me,” Doctor Thorne said. His wish was my command. One magic circle traced itself in blue around the infirmary bed. He nodded. “At least that’s under control. I heard you’re having trouble containing the magic.”

“Para-humans are the worst gossips.” I hopped up onto the bed. My legs dangled over the side. Doctor Thorne rapped on my kneecap and I kicked out at thin air.

“Well, when you’re the oldest race, you have to find something to do to pass the time.” His rough chuckle was almost soothing compared to Emily’s constant bleating. My face must have displayed the direction of my thoughts.

“Don’t be like that.” Doctor Thorne tapped my forehead with a clawed finger. “Most humans have a terrible time when they learn of the supernatural world. Present company excluded.”

Tyler leaned against the wall beside the door. “Why was that?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? I ate a bunch of Arcana fruit but that’s about all that happened. Doesn’t seem to be helping Emily much. Maybe I’m just crazier than she is so I was always more inclined to accept this world.”

Doctor Thorne made a sound like he was coughing in agreement. Jacqueline stalked out of the private wing. She waylaid one of the nurses as the dwarf bustled by. “Can you have Isla Hess contacted?”

“Problem?” I asked.

Jacqueline scrunched her hair like she wanted to yank it out. “She’s inconsolable and refusing to remain here if you’re here.”

“Eh?” I gaped like a goldfish. “What did I do?”

Declan exited the private wing also. I hadn’t known he was even there. “All her visions involve you.” His voice was stern. My feathers would have been ruffled if it was directed at me. Luckily, Jacqueline was the unhappy recipient. “We can’t let her leave.”

“We can’t very well force her to stay.”

Isla strolled into the infirmary and levelled me with her best resting bitch face. “What did you do this time?”

I lay back down on the bed and groaned.

“Come with me.” Jacqueline signed for Isla to follow her inside the private wing. If only walls could talk. Even straining, the best I could decipher was slightly raised voices and low rumbling. Para-human hearing wasn’t all that crash hot either.

I propped myself up on my elbows. “I don’t suppose the mage half of you can tell what they’re saying,” I asked Tyler.

He broke out in an uncharacteristic smile. Funny. It never occurred to me that elite guards could have a sense of humour. “You’re out of luck.”

I blew out a breath. “Figures.”

“You shouldn’t be eavesdropping.” Doctor Thorne tried to hand me a glass of green sludge.

“You’re dreaming.” I buried my nose in the crook of my elbow and turned away.

“It’s like trying to help a demon baby.” He shook his head and did away with the awful concoction.

That reminded me! “Speaking of babies. Was that your name I saw on my timetable for Supernatural Sex Ed?”

His tail reared up and made a rattling sound that had my eyes widening. Cool. “It is not sexual education.”

“Uh huh. And I’m not Lucifer’s scion. Can I get a pass on account of not being able to have kids?” Being barren was like a sympathy get out of a jail free card. Sadly, it might have expired.

Doctor Thorne sighed. It sounded very much like a snake hissing. “Your situation is tragic. But that doesn’t change the fact that you need to learn about supernatural lineage.”

“Why? So I can get a participation certificate?”

Tyler shifted from a casual lean to a menacing standover. “Because bloodlines are everything in our world. A good bloodline means power. That’s all we’ve ever known.” He absently traced the scaled skin at his wrist.

Foot meet mouth. I had completely forgotten his lineage. By the sound of it, the mage side did not make up for the para-human side. I was just about to apologise when the door opened again. Declan strutted out. If he had plumed tail feathers, they would have been fanning. Nora and Jacqueline rushed after him. “Emily has agreed to stay. But on the condition that you keep away from her as much as possible.”

“What the hell? I haven’t done anything to her.” Aside from saving her life.

“She’s terrified of you.” Nora walked over and sat down next to me on the bed. “She has visions. The day you walked into Terran Hospital, she thought it might have been the end of days. That’s probably the reason why Hell wants her. If they can predict the future, they can control the present.”

“A bunch of supernaturals have seen some version of a prophecy!” I wanted to kick something. “Why would the demons want her?”

“A supernatural vision is worth less than a human one. The last time they let a human slip through their fingers, it was you.”

“We’ve arranged for Isla to be her escort.” Jacqueline wrote something down on a notepad Doctor Thorne had stashed on the side table. “Is that okay with you?”

It should have been okay. It would free up a good portion of my time. But it was hard not to be mortally offended. Now the humans were shunning me too.

Heaviness settled into my bones. “Fine. Can I go now? I’m late to class.”

I couldn’t believe I was using school as an escape route. What was this world coming to?

11

I missed half of Herbology but managed to fly by the seat of my pants. Chalk that up to a summer of nothing but studying. If anyone asked, there was no plant that repelled Nephilim bonds. Unless you could do it with the stench of rotting flesh, and then it was the Titan arum all the way.

I dragged my feet to Potions. Snagging the best desk was a hollow victory without Sophie to celebrate with. At least I had a few minutes to hang out with Puff before the hard work began.

When Isla and co. traipsed into Potions with Emily trailing behind, I groaned inwardly and ripped open a bag of salted black lava. Isla pumped her brows at me. It took me a second to understand that she wanted me to move from my desk in the middle of the room in keeping with my mandate to stay away from Emily.

This was not happening. Isla stared me down until I couldn’t be bothered and moved to the desk in the back corner of the room. This was the dodgy corner. It was the farthest away from where Professor McKenna left the ingredients trolley. By the time I jostled with everyone to get my things, all the best specimens were taken.

As a result, Puff was allowed to eat most of the black lava before I bothered coaxing him to light up my cauldron. What can I say? I was an emotional feeder.

The wyvern scale I dropped into my rejuvenation potion let off a rancid stench. It clung to the back of my throat. “What the hell?”

Professor McKenna appeared like an apparition. “What happened?”

My response was muffled through my hands. “I did everything exactly as the potion demanded!”

Not being naturally gifted in potionmaking, I followed every recipe to the exact measurement. The professor leaned over to inspect Puff. “Your salamander is being ill on the table.”

Heaven have mercy. Puff made sick retching noises. With each heave, his skin tone changed in putrid shades of grey and brown. It was a nice complement to the black bile spitting out his mouth. As a result, he was only intermittently spewing fire, so the potion wasn’t hot enough and the ingredients weren’t being broken down into soluble form.

“I’m so sorry.” The rest of the class was spent stroking his belly and cleaning and fumigating my section.

Lunch was no picnic. “Why are you sitting by yourself?” Sasha got within two metres of me and halted. He grimaced. “You stink.”

“Thanks.”

“Is this your latest attempt at keeping Malachi at a distance?” Astrid’s voice piped up from behind me.

My forehead met the table. “I’m going to have a shower.”

Said shower resulted in me being slightly late to Weaponry and Combat. Let’s face it, I wasn’t exactly itching to be there in the first place. Even though Professor Eldridge intimidated the heck out of me, knowing she was no longer at the Academy made me feel solemn. Stockholm syndrome was probably the clinical diagnosis.

When I arrived, everyone was huddled around in a mass close to the doorway. “What gives?”

I jostled my way to the front of the gathering with the assistance of Diana and her crowd-clearing elbow jabs.

The reason for their heightened interest was leaning against the weapons cage talking to Tyler. Kai could do more devastation with a single bicep curl than his angel blade. The gut-punch sensation was visceral. Long ago I’d resigned myself to the fact that it would never get easier seeing him. Sometimes I wondered if the bond lay dormant until the last second just so it could knock the wind out of my sails when he got close.

Our new instructors nodded at each other and then Kai picked up one of the punching bags like it weighed nothing. The effort caused the muscles in his arms to bulge beneath his Bloodline T-shirt. The shifter beside me sighed.

I tried to back-step into the small space between us, but Diana refused to budge. Kai tossed the punching bag onto the pile set up in the middle of the room. He turned, spotted me, and gave me his back. My stomach felt like it had dropped out.

Sly, hopeful smiles appeared on the faces of the girls around me. But they were drowned out by the thudding that transmitted through to me from the bond. Kai’s pulse was like a slow drum beat of anticipation. It pumped hard and sent fire shooting through my veins. A fraction of a second was all it would take. Just a moment of lost self-control and he would grab me, and it would be all over. Sweat gathered on my brow as the stark reality of what it took for him to stay away from me blanketed my senses. I tried to take a breath but there was suddenly not enough air in the room.

Isla appeared at the front of the other side of the huddle. Emily’s presence threw a bucket of ice water over the demands of the bond.

“Is this far enough away from her?” I asked Diana.

“Pardon?”

“She has a supernatural restraining order out on me.” I felt like an idiot saying it.

Confusion made Diana’s nose pinch. “I don’t get it.”

My explanation immediately got her back up. “How is that fair? You haven’t done anything to her.”

My response was cut off by Sophie’s arrival. “Oh,” Sophie said when Kai and Tyler moved forward to address the room. “Is that what the commotion is all about?”

She zipped her lip when Tyler cleared his throat. “As you all know, third year has traditionally been the year in which Bloodline transitions students from theoretical to practical application of what you learn in this class.”

He cast his eyes over us. “Unfortunately, Malachi and I haven’t had the opportunity to observe you the way Professor Eldridge did as you moved through your studies. Over the coming weeks, we’re going to step you through an intensive course so we can get up to speed. I understand this class has had more than their fair share of demon contact...”

Do not look at me. Do not look at me. He looked at me. Urgh.

To be fair, so did the rest of the class. All except Emily who still wouldn’t make eye contact. “I want you to split yourselves into two groups. Malachi and I will take a group each and run you through the drills.”

There was a stampede over to the left side, Kai’s side, of the room. Somebody almost dislocated my shoulder in their attempt to get past me. Setting aside any hopelessly romantic agendas, Kai was a certified fighter. Even the boys wanted to be on his team. Suffice it to say, the groups were disproportionate. When I could move without being hit by classmates, I made a beeline for Tyler. Sophie followed out of loyalty. Diana huffed before doing the same. She dragged Roland with her.

There were only thirty or so students in this class. I counted twenty-two on Kai’s side. Aside from Diana, Sophie, and me, our side consisted of two para-human boys, Keith and Shawn, a sprite named Orla, and a shifter named Devraj. Diana was trying to coax Trey onto our side when Tyler cut her off. “Let him stay on the losing team.”

The meaning of his words was made clearer when he and Kai marched us out of the classroom towards the shifter Run. Normally, nobody else came near this section of the Academy. The shifters had full use of it to be as primal as they wanted. Around the full moon, the noises that could be heard from the Run made my hairs stand on end. I suspected it was just a way to scare the other races. More than once, I’d spotted two shifters leaving the run profusely bleeding. I left it alone because the chances of stumbling into a classmate stark naked was too high. Call me a prude, but if I saw Trey’s junk, I didn’t think I could keep a straight face.

The only other time I’d been inside was an unwanted rescue attempt of Sophie. The guarded look on her face told me she was reminiscing too. A few minutes into our walk, I realised how much the layout resembled the Reserve. Not surprising. Shifters were insanely territorial. Anything that reminded them of home would put them at ease.

Tyler led us past a wall of skyward kissing pines. If my sense of direction was any good, the dirt path would veer to the right and give way to a big clearing where...oh jeez. In the Reserve, the clearing was adorned with an ornamental lake backed by enormous redwoods and deciduous trees that put on an incredible display in autumn. In the Run, the clearing was just that. A clearing. Boring.

Diana mirrored my sentiments. “That was the biggest letdown ever.”

Kai’s head inclined in her direction. I knew he heard her because his green eyes darkened. Uh oh. Diana stepped strategically in my direction. “I think I woke the beast.”

I huffed. “I don’t think it ever goes to sleep.”

Kai halted. We were about to stop as well when Tyler beckoned those in his “team” farther afield. By the time we also came to a stop, we were out of eavesdropping distance even for supernaturals.

The look on Roland’s face could have rusted metal. “I’m going to kill you, Di.” He shot a speculative glance at Kai’s team.

“What kind of trial is this?” Dev asked. He was already stretching his ample shoulder muscles. Gold rolled over his dark brown eyes.

Tyler inspected each and every one of us. There was no change to his expression. Orla sneezed and glitter literally shot out of her nose. Figures. We couldn’t get a fire or wind sprite but a spirit one. She beamed at me. My abysmal headspace immediately cleared. Huh. Emotional manipulation. Interesting.

Tyler motioned us into a huddle. “Most of you are here because our world needs protection. Your parents wish for you to learn to defend yourselves. One day soon, you will graduate. In the current climate, it’s likely that your first assignments will be to guard a weak spot in the dimensional barriers. Most of those are adjacent to a human population. Today, we’re going to test your ability to guard. I want you to pick a mark. The aim of the exercise is for you to guard your mark while trying to take out theirs.”

All eyes turned to Sophie and me. Dev opened his mouth, but Tyler jumped in ahead of him. “It doesn’t have to be an actual human in this instance.” He pointed across the field at where the much larger group was huddled. “Think carefully. In the field, strategy often counts for more than raw power.”

With that, he took several steps back and allowed us to negotiate. “That’s it?” My question was met with a noncommittal shrug.

“That’s more than you’d receive on most missions.” Guarding was starting to feel less appealing.

Despite Tyler’s assurances that we shouldn’t target humans, both Keith and Shawn were all for either Sophie or me being the mark. Dev wasn’t so sure. “We are at a vast tactical disadvantage.” He scanned the other group, taking note of their abilities. “They’ve got two strong water Fae on their team. Not to mention a pack of shifters, two mages, and a vampire. If we bench Alessia or Sophie, we lose our ability to use any form of magic on them.” Orla cleared her throat. “You know what I’m saying, Orla.”

She huffed and sparks of rainbow-coloured lights sprang from her hair. “I take it you want me to be the mark.”

“I’m just weighing up our options.”

“Do you have an Angelical word you could use on them?” Keith asked me.

“Don’t even think about it!” Tyler snapped. “You’re not here to kill each other.”

Keith’s skin turned a shade of maroon. Dev wasn’t placated. “We would be if this was a real mission.”

Tyler’s nostrils flared. I thought for a second I could see the slightest hint of steam coming out of his nose. It made me wonder what kind of para-human he was.

“So if Lex isn’t allowed to use Angelical, what else aren’t we allowed to use?” Shawn asked. Tyler pinched the bridge of his nose.

“There is a difference between using your abilities to gain an advantage and letting off a supernatural atomic bomb.” He flattened me with his gaze. He needn’t have bothered. After what happened at Terran, I wasn’t going to resort to using my unsafe words just to win a stupid Weaponry and Combat drill.

Sophie had been quiet the entire time, but she piped up now. “But those are the only rules, right? Choose a mark and protect them and don’t kill each other?”

Tyler nodded. A smile played on Sophie’s lips. “I think I have a plan.”

When she told us, Dev whistled. The excited murmuring of the rest of the team mirrored his admiration. Behind Sophie’s sweet persona, there was an alpha lurking.

As Kai whistled to signal that huddle time was over, I couldn’t help grinning internally at the thought of Max trying to wrangle her into submission one day. He would be lucky if he didn’t end up dead.

12

As soon as the signal was given, the other team formed a physical barrier around Emily. Mark chosen. They stood in three lines of consecutively widening circles around her. We remained exactly as we were, in a straight line with no indication which one of us was the mark.

Their choice of mark was logical. “At least we didn’t have that disadvantage,” Roland said out the side of his mouth.

“Win some, lose some,” Keith agreed.

Dev wasn’t so blasé. “They should have given her a pass. It’s not fair to throw her in like this on her first day.”

I almost coughed up a lung. “Pardon me! What happened on my first day?”

Dev grinned at me. Dark brown lines appeared around his eyes. “Those were entirely different circumstances, Alessia.”

He always did that. I’d told him so many times to call me Lex, but it never stuck. “Look at her, she’s almost crying.” The shifter in him was on display. Bloody alpha shifters and their stupid hero complexes.

“Just don’t go banging your chest trying to save her,” Diana warned.

Dev clutched at his heart, pretending to be mortally offended. “Loyalty first.”

Sophie laughed. “Yeah, right! The loyalty hierarchy is mate, pack, duty.” She pumped her brows at him. A spot of rose swept across his dark skin.

I groaned. Perfect. The shifter on our team, arguably the strongest of us all, thought their mark was cute.

Orla clutched Dev’s arm. “I’ll kill you if we lose.”

Dev’s gold-ringed eyes widened before they dulled to normal brown. He shook his head like a feline trying to shake off water. I took it back. Spirit sprites were totally badass.

While we’d been verbally sparring, Kai and Tyler had their heads together. Now they disengaged. Kai walked up to the mid-point between the teams.

“You’ve been given the rules,” he said. “Let me make things clearer in case anyone gets any bright ideas. No weapons besides your innate powers. No foul play. No killing. If I so much as see anyone fighting dirty, you’ll be sorry.”

He turned his back on us and returned to Tyler’s side. “Sweet talker, isn’t he?” Diana commented. It was a monumental effort not to react to their sideways glances. Thankfully, I was saved by the bell. In this case, it was an alarm that blared overhead. It sounded too much like the perimeter alert alarm. For a second, I had PTSD and cringed, remembering the night the demons attacked the Academy.

My hesitation gave Isla and Kieran an opportunity to work their magic. Storm clouds gathered overhead. They blanketed the field in a dense cluster. Isla raised her arms and the bubble burst. Fat drops of rain pelted on us.

Within seconds, the field became a damp, slippery mess. Two other Fae snapped their fingers. A gust of biting wind ripped over our team, making my face numb.

Down the line we had formed, Keith and Shawn flexed their limbs to try and stay warm. Besides Sophie and me, the para-humans were the most susceptible to cold. Alacanthea had been a sun-drenched paradise. I threw a protection circle around all of us. Fingers crossed it would hold.

Sophie sniffed. “Ready?”

I nodded. Dev and Roland stepped out in front of us. The other team saw the defensive gesture. Several of them grinned. All this water and wind made it difficult to move around, but it picked up pollen like a mother. In the Run, just like in the Reserve, there were huge fields of wolfsbane. It was insanity if you asked me. The shifters were paranoid about going rogue, so they had planted swathes of the irritant plant as a safeguard. The wind picked up little seeds and tossed them in a huge swirl into the air. The rain washed them into the turf.

Hedge magic would do the rest. I shot a wave of magic into the earth and pinpointed every seed. Where my magic touched them, the seeds sprouted. I pulled water rapidly into their roots until they leaped into unnatural growth. A tiger roared but it wasn’t ours. Trey smashed against my circle. I braced and threw him off.

One by one, over and over again, their offensive fighters began to attack my circle.

“Hold it!” Dev yelled at me.

I wanted to shout back but there was only so much multi-tasking I could handle. The magic circle flickered. Sophie shot her power into it to reinforce it, but it wouldn’t take the assault of additional Fae magic for long.

The next time Trey jumped, Dev broke through the perimeter of protection and slammed into him. The two shifters went rolling across the field. They collected a few other students in their wake. By now the wolfsbane was waist high. Isla had the good sense to stop the rain. The clouds cleared, turning the sky into a soft blue once more. Sunlight reappeared. I smirked. They really didn’t pay attention in Herbology.

Diana was the next to jump out of the circle. Then Roland. They shot straight at Sasha. Mid-run, Roland paused. He stood suspended for a second before he raised his right first and smacked himself in the face. Diana got a few steps closer than her brother but just shy of an arm span away from Sasha, she started attacking herself too.

Keith and Shawn raced out to provide backup.

I raised my face to the sun. So did the wolfsbane. Unnaturally fat heads of dark blue flowers did what they did best when the sun shone. They let out pollen.

Sophie stepped up to the plate. Her palms swirled with pink kitchen magic as she gathered the pollen into expanding globes of energy.

“Don’t let her finish!” Isla screamed. The other team rammed into us. Orla sneezed more glitter, this time a red blush that helped to dampen the repeated blows from the other supernaturals. My head rang with every punch and scratch.

Just as my circle began to weaken, Sophie lifted her palms up. Wolfsbane was poison to shifters but it also irritated most other supernaturals besides the para-humans. Sophie crossed her arms over her chest to create an X. Then she swept her arms out and the alchemical mixture of burning wolfsbane liquid exploded.

My larger circle broke. I gathered up the last of my strength and threw a smaller circle around Dev. He took one shuddering breath of poisoned air before the circle gave him relief. Just that small hint had the gold reappearing in his eyes.

The shifters on the other team didn’t fare so well. Trey roared as liquid spattered over his neck. Immediately, red welts bubbled on his skin. His eyes changed colour as he shifted, claws and teeth replacing his soft human flesh.

My throat locked. I had taken two steps forward before Orla grabbed my arm. “It’s just a game,” she reminded me. “He’ll be okay.”

Across the field, Trey wasn’t the only one suffering. The other shifters in their team, almost half their numbers, were in various stages of illness.

Unhindered by the wolfsbane, Sasha punched Keith in the head, dropping the para-human who was heavier than a boulder. His eyes glowed red, two fangs digging into his bottom lip. He turned on his heel in my direction. I didn’t see him move but he was there a second and then he was gone. I grabbed onto the Ley dimension and dragged it around me. Time slowed. Sasha appeared again just steps away. He arms reached out. I ducked, but instead of running, I reached out and grabbed the light amulet he always wore on a leather chain around his neck. The moment I yanked it off, sunlight scraped over his skin.

He grunted, intending to ignore the sizzling that was marring his complexion. Claws flashed in front of my face for a second, only to be pushed aside by Dev who barrelled into Sasha.

I dropped down on one knee, breathing heavily.

Fire ignited in the now dry grass. It started off as a tiny spark that hissed as it hit moisture but burned it into steam. That was the problem with elemental magic. All at once, it tended to cancel each other out. Gaffney, a fire Fae, wasn’t able to use his power because Isla and Kieran had soaked everything. He made up for it now.

It was clear from the circle of fire that blazed around Sophie and me that they thought one of us was the mark. Sophie knelt down beside me and slammed her palm on the ground. A pink circle rose up against the fire, slowing its progression. Sophie only had a small amount of control over fire, but it was enough to buy us some time.

Orla hopped over the knee-high flames. She flicked her fingers, stopping two of their mages from creating whatever frightening spell they were intending to throw at us. Before she’d gotten a hold of the one on the left, Arthur, I thought he might actually be trying to open a portal.

Roland chuckled as he dove past with one of the other para-humans in his grip. The two boys landed in the mud, beating each other in glorious battle. Awesome. Our mark was behaving like a lunatic, not caring if he got injured.

Having had a few seconds to get my breath back, I pushed up to my feet and spun the Ley dimension around me. Even in their compromised position, I had no illusions that I could cut through their ranks quickly enough not to one, get my ass kicked and two, get to Emily.

None of us were going to make it past their defences with brute force alone. So, if we couldn’t get in with a battering ram, we would have to do it with stealth.

The world flickered around me as I slowed my breath. “She’s phasing!” I heard somebody scream on the other side of the field.

With no time to lose, I walked right through Dev rather than sidestep. And then I was running. A shifter lying on the ground vomiting tried to grab me as I shot past. His clawed hand passed right through me. I raced like a bullet though their line of physical defences. Each time I phased through one of them, it felt like my soul was being dragged back a little by their intention to stop me. But every time I shoved forward.

Just ten metres away from where Emily stood shivering, something solid yanked me back. Surprise had me letting go of the Ley dimension. The person jerked me sideways and let go. I spun and rolled the way I’d been taught, landing in a crouch. When I glanced up, I expected to see Kai but was met with Tyler’s dark-ringed gaze. The rest of the field froze.

“Impressive,” he said. “Let’s see if we can make this a slightly fairer fight.”

He motioned at me to come at him. I didn’t move a muscle. It was never a good idea to attack an instructor. The last time Professor Eldridge had sparred with one of us, Trey ended up pressed to the floor with her boot on his neck.

I was about to question the instruction when Tyler raised his hand. Gritting my teeth, I waited for the fireball or the lash of wind. Nothing happened for a second. And then, before my very eyes, he disappeared. A speck of yellow light appeared in the centre of the spot where he’d stood. Faster than any other portal I’d ever encountered, the thing opened up into a yawning gap. I surged to my feet as a figure stepped through the portal. I would remember him until the day I died. Or the day I stabbed him through the heart. Whichever one came first.

Everything around me stood still as Jacob Buchanan smiled at me.

With barely a thought, I could have Morning Star hurting through the dimensional barriers. But sticking him with my demon blade wouldn’t be satisfying enough. Rage bubbled up inside me. It crashed through my chest and ripped aside the layer of green that kept trying to soothe my unpredictable magic.

Jacob was the reason why I had spent my whole summer feeling like the world was coming to an end. I took off running even though the odds of me being able to subdue him unarmed were minimal. It didn’t matter. He was right here, and I was going to strangle him with my bare hands.

I was two metres away from him when Jacob threw up a defensive arcane circle. I countered it with my own, blending the two forces and breaking his hold. Something Professor Mortimer had taught me during my second semester. Without the circle to stop me, I went crashing right into Jacob. It should have rung an alarm in my head that he did nothing to throw me off. We crashed onto the ground with me on top of him.

The gnawing anxiety that lingered in the back of my mind manifested in my balled fists.

My first hit clipped him in the jaw. My second one hit the side of his face. I would have grabbed him around the throat and started strangling him if somebody hadn’t hooked their arm around my waist and tried to drag me off.

“Lex!” Sophie’s voice said in my ear.

My head whipped around and tried to find her. The field wavered in front of my eyes. I blinked hard, trying to align the two images I kept seeing. One was of Jacob and an empty field. The other contained multiple casualties and a sea of mildly shocked faces. With the help of Sophie’s warming magic, the second one won.

I shook my head and swallowed. Sophie tried to get me to move but my limbs were heavy. “Lex. You have to get off him.”

The next thing I knew, somebody was scooping me up. I scented the bitter afterburn of wolfsbane. “Just when I think you can’t get any more insane,” Trey spoke in my ear. He righted me but held on to my arm so I wouldn’t topple over. Irritation chased through the bond, making me want to throw him off. At the same time, my hand clutched Trey’s.

What the heck was happening?

Sophie stepped in front of me. My vision was bathed in pink light. When she removed her hand from my cheek, my mind became sharp again. I saw the irritation in the bond for what it was: Kai’s reaction to Trey touching me.

I glanced down at the ground to find Tyler propped up on his elbow, a genuine smile on his face. Around us, the game seemed to have ended. I swept the field. Students were huddled in small groups, helping each other up and taking stock of their injuries. My competitive side reared its head. I searched for Emily only to find her shackled in Diana’s immovable grasp. Diana gave me a thumbs-up. Emily flinched. Right. I got it. She thought I was a big baddy.

“I take it we won,” I said, addressing the field in general.

Tyler chuckled. “We did.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I gripped Trey’s arm once and he let me go. “Okay.” I stopped walking beside Tyler. “We won. That’s good.” I peered down at him. “So do you want to tell me what the hell just happened?” The last part came out as a scream.

He leaped up and twisted into a crouch before I could follow through on my intention to kick him in the head.

Rather than succumb to my rage, Tyler continued to grin his amusement. “It was over as soon as you started phasing. But this was meant to be an evaluation. I needed to see how you would react to any situation.”

I could feel the nerve above my left eye twitching. The memory of Jacob’s face made the blood freeze in my veins. It was almost impossible to feel my heart beating over the furious demand that urged me to slit Tyler’s throat. “I’m glad you find my misery funny.”

He appeared in front of me as I turned to walk away. He was fast. I’d give him that. But if he didn’t get out of my face, I was going to kill him.

Kai sensed my deadly serious intent. He teleported beside me. “Don’t,” I snapped. “Both of you stay away from me.”

I tried to march off the field with as much dignity as I could muster after losing my shit and proving that I wasn’t as okay as I made out. A shower of glitter assaulted me.

“I’m really not in the mood, Orla.”

The sprite hovered in the air beside me, her tiny rainbow wings somehow keeping her afloat. She glided beside me as I marched away. “Don’t be embarrassed. I’d be snapping at everyone too if I almost caught Malachi Pendragon and then had to throw him away.”

Her hand inched towards me. I glared. She retracted it.

And then something hit me. I stopped dead. “Your power, do you think it’s possible you might be able to break a Nephilim bond?”

I held my breath. The vigorous shake of her head dashed my hope against the rocks of fate. “No way! If it was just a crush, I might be able to dampen it a little, but I don’t know a single force in the dimensions that could nullify a Nephilim bond. Except maybe a powerful spell.”

Right. What was I thinking? Nothing was ever that easy. I huffed, widened my stride, and got the hell out of there.

13

The next morning, my internal clock insisted on forcing me awake before dawn. Stubbornness kept me in bed until the sky began to lighten. Guilt made me rise and change out of my pyjamas even though sleeping through the day was probably the best outcome.

Not since my first night at the Academy had I been more apprehensive when approaching the Grove. My tongue felt fuzzy and dry. The warm nights amplified the overly sweet scent of Arcana fruit. It lingered in the air. Breathing through my mouth wasn’t much relief.

“Now what?” If there was one thing the nymphs hated more than a thief, it was a coward.

With a final exhale, I grabbed the railing of the fence and vaulted over. Pins and needles dashed across my skin. It skirted through my body in an escalating wave of prickling. Unlike the other times, it did not subside as I staggered deeper into the Grove. On the contrary, the farther in I walked, the more frantic the sensation became.

A million tiny little pinpricks stabbed at me. Once or twice was annoying but the constant assault turned into an ache. By the time my foot hit the edge of the Arcana clearing, I lost control of the nerves in my body. My muscles contracted. The ground came rushing up at me. All I could do was fall sideways so that my head hit the grass rather than the paved ground.

My mind felt like it had been stuffed with cotton wool. A dozen fluffy coloured lights appeared all around me, but by then my eyelids were too heavy to figure out what they were.

Something latched on to my foot. The last thing I remembered was a hideously long face in my periphery before I passed out.

* * *

Sunlight burned my corneas. Grogginess made it not worthwhile to turn around. A deep voice had me paying more attention.

“Why is she up there?” Footsteps crunched on gravel and then “Ow!”

More laughing. Huh?

“Somebody get Kai.”

His name was like a trigger in my sluggish thoughts. The effort to peel my eyes open was astronomical. They threatened to close again as a result. When I tried to move my arm to rub my eyes, I found them folded in my lap in an awkward cinched position.

My head drooped as I tried to make sense of the stimuli around me. The first clue was that my field of vision was parallel to the second floor of the dorms. From here, I could make out the shadows of several dozen students moving up and down the staircase. I had to turn my head down to glance at the tops of some of the trees that lined the small copses around the Academy. There was a lattice of finely braided rope impeding my sight. I was caught in a snare.

Those mini flying jerks had drugged me and hung me from the ancient overhanging branches of the oak that guarded the Grove. Sunlight beat down on the crown of my head. My sunburned cheeks said I’d been out here for some time. If they made me miss lunch, somebody was going to die.

The rabble of laughter from below denoted that I had an audience. Not one of whom thought it might be a good idea to help me down. When I escaped, I was going to kick some nymph ass. Getting down proved to be an issue.

My thoughts refused to settle on anything. Despite being trussed up and on display, I couldn’t seem to rub two logical brain cells together to form a coherent plan.

All of that flew out the window when footsteps crunched on the gravel below. The laughter died down slightly but was replaced by the low hush of anticipation.

Wings fluttered. I deliberately closed my eyes.

Green light filled my mind. It burned through the last of the potion the nymphs had doused me with. I cursed silently as my mind sharpened. The knot digging into my butt was starting to ache.

“What’s the plan here, Blue?” Kai said. Though my eyes were closed, the bond furnished me with an image of him hovering in the air in front of me. His sardonic smile needn’t have been so amused.

What was the plan? Sadly, I had none. Still, I wasn’t going to admit that to him.

My eyes opened. The momentary blur subsided.

Kai’s hand was fisted in front of his mouth. His chest and shoulders twitched. The heat that burned my cheeks was no longer from the sun.

“Are you done?” I asked.

He coughed to try and dislodge the laughter but didn’t quite manage. He tapped his chest a couple of times before he could get himself under control. It only encouraged the idiots below.

Feeling exposed, I let out my frustration. “Get lost! Don’t you guys have anything better to do?”

“Nope,” came Charles’s unrepentant answer. Dammit. Whose idea was it to move the Academies closer together?

I wriggled in the netting. The unstructured shape made balancing difficult. My feet kept slotting through the holes. “Argh!”

“Need help?” Kai asked.

“No. I’m fine.”

“Blue –”

“I said I’m fine. As you were.”

Suddenly, he loomed in front of me. His fingers weaved through the rope lattice to settle on my arm. I tried to pull away, but the net trapped me in place. If I struggled, it would reshape into an awkward position that might make it harder to escape later. “Why do you always make things more difficult for yourself?” Kai asked.

“Why do you always make things more difficult for me?” I nudged back against his hand as emphasis.

He drifted closer until his nose pressed up against the netting. His eyes sharpened. Specks of blue glittered in them like ice. Just like his angelfire was setting up shop inside me, my hedge magic had branded him too. I inhaled and tried to pull away. It only made him hold on tighter. “The harder you fight it, the worse it’ll become,” he said. “I might have wings, but I’m not an angel. I can only be pushed so far.”

I was no stranger to threats. Death, pain, damnation? All in a day’s work. The ripple of pleasure that whispered over my skin was far more terrifying. It settled in the pit of my gut, promising me untold rewards for being reckless. Raphael who? My lips parted. No. I bit the inside of my cheek to distract from the growing hunger that had nothing to do with food.

I yanked my arm away. It didn’t move very far with the net hindering me, but it was enough. Kai floated to the ground. “Leave her,” I heard him say. “She’s being unreasonable.”

Excuse me?

“I dunno,” Charles said, “she seems pissed.”

“She’ll get over it.”

The shifter snorted. “Yeah, right. Are you sure you even know her?”

While they hammed it up with thinly veiled digs at me, I tried to roll my thumb over the band of Gabriel’s Key. Knowing the nymphs, the netting would probably be hexed but there was no harm in trying. My thumb hit bare skin.

I glanced at my hand. No ring. The kernel of annoyance in me graduated into rage. I’d fought and died for that ring. How dare they take it from me? Over the years, I’d taken a lot of crap from the nymphs. If someone held a gun to my head, I might admit I was fond of them. But I’d be damned if they took a source of power from me that I needed. Not for something as trivial as eating Arcana fruit.

“Blue!” Kai screamed as the first tendril of black-laced hedge magic shot through the oak. He appeared in front of me again. This time, I saw him through a haze of anger.

“Release me.” It wasn’t directed at him. I knew that somewhere around here, the nymphs were spying. They made no appearance.

The second shot of magic caused the oak to shudder. The rope snare swung me in mid-air like a carnival ride. Feeder roots began to shake off the earth that had sheltered them for centuries.

“I said, release me!”

Something inside me revolted. My heart kicked. A dull ache squeezed my brain.

Kai’s angel blade appeared in his hand. With a single swipe, the netting broke. I fell for a breath before he swept me up in his arms. I was already struggling out of his hold when we landed on the ground.

My rage fit had cleared the crowd from directly beneath the tree. They gathered again a safe distance away. When I stepped forward, Kai grabbed my arm. “Stop it!”

The oak groaned and shook. My magic sifted the earth around it, encouraging it to break free. “Blue!”

“Get lost!”

The first screech came from the side. Morning Star whipped through the barrier of the Ley dimension and flashed as it connected with the claws of the purple nymph. There was no contest. Hell-forged steel beat nymph claws hands down. That didn’t mean the nymphs were logical. Where they couldn’t beat me with force, they tried to win with numbers.

A squadron of multi-coloured lights blinked into view. They came at me from all sides. Kai attempted to step in their way, but they evaded. That was the beauty of being small. Rather than take another swipe at them with my demon blade, I funnelled hedge magic into the oak. Using its thick branches as a weapon, I swept it in a wide arc that gathered up the nymphs and tossed them aside.

“The ring,” I grit out.

The purple nymph shook herself where she’d fallen. She shrieked at me. The high-pitched sound almost busted my eardrums. “Scream all you like. Either give me back the ring, or I flatten this place.”

“Blue!”

“Shut up!” I rounded on him. “Mind your own business for once!”

The storm cloud that gathered over his face told me I was rapidly hurtling towards the tip of his restraint. Screw him.

Never ones to take a threat lying down, the nymphs regrouped. Since they couldn’t get to me physically, they decided to throw hexes at me. I only just managed to erect the protection circle in time. The smile on my face should have enraged them. In a contest of sheer power, I knew I had them beat.

They formed a ring around the circle. Their numbers were such that they almost lapped the distance. Nymphs in every colour swirled around me. I readied myself for another attack when a scroll appeared in the purple nymph’s hand.

What was this?

Not wanting to miss anything, I traded this reality for that of the Ley dimension. In it, the purple nymph’s speech slowed down. “Alessia Hastings is contracted to servitude to the Grove,” she said in slowed, breathy speech. “Where possible, that service extends to doing no harm.”

As she read out the terms of the contract that she had tricked me into making when I first arrived, golden bands of string appeared in the earth beneath me. I yelped and tried to hop away but they sprang up and wrapped around my limbs like vines. “Any attempts at harming the Grove will be nullified.”

Hundreds of golden fibres mummified me. The only part of me uncovered was my face. They glowed so brightly it gave the sun a run for its money. The light hurt my eyes. That was the least of my problems. The second the purple nymph stopped reading, the ropes snapped and dragged me to the ground. All my hedge magic leeched from the oak. It swayed for a moment before groaning its way back into the ground.

I tried to move but I was caught tight. They’d beaten me on a technicality. I was going to kill something.

My vision had turned sideways. A figure walked around the perimeter of the Grove. Emily stopped short. She tried to backtrack, but Isla barred her way. The Fae’s lips moved furiously.

“Let go of me!”

The nymphs hissed. “You stole Arcana fruit.”

“So what? I bust my ass here every day. Besides, it didn’t help. What more do you want?”

Isla and Emily inched closer. They had probably been on their way to the Fae forest. Now they joined the group of spectators watching me being constricted by the nymphs. Purple nymph glided down right in front of my face. A glamour covered her again in ethereal beauty. She scratched a nail down my cheek. It drew blood.

“Don’t.” Kai’s voice was hard. I was tied too tight to see where he’d moved. She glanced menacingly at him over the top of my body. “Fair’s fair. She stole. You’ve punished her. Don’t touch her again.”

The nymphs screeched. Emily shuddered. For a second, our gazes met. An image flashed in front of me. Another version of me, this one dressed like a ninja, appeared at the edge of the Grove. Her expression was without animation. It was like she was functioning without a soul.

As I watched, she leaped over the railing of the fence just like I’d always done. Instead of moving to the pathway, she stepped up to the oak that had only just resettled itself. Her palms braced on the rough bark. They began to glow a deep blue marred by brown flecks. Demon poisoned.

My ears popped from the decibel of the nymphs’ screeching. Ninja me glanced back once before she slammed her fist against the oak. The world exploded in a shower of displaced energy beginning with my doppelganger’s body. My mouth opened in a silent scream as the wave of power rolled over me. But when I blinked, the image had disappeared. The Grove stood as serene as ever. Silence gripped the scene. Somehow, I knew I wasn’t the only one who had seen the vision.

The nymphs were anything but serene. They huddled together, speaking in a timbre even the supernaturals couldn’t hear. Emily hung limp in Isla’s arms. The Fae’s jaw locked. When she saw me watching, Isla rolled her eyes. I gathered she wasn’t impressed by Emily’s constant fainting.

I tried to scramble back when the nymphs broke their huddle. Purple nymph dropped onto the ground. She glided up until she could reach out and touch me. It was barely perceptible when she drew her finger in an odd pattern on my forehead. Then she created the same pattern on the parchment. A tingling sensation squirmed in my chest. It subsided as quickly as it came.

The golden vines around me dissolved. Gabriel’s Key appeared out of thin air and clattered to the ground. I reached out and snatched it, not taking my eyes from the Grove.

“What was that?”

I pushed myself upright as the nymphs disappeared. Silly as it was, I tried to follow them. Two steps were all I managed before hitting a barrier that ejected me onto my ass. Dignity wouldn’t allow me to try another time.

“Really?” I shouted at their fading forms. “That’s how you want to play this?”

They had locked me out of the Grove. Two years of early morning shifts down the drain. Kai stepped up beside me. “They’re just scared. Give them time to adjust.”

My attention landed to the right where Isla was propping Emily’s back against a tree. The human’s eyelids were flickering but she seemed to be responsive.

“Everyone is always scared,” I snapped. “I can’t help how other people feel. And I’m getting a little sick of being the punching bag.”

“Blue”.

The position of the sun said I’d missed my morning Dead Languages class. Win some. Lose some. With one unpleasant task completed for the day, I turned on my heel and made my way to Professor Mortimer’s cottage.

14

Part of me was convinced that if Professor Mortimer hadn’t been in sanctuary with Raphael for most of the summer, that I would have gone to see him and grovelled earlier. As I approached the cottage where he’d asked me to meet him for our first lesson, the dip in my gut said otherwise.

Tyler was already there leaning against the doorway. My expression, reflecting back at me from the front window, was no less severe than it had been yesterday.

“Haven’t forgiven me, I assume,” Tyler said.

“Didn’t hear you apologise,” I shot back.

“Nothing to apologise for.” Bloody elite guards.

I shrugged. “What are you doing here?”

He knocked lightly on the door. “I had some spare time and this class looks interesting.” Otherwise known as the elite guards spying on me.

There was shuffling from inside the house. The front door opened.

“Tyler,” Professor Mortimer said, stepping out into the open field. “I heard they’d stationed you here. How does it feel to be back on the old stomping ground?”

They did that weird thing men did that wasn’t a handshake but somehow involved a lot of pats on the back. Lingering in the doorway wasn’t a good stalling tactic. I glanced up to find the professor smiling at me.

“Alessia.” He was another one that refused to call me by my nickname. Something about beautiful European names being ruined by vulgar pop culture. I’d thought it a funny thing to say for someone named Bruce.

“Ah...hi.”

I looked everywhere but into his eyes. His hands landed on shoulders. “Alessia.”

I took in a shuddering breath. Between the two of us, the professor was the more patient. He could out-awkward me any day of the week. Caving, I raised my head. My focus landed on the two raised bumps of skin on his forehead where the demon’s horns had erupted. Even Raphael hadn’t managed to heal that injury.

“I’m so sorry,” I started to say.

He shook his head. “Don’t be. You had no idea.”

“Bran...”

His head bowed. For a second, it felt as if I was there. And then the professor gripped my shoulder tightly and the moment broke. “We honour our fallen by fighting another day. That’s what Bran would have wanted.”

Faith had never been my strong suit. I kept thinking Bran would have wanted to be alive. But his point was taken. “Are you okay?”

He let me go and braced his palms on his lower back. He leaned backwards and then sprang into a deranged fighting pose. “I’m not dust just yet.”

“Give it a couple of minutes. Maybe Emily will show up and I’ll blow us all to smithereens.” This was muttered under my breath as we walked a little distance from his front door.

“Ah. I heard about the human. It’s a very odd affliction. Normally, visions aren’t triggered by one person or thing. And the recipient has random visions, not anything so specific. Has she said anything to you?”

I snorted. “She won’t come anywhere near me.” Given I tended to go boom in all of her visions, I could understand why. I told him as much.

The professor frowned. “No vision is without flaws. Just like no prophecy is completely accurate. In any case, we should try to sort truth from fiction. That can only be done if you’re in contact if that’s what triggers her.”

“Until the elite guard can establish a protocol around her,” Tyler warned, “it’s best not to interfere with her movements.”

I made a face behind his back. The professor looked like he wanted to say more but thought better of it. “Let’s start the lesson.”

At least Tyler wasn’t one of those guards who hovered. He stalked back closer to the house and sat down in the grass to give us space.

The professor ushered me just a little farther away. He scratched at one of the scars on his forehead absentmindedly. “Never in my lifetime did I think Bloodline would need military guards.” He caught himself when my face fell. “I didn’t mean –”

“It’s okay. How were you supposed to know that Lucifer would try to make scions to break himself out of his imprisonment?”

More head scratching. “It does present a conundrum.” He dropped down onto the grass and crossed his legs. I mimicked his gesture. “It concerns me there could be others out there.”

I plucked at the strands of grass. “The thought had crossed my mind. But Michael says even if there were, unless something happens to trigger their connection to him, they should be safe.”

He mulled this over. “I suppose in order to release Lucifer, the person has to at least know and believe in the existence of the supernatural. I understand the ritual is about choice. Free will and the strength of mind to bear that. Our new student is a prime example of why that so often fails.”

The question that had been bugging me reared its ugly head. “What do you think it was about me that made me like this?”

“What is it about anyone that makes them who they are?” The professor gathered his hands in his lap. “I suppose we could objectively theorise that your great-grandmother had much to do with the outcome of your life. But at the end of the day, she couldn’t and hasn’t been able to shape the person you’ve become. You could have very easily diverged from this path while you were homeless.” He held me captive with his gentle brown eyes. “Be honest with me, when you were living rough, were there not times when you felt the power in your soul?”

I cast my mind back. Since learning of the supernatural world, I’d done everything I could to suppress those memories. But now that he mentioned it, maybe the fear and biting loneliness had always been bearable because they’d felt temporary. Like I was waiting for something and I only needed to stay alive until then.

“You’re worried there is something wrong with you because those who came before you didn’t survive.” It was a statement that hit me right where I hid away all my worst fears. The professor placed his hand on my shoulder. “There is nothing wrong with wanting to live, Alessia.”

I swallowed, my thoughts settling on the visions Emily kept dredging up. “What if me living causes other people’s deaths?”

“What if you living saves people?” He paused and contemplated. “That’s not even a question. You’ve saved people already.”

“The prophec –”

“Is all conjecture. That’s why so many have seen it in vastly different forms.”

“Does that mean you don’t think I’m destined to release Lucifer?”

This time, he wasn’t so quick to assure me. It was the reason why I’d waited to speak to him specifically. Professor Mortimer had always been honest with me. Even if it meant saying something difficult. “We all make mistakes, Alessia. It’s how we go about trying to fix them that defines who we are.” He scratched his beard. “On that topic...what happened in the Grove this morning...”

I blanched. Honestly! Gossip really travelled fast around the supernatural community.

“Not my finest hour.”

The professor smiled. “Let’s get some work done, shall we? I think our guard is becoming suspicious that this is nothing more than a chat session. I assume Jacqueline has explained to you why you’re here?”

“Too dangerous to have in a classroom.”

“Alessia. I hardly think that’s what she meant.” That was about as far as he went in terms of chastisement. “However, it is partly true. Your abilities have grown far beyond what we normally teach. I’ll be honest, there are things you’re able to do that we had deemed impossible. It makes trying to broaden your education somewhat difficult.”

“Somewhat?”

There was a glint in his eyes when I tipped my head up. It was the unrepentant fervour of a man who took his greatest pleasure in knowledge. “You’re going to Frankenstein me, aren’t you?”

He grinned. “We might forgo the surgical part. Of course we would have to be very cautious. I’ve spent some time upgrading the protections around the cottage.”

“Did you actually get permission for this?”

“The board were not supportive at first. But then the elite guard did a little arm twisting and here we are.”

“What kind of experimentation are we talking about?” It was one thing to be part of progress, but things tended to explode when I was involved.

“I understand you’ve been trying to strengthen your circles in the hopes of one day containing a celestial unmaking.”

My gaze darted to his face. A solemn expression had etched into his normally pleasant features. Whenever I mentioned my plans to an adult, the result was usually a lecture about prevention being better than a cure. I agreed. The problem was that I kept getting bombarded with images of what came after prevention no longer prevailed. “Professor?”

“We cannot allow the demons to trespass any further into this dimension.”

In his suddenly stark gaze, I saw the truth. He’d been possessed by a demon. If Lucifer were ever set free, there was no way he would kill Professor Mortimer. Not when he was such a powerful vessel. What Lucifer could make Professor Mortimer do was unthinkable.

“Okay. I’m on board.”

A smile lit up his face. “Excellent. How much do you know about meditation?”

Oh for goodness sake!

He spent the rest of the lesson trying to teach me to control my breathing while I almost died of boredom.

15

Two years in supernatural society and I still couldn’t read a room properly. When I hustled into Supernatural Species Integration, my expectation was rowdy joking. What I got were sobering glances from an utterly orderly room.

“You guys know this is just glorified Sex Ed, right?” I shot at Trey and Diana.

“It’s not just about sex.” Diana flipped open her textbook. Both of their faces were dead straight. I kept thinking at any moment, they were going to yell surprise!

“You of all people should understand how serious this class is,” Sasha commented as he took the seat next to Trey.

“Actually. This class is pointless for me. I don’t even know why I have to be here.”

There was no need for them to trade pitying glances. They suddenly got busy staring at their feet. It was like they thought I might burst into tears at any given moment. That only happened once!

Speaking of integrations, Isla appeared in the doorway. She shot me a withering look when she spotted where I was sitting which was in the middle of the room. After lingering for a second, she motioned behind her. Emily and the Evil Three entered at her back. I had thought white was the perfect foil for Emily’s light colouring, but today she was in jeans and a black blouse. Her hair was practically glowing. Her expression, however, was sullen. If somebody breathed in her direction, she might faint again.

Isla made a beeline for me.

“Can you switch with Orla?” she said before I could get a word in. The sprite had arrived early and taken the seat in the back corner of the room.

“Are you serious?” My gaze flicked to Emily who was doing her best to blend into the wallpaper.

“I’m at my wits end with her.”

Sasha snickered. “It has been less than a week.”

If looks could kill, Sasha would be writhing on the floor. “You think I don’t know that? This gig was meant to be about having input into student policy, not babysitting a human tissue.” The side of my desk cracked under the pressure of her grip. “She crumbles at everything. And I mean everything. Yesterday, Phoenix tried to lick her hand while we were in the billabong. Her scream almost deafened me. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. So, if you have any sympathy, you’ll move.”

“I haven’t done anything to her.” Despite my words, I was already gathering my things.

“There’s no difference between what you have done and what you can do.”

I begged to differ. But there was no arguing with Isla when she was in this kind of mood. I was better off throwing a punch at her. Sadly, that would probably just prove Emily’s point.

Orla was none too happy about the switch either. But she didn’t kick up too much of a fuss. Especially once Sophie arrived and sat next to her.

I was just begrudgingly setting up my desk when the quiet conversation came to an end. The sound of claws on stone could be heard down the hallway. Doctor Thorne’s steps were unhurried as he lumbered into the room. Draped over his shoulders was his uniform white lab coat.

He dropped his textbooks onto the professor’s desk and turned to us. Normally, the professors liked to lean or sit on the desk when they taught us. But Doctor Throne had a tail and that didn’t really make sitting comfortable. He turned out to be a pacer. “Let me start off by making it clear that this is not some glorified version of sexual education.”

Alright! There was no need for all the “I told you so” stares from half the room. I had plenty of returned rude gestures to go around. “Alessia.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re all old enough now to understand the repercussions of sexual interactions.” Why was I the only one finding it difficult to keep a straight face? “Please open up your textbooks to page twenty-three. I want to start with the basics of supernatural procreation. Who can tell me why most supernaturals have difficulty conceiving?”

Even I knew that one. Orla was happy enough to offer the answer when Doctor Thorne pointed to her. “We weren’t meant to exist in this dimension,” Orla said. “The conditions here interfere with our life force.”

“That’s right.” He paced. It was beginning to make me dizzy. “And why is it particularly difficult for different species of supernaturals to cross integrate?”

He nodded at Sasha. “Because we weren’t meant to ever have interacted.”

“Exactly. The fall of the dimensional barriers has been a disaster in many ways. We now exist in a state that should have never happened. Learning how this affects us will be the only way we can continue to survive.”

His tail wound into a coil that functioned as an anchor. It allowed him to lean back as though he were sitting on a stood. Interesting. “Raise your hand if you know more than three other families who have cross-mated with other species.”

Many raised their hands, including me. “Now lower your hands if one of those families is the Thompsons.”

Everyone lowered their hands. “That’s hardly fair,” Dev said. “Everybody knows the Thompsons.”

Doctor Thorne leaned forward. “The Thompsons are an anomaly. Alastair Thompson is descended from the first line of Thracian shifter warriors. It makes his lineage stronger than most. Shayla Thompson is a disciple of the Mother, a fertility goddess. Even with these advantages, conception has been sporadic for them. There are lengthy age differences between their children. Longevity is the only thing that levels the playing field for us.”

“How do you explain these two?” Sasha nodded his head between Diana and Roland. Even I forgot most of the time that they were twins.

“Aedan Pierce is world renowned for his love of mead,” was Doctor Thorne’s quicksilver response.

“Hey!” Diana shouted. When the laughter died down, Doctor Thorne grew contemplative.

“I understand the birth was difficult.”

Roland’s face screwed up. “I came out first. Diana didn’t make an appearance for forty-three hours.”

“Come again?” Sophie sputtered. “How long was your mother in labour for?”

“In total? Seventy-two hours.”

Hell no. Being barren was starting to present a silver lining. “You might never have been with us at all, is that correct, Diana?”

She grimaced. “Ma was pretty exhausted. When it looked like she might not make it, Da had to petition Seraphina for a Nephilim healer.”

“How many others have heard of Raphael’s line needing to step in with a birth?” Several hands lifted into the air. I gulped. Yet another thing the world would be robbed of if Raphael’s line ended.

Doctor Thorne continued. “Of those families you know, how many of them involve a human mate?”

Two by my count. Trey’s mum was human and so was someone in Kai’s lineage. “Why is it that humans can reproduce more easily with supernaturals?”

“Because this is our dimension,” Sophie offered. For once, her answer wasn’t met with a round of disgruntled hissing.

“That’s right. Humans –” he glanced at me and corrected himself, “most humans, aren’t born with any special abilities. But they are blessed with something we would deadly cherish. Fertility. The rate at which the human race procreates is something that has allowed them to become the dominant population in this dimension. Despite what some might say, there is great strength in numbers. If the humans ever gained knowledge of our existence and decided that they do not care for us, just by sheer numbers, they could overwhelm us. Now, who knows which of the two supernatural species is most likely to settle down with humans? Trey.”

“Shifters and Nephilim.”

“And why is that?”

“For the most part, shifters are often best at Dimension Integration. Unless we shift, our appearance isn’t any different to a human’s. By the time the human realises what we are, they are more willing to accept the mating.”

“Sounds like entrapment,” I muttered.

Doctor Thorne’s dark eyes bored into me. I retracted all my body parts and slunk low in my chair. “What about the Nephilim?” Doctor Thorne asked.

This time, James was all ready with an answer. “We’re just irresistible.”

There was a resounding chorus to the contrary. “You wish!” Isla snapped. “We certainly resisted your attempt to become House Captain.”

“That’s because you’re a cheating bitc –”

“James!” It came out as a deep grumble from the very base of Doctor Thorne’s chest.

“What?” The Nephilim leaned back in his chair, his palms interlinked behind his head in a classic douchebag pose.

“Be mindful of your classmates or don’t be in this class.”

“I don’t take orders from you.” What he implied was that Nephilim didn’t take orders from para-humans.

Dev growled low. “Watch what you say.”

“Or what?” James challenged.

“Or we’ll make sure it’s the last time you open your mouth,” Trey rumbled.

Somebody squeaked. The collective attention turned to where Emily sat. While we hadn’t been paying attention, she’d pushed her table as close to the wall as possible. Now she was practically climbing it in an attempt to get away from the undertone of shifter aggression in the air. How in the world any of these supernaturals mated with each other was beyond me.

“Enough,” Doctor Thorne said. “Whatever your personal beliefs, Mr. McTavish, if you can’t remain civil, you can go and explain to the headmistress that you’d like to be removed from this class.”

“No electives,” Sophie piped up.

For all his bravado, James didn’t move. Oh, so Nephilim did take orders from Amazons? Doctor Thorne was consummately calm, but Jacqueline would rip James a couple of new ones if he dared to utter his grievances.

James’s scowl deepened as the seconds ticked by. When it was obvious he wouldn’t be going anywhere, Doctor Thorne let him off the hook.

“My question remains,” Doctor Thorne said.

Sophie answered quickly to smooth the topic over. “It’s because Nephilim are borne of the seraphim. They are the only line that could have naturally existed in this dimension. And since many of them are guards, they often find themselves in contact with the human population.”

There was a pause. Doctor Thorne studied me. “Which of the Nephilim Houses has historically had the most bonds with humans and other races?”

“House Pendragon.”

I had been waiting for it. Even then the kick in the gut winded me. It made sense. The healers would have the most contact with all the other races. Doctor Thorne opened his mouth as though to hastily brush past the topic when someone raised their hand.

“Emily?” Doctor Thorne said. You could have bowled me over with a sneeze. Did she even have a voice?

She sat there static for a second before she managed to drum up the courage to speak. Her voice, like the rest of her, was reedy and delicate. “Are there many of you hiding amongst the human population?”

The questioned stumped him. Most likely because he didn’t know how much she had already been told, and how much he could reveal to her. I suspected the answer was a lot more than humans would care for.

“There are enough,” Sophie helped him out. “Not so many that they pose a threat.”

That’s where we disagreed. Sophie and I didn’t butt heads often, but she was somewhat immune to the presence of supernaturals in everyday life. It was the difference between growing up in the fold and outside of it. One vampire in amongst humans was too many for me. The one I’d spotted while at Terran still weighed heavily on my mind. It made me realise how sanitised Bloodline made things appear.

“But they...I mean you, have rules, don’t you?” Emily insisted.

“You’re honestly perfectly safe.” I didn’t think he realised he wasn’t blinking. He’d gotten it into his head that eye contact was the key to gaining a human’s trust. Too bad when he made eye contact with someone, his yellow eyes dilated and he stopped blinking. He called it giving them his full attention. Those of us who had been subjected to it called it his hypnotic pre-digestion stare. Like a snake sizing you up before it dislocated its jaw and swallowed you whole.

I coughed. Emily lowered her eyes. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” James drawled. “The worst thing you have to be afraid of around here is Hastings losing her marbles and bringing about the apocalypse.”

“Shut up, James!” Diana snapped. But as I watched Emily tremble in her seat, I knew that was exactly what she was afraid of.

The bell rang before Doctor Thorne could do anything about James’s statement. What could he do anyway when it was mostly the truth? I could, however, do some damage control. As everyone was getting ready to head off to their next classes, I darted between the human curtain the Evil Three often made around Emily.

“Oi!” Harlow shouted. I had ducked right beneath her arm.

“Just give me a second.” She rolled her eyes. The bored expression on her face wasn’t very frightening.

By now Emily had realised I was within touching distance. She pulled her textbook to her chest as a shield. When she brushed a strand of hair over her ear, her hand shook. My radar was scanning out of control for any signs of an impending vision projection. It was the reason why none of the others had left the room.

“I know you’re scared of me,” I told Emily. She looked in every direction besides mine. Seriously? “To tell you the truth, what you can do scares me too.”

Her head tipped up. “I don’t mean to –”

“I know. Just like I didn’t choose to be Lucifer’s scion. I get that you don’t want to be around me. But I’ve got a lot on my plate and it would be helpful if you didn’t pile on with your predictions too.”

She swallowed as though something was caught in her throat. Twice she tried to pick up her bag. The second time, she hooked the strap at the wrong angle. It spilled over with the zip gaping open. Half a dozen bottles rattled out onto the floor. She startled and tried to swipe them all back. I stopped a bottle from rolling away with my foot. Bending down, I caught the script on the label just before she hastily snatched it from my hands. Benzodiazepine. Anxiety medication. It had been so long since I’d needed or been in contact with human pharmaceuticals that the sight of them shocked me. I didn’t know why. Emily was the poster child for anxiety.

The second warning bell rang. “We’re going to be late for Herbology,” Winnie reminded me. I stepped back to allow Emily the space she needed to breathe. This hadn’t gone at all like I had hoped. Before they disappeared through the door, Emily turned back around to me. Her lower lip was actually trembling. How could I possibly elicit such terror? I was barely over five foot!

Sometimes, it wasn’t about size. “What else have you seen?” That had to be the only explanation. She blinked a couple of times.

“It’s not about what I’ve seen,” she said. “It’s about how many times I’ve seen it. In every combination. No matter what the circumstance, the outcome doesn’t change. You destroy everything.”

She walked out the door, leaving me there feeling as though the weight of the world was on my shoulders.

16

It was only after we arrived back at the dorm from dinner that Sophie asked me what was wrong. “You’ve hardly said a word.”

The light above our door was flashing. That was all I needed right now. More idiots wanting to sell the perfect supernatural wedding. Ignoring it, I nudged off my sneakers and dropped my things on the floor beside the bed. “Just thinking.”

“About what Emily said?”

“About everything.”

Sophie started collecting her things for a shower. “Don’t let it get to you. Prophecies can often be wrong. We see everything through the filter of other people’s minds.”

“How often are those people humans who can’t be mind wiped?”

She stopped in the middle of laying a towel over her arm. “Not often, but that doesn’t negate the point. She doesn’t know you.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Walking over, she sat down on the bed beside me. “It has everything to do with it.” I glanced down at my hands. All evening I’d considered the way my body had betrayed me over summer break. The anxiety attacks and nausea had subsided substantially since returning to school, but I suspected that was because Kai was closer. The angelfire from his bond was healing me more efficiently. Rather than feel comforted, it made me anxious. There was no way I could allow myself to become dependent on him. The walls felt like they were closing in. As a result, my flight response was going haywire.

“We’ll figure this out,” Sophie insisted.

“What if we don’t?”

“We will. We have to. How is it fair that after everything you’ve been through, Lucifer gets his way?”

When I didn’t answer, she squeezed my knee and left. “Don’t let any vampires in while I’m gone.”

“Ha. Ha.” It reminded me I hadn’t checked in on Andrei for a while.

Like the perpetual man-child that he was, Andrei lived in a penthouse apartment in the vampire city. Directly behind where he set up his mirror was an obscene nude portrait of a generously endowed woman. It meant that through mirror call, his head was conveniently wedged right in her crotch. The fact his hair was bed-rumpled when he accepted the call told me everything I needed to know. I tried to make my voice as cheerful as possible just to irritate him. “Good morning!”

“Urgh. Why are you calling?”

“Hey! I’m doing you a favour, remember?”

He scratched at the light stubble on his face. “If you can call this a favour. I thought you said you knew how to summon.” He took in the walls of my dorm room. “Anyway, it’s a moot point now you’re back at the Academy.”

“Actually, genius, if you had bothered to get your head out of your ass for a second, you would know that I have special permission from the elite guard to leave the Academy if I need to in the name of research.”

He stopped digging around for earwax and blinked. The crazy bled back into his eyes to cover up the boredom. “So we’re still on for the weekend?”

“If you’re awake. Is this how you’re going to spend the rest of your life?”

He smirked at me. “At least I have a life. From what I hear, you’re going to be shackled to a bedpost in Seraphina shortly. Have you heard the rumours that Captain Nephilim is restoring Pendragon Manor? Between you and me, he’s lost his mind. Unless of course your little venture into the human world yielded results I don’t know about.”

He laughed at the clicking of my jaw. “So you can’t drag yourself out of bed to do anything besides listen to MirrorNet gossip? Did you ask Victoria for the personal items I mentioned?”

Twice now I’d tried to summon his family. Both times nobody had showed up. We needed a personal article from somebody in his family to strengthen the connection. Too bad for us Andrei had gone into a fit of rage and burned down his family’s estate. Now we had to resort to begging Victoria for help and she was about as receptive of the idea as I was of releasing Lucifer.

“I’ve been warming her up to it.”

I rapped my fingers on the bedside table. “Can’t you just sneak into Castle Amos and borrow it?” I made air quotes around the word borrow.

“Do you think she just leaves things lying around? After what happened with Artemis, she’s got more guards in that place than in Seraphina.”

“What’s her problem anyway? Shouldn’t she be happy we’re trying to clear your family’s name?”

Darkness bled into his eyes. “I said I’m trying.”

“I don’t even know why I bother with you.”

Leaning forward, he flashed me with his fangs. “Because I’m the only one who doesn’t make sad eyes at you like you’re a lame puppy.”

“No. You only threaten and insult me.”

He yawned. Getting through to him now would be a miracle. Since he was so kind as to poke holes in my emotional wounds, I decided to fight fire with fire.

“I might be a bit late on Sunday. Astrid is having brunch with Dorian and she wants me to help her pick out something to wear. But I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

Satisfaction was seeing the flare of red in his irises before I cut the connection. It only took a little white lie to achieve it.

The logic of what we were doing played over in my mind when I tried to get some sleep. It was likely that Andrei’s family had given in to the bloodlust and started murdering people for no reason. But Andrei wouldn’t stop digging until there was nothing left to unturn. In the same way I kept trying to find alternatives to this prophecy despite all evidence to the contrary. It kept me awake long after Sophie was snoring softly. Nothing in this life was fair. I’d made my peace with that long ago. So why was I still trying to grasp for something I knew didn’t exist? I really was an optimist.

It left me wholly unprepared for the nightmares that stole all the warmth from the world. In them, I was a bystander as Bran and Carlos died over and over again. Any way you looked at it, I was responsible for their deaths. Whether by choice, omission, or design.

When the bell sounded for witching hour, my mind snapped awake as though it was eager to face reality rather than stew in a past that couldn’t be changed.

I found myself mindlessly trotting along the path to the Grove. Fellow night-time marauders were already at the perimeter. Phoenix bounded over to me when he scented me. The yowies called out in their scratchy voices. We stood in a ramshackle line. I patted the hair on Phoenix’s neck and sighed.

The yowies sniffed at the air that was practically stewing in Arcana scent. One of them stuck their tongue out in the hope of catching fumes. I didn’t think it worked. Disgusted by the turn of events, the yowie growled, spat on the ground, and turned tail back along the shadowed brush towards the billabong.

Phoenix barked. “Go. There’s no sense in hanging around here.”

He cocked his head to the side. “I’ll be fine.”

Fine was a relative term. It escalated when I heard footsteps scraping against the gravel. Even without the heightened awareness of the bond, I knew it was Kai.

“Stalking them isn’t going to make it better,” he said, appearing on my right. He was in his sweats and a white T-shirt. I took a fraction of a step away from him.

“I wasn’t stalking. It just happens to be on my way to the billabong.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “And what might you be doing in the billabong at this time of night?”

None of your business! “Summoning a Rainbow Serpent.”

He glanced up at the sky. “It’s not the right time of year.”

Wasn’t it? I hadn’t the slightest clue. Thanks to that semester at Terran, I’d had to skip the class on Australian mythological creatures.

“Anyway, no time to waste.”

He caught hold of my wrist when I tried to turn. I yanked back without any expectation of him letting go. I wasn’t disappointed. “Nobody else is around. You can stop shooting death rays for a minute.”

I couldn’t help smirking. “I knew you’d fall for that movie!”

He returned my grin, and it was like all the stars in the sky weren’t bright enough to overshadow him. “The parts of the movie I saw weren’t bad. I was just a little preoccupied with everything else.”

Heat crept up my neck at the spiral of memory that gripped him. I had a sudden realisation of how perfectly we’d fit in that movie recliner. How good it had been to sit in the dark and pretend to be just an ordinary couple. Thank goodness for the cover of darkness. Kai turned his face up towards the light. It was only then I noticed his eyes were grainy.

“What’s wrong?”

He massaged his temple with the heel of his palm. “Couldn’t sleep. Bad dreams.”

It was too much of a coincidence, but I didn’t press the issue. The topic of the bond was off-limits. Thankfully, he didn’t push. Not about that anyway.

“Are you just going to skulk around in the dark until they change their minds?”

“No. I plan to pretend they don’t exist.”

“Very mature.”

I threw my arms in the air. “What more do they want from me? I tried to apologise. They wouldn’t listen!”

He regarded me for a moment. “How about losing the attitude and apologising with a little less hostility?”

“Attitude?” My voice went up an octave.

He waited for my indignity to subside. When it didn’t seem likely, he sighed. “You stole a lot of fruit.”

“How many times do I have to say I didn’t mean to?”

“Semantics. You know how protective they are. You didn’t even ask. Just rolled in there like it was yours.”

“I did no –”

He stared me down, challenging me to keep denying the truth of it. “They’re treacherous but they’re also vulnerable. Trickery is their only defence. You broke through their warding without knowing what you were doing. In the Fae realm, that kind of power usually equates to dominion. At any time, if you chose to, you could take the Grove from them. Understand how that feels. You won’t even let someone take a French fry you’ve dropped on the table. Are you going to stand there and question the concept of possessiveness?”

Using food against me was below the belt. But I couldn’t dispute its effectiveness. There was no need to think on it. The similarities between what I’d done and the way the Fae had treated them was glaringly obvious. I groaned.

Now I felt stupid as well as tired and guilty. “What am I supposed to do then?”

He shrugged. “Beats me. They’ve never been this pissed as far as I can tell.”

“Thanks. Your advice is ever so helpful.”

Before my very eyes, his posture turned from early morning languid to drill sergeant stiff. “Speaking of advice, you’re up and we’re both free. We’re taking a trip to the elite guard facility.”

“Please.”

He was not amused. “Make up your mind. Either you want nice, or you want to learn.”

That was just like me. I could have fallen for anyone. But no, I had to fall in love with a moron who thought being nice and being tough were mutually exclusive.

17

When Kai and I appeared on the grounds of the elite guard facility, I was sure someone was playing a joke on me. The gaudy brightness of the trees and mix of plants around the border couldn’t possibly exist naturally. The Fae loved nature, but they had a penchant for warping it into the lush verdant growth of their home dimension. When I’d asked Isla about it, she’d gone on a rant about how harsh the Australian outback was, and how if she wanted to die, it wouldn’t be from being burned alive by the very trees that were meant to sustain us.

“This is a glamour, right?” I pointed towards the castle sitting on the outcrop of rock. The grey stone building sported actual turrets, a cutlass over the arched entryway, and you got it, a moat. All it needed was a glittering rainbow arching over the top and it could have been something straight out of a children’s cartoon.

Kai grimaced. “Don’t say a word about it.”

While Kai and I stood outside the entrance, elite guards of all shapes and sizes came and went. As instructed, I kept my mouth zipped. Unlike in Morgana, the Fae here were not the ones you saw in picture books. The guard I saw dragging a body around the back of the building was grim faced. He had a scar running along the circumference of his neck like somebody had taken a knife to him with the intention of slowly decapitating him.

His wings were a dulled grey. “They do that to themselves,” Kai told me. “It makes them less conspicuous.”

“How does someone change the colour of their wings?”

“Painfully.”

I gulped. Right.

Without another word, Kai led me towards the open drawbridge. When we stepped onto the bridge, my feet caught on something. Moving became difficult as an invisible force latched on to my body. I tried to take another step, but it was as though my limbs were caught in glue. The sensation reminded me too much of that place in limbo just before Jacob stabbed me. My palms turned sweaty. Anxiety spiked, causing my heart to beat faster. Kai clamped his hand on my shoulder.

“Easy.”

I held my breath. The sensation didn’t abate. Just when I was tasting blood on my tongue from having bitten into it, a sweeping wind whispered over me. It felt as though somebody had reached down from the sky and blown warmth into my body. “Alessia Hastings,” the same disembodied voice that organised the MirrorNet spoke. And then just like that, I was release from the goo.

Goosebumps raised on my arms. “Please tell me that doesn’t happen every time?”

Kai shook his head. “Only until the aether remembers who you are.”

“How long does that take?”

Another shrug. “It takes however long it takes. What’s the matter? Find it creepy?”

There was no hint of mockery in his voice. What I found there when I glanced up into his eyes was the appraising scrutiny of a military commander. He hadn’t been kidding. However else he felt about me, Kai wouldn’t allow it to interfere with my training.

I straightened up. “Nope.”

His sniff said he was sceptical, but he didn’t push the point. Now that I’d passed the entrance test, we were able to enter freely. The fantasy nerd inside me did a double-take. Just like I pinched myself every time I set foot in Rivia, my jaw dropped open at the sight of the elite guard compound. The arched doorway led to a courtyard right out of a movie. The only difference was that the people moving about here weren’t in fancy medieval costumes. At least not the shifters and the Nephilim. Most of the Fae wore the same elfin hunting clothes that Angus was so fond of. The material was said to be sturdier than it appeared. It was also spelled to repel magic. I imagined that Celine sometimes used it to make her dresses and that was why they were so magical.

To my left, a squad of Fae guards were practicing archery. They moved as a single cell, drawing, shooting, and collecting their arrows as though they thought as one.

“Blue!”

While I’d been distracted, Kai had walked all the way across to the other side of the courtyard. “This isn’t a day trip,” he said, when I caught up.

“Sorry.”

It came out automatically, but the word made him freeze for a second. Apologies from me were like diamonds. His gaze lingered on my face for a beat longer than was necessary. We were standing in an alcove underneath the shelter of a stone staircase. There were shrubs blocking part of the view back out into the courtyard. At my back was the wall. Blue bled into part of his left eye. My breath stilled. Kai’s grip on the door frame was white-knuckled. The crack of wood startled me. I jerked away, worried the stone wouldn’t hold its structure.

The movement broke whatever spell had come over us. Kai shook his head like a wolf throwing off water. I wasn’t sure but I thought he muttered something under his breath.

When he pushed the door open for me, I scampered through as quickly as I could. The door led into a wide corridor. On the other side was another courtyard, this one given over to more garden beds.

“Up the staircase,” Kai instructed. I started up and he followed sedately. My neck burned knowing he was behind me. When I let my guard down, the bond overloaded my senses with a visceral awareness of him.

I needed to get a grip or we would be in trouble. The tortured scream that whipped through the courtyard did that nicely. My foot faltered. Kai overtook me. “Keep going.”

“What was that?”

His expression was unwavering. “Could be anything.”

“It sounded painful.”

“You’re in a military facility. Like I said, it could be anything.”

What it turned out to be was a stunning woman with coal-black hair all the way down to her waist. She stood at the front of a room made of clear glass that was about the size of our weaponry and combat room. Interspersed throughout the room were elite guards of various races. Some of them stood with their backs braced against the wall. Others were in crouching positions, one hand splayed on the ground for support. Yet more stood with their legs akimbo.

Their lips moved in speech, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The glass appeared to be soundproof. That was until the black-haired woman opened her mouth. Her scream was thin and high-pitched. Not unlike the nymphs’. We were closer now and it rang out in a wave that had me clutching at my gut like I was going to throw up.

That was when it hit me. Banshee.

My eyes squinted into the room. There. More than one guards had a bloody nose. The ones on the ground were gritting their teeth as they fought to stay conscious.

“Immersion therapy,” Kai told me. “The longer they can hold out, the better they will be in the field.”

“It looks like torture.”

“It is. But better now than out there where they won’t know what hit them.”

I studied him. “How long can you hold out?”

“Not long enough.”

In Kai terms, that meant longer than anybody else but still not good enough for his unreachable standards. He had an ego the size of a jetliner but never about this sort of thing. I knew that in his mind, he had already failed every test when his family was killed. My heart kicked in my chest as the bond ached.

Kai turned away abruptly. “We need to check in.”

“Are you kidding?” I whispered when he led me through more archways and stairs to then push open a set of heavy wooden double doors. I didn’t know whether to laugh or fall to my knees at the sight of the throne room. The floor became polished cream marble. It opened out into a cavernous room. There was more than one iron chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Stout white candles sat half burned in their holders. Behind the throne, a section of the wall was cut out in an artistic circular picture. During the day, I had a feeling if I looked out of it, I would see the drop off the cliff. In the near distance, I thought I heard the sound of water tripping over stones. The grandness of the room was completely at odds with the way it was being used.

The marble throne was empty. Instead, the elite guards gathered in small groups around the high steps leading to it. On either side of the room, they had set up tables. I spotted Ivan sitting at the table on the left speaking in harsh tones with another vampire.

“...sit around and wait for them to attack us?” I heard him say. I didn’t hear the response because Kai’s stride was too wide. I was having trouble keeping up with him. The vampire speaking to Ivan lifted his head. He saw me and paused, but only momentarily. I didn’t miss the flare of red in his eyes that dimmed as quickly as it came. He had seen and judged me as harmless in a single breath.

Angus looked up from where he was scribbling on a poster-sized parchment of paper. His eyes tracked to the window. “This is very early.” Was that approval I sensed in his voice? My suspicions that the elite guards were slave drivers were rapidly being confirmed.

“You wanted her to see the interview,” Kai said.

Angus nodded. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

To my delight, Kai took the short steps up to the level of the throne. I followed him eagerly. We passed behind the throne when Kai made an abrupt left turn.

“Wait!” I said. He halted. I made a beeline for the open window, making sure I didn’t stand too close to the opening.

I took in an amazed breath as starlight bathed the view in front of me. A small waterfall on the other side of the clearing sent up sprays of water that fed the roots of the tropical plants growing unnaturally around the pristine lake. It felt like I was standing at the top of the world.

Too soon, Kai was making impatient sounds. I sighed as I walked through the door he pushed open. All of the beauty from the throne room cut off abruptly as the residue of a spell grazed my skin.

We stepped into a room with glowing runes on the walls and floors. In the centre of the room was an arcane circle throbbing in an ugly red. The rusty iron colour of it said that it had been constructed from blood. Black candles sat on the floor around the circle. They were alight but there was no wax pooling in their centres. Hexed.

“What’s this?” Apprehension burned in my chest.

“A doorway.”

Kai all but dragged me into the circle. It felt like going against everything I stood for, but I forced myself to remain inside. Who or what did this blood belong to? I should have gotten a medal for standing there without shuddering. At least not outwardly.

“Is this normal?” I asked, my voice coming out in a harsh whisper. The runes on the walls throbbed in a strange, hypnotic rhythm. It reminded me of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“No, it isn’t. But it’s necessary.”

He was suddenly right there beside me. I yelped when he laced his arm around me. A column of red motes raised into the ceiling, creating a barrier around us. “Hold on.” A thousand tiny pinpricks scattered on my skin. The wrenching feeling of pleasure and pain saturated my soul. After a second, I blinked and the oppressive room disappeared.

We stood in a small room intersected by doorways. Kai detached, leaving me feeling slightly woozy. He led me down another dark corridor. I didn’t know why they couldn’t build their cells in a more pleasant configuration. That was one minus for joining the elite guard when I graduated.

The thought had me pausing mid-step so that Kai, who was walking behind me, came to an abrupt halt just an inch away. He became a wall of solid heat against my back despite not making physical contact. My spine tingled, wanting to bow and complete the physical connection. I forced my feet to move once more as my mind contemplated the disturbing thought that I might not make it to graduation.

We came to a brightly lit room at the end of the long corridor. Besides an elaborate oval mirror that encompassed an entire wall, the only other furniture was a double row of uncomfortable-looking wooden stools. Somebody really should introduce these people to couches. We waited a tense minute before Angus arrived.

“I hear you’ve had an encounter with Emily’s visions.” Angus ushered me into the room and pointed to the stools.

“You could say that. Thanks for the heads-up by the way.”

My sarcasm rolled right off him. “We had no way of anticipating her affliction.”

“You make it sound like an illness.”

He moved towards the mirror. “She cannot control the very thoughts that flood her mind. Does that not sound like a disease?”

He had me there. “Prophecies and the visions they manifest are some of the hardest phenomena to predict,” Angus said. “Anyone can have them at any time. And now we have the added complication of Emily being human. I understand you’ve made it a point not to engage with the prophecies. A wise choice given how easily they can influence your decisions.” He reached out and placed his palm on the mirror. “Ordinarily, we would respect your decision. But under the current circumstances, it would be foolish not to give you all the available information.”

I didn’t like where this was going.

The glass in the mirror rippled. Its reflective surface gave way to an image. My relief that Brigid had graduated and wouldn’t be irritating me this year deflated. In the mirror, she sat on the other end of a small rectangular table. Her bright red hair and navy-blue dress stood out in stark contrast to her surroundings. The grey stone wall behind her did its best to leech all life from the room. On the table was an egg-shaped quartz crystal sitting on a wooden stand. The truth crystal. Apparently, it was impossible to lie in the presence of said crystal. Basil had one installed in our house while we lived in Ravenhall. Of course, Eugenia just got around it by spelling herself to believe her own lies, but most people weren’t that creative or powerful.

There was a single window above Brigid’s head but nothing else decorating the room. The whole thing screamed interrogation. I would have enjoyed the thought if it weren’t for the condescending sneer on Brigid’s face.

“Are you deaf?” she snapped. Her palm rested on the crystal. “I’ve told you ten times now that I saw her at the head of a demon army!”

Ivan sat on the other side of the table. “Be that as it may,” he said, “we need to verify the surrounding events to make sure.”

Brigid slammed her manicured hand on the table. Ivan remained unmoved. “And while you waste time doing that,” she said, “Alessia Hastings is going to kill us all.”

I had a feeling this interview had been conducted during my first year when Brigid had decided that I was too big a liability and had conspired to have me killed. Before I could take in the scene completely, it shifted.

I leaned forward as Kieran’s sharp features came into view. This time, his interviewer was Angus. “But you can’t tell exactly what the events are leading up to the final battle,” Angus asked.

Kieran shook his head. He scratched at his wrist absentmindedly. “No. It wasn’t a stream of images. Just the one. Alessia Hastings and Lucifer upon an open field.”

“There were demons surrounding them?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

Kieran rubbed his neck. “Too many to count. More than our forces.”

Angus’s arms steepled in front of him. “How did she look?”

Kieran’s brow furrowed. His expression tightened as though he was trying to recall. “Calm. Like she wasn’t afraid at all.”

The image shifted once more. My breath hitched as Astrid’s serene expression materialised in front of me. Her hair was a long sheaf of gold gathered over one shoulder. Angus’s voice again. “You say she wasn’t walking beside Lucifer but on her own some distance from the battlefield?”

Astrid nodded.

“But it was a battle,” Angus pressed.

“Most assuredly. There were many casualties.”

“Our or theirs?”

“Both.”

“Yet you didn’t see Alessia battle with Lucifer.”

“I saw nothing but the battle raging around her.”

“So, she wasn’t on his side.”

Astrid blinked. “I can’t infer anything from what I saw. It was a fraction of a second in an infinite timeline.” That was such an Astrid thing to say.

“You’re a guard,” Angus refuted. “Your observations are valuable. I need you to make an inference. Was she phasing or not?”

“She wasn’t moving.”

“So, she was a spectre?”

“Again, sir –”

“Astrid. I’m not asking you to betray Malachi. But I would have thought you of all people would understand how important it is for us to decipher these prophecies.”

She leaned forward this time and pushed the crystal to one side. “You asked me for a recounting of what I saw. I gave it to you. What does it matter how I interpret it?”

“Prophetic visions require interpretation.”

“So do dreams and often they don’t mean anything.”

“Dreams do not happen while people are awake and should be guarding their posts.”

The distinction stopped her dead. But it didn’t do anything to change the conviction in her voice. “She was not moving. Either for or against us. Or for him.”

“Why do you think that’s the case? Think before you answer. This cannot be about protecting the girl.”

Astrid’s hands balled. “Sometimes it should be about protecting something other than ourselves.”

Angus shifted in his seat. “What did you see?”

The drawn-out breath Astrid gave was directly proportionate to the breath I was holding on to. A hand clenched around my heart. “Fear.”

“She was afraid?”

A nod. “But she didn’t run.”

“But she didn’t move either? What does that tell you?”

She glanced up and looked straight ahead. In the memory, she must have been looking right at Angus, but in the here and now, it felt like her focus was plunged into my soul.

“She looked like she was making a decision. One that could change the direction of the battle.”

There was no time for contemplation as the mirror threw up scene after scene of supernaturals who had been interviewed by the elite guard about the visions they had witnessed. Most of them corroborated the battlefield scene. But that was just about the only detail they had consensus on. The rest were minute and subtle differences that I chalked up to perspective and context. The sheer number of interviews began to weigh heavily on me.

It was no wonder half of the community wanted me dead or gone.

My spirit was just about crushed when the mirror offered up its latest interrogation. I sat up straighter as Emily appeared. In contrast, her figure was hunched on the cushioned armchair. She seemed to find a spot on the glass coffee table very interesting. A wooden bowl containing Arcana fruit lay untouched. Nora sat on her left and Declan on her right. My pulse spiked as I took in the room around her. Unlike everybody else, she wasn’t being questioned in the lifeless cell. There were golden curtains fanning the open bay window behind her back. In the far right, I could make out the distinct golden armour of a Nephilim guard. They were inside Seraphina.

“How long have you been having these visions?” Ivan asked. Tyler sat beside him.

Emily played with the hem of her dress. Ivan motioned to somebody across the room. One of the Nephilim guards approached.

“Where is Malachi?” Ivan hissed.

The guard, a blue-eyed woman, leaned close. “He’s with Raphael.”

“Get him here now.”

Doubt radiated off her face. “He won’t leave the Hastings girl.”

“Make him.”

“I would rather not, sir.”

It was a monumental effort not to turn around and look at Kai. There was no point. Everything I needed to know was right there in the bond. After I’d passed out inside Terran Hospital, he’d all but abandoned Emily to the elite guard and taken me to Raphael, only leaving when the seraph banished him. One of the Nephilim had already “asked” him to attend Emily’s interview. I bit my bottom lip at his expletive-laden response.

In the interview reel, Nora placed a hand on Emily’s shaking ones. “It’s okay,” Nora said. “Take your time. What you have to say is very important to us and we want you to feel comfortable.”

Emily’s shoulders slumped further. “I don’t understand any of this.”

Nora nodded. “I agree it’s very overwhelming. But nobody here is going to hurt you. In fact, you’re very important to us. We’ll do everything in our power to keep you safe.”

This time, I did swivel in my chair and raised an arched brow at Kai. “A bit different to how I was recruited, don’t you think?”

He tipped my chin around so I was facing the mirror again. “The most threatening thing she’s done since she got here was pass out,” he said. I scrunched up my nose and pushed his hand away.

Emily wrung the material of her skirt. “Why can’t I just go home?”

Declan leaned closer. He placed his arm over the top of her chair. “That thing –”

“Demon,” Ivan interjected. The death stare Declan gave him did nothing to soften Ivan’s demeanour. “There’s no use beating around the bush.”

Nora cupped her hands over her face and looked like she was screaming into them silently. Emily swallowed. “A demon? That’s not possible.”

Declan reached over and picked up an Arcana fruit. He held it out to Emily who shook her head. Lines of frustration bracketed his mouth, but he was careful not to express it verbally.

“There are many things in this world that you would find terrifying,” Tyler spoke for the first time. The sound of his deep voice had Emily glancing up. I caught the sliver of silver that passed over her eyes before they cleared.

“What did he do to her?” I asked, unsure why the notion made me uneasy. Perhaps because I was so susceptible to mind control. My apprehension was unwarranted. Emily showed no signs of being affected at all. She merely blinked at him a couple of times like she wasn’t sure why he in turn was staring at her so intently. I heard Tyler sigh. “That settles it,” he said. He must have smiled because I heard amusement in his voice. “At least you know there is no way we can trick you.”

She sat up straighter at this. “How so?”

“You are completely impervious to any mind control tactics we have at our disposal.”

She glanced around confused. “Some of the supernatural beings that live amongst us have the ability to compel or to create illusions,” Nora explained.

Emily’s mouth opened. “But it doesn’t work on me?”

“No.” Nora shifted in her chair. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You would be back in the human world with no memories of what happened a few hours ago.”

Something about that notion calmed Emily down. I understood perfectly. Control. Even though the world would never be the same again, knowing that she has a little bit of power put a fraction of control back in her grasp. It was the same with me and the strength of my circles.

Ivan sensed the turn in her emotions and took advantage of it. “If you could please answer some questions, we would be very grateful.” He sounded like he had just bitten into a lemon. When was the last time he had to ask rather than command someone? “How long have you been having visions for?”

At first, Emily made no outward show that she’d heard. The fingers clutched around her skirt were whiter than the material itself. Finally, she raised her eyes off the floor. “I’ve always had dreams that seem all too real,” she said. “Or strange things would happen around me. The phone would ring and a face would pop into my head before I even picked up. That sort of thing.”

“The visions?”

She lips puckered. “About six months ago.” Right about when I’d started using the Angelical.

“How many visions have you had since then?”

She made the same pinched, contemplative face as Kieran. “I haven’t kept count. At least a few dozen.”

“And they always involve the same thing?”

The nod was solemn. Her mouth pressed closed as though she was afraid to speak the words aloud. Tyler made a forward prompting motion with his hand. “The girl, the one with the blue eyes, she’s standing in a field. Or in a grand room made of marble or crystal. Sometimes, she’s in a place with big gothic buildings. Or in a garden with faeries flying around her.” Faeries or nymphs? I swallowed thinking of the visions she’d transmitted of me inside the Grove.

“How do these visions end?” Ivan asked.

“Her magic fails and everything disappears.”

“The whole world?” Tyler questioned.

“Yes.”

“Do you mean the vision fades?”

Emily’s stricken expression was all the answer I needed. “No. I mean the world explodes. Like something you would see in a movie. Everything is on fire.”

“I don’t understand,” Nora said. “Every single one of your visions ends this way?”

“Yes.”

‘But you’ve had dozens of visions. Doesn’t that mean…” She trailed off as the meaning became frighteningly clear. No matter which path I chose, I would end up with Lucifer and then I would destroy the world.

18

I was briefly aware of Angus powering the mirror down, but my mind was a million miles away. It took Kai squeezing my shoulder to drag me back to the present.

“How can you listen to that and not put much stock in prophecies?” I asked.

Angus stared at me, his expression unreadable. “I have been alive a long time, Alessia. There are many things I have seen that shouldn’t have come to pass. And many things that should have and never came to pass.”

“But how can –”

“Are you asking me to condemn you?”

I slipped off the stool. Away from Kai’s solid presence, my legs were numb. I had to latch onto the stool and rub the pins and needles from my legs. “I don’t know. Maybe? It’s a pretty damning prediction.”

My head was spinning a little. The only reason I wasn’t curled into a ball was because Angus was elite guard and I still wanted to hang on to a sliver of my street cred. “You’re frightened.”

“Damn straight.”

He stepped forward and crossed his arms over his chest. “Good.”

“Good?”

Light blue eyes captured me in their iron hold. “Fear is often the only thing that tells us we’re alive.”

“Well then I’ve very alive right now.”

His smile was unexpected and…stunning. It made me think that in another lifetime, he could have been a Fae prince. There was a sad quality to it that made my heartbeat speed up. “Try and remember that prophecies are filtered through their vessels. Emily is quite literally frightened of everything in this world. There is every chance she is manifesting her own fears.”

I clucked my tongue. “You know,” I said, “I would have thought you’d be a much better liar.”

Something brushed over my cheek. It triggered the Ley sight. I caught the last of a glamour slamming shut over Angus’s features. But it was too late. I’d seen the doubt in him.

“Alessia.”

“Don’t worry,” I told him. “Fear is kind of my default setting now. I’ll be okay.”

We both knew I was lying.

On our way out past the moat, I piped up before Kai could say anything he considered reassuring. “I’m going to Seraphina. I need to see Michael.”

“What for?”

“He sealed me up once. Maybe he can do it again.”

Kai frowned. “Sealing away your powers has nothing to do with what you just saw.” I was speed walking away, but he hardly broke his stride to keep up with me.

Sadly, Michael said the exact same thing when Kai finally relented. “Then take away my ability to release Lucifer.”

Kai choked. Both Michael and Raphael were grim faced. “Your link to Lucifer is in your blood, Alessia. And your choice to release him is tied to your free will. I cannot seal up something like that.”

“But I’m asking you to!” I turned from one of them to the other. Each was over eight feet tall, but they were backing slowly away from me as though I was the bully. “Please. You have to be able to do something.” I bit my bottom lip. Gaia’s suggestion surfaced.

Kai sprang. “No,” he barked.

Raphael tried to do damage control. “You’ve defied the prophecy so far,” he said. “You’ve defied so much of the expectations placed on you. Why not continue to trust your own instincts?”

It wasn’t my instincts I was afraid of. It was my complete susceptibility to supernatural persuasion. I tried to reason with them. “Jacob is a mage. What if he forces me to release Lucifer somehow? I have no defences against compulsion. Please. Please. Please.”

Michael scrubbed at his face in a very human gesture. Raphael tried his best to explain. “Our ability to intervene is hampered by the oaths we took when we breached the firmament. Our interference has already wrought so much disaster to the dimensions. We cannot remove your free will to choose.”

I wouldn’t be dissuaded. “This is just one tiny thing. It wouldn’t take that much.”

Michael stepped closer. “The ripple effect of taking away one aspect of your free will could be disastrous. Even Lucifer has not dared to broach that line.”

That was true. When it came down to the wire, Lucifer had left me alone when I had forced him out of my mind of my own free will.

“But he’s able to do so many other things you refuse to!” A reminder of the prophecy gave me an idea. “Erase my memories.”

“Beg your pardon?” Raphael said.

“Remove everything about the supernatural world. Let me go back to the human world and live my life not knowing about any of this. That way I won’t be able to release Lucifer because I won’t know about him.”

Even Kai’s voice had turned gentle. Like I was a caged animal they were trying to talk out of going rabid. “Even if you don’t know about us,” he said, “Lucifer knows about you. Buchanan knows about you. They’ll never leave you alone.”

“Then hide me!”

“What if your powers manifest in some other way? We’d have to get somebody to watch you day and night. Even then it wouldn’t be any reassurance that you would be safe.”

“Then have me compelled not to release him.”

Raphael brushed a hand over my cheek, trying to soothe the desperation that was making my jaw clamp. “You know very well that vampiric compulsion is based on proximity and contact,” he said. “Not even the elite guard have the strength to hold your mind captive indefinitely. Do you not think the Council have considered that option? And a compulsion disintegrates when the vampire dies. Lucifer knows this. If he wanted to release you from the compulsion, he would just murder your compeller.”

I slumped down on the stone bench. “What am I supposed to do then? Just run headlong into a prophecy? You speak about free will, but I feel like all my choices have been stripped from me.”

Michael came down to sit beside me. I had to scoot right over to the left edge of the bench so he could fit. “Why do you fear your own choices?” he asked.

“Have you seen where my choices have gotten me?”

His face reflected back a fondness that had a lump forming in my throat. “You’ve far exceeded any expectations we had from the moment we first met you. By our estimations, that little girl shouldn’t have lasted more than a few months. You wish to be stripped of responsibility for your actions, but your choices have moved you to a position where Hell itself fears you.”

I snorted. Michael gave me a grin that stole my breath. A battle raged in the depths of his blue eyes. One that I could barely comprehend with my basic, mortal mind. He blinked and the flash of his memories disappeared.

“Make no mistake about it,” Michael assured me. “Wherever Lucifer’s grace currently resides, he fears your ability to resist.”

My back bowed. “I just don’t know what to do.”

Michael’s hand rested on my shoulder. In my mind, the words of my Caribbean-accented visitor rang out. The only way out is for you to make the ultimate sacrifice.

“If you can’t do it,” I said, referring to my original request, “then I can ask someone else, right?”

Raphael sighed. “There are supernatural beings with the ability to do what you wish. But I would caution you against it.”

“What of Lucifer’s angel blade? Couldn’t that kill him?”

“A seraph’s weapon is an extension of themselves. It is a focus for our powers. His angel blade increases his destructive ability by a significant factor. All our angel blades could destroy Lucifer if wielded against him. But you would run into the same problem with containment.”

“See what I mean? I’m trapped at every turn.”

I stomped out of the room in disgust. Kai strode after me at a more leisurely pace. He caught up to me in seconds. “What a colossal waste of time!”

“They’re not genies,” Kai said. “You don’t just get to make a wish and they snap their fingers and it happens.”

“I’m not asking for an easy fix!”

“Aren’t you?”

I rounded on him. “Which part of this do you think is easy for me? The part where I might die, the one where I might kill everyone I love, or the fact that I can’t do a damn thing about it?” A tendril of aquamarine flickered across my vision. Inside, the magic was fluctuating in tandem with my uneasy emotions.

The question sobered him. Kai paused for a moment, searching my face for something. “The prophecies will fulfil themselves if you keep focusing on them.”

“How can I forget when it gets shoved in my face every five seconds?”

“Nobody is asking you to forget them. But it is possible not to focus on them so that you can think clearly for a second.”

Something passed over his features. In that moment, I understood. It was exactly what he was doing in relation to my inability to bear children. Like the prophecies, the stark reality weighed heavily on him. But rather than focus on the inevitable disappointment, he pushed forward with a kind of demented hope that if he wanted it badly enough, he would find a way. I couldn’t believe it. Kai was an optimist at heart too.

“I really want to kill something right now,” I said. He took a comical step backwards. “Let’s go back.”

He hesitated. “I need to stop by the library.”

My nostrils flared. “Are you kidding? I wanted to go there before and you said there was no point.”

Logic was completely lost on him. As the sun climbed into the sky, Kai and I made our way past sanctuary and the military sector. The city never slept, but with the sun rising, it was getting busier on the paths.

This was a bad idea. Whenever I’d come to Seraphina over the summer, it had been through teleport directly to the library. Nephilim crossing our path shot us curious looks. Some of them nodded at us.

And then, a nightmare: the click-clack of stilettos on the pavement. “Alessia!” a shrill voice called out. Kill me now. My immediate reaction was to try a teleport. Kai latched onto my arm as Patricia caught up to us. As head of the Nephilim social society, it was her duty to keep up with my movements. Her words, not mine.

Patricia’s wings flared as she landed beside me. She settled into a gallop after they dematerialised. “You have no idea how happy I am to see the two of you together,” Patricia said. She speed walked along on my left. “The MirrorNet is simply abuzz.”

What really set me off was that I knew she irritated the hell out of Kai. He was only doing this to get my back up. Patricia’s eyes flicked to my hand. Still no ring. Her lips pursed.

“Really, Alessia. The community can’t be patient for much longer. We were willing to accept you as mistress of House Pendragon after that nasty business at the Unity Games, but we need to see a sign of commitment.”

As it turned out, not all Nephilim were born to guard. The worst part was that it was the half-mortal Nephilim who made up most of the non-militant community. And they carried on their mortal legacy like it was a badge of honour. The amount of banal gossip that spouted from Patricia’s lips was the stuff of legends. She made Basil look like an amateur.

“I really don’t have time for this today,” I told her. Beside me, Kai’s cheek puckered like he was biting the inside of it to stop from grinning. If I could have reached, I would have punched him in the face.

“Oh that’s all right, dear, I’m happy to just tag along. Don’t mind me. I’ll be as silent as a cursed wraith.”

That got Kai’s attention. “We’re going into the archives.” It wasn’t so much what he said but the way he said it.

“Oh.”

Typical. I could throw out as many get lost hints as I wanted but a single word from Kai and they were falling over themselves to comply.

After a second to regroup, Patricia brightened. She glanced up at the sky. “Well, it’s almost time for class, isn’t it, so you shouldn’t be in there long. Perhaps I’ll just wait outside.”

Kai blinked. Ha! Even he hadn’t expected that response. I couldn’t help the smug smile as he opened the door of the library and ushered me through.

“See what I mean?” The hiss came out too loudly in the reserved quiet of the Seraphim library. “Make them back off.”

He gave me a look like I was deranged. “Did it seem like I have any power over them?”

I regarded him warily. “You know the easiest way to get them to back off. Rescind the damn bond.”

“Why don’t you?”

My hand touched down on a dusty book sitting on the information desk. I was about to pick it up and throw it at him when Christopher popped up behind the desk. “Malachi!”

If ever there was a person whose appearance perfectly matched their vocation, it was Christopher. Even though he was balding around the top of his head, he wore one of those visors that did nothing to protect from the sun. His shirts were always eye-blinding white beneath a sedate brown vest. There was no way of telling exactly how old he was, but he moved with an unhurried gait that said everything could wait. If the world ended, I suspected he would simply shush it and ask it to wait its turn.

He glanced at me quizzically, smile faltering when he noticed the book I had drawn back over my shoulder. “Alessia.”

I dropped the book back on the table, noting Kai’s smirk and filing it away for later. “What brings you both here?”

Christopher was subtler than Patricia but the emphasis on the word both couldn’t be interpreted any other way. I suppressed a groan. “I’d like to retrieve the codex from the archive,” Kai told him.

Christopher tapped a crooked finger against his nose. “Are you sure?” For some reason, his gaze slid over to me. “I was given to understand that –”

“As soon as possible, please.”

The librarian nodded without missing a step. “As you wish, sir.”

He disappeared into thin air. I gawped. I knew he was Nephilim, but it never gelled because he was always so sedate. Now that he was gone, I gritted my teeth. “You’re telling me that amongst all these books, there isn’t a single one that sheds some light into how to kill a seraph?”

Kai ran his finger over the spine of the book I had been meaning to use as a projectile. The motion made goosebumps prickle along my arms. “If you had a weakness,” he said, “would you document it for the world to read?”

He had me there. “I suppose not but –”

His jaw clamped hard. “There’s nothing here, Blue. Trust me.” The sudden steel in his voice had me swallowing the rest of my response. His eyes flashed a dangerous dark green. Frustration filtered through to me from the bond. Frustration and...helplessness.

“You’ve searched before?”

He turned to me, his eyes hooded. “Did you think I didn’t try to find a way after the Hell dimension spewed demons into Seraphina to murder my family? Who do you think Buchanan was taking orders from?”

I swallowed my own stupidity. Of course he had tried to turn the world upside down to figure out a way to kill Lucifer. My laser focus had turned blinkered. I slumped against the desk, hope shrivelling. If Kai couldn’t find anything with his considerable resources, what hope did I have?

Christopher reappeared while I was moping. He held a maroon leather bound tome in his arms. It was at least as thick as the Book of Beasts. With great ceremony, he placed it in front of me. I glanced at Kai. “What’s this?”

“The Nephilim Codex,” Kai said. “It’s been in my family for generations.”

“What am I meant to do with it?”

Christopher cocked his head to the side. “Why, it contains the most complete account of how the Nephilim came into being. All our history is in here. Our most sacred bloodlines and most notable members.”

“Your weaknesses?”

With a solemn nod, Christopher pushed the codex closer to me. “Such as they are.”

“You want me to read this?” I asked Kai, wondering why I would bother when he’d no doubt taken the book apart word by word.

“Maybe you can find something I missed.”

It seemed unlikely but Christopher was giving me such an encouraging look that I reached out to take the tome. My hand touched the leather. A tingle brushed against my palm like the way the MirrorNet scanned me when I went to make a call. Only this sensation didn’t ebb in a matter of seconds. It was as though my hand was suddenly magnetised to the cover. When I laid my palm flat, the Ley sight dragged me into the dimension of light, and I saw the rich green surrounding the book mingle with a pulse of blue. Dragging myself back into reality, I glared at Kai. “What was that?”

He reached out and pulled the codex right up against my chest. “It needed to be configured to your essence so you can read it. It’s warded against theft.”

He was so full of it. “What did you just do?”

Christopher was suddenly busy putting books back on the shelves. “Do you want the book or not?” Kai asked.

I glanced at the beautifully decorated cover that might contain the knowledge to allow me to break out of the hold of the prophecy. “Fine.”

It was not fine.

Not if the vicious look I received from Chanelle when we exited the library was anything to go by. I’d heard that she’d taken up a position with her mother organising Seraphina’s functions. Her floor-length turquoise gown sure fit the bill. She wasn’t the only one gathered outside the foyer of the library. A small gaggle of Patricia’s henchwomen had congregated to get a peek at Kai and me together on a social visit for the first time since the Unity Games ended.

“You’ve got to me kidding me,” Chanelle snapped at Kai. “Your father’s codex?”

That set Patricia off into a flurry for some reason. She whipped out a handheld mirror and spoke furiously into it.

“Kai?” I asked, feeling conspicuous.

He blocked my view of the masses with his shoulder and teleported us back to the Academy. We landed just outside the front doors.

“This was your father’s?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you giving this to me?”

“Who said I was giving it to you?”

On a hunch, I flipped open the cover. Monogrammed into the top right of the inside cover was the name: Alessia Hastings-Pendragon.

I dropped the book. He caught it on the way down. “You’re insane.”

Turning my back on him, I wrenched the front door open and marched inside. The nerve of him! Sophie intercepted me as I stomped up the staircase.

“Hey! Where did you go this morning? I thought you were banned from the Grov –what?”

I made a frustrated-shrieking sound. When I told her, the whites of her eyes could not have popped out more. But she was focusing on the wrong thing. “You mean there’s a book that might reveal a way to hurt seraphim?”

“You’re missing the point.”

She took the steps down two at a time. “Sophie!” I caught up to her just outside the door. Kai was sitting on the brick ledge of the water fountain. He held the codex out. Sophie shoved me in the back. I dug my heels in.

“We need it,” she said.

“If he couldn’t find anything, what make you think we can?”

“What other choice do we have?”

I hated that she was right. This was our best chance so far. My feet could not possibly have been heavier as I took the ten steps towards Kai. He dropped the codex into my outstretched arms. “At least I hyphenated,” he said, with a self-satisfied grin.

I bit my lips together and stomped back into the dorm because I was in danger of beating him to death with the codex.

19

Word of my new acquisition spread like angelfire throughout the supernatural community. According to Nanna, the cold calls from vendors doubled. Luckily, I was inside the Academy boundaries. That didn’t stop them from trying to reach me through their student contacts. Now I was being propositioned in class by students who had never spoken to me before. It was a relief when the weekend rolled around and I could escape to Ravenhall.

“Do not say a word or the deal is off,” I snapped at Andrei when he met me in the gardens surrounding the Great Hall.

“My lips are sealed,” he said. “Much like the codex had been until Captain Nephilim somehow got you to break it without you even noticing. Honestly, squirt, is there any point refusing the bond like this? Why don’t you just jump him and get it over with. Put us all out of our misery.”

Eugenia clapped. “Here, here!”

“Will you both shut up? I really don’t need this right now.”

“I can tell you what you need, squirt,” Andrei muttered none-too-quietly. “But you’re not going to like it.”

Ignoring his lascivious smile, I petitioned Eugenia for a spell or potion to break the bond. She pouted at me. “Did you come back from the dead without half your brain, witchling? He’s wealthy, gorgeous, wealthy, wants you despite you not being able to procreate, and did I forget to mention exceedingly wealthy? But you want to get rid of the bond anyway?”

“Yes.”

She inspected me as though she was sure I was lying. “It’ll cost you.”

“How much?”

She tapped her chin. “It might not be monetary.”

“What does that mean?” Sorceresses were so mercenary! No wonder Max didn’t want anything to do with them!

“How badly do you want it?”

Andrei tsked. “I’d swim away from this sea witch if I were you, little fishy.”

Eugenia swatted him away. “The spell you’re looking for is powerful. Much more powerful than a love spell.”

Sophie had said as much. I’d asked her originally. Even if she weren’t mortally opposed to the idea, she’d said she couldn’t get away with that kind of spell without getting into a lot of trouble. “And you’d have to be the one to take it. He’s too strong a healer to be affected by a potion like that.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. “Again, what’s your price?”

She sniffed. “I don’t mess with that sort of thing. Sticking your nose into people’s feelings is a recipe for death. But I might know someone who would do it.”

“I’ll pay whatever it costs.”

“It would be easier if you just refute the bond.”

My teeth grit hard. “If I could do that, don’t you think I would have?”

“Your messed-up fairytale breaks my heart, witchling.” She lifted a finger to my face. “If anyone asks, I had nothing to do with this. The last thing I need is Malachi Pendragon’s wrath.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of him.”

She gave me the cold shoulder. “You get a different side of him to the rest of us, my love.”

Disturbed, I subtly changed the subject. “Did you get a family possession?” I asked Andrei.

His humour turned to chagrin. “The old bat is playing hardball.”

“I gave you one thing to do!”

He shrugged. “How was I supposed to know you’d need something of theirs?”

“What kind of psycho burns down all of his family’s things?” Red bled into his eyes. I kicked him in the shin. “Don’t give me that.”

Andrei snapped his pointed teeth at me. I wanted to rip the light amulet from his neck and watch him yelping but I sensed it wouldn’t help. Truth be told, I had anticipated that he would come up short. That was why Eugenia was tagging along. It would have been better if I could dredge up a necromancer, but I was persona non grata with the Nightblood students at the moment. In hindsight, Sophie would have been a better choice than Eugenia, but she had a Council function to attend and Emily was going to be there, so I had to steer clear.

“You two are more entertaining than the MirrorNet,” Eugenia said. “Do you know that there’s a small part of the community that ships you now?”

Andrei burst out laughing like it was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. He almost choked. Eugenia had to smack him on the back a couple of times. Though the idea sickened me, I was insulted by his reaction.

“No offense, squirt,” he chuckled. “You’re a little bit...small and human.” I walked ahead. “And prickly –”

“Rude as well,” Eugenia added. “Moody...”

“Physically weak.”

“Insubordinate.”

“Devil marked.” They both cackled at that one.

“Remind me again why I’m doing this to help you?” I huffed at Andrei.

“Because you promised,” he grinned, the amusement stripped from his face. “And like Captain Nephilim, you’re secretly a goody goody and promises actually mean something to you.” He snapped his fingers. “So get to it.”

If I had a fraction of high magic, I would turn him into a slug.

Despite wearing a fitted red dress that skimmed her ankles, Eugenia knelt down in the damp grass and started setting up the circle. I balked at the human skull she pulled out of her bag. “Ummm...please tell me that isn’t real.”

“You said we needed to strengthen the summoning somehow,” she said. “They murdered a bunch of innocents. The skull will draw on those ties.”

“Whose skull is it?”

Eugenia shrugged. “Some poor sap.”

The lack of details concerned me greatly. “No, really,” I insisted. “Whose skull is it?”

She stopped pouring herb-infused salt onto the grass. “I don’t check the credentials of every ingredient I use in my spells. The bone merchant assures me it was from a murdered specimen.”

She went back to pouring like that was a good enough explanation. I sat down heavily at her blasé attitude. What in the world had I gotten myself into?

“Isn’t there a chance that we could summon the spirit of the murder victim?” I asked.

“Probably.” She set black candles around the circle and then...oh great, more bones. These were your lesser frightening, though equally disturbing, leg and arm bones. She placed the skull at the very centre of the circle over the intersecting lines of a five-pointed star. The other bones she set in crossing patterns all around the circle. “But it’s not likely. You don’t know the victim so there’s not that much chance just any person will trespass through the veil.”

I regretted making this promise. At the time, it had been the only thing that would get through to Andrei. But I couldn’t help feeling guilty about disturbing some poor soul’s eternal rest. Never mind what Azrael might think of it.

At least free will was good for one thing. It was little comfort as Eugenia lit the candles and poured a drop of her own blood into the crucible she laid in front of me. I sat outside the line of the circle at one of the five tips of the star she had drawn with salt. It just so happened to be in the direct line of sight of the skull. Just great. Eugenia positioned herself on the opposite side of the circle facing me. Andrei dawdled far enough away where he thought a blast zone might not affect him.

Using a clean boning knife I had brought with me, I nicked the pointer finger of my left hand and put pressure on the cut to draw out blood. Once a few drops had trickled into the crucible, I dipped my other hand into it and drew a tennis-ball-sized circle in front of me. When the blood circle was complete, the salt circle illuminated in blue laced through with bits of red and black.

I hadn’t managed to stay in my elective class at Nightblood for very long, but over the summer, I’d read enough books on summoning to be able to bridge the gap. Sort of. That and Eugenia had invited a sketchy old necromancer to dinner who gave me a crash course that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

Over on her side of the circle, Eugenia’s lips moved in a silent chant. The summoning spell was easy enough to remember. It was the summoning words that were going to be tricky. Like most dead languages, I wasn’t very good at pronouncing them. Long hours of practice had etched them into my mind. How they came out when I spoke them was another matter.

As I sat there running the words in my head, the circle pulsed with the blood-red flare of Eugenia’s magic. It turned the blue of my circle into a murky purple. That was my cue.

Pushing out all other thoughts, I uttered the summoning words in a whisper and held my breath. One beat. Two beats. Nothing exploded. That was a good sign.

Reaching inside me, I scooped up as much of the bone magic as I could and dropped into the Ley dimension. In there, everything was amplified. Colour saturated my sight. The purple spinning circle in front of me was such a rich indigo it almost hurt my eyes. Slowly, like I was spinning wool, I fed the bone magic into the circle and thought of everything Andrei had told me about his younger brothers Alan and Sebastian. They had been close, and Andrei believed if there was anyone who might show up for him, it was his brothers. I’d seen pictures of them in the Book of Beasts as well as the ones I’d lifted from the MirrorNet. They were the spitting image of each other. If they were alive, Alan would be my age and Sebastian would be a few years younger. It occurred to me that I knew one other family with more than a few children. Take that Supernatural Sex Ed!

As an added bonus, I brushed up against the bond and fed the circle with the images in Kai’s memory. I shuddered at the twisted, blood-stained expression on Alan’s cherubic face just before Kai’s angel blade took his head off.

With the addition of my bone magic, the circle turned an off-mauve colour. It continued to spin in a slow rhythm an inch from the ground where the salt circle lay. A column of purple light ascended into the air and became less opaque as it got higher. Still the centre of the circle remained empty. Come on, boys! I didn’t have an eternity to wait for them to arrive.

The edges around the circle frayed as it drew the attention of the spirits in the Sea of Souls. Now and again, I felt the brush of cold fingers against my neck. The first time it had happened, I yelped and let go of the whole spell. It wasn’t any more pleasant now that I was sort of used to it. Thankfully, the spirits were curious rather than malicious. Despite what popular human culture liked to think, most spirits weren’t malevolent. The ones Azrael presided over were at peace. I took a lot of comfort in that. It was why I didn’t like doing this. It was also why quite a few necromancers went a little nuts when they spent too much time summoning. Disturbing the balance had adverse consequences.

I wasn’t disturbing anything today. After at least two hours sitting on our asses, Eugenia called it quits.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “I’ve been able to do it every other time!”

The first few were practice session and I never failed to get somebody to show up. But every time I called out to Andrei’s brothers, I got jack.

“Maybe they don’t want to talk to you,” Eugenia said. “Sometimes the dead just want to be left alone.”

My disappointment was always more pronounced than Andrei’s. “We’ll try again another time,” he said. For all of his insistence, I had a feeling it was sometimes a relief when it failed. Not knowing might be better than confirmation of the accepted narrative after all.

We were trudging back past the Great Hall when Matilda came around the path. She was tossing her knives into the air. I paused. A snap of cold ran through my veins.

“What’s the matter?” I asked before she was even close enough to hear properly. She seemed to get the gist anyway.

“Terran General just called. Your results are back. I made an appointment for next weekend. Figured you would want Sophie there this time.”

Matilda wasn’t the maternal type. None of the Sisterhood were. So the fact she had thought to give me time to organise support said it all.

20

I wasn’t sure how I was going to last for a week. If it were up to me, I would have let Doctor Daly release the results to Matilda so she could pass them on to me. But that wasn’t how doctor patient confidentiality worked. Also, I suspected nobody wanted to be the bearer of bad news. So I had to suffer through a week of school.

Sophie and I were both reticent when we walked into our last class of the day: Restricted Magic. We only had it once a fortnight, but it felt like a dark cloud on our timetable.

“Did you know this is supposed to be a fourth-year class?” Sasha told me as we slid into the seats the boys had saved for us. They were almost at the front of the room. We had a rule now. Whoever was first to class saved a seat for me, and by extension Sophie, as far away as possible from Emily. I spotted her, Isla, and the Evil Three in the back corner. We really needed to work on getting to class earlier.

“Why did they move it?” Sophie asked.

Sasha inclined his head towards Emily. “Reassurance. They want it clear that there are rules and regulations in place to protect humans.”

“Where was all this when I started?” I said.

Trey leaned forward with his arms crossed on his desk. Behind his broad back, Alison was biting her lip. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

“So in other words, the Human League is kicking up a stink?”

“You have no idea. They’re talking some rubbish about a supernatural regulatory body headed up by humans. Durin is just about ready to rip Declan’s throat out.”

Sophie sniffed. “That’s nothing. Wait till Durin hears about their registration idea.”

“Anyone comes near me with a tag and that’s the last thing they’ll do,” Trey spat.

I imagined that would be a common sentiment. Not just amongst the shifters. That was all we needed right now. Another war between supernaturals and humans. For the first time, I felt a little stab of pity for the Council. Just a little one, though.

I tried not to groan aloud when Professor Suleiman walked into the room. Setting aside my Dead Languages baggage was going to take some effort. Ever the pragmatist, Professor Suleiman wasted no time getting down to the core of the subject.

“I hope that by now you will all know there are some aspects of magic that are heavily regulated in our world. What happened at the Academy last semester is a perfect example. Deviation from the law results in imprisonment or punishment by death.”

That was all well and good except there were some branches of magic that were harder than others to detect let alone enforce. Like my bone magic, for example. “Who can tell me the cardinal rule of supernatural society?”

A dozen or so hands shot up. The professor pointed at Diana. “Do no harm to others.”

“That’s right. And an example of that?”

“Necromancers technically have the power to control a vampire’s mind,” Diana said without missing a beat. “But they are restricted from doing so unless there is a danger to themselves or to the vampire.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sasha baring his teeth. “Very good. Who can give me another example? Isla?”

“The Fae have the power to control the elements. We thrive in an environment conducive to our powers. But we are restricted from manipulating the weather to the detriment of others.” Professor Suleiman gave her a nod and Isla continued as though she had been waiting two years to offload water Fae trivia. “For example, as a water Fae, I prefer moist, tropical locations with a great expanse of water or rain. But I am forbidden from messing with rainfall patterns.”

“And why is that?”

“Because the earth is balanced by its own cycles and my magic will disrupt that to the detriment of other life forms. Fae magic doesn’t resonate well with the water of the billabong because of its delicate ecosystem.”

“Thank you, Isla.” The professor sat back on his desk. “Balance is the overarching rationale behind supernatural regulation. We are what we are. Beings who should not exist in this dimension. But that doesn’t change our nature. As long as we can have freedom while ensuring the safety of humans, then everything is balanced. This is why we have built our own cities separate from humans and each other. In these places, we are free to express our magic governed by our own. There are, however, some disciplines of magic that are regulated regardless of their intent. Who can tell me what those are?”

He pointed at Sophie. I cringed. Never one to coddle or shy away from a touchy subject, Professor Suleiman leaned forward expectantly. Sophie cleared her throat. “Ahh blood magic and death magic.”

Sophie was an A student even if the topic was B grade.

“Exactly. There are many branches of these disciplines. Death magic gives rise to a myriad of specialities. Necromancy, summoning, astral projection, soul stealing.” Bone magic. Sophie wasn’t the only one under a microscope. Thankfully, she got a reprieve for the lesson.

“Let’s talk about the soul.” The professor slid off his desk and stepped in front of it. “Textbooks out, page nineteen. You all know that the soul of a seraph contains a vast amount of energy that cannot be contained by any known force in the dimensions. But are you aware that to a lesser extent, when any other soul is displaced, there is a similar, smaller discharge of force? Who can tell me which souls typically contain the most power?”

Many hands rose. I shrank back in my seat when Professor Suleiman’s attention flicked over me. Luckily, it didn’t linger. That small action gave me a pretty good idea what the answer might be.

“Devraj,” Professor Suleiman pointed.

“A human soul,” Dev revealed. “Human essence represents the purest form of energy because it hasn’t been warped with other magic. That’s why vampires prefer human blood.”

“Can we lay off the vamps for a minute?” Sasha said to a chorus of chuckles.

“An unfortunate happenstance, Sasha,” the professor said. “Nonetheless, it is the truth. A human soul possesses power in counterbalance to the humans’ general physical weakness. This is why the Soul Sisterhood are able to circumvent many of the safeguards we have had in place to protect ourselves.”

Harlow and Alison high-fived each other. Amateurs. Clearly they hadn’t been living in supernatural society long enough. Wait for it….

“But that is also the reason why demons are drawn to humans –” There you go. “–And also why the theft of a soul or use of it in magic is strictly forbidden.”

Orla’s hand shot up. “I don’t understand, Professor. If a demon possesses a supernatural being, wouldn’t they be stronger because of our powers? When Malachi Pendragon was possessed in the Unity Games, the elite guard had to intervene.”

The professor crossed his arms over his chest. “Who said anything about possession?” He smiled knowingly. “You’re confusing inhabiting a physical body and stealing the pure essence of a soul. Two years ago, the Bloodline school bus was attacked. The bomb the demons used was created through the discharge of a human soul. Imagine it, a single soul disarmed a bus full of some of the strongest supernaturals in our society. Professor Magnus was an elite guard before she retired to teach. And Alistair Thompson is alpha of the lion clan. Both of them were incapacitated. The only ones left standing were the Nephilim and Alessia.”

Aw man! Why’d he have to mention that? I schooled my face into a neutral mask as their attention settled on me. Thank goodness the professor moved the conversation along. “A bomb isn’t the only thing that can be constructed with souls,” he said. “Every Nephilim’s angel blade is imbued with a sliver of their soul. So is every demon blade. The Ley dimension is powered by a construct of souls that have been laid to rest. And unlike humans who die if their soul is stolen, a supernatural can still function but at their most base level. They effectively turn into uninhibited killing machines. So, as you can see, theft or manipulation of the soul is not permitted.”

Harlow snorted. “Nuts to that. It’s like telling a wolf to be a vegetarian. If I need to defend myself, I’ll use my power.”

“That is the law,” the professor said. “In deference to Sasha, vampires could feed on all of us, but they don’t because they are restricted by law.” Ooh this wasn’t good. Harlow’s face quivered like she was having too many unpleasant emotions at once.

“The bloodsuckers feed on humans all the time!” she contradicted. “And don’t tell me they get punished because I’ve dealt with plenty of repeat offenders.”

That set everybody off. Half the class began arguing with each other over when use of powers was justified. Meanwhile, Emily shrank into her desk, her gaze becoming distant like she was trying to have an out-of-body experience.

As a Dead Languages teacher, Professor Suleiman was a fan of open discourse. That was until Trey roared that he would snap the neck of anyone trying to steal his soul.

“I’d like to see you try!” Winnie scoffed. It went downhill from there. The professor clapped his hands together.

“Okay,” he said evenly. “That’s about enough of that.” Metaphorical daggers still shot in all directions, but the class settled down.

“You see how tricky enforcement of magic can be,” he said, using our descent into madness as a perfect example. “Every faction has their own requirements that must be taken into consideration. Be that as it may, restriction is still possible. Cooperation has been our greatest weapon against the Hell dimension. Without it, we would we hopeless.”

The bell rang. I breathed a sigh of relief. “I want you all to read through chapters three and four before our next lesson. We will be discussing blood.”

Sophie blew out a breath. “I think next class I might come down with a cold.”

“Aww it wasn’t that bad,” I reasoned.

“Yeah right! You had the Evil Three to back you up. I’m going to be a sitting duck. I’ve got a dining hall shift, see you for dinner?”

“If I’m not dead.”

She smirked. “Uh huh. Say hello to Kai for me.”

Everyone was a comedian.

For all of his insistence, Kai had very little time to spare. He scraped together minutes to check in on me, but training had been non-existent. If he wasn’t able to teleport, I’d never see him. I couldn’t tell whether it was a relief or an irritation.

When I walked into the illusion training room and came face to face with a fold-out table laden with contraband, I decided irritation was the way to go.

“Keep that thing away from me.” Eugenia edged out of the way as Giselle loaded one of their toxic sludge guns.

“The safety is on,” Giselle insisted in a bored tone. She stared ahead and reloaded the gun without focusing. I sidestepped as she took aim at a target on the far wall.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as a sweep of warmth whispered down my spine. Kai appeared beside me a moment later. His khaki combat pants had a tear across the knee soaked in congealed blood. The tan T-shirt was shredded at the hem. Bruises from claw-sharpened fingertips decorated his left arm. As a Nephilim of Raphael’s line, his healing ability was monumental. The severity of the injuries suggested they were freshly acquired. He gave no indication of being disturbed by his appearance.

Eugenia gawped. “Nice of you to dress up for the occasion.”

Kai ignored her and lowered his attention to me, his expression hard. Sometimes, I imagined I had a distorted perspective of him. Then he’d appear and that perspective sharpened into unbelievable clarity. Even scratched up and bruised, he still made my chest ache. The urge to run my finger along the new scar on his lip was almost unbearable. I frowned, wondering again what had hurt him so bad and where I could find it and kill it.

Soft green light flicked in his eyes to replace the moss green. His jaw clamped, and when he blinked, it was gone. “I’ve been thinking about what you said in the Grove.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.” Until I figured out a way to dissolve the bond, I had two emotional ranges: bitchy combativeness and quivering mess. Only one of those was acceptable where Kai was concerned.

“You’re never going to be able to outmuscle or outrun a supernatural. We need to find other ways for you to defend yourself.” He marched past the women and stopped in front of the arsenal. I followed and left a long arm span between us. He picked up a crossbow. Setting it down, he cast his gaze over the rest of the items. There was an array of familiar weapons thanks to my Weaponry and Combat classes. It was all the sorcery and magical implements that stumped me.

“She’s not going to be able to lift half this stuff,” Kai commented to Giselle.

“They’re not for her,” came the ominous response. The answer didn’t rile Kai up the same way it did me.

“Beg your pardon?” I said. Nanna always said the only time I was ever polite was when I was masking rudeness.

“We have to face the reality that your powers might completely erode one day,” Kai said. “If that happens, you’ll be helpless.”

I sighed. The thought had occurred to me. Even if I still had magic, if my symptoms kept up, accessing it could become dangerous. “Giselle and Matilda will have a better handle on how to fight without magic. You’ll be better off with them than me.”

Be careful what you wish for, Lex.

I clamped my mouth shut as he nodded solemnly at the witches and teleported away. The dark gleam in Giselle’s icy blue eyes was concerning. I backed up when Eugenia fixed the clasp of a crescent-shaped amulet around her throat. Her hourglass figure shimmered and was replaced by the billowing cloak of a red-hooded necromancer.

I was so busy watching Eugenia’s transformation that I didn’t notice Giselle was beside me until the click of a bangle shackled my wrists. First my left, then my right. A soft gurgle sound filled my ears before my magic leeched away. “What the hell?”

“A simulation of what might be possible.” The sneer in her tone was not appreciated. Neither was the bolt of an arrow pointing at me from Matilda’s crossbow. “You’ve learned to fight with that stick of yours. Now you’ll do it with no weapon.”

“You’re insan–”

She slugged me across the face without warning. My head whipped back and I lost balance, teetering on unsteady legs. Bracing my arms to protect my skull, I fell into a tuck and roll and landed in a crouch. “Stop joking around!” I shouted at her.

The snap of the crossbow ate up my attention. I leaped as an arrow burrowed into the spot where I had been. “Faster,” Giselle said. Was she speaking to Matilda or me? The lightning-fast draw of Matilda’s crossbow furnished me with my answer. It never slipped my focus that Eugenia’s lips were moving. A grey cloud of mist foamed at her feet.

Matilda made me dance across the floor with her shooting. My back hit the far wall of the training room. I pivoted out of the way as a toxic sludge bullet spat at the wall and promptly ate up the plaster.

I braced my palm against the ground and drew in a heavy breath. All three of them smiled at me. “Let the games begin,” Giselle said. Then she fired.

21

I glanced at Gabriel’s Key and contemplated whether it had been worth almost dying for. The convenience said yes. The spark of apprehension every time I used it said no. All in all, it kind of evened out.

Matilda dawdled over to where Sophie and I were waiting beside the hall. The Sisterhood had decided that Ravenhall was less objectionable than anywhere else in supernaturaldom, so this was their base when they weren’t working with Nora and Mani. Matilda had decided overnight that she was going to accompany me back to the human world. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it.

Every bone in my body was draped in fatigue after a week of nightmare training sessions. The toxic burn on my right rib was still healing despite the poultice Sophie had used to patch it up.

“Ready?” Matilda finished sheathing a knife to the belt around her hips. She was lucky we wouldn’t have to go through any metal detectors. Then again, I didn’t blame her for being paranoid given she was living in Ravenhall.

“I guess so,” I said.

She gave her leather jacket one last tug for fit. “Let’s do this.”

I reached out and grabbed both their arms before commanding the ring to take me to Terran General. We popped into a spare room beside the admin office. Somebody screamed. It might not have been as spare as I remembered. My head whipped to the left where a woman in a hospital gown was scrambling up her single bed to try and get away from us.

“Ah shit,” Matilda said. She then promptly strode the length of the room and fiddled with the woman’s IV equipment. In a few beats, the woman was unconscious. Matilda dusted her hands together. “We’ll just tell her it was the morphine.”

The door swung open and Jessica barged in. She was in scrubs again. “Sorry,” she said, taking in the scene. “We’re up to our ears in patients again. I didn’t get a chance to get a message out that we’re full up.”

With the help of the supernaturals, Terran’s physical structure had been replaced almost overnight. You would never be able to tell it had been attacked by demons. “You might have to wait outside,” Jessica said.

Not that there was any more space in the waiting area. Her phone went off and she rushed down the corridor to answer it.

Despite the full house, we didn’t have to wait long. I suspected Jessica just wanted us to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Doctor Daly came down the outpatient hallway and motioned for me to follow her. Sophie and Matilda both came with me.

“How are you feeling?” Doctor Daly asked. Today she had on a black pencil skirt and a mint-coloured blouse that did nothing to flatter her dark skin tone. But fashion advice wasn’t what I was here for.

“Fine,” I said. That was my word for the century. I took it we weren’t going to make polite small talk about the fact that last time we’d met, a demon had tried to kill us.

We entered her consulting room. There weren’t enough chairs in here either. Besides the doctor, nobody moved to take a seat. There was bitterness on my tongue. For the first time in a long time, I had skipped breakfast. Yet the thought of food made me want to hurl. Doctor Daly picked some nonexistent lint off her blouse.

“You should really sit,” she said.

“That bad, huh?” I asked. Sophie grabbed my hand. I hadn’t noticed until then that I was tapping it against my thigh.

“I’m so sorry, Alessia,” Doctor Daly said. “None of the eggs we collected were viable. I think it’s quite safe to assume that the rest are also infertile. But if you’d like, we can test all of them just in case. We can freeze any that are viable.”

You could have heard a pin drop. What I did hear was the sound of deep-throated screaming coming from the distance. And the sound of my heart beating in between. I opened my mouth, shut it again, and cleared my throat. There didn’t seem to be any point checking. I had already known this was a long shot. No point putting myself through additional torture.

“Right,” I finally managed to say. “I guess it’s better to know.”

“I’ve got the number for some services –”

I cut her off. “No really, I’m okay. Thanks anyway.”

I shoved the door open and walked out. Neither Sophie nor Matilda said anything as we found a quiet spot and I teleported us back to Ravenhall.

“Tough break, kid,” Matilda said.

I was mute. She decided that was the perfect time to make herself scarce. When it was just Sophie and me, I turned to face her. We stared at each other for the longest time without saying a word.

I thought I had it together when warmth in my chest had me looking inside. The layer of green caught my attention. It chased through my body, filling it with comfort. Almost as though Kai knew that there was something wrong. Sophie wrapped her arms around me as the first bubble of a sob escaped my throat.

“You had to try,” she said. “And if that was the last shot then we’ll make Lucifer pay for it.”

Not for the first time, I thought that if I got to the end of the line and Sophie was all I had left, I would still be happy. She wiped away my tears with the sleeve of her top.

“You want to kill some pretend demons?” She nodded towards the Great Hall.

“Sure, why not.”

I spent the next four hours sticking Morning Star into as many demons as I possibly could. Did I feel better afterwards? Marginally. The only thing that got me through was knowing that when the time came, I would use the demon blade on Lucifer. And I would make it hurt.

Not long after we teleported back to the Academy that night, Sophie had another shift in the dining hall.

Figuring I had better let off some steam, I put on sweats and ran laps around the billabong. Phoenix loped beside me, his tongue sticking out of his mouth. I could never keep up with him, but he always came back and stayed with me for a few seconds before disappearing behind a hedge again. The problem with the track around the billabong was that a part of it opened up to a section of the Grove. Every time I did a lap, my chest would lurch when the Grove came into view.

My body clock still hadn’t readjusted. Every morning, my eyes snapped open before dawn and I would swing my legs out of bed before reality crashed back. I was on my tenth lap and slowing down a lot when I finally conceded that I was just buying time. On my next go around, I jogged in place when the Grove came into view.

What would happen if I tried to go in there? Would they attack me again? There was really only one way to find out. Phoenix yelped on his way back to me. When he realised I wasn’t running anymore, he did laps around my legs instead.

Not wanting to take the chance and get myself unconscious again, I drew the Ley dimension around me. There it was. A thin ribbon of rainbow-coloured light that circled around the entire Grove. That was the spell that kept out intruders. When I moved closer, I saw there was now an additional band of blue added to the base of the rainbow. I had no doubt that band was specifically attuned to me.

Kai had been right. I was stronger than the nymphs. If I wanted to, there was every possibility I would be able to dismantle the wards they had put up. Unfortunately, getting in wasn’t the problem. If I had only been here to steal Arcana fruit, that would be the end of it. But something didn’t feel right about being at the Academy and not being allowed into the Grove. The question was: How to apologise?

It was getting late. I was about to leave when I heard the sound of voices coming from inside. Or a single voice and several other higher-pitched squeals. The familiarity stopped me in my tracks. For some reason, I ducked behind the hydrangea bush and crouched down so they wouldn’t be able to see me.

From around the path beside the front gate, Emily emerged with a band of four nymphs fluttering around her. She held an Arcana fruit in each hand. “I really don’t know what to do with them,” she was saying.

The purple nymph chortled in her usual excited speech. Emily gave a harassed laugh. I would bet my life she had absolutely no idea what they were saying. With her hands full, Emily wasn’t able to unlock the gate. The pink nymph waved her tiny hand. A flurry of glittery magic swung the gate open. Thankfully, I was biting my tongue to stop from making any noise or I would have sworn.

First, they gave her free Arcana fruit and now they were opening doors for her. It was like some kind of supernatural blind date. “Really, I only came back around to inspect the oak tree,” Emily said. “There was no need to give me anything. I just did a little bit of watering.” She tucked one of the Arcana under her left armpit to hold it in place. The thing was the size of a grapefruit. Her words had me pausing. It hit me what they were trying to do. They were trying to replace me with Emily. Did human labour equate to some kind of supernatural cache? Who the heck looked after the Arcana tree before I came along?

“I beg your pardon?” Emily said. The purple nymph screeched. “I’m sorry. I really can’t understand you.”

A flutter of bigger golden wings shot out from the other side of the running track. “Oh for goodness sake!” Isla snapped when she landed. In the blink of an eye, she snatched the Arcana fruit from Emily’s hands and threw them back over the gate. The nymphs went crazy trying to scratch at Isla’s face, but she deflected them with a single sweep of her hand.

“You’ve already got one slave,” Isla said. “Stop trying to recruit others just because you’re having an argument.”

Before the nymphs could retaliate, Isla grabbed Emily’s arm and started marching away in my direction. I froze. The invisibility circle had just completed itself when Isla stepped around the side of the hydrangea bush.

“Don’t go there again,” Isla said. “They’re not right in the head at the moment.”

Emily wrung her hands. “I only came to see the site of the explosion. To check if there was anything that might give me an idea of why I saw what I saw.”

“It’s a prophecy. There’s no meaning to them half the time.”

“There’s always meaning in my visions. My guardian angel –”

Isla stopped dead. “What guardian angel?” she pinched the bridge of her nose. “How long have you been hearing voices?”

Emily bounced on the balls of her feet. Nervous energy radiated from her. It was nice of her to keep this titbit from the elite guards. No wonder they were so hell bent on me disclosing everything.

“It comes and goes,” she said. “I’ve been hearing it all my life. But I haven’t been able to hear it since we arrived and –”

“What does it tell you to do?

“She,” Emily corrected. “She helps me make sense of the jumble of images.”

I’d seen Isla on the brink of a meltdown more than once but the look of utter frustration that caused her lips to go blue topped it all. “We’re going to see Jacqueline.”

“What?” Emily stuttered. “Why?”

Isla rounded on her. “Because around these parts, hearing voices in your head is a bad, bad thing.”

There was no way I couldn’t follow them now. But instead of using the stealth method, I allowed them to get a little bit of a head start and then dropped the invisibility circle. Teleporting back to the dorm, I picked up the Nephilim Codex. From there I proceeded casually towards Jacqueline’s on-campus residence. She wasn’t on duty this weekend.

Dmitri, our deputy headmaster, was in charge. There was no way Isla would tell him what was going on. He had a reputation for punishing first and asking questions later. Gabriel’s Key ensured that I was on Jacqueline’s doorstep in plenty of time. It gave me a few minutes to skim through the codex. The index at the back of the book was a goldmine.

I found Jacqueline’s name in their long list of family members and trawled through the few pages on her that I could. Huh. It turned out Jacqueline’s surname was adoptive. She took it on when she agreed to be posted as Headmistress of Bloodline. I bookmarked it for further reading later on and knocked lightly on her door.

The light in the front room was on but I didn’t hear any movement inside. The seconds ticked by. I wasn’t sure what the etiquette was in this instance. Snooping wasn’t kosher, but when I knocked a second time and didn’t get any response, things started to feel off.

I was trying to channel X-ray vision through her curtains when Isla’s voice rang out. “What are you doing here?” she huffed.

In my concern, I had forgotten she was on her way. “I came to ask Jacqueline about something in my book,” I lied. “But she’s not answering her door.”

Of course that made Isla step up beside me and peer through the opaque curtains too. Emily hovered a little way off. Her arms were clutched behind her back like a little girl in a china shop not wanting to touch anything.

“Can you feel anything?” I asked Isla.

She grimaced. “Like what? I’m Fae not pixie.”

The way she said it sounded like I’d insulted her. “I don’t know. I just thought you’d have a better shot at sensing something than me.”

Her knock was a lot louder than mine. Still there was no answer. “This is messed up,” Isla announced.

“Maybe we should leave her be?” Emily suggested. “What if she’s asleep?”

“What if she’s dead?” Isla contradicted.

Two ends of the spectrum. How had Isla not killed Emily by now? The Fae turned to me. “Go in there and check it out.”

“What? I can’t break down the door!”

She sighed and grabbed my hand, waving it in front of me. “Oh, the ring! Right!”

“How you’re still alive astounds me.”

I appraised the state of the house. It was eerily quiet. There were no outward signs of disturbances. A quick scan of the Ley dimension showed only Jacqueline’s aura in the house. “What are you waiting for?” Isla prompted.

“Sorry if I’m not that comfortable with breaking and entering.”

“We can’t just stand around all night! I’ll just do it.”

Her way would mean breaking down the door. In my periphery, Emily scooted backwards. “Can you just hold your horses for a moment?”

“She could have a broken neck in there and you’re hesitating?” Isla asked.

Why was I hesitating? Breaking down the door should have been the first thing I did. But there was something not quite right about potentially walking in on an awkward situation. The thought sat for a moment before I remembered that Kai and I weren’t together anymore. There was nothing else tying Jacqueline and I together. Kai.

“Brace yourself,” I told them.

I sank into the bond and called his name. He appeared in the blink of an eye. He must have been training because his T-shirt was soaked at the collar. It took him a second to survey the situation. It felt like he’d only just touched down when he disappeared into the house. Several other Fae lanterns flicked on. I tried the door again, but it remained locked.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked half-heartedly as we waited. Isla had no qualms about breaching Emily’s privacy. “She’s hearing voices in her head.”

The front door opened. “Not again,” Jacqueline said. Her voice was hoarse. Like she’d been speaking for hours. Her hair was plastered to her face and she had a greenish tinge to her cheeks. I couldn’t quite get past what I was seeing. She looked like Nanna had that time she’d gotten the flu. Except Jacqueline was a supernatural. They didn’t get sick.

Kai tried to step in front of her and usher her back inside, but she resisted. It didn’t look like she had much strength to do that either, but she managed to stay upright at least.

“Gran,” Kai said, his voice a warning.

“Honestly, I was just asleep.”

“We banged pretty hard,” Isla said. Speak for yourself.

Jacqueline coughed and then tried to hide it by inhaling loudly. “Now what’s this about hearing voices?” She all but staggered out onto the stoop.

“This isn’t happening,” Kai said. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her off inside. I closed the door behind them, knowing Jacqueline probably didn’t want us seeing her vulnerable.

“What the heck?” Isla said. My sentiments exactly. Kai’s expression when he came out of the house was closed over.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

He shook his head. I chalked it up to the same concern that was making my heart thump faster. “She’s unwell.”

“No shit,” Isla said. “Isn’t that a bit of an issue? We don’t get sick!”

Kai glared at her. “You don’t get an opinion on anything. Why didn’t you go to Dmitri with this?” The whip-quick flicker of his gaze over to Emily had the other girl blushing. Oh jeez.

Isla’s chest expanded. The sneer on her face slowly evened out. “I don’t think Dmitri is the right person to deal with this. Unless you want to scare Emily even more?”

There was no arguing with that. Kai reached up and grabbed the back of his neck. Muscles bulged. Emily turned fire-engine red and stared at her feet. “Fine,” he said. “Come with me.”

His body turned into a wall when I tried to follow them. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

He was right. Especially since Emily still wasn’t comfortable around me. That didn’t mean I liked it. “Okay. I might just sit here until Jacqueline comes back out.”

“Blue.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s just tired.”

“Try again.”

His jaw clamped. I searched his face, wondering why he was being so obstructive. If there was something wrong with Jacqueline, we had every right to know. “She was with Angus and some of the elite guard this morning in the prison. She must have picked up something from a demon. It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

With that, he turned around and marched away. Isla’s jawline could have cut through stone. She shrugged at me before gesturing for Emily to follow her. I stood there uncertain of what had just happened. What I did know was that for the first time since he offered it, Kai regretted the bond. Because through it, I knew without a doubt that he’d just looked me in the eye and lied through his teeth.

22

Standing outside Jacqueline’s house all night wasn’t feasible. My thoughts were disturbed as I walked back to the dorms instead of using the ring. I needed to clear my head. The gnawing in my gut became worse with each step. At the front door of the senior Academy, I finally bit the bullet and glanced inside at the bond. It was still there but there was a vivid emerald edge everywhere it touched my magic. When I tried to prod, it locked me out as surely as Kai closing the door in my face. What the hell?

The alert light outside my door was a solid feature now. There were so many backed-up bulletins I didn’t even bother. It made things a bit difficult when I tried to weed through for the ones I actually wanted to listen to.

There was a bulletin from Basil ranting about the rumours he’d heard about what Kai was doing to get ready for the inevitable day when I would accept the bond. I returned the call but cut him off before he could launch into it.

“Don’t you have actual work to do on the prison?” I asked.

He waved away my question. “That’s beside the point.”

“Well, I need to ask you about something. Was Jacqueline around today by any chance?”

“Yes. Why?”

Hmmm. “Did she come into contact with any demons?”

“It’s a supernatural prison. Of course she did.”

I tried to inspect his features for any signs of duplicity. At the moment, his credibility was also in doubt. Basil was the one who initially suspected there was something odd going on with me being forsaken. He’d made a decision not to tell me about it and it had almost ended up killing me for real.

“Was there an incident?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

I debated whether to tell him. The door opened. Sophie came in smelling of anise and citrus. “What’s she asking you?” Sophie asked.

“Strange questions about Jacqueline,” Basil said.

“What about her?”

“Well, she’s sick for one thing,” I blurted. “I find that really strange, don’t you?”

Sophie stopped collecting her towel. “Sick?”

That’s right. That was the reaction I wanted. Basil frowned at me through the Mirror. “You must be mistaken.”

“I think out of everyone here, I would know it when someone is sick. I am, after all, the one who’s always in the infirmary.”

“Oh, you mean she was injured.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. She was all sweaty and coughing like she had the flu.”

Basil scratched at his nose. “Supernaturals don’t get the flu. In any case, who knows what she could have picked up from the demons in the prison?”

Sophie came to stand behind me. “Can that even happen?”

“Of course it can. You of all people should know a demon can make a supernatural sick.”

This hadn’t been the way I thought this conversation would go. “I’m sure she’ll be fine tomorrow,” Basil predicted.

I hated it when he was right. The next morning when I went to her office to check, Jacqueline was sitting at her desk with not a hair out of place. Last night’s sweat-drenched hair was clean and arranged into loose waves. She’d chosen a midnight-blue suit that brought out the pigments in her eyes. Between the two of us, she looked like the healthier specimen.

“Ah, Lex. I never got around to asking you what you needed me for last night. I assume you weren’t there with Emily.”

“I was reading the codex and came across a passage on you that needed some clarification. Are you feeling okay?”

The puzzled look she gave me should have been reassuring, but instead, it made me all the more concerned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

I edged into the office. Might as well stick around now that I was here. And I was a tiny bit curious about how she came to be a Pendragon. “You were pretty sick last night.”

Her amused grin said otherwise. “Amazons don’t get sick, Lex. You should know that by now. I suspect it was a curse some demon threw at me. It seems to have run its course. That’s generally the way these things go.”

If there was an award for most convincing performance, she would win the crown. Swallowing my reservations, I tried to snoop a little while I had the opportunity. “Was Emily okay?”

“As much as she can be under the circumstances.”

“So she’s not hearing voices?”

“How much did you overhear last night?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and decided to go the ignorance route. “We were outside your place for a while. Isla was concerned, and since I...have some experience, she told me a few things.”

Jacqueline’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Emily is fine. Yes, it’s concerning that she’s been hearing voices, but unlike yours, she doesn’t appear to be affected by them. They don’t urge her to do anything.”

“How is that okay? Shouldn’t we try to do something to block them out?”

“Professor Mortimer and Tyler have already warded the Academy to the brim. Nothing demonic can reach us here. Emily swears black and blue she hasn’t heard the voice since she arrived at the Academy. We’ve increased the protection around her as well. So at this stage, there isn’t much more we can do.”

If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought she’d rehearsed that speech. No doubt she’d had to make a report to the elite guard already. When I didn’t react, Jacqueline tapped her fingers on the desk to redirect my attention. “Emily’s safety isn’t your problem, Lex. I know you feel responsible for what happened at the hospital and because Emily is human. But you’ve got so many things to deal with already. Let the rest of us do our job.”

Logic once again. Why was it so difficult to swallow?

“I suppose so,” I said. My legs kicked under the table. “It doesn’t matter anyway. She still hates me.”

Jacqueline reached over and squeezed my hand. “She doesn’t hate you. She’s just frightened. I actually think being here has reassured her a little. Maybe with a bit of time, she’ll be more open to things.” Jacqueline let go and smiled fondly. “Now, what’s this about the codex?”

Brushing past anything that might involve the bond, I asked her about her surname change. “Ah,” she said, the smile still on her lips. “The board thought it might make my tenure more legitimate if I assumed a name that belongs to a legacy Nephilim House.”

“You never married a Pendragon?”

She arched a brow. “I suppose you haven’t gotten to that part of Supernatural Species Integration.” I forced my face not to react. “In Amazonian culture, we don’t marry. Our race is matriarchal. We have relationships in order to procreate, but the lifelong bonding never worked out. We were too often at war and too independent to accept compromise.”

“What about now?”

“We’re still at war, Lex.”

I nodded. “But there is some sense of stability.”

“For the younger ones, there is. This dimension has changed us so much. One day, Cassie might find someone to settle down with. But those of us who have lived long lives, it’s not really a priority.”

I scratched my head. Mentioning Cassie’s name has leeched some of the joy from her features. I had a feeling I knew exactly where her concern lay. This new dimension posed many cultural shifts. Cassie was growing up in a world of shifters and Nephilim who thrived on permanent bonds. They would accept nothing less. But there would be a part of her, a deeply primal part, which would cling to the old ways. If she fell for a human, her longevity would mean she would watch them and possibly her children die before she did. That was going to be an issue when she grew up. Yeah, okay, I was beginning to see the light in Supernatural Sex Ed.

Jacqueline shook off her apprehension and crossed her arms over the desk. She then slid forward a little so our heads were closer. “Technically,” she said, “I’m not on duty for another hour. Did you want to talk about how you came to be in possession of the Nephilim Codex in the first place?”

You could have fried an egg on my face. My nostrils flared. “He thinks he’s so funny,” I snapped. “He’s lucky I haven’t knocked him unconscious with it.”

Jacqueline grinned, displaying rows of teeth. “Pendragon men tend to be one-track minded. His great-grandfather was the same.”

“His great-grandfather wasn’t the last of their line.”

She sighed. “No, he wasn’t. I’m sorry, Lex. I know this is difficult.”

“It would be a lot less difficult if he would accept that we can’t happen.”

“I suspect it’s a little too late for that.” She ran her finger along the edge of her desk. “In any case, don’t allow anyone to push you into doing something that you don’t think is right. There are a lot of good intentions, but they’re not the ones having to live with their decisions.”

I swallowed. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think.”

Yes, it did. Maybe things would have been different if Jacqueline was one of those crone relatives who disapproved of every girl their prince brought home. But I had grown to value her advice and her friendship. She brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes and tucked it behind my ear. “I thank the heavens every day that you struggle with what’s right above what is easy. Only you can decide where you draw the line.”

For some reason, I didn’t think she was only referring to Kai and me anymore.

Somebody knocked on her door. “You’ve got that call with the board, Headmistress,” Alex said. I got up to leave. Just before I reached for the door handle, she called out.

“Oh, Lex. Can you please let Professor Mortimer know that his request for special dispensation has been approved but that he needs to be cautious? I might be with the board for a while.”

I nodded and left, my head full of more questions than answers.

Professor Mortimer was just as cryptic about the message I passed on. “Excellent.” We set up spell ingredients on his front lawn. “If I had known it would be this easy to get approval for things, I would have gone to the elite guard earlier.”

Over on the tree stump by the house, Tyler huffed. “It’s not a free-for-all,” he said. “Only because of the unusual circumstances.”

“What’s he talking about?” I asked.

Professor Mortimer shook his head. “Put it out of your mind. We’ll try things the conventional way and hope that works.” He crossed his legs and sat down on the grass. I did the same.

“Please tell me we’re not going to just meditate all semester. I’m not sure if I can handle that.”

He laughed. “We’re not even going to meditate today.” My relief was palpable. “But I do need to discuss something with you.”

Uh oh. “For the past two years, we’ve focused on trying to learn the basics of arcane circles.” He scratched at his beard. “We really should have redirected your studies after the Terran beach incident, but nobody could have predicted your magic advancing so quickly.”

“Also, the Lucifer thing.”

His mouth tipped down. “I won’t lie to you. Some of the board were hesitant to progress your learning for fear of what might happen. It’s short-sighted but that’s what tends to happen when people are afraid.”

“What made them change their minds?” I picked at the grass.

He counted off on his fingers. “One, you willingly invited a demon to possess you to save Kai. Two, you let Andrei bite you even though most of the population think he’s out of his mind. And three, you died.” He smiled. “I’ll wager that throughout it all, you haven’t even considered that your abilities make you one of the most dangerous people in the world. Based on your performance, the elite guard decided that the more you know, the greater an asset you will be.”

“How very clinical of them.”

“We’re all assets in this war.” He dusted his hands together. “Up until now you’ve concentrated on protection and invisibility circles that have managed to keep things away from you. Let’s try and see how you go when we refocus on keeping something contained.”

“I’ve been doing some summoning. That’s containment, right? The runes are different.”

He blinked slowly, eyes unfocused as though lost in unpleasant memories. I swear I heard the snap of undead teeth and shuddered. “Yes, I know. But the spirits that you are trying to communicate with are perhaps a little different to trying to contain somebody who doesn’t want to stay put. The other issue with your current form of arcane circle is that they are defensive in nature. As long as the circle is complete, you are protected. If the circle breaks for any reason or you run out of stamina, you’ll be too exhausted to defend yourself.”

With my interest thoroughly piqued, the professor stood and moved five paces away from me. He crouched down onto the grass again.

“Let’s begin with something small.”

A palm-sized flame ignited in the grass. I yelped. “Contain it.”

The circle was already drawn. Growing up in Australia, the sight of flames on landscape made my hair stand on end. The blue and black circle engulfed the flame. It continued to burn but didn’t manage to spread. “Show me the runes.”

I squatted down on my knees and funnelled magic into my fingers. When I drew the intersecting lines for the summoning containment runes, they lit up to match the glowing circle. Granted they also didn’t affect the flames at all.

Professor Mortimer came down on one knee beside me. “Hmm. How are you feeling? Any fatigue?”

This early? “No, sir.”

“Extinguish the fire for me”

I hit a brick wall. “How do I do that?”

“You’ve spent two years learning about runes and sigils, Alessia. What’s the first rule of arcane magic?”

“Thought over deed,” I repeated from memory.

“Apply that here.”

He was assuming I’d forgotten what the runes meant. It was a simple magic system that spawned hundreds of words and symbols in all manner of ancient languages both dead and living. Most magic users often only specialised in one or two branches of runes because of the sheer number of them. Once you learned the basics, a creative and powerful magic user could bend the meaning of the symbol until it became their own.

Professor Mortimer literally lit a fire under me. The flames inside the circle roared and expanded into burning bush territory. My magic circle expanded to compensate. He flicked his fingers again and the flames grew bigger. They licked at the sides of my circle. Phantom heat crawled up my arms. My eyes widened as the red and orange flames began to erode the circle. It was slow at first, but before long, it would eat up my magic.

“You see what I mean?” the professor asked. “Keeping something out is very different to keeping something in. Something inside your circle is able to corrupt it. Extinguish the fire.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. The heat on my arms was beginning to scorch.

Without thinking too much about it, I drew out the symbols for air and for silence. As I completed the last line to connect them both, I thought of the oxygen the flames required to grow. I imagined it leaching from the circle until there was no more fuel. When I slapped my hand down over the runes to complete the spell, the flame inside the circle snuffed out.

Professor Mortimer patted my shoulder. “Very good.”

Buoyed by the compliment, I was determined to continue my winning streak. Over the course of the lesson, I managed to stop a rain cloud from drenching the ground and to contain a minor explosion.

“I see you’ve kept up with your studies this summer,” the professor said. My elation dimmed. The smile I returned was brittle. There was no way I would ever forget the sight of those runes and sigils that covered the walls of the Academy but didn’t manage to keep the demons out. Each and every one was etched into my brain. As was the sound of crumpling metal as Bran’s armour crushed him before he died.

Shaking myself out of grief, I eagerly anticipated the next challenge. That was until Professor Mortimer motioned for Tyler to join us.

“You’ve done well with containment of inanimate objects,” the professor said. “But most of the opponents you will face won’t just stand still while you work a spell. Tyler has volunteered his services to help you practice on a living opponent.”

My lips pressed together for a moment. “Ummm...don’t you think I should start somewhere smaller than an elite guard?”

I had seen them in training and held no illusion about how I would match up against one. Especially since Tyler was half-mage. “Humour me,” the professor said.

He would be laughing by the end of this alright.

Tyler stepped onto the slightly charred, wet patch of grass. “Whenever you’re ready.” There was no need for that smile.

I huffed and drew a circle around him. His smile brightened. Seeing my mistake, I retracted the protection circle and inverted it. Force of habit. Most of my life had been about trying to protect myself. It would take some time before my instincts changed.

Once the containment circle was in place, Professor Mortimer stepped back a few paces. Alarm feathered through me. You know what they say about blunt instruments? The elite guard were the very definition of it. Without waiting for any kind of signal, Tyler clapped his hands together. The air temperature inside the circle dropped. Frost grew within its confines, perfectly outlining the usually invisible sphere that my circles created. Snowflakes bloomed in a breathtakingly beautiful pattern. It would have been delightful were it not sapping the warmth from my body at the same time. I could no longer feel the tip of my nose.

“What the hell?” I spat.

Professor Mortimer tapped the side of his head. “Concentrate.”

Icicles formed on the ceiling of the sphere, expanding as Tyler drew moisture from the air. Chilling water dripped down onto his head and shoulders, but he didn’t flinch. My teeth chattered. When I attempted to constrict the circle to see if I could break the form of the icicles, my magic groaned against an invisible force and wouldn’t budge. Dammit!

Tyler’s rigid stance never changed. A frighteningly cold expression froze his features. The scales on either side of his jaw stood out in stark relief. I wasn’t ready for the moment when the snowflakes turned into razorblades of ice and began to burrow into the circle.

Stifling a whimper, I broke out of my reverie and began to draw symbols. Rather than use the grass as a canvas, I pushed myself up to standing and drew the patterns directly onto the circle.

“Why the change?” Professor Mortimer asked. He loved talking while I was concentrating!

“Closer.” My responses became monosyllabic as I focused on countering the cold drilling of ice inside my skull.

“To what end?”

By then I had completed a pattern of light symbols across the surface of the circle. Bracing my palms in front of me, I pushed back against Tyler’s magic. For a moment, ice and fire collided. In my mind, I pictured a midnight-blue dragon at my side. Flames seared through the ice. Something sharp pierced my mind. I winced but didn’t let go of the magic. The circle turned translucent once more. Tyler yelped. Water sloshed over his clothes and head. But he was grinning.

“Very good,” he said. He tapped against his nose. I didn’t get it until I felt the slick of moisture trickling down my lip. My sleeve came away dotted in blood when I swiped at it. Just great. “Should we try something a little more comprehensive?”

“Tyler,” Professor Mortimer warned. “This isn’t the compound.”

“She’s perfectly fine, Professor.”

I blinked and Tyler’s image dissolved. In his place, Lucifer appeared wearing Nephilim battle armour. Blue flames licked at his heels, growing steadily until he was lit in hellish blue fire. I drew a circle out of instinct.

“Tyler!” Professor Mortimer barked his name. The being inside the circle didn’t react. I focused on the swirl of blue flame that had jumped from the fire and was now dancing around his left hand. A corresponding flame engulfed his right hand. The magic inside of me reacted poorly. I knew he wasn’t real, but my mind refused to take chances. Not where the Prince of Darkness was concerned.

When Tyler threw the first ball of hellfire at the circle, I braced against it. Pain exploded in the left side of my brain. He shot another blast. It slammed against the circle and caught fire as though my magic were made of petroleum. His magic began to attack the circle, scratching and slicing like knives and claws at the same time.

I made a beastly whining sound at the back of my throat. Professor Mortimer reared up. “No,” I hissed. “I want to try.”

“This isn’t the way to –”

A metaphorical sledgehammer bludgeoned the right side of my head. I staggered forward, unable to stop my momentum. When my palms touched the edge of the circle, scorching heat chased up my arm and sank into my chest. It spiralled thought my veins and nerves until it came to the chamber where my pools of magic resided.

I scented iron and salt. Swiping at my bloody nose, I attempted to reinforce the circle with blood.

“Alessia!” Professor Mortimer screamed. Something equally powerful hit back at the circle from where he stood. I knew his intention was to break the circle to stop the trial. What happened instead was that his magic blended in with Tyler’s. The circle absorbed his considerable power and fed it to me in an overpowering wave that I couldn’t contain. It pushed through the barrier in my chest and swarmed my pool of magic. Something cracked inside me. The hedge and bone magic vibrated chaotically. In Potions class, we’d learned about the fission of materials to create a transmutated substance. My magic rocked and split like a million magical atoms.

The world became a flicker of red and black lights across my vision. I fell backwards. My ass and then my back hit something hard. The impact scattered across my spine and then the back of my head.

The Ley dimension slipped around me as darkness encroached. Everything in the world became a static roar. Nausea gripped my gut, making my chest convulse. I heard footsteps approach and then a boom that came out of nowhere.

A scream was on the tip of my tongue when a flash of green stirred in my chest. It swarmed my senses.

“Let her go!” Kai snarled. The purple circle disappeared. Calloused hands settled lightly on my waist. The comforting pine and sunshine scent of him washed over me. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to concentrate on the warm contact of his skin - the rise and fall of his chest, the sound of his heart beating in my ear. My muscles relaxed, sinking naturally into Kai’s embrace. Just for a moment, I allowed myself to let go of the emotional chains that held us apart. I was safe. In response to me, his hold became less restrictive, the tension sliding from his muscles. The bond worked furiously to repair the damage to the pools of magic. My nerves stopped jolting as I took in long, even breaths. Green light saturated my eyelids. When it finally receded, I opened then and found myself face to face with the rage of a Nephilim.

23

Eugenia’s words rattled in my thoughts. You get a different side of him, my love. I wasn’t sure. All of Kai’s sides were quite extreme. Tyler’s ice magic was nothing compared to the glacial fury in Kai’s expression. The bond furnished me with a gruesome image of Kai beating Tyler’s head against a jagged boulder.

I yelped as he moved and wrapped my arms around his neck. He took a single step with such frightening intent that my heart skidded. “Stop.”

He froze on the spot. His well-muscled chest expanded in a deceptively calm breath. My weight was negligible. If he wanted to, he could kill Tyler with me still hugging him.

“Don’t. We’re in training.” I held on tighter. His breath feathered against my ear. A harsh rasp that made my gut tighten. His arm laced around my lower back, holding me in place. Pressing me up against him.

“What kind of training involves scaring the shit out of you so that you lose control of yourself?”

I pulled back, placing my palms on his shoulders. The possessive flare of green in his eyes made my mouth water. Even insane with misplaced protectiveness, I wanted him. My brain tried to grasp the answer that had been there before I felt his fingers wriggle beneath my top. His fingertips burned against my skin. Some such therapy. I...my tongue felt too big for my mouth. Adrenaline morphed into something that made me both weak and my skin hyper-sensitive. I became blindingly aware of Kai all around me. The unchained violence in his eyes melted into a beast of another sort.

A harsh voice offered up the words I was struggling to remember. “Immersion therapy,” Tyler said. He appeared on my left, rubbing at his chest. There was a scuff mark on his cheek. His presence snapped the tension between Kai and me, allowing the fog in my brain to clear.

I thumped on Kai’s shoulder to indicate that I wanted to be put down. His upper lip trembled like he had no intention of letting me out of his sight.

“Put me down or lose a body part,” I said. His heart kicked against my chest. A grin flashed across his face before I was set free.

Kai rounded on Tyler. “Immersion therapy happens when she’s ready for the possibility. Not when you’re losing so you ambush her.”

I wasn’t sure if I was more disturbed by his cutting tone or the fact that he knew what had gone on before he even arrived.

It was a testament to elite guard training that Tyler didn’t roll over and show his belly. He threaded his hands in front of him and stretched them over his head casually. But there was too much calculation in it to really be relaxed. “I went with what I thought would be best for her,” he said.

“That’s not your call to make,” Professor Mortimer said. He came up to me and pressed his fingers against my temple. “Does anything appear broken?”

Tyler’s face registered disgust. “She’s never going to get anywhere if you continue to coddle her.”

“Get stuffed,” I snapped. Coddling was the last thing I had received.

He flashed me a grin. “There you go. No harm done. She’s not a doll. If you want her ready for war, you’re going to have to stop treating her like one.” He stalked off rather than stick around to be subjected to more grilling.

Professor Mortimer rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe I made a mistake asking him to assist.”

Kai grunted. The professor stared at him for a second too long before shaking himself. “Weren’t you meant to be infiltrating a demon swarm outside Morgana?”

Kai gave him a curt nod before teleporting away. It was only after he was gone that Professor Mortimer rubbed his forehead.

“Sir?”

“I’m sorry, Alessia. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.”

“You didn’t. That was okay.”

He chuckled. “You and I have very polar definitions of okay if that’s the case.” He regarded me with open concern. “These attacks you’ve been having, are they usually only triggered by violent emotional or physical danger?”

I wish that were the case. “Not really. I can be perfectly fine and then it just comes out of nowhere.” I picked at the cuticle skin on my left thumb. “It’s a little bit scary.”

The professor sighed. “I’m a little disturbed by Tyler’s assessment. The problem is he might be right. You do need to be trained. Your power isn’t something that can be treated with kidgloves. But I find myself hesitant to put you in more danger than necessary.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Better you than Lucifer when the time ever comes.”

He placed his hands on his hips. “Based on my observations of the strength of your circles, you should have easily been able to contain the amount of magic Tyler was throwing at you. So it was either your unease at seeing Lucifer’s image or the Angelical affecting your psyche.”

I suspected it was both. “Either way,” the professor continued, “we will need to find a way to boost your power. But at the same time...” he started pacing in a circle muttering to himself.

After a minute or two, he halted. “Let’s put the prophecy to one side for a moment. There will be other dangers for you out there. The demons know who you are now, and they will be concerned about your ability to destroy them with a single word.” His brow furrowed.

“I still have blood magic.” It was a feeble attempt at trying to reassure myself.

The professor inhaled. “Was it not the blood that started the cascade in the first place?”

Oh, so he’d noticed it too?

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. Lucifer’s blood had always been a curse. It made me strong but shunned. Now it looked like it was going to be the thing that killed me.

“Do you remember the end of your first-year trial when you split the ground in the Fae forest to dig up Kai?”

How could I forget?

“You were depleted, but at the very last second, you managed to draw power from the supernaturals around you.”

I hadn’t remembered until he said it just now. Part of me had tried to blur out those memories because thinking about Kai dying was just about the worst thing I could imagine. But now that he said it....

“That kind of magic transfer is very dangerous,” the professor cautioned. “I think it’s about time we considered training you.”

“I’m not sure how I did it.” I tapped my lip. “Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve never come across it in any of my reading.”

He nodded. “That’s because it’s not something that many have access to. You harness it through your bone magic.” I balked, understanding then why there was caution in his stance. The power was attached to death.

“The only other people who can do it are necromancers, aren’t they?”

He stared off into space. When he glanced back at me, it was grim. “And demons. And the Soul Sisterhood.”

I gulped. “I don’t know if I want to be stealing power from unwilling supernaturals.” I’d only just gotten past being a supernatural pariah.

“No, of course not. We’ll ask.”

Something occurred to me. “Is this the special dispensation Jacqueline was talking about?”

He nodded. “We probably won’t get too many volunteers, but one is better than none.”

The callout went live a week later. It happened through a MirrorNet bulletin that just about broke the gossip chains. For security reasons, the participants had to be vetted by Professor Mortimer. That went down like a lead straitjacket. The admin building had to be warded for sound because the complaints were vocal.

I was coming back to the dining hall from my Herbology class when a trio of guards sailed past. “Marshall?”

He got sidetracked by the group of supernaturals marching towards us from the portal field. From their bearing and the deathly scowls on their faces, I surmised that they were parents. Marshall popped up right in front of me all of a sudden. “What–?”

All I saw was the swipe of his finger before I was rudely teleported right into the snaking line of the dining hall.

“Oi!” a familiar voice shouted. “No cuts!”

A fist almost clipped me before Diana realised who she was attacking. She pulled back at the last second. “You’re a bloody menace!” I exhaled.

“She has a point,” somebody down the line said.

Diana did a full one-eighty and glared at the first-year Fae girl. She wouldn’t let me leave the line for the back. “Ignore them. We’re almost at the front. Sophie’s on duty.”

I would have protested but the burn of hundreds of eyes on the back of my neck was enough to have me reconsidering.

Sophie was manning the carvery. Somehow, she still managed to see my spectacular entrance. She made slow progress carving up my roast beef. “What happened?”

“I think I’m about to get lynched by the parent brigade.”

“Screw them,” Diana said. “It’s voluntary. Nobody is forcing their kids to be part of your experiment.”

“It would help if you stopped calling it an experiment!”

The Fae girl cleared her throat. We were holding up the line. Sophie’s nose scrunched but I steered Diana away.

Astrid, Trey, and Roland were already at the table. Two other students took up the end of the benches. Charles’s wide-toothed grin was filled with mischief. Luther’s was only marginally more contained. “You shouldn’t be here,” I told them.

“Our dining hall is so boring,” Charles said. “And Marshall won’t let us near the admin building.”

Roland eyed the two junior campus students. “This can’t be good for our cred.”

“What cred?” Sasha snorted from behind me. “We’re friends with a magic stealer.” He slid into the seat next to Astrid with a tray. How the hell did he always manage to get through the line so quickly? When we left, he’d been in the middle.

I took a long-suffering breath. “I am not stealing anyone’s magic!”

I squeezed into the seat next to Charles. Astrid had a small frown on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s just overreacting,” Luther told me. He bit into the monstrous double-decker thing that could have been a hamburger in a past life. Four discarded buns sat on his tray. The burger spilled its guts onto his lap. Charles doubled over laughing. A second later, Luther joined in.

“I told you that would happen, dude.”

Luther wiped his hands on a paper towel and then muttered an incantation that tidied up the spill. The envy must have shown on my face because he grinned at me.

“What’s Astrid overreacting to?” I asked.

“Cass said she’d rather stay in tonight because she’s not feeling great. Now Astrid wants to send a search party after her.”

Astrid blinked. “All I said was that it’s odd. Cassie always wants to see you.”

I chewed on a bit of roast beef. “Why do you supernaturals not feel concerned when somebody gets sick?” It boggled my mind.

Charles and Luther were suddenly staring at the ceiling like lighting fixtures were the most fascinating thing in the world. I didn’t get it. “What?”

“She’s not sick, per se,” Charles told me. Luther gave up picking at the mess in front of him that was once food.

“You’ll have to speak proper words if you want me to understand.”

Astrid rolled her eyes. “She’s menstruating.” The boys made gagging noises. I would have chalked it up to immaturity but Trey’s rhythm of shovelling food into his face stuttered. Sasha’s top lip curled. Men!

I focused on Astrid instead. “Why does that worry you?”

“She’s never had problems before.”

There were reasonable arguments either way. But Jacqueline’s mystery illness had me feeling overly cautious. Despite their protectiveness of her, both Charles and Luther declined to come along to check on her.

“Wait,” Charles said as we got up to leave. He disappeared through the dining hall and jumped right into the front of the line. Somebody dared to make a peep in protest. It was cut short by a rumbled growl that was filled with underlying menace. My little warrior came back with a take-out container of chocolate cake.

“Don’t tell her it was from me.” He offered it to me with a pink blush appearing on his cheeks.

“Shifters,” Diana spat, as we exited the dining hall. “Even the mini-Neanderthals can get under your skin.”

The hall to Cassie’s room was choked with female students.

“What’s going on?” Astrid marched out in front in full guard mode. Dry retching answered her. Girls huddled in small groups whispering to each other.

Maddison’s soothing voice filtered out when Astrid pushed the bathroom door open. I almost had a heart attack. Diana swore. The box of cake crumpled as I gasped and hugged it to me. Cassie was lying on the floor of the bathroom. Her floral skater skirt was drenched in blood. It stained her skin and soaked into the thick wads of paper towels pressed between her thighs. It also coated the white tiles in a splatter pattern. When she saw me, she raised herself up on her elbows and bawled.

24

Astrid grabbed the two girls who stood inside watching and tossed them out. “Secure the room,” she told me. I chucked the cake box onto the basin bench and drew a circle around the bathroom, locking everybody else out.

Maddison scooted over as I knelt down beside Cassie. Blood stained my jeans, but I tried not to think about it. Astrid appeared on her other side. “What happened?”

Cassie clung to me and sobbed. I held her tight even though she was squeezing the air from my lungs. I tried to make soothing, reassuring noises. With the grim detachment of a guard, Astrid inspected Cassie for injuries.

“Don’t bother,” Maddison said. “She’s not hur–” She bit her lip, unsure of her assessment. “At least not by a weapon or anything.”

Only when her hands we thoroughly covered in blood did Astrid come to the same consensus. That of course meant we had nothing to go on and that seemed to unnerve Astrid. Her blue eyes filled with concern as she shrugged at me.

I rubbed Cassie’s back. “Cass. What happened?”

She hiccupped. Maddison ripped more hand towels from the dispenser and replaced the dirty ones. They were saturated in blood within seconds. Cassie was haemorrhaging.

“Infirmary,” I told Maddison. The Nephilim was about to teleport when Cassie screamed. “No! I’m not going anywhere like this!”

Her face crumpled. “Cass, we have to do something. You’re going to die of blood loss.” That was not a sentence I thought I would ever say under these circumstances. It was insane.

“I don’t care!”

“What about Kai?” Diana suggested.

The shriek basically ruined the hearing in my left ear. My head was ringing. “I already suggested that,” Maddison informed us. “This is what I got for it.” She lifted up her wrist to show us long ugly scratches that were taking their time to heal.

“Okay,” I breathed deeply as my ear cracked. Think. It was hard to do with a hysterical teenager clinging to me. No infirmary and no Kai. I racked my brain. How in the world did supernaturals heal without human medication?

I knew the answer to that, it just took a little while for my brain to kick in without free oxygen flow. I turned to Astrid. “Can you go to the potions lab and break into Sophie’s locker? She’s got some vials of a gold liquid in there that smell of marshmallow. Bring back as many of them as you can.”

Astrid popped out of sight.

“We’re going to sit you up, Cass.” Maddison and I braced her, and Diana helped us move her so that she was propped up with her back against the wall. She wouldn’t let go of my hand. Hers were freezing. As were her lips.

Astrid returned in a flurry of gold dust. She thrust the vials in their wooden stand at me. I uncapped all eighteen vials and lifted the first to Cassie’s lips. “Drink.”

She was a much better patient than me. Then again, Sophie’s potion smelt like heaven. “What is that?” Diana asked, her nose twitching. Her eyes shone brighter just at the smell.

“Health elixir. Sophie’s been working on it since Max got busted up in the games by all that silver.”

The theory behind the potion was that it was meant to boost a shifter’s already considerable immune system. I had everything crossed that it would do the same for Cassie. By the time she’d drunk half the vials, colour began to seep back into her skin. “Good girl. Keep going.”

I didn’t have to tell her twice. I was tempted to have some myself. Maddison did. “Oooh,” she cooed. “It’s like my insides are tingling.”

When there were only two vials left, Maddison no longer had to change the paper towels. She traded wadding them up for running them under warm water. I pressed the damp towel she handed me to Cassie’s forehead.

The Amazon teen managed to collect her emotions. “What happened?” Astrid asked again.

Cassie scowled. “I wasn’t feeling too well so I went to lie down. Next thing I knew I was kissing the floor. It felt like somebody was stabbing me in the gut. I must have passed out because I woke up in here.”

Maddison filled us in on the rest. “I came back from class and was swinging by to see if she wanted to eat. I found her on the floor of her room. I dragged her in here and she just shot blood out from between her legs. I almost passed out seeing it!”

Thank goodness for Maddison’s timing. The only perk Cassie got as Jacqueline’s granddaughter was her own room. And that had more to do with the fact that nobody wanted to be under such a watchful eye than being a real perk.

“How do you feel now?”

“Better.” She glanced at the lower half of her body. “I need a shower.”

Maddison screwed up her face. “You need an incinerator.”

This made Cassie whine. “Did everybody see?”

“Pretty much.”

Pre-pubescent tact was non-existent. Diana rifled through the supplies in the cupboards below the sink and found mystical lighter fluid. They gathered the bloody towels into a pile in the middle of the floor. Astrid drew her own circle around it and set the whole thing on fire.

My jaw almost hit the tiles when the circle ignited and flashed a familiar green before it disappeared and burned into ash. What the heck? I cast around but none of the others seemed to have noticed.

Maddison was helping Cassie up and into one of the shower stalls. “Can you remove the circle?” she asked me. I did so. She and Astrid exited. Maddison to get Cassie a change of clothes and Astrid to make sure nobody disturbed us without the protection of the circle.

“I’ll take the potion stuff back. How long has Sophie been working on this?” Diana asked.

“Months.”

“How dead are you going to be when she finds out?”

“Stone cold.”

Cassie sputtered under the spray. “I’m sorry. I’ll explain it to her.”

Judging by her jittery knees when she got out of the shower, she was in no condition to do anything but crash. “What’s that?” She peered into the sink at the soggy cake box.

“Oh, we brought you cake.” I lifted the box and handed it to her.

“Thanks!”

On our way out, Maddison enlightened her. “You do realise the only way they would have known you were sick was probably because the boys told them, right?”

Cassie promptly tossed the box into the trash with more force than she’d done anything else tonight. I didn’t even want to touch what was going on there.

After I was assured she wasn’t dying, I made her promise to get checked out in the infirmary when she could walk on her own.

Astrid teleported us back to my room. Sophie was just coming back from her shower. “Hey, where have you –”

She sniffed. “Why do I smell marshmallow?”

My hasty explanation was peppered with Diana’s helpful over-exaggeration of the situation. Sophie’s brows knitted together. She closed her eyes. I could feel her emotions vibrating. Also, there was just a hint of pink sparks in her hair. We’d boxed her into a corner. How could she be angry when her potion had been used to help Cassie? That didn’t soothe her disappointment, though.

I stealthily removed her towel and toiletry bag from her grip and anything else she could use as a projectile. “I’ve been working on that for ages,” she said. “It was going to go up against Celeste’s exorcism potion at the Halloween Showcase.”

“At least you know now that it works,” Astrid said.

Sophie’s escalating irritation stopped dead. Her head cocked to the side. “Good point.” She sat down heavily on her bed. “What even happened?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Spontaneous menstrual haemorrhaging.” The boys would die if they knew. It was no wonder Cassie didn’t want anyone to see her. Least of all, Kai. As usual, Sophie and I were eerily in tune.

“Isn’t it a bit strange that first Jacqueline and now Cassie have been mysteriously sick?” she said.

I eyed Astrid. She was the definition of sickening good health. “Have you ever been sick before?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been injured several times, but no demon has managed to curse me as yet. I hear it’s quite unpleasant.”

“You think this was a curse?”

She shrugged. “What else could it be?”

What else indeed. I was still mulling it over as I settled into bed with the codex in my lap. It was the first time I had the motivation to go through it. Something about the flare of green in that fire was nagging at me.

This was definitely not light reading. I skipped past the inside cover as best I could, feeling both irritated and charmed by the monogramming. Unsure where I should even start, I flipped to the index and went through it alphabetically.

Sophie’s soft laugh interrupted my yawn. “I wish I could take a picture,” she said. “You’ve gone cross-eyed reading that thing.”

“It’s so bloody long!”

She rolled over onto her back. “What are you even looking for?”

I chewed on my answer before spitting it out. “I’m not even sure. I guess anything specific I can find about Raphael and the Pendragon line.”

It was a good thing nobody questioned why I would have an interest in that topic. Sometimes, the truth really did hide the best lies. “Isn’t there a section of our Magical History book that touches on that?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t very in-depth.”

She rubbed her eyes. “It sounds like you’re trying to cheat on your exam, Lex. Or should I say, Alessia Hastings-Pendragon.”

I threw a pillow at her. If the book wasn’t so heavy, I would have used it instead. She grabbed the pillow missile and tucked it to her side as a shield. Tuckered out from her shift, Sophie fell asleep pretty quickly. I reluctantly flipped to the front page and started reading. The thing about searching for stuff was that you wasted a lot of time trying to find where to start when you should just dive in. I found exactly what I had been looking for on the sixth page of the codex. The section was on the bond between the Nephilim and their seraphim sires.

It began with all the same stuff I’d learned in Magical History. The war in the heavenly realm and Lucifer’s massacre of a number of seraphim ripping open the barriers between the dimensions. Michael and the remaining seraphim were able to seal Lucifer away but by then the earth dimension had been breached.

In order to fix their mistakes, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, and Ariel gave up their right to the heavens and imbued the first Nephilim with their blood. The codex went into much greater detail than our Magical History class about the sacrifices the seraphim made. But humans had also sacrificed plenty. The first humans to have been blooded were all heavily pregnant females. Every single one of them had died during childbirth to produce the first Nephilim. Funny how Magical History never mentioned that.

Each Nephilim created and each born of the first blood was connected to their seraphim sire. Even if there was peace, they would never be able to go back where they came from. The forms they took now were lesser versions of their past selves.

There was a passage about the remaining seraphim in the heavenly realm being so removed from humans that they were unable to speak to us directly. They required a specific vessel and often the human they chose went mad from the encounter. So many more questions filled my mind.

It was tempting to skip over Lucifer’s chapter, but I forced my way through it. With each paragraph, my hope became increasingly thin. Because Michael and co. had forced Lucifer to the Earth dimension and trapped him with Gaia’s help, he technically didn’t make the choice to fall from his perch in the heavenly dimension. He also didn’t relinquish any of his power to humans to create any Nephilim. All of this meant that in a fight, he would be stronger than all the fallen seraphim except Azrael. The problem there was that Azrael had dominion of the Sea of Souls. That was where the root of his power lay. In this dimension, Lucifer still outgunned him.

My breath snagged as I got to the end page of this section. It was titled; The Death of a Seraphim. It stated plainly that even though the seraphim had been stripped of a great deal of power, their essences were still pure. If they died, their destruction would most certainly rip a hole in the dimension. It was a single theory in the paragraph that I couldn’t get past. It read: Just as the Nephilim have been their greatest weapons against the forces of Hell, so too are they their greatest weakness. Blood birthed the Nephilim and blood will bind them together forever. Through life, illness, and death.

It wasn’t explicit, but knowing what Lucifer had told me, the message was clear. If a line of Nephilim died, so too would their seraphim sire.

I flipped directly to the chapter on the seraphim specifically. On the first page was a picture of a woman in her thirties. Gabriel the messenger, original owner of my teleport ring.

I was interested to learn that Kai’s father had a theory that while the seraphim gave their blood to the Nephilim, their existence branched out and touched on the life essences of the whole supernatural community. He’d been a bit of a Ley line enthusiast and claimed he had seen an intricate connection linking Raphael and other supernaturals.

With each word, my throat locked tighter. It sounded like Kai’s death wouldn’t only affect Raphael but might have health repercussions for all of supernatural society. With a heavy feeling in my chest, I closed the book and went to set it on top of Sophie’s ingredients chest. In the morning, I would try to return it to Christopher. My sort-of name might be monogrammed onto the cover, but I could never be its owner. Not if I wanted everybody I cared about to survive.

25

Sometimes, when I had something especially nerve-wracking to do in the morning, the night slipped by in a blink. Tonight, when I closed my eyes, my mind spewed forth a disjointed reality of bright lights struggling against a black canvas, briny sea air, strappy sandals, and mainstream music. I stood against the railing on the top deck of an ocean liner. Beneath my feet, the wooden boards swayed back and forth, up and down to the whim of the ocean. A horn blared. To my dying days, I would never be able to understand why people went on cruises.

Even though I was no longer unreasonably terrified of the ocean, memory of my fear still lingered. The chance of contracting some kind of stomach bug was too high. And then there was that feeling of being trapped. There was nowhere to go on a ship.

Around me, men and women in loosely formal clothing were mingling and laughing. The slightly tipsy ones were singing to the music with unrestrained joy. A golden-haired girl no older than five or six ran between the bodies of the adults on the dance floor. Two other children chased after her, the high-pitched giggling drowned out by the music.

As my vision settled, I noticed the seniors on comfortable lounges around the edge of the deck. One older couple danced in a slow circle out of time with the music but perfectly in rhythm with each other. The old woman wore a cobalt-coloured dress in heavy material that cinched at her waist. The capped sleeves and slightly flared waist reminded me of something a secretary in an old movie might have worn. I had a slight obsession with old movies. Nanna used to watch them all the time when I was kid.

Jacob materialised on my right. He wore black suit bottoms and a navy striped shirt with the collar open. It fit with the dress code of the party goers, but they seemed to ignore him as though they couldn’t actually see him. In his right hand, he clutched the same slightly curved blade that he used to hurt me. I jerked from my reverie and tried to call out to Morning Star.

Something tugged in the pit of my gut. When I tried to sink into the Ley dimension, the image only grew louder. It was there but I couldn’t reach it in my dream state. Individual voices boomed and lowered in an unsteady wave. My hands gripped the railing until my knuckles turned white but there was nothing I could do.

“The trouble with you, Alessia,” Jacob said, “is that you just don’t know when to stop fighting.” He threw his arms to the sky and turned in a circle. Pivoting on the inch-thick heel of his shoes, Jacob clapped his hands together. An errant wind picked up the hems of skirts and dashed them against women’s legs. The balloons and streamers blew horizontally. The older couple stopped dancing to stare dazedly around them.

Overhead, the moon had been a big cheesy half-slice. Thick clouds rolled over it, obscuring the light. While everybody glanced up at the strange turn of weather, a spark ignited in the air beside the dance floor. I tried to scream so hard my throat became sore. Still nothing came out but a hoarse, painful groan. The children were the first to spot the ripple in space and time. I was standing there directly in the little girl’s eye line when the first cry broke out. It ripped through the music and filled the night air with the haunting premonition of death.

The first demon to emerge from the portal possessed a long, forked tail. The limb whipped out from behind and speared through the chest of the old woman. Blood, black in the dim light, blossomed on her chest. Both her arms reached out one last time for her husband before the demon wrenched her backwards and tossed her body into the ocean. The crash she made as she hit the waves flipped a switch. The scene became pandemonium as people scrambled to get away. Except they were on a damned boat. There was nowhere to run. They tried, of course. Some had quicker instincts than others. That only prolonged the inevitable.

Jacob turned slowly as more demons poured from the portal. Some of them were bipedal. Others slithered across the deck, leaving behind a shimmering slick of silvery goo. The effort to find my voice was making me dizzy. So too were the shouts of the people being cut down. What got me was that it wasn’t all about indiscriminate killing.

Some of the more advanced demons were collecting souls. They gathered them like bowling balls and shot them into the sky where the souls burst and lit up the night like fireworks. In their aftermath, a section of the sky seemed to have been torn open.

I gasped and averted my gaze as a four-legged demon snatched the little girl and crunched into her. Blood dripped from its fangs onto the deck. It stepped in her blood as it dragged her body over to the side and nudged her off. Instead of falling in the water, the girl’s body slammed into a lower railing and splattered on to the bottom deck. The demon left bloody footprints as it chased its next victim down the hull.

Fury vibrated through me. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get the mystical muzzle of my dream state to lift. Jacob’s smile was benevolent. He raised the blade. I stepped back as the painful memory of my injury flared to life.

I flinched and tried to shy away as he reached out. His hand grazed my neck. A hacking cough exploded from my throat, but when I was done, my voice returned.

“Stop it!” There was more pleading in my voice than I would have liked but dignity seemed irrelevant at the moment. A demon skidded into view chasing a woman with half her calf torn out. She hobbled by us, but the demon barely broke a sweat. The thing was playing with her, feeding on her fear.

“Stop what?” Jacob asked. “This is just the appetizer. A small taste of what’s to come when our prince returns.”

I slapped my fist against the railing. “I will never release him.”

Jacob laughed. It was a scratchy thing of unrepentant glee. He snapped his fingers and the boat disappeared. We materialised on the balcony of a building overlooking a sun-scorched landscape of stunning high-rises on one side and squat stone houses on the other. The place was a mirror of the modern and the traditional. Luxury cars drove down streets that seemed to bend with the unrelenting heat of the sun. There was a pool on the ground floor of our building along with a bar and palm-lined gardens. People in long, flowing clothing occupied almost all of the floor space.

“Look out,” Jacob drawled mockingly. It wasn’t meant for me. History repeated itself as a portal gaped open and spewed demons onto the unsuspecting humans. I screamed myself hoarse this time, trying to warn the inhabitants, but they couldn’t hear me. When I tried to leap over the railing, my paralysis returned. The last thing I saw of that picture was a demon rolling a man in a kaftan through the water the way a crocodile dispatched its prey.

Another snap of Jacob’s fingers and we were in a quaint country pub amongst the late evening revellers. Snow fell in heavy drifts outside. If this was happening in real time, the weather suggested we were in the Northern Hemisphere. There were a few men sitting at the bar exchanging friendly banter about their favourite soccer teams. Couples and families shared meals in the seated dining area. A waitress no older than me ran drinks and meals to and from the kitchen. She spoke with a lilting British accent as she traded good-natured banter with the very cute guy behind the bar.

“Don’t,” I said, stepping in front of Jacob as though blocking his view might somehow make him reconsider.

“Don’t what?”

My mouth went dry as the soul-crushing roar of a demon filled the pub. The world blurred at the edges as helplessness squeezed the air from my lungs. All this power and I was useless when it counted. I couldn’t bring myself to turn around and watch the carnage. At the same time, I felt like I had to. My eyes flicked to the blade in Jacob’s right hand. He grinned and offered it to me. I side-stepped like it was on fire.

The top half of the waitress thudded onto a table on my left. She hit the table’s edge and rolled onto the floor, her eyes blank, and blood oozing from her severed waist.

“Please,” I said. “They’re innocent. Just leave them alone.” As I spoke the words, it made me wonder why he was going after humans. There were hidden supernatural communities throughout the world that he could have infiltrated. It couldn’t have been fear. He’d already led an army into Seraphina once.

“Why?” I asked again, my throat thick.

Jacob stepped up to me. “Because, like the rest of your sluggish race, you need a little push in the right direction.”

He shoved me in the shoulder. It was neither forceful nor particularly skilful. But I staggered back as unrelenting pain coated my nerve endings. The scream that had been building in my throat since that first demon appeared on the cruise ship exploded. Agony had me curling into a ball on the floor. I was oblivious to my surroundings. My body was an excruciating mass of fire. The dream world around me blinked in and out.

“Lex!” Somebody called my name, but it sounded gargled like I was under water. Fingertips brushed my cheek, too cool compared to the blazing heat of misery. I banged my fist against what had been the pub’s sticky wooden floor, but my hand hit soft material instead. Jacob’s haughty face pushed in front of me. Loathing like I’d never known before sank its hooks into me. What good was having Lucifer’s blood if I couldn’t break out of a simple dream paralysis? White-hot rage blazed in my chest. I had carried the burden of being Lucifer’s scion for over two years. On the power totem, it should have been Lucifer, me, and then Jacob. But here I was crying on the floor again. Last time I had been helpless, he’d taken away my future.

“This is for your own good.” He thrust the blade at me. With a force of will fuelled entirely by spite, I grappled for the Ley dimension. It flickered around me in a state of half-existence. Suffering melted my insides. I groaned and leaned into it, shoving all of my magic into a phase. The blade hit nothing but air. Crying out with the effort of using power in this state, I materialised to Jacob’s left and latched on to his wrist.

Logical and smart were no longer words in my vocabulary. There was only pain and anguish and I was desperate to impart some of that on him. He tried to tug away. I dug my nails into him and locked my jaw.

With my free hand, I traced a single Angelical word against his arm: Tahriah. Release.

The world cracked all around me. Light, darkness, and colour fused to become nothing but background noise to the scream that ripped from Jacob’s throat. He staggered back. I allowed him to fall, but not before I snatched the blade from his grip. Hairline fractures ran along the dreamscape. It bled from the corner of my eyes and filled my ears with a roar akin to standing next to a jet engine as it took off. A million multi-coloured lights danced across my eyes, but I found myself staring inwards. All of the energy fled from my body as the hedge and bone magic detonated in fireballs of colour.

The world disintegrated. Pieces of the dream fell like glass from a shattered window. The shards scattered over my skin in a million tiny pinpricks. Everything faded into nothing. Still I would not let go of the blade.

26

“Blue.” His voice was an anchor. Angelfire blazed in the darkness beginning in my periphery and then saturating my sight. “Let go of the Ley sight. I’ve got you.”

A warm cloth dabbed at my mouth and cheeks. Gentle hands massaged my neck muscles until I was no longer tensing my jaw. His big palm settled on the nape of my neck, drawing delicate circles that helped me to focus my thoughts. Slowly, the frantic shaking of my body subsided. Somebody lifted my left eyelid. Ironically, the sudden influx of this dull light was more damaging than the Ley lights. I cringed as my eyelids filled with moisture. My head rolled on a heavily muscled shoulder, Kai’s woody scent tethering me to this reality.

“She’s coming back.”

The sound of urgent voices in the room sped up my recovery. My eyes opened. I almost yelped at the sight of Angus, Tyler, and Ivan looming in the small space of my dorm room. With all of our stuff, there was barely enough room for Sophie and me. Speaking of the kitchen witch, Sophie was cross-legged on the corner of her bed.

Jacqueline leaned against the doorframe, her face pinched. Behind her shoulder, Professor Mortimer and Professor McKenna were trying to disperse a crowd of students.

I was viscerally aware that I was sitting in Kai’s lap on my bed, his arms around me, his hand still clutching me possessively. With the nightmare still so fresh, it didn’t seem to matter.

Angus knelt by the edge of the bed. Words spilled from my lips in a torrent before he could open his mouth. “...the constellation of stars put the ocean liner somewhere in the South Pacific. It was a tall, black glass building in the palisade of a city only recently wealthy. I’m not sure where...”

I vomited descriptions and snippets of memory, as much as I could recall, in the vain hope that they might be able to intervene. When I was done, Tyler opened up a portal right in the middle of our room. Sophie gave a sharp cry of surprise. I hadn’t known that was possible either. I tried to meet Jacqueline’s eye, but my head had lolled back against Kai’s chest and the effort to move wasn’t worth it. From this angle, I could see through the gap at Kai’s side to the mess of blood coating my blanket. I tasted it in my throat. Somewhere in the back of my mind, an alarm was sounding. I had a frightening realisation that the only reason I hadn’t broken down physically was because Kai kept healing me.

“Malachi,” Angus urged.

“No.” Kai’s arms cinched around me. The bond hummed along my shattered nerves, piecing them together from the disastrous after-effects of the Angelical. At the moment, all of my strength was borrowed. Still, I lifted my head. Memories of those unsuspecting humans filled my mind. “You should go.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re safe.”

The definitive clutch of his arm around my waist would brook no more argument. Stony-faced, the elite guard jumped through the portal. It snapped shut with a quiet roar. Only when they were gone did Sophie hop off her bed. She snatched a hessian bag from her nightstand and wedged her way past Jacqueline and out into the hallway.

“That’s enough,” I heard Professor McKenna say, “everybody back to your rooms.”

There was some quiet grumbling, but the hallways cleared slowly. Sophie returned with a steaming mug filled with some pink-tinged broth that she tried to hand to me. My arms felt like they were weighted with lead.

“I...” The adrenaline had worn off. I was running on fumes. Alarm punctured my chest, but before it could take hold, Kai settled his hand against my throat. Angelfire coated my skin and I was out like a light.

* * *

The scent of raspberries and coconut filled my nose. My stomach was an empty pit. Hunger gnawed at me until sleep was no longer viable. I blinked my eyes open. They fixated on the teacup Sophie set down on my bedside table. She was rustling around in her ingredients chest, her back to me. Sometime in the night, the Nephilim Codex had been replaced on my nightstand. I groaned as the memory of clinging to Kai returned. It was becoming ridiculous to pretend that I didn’t want this bond.

Sophie jolted when I wriggled out of the nest of blankets. “Hey,” she said, coming up and sitting beside me on the bed. I repositioned my pillow so it supported my lower back.

“Hey yourself.” I reached for the mug. Look at that! I could use my arms. Miracles did happen. “Some night, huh?”

Sophie eyes darted to the left. Not this again.

“How long was I out?”

She retracted her hand into the sleeve of her floral cotton blouse. “It’s been three days. It’s Sunday afternoon.”

Three days! “No wonder I’m dying of starvation.”

I blew the steam off the top of the cup and sipped. The temperature was perfect. It was like being enveloped in a hug.

What I had expected was a wisecrack about my eating habits. What I got was a tiny twitch of her lips before she reached out and laid her hand on my knee. The concoction became ash on my tongue.

“Angus asked to see you as soon as you woke,” she said. “He’s stationed himself in Jacqueline’s office.”

I scoffed. “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve eaten.” Her tea had awoken the ravenous beast inside me, and I wouldn’t be able to concentrate until it was sated. Unfortunately, the bond was a tattletale.

Kai didn’t even bother to knock. He just appeared in a flash of green light and edged Sophie off the bed by plonking himself down.

“There’s such a thing as a door, you know!” she huffed, catching herself before she would have rolled onto the floor. There was no indication he heard her. I clutched the teacup to my chest like a liquid weapon. I’d bet getting hit in the face with tea had never been on his list of ways to get attacked.

I heard the door slam but didn’t divert my attention from the Nephilim mountain in front of me. My eyes roamed over his face like I was committing it to memory. As if I needed to! My attention snagged on the small scar that bled out from the crease of his lips on the left side of his face.

Without thinking, I raised my right hand to trace the anomaly, my heart kicking wildly. Kai’s hand folded over mine. He threaded our fingers together and pressed them to his heart. I felt its steady thud through his baseball shirt. The intensity in his green eyes was a challenge. Tact didn’t seem to be in his wheelhouse at the moment.

“Accept the bond,” he rumbled. I choked on a sip of tea and almost spat in his face.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

I tried to take my hand back, but he wouldn’t budge. “If we were bonded, you wouldn’t need me to heal. The bond would do it automatically.”

I set the cup down because the danger of smashing him across the head with it was too great. “I can’t have this conversation with you again, Kai. I’m really tired and hungry.”

The hand he had taken hostage uncurled as his thumb drew slow circles against my palm. I bit my tongue to stop the moan.

“You love me.” At this stage, it wasn’t even arrogance. I loved him. He knew it. I knew it. The whole stupid supernatural society knew it. The only problem was that love made no shred of difference.

“What’s your point?” Love was precisely what made my voice bitterly sharp.

“The point is you’re just making us both miserable. I told you I don’t care about...” The fact that he couldn’t say the words spoke volumes. It ignited all of my insecurities. Sure, there was the issue of me being barren, but above that, above all else, was the problem of my connection to Lucifer. The elite guard might be able to brush aside the prophecies, but they weren’t the ones living it. I couldn’t afford to get side-tracked. My throat closed over. Mist blurred at the corners of my eyes so that when I blinked, the hard edges of his face softened.

“Blue –”

“You are a terrible liar.” I tried harder to snatch my hand back, feeling a twinge in my shoulder. “I love you now. But if we bond, how long until I start hating you? Until you start hating me?”

He let me go this time, seeing that I would cause myself an injury to make my point. All these supernatural military types seemed incapable of deception. Wasn’t that in the job description? “Angus wants to see me.” I started trying to get up.

“Wait –”

“No!” I shoved at his chest. “You just stop it. Right now. I’m not some flighty moron who’s playing hard to get.” I latched on to his face with both my hands and looked him squarely in the eyes. “I’m going to say this one last time, Malachi. I will never accept the bond. So why don’t you stop making us both miserable and move on?”

Rage-filled shock blunted his reaction time. Being small allowed me to duck away from him and out the door. So I was in my pyjamas. Who cares?

I winced a moment later, as my feet curled against the cold floorboards. My mood when I barged past Alex and into Jacqueline’s office was darker than molasses. My eyes lit up when I spotted the food cart by Jacqueline’s desk. The presence of the headmistress and the elite guards was secondary to my food goals.

“Lex!” Jacqueline said, surprise in her voice.

“I’m up. You wanted to see me?” The latter part of that sentence was spoken through a thickly cut sandwich. Jacqueline made a mirror call. While I ate, Tyler walked through Jacqueline’s door and opened up a portal. Dorian, Nora, Declan, and Victoria arrived in consecutive order. Dorian lifted a hand in greeting. Both my hands were full of sandwich, so I gave him a nod.

If he was disgusted by my eating habits, Angus didn’t comment. He indicated a spare seat as the elite guards pulled up chairs in a semi-circle around Jacqueline’s desk.

I latched on to the handle of the cart and wheeled it over to the chair. Eating my feelings took on a whole new meaning. Especially when Kai marched through the door. The roast beef sandwich in my mouth became sawdust, but I pushed it down with a sip of Jacqueline’s orange juice. There was a bright red lipstick mark on the glass, but I didn’t care. I’d eaten dumpster food at one stage. This was practically five stars. Kai stalked across the room. He opted to lean against the mahogany bookcase rather than sit. If he was trying for the enraged rhino look, he was succeeding.

Nobody seemed to know how to start with me ploughing my way through the food. “Did you manage to find the massacre sites?” I asked between crunching into an apple. Angus leaned his head to the side. He hadn’t understood me with my mouth full.

“Yes,” Kai answered, his voice deceptively neutral.

“And?” My tone matched his. We were both full of shit. If everyone else in the room disappeared this second, Kai would have me pressed up against the wall, punishing me for daring to consider not accepting the bond. And I would let him. My stomach dropped out at how far gone I was. Where was Eugenia with her black-market contacts? At this point, I would pay anything to stop this gnawing in my gut.

Angus shook his head, drawing my attention away from Kai’s smouldering intensity. “We were too late.”

And that was me done eating. I dumped the apple on the trolley and swiped my hands on my pyjama bottoms. “But they were the right locations?”

“Yes.” He leaned over and balanced his elbows on his knees. “They were all human world locations.”

I’d noticed that too. “Why would he be going after humans?”

Angus leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “They were stealing human souls and using them to create fissures in the dimensional barriers. They’re small but we’re going to have to monitor them.”

“If they can do that,” I asked, “why haven’t they been doing it the whole time?”

“Because soul bombs are unpredictable. If one goes off unexpectedly, nobody knows what might happen. They can’t rule a dimension that’s breaking down.”

“Why does it matter?” Declan demanded. “We need to do something to protect them.”

Dorian nodded his head in agreement. “That’s exactly what Buchanan is hoping for. Think about it. Hawaii, Dubai, and Bristol. None of them are locations close to a supernatural stronghold.”

“Divide and conquer,” Jacqueline agreed. “We don’t have the resources to protect every corner of the human world and they know it.”

“Then go public,” Declan pressed. “Allow the humans to protect themselves.”

“How?” Victoria asked. “Guns don’t do anything to demons except irritate them. We tell the humans, and they’ll panic. Demons love the taste of fear.”

“What do you want us to do instead? Sit around and wait for this Jacob Buchanan to line up his next massacre? The only reason we knew about them at all is because of Alessia’s dream. Which in itself is dangerous. She almost destroyed the dor –”

Jacqueline cleared her throat tersely. But it was too late. “I almost did what?”

Declan kept going despite being stared down by at least three supernaturals. His eyes shone with fervent rage. “You almost transfused the dorms of the Academy into the Ley dimension! You weren’t even conscious! This is an unacceptable risk to ask humans to take because you don’t keep control of your adversaries.”

My mouth parted as my brain fled into memory, trying to figure out when I’d lost control like that. I hadn’t realised I’d whimpered until the bond lashed out in a whip that kept Kai plastered to the wall so he wouldn’t throttle Declan. To a casual onlooker, nothing in his physical demeanour had changed. Dorian’s were the only emotions that made themselves evident in the gold rolling over his eyes.

“You think this is so easy?” the shifter asked the human.

“I think you’re in denial. There’s no more time for debate. We’re the ones dying out there.”

Nora let out a sigh. “Why don’t we all take a breath?”

Declan’s disbelief was palpable. “We’ve been quiet for too long.”

“Have you not seen how your other human is adjusting to this world?” Ivan asked. Had he even bothered to learn Emily’s name? I suspect not. He pointed a finger at me. “Alessia and her grandmother are the exception. Most humans take years to accept what we are. Your girl is on the verge of hysteria most of the time. That’s the kind of fear that turns into a pact with a demon for protection and power. You think this is bad, imagine what will happen when you humans turn on each other.”

“At least we will do it with the full knowledge of our actions!”

“In this instance, ignorance might be bliss.”

Angus lifted his hand to stop their argument. “The point is moot. We have secured the sites and will continue posting guards to protect the humans.” He regarded Declan coldly. “We have no authority to stop you should you wish to go public. But from experience, I would caution you against it. If you decide to anyway, we won’t have the manpower to safeguard the whole human population.”

Declan’s already-strained jaw muscles contracted but he said nothing more. That was the difference between the elite guard and the Council. The latter wanted control. Angus didn’t give a damn about anything but his job. If the humans wanted in on the knowledge of demons, then he wouldn’t stop them. But the fact remained that we didn’t have enough resources to cover ourselves let alone the billions of humans.

Declan’s mute disbelief didn’t last long. He tried for another angle. “What about the blade?”

“What blade?” Before I could even finish the question, my mind brought up the memory of me grabbing Jacob’s blade from him. “That was real?”

Jacqueline opened the safe behind her painting and produced an iron box about a foot long. She set the box on her desk and unlocked it. Before she even produced the blade, a stitch formed in my side. I got up anyway and grabbed it by the handle. In my hands, it looked more like a machete. The workmanship was impeccable. The metal was polished to a shine. It wasn’t the dull shine of rough metal forged together either. The blade seemed infused with starlight. Like tenderly beaten Mithril and rhodium. Upon inspection, there were words in a foreign language engraved on the blade. My eyes narrowed trying to decipher it when – I dropped the blade onto Jacqueline’s desk and took a step back.

“That’s –”

“Angelical,” Angus finished. “It’s a blade forged in the heavenly realm. Lucifer must have stolen it before he was cast out.”

I backed up a little more and scrubbed at my forehead in a weak attempt to forget the word I’d just read. If I didn’t know it, then I couldn’t use it. Anhiliah. Destroy.

Shit! That seemed about right. I couldn’t retain a lick of a dead language but Angelical stuck to my brain like superglue.

“I take it you won’t be staking a claim to the weapon?” Ivan asked with interest.

“I don’t want anything to do with it.” My legs felt weak. I sat back heavily in my chair.

“Then you won’t mind if the elite guard retains it?”

I chewed on the offer. There was no way I wanted that thing near me. It was a weapon of near destructive power. The last thing I needed was more stuff to make my mind collapse. But did I trust it in somebody else’s possession? They answer was a resounding no. A thought popped into my head.

“Do you need the blade for any particular reason?” I asked.

“No. We’ve tried a divination with it but there have been no results.”

“So, it’s just a weapon?”

“A powerful weapon.” That was what I had bet on. When they no longer needed my presence in the meeting, I excused myself and tucked the blade and box under my arm.

“I’m taking this.” There were no objections. Mostly because I ran out before anyone could react. Back inside the girls’ dorm, I asked the MirrorNet for directions to Emily’s room. I figured she was one of the stay-indoors types. The hunch proved fruitful.

Her mouth formed a perfectly round O when she opened the door. Her attention shifted to the blade in its box. She paled. In hindsight, why didn’t I close the lid?

“I have something for you.” I shoved the box at her.

Emily whimpered and backed into her room. There was so much white in here they could have filmed a bleach commercial. She had no roommate. Good call.

Her legs hit the bed in her haste to get away from me. She almost stumbled but collapsed on the bed instead. “Please stop brandishing that thing.”

“Listen.” I dumped the box onto her lap. “This is a blade forged in the heavenly realm. It’s just about the most powerful weapon besides an angel blade. And it hurt me. A lot. I know you’re scared of me. I know you’re scared, period. Take it. Protect yourself. That’s the only way you’re ever going to feel safe again.”

“I – I don’t know how to use it.”

“Then you’re in the right place to learn.” She grew quiet. Running a finger carefully along the hilt, she breathed out slowly.

“Okay.” Somewhere, there were pigs flying in the air. “Thank you.”

Say what you would about humans, but we were good at adapting.

27

Word got around that yet another human student was now in possession of a weapon forged in another realm. Unsurprisingly, I was summoned to Jacqueline’s office. “I’m in here so much I could take your job,” I mentioned to Alex.

He cleared his throat harshly. “Not exactly something to be proud of.” He swept his arm across the mountains of papers on his desk. “Be my guest! The complaints pile is especially invigorating.”

I blanched, just like he knew I would. Thankfully, Jacqueline’s door opened. She bade me inside with a flick of her hand. As I took my customary seat opposite her, the justification was already on my tongue.

“She has to be able to defend herself.” I launched right into it.

Jacqueline’s brows almost touched the ceiling. “We can teach her self-defence with less devastating weapons.”

“That’ll take ages. She’s scared of everything. Maybe having the blade will help her feel safer.”

“Maybe she’ll accidentally hurt herself or somebody else.”

I snorted. “I bet she’s just shoved it under her bed. At the very least, I’m sure Declan is happy with my choice.”

Jacqueline’s lips twisted. She scratched the side of her nose as a distraction. “I have to admit, Emily’s adjustment period has been distressing for all parties concerned. Declan continues to push for unveiling our presence, but Emily’s progress has put a spanner in the works. We just don’t have the time or resources to hold humanity’s hand while they come to terms with our existence. Not with the looming threat of war.”

“If they come to terms with it at all. We tend to try and destroy things that scare us.”

She nodded. “It’s instinctual. Fight or flight. The Human League believes chaos is better than ignorance. And there will be chaos.”

I wracked my brain for a titbit that I’d learned in Magical History. “Wasn’t there a trial revealing way back when?”

“There certainly was. The Council back then thought we might be able to start slow with sorceresses gifted in natural magic. You remember how that turned out?”

“Witch hunts and burning at the stake.”

“That’s right. I think Declan was hoping for Emily’s integration to go more smoothly. Her ability to withstand magical compulsion is an absolute game changer for humanity. It’s just unfortunate that she’s so meek.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “We lucked out then. Imagine if she was like me but with her power.”

Jacqueline didn’t try to hide her agreement. “Good point.” She brushed her hand through her soft wave of hair. “That doesn’t change the fact that she’s not equipped to wield that blade.”

“Maybe not. But I bet people will think twice about attacking her.”

“I should think not. At least not within Academy grounds.”

“She’s not going to be here forever,” I reminded her. “And I bet there are supernaturals who are a little apprehensive about the thought of a human who is impervious to their powers. Isn’t that why you’ve got Tyler posted here and the other guards have been doubled? It’s not just for our safety.”

Jacqueline’s blue eyes feathered over me, sharpening as they took in my unwavering stare. She smiled. “You’ve come such a long way, Lex.” She ran a hand tenderly across the ornate desk. “Maybe one day, when I’m ready, this place won’t need my guardianship.”

My heart kicked at the thought. Bloodline Academy without Jacqueline? It was unthinkable. “I’ll have to make arrangements for Emily’s training.” She massaged her brow. “There are getting to be too many students who need extra-curricular support. Between you and Sophie –”

“Sophie?”

She smiled fondly. “It’s taken seven years and an obstinate best friend, but Sophie is finally starting to shed the fear that has held her back. Professor McKenna reports that Sophie’s alchemy will overshadow our curriculum by the end of the semester. And now Emily needs further development.”

“I bet you’re starting to regret opening the doors to low witches!”

She pierced me with her steeliest glare. “Not for a second.” And then she paused. “Though I don’t know how I’m going to squeeze more resources from the board.” I left her to ponder the alternatives and speed walked to Supernatural Sex Ed.

I’d taken to calling it that in my head and now I couldn’t shake the title. When I stepped into the room, there was a huddle in the back corner where Isla usually held court with Emily and the Evil Three. Half the class were grilling Emily about her heavenly blade while Isla acted as a body shield, not allowing anybody too close. I hated to admit it, but one day, Isla would probably make an excellent bodyguard.

“Can I touch it?” I heard James say. My curiosity morphed into alarm. Emily’s soft voice was barely audible over the excitement of the group.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to let anyone near it,” Emily said. “At least that’s what Malachi told me.” I didn’t need to see her face to know it was flushed.

Diana poked me in the cheek when I grabbed the seat beside her. “Just so you know,” she said, “you’re emitting a death glare.”

I relaxed my features. “I am not!”

“You so are,” Sophie added as she took her own seat.

“This is how I always look!”

“Uh huh.” Diana tapped on the cover of the textbook on her desk. “It’s actually pretty timely. I think we’re onto the chapter about bonds and mating links.”

I was groaning when Doctor Thorne happened to walk into the room.

“Take your seats, please,” Doctor Thorne ordered. “The blade won’t just disappear. You can play with it all you like after class.”

Several students moaned but they followed orders. Emily gave me a small smile before replacing the blade in a hip holster strapped to her side. It was an odd fashion choice against her white blouse and ankle-length skirt, but she didn’t seem to mind. Neither did I if it meant she would stop cowering in my presence.

“Some of you might have already read ahead to this lesson,” Doctor Throne said. “Today we will be discussing Nephilim bonds and shifter mating links.” It was a gargantuan effort not to react in any way. I stared straight ahead at a spot on the wall behind Doctor Thorne’s back. “I know this is a topic that is very close to home so I want to reiterate that we will be speaking generally about these phenomena. I don’t want to hear any hypotheticals about anyone we know.”

There was a general groan. “Aww,” Sasha said. He leaned forward to speak directly in my ear. “I was looking forward to giving you so much shit!”

I tried to slap him, but he shrank back, his movement a blur. As if they didn’t give me enough shit anyway.

“Miss Pierce,” Doctor Thorne said. “What’s the difference between a Nephilim bond and a shifter mating link?”

Diana shuffled in her seat. Her gaze flicked to the textbook like she was drawing the answer from it psychically. Dwarves possessed no innate psychic magic, but the sight of the book seemed to trigger her recall.

“A shifter mating link occurs when a shifter finds their true mate. It is borne of total surrender to the other person. An acceptance that their fates are aligned. The link gives the mated pair undocumented powers that are different for everyone.” She scratched at her wrist. “Because of this, a true link is rare. Most shifters never find their true mates. Their long lives coupled with the war have meant that the balance has been displaced. Often, they choose to mate with someone they care about for love.”

“What’s the difference?” Doctor Thorne pressed.

“Love is love,” Diana said, in a reedy voice I’d never heard before. “But it isn’t the same as a mate. The mating link isn’t about reason or logic. It is all-consuming for a shifter and can make them do unreasonable things not normally acceptable.” I glanced at her softened features and it occurred to me that behind her tough exterior, she was a bit romantic. That thought made me smile until something cold slithered across my arms. Tension vibrated in the air around me as the shifters in the room became uneasy at Diana’s assessment of their future chances of finding their mate.

“Hey!” Diana snapped. “Don’t blame the messenger!”

“And the Nephilim bond,” Doctor Thorne asked.

“A Nephilim bond doesn’t have to involve any feelings at all,” Diana continued. “The Nephilim have traded in mutually beneficial bonds since the time of their making. It’s one way they can ensure their bloodlines remain viable.”

“Why do they do that?” Doctor Thorne threw this out to the room. James jumped on it straight away.

“Because the bond offers more than just a familial connection,” he said in a rush. “It provides an exchange of power.”

“How so?” Doctor Thorne asked.

“Each line of Nephilim is gifted with powers,” he said. “Strength from Michael, healing from Raphael, Foresight and intelligence from Uriel, and diplomacy and control of the natural world from Ariel. If a Nephilim of Michael’s line bonds with one of Ariel’s line, they both grow in strength. This is why our kind wish for Malachi to bond with Chanel –”

Doctor Thorne raised a hand to cut him off. “What did I say at the beginning of class?”

James thumped his desk with his fist. “We can’t have a discussion about Nephilim bonds without addressing the biggest issue to ever affect Nephilim history! That’s just negligence. This is supposed to be a serious class.” He pointed right at me. “It’s not our problem if it makes her uneasy. Nobody asked her to butt into our affairs.”

I grabbed Dev by the arm before he could leap at James. He was sitting in the desk behind me. Dev’s eyes were ringed in beaten gold. The same vibrating rage sloughed off my back from where Trey was growling softly. The other shifters in the room picked up the scent of aggression, their lips pulling back to reveal suddenly sharpened teeth. I might not be their friend or their favourite person, but they didn’t make the same cold distinction between the mating link and the bond that the Nephilim did. To them, it was the same thing. And James was trying to mess with mine. Every shifter in the room was conditioned to defend the link with their life. I felt both humbled and sad for them that they might never find their mate. The potential loss made them dangerous.

“It’s fine,” I said, still holding Dev’s increasingly muscular arm. “He’s right.”

Doctor Thorne stood frozen, caught between his concern for me and his duty to teach the class to the best of his ability. I shoved at Dev’s chest to get him to sit back down. My shoulder ached from the effort.

Sophie flipped the pages of her textbook urgently. She found the chapter about the bond and scanned it. “But it says here that the bond is amplified if there are feelings involved.”

“Feelings can grow where there weren’t any,” James shot back. “Especially if the bond is with Chanelle Laurent!”

I couldn’t fault him there either. Chanelle was every red-blooded male’s wet dream. She literally outclassed me in all the ways it usually mattered. Yet when I lay in bed at night, when the world was silent and I allowed myself to let go of the reins, I felt Kai’s love through the bond like a beacon. He loved me for all the reasons everyone else found abrasive. My sharp tongue made him laugh despite himself. My complete refusal to yield just because he was Malachi Pendragon gave him a sense of relief from the pressure of being Malachi Pendragon. And though he was terrified of losing me the way he lost his family, my stubbornness gave him hope that I would never break in the face of my fear. How did a person just give that up even for the good of a species? I didn’t have an answer.

James took my silence as a personal insult. “You’re such a selfish litt –”

“Finish that sentence and you’ll regret it,” Sophie said.

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“Finish the sentence and you’ll see.” Her posture became deceptively languid. James sneered.

“So easy to talk big in a room full of your friends,” he said. I reared at the implicit threat.

“That’s about enough of that,” Doctor Thorne said. His eyes were two golden pieces of ice. Nobody wanted to poke the basilisk. He nodded at me and then proceeded with the class in the best way he could. As though I wasn’t there.

“It is true that the Nephilim bond has often been contentious, but never moreso than it is right now. We all know the reasons why.” He frowned suddenly.

“Yes, Emily?”

“Umm.” She was fidgeting with the blade’s position when I turned around. Great, I hadn’t just given her a weapon. I’d also handed her a security blanket. “I did a semester of sociology at uni. One of the topics was traditional marriage rituals throughout the world. Did you know that often, socially paired unions are more successful than –”

James snorted. “You’re just saying that because you’re mooning over Pendragon too!”

Emily’s skin turned a shade of watermelon. “No, I didn’t mean –”

“Save it, sweetheart.”

I could see what she was trying to do. Ever the peacekeeper, Emily was actually trying to help James out. It wasn’t her fault he was denser than a brick. Unfortunately, her theory rubbed most of the supernatural students up the wrong way.

“But with the steady increase in divorce rates...” she kept saying.

“That’s just for humans,” Orla spat. She actually did spit on the floor. I made a mental note not to step on it on my way out of class.

“Alright!” I found my voice. “Everything is shit and complicated. Let’s just get over it.”

I ate my own words when getting over it meant Doctor Thorne made us read through the centuries of notable Nephilim bond choices for the rest of the class. Surprise, surprise, none of the bond mates had been humans with Lucifer’s blood.

“That can’t have been fun,” Isla remarked when the bell rang.

“Next lesson we will discuss Fae courting rituals and how they often end in death,” Doctor Thorne announced. I returned Isla’s smirk with double smugness. She rolled her eyes at me.

Five minutes after veering off from Sophie and Diana to go to the illusion training room, I noticed I had a shadow.

“I’m not trying to follow you on purpose,” Emily said. “I was told to go to this place after classes today.”

I paused to allow her to catch up. “By who?” She stood a good two metres away from me and wouldn’t come any closer. Sigh.

“The headmistress.”

“Where are you going?”

She fumbled around in her backpack while I balanced on the balls of my feet, regretting engaging her now. If I was late, Giselle would chew my ear off yet again. “Here it is!” She waved her timetable around the vast expanse of space between us. “Umm...Illusion Training Room with Giselle Hartnett.”

Well, at least now I knew I wasn’t the only one the universe hated.

28

I was literally still choking on that information when we walked into the room. Giselle’s serial killer stare pinned Emily to the spot. The former assassin didn’t blink as she did a mental assessment of her new student.

“No. I don’t have time for this weakling. The other one is bad enough.”

Though I could tell Matilda agreed with her, she had a little more tact and just didn’t say anything. It was Eugenia who tried to smooth the situation over. But only after she spotted the heavenly blade attached to Emily’s side.

“Don’t be like that, G,” Eugenia said.

Giselle’s expression became deadpan. “I told you not to call me that.”

Eugenia winked at her. She sidled up to Emily. “Aren’t you just the sweetest thing? That’s a very pretty skirt.”

“My, what a big mouth you have, grandmother,” I said, latching onto Emily’s arm before the sorceress in sheep’s clothing could influence her. Emily squirmed and made a soft shrieking sound.

Eugenia’s grin could have lit up a stadium. “Who’s the wolf in this scenario?”

I gave up. Shooting them both a dirty glare, I tossed my backpack carelessly into the corner of the room. “What unusual form of torture have you got in store for me this evening?” I asked Giselle.

Her corresponding smile was terrifying. Like a shark showing you its teeth before it chomped down. “I hear you’ve been learning about how soul stealing is illegal,” she said. Suddenly, she was standing just a foot away from me. Matilda loomed on my right.

“Ah, yeah.”

“That’s what people in charge tell you when they’re afraid of you. Last time you followed orders, you ended up dying.”

I felt like a mosquito stuck in amber. If I moved back, she would think she was intimidating me. If I stayed where I was, I would continue to be subjected to her dead-eyed conviction. And then Matilda piled on.

“You already know instinctively how to manipulate a soul,” Matilda said. “But if you’re weaponless, this might be the only way you can defend yourself.”

My hands fisted. “If my brain goes kaput, I don’t think I’ll have the ability to reach my magic.”

Giselle made a grumbling sound at the back of her throat. “I didn’t realise you were mentally deficient. Your great-grandmother bound a deity and the soul of a mage. Those constructs remained intact even after she died.”

“True. But you remember when you were trying to kill me because of what Hilary had done?”

“I was trying to kill you because you’re a monster-loving traitor!”

Over on the other side of the room, Emily was staring at us with white-rimmed eyes. Giselle paid her no mind.

“Tell me what you really think,” I said.

Matilda body-blocked Giselle as she turned her hip towards me. “You think this is funny?” Giselle hissed. She pointed a finger at Emily. “We’ve got a walking prophecy machine over there saying that you’re going to destroy the world. Now might be the time to let go of what’s legal and what’s not.”

“I don’t think this is what Kai had in mind when he asked you to train me.”

She smirked, her eyes flashing dangerously. “I think that Nephilim monster would turn a blind eye if you started killing people and eating their hearts if it meant keeping you alive. There are a lot of instructors he could have chosen from the ranks of the elite guard. But somehow you ended up with us.”

It would have felt so good to contradict her. But just as the retort was forming, it fizzled because I couldn’t fault what she was saying. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. There were many elite guards trained in hand-to-hand combat who could have taken me under their wings. As a bonus, I wouldn’t have to be yelled at and ridiculed every night. But Kai had chosen Giselle. In his twisted kind of logic, he believed Giselle would be my best chance at survival. By extension, he gave his consent for whatever tactics Giselle chose to employ.

I let out a heavy breath. “I’m not stealing anybody’s soul. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t love the idea of murdering people.”

“As if you could do that right now anyway,” Giselle said. “Most of what you’ve done is borne of terrified instinct. You’re just lucky you’re a bone witch.”

I was lucky my self-esteem was protected by a layer of mental Teflon. “Shoes off. On the mat,” Giselle instructed. She and Matilda always showed up in stretchy, flexible clothing. I had learned to do the same or face the consequences.

Eugenia on the other hand adored theatrics and never left the house in anything less than a costume. Today her emerald dress dragged along behind as she moved. Thankfully, the simple thrust and pivot exercises she was doing with Emily didn’t require much flexibility. “Hold the blade tighter, dear,” I heard Eugenia say. “At this rate, it’ll just fly out of your hands.”

I suspect if it did, the blade would find its way into Eugenia’s pocket and we would never see it again.

On my knees on the mat, Giselle made me close my eyes. “Drop into the soul dimension.” That was the Sisterhood name for the Ley dimension. They refused to bow to supernatural terms, of course.

I dragged the contentiously named dimension around me. Emily was a surprisingly massive white light in my periphery. Her aura was so bright it almost blocked Eugenia’s glowing red one beside her. Strangely, Giselle and Matilda registered a similar iridescent silver.

“You understand the process of gripping a soul and pulling them from their body.” It was a statement. My thoughts returned to that Shadow Ball game at Charles’s birthday where I had watched them attempt to do just that to Kai. At the time, everything had happened in a blur, but I would never forget the way I’d seen it happen. Like unwinding the stitching around a quilt

“I think so.”

“Good. Try and take my soul.”

My eyes flicked open. “What?”

They both blinked at me, somehow knowing I had thrown off the Ley dimension in my shock. “You heard what I said.”

“But that’ll kill you!”

Her laughter was dry. “Yes, it would. If you succeed.”

Dubious, I dropped back into the Ley dimension and reached out tentatively for her soul. As soon as I tried to grab hold of it, lightning snapped up my arm and tossed me six feet in the air. I braced and landed stoutly on my side.

“Lesson number one,” Matilda said. “A soul is cosmically geared towards staying exactly where it is. If you want to take it, you have to be ready to use force because it sure as heck will blow up in your face otherwise.”

I remembered Professor Suleiman’s class on soul magic and how human souls could be used as an energy source. “How do I take one without getting myself killed?”

“Soul dimension,” Giselle ordered. I dropped back in. “You see the edge of the aura where the soul meets the cosmic lines? That is its tether. It’s constantly moving. Energy is never static. You need to be able to pinpoint where a soul is tethered to its original energy source and then sever that connection. Once you do that, you’ll have to separate the soul from its body while fighting the spirit of the host all the way.”

It was the worst multi-tasking lesson ever. Feeling deviant, I surveyed her flickering aura for a while. To my surprise, Matilda’s aura was stronger than Giselle’s. But in a clash of craziness, I would put my money on Giselle. It cemented in my mind the notion that tenacity beat out raw talent any day. I had a lot of untrained power and almost zero discipline. Was I ready for this?

The Ley dimension had always been a vast landscape of shimmering stars in my eyes. Tonight, I blinked and tried to inspect each one of those stars for the tether that held it in place. The links in the Ley dimension were complex on first appearance. But the more I focused on each aura, the more connections branched out from it to form a multi-faceted web. Finding a single tether amongst all the connections proved more difficult than I’d imagined. It was like trying to cut the right coloured wire on a bomb.

Except instead of just red, blue, or white, I had hundreds of different choices. “There’s too many,” I sulked.

“Boohoo. Did you think this was going to be easy?” came Giselle’s acerbic response. “Which one do you think is mine?”

Inspecting the crisscrossing lines of energy that swirled around her made my eyes water. It was too much feedback. It reminded me of when I meditated and couldn’t focus on my breathing. An idea popped into my head. Outside of the Ley dimension, I sat down cross-legged and took a deep, calming breath. In the near distance, I heard the soft scrape of Emily’s bare feet on the mat and Eugenia’s voice encouraging her not to treat the blade like it was going to grow a head and bite her.

In the room next door, somebody was coughing their guts out. Outside of the training room, I faintly heard the flap of wings from a pair of Nephilim guards doing their regular sweep.

As my breathing evened out, I drew dampening circles around myself in the Ley dimension. In real life, I’d learned to use the circles to help me block out irritations. In here, I tried to attune the circles so that they filtered out everything but the connections I was looking for.

It took a long time to find the right sequences. First, I cut out Giselle’s connections to the people in the room. Then her link to the Sisterhood. Then her link to humans. By the time I had set up more than a dozen dampening circles, there were only three links left that I could see around her. One was a bright white that circled around her mind. The other was a multi-faceted thread that literally stitched her soul into place. And the last ran from a central line that originated outside of her body. As it hit the orb of her aura, the thread bloomed into a network of tendrils like the arteries in the body. Her soul tether.

Grinning, I held my hand out to touch it.

A fist connected with the apple of my cheek, sending me sprawling across the mat. When I blinked, the Ley sight had disappeared.

“What the heck?” I said, pushing myself up on my elbow. Emily had stopped her “drills” to gawp at me clutching my grazed cheek.

Giselle canted her head. “Did you think your target would just sit there idly while you steal their soul?”

“Can you at least give me a chance to practice it without hitting me?”

“Why don’t you ask a demon that next time you’re in a fight. See how that goes.”

The rest of the lesson was spent trying to find Matilda’s soul tether without getting beaten to a pulp. Success eluded me.

Trying not to groan on the way out of the training room was futile. Eugenia clasped my elbow before I could disappear. Emily chose that moment to make herself scarce.

“I have a bad feeling about her,” Eugenia said.

“That’s exactly what she thinks about me.” I leaned against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest. I was going for nonplussed. Like I hadn’t spent the whole lesson being beaten up. Eugenia’s knowing smile said I looked constipated.

“I’ve got somebody who might be able to do what you need.”

My attention suddenly sharpened. “What’s the price?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“What’s the price?”

“Your blood. A vial for a vial. Blood for potion.”

Disturbed, I tried to stand up straighter. “I can’t give away my blood!”

One: it was too powerful. Two: there was a lot a mage could do to me via my blood. Three: I just didn’t want to.

Eugenia’s lips pressed together. “It’s the only thing he would take. I offered him your money but that’s not how these kinds of transactions work. He wouldn’t take a tooth, hair, fingernails, or any other organ either.” My face must have displayed my thoughts on those options because she nodded. “The whole supernatural world knows the worth of your blood. They won’t accept anything else.”

I chewed on my bottom lip but in the end, I couldn’t do it. “The risk is too high.”

She held her hands up. “No justification required. Just putting it out there.”

It was well after dinner by the time I hobbled back to the dorms. My fantasies of a hot shower and crawling into bed were cut off by the sound of a gut-wrenching roar that tore apart the stillness of the night.

It was followed by the shouting of dozens of students. Quickening my steps, I turned the corner of the junior Academy building to the ornamental lawn and froze. Instinct kicked in. A circle drew around me as the blazing tip of a glowing red angel blade came hurtling right for my head.

29

There wasn’t time to complete the circle before a heavy body crashed into me. I lost equilibrium as arms tensed around me and we rolled away from the trajectory of the blade. My senses scrambled to take in everything happening at once. I caught a whiff of brimstone and damp fur. The claws digging lightly into my already bruised back said shifter. The undulating pitch of the growl in his throat said Charles.

When we came to a stop, he was mid-shift. His hair grew two inches a second, flowing out into a thick mane that worked as both armour and scare tactic. Muscles contracted in the arm gripping me, his skin squirming like it was being electrocuted. I grit my teeth at the snap of tissue and bone, the sound always causing me to wince at what must have been a painful transformation.

Charles pushed me behind him as he shook off the last of his humanity. Even on two feet, I could barely see over the top of his corded back. My jaw hit the ground and refused to shut. His lion form was massive. Easily as big as Max’s and bigger than most shifters I knew. Seriously, what was Shayla doing to these boys? Charles’s fur was golden tan, interspersed with streaks of silver. I blinked when a glimmer of green seemed to flash across his hide. That couldn’t be right.

James wasn’t as impressed with Charles’s lion form as I was. The Nephilim hovered in the air a few metres from us. He spat a wad of blood onto the ground nearby. Lovely. What confused me were the groups of students crowded around James. The rules of a fight were simple. You stood behind the person you supported. So why was it that Luther and Sophie were frantically waving at me from way back behind the enemy line?

“You think you’re going to get away with this because your daddy is alpha?” James said. His angelfire glimmered around his broadsword. It cast a pinkish hue against his skin but didn’t detract from the shiner I assumed Charles had given him. It took a lot of strength to break Nephilim skin. How Charles ended up in a fight with the Nephilim was beyond me.

In my position, I couldn’t see Charles’s jaw opening but the distressed, growling sound he made shot terror through me.

“Chuck?” My voice was thin. Charles’s head turned to the side. I gasped, unsure of what I was looking at. The pupils in his eyes were ruby red and ringed by a corona of emerald green. His jaw hung open as froth bubbled on his lips. I blinked a couple of times to make sure what I was seeing was real. Charles had gone rogue. But the odd colour of his eyes didn’t match up.

In the second Charles lost sight of his prey, James surged. He launched himself forward and swung his blade in a wide arc that would have slashed Charles’s neck open if the shifter hadn’t ducked and rolled to the side in time. The blade caught a fistful of mane, sending errant hairs drifting in the wind.

Faster than my human eyes could catalogue, Charles recovered from his evasive duck and leaped into the air. The crowd inhaled at the speed of a creature that big. He whipped his left front leg when he reached maximum height and swiped it at James.

The Nephilim would have been caught had he not had the presence of mind to teleport. My heart palpated as Charles’s razor-sharp claws sliced through James’s shadow. The ground shook as Charles landed. James materialised again, his shirt in tatters, his chest heaving. All that lawn football and he was having difficulty keeping up with a fourteen-year-old shifter. Charles had only missed the mark by milliseconds.

Two golden-armoured Nephilim appeared in the air beside James. The one on the right was Marshall. His grim expression turned into irritation when he spotted James. The other was the guard who had tried to grab me at the assembly.

“Stand down,” the new guard ordered. Charles let out a snarl and pawed at the ground. I winced as great big chunks of lawn ripped under his claws. Marshall frowned when he spotted me. Quick as a flash, he teleported and appeared beside me. My muscles contracted when he grabbed me and teleported me away. We reappeared at the head of the crowd. Marshall let me go to be swarmed by Sophie and Luther.

“What the hell is happening?” I whined.

Sophie shook her head, eyes full of unshed tears. There was paper littered over the ground on this side of the lawn.

“James was hassling Sophie,” Luther informed me in a calm voice belied by the tight clenching of his fists. “Charles told him to get lost and it escalated into a fight. It was fine until Charles just snapped and...”

There was no need for further explanation. The foam decorating Charles’s mane said it all. “How is this even possible? His control is excellent.”

Luther stared ahead, face unreadable. “No idea. One minute he was okay, and the next, it was like this weird green thing scraped over him and he turned.”

Three more Nephilim guards appeared in the sky. “Get out of the way!” one shouted. Also a new woman I didn’t recognise. Unlike the guards we knew, these Nephilim had no patience for students. The woman landed and attempted to disperse the crowd through force.

A ring of fire ignited around us after the Nephilim pushed at Sophie’s shoulder. I placed a hand on Luther’s arm, almost wincing at the heat radiating off him.

“We’re not going anywhere,” he seethed.

By then the Nephilim was already moving down the line. Clearly she wasn’t very committed to her cause. Professors Mortimer and Magnus appeared with Jacqueline stalking behind.

Sophie let out a sob. Charles and the Nephilim were trading blows that shook the ground with their impact. If the Nephilim didn’t have the ability to teleport, they would have been dead in a second. If Charles got hold of any of them, their ability would be worthless. He could crush their spines in the blink of an eye.

“Charles,” Professor Mortimer called out. The lion didn’t respond. He snarled at the annoying assembly guard and jumped up once again. The Nephilim dispersed, reappearing farther out of Charles’s reach. My breath came out in shallow gasps. With each second that ticked by, Charles was getting stronger. Each time he leaped it was a little higher. Each time meant he was losing a little more of himself.

Professor Mortimer shot a fireball of purple light at Charles. It wrapped around his enormous head and held him stationary for a fraction of a second. Charles snapped his teeth and green light flared. It smashed through the barrier of Professor Mortimer’s power. The mage stepped back, a frown on his disturbed face.

Charles’s head shook from side to side. His nostrils flared. When he exhaled, a billow of steam wafted out. Luther took a step forward then caught himself. “He’s burning up inside.”

That was stage two of the rogue shifter state. Soon, he would lose all sense of who and what he was. After that he would become an unstoppable killing machine and would have to be put down.

Bile crawled up my throat when green angelfire pierced the night sky. The bond slugged me in the gut like I wasn’t already aware of his presence. Kai landed on the lawn in front of Charles, close enough that if the shifter wanted to, he could take a swipe. Head bent low, Charles growled softly, his hulking head shaking with the pent-up rage.

Professor Mortimer drew a circle around them in an attempt to contain the damage.

Kai got down on one knee. “Hey, Chuck.”

Charles roared at him. The shifter sniffed at the air, swinging his head from side to side in clouded confusion. Standing his ground, Kai reached out a hand.

“You don’t want to do this, kiddo,” he said. “You’re scaring people. Why don’t you pull that big ass of yours back from the brink, huh?” His voice took on a soothing, cajoling tone that I had never heard him use with anyone but Cassie.

Charles stepped closer, his lips quivering across teeth that resembled blades. Sophie jumped a second before Charles lashed out. The purple circle flared in response to an outpouring of shifter aggression. Unlike his fellow guards, Kai didn’t teleport. Charles caught Kai in his massive paw and crushed. I screamed just as angelfire flared. Kai braced his arms against Charles’s paw as he funnelled his healing ability into the shifter’s body. The purple circle spun. Purple ropes emerged from the grass to shackle around Charles’s body, holding him in place.

Everyone on the lawn held their breath. Luther grabbed my hand. C’mon, c’mon. Agonizing seconds ticked by when nothing happened. Charles and Kai were locked in a battle of wills. The paw holding Kai rattled with Charles’s continued effort to squeeze Kai’s guts out. I couldn’t take my eyes off where Kai’s hand gripped Charles’s fur, sending wave after wave of soothing into the shifter.

Just when I thought I might lose my hand from Luther’s death grip, Charles gave a deep, low moan. My attention snapped to his eyes as the green seeped away, dragging the red with it a moment later. They were like a shifter mood ring. When they shone a bright, molten copper, Charles’s body slumped. He landed in a heap with Kai beside him.

Fur and bone melted into tanned, smooth skin. Charles was human again. Professor Mortimer dissolved his circle and chains. Kai picked Charles up like he didn’t weigh a thing and teleported. I grabbed Sophie and Luther, commanding Gabriel’s Key to take me to the infirmary.

Cassie was already there, racing around behind Doctor Thorne as Kai set Charles’s naked body down. He barely fit on the bed. Cassie’s cheeks were flame red as she settled a sheet over Charles while staring anywhere but directly at him. The sheet landed awkwardly but she didn’t stop to inspect her handiwork.

The three of us stood to the side as Kai placed his palm on Charles’s chest over his heart. Though his movements were calm, the bond painted another picture. Beneath the iceberg exterior he wore for the benefit of the world, Kai’s heartbeat was erratic. Moreso than Charles’s. It was always harder to watch someone you cared about get hurt than to be the one hurt. My gut clenched as Kai attempted to throw off the residual terror of potentially having to kill Charles.

Cassie dragged a stool over to the bed. She offered it to Kai only to find herself suddenly gripped in a bone-crushing, one-armed embrace. Her features softened as she returned the hug.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “He’s okay. You saved him. He’ll be fine.”

Over his shoulder, she made pleading eyes at me.

“Maybe we should leave,” Sophie said.

Luther balked. “No way. Let’s just...give them a minute.”

They peeled off and left me standing there caught between a bond and a hard place. Cassie waved frantically at me. My feet moved of their own accord. No sooner did I brush my hand over his arm did Kai release Cassie. Rubbing at her ribs, she scampered away. I slid my hand against his, holding on as he laced our fingers and clenched me to his chest. His cheek rested against my temple.

“Did he hurt you?” Kai asked against my hair.

“No. He saved my life.” Kai’s fingers clenched, but I hushed him. “Cass is right. He’s fine.”

For a long moment, my world became the slowing of Kai’s heartbeat and the warmth of his arms around me. For the first time, I fed my hedge magic into the bond, tempering its vibration with the cooling sensation of damp earth and water-soaked leaves. Touching the bond jolted something in my mind.

“Kai. There was a second there when I thought I saw green angelfire in Charles’s aura.”

Silence stretched across the quiet room. In the bond, Kai was suddenly alert. “It could have been anything,” he said at last.

“It could, but it’s not, is it?”

His muscles tensed around me. On the bed, Charles suddenly jerked awake. “Too stubborn to go rogue, huh?” Kai said all too quickly. The subject change gave me whiplash.

A soft growl emitted from the patient. “I’ll have you know it’s not stubbornness, it’s determination,” Charles croaked. The pent-up breath in me relaxed its hold.

“Oh really?” I said, “Was it determination that made you challenge a senior to a fight?”

Charles tried to sit up, but determination hadn’t translated to his body yet. He slumped back again. Reluctantly unwinding his arm from me, Kai sent more healing into the shifter.

“Okay, okay,” Charles grumbled, as he squinted against the angelfire. “That was nothing. I can deal with it, Kai.”

I punched him in the shoulder. My fist hit a bone. Ow. I never learned. “I need to speak to Gran,” Kai said. “Don’t move until Doctor Thorne has had a chance to inspect you.”

He turned to me, his green eyes hooded.

“One-time deal,” I spat out before he could get any ideas. “Extenuating circumstances.”

He reached out and drew a finger across my cheek. “I don’t know. People get injured a lot around here. Maybe you can be my nurse?”

He teleported before I could tell him exactly what I thought of that idea. Sophie and Luther must have been spying because they returned to the room with Cassie the moment Kai was gone.

“Do you want some clothes?” Sophie asked Charles.

“What for?” he drawled.

I caught Sophie’s eye. She rolled hers. Shifters!

“You didn’t have to hit him, you know.” Sophie sat back on Kai’s discarded stool.

Charles laced his hands behind his head. His biceps corded to reveal finely cut muscle. “If he ever comes near you again, I’ll rip his guts out.”

Rather than come over all fluttery at his protectiveness, Sophie let out an exasperated breath. “He was just being his usual jerky self,” she said. “Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. You can’t try and kill someone just because they’re an idiot.”

He snorted. “Shows how much you know. Max isn’t here anymore. And Kai can’t hit students and get away with it now. So it’s my job to protect you.” He turned his attention to me. “Both of you.”

For goodness sake! Setting aside Charles’s misguided antics, I pinned Sophie with a stern frown. “Don’t tell me James was giving you grief about what happened in class?”

“He said something about her not being so snarky when her friends weren’t around,” Luther offered. “So Chuck punched him. Seems fair to me.”

My hand clenched in sympathy. If I had been there, I would have done the same thing. “He’s lucky Max isn’t here anymore,” I found myself saying. A twitch made Sophie’s left cheek ripple. Something hollow spiralled in my chest. That foreboding sensation again.

“Speaking of that dunderhead,” Charles said. “Did anyone pick up the invitations?” Oh, so that’s what all the paper on the ground had been.

“Nah, we came straight here,” Luther said. “Besides, you kind of shredded them when you went nuts.”

“Crap. He’s going to get all pissy now. Don’t know what his problem is. It’s like the older he gets, the tighter his panties twist. If Max asks, I gave you both invitations to his ascension party.”

“His what now?” I stammered.

“Ascension,” Sophie said. “Shifter rite of passage.”

“Oh, yeah, that clears it up.”

“When a shifter reaches the age of maturity, they have a ceremony that indicates to other shifters that they’re ready to take their rightful place in the pack.”

“And mating,” Cassie piped up. She grinned at Sophie like it was going out of fashion.

“If anyone opens their mouth, they’re going to regret it,” Sophie warned. I bit the seam of my lips together to stop myself. But it was hard.

We stayed with Charles until Doctor Thorne arrived, and passed Jacqueline on the way out. “How much trouble do you think Charles will be in?” Luther asked.

“No way to know for sure,” I said.

Cassie shook her head. “Kai will do everything he can to make sure Charles is okay.”

I left them with that thought ringing in my ear. Kai would literally move heaven and earth to keep the people he cared about safe. But in the hierarchy of duty, I had top billing. That was what worried me about these strange illnesses. Ruminating on it, I announced to Sophie that I was going to call Max. “Prepare yourself.”

“Why would you do that?” She was just slipping into her pyjamas. They were a cute pink set of shorts and camisole with little cupcakes on them.

“I need to check something.”

“I’m outta here,” she said.

“Really? You haven’t spoken to him in how long?”

“None of your business.” She stormed out the door and slammed it shut behind her.

Woo! Hit a nerve. I knew they had been in contact over the summer but their relationship, or lack thereof, had taken on a complicated turn. Something to do with overbearing shifter tendencies. I couldn’t get much out of her without incurring the wrath of the beast, so I left it alone. Especially when she retaliated and mentioned the bond.

It was a little late but I figured Max would be okay without a few minutes of beauty sleep. When he answered the mirror call, my heart skipped a beat. Not in a good way. He sneezed before I could say hello. I think the expression was: run over by a truck.

Max was the poster child for shifter virility. He was their movie star. The sickly, washed-out creature in front of me reminded me of...well, death. It brought to mind that unease I’d been feeling whenever someone mentioned him.

“Is this some kind of shifter transformation I’m not aware of?”

“Don’t start,” he growled and then coughed like he was trying to expel a fur ball.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Do you know what the definition of fine is?”

“I got into it with some demons on the border,” he said. “Must have picked up something.”

“Or you’re just sick. It seems to be going around.”

“I’m a shifter. I don’t get sick. Did you call to make stupid statements?” Well excuse me! Charles was dead right. Max did have his panties in a twist. Then again, if I were used to never being sick, I would be surly too.

“No. I called to say thanks for the invitation, but I’d rather not attend a weird shifter orgy disguised as a ceremony.”

I was kidding, of course. If Max invited me to a satanic hoedown, I would go just for the chance to drag Sophie there.

“Very funny. I see dying hasn’t blunted your forked tongue.”

“I remember you being a lot nicer too,” I snapped. “What’s the matter? Life outside the Academy not meeting your expectations? Or have you realised you peaked too early?”

He snarled. “I swear to the moon, Lex,” he said. “If you weren’t Kai’s bond –”

“Don’t even go there. Can we have a single conversation without you bringing that up?” It was like déjà vu from New Year’s Eve all over again.

“I don’t like small talk. It’s the most important thing you’ve got going on. You want to be bonded. I don’t even have to be near you to tell. Why are you fighting it so hard?”

I punched the mirror where his head was. “So sorry, Mr. Big and Strong Man. Would you like me to go into the kitchen and make you a sandwich?”

He snorted. I wasn’t sure if it was to make a point or because his sinuses were backed up. “I’d rather take my chances eating a poisoned toad. You can’t cook for shit.”

“You know what? I don’t need this.”

“Then why did you call?”

I hesitated. I’d gotten what I needed from the call. Seeing him was enough to reinforce the theory that had started to form. “Never mind. I don’t know why I bothered thinking we could have a civil conversation. I haven’t spoken to you in what, three months? I’m fine, by the way. The pressure of the bond isn’t immense or anything. I’d hate to see what you’ll be like when some chest-beating Neanderthal comes for Dani.”

The mirror rippled as I attempted to cut the call, but Max slapped his hand out on the other side to stop me. “Lex,” he said. He rubbed at his eye with the heel of his palm. When he glanced up, they were unfocused and slightly tinged with green. No way this was demon related. “I get it. You’re freaked out. I’m only trying to look out for your best interests.”

At the core of it, I knew he was telling the truth. He just didn’t have all the information and I couldn’t tell him. With a heavy sigh, I tried to contain some of the snark. “It’s fine. Thanks for the invitation. Where will they send you once the ceremony is over?”

He shrugged, looking worn out. “Wherever they need me. Right now, it’s looking like a backup outpost close to a human population.”

My next question was couched in stealth. “How do you feel about that?” Once he was posted, the chances of us seeing him again soon would be slim.

“I get what I’m given,” he said. “It isn’t as though there’s anything keeping me around.”

Not wanting to step on that landmine, I ended the call. When Sophie deigned to return, I was in bed with the Nephilim Codex spread out on my lap.

“He’s sick,” I told Sophie after she exaggeratedly went about her nightly rituals. She stopped primping her hair.

“Sick?”

“He says it’s a demon hex. Funny, isn’t it? First Jacqueline, then Cass. Now Charles and Max. Are you sensing a pattern?”

“You think it’s got something to do with Kai?”

“I think it has something to do with Kai healing me. I just need to find proof in the codex.”

After a couple of hours and half the book read, I gave up. Not before I sensed a pattern, though. Just like the Nephilim as a whole, there was no way Kai was going to admit weakness if he could help it. I would have to pry it out of him kicking and screaming.

30

Kicking and screaming was how I imagined Professor Mortimer would convince other supernaturals to assist us with our power experiment. My brows shot up to the sky when I entered the clearing around Professor Mortimer’s cottage to be greeted by a dozen or so volunteers. They stood around chatting like this was Sunday afternoon high tea and not a left-field experiment in stealing magical energy.

It didn’t surprise me that there were few students. Early on I’d worked out that their classes clashed with mine so they would need a pass to be here. With the parents kicking up a stink, that was an added barrier. Even if they had wanted to participate, the outcome was too uncertain for most to consider. I understood that.

It was the reason why my throat closed up so that I had to fight to breathe when Sophie and Diana waved at me from the huddle of students from my year level. Charles and Luther were chasing Bebe around the cottage, trying to get the grim to shift. Cassie followed slowly behind them, rubbing at her temples. Off to the right, Isla and the Evil Three were having what sounded like a heated argument with Marshall about something to do with guard rotations. There was no Emily in sight but that was fine with me.

What I never expected were the non-Bloodline people who showed up. A bulbous grin split Griff’s face at the dumbstruck expression on mine. He was in a group with Dorian, Eugenia, and Odette. They stood beside the cottage where a trestle table had been set up with refreshments.

“I know I don’t have much to offer,” Griff said upon my approach, “but I figured this isn’t just about magic.”

Swallowing the sudden well of emotion, I could only nod solemnly at him. The flap of wings broke the air beside me. Astrid landed soundlessly. “Oh good. We’re not late.”

“Isn’t this cosy?” Patricia observed. Before I could sidestep, she swept me up against her side with one chunky arm around my shoulders. “What an exciting day,” she squealed in my ear. “We’re making history!”

I shot Astrid a dirty look, but she just shrugged and moved off like she couldn’t get away fast enough. “I really don’t want this on the MirrorNet,” I started to say. Patricia crushed me hard against her.

“Of course, my dear.” Her voice was suddenly even. “That’s all fun and games but this is about more than publicity.”

She practically tossed me aside when Jacqueline and Professor Mortimer ducked out of his cottage. “Jacqui!” Patricia hollered, moving faster than I’d ever seen her go.

I cast around, frightened for a second that I had been dragged into an alternate universe. Alex strode past with a stack of forms in his arms. “You know the drill,” he shouted as he passed forms to all the adults. “It’s a basic contract consent form. What happens here, stays here.”

“Alex?”

“Busy!” He didn’t even glance in my direction.

A dusty throat cleared behind my back. I swung around on my heel and was greeted by a shrunken prune in a thick black velvet dress and a knobbly cane. “You’re kidding me!”

Victoria’s lined lips puckered. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “I’m here strictly for supervision.” I should hope so. Though I would wager that if I drew the Ley dimension around us, her aura would be one of the brightest. You didn’t get to survive that long without amassing some serious firepower. She ambled forward and stopped when we were a foot apart. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do for Andrei. But there is no need to stir up old wounds.”

Not this again. “Maybe they’re old for you, but Andrei is still bleeding.”

She regarded me with an expression I couldn’t place. “The problem with you, Alessia, is that you’re emotionally compromised. If you want to survive in this world, you have to learn to control that.”

“I don’t think surviving in this world is a long-term strategy for me.” The words popped out without filter. For some reason, my assessment didn’t elicit the satisfaction in her I had anticipated.

“We shall see.”

She fake-hobbled away and I weaved through the crowd to get to Professor Mortimer. “Ah, Alessia! Interesting turnout, isn’t it?”

I scratched at my cheek. “Umm...do we really need this many people?”

“Probably not. But it’s good to know we won’t be draining anyone if things don’t go according to plan.”

The professor clapped his hands. A hush fell over the clearing. “Alright, everyone. Thank you for being here today. I have to say, I’m elated by your willingness to participate in what might be considered a dangerous experiment.”

“Here, here!” Eugenia raised her glass. Patricia actually clinked it.

“Ladies,” Jacqueline admonished. “This isn’t a party.”

“Yes, Headmistress,” they both chimed and then giggled. I could so imagine them as naughty schoolgirls.

Professor Mortimer tugged at the sleeve of his tweed jacket and continued. “My lesson will be with Alessia and Tyler, as usual. Your role is to furnish Alessia with any additional power she might need. That won’t require any active participation on your part.”

“What happens if something goes wrong?” Odette asked.

My gut flipped in warning. The bond echoed with a resounding clarion call a second before footsteps trod on the grass. Kai’s iced-over voice spoke up from behind me. “It won’t.”

He didn’t linger but went to join Astrid. I breathed in through my mouth and shoved at the bond in an effort to clear my head. Patricia waved frantically at me, but I grit my teeth and diverted my attention to the professor.

“Ignore everything but the lesson,” he said.

“Believe me, I intend to.”

“If everybody could move back to give us some space, that would be greatly appreciated.” The crowd dispersed to create a clear, open space where the professor and I usually had our lessons. Tyler went around the space drawing a faint line of white with rock salt from a leather sack.

“Just a little something to amplify the experiment and keep out anything unwanted,” he said. Needless to say, I was beginning to freak out a little.

The professor must have sensed it because he smiled encouragingly at me. “This is no different to any other lesson we’ve had,” he said. This was immediately contradicted by him offering me a vial of lilac potion.

“What’s this?”

I balanced the vial delicately in my hand. Supernaturals weren’t so keen on plastic. The artificial qualities of it messed with their magic. Most of their implements were made of glass. It made storing dangerous potions very precarious. “In order to help activate your ability to siphon magic, we’re going to need to suppress your power for a little while.”

My palm grew damp. “Umm... are you sure that’s okay? My magic is a bit volatile right now.”

“Let’s try it and see. If it gets too hard, we can reconsider.”

With my tongue feeling too big for my mouth, I uncapped the vial and swallowed the contents. It tasted like grass and immediately made me want to upchuck. Not something befitting a hedge witch at all.

“I don’t suppose I can have a glass of water?”

“Not just yet.”

He took a few steps back. Alarm pressed over my chest. The first inkling that something wasn’t quite right appeared in the form of profuse sweating. I was standing perfectly still under the temperature-controlled atmosphere of the Academy, but I was roasting. Sweat trickled down my brow. Inside, the potion slithered through my body until it came into contact with the pools of magic. Rather than interact with them, the potion acted like a slick of oil in water. It spread out in a sheet of lilac that covered the top layer of the pool.

“Try and reach for your magic,” the professor urged.

Glancing inside, I summoned some hedge magic. The pool undulated. A swell of magic rose up until there was a column encased in lilac. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the magic to break through the layer of potion. At least not without considerable effort and the potential of sweating through my shirt.

“No go,” I reported.

“Fantastic. Alright, let’s begin by dropping into the Ley dimension. Tyler, if you could please create a flame.”

Ignoring the riveted attention of the crowd, I sat down in the grass and closed my eyes. Even with my magic muffled, it didn’t take additional effort to slip into the Ley dimension. The sight was tied to my bone magic, but unlike its physical manifestations, it couldn’t be extinguished. Sometimes, as I lay awake at night and fretted about the erosion of my powers, it was the only thing that kept me from losing my mind.

“Familiarise yourself with the aura of those around you,” Professor Mortimer instructed.

As suspected, I could pick Victoria’s silver bauble out of the line-up. The magic of her star was quietly contained, but there was a pulse of red at the centre that fractured into tendrils like the throbbing of a heartbeat. It made me shudder knowing that if she chose to compel me one day, I would have absolutely no defence.

Sometimes, when I was stuck in Rivia waiting for Basil or Sophie to get done in a store, I would slip into the Ley dimension and just watch. By now, I had a pretty thorough understanding of the levels of power an aura emitted. My breath caught in my throat at the staggering potential in the group around me. Griff had been right. His magical affinity was the dimmest, but in comparison to other para-humans I had come across in my travels, he was a giant.

But it was minuscule compared to the yellow orb that shouted at me from the corner of my eye. Unable to stand the distraction any longer, I allowed my magical sight to pan in the direction of the tugging and found myself staring into Cassie’s aura.

Once, our connection had been a tiny spark barely visible in my web. Now, her light, a pale buttercup yellow, was brighter than the sun. Confused, I drew her section of the web closer only to find that it suddenly dimmed and shrank as a coating of green encased the yellow and leeched it of its light. The green contracted around Cassie’s aura until it condensed into nothing more than a small globe in line with the rest of the crowd.

Professor Mortimer’s voice distracted me from investigating it further, but I filed the question away for later. “Now,” he said, “do you remember how you siphoned magic that first time?”

It had less to do with memory and more to do with desperation. But the basic blueprint of how I’d done it was still there.

“I think so.”

“Let’s start with a simple task. Tyler is going to light a flame once more. I want you to use borrowed power to extinguish it.”

Coming up beside the professor, Tyler clicked his fingers and a puff of smoke wafted up from the grass. It chewed up oxygen and grew until it became a steady, crackling fire. The grass was too damp for the flame to get out of control without magical assistance, but the hedge witch in me cringed at the scent of burning grass. “Whenever you’re ready,” the professor encouraged.

The Ley dimension slipped around me with barely a thought. I clucked my tongue, trying to dredge up memories of how I’d borrowed power before. At the time, I had been stabbed and almost buried alive. My magic was running on empty and I had no other choice. If I hadn’t borrowed power from the supernaturals around me, Kai would have died.

Back then, the supernaturals had lent me their power willingly. What the professor wanted was for me to take it forcefully. It would be easy enough. My bone magic was a natural conduit inside the Ley dimension. It was made of the same connections that held the web together. All I would need to do was tug and the power would surge. The ease of it was part of the problem. Something about that didn’t sit well with me.

The minutes ticked by.

“Alessia?” Professor Mortimer’s patient voice prodded.

“I…”

A derisive cough sliced through the crackling of the flame. Even if I hadn’t been in the Ley dimension and seen Giselle’s aura appear inside the circle, I would have felt the circle itself morph from a simple containment circle to something more sinister. I’d felt the same deep aching chasm before when I’d passed through the soul gate at Terran. This circle was drawn outside of where I was sitting. It cut me off from the supernaturals. A dozen or so smaller flashes of aura materialised around her.

“Oh my Gaia,” I heard Sophie say. “That’s disgusting.”

My eyes peeled open to a personal nightmare. Giselle had managed to phase inside the circle Tyler had constructed. She stood in a fighting stance where the flame had been a minute earlier. And she’d brought friends. A dozen huge Tasmanian Devils scampered around her feet. They were an Australian icon, but as far as I was concerned, they were just big rats with short tails. Their faces were covered in pink welts. The gnashing sound they made sent spine-tingling shivers across my skin.

“What the hell is this?” Dorian remarked. He pressed his hand against the soul circle.

I tried to offer a warning. “Don –”

The soul magic lashed out, throwing him back three metres. If he wasn’t a shifter, he would have landed on his ass instead of in a catlike crouch. Gold rolled over his eyes.

“Giselle!” Jacqueline called out. “We have a contract.”

The mind witch gave no indication that she heard or cared. Her concentration was locked on me. Mine was doing that thing where you saw a car crash and couldn’t look away. Waves of irrational terror beat at me. The noises the Tassie Devils made felt like they were scraping my skin and making my molars ache.

“This is what happens in war,” Giselle said ominously. My dignity fled the scene and I squealed thinking she was going to release the devils. Instead, she waved her hand in a small circle in front of her. I was dragged into the Ley dimension against my will. Just in time to watch her pick apart the last stitch from the soul of one of the devils. The animal gave a terrified, painful shriek that turned my gut to jelly. I fisted my hands against the lawn, trying to draw comfort from nature. But my hedge magic was on lockdown.

Free of its earthly body, the soul of the devil became an ochre globe. Without warning, Giselle launched it at me. The soul fireball slipped clean through Tyler’s original circle. It would have hit me if I hadn’t jumped clear. Not clear enough. When the fireball reached the spot where I’d been, it exploded in a rush of pure energy. The earth groaned beneath my feet as I threw my arms up to shield my face. Heat scalded my forearms and exposed skin. I coughed as ash invaded my lungs. When the smoke cleared, there was a metre crater in the ground.

“Are you nuts?” I screamed.

The supernaturals tried to dismantle the soul circle from the outside but it rebuffed them the same way it had Dorian. Distantly, I was aware of Kai’s aura glowing with calm interest. Somewhere along the line, he had decided that I needed to be trained at all costs. Otherwise, he would be the first one beating down the door. Something about that scraped me up the wrong way.

Without meaning to, I latched on to the essences of the supernaturals around me and tugged. With the Ley sight, I saw the energy chase along the web leading to me and then coming to a screaming halt against the soul circle. The magic careened in on itself like a crumpling accordion. Dammit! I had done what Professor Mortimer asked, but a soul circle didn’t permit supernatural energy to pass.

In my mind’s eye, I saw Giselle’s deranged grin. Forgot how a soul circle works, huh? she thought in my head. Let’s see if there’s any bark behind that bite.

She raised both hands this time. One by one, the devils were divested of their souls. Each petrified yelp branded itself on me. I didn’t love them, but they didn’t deserve to be used as maniac fodder.

“Stop messing with me!”

Start embracing what you are!

She tossed the souls at me. They shot out like dodgeballs, hitting the circle and exploding in a shower of ochre light. My head rang from the sound of earth groaning. The charred roots scraped up against me, each little shoot of grass a tiny echo of despair. One after the other, Giselle launched the souls at me. I managed to dodge the first few, but after executing a backwards limbo that almost snapped my spine, I was at the end of my tether.

Gritting my teeth, I cast the Ley dimension around me. A soul fireball came speeding towards my right. I jumped at the last second, but instead of allowing it to smash into the side of the circle, I scooped it up and funnelled the energy into the webbed lines around me. With deliberate calm, I marched towards her. A single slap of my hand was all it took to break the circle where she stood. Suddenly, she was a mere foot in front of me.

We both phased at the same time. Her spirit brushed against the edges of my Ley sight. I clamped down, reinforcing the strength of my aura. Instead of draining power from the supernaturals, I strengthened their connections as a way to mask my presence.

Weeks of being abused culminated in a single shot of vile rage. It gave me speed I never knew existed. Setting aside all uncertainty, I latched on to the root of her soul and jerked it backwards. Giselle gave a short gasp. She began to unravel. If I wanted to, I could tug and her soul would come apart in my hands.

Satisfaction bloomed in the mental connection between us. I knew if I killed her, the psycho would be vindicated. Reaching out with my left fist, I smashed the soul circle to smithereens. A trio of shrieks erupted amongst the group of supernaturals. That’s right, ladies, I see you.

As I allowed the Ley dimension to disperse, the Evil Three rubbed at their temples like their minds had been scorched. Once a Terran, always a Terran. Still holding Giselle’s soul in my grasp, I knelt down beside her twitching body.

“Not so funny anymore, huh?” I said.

But in my mind, her soulless laughter rang out. Disgusted, I put her back together. When she was whole, Giselle propped herself up on her elbows.

“Easy, wasn’t it?” she said. “Like slipping on a favourite glove. Deep down, Alessia, you were made for this.”

I punched her in the face.

31

For three days, I walked around with a satisfied smile as I relived clocking Giselle. Sure, my fist ached and Sophie had to poultice it up, but it was worth it. Not only that, she got a royal dressing down from Jacqueline and Professor Mortimer. At out next training session, she arrived escorted by a pair of Nephilim guards. Her only redemption was that the lesson had been a twisted success.

The afterglow of my victory leeched away a week later when Peter announced in Herbology that we would be spending our lesson in the Grove.

The problem became evident when we reached the gate and I stopped dead. The layer of magic erected specifically to keep me out brushed up against my skin like an icy finger. It was impossible to keep my mood buoyed as the other students trudged past. Emily gave me a backward glance but didn’t stop. She clutched the strap of the heavenly blade reassuringly.

“Ahh, Peter.” I pointed at an imaginary line on the ground.

Peter stroked him chin. “Hmmm. I thought for sure you would have worked out your differences by now.”

“What about them makes you believe they are logical creatures?”

My point was proven with the appearance of the purple nymph who screeched at me from behind the gate. If I didn’t get the picture before, it was crystal clear now. No Alessias allowed.

Thalia tapped her foot lightly. “Alessia is still a student. Whatever issues you have with her, she needs to be able to access the Grove for her lessons.”

There was a tense moment when Thalia held the purple nymph’s gaze. The nymph’s glamour flickered to reveal snippets of an elongated face and spiny claws. Her lips peeled back from her teeth. It was a terrifying sight. Sadly, in this dimension, the nymphs were still susceptible to the will of the Fae. The chill of the barrier cracked and began to thaw until I could no longer feel its icy kiss against my skin.

“Come, Alessia,” Thalia bade me forward. She raised a condemning finger at the purple nymph. “No tricks, please.”

Gaining entry should have given me a sense of satisfaction, but as I followed Thalia to the Arcana clearing, apprehension washed over me. Had it always been that simple for the Fae to overwhelm the nymphs or was it just Thalia’s power? I remembered what Kai had said to me about their predicament, and my irritation turned to pity.

A couple of hours of hard labour cured that right up.

“What’s been going on around here?” I complained. “The place is a mess!”

Isla was trying to drag the embedded root of a sorrel plant out of the ground. Her gloved hands kept slipping and ripping off leaves instead. Unlike the Fae forest, the Grove and kitchen gardens both has strict rules against magical interference. Isla snatched off a glove and smacked it on the ground a couple of times. It was during lessons like this that I was grateful I only had human strength. It was the fifth stem and root she’d snapped. Now she had to use her fork and trowel to carefully dig the root out without leaving any behind. Sorrel plants burrowed deep into the earth.

“I don’t care what you have to do,” Isla huffed. “But you better fix this situation right now. You call this Herbology? It’s just slave labour. One restoration spell and this could be fixed.”

The pink nymph snapped her teeth at us.

“Can you lay off the Fae magic when we’re around them? I’m in enough trouble as it is.” I struggled with my own burdock root. “Seriously, did somebody actually plant weeds in here or what?”

Diana snickered. “I think you should ask your fellow humans.”

I glanced at where the Evil Three were wrestling with a patch of spear thistles. They were in detention for helping Giselle with her stunt. But they took it with better grace than I would have. Nah, couldn’t be them. Rachel had taught them better. I surveyed where Emily was cutting the grass with the heavenly blade. Great. She was using a one-of-a-kind weapon as a hand sickle.

“So, they got her despite your warning, huh?” I asked Isla.

The Fae scrunched her nose. “She can’t say no to anything. And she’s scared of them, so she’ll do whatever they say. I turned my back for a second and they contracted her.”

“She seems to be handling it well enough.”

“That’s because she’s harmless. They treat her like a pet.”

“Maybe you should try that tactic, Blue,” Diana teased.

“I’ll know for next time I get dragged into a secret supernatural society.”

Nobody was more surprised than I was that I got out of the class without having my eyeballs scratched out.

Sophie looked like that was exactly what she wanted to do to herself in our next Restricted Magic lesson. I caught her walking around outside late at night with wet hair so she could catch a cold.

She didn’t have much luck. I suspected it was all those healing potions she made and tested on herself.

True to his word, Professor Suleiman wrote the word blood in capital letters on the board when he arrived to class.

“I hope you’ve done your reading,” he said, taking a seat on his desk.

“Don’t worry about reading,” James said. “Why don’t we get Sophie to give us a quick tutorial on how to steal supernatural blood and use it for spells?”

Sophie shrank in her seat. After his clash with Charles, they both got suspended for a week. Since then, James was being especially obnoxious to distract from the fact that he’d pretty much gotten his ass handed to him by a fourteen-year-old.

“That’s enough, James. I don’t want to hear from you for the rest of the lesson.”

Half the class clapped. The professor curbed their enthusiasm with a wave of his hand. “I know this class is merely theoretical,” he said, “but remember the things you will learn here will inform you when you leave the Academy. Most of you will never have cause to deal with soul or blood magic of the restricted kind. But if you are ever unfortunate enough to come across it, you’ll be glad you paid attention. Now, blood. The texts say that all blood rituals are regulated by the council. We don’t teach blood magic at this Academy. If you choose to apply to the elite guard when you leave Bloodline, they have courses that will assist in countering the magic. Why is it such a difficult discipline to counter?”

Sophie’s hand shot up. Where I was a proponent of avoiding unpleasant things, Sophie leaned into them. “Because, like souls, all blood is different.”

“That’s right, Sophie. My blood magic rituals will be different to yours. As will everyone else’s in this room differ from each other. There are some spells that are universal like binding and compulsion spells. But there are some things one blood mage can do that another cannot. That’s why it is a discipline that takes decades to master if it is ever done at all. And why it is so heavily regulated. The Council might forgive a blood magic ritual that is done using your own blood, but stealing blood from another person and using it for a spell is strictly forbidden.”

Isla raised her hand. “How is a ritual different in this instance to a spell?”

“Good question. A spell is generalist magic. The blood used in most spells doesn’t have to come from a human host. You’ve no doubt come across spells that require a certain amount of blood, not a specific type. A ritual is very specific in nature. It is usually constructed with a certain purpose in mind. The blood then must be derived from a human host. Either the spellcaster or the one they are trying to harm.”

“What about blood circles?” Diana said. “The textbook says blood can and has been used to amplify an arcane circle in the same way as salt, but I don’t see the difference between that and using blood for any other magic.”

“What is the normal purpose of an arcane circle, Diana?”

She thought on it. “Normally it’s for protection or summoning. Sometimes for warding.”

“Exactly. Blood used for the purposes of keeping yourself safe is far different to blood used to hurt somebody else. You see the distinction?”

“I’ve seen Professor McKenna use blood in a potion,” Kieran said. “How is that permitted?”

“Professor McKenna is a certified blood magic user. All elite guards and members of the faculty must be certified. As does anyone who deals with the undead or necromancy in general. Why is that?”

Nobody knew. Aside from the creepiness of it, we didn’t have much contact with the undead. After a long moment of silence, Sophie raised her hand. The professor nodded at her. “Unlike other forms of magic,” she said, “blood retains its properties after a person dies. So, it is possible for a person who has someone’s blood to maintain control over the soul of the person who dies. A ritual like that can only be broken by a stronger magic user.”

Goosebumps pricked along my skin. “You would know, wouldn’t you?” James couldn’t help saying.

“Out!” Professor Suleiman ordered.

“What?”

The professor stared James down until the Nephilim’s face turned puce. He banged his things while he packed up and stomped out.

“I have to touch on it, Sophie,” the professor said.

Sophie sighed. She nodded and rested her chin on her crossed arms. “If you must.”

“You’ve no doubt read about the reason why Enock Mwape was listed in the Book of Beasts. His magic was unique in that he was able to transmutate blood into raw power. In that way, he was able to steal the gifts of other supernaturals. When he was caught, Mwape had the ability to shift into a jackal as well as having the vampiric compulsion gift. He was in the middle of growing a set of wings when he was finally caught. It took two squadrons of elite guards to take him down and they sustained heavy casualties. This is an extreme case, of course. Mwape’s alchemy was unique. But you see the importance of restricting blood magic, don’t you? Unlike the soul, blood is easy to come by. We bleed every day in war. If we don’t restrict the magic, there will be chaos.”

We spent the rest of the lesson going through case studies of criminals who had used blood to aid them in their crimes. There were plenty to choose from. We could take our pick from sorceresses who abducted children and drank their blood in order to stay young. Scorned mages who killed their love rivals and used their blood to trap them in this world so they could torture them after death. And my favourite, a group of rebel vampires who resented supernatural society rules and decided that they would drink from whomever they pleased. Once they were done, they warded the person’s home in blood runes that kept the scene in gruesome condition so they could come back and relive the pleasure of the kill. It made me wonder whether Andrei’s family had anything to do with the vamps in question.

Speaking of the devil often made him appear. When I arrived back at the dorm that evening, there was a message from him to return his call.

Sophie gagged. “I don’t know how you’re still friends with him.”

“Necessity!”

“Don’t lie. You like that idiot. Two crazies in a pod.” She packed her stuff. “I’m heading to the library. I want to research some more for my potions.” That was Sophie code for her wanting to get a head start on an assignment to beat Celeste. And she had the gall to call me crazy!

My spidey senses tingled out of control when Andrei accepted the call and was dressed and shaved for a change.

“I don’t know if I should be elated or concerned,” I said. “I mean, are you actually wearing shoes?”

He ground his teeth so hard his bottom jaw jutted out. “I’d hate to think what Nephilim society might be like with your rapier wit ruffling their feathers. When you’re done cackling, I’ve found something that belongs to my family.”

I wasn’t done cackling at my own wit for a while. He rolled his eyes and waited. I swallowed my amusement. “Okay, where is it?”

“It currently belongs to somebody else.”

“Huh?”

“It was one of Seb’s toys. When he grew up, my mother passed it on to a family friend and now it’s up for auction.”

The way he casually delivered that information had me frowning. “Up for auction where?”

“Ravenhall’s black market.”

“Of course it is.”

“Are you in or not?”

“Why can’t you just go on your own?”

“I may or may not be on the outs with the auctioneers. But you’re a hot ticket. You can get us in anywhere.”

I massaged my forehead. Was I really contemplating tagging along with him to the supernatural black market? “You promised,” he urged. Sophie was wrong, I despised him.

“Fine. But we better make it out in one piece.”

“Of course.”

Somehow, I didn’t really believe him.

32

The day of the auction dawned bright and sunny. I considered it a universal up-yours to Andrei. He didn’t have the decency to be irritated. As he’d predicted, he’d gotten a sufficient amount of grief when we approached the barrier to the market. As a sweetener, he had paraded me in front of the no-neck bouncers who reacted like I was royalty. We were promptly swept into the market.

Sophie scrubbed her palm over her left arm and shuddered. The pinched expression on her face mirrored my own. I wasn’t sure if it was because we were at the Ravenhall black market or if it was the overwhelming stench of the fens that did it. I suspected a little from column A and a little from column B.

The black market was no different to any of the open-air markets they had in the human world. Except that the stalls held articles for spellcasting and potions as opposed to dream catchers and – oh wait, we traipsed past a section of stalls selling dream catchers. I stand corrected.

“How’s your nose?” I asked Andrei. If the smell was this bad for humans, I imagined it was murder on his supernatural senses.

Andrei shrugged. “Dosed myself with a dampening spell before we got here.”

“Nice of you to share.”

“I wouldn’t want to take away from your first experience of the wonderful world of dark magic.” He raked his gaze over my face. “Then again, I’ve seen you take on worse.”

On my left, Sophie was fidgeting. She had a bigger stride than me but was somehow lagging a little behind. Her nose twitched and her head snapped every which way.

“You okay?” I asked her.

The disapproval she’d worn turned into an outright scowl. “This place freaks me out.” I might have believed her sentiment had her head not almost twisted off her neck as she craned behind us at the flavoured coal store. She veered off into oncoming bodies. I yanked her back beside me a millisecond before she would have crashed into a hulking para-human in nothing but a toga.

“Get a grip, Soph!”

She rubbed at the back of her neck. “This place doesn’t feel right.”

I swept my focus over the immediate area. To the naked eye, there wasn’t too much happening here that was different to the stores in Rivia. If you took away the oppressive cloud that was enveloping us, everything was peachy.

“Brace yourself,” Andrei said ominously. He placed his hand flat out in front of him and mumbled something in a dead language that I didn’t understand. Some things never changed.

I couldn’t see what he was warning us against. A dome of red light flared around his body. Sophie’s hand became a manacle around my wrist.

There was no physical line in the grass, but in two short steps, my body was coated in what felt like magical sludge. I forced in a breath even as my airways felt like they were closing. Darkness saturated the sky above, bleeding into the atmosphere until the sun became a muted orb that barely lit the way in front of us. Almost as quickly as the sensation began, the pressure on my lungs eased.

I whipped around and it was as though a veil had descended over the world. The stalls of multi-coloured crystals, earthenware pots, and fringed black shawls morphed into crumbling shanties with stained cotton cloths as walls that separated them. I gulped as I took in the severed hands of apes and para-humans on the table closest to us. Next to that was a stall made entirely of rickety shelves. Glass jars lined every free space. An eyeball hung suspended in clear liquid. It stared right at me with pale blue irises. As I watched, the eye blinked. Sophie hissed.

“What just happened?” I said, tearing my gaze away from the chubby baby hand that was beckoning me into the stall.

“We’ve entered the veil,” Andrei said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re not in Kansas anymore, squirt.”

I stamped my foot. Andrei huffed. “What do you want me to say? That we’ve stepped off the Supernatural reservation and are currently standing on what is technically a little piece of the Hell dimension?”

I balked.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “I thought that might be your reaction.” He rounded on Sophie. “Close your mouth, cupcake. You’ll catch flies.”

Sophie’s jaw snapped shut. “We can’t be here,” she bit out.

He lobbed a look of disdain her way. “If you’re afraid now, you better buckle yourself in.” With that, he turned and stalked towards a tented pavilion under the cover of a gnarled tree the size of a house. Its branches were bare and would have let in the sun if there was any to be had.

“One of these days...” Sophie imitated swinging a sword. No guesses what the target was.

I shook my head at her. “We need him, remember?”

Her nose scrunched. “I highly doubt that. I bet if you told Eugenia, she’d have taken us.”

“I would rather be here with Captain Psycho than Queen Inappropriate.”

Sophie contemplated this for a second. “Yeah, okay. I see your point.” She scrunched her eyes shut. “I’m still trying to get that image of her out of my head.”

“Good luck,” I snorted. The first week after Christmas, Eugenia had had enough of my moping about Kai and insisted we do a cleansing ritual. Sophie and I had walked in on a drunk sorceress circle where they were all naked, all screeching, and all juiced up on some pheromone potion. Eugenia had told me I needed to purge Kai from my system. Her idea of a cleanse involved replacing my memories of Kai with new ones. That was when I saw the “willing sacrifice.” He was shifter. Bear, I think. I hadn’t had time to investigate because he was waving at me with his third limb and I had bolted. Now the whole of Ravenhall was laughing at me for being a prude. So even though it seemed crazy, Andrei was the lesser of two evils right now.

Mr. Lesser Evil was glaring at us from the perimeter of the tree line. I grabbed Sophie’s arm and dragged her forward. Everywhere around us, supernaturals of all shapes and sizes were milling around. What struck me was that there were guards patrolling the market.

“I thought this was supposed to be an illegal black market,” I said as we approached Andrei.

He eyed the Fae guard who had just rounded the corner. “This is a black market. I can’t vouch for the illegal.” Though the way his irises darkened had me thinking that the really illegal stuff only happened if you knew the right people. Or a secret password. “The guards are here to make sure this doesn’t spill out into the human world,” he said. “Better to regulate a little than to have it go underground.”

A huge sandwich board sitting beside the entrance caught my attention. There were portraits of people stuck to it in three neat rows of four. At the base of each picture was a sum of money. “What are these?” I asked.

Andrei barely glanced in my direction. “Available bounties.”

That struck me as odd. “Why don’t the elite guard take care of it?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, the elite guard have their hands full. These people are petty criminals.”

I pointed at a picture of a dead-eyed man with a trim beard. “This one says he’s a murderer!”

Andrei squinted at the small writing beneath the picture. “It says he killed human criminals. That doesn’t really count.”

“I’m sure the humans think it counts.”

“At this point, if they’re not demons, it’s considered petty.”

What the heck kind of logic was that?

An announcement was made that the auction was beginning. Uncomfortable wooden chairs appeared in scattered rows. Andrei made us take seats on the right column beside the aisle. I swore I could feel a splinter trying to get me through my jeans. A goblin approached the little raised platform at the front of the tent. His skin was an oak brown with flecks of gold. Rather than pointed, his ears were rounded at the tip and singed black. Raised areas of smooth skin covered the edge as though his cartilage had been sanded down. Two auburn-haired dwarves scampered around him. One carried a lectern, and the other, a wooden box. They set the box behind the lectern. When the goblin stood on it, only his head could be seen above the lectern.

“Get a bigger box,” Andrei remarked.

“Shut up,” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, right, I forgot you’re the founding and only member of the para-human fan club.”

“Better than a vampire,” Sophie stage-whispered.

The goblin tapped a small, wooden gavel against the lectern. The noise of the crowd dimmed into a low hush as last-minute bidders took their places. A rotting-fish smell hit my nose. Sophie inched closer as a robust man in a soaking grey cloak shuffled past us. He sat down on the seat by Sophie’s left. Wood groaned. There was Neptune’s Beard seaweed clinging to his actual beard. He shifted in the too-small chair, flinging saltwater at us. I made a note to burn my clothes when we got home.

The auction got underway. A dome of white appeared above the head of each person at the auction. When they bid, the domes changed colour to represent their intentions. Gold for the highest bid, green for the last winning bid, and red for those who were in the game but not winning. At first, I couldn’t keep up because the colours would change at times when I didn’t hear a verbal bid. It took me a while to realise some of the bids were coming in telepathically.

The first few auctions were your run-of-the-mill magical artefacts. It was like a twisted version of Antiques Roadshow. I tried not to dwell on where these artefacts were extracted from. Andrei stamped on my foot when the dwarf assistants dragged in a silver cage with a knee-height alicorn inside it. The white of its hair was so bright it was almost blistering against the grey sky. There was a small bump on its head where its horn would eventually erupt. Its wings were tiny little feathered limbs on its back.

The bidding started off at five hundred manna and skyrocketed from there. I nudged Andrei with my elbow. “Don’t even think about it,” he said. “They’re a pain in the ass.”

About nine auctions in, an antique sword came up for sale. I nudged Sophie. “Could be a good ascension present for Max.”

She swallowed hard. “A gift at an ascension carries a lot of underlying implications for shifters.”

The bidding began at two hundred manna and climbed steadily higher. Way out of our price range anyway. I had my winnings from the Unity Games to fall back on, but Basil had taken it and deposited it somewhere in Rivia in case of emergency.

“Aww c’mon. So you’re not getting him a present?”

Her hands clenched. “You mean besides my dignity offered up on a silver platter?”

Jeez. Sorry I asked! I wasn’t sure what was going on with them, but something told me that the rigid shifter customs were starting to wedge their way between them. My thoughts were so full of concern that I almost missed our lot coming up for auction. Shaking myself of worry, I focused on the task at hand.

“I’ll start the bidding at five thousand manna,” the dwarf announced. I almost had a heart attack. What the heck! Sophie and I exchanged glances. Her skin was becoming bleached of colour. Five thousand! It was a bloody rattle for goodness sake. What happened to small increments?

Andrei raised his hand and the orb above his head turned gold.

“Ten thousand,” a high-pitched voice at the front of the space called out.

“What the hell?” Sophie said.

“Fifteen,” Andrei threw out.

“Twenty,” a gruff voice to the left offered.

I could barely turn my head in time to keep up. The bids came from all directions. Thirty-five thousand, forty-five. Sixty.

“Seventy-five,” Andrei snarled.

“Andrei…this is insanity. Surely Victoria will come through eventually?”

He wasn’t listening. When I turned to study him, his features had hardened into stone. His jawline could have cut diamonds. “What’s going on?”

He was too intent to answer. I focused my attention on those around us and saw more than one set of eyes watching him closely. Sophie’s fists balled where she had them rested on her thighs. As soon as Andrei made a bid, someone would up the ante. The shoe finally dropped when a lithe Fae man cast Andrei a withering glare.

This wasn’t about the item. They just wanted to get on his nerves. Saying that he was in the bad books was an understatement.

The auction was rigged. If Andrei kept going, he would lose his entire inheritance on a toy. Not a very well-kept one at that. Even from where we sat, I could see the teeth marks on that thing. If we didn’t need it for the summoning, I’d have thrown it in the trash.

Andrei wouldn’t be dissuaded. The bidding reached a hundred thousand. My head spun. I couldn’t imagine that kind of money.

“Two hundred thousand,” the Fae shouted.

Andrei didn’t miss a beat. “Three.”

I clamped my hand on his arm. “You’re being played! Take a look at them. Do you think they have that kind of money?”

His eyes had glassed over into unseeing orbs. There was only one track in his mind, and it was running steadily towards bankruptcy.

“Four hundred thousand,” a primly dressed witch in the front row piped up.

Sophie gripped the back of the chair in front of her. “This is crazy. They’re not going to stop until they’ve taken all your money.”

For some reason, her words seemed to permeate his brain. All of a sudden, I found myself locked in a red-eyed stare. Andrei brushed his palm over the back of my hand. Bid.

“Four hundred thousand and one manna,” I shouted.

Where the heck had that come from?

Sophie’s head whipped in my direction, her eyes bugging out of her head. The rest of the auction goers followed suit. I clutched at my throat as realisation caused my chest to tighten.

“You bastar –”

Stay quiet.

Stunned silence permeated the auction tent. My lower lip trembled, but no matter how hard I tried to open my mouth, it wouldn’t move. Sophie sat rigid in her chair, the dark skin of her hands gone white at the creases. She stamped her foot, but she too couldn’t speak. After what felt like an eternity, the goblin cleared his throat.

“The bid is at four hundred and one thousand manna. Going once.”

The uncertain glances the other bidders shot at each other made my eyes water. C’mon! Just one manna more.

“Going twice.”

The Fae man settled back in his chair. For goodness sake! Now I knew for certain they didn’t have the money to back it up. Couldn’t they see I was just an extension of Andrei? But for whatever reason, they were reluctant to bid against me.

“Sold to Alessia Hastings!”

We sat there through two more lots before the auction ended. The tightly wound ball of fire in my gut smouldered as each second ticked by. Only when the other patrons began to leave did Andrei finally turn to me. He snapped his fingers in front of my nose and the balled-up tension locked inside my chest released. He did the same to Sophie. I clocked him in the head, rage blunting the shock of pain that ran up my arm. He rubbed at his cheek, looking mildly concerned.

“Screw you, Andrei!”

Sophie and I got up at the same time. Andrei snagged my sleeve. “I had no other choice. They weren’t going to stop.”

I shook him off. “Bullshit. You knew exactly what was happening!”

His bewildered expression threw petrol on my blazing anger. “I didn’t have time to ask you,” he reasoned. “If they saw us colluding, they would have known it wasn’t real.”

“I don’t give a shit if they had a blade to your throat! You have no idea what it’s like to be completely helpless while somebody has control of everything you do.”

I blinked, and in my mind, I was in purgatory again, helpless as Jacob stabbed me. My jaw tensed. Tears stung the corners of my eyes.

“Lex.” His frown was quizzical, like he couldn’t work out why I was so worked up.

“Seriously, screw you, Andrei.”

My exit was cut short by a mountain of muscle masquerading as a dwarf. “Alessia Hastings?” the Mountain grunted. “Time to pay up.”

I pointed at Andrei. “He’ll take care of it.”

Another grunt. My temper was starting to make my vision blurry. A tinge of blue light lit up the periphery of my vision. Inside, the churning of the pool of magic was a warning. “You gotta pay,” Dwarf Mountain reiterated.

“I said he’ll take care of it!” My shout carried throughout the clearing, drawing the attention of the market goers. Most of them were unfazed by the spectacle until they did a double-take as though recognising me. People began to inch closer.

“I’ll pay,” Andrei offered magnanimously. Where had I left Morning Star? I was going to carve me some vampire meat.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” a voice behind Dwarf Mountain spoke. I recognised it as the auctioneer’s voice before he stepped out. His hands were clasped behind his back. It was odd speaking to somebody who was actually shorter than me. “The terms of the auction stipulate that whoever bids must pay.”

Andrei loomed. “Since when?” Oh, now he was worried, was he?

“Since we changed the fine print. It stops unsavoury characters from taking advantage.”

“What do you call what just happened in there?”

The goblin shrugged. “Everyone is responsible for their own bids. If you’ll check your passes, you will see it’s all above board.”

Andrei passed his right palm over the back of his left hand where they’d drawn a rune on us when we entered the market. When his teeth elongated, I knew we were stuck. The goblin turned to me. “If you’ll follow me, Miss Hastings, we will settle payment.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” My feet planted firmly on the grass. “I don’t want that thing, and I sure as heck don’t have four hundred thousand manna.”

“And one,” the goblin reminded me. My gratitude was understandably absent.

“I can give you the one,” I snapped.

When I tried to sidestep, two other mountains appeared on either side of me. One was a troll with snot blocking his left nostril. The other was a burly man with a scar running vertically over his cloudy left eye. For some unfathomable reason, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Across his torso was a plethora of ritualistic tattoos that pulsed with energy when I brushed my magic up against it.

“I’m afraid we can’t allow you to leave,” the goblin said. “In any case, the contract is very clear. If you default on payment, you forfeit your life and services to the Guild.”

“What friggen contract?” This was getting out of hand. I was so done with these supernaturals tricking me into things. The earth groaned beneath my feet as a tendril of hedge magic leaked from the barely contained pool.

Greed shone in the goblin’s grey eyes. “Fascinating,” he said. “You will be perfect.”

He took hold of my arm and tugged. To my dismay, my legs moved without my brain agreeing. Alarmed, my head turned from side to side, trying to piece together what the hell was happening. Andrei tried to chase after me only to be blocked by the mountains. Behind him, Sophie was speaking into a palm mirror.

“Get the hell off me!” I hissed. When I tried to pull away, my limbs felt like they were weighted down by sandbags. It called to mind the golden ropes that had appeared outside the Grove and stopped me from causing it any harm. Once again, I had been outsmarted by a contract.

Bone magic joined the hedge magic rattling inside me. The tree in the clearing shook off a layer of its branches. Roots squirmed as though brushing out the kinks of a long sleep.

Just as the tree was about to become mobile, a cloud of green angelfire soothed my nerves. The tree groaned as it settled back into place.

Kai touched down beside me, his wings retracting in a sharp snap. His eyes flicked to where the goblin had hold of me. I found myself suddenly free.

His voice was dagger-laced. “Touch her again and you’ll wish you were dead.”

There was well and truly a crowd around us now. The way the goblin cowered made me think if we were alone, he would have run. But with so many onlookers, he couldn’t back down.

“She made a deal,” the goblin said.

“The vampire compelled her.”

A shaky smile appeared on the goblin’s face. He rifled around inside the pocket of his tunic and pulled out a scroll. Unfurling it, he read:

“They who bid on any lot, whether freely or through coercion, will pay the price in coin or in servitude.” Allowing the scroll to curl in on itself when he was done reading, the goblin slapped his palm with it. “So you see, we haven’t done anything wrong. You may inspect the contract if you wish.”

Kai’s scarred brow jerked. “Whose coin does it have to be?”

“It must belong to her.”

“How much?”

“Four hundred and one thousand.”

His flat expression caused the crowd to take a collective step back. They weren’t the ones who should have been afraid. Inside the bond, Kai’s fury was directed towards Andrei. The vampire was a colossal moron, but he knew something was up because he was backing away too.

“Make the transfer,” Kai said.

The goblin’s glee was barely contained when he peered at me. “She says she doesn’t have the money. The contract is very clear.”

In my periphery, a half-dozen Nephilim guards touched down. The three mountains cast about, confusion on their dopey faces.

“I said make the transfer!”

Visibly gulping, the goblin produced a small golden abacus that he held out in front of me. “Place your palm over the counter,” he instructed.

“Ahh.” Eloquent to the last.

Kai took hold of my wrist and settled my hand to hover ten centimetres above the abacus. His grip was firm but gentle. A beam of light branched out from the abacus and scanned my palm.

“Alessia Hastings,” spoke a disembodied voice not unlike the MirrorNet personality. “Account number two, two, eleven, two, zero, two, zero. Rivia Bank, insufficient funds.”

Oh brother. I could have told them that. I’d won ten thousand manna at the Unity Games and had thought it was a fortune. This was on another level. But the voice continued.

“Alessia Hastings-Pendragon, Seraphina Vault, account number three. Transfer initiated.”

The beads on the abacus started to rattle as they slid from one edge to the other. The goblin’s wide-eyed disappointment was overshadowed by my mute disbelief.

“Kai...”

He imitated stone. I bit my tongue as I wrestled with what was happening. When the last bead stopped moving, the light faded. Kai let go of me and inclined his head. The Nephilim guards descended on the goblin and the mountains. I’d never seen a crowd disperse so quickly. It felt like I’d blinked and the market was deserted.

While the Nephilim guards snagged the auctioneer and his compatriots, Kai turned on his heel to face Andrei.

The vampire was impassive. I supposed it was better than a smirk. “You should get that stick up your ass checked –” Andrei started to say.

Kai slugged him.

33

I didn’t even have the presence of mind to scream. Sophie reacted for both of us, jumping wide and stepping quickly to my side. There wasn’t really any need for alarm. Andrei went down and didn’t come up again. Exactly how much had Kai held back during the games? Kai crouched beside Andrei’s crumpled body, grabbed hold of the front of his shirt and teleported them both away.

“Uh oh,” Sophie said. “Kai’s going to kill him.”

“I hope so!” I’d given Andrei a free pass on the compulsion during the games, but messing with me just to get his way wasn’t cool.

She rubbed my back. “I had to call him.”

“I know. I just wish...” There was no point even voicing everything that was racing through my mind. “I owe him four hundred thousand manna.”

“And one,” she piped up. I made a face at her. “I don’t think he’s worried about being paid back.”

I stood there rubbing my temples. All of this for a stupid, cheap rattle that I no longer even wanted. After Andrei compelled me, my enthusiasm for helping him had withered. But I’d just lost a fortune and I intended to at least claim my prize. A prize that was rapidly being carried off by a Nephilim guard as they began to dismantle the auction set.

“Hey!” I called out, racing along until I caught up with the guard. “That’s mine.”

He frowned. He was young. Probably just a little older than Kai. “We’ve been instructed to acquisition all property for the hearing.”

I took in a slow breath. “I just paid a lot of money for that.” I pointed to the rattle sitting on top of the box he carried. “I’m not leaving here without it.”

To my utter amazement, he bent his knees and lowered the box in front of me. Sophie snatched the rattle when I stalled. “Thank you,” she said. He nodded and returned to his contraband goods acquiring.

“What?” I stuttered.

“I think it’s the Pendragon effect,” Sophie informed me.

I grabbed her and we teleported the hell out of there. Back in the dorm, Sophie set the rattle down on my bedside table and plonked herself on my bed. Adrenaline made me jittery. The merciless darkness that crossed Kai’s face played over in my thoughts.

“You don’t think Kai is really going to kill him, do you?”

Sophie’s deadpan expression was my answer. “Andrei almost got you contracted as a slave to the auctioneer. I think he’s already dead.”

My irritation at Andrei festered into concern when I tapped the bond and couldn’t trace Kai’s location. Worry lined my features when I slapped my hand on the mirror. “Victoria Amos.”

It was hard not to shudder when Victoria’s stern face appeared. Neither of us spoke for a full ten seconds, the novelty of the call surprising us both. Just about when it got way awkward, I managed to compose myself.

“Kai currently has Andrei in an unknown location. I can’t be sure what he’s doing to Andrei.”

Victoria’s lips puckered. “Was it justified?”

I recounted what happened. She made a parched hissing sound before cursing in an unknown Eastern European language. “There isn’t much I can do at this point.”

“What if Kai kills him?”

There was no change to her demeanour. “Maybe that will finally get it through Andrei’s head that he can’t keep going for the rest of his life as if nothing matters.”

“You have to do something!” My voice was incensed.

“Do you think I haven’t tried?”

“Try harder.”

She regarded me with what I thought might have been amusement. “It’s too bad you will never bear children,” she said. “I would so love to revisit this conversation with you then.”

“Well then, I suppose we’ll never know.”

“This is a perfect example of how you allow your emotions to rule you. Andrei doesn’t have that problem. His family –”

“Sorry, but I’m calling bullshit.”

Her eyes could not have widened farther. For a second, the dull quality of them darkened with flecks of red. “If Andrei didn’t care, he would have ended it years ago. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t act out in the hope of somebody calling him out on it. He’s many things, but uncaring? I don’t think so.”

She glanced furtively at me. “And even after the compulsion, you’re still worried about him?”

My top lip curled. “He can go to hell for all I care! I’m worried about what Kai is doing to him. And what that will do to Kai when he finally calms down and sees sense.”

She watched me with sharp shrewdness that said she didn’t believe me. “Malachi will do what’s necessary.”

“If only you had the same faith in Andrei.”

Sensing that we were getting nowhere, I ended the call. Durin was less than ambivalent when I called him to ask for help locating Kai. But he did concede that Kai might not be in his right mind at the moment.

“You know how to cure that, don’t you, lass?” he drawled.

“Don’t make me try and assassinate you a second time.”

His answering grin made me grind my teeth. That was until he yawned like he hadn’t slept properly in an age.

“Are you okay?” I felt like a broken recording.

“Aye. The borders of the Reserve are swarming with those human soul fissures. More each day. The low demons flock to them like ants on a carcass.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. He saw the flash of worry and waved it away. “It’s nothing you have to concern yourself with. I’ll have Max and Alistair scout for Kai. If we find him, you’ll be the first to know.”

The MirrorNet got there before Durin could. Four days later, I was in the middle of trying to balance the properties of a mind protection potion when Kieran let out a guffaw. He had a hand mirror stashed under the desk and he was choking on laughter.

“What gives?” Dev asked. They gathered around, and soon, Dev was shaking his head.

“How the mighty have fallen,” Sasha agreed.

“Boys,” Professor McKenna warned.

They promptly returned to their potions but not before the rumours had sparked. While Professor McKenna was occupied helping Orla with her potion, Kieran walked past my station and slid the mirror across the table to me.

Picking it up, I waved my hand across the reflective surface and dialled the volume down. The image that appeared had the knot in my chest winding tighter. Any relief I would have felt that Andrei was alive fled at the sight of him battered, bruised, and literally nailed to a cross. Not just any cross either. Romanian vampires were oddly religious. It had something to do with their belief that they were divinely created as a warrior race to purge their dimension of the unrighteous.

Kai spat in the face of that belief by nailing Andrei against the cross of the highest church he could find. It was daylight in Romania. Andrei wore no light amulet. Vampires weren’t as susceptible to iron as the Fae, but the blunted head of the stakes buried through his palms and elbow joints were caked in blood.

“At least he’s not dead,” Sophie said when we met for dinner.

“Not yet,” Sasha added. A smile tugged at his lips.

“You think it’s funny?” I asked.

“I think he deserves more. I’m surprised Kai didn’t just snap his neck.”

“It has to be pretty painful up there.”

“So what? He’s a vamp. He’ll survive the pain and the injuries if he gets down soon enough.”

“You don’t like him.”

Sasha pinned me with his eyes and then shackled my wrist with cool fingers. “What’s there to like? In all the time we’ve known each other, how often have I decided it’d be funny to compel you?” He didn’t wait for me to give the obvious answer. “We all brushed off what happened in the games because we thought it was strategy. But the next time he makes you do something you don’t want, I’ll rip his heart out.” He glanced behind me. “Trey’s coming. Don’t mention it or he’ll lose his shit again.”

We dropped the topic, but Sasha’s words continued to ring in my ears. And then it was drowned out by caustic relief a day later when I turned the corner to the illusion training room and spotted the figure waiting for me by the elm tree.

Kai leaned with his back to the trunk, his right leg bent and pressed against the tree for support. A phantom force caught hold of me in a cosmic compulsion that had nothing to do with mind control.

I rubbed my left arm absently when I reached him, careful to keep a wary distance, I distracted myself by asking a stupid question.

“Are you okay?” Seriously, I needed to get a placard made and just hang it around my neck.

His reach was almost hesitant, but when his fingers curled around my upper arm, I allowed him to draw me against his chest. The bond flared with an intense flutter that made my stomach dip. “Are you?” came Kai’s response.

I looked up into green eyes backlit by gold. Swallowing down the urge to get up on my toes so that I could press my mouth to his, I nodded.

“I was worried you’d come back without the ability to speak,” I said. “Only grunts and snarls. Good job on the restraint –” His fingers dug into my arm. Not hard enough to hurt me but a frightening reminder that his control was absolute. That he chose when to allow himself off the leash, and when he did, Andrei would be begging for death.

“Killing him would be so easy,” Kai seethed. “That’s exactly what he wants. I’m done pandering to him. If I gave him what he deserves for what he did to you, he would be dead a hundred times over.”

“You did hit him pretty hard...”

“He doesn’t know the meaning of pain. If he returns now, how would you react?”

There was no question. “He would become very well acquainted with Morning Star.” His other hand came up to rest on my waist. He held me there tentatively, searching my face. It occurred to me that if I showed fear, Andrei would be dead for sure.

“You’re angry?” he asked.

I sputtered. “Angry isn’t the half of it. He compelled me! Again! I was helpless.” There I was again, unable to move as Jacob came closer with that blade. The bond flared in recognition. “I can’t be help –”

Kai clenched me to him, his arms tightening around me. He held me in place until the uneven thudding of my heart slowed. “Do you think there is anything I can do about my susceptibility to mind control?” I squeaked.

His thumb ran along the line of my jaw. For a second, I forgot to breathe. He tilted my head up and cupped my face in his hands. “I’ve searched,” he said, eyes soft to cushion the blow. “Professor Mortimer thinks that the reason you’ve managed to integrate so easily is because you’re predisposed to being convinced. You want to believe. It opens you up to being compelled. Unless we take away your free will completely, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“But that means any vampire can just force me to do what they want.”

The muscles in his forearms strained but his hold on me remained supple. “There is one way.” A loaded pause. “Nephilim have a high tolerance against compulsion. I’m impervious to it.”

The implications of his words chased through the bond. It held the knowledge out beseechingly. Like I needed further enticement!

“No.”

“Blue.”

“No!”

His jaw clamped. All of the tentativeness leeched away and was replaced by autocratic dominance. “When you accept the bond, you’ll be protected from compulsion.”

“When?” In his mind, it was a foregone conclusion. The target of my rage shifted. I tried to pry his fingers off, but they were planted well and good. “Let me go.”

The green in his eyes smouldered. “You spend all your energy fighting a bond that will do nothing but benefit you,” he snarled. There it was. I knew this calm couldn’t last forever. “But Andrei compels you against your will and you still feel bad for him.”

I cast around for something to club him in the head with. Weeks of pent-up retorts tried to spill over my lips, but I scooped them up and locked them back down. My relationship with Andrei was complicated. All Andrei needed was someone not to give up on him entirely. Andrei had to compel me to get me to do what he wanted. It was artificial, unnatural, and ultimately worthless.

The way I felt about Kai was the exact opposite. Every waking second, I had to fight against the pull of the bond and my own desire to give in to it. The moment I stopped fighting, it would overwhelm me, and I wouldn’t even feel guilty because it felt right.

On balance, I would rather be compelled. At least I would be oblivious.

Reaching up, I settled my hand over his. “I’m going into training now,” I told him. “You’re going to let me go, because even though it’s hard, it’s what I want.”

His hands peeled off with only slight resistance. I broke away and stepped back. “It doesn’t have to be hard, Blue.”

I snorted. “Everything is bloody hard!”

He didn’t follow me into the training centre. For the first time, I welcomed Giselle’s barbed insults and underhanded punches. The pain when she smacked me in the chin was negligible compared to the throbbing ache in my chest.

“You’re distracted!” she hissed.

“Thanks for the running commentary.”

I ducked her next swing and kicked out, planting my knee right into her gut. Her breath came out in a rush. She rolled to create some distance between us. “At least you’re not pulling punches again.”

No, I was not. Right now, I really needed to kill something.

The workout hardly eased all of the pent-up emotion eating at me. I tossed and turned for hours, making a mess of my sheets. Though I knew the Academy was temperature controlled, my skin felt like it was burning. Dammit! Relief that Kai was back and frustration at the relentless insistence of the bond warred against each other in my thoughts. I would give anything to be compelled not to feel this way.

Unfortunately, Sasha had already informed me that a compulsion would only blunt my understanding of what I was feeling. It wouldn’t stop me from actually wanting Kai. The bond would still be there, and Kai would still want me.

“In that state,” Sasha had said, “you’d have no context about why you’re fighting the bond and you’ll more than likely just give in.”

I had huffed. “You don’t know that!”

He smirked. “Right. Because women say no to Malachi Pendragon all the time.”

Witching hour came and went without relief. Finally, sick of trying to sleep, I got up and changed into sweats. Exhausting myself was a last resort. Phoenix and the yowies found it amusing to nip at my heels as I ran laps around the billabong. Months of physical training had improved my stamina. It meant the satisfying burn in my chest didn’t happen until the tenth lap. I took in long breaths of cool, sulphuric air, focusing on the scent to distract me from the bond.

For once, the universe took pity on me. As I rounded the path leading to the Grove for my twelfth lap, an eardrum-bursting scream broke the silence. My heart jerked in my chest. It was followed by a chorus of equally skin-peeling screeches. I stopped dead in my tracks and veered off towards the Grove.

Grabbing onto the hedge magic as I reached the gate, I funnelled it into a thin blade and sliced through the barrier attuned to me. The spell shattered. Leaping over the gate, I tried not to wince at how easy that had been. Unsure what I would be walking into when I reached the clearing, I threw a protection circle around me and slowed to a jog.

Red and yellow streaks shot by me. Apprehension made my steps tentative. For weeks I had been Grove enemy number one. That they were effectively ignoring me was a bad sign. I hit the edge of the Arcana tree clearing and everything fell away into a pool of despair at my feet. No!

My chest ached. For over two years, I had laboured almost every day to help the Arcana trees grow. Now, in place of two trees that glowed with health, were two withered, broken carcasses.

34

The nymphs sagged on the grass around the blackened trees. Their wings were limp and drawn close to their backs. High-pitched keening sounds came from their throats.

“What happened?” I hissed.

The purple nymph rose from the pile of mourners. My circle was still intact, but she was in no state to attack. Footsteps crunched on the path behind me. A voice I didn’t recognise called out. “What’s going on here?”

Three Nephilim guards appeared around me. I didn’t know them. The male closest to me tried to grab my arm but he was rebuffed by the circle. I glared at him, in no mood to be manhandled while my brain was still trying to come to terms with what I saw.

The purple nymph sailed up to my eye level. Her glamour flickered between unattainable beauty and hideousness. And then it all fell away as she succumbed to a wave of hacking sobs. I dispensed with the circle and held out my hand. She landed on it, curling herself into a ball and bawling her heart out.

Tears pricked my eyes.

“Make some space, please.” The firm command of Thalia’s voice was a stark contrast to her politeness. She drew up beside me and gasped. “Heaven’s above.”

Peter arrived a second later with Jacqueline and Professor Mortimer. Over the sound of them rustling about, I heard low voices murmuring in the distance. Half the Academy must be awake.

I braced for the inevitable, but the slug of awareness was no less harsh when Kai teleported in. His eyes were bloodshot. Any satisfaction I would have felt knowing he hadn’t been able to sleep either was muffled by purple nymph’s agonised wailing. She left my palm and flew at Kai. Several of the other nymphs joined her. He lit up like a Christmas tree leaking angelfire and enveloped them in comfort.

I crouched down to where Thalia and Peter were poking in the dirt of the original Arcana tree. A light green tinge shone off Thalia’s palm.

“Anything?” I asked.

Her mouth was a razor line. “Not that I can tell. It’s not poison or high magic.”

Peter placed his palms on bare earth. As he flooded it with hedge magic, I felt a corresponding tug in my gut. For several minutes, I sat there in a meditative state, trying to contain my magic so that it wouldn’t interfere with Peter’s investigation. When his eyes finally blinked open, I deflated.

“It’s not earthly in origin either,” he pronounced.

Disturbed, I found myself dropping into the comforting sight of the Ley dimension. The Arcana trees had once been two bright orbs of multi-faceted light. Now there were just gaping black holes where they stood. Not only that, all around the clearing, sections of the grass were almost emitting a faint, black ooze. I hadn’t been inside the Grove for weeks, but I would bet the grass was also dying.

I reached out with a sliver of bone magic and brushed it against the side of the black darkness.

My scream was no less ear-splitting than the nymph’s. I doubled over, gasping as a thousand needles burrowed into my skin. The agony was acute and throbbing in intensity. I had felt that pain before.

Somebody grabbed my arm and wrenched me away from the orb. The pain threw off the Ley sight. I took in sharp, ragged breaths as Kai blanketed me in angelfire. It eroded the heat lapping at my nerves until I was able to stay upright on my knees without Kai propping me up. The nymphs swarmed my vision. Jacqueline crouched down beside me.

“Lex?” she asked.

I turned towards the multi-coloured nymphs. “Has Emily been using the heavenly blade to prune the Arcana tress?”

Speaking the question aloud cemented the theory in my mind. Like a butterfly, the Angelical word etched on the side of the blade fluttered up: Anhiliah. Destroy. The blade had taken away my ability to bear children. And now it had killed the Arcana trees. What kind of messed-up weapon was this?

The implications of my question dawned on the nymphs. Their pained cries morphed into molten rage. Before they could fly away and launch an attack on poor, unsuspecting Emily, Thalia latched on to them with her magic. She cast a mint-green net around them, securing them to the spot.

“There’s no point in trying to punish, Emily,” Thalia said. “She didn’t know what she was doing.”

We didn’t even have to verify that theory. Emily was completely clueless when Jacqueline asked Astrid to fetch her. That she’d heard a wailing scream in the night and chose to stay in her room said it all. When she entered the clearing through the parting of guards and professors, her face was already sheet white. As her gaze hit the dead Arcana trees, she started to shake. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean to,” she cried, wiping hastily at her face. “I’m not good with plants, but they kept insisting that I help. The tree is so tough. Nothing else would work.”

Half of what she said didn’t make any sense. The Arcana branches were as supple as any other tree. Slave labour from the Herbology students ensured all the tools in the shed were kept in optimal condition. Thalia saw my perplexed expression.

“You don’t know,” she said. I frowned. “The Arcana doesn’t just allow anyone to touch it. Only you, Peter, and the nymphs have been able to take care of it.”

So when Emily began cutting the tree with the heavenly blade, the nymphs had assumed she would make a good fit to be my successor. Of course, they took no responsibility for their stubbornness. Inch by serrated inch, the nymphs’ claws began to grow. Sensing danger, Emily cowered. “Perhaps we should go back to bed,” Jacqueline announced. She bundled Emily away. With them went the Nephilim guards, leaving me in the clearing with the Herbology teachers, Kai, Astrid, and Professor Mortimer. A few minutes after they disappeared from sight, I heard Jacqueline barking orders for the rest of the students to leave the premises.

I tried to speak past the vise in my throat. “Can we revive them?”

Thalia shook her head. “We can’t do anything. We never had an affinity with it in the first place. You, on the other hand, might be able to.” She placed a hand on my arm when I stepped forward. “There is no life there, Alessia. Better to replant if you have seeds.”

The nymphs could not produce more seeds fast enough. They came at me from all sides. “I take it I’m forgiven,” I said out of the side of my mouth. This garnered a round of hisses, but nothing was thrown at my head, so I figured it was the only apology I was going to get.

It broke my heart to help Peter dig up the remains of the Arcana trees. The withered stems and trunk were brittle. They kept snapping as we worked.

Finally, when the debris was cleared away and a barrow load of fresh dirt blessed by the nymphs evened out the hollowed turf, I set to my task. Arcana seeds were the size of a fifty-cent piece and shaped like a cross between an apple and a quince seed. I brushed my fingertips over the selection the nymphs had provided and discarded the ones that weren’t viable. If only I had been able to diagnose my own fertility so easily. Picking two firm seeds, I dropped one each into the prepared holes and sat down in the grass between them.

Peter and Thalia had always taught me that forcing nature wasn’t our first preference. We were here to aid, not inflate. Nanna had said the same thing. Going against that felt strange. But when I saw the hole in the landscape, I couldn’t help wanting this one selfish thing. Not that the nymphs would have allowed me to back down.

Wrapping the Ley sight around me, I wiggled my palms into the dirt and flooded the ground with hedge magic. Tiny tendrils of blue light chased along the skeleton of the Ley lines until they reached the seeds. Being careful not to push them too quickly, I kept my magic contained to several dozen capillaries. The nymphs flew back and forth with miniature watering cans filled from the Arcana pool. They watered the earth, instilling their own magic into the trees. Once my hedge magic got going, the increased water would be necessary. The Grove seemed to sigh as the Arcana seeds swelled.

I blew out a breath when the first bud appeared, sending out its true leaves one after the others. The nymphs upped their speed. I grabbed the Ley lines and shoved magic in a steady stream. Focusing hedge magic into the earth where the life of all plants was determined, I allowed the roots to burrow deep, their feeder capillaries uncurling. The light of the Arcana trees expanded in my Ley sight. They surged upwards, eating up the space until they were almost as tall as they had once been before.

As though they were trying to make up for lost time, the nymphs continued to splash water around the leaf perimeter. Too busy forcing buds and then pollination to produce fruit, I didn’t notice the overwatering until the Arcana trees shuddered. The top branches arched up into the sky, hit an invisible barrier, and shook like they were being battered by a gust of wind. Confused, I glanced up. Had I not been in the Ley dimension, I would never have seen the flicker of silver light that settled over the tress. Nor would I have traced the line where the light originated to a gossamer thread that disappeared into the sky.

Overfed, the Arcana trees tried to keep growing. The thread pinged like somebody flicking fishing wire. On the rebound, a wave of silver snapped back, cutting the new growth where it stood.

Instead of dispersing, the silver light chased through the lifelines that made up the skeleton of the trees. The same bitter tinge of death flooded my nostrils. Unsure of what was happening, my instinct was to fight against it. Grabbing a fistful of hedge magic, I threw as much as I could to bolster the trees and stop the rot from taking hold. My magic collided with that of the phantom light. The moment it touched me, pain burst inside me once more.

My back bent as I cried out. Hot lava poured over my skin. Nausea rolled over me. I coughed and something metallic spattered from my lips. The tips of the uppermost leaves began to shrivel. Hell no!

Gritting my teeth, I pushed back against the force. My limbs tuned to jelly. Once, my magic was a force to be reckoned with. When had it been leeched so thin?

“Alessia!” Thalia said. Her hand touched down on my arm. The moment a connection was made, Fae magic flooded my senses. Without meaning to, but unable to stop myself, I grabbed hold of every aura in the Grove and used it to bolster my power. I became a lightning rod, drawing energy to me. By contrast, the silver light was a circuit breaker. It sucked up the energy I threw at it and spat out death.

Pain tormented every scrap of my nerves. I gave an agonized growl and shaped the added power into a shield. The Ley sight blurred. I could feel the blood dripping from my nose.

In the real world, I heard a feminine gasp. The sound of something cracking filled my ears. I glanced inwards. My throat locked. The midnight-blue aura that had always been mine was broken. Millions of hairline fractures decorated its exterior. Like a smashed glass glued back together. Exertion lashed at me. My cheek planted on the grass. When had I toppled over?

“Blue!” Kai’s voice was beside my ear. Angelfire lit up my insides. It ran along the seams. What he said next was muffled by another voice in my head. Her accent was Caribbean.

Anhiliah, she said. Destroy.

No!

Recrepo, I screamed back. Reflect.

My vision exploded in silver.

Everything around me turned into a spectrum of colour. Instinct kicked in. I yanked at the other auras for more power.

“Astrid!” Professor Mortimer exclaimed. I threw my arms over my head which corresponded to bracing a barrier around the Arcana trees. The thing that was fighting against me gave a bemoaned sigh and receded. Not because it wanted to, but because the bone magic lashed out against it.

The silver connection to the sky evaporated. So did the last of my strength.

35

A groan woke me. When I opened my eyes, Astrid’s wan expression was the first thing I saw before Doctor Thorne’s hulking form came between us.

Confusion made me dim-witted. “Where am I?”

“Where do you think you are?” Doctor Thorne coaxed.

I squinted as I pushed myself up and propped a pillow against my neck. There was a dull ache in the back of my head. “Well, the Spartan decor says the Academy Infirmary but there’s a Nephilim in here.”

Doctor Thorne’s lips parted into a chilling smile. “For a second there, I thought you’d come back half-witted.” He tried to hand me a foul brew. It was the colour of moss and slugs.

“Not on our life!”

A sigh. “It has been specifically made for you.”

“Tell Peter I specifically declined it.”

Not taking no for an answer, he shoved the glass at me and let go, forcing me to grab it before it fell. I held the offending thing out as he fussed over Astrid.

“Really,” she said. “I don’t need ministrations.”

“You collapsed,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but only because Alessia took too much of my power.”

Memory slammed back into place. “Oh shit!”

I tried to jump off the bed, but the sheets were tangled around my legs. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to and...” The rest was kind of hazy. Right now, I wasn’t even sure why I needed the additional power so badly. It was this uncertainty that made me give in and take a gulp of the brew. There were some things you knew you would regret right away.

As the stink of sulphur and the feeling of slime coated my throat, I gagged. Slamming my hand over my mouth was the only way I stopped myself from throwing up.

While Doctor Thorne and I had a standoff over the brew, Astrid managed what I couldn’t and extricated herself from the bed. She took a step before all colour drained from her cheeks. Doctor Thorne caught her before she crashed, easing her back down. Against the stark white of her skin, Astrid’s lips almost seemed...green.

“Neither of you is going anywhere for the next while,” Doctor Thorne announced.

“But I have a guard shift,” Astrid protested. “And I need to help with Emily –”

He held up a foreboding hand.

“Help with Emily why?” I asked. It occurred to me that Astrid had probably been lucid while I’d passed out. Which made her weakened state even more alarming. And then she sneezed, and my radar sent out alarm signals.

“Emily is adamant she wants to leave the Academy,” Doctor Thorne said.

“Wah?”

Astrid nodded. She sat on the side of her bed, her hand braced beside her for balance. “After what happened last night, she refuses to be here. Jacqueline is in a meeting with the elite guard as we speak. Between you and me, they’re not going to have much luck convincing her. She’s just too scared. It’s been weeks and she hasn’t adjusted. When I guard her, I can see her flinching at everything. Our world isn’t the right place for her.”

I leaned back on the pillow, trying to swallow the news. “But if she goes back to the human world, the demons are going to get her for sure.”

“There’s no way the Human League are going to allow us to keep her here against her will.” She shook her head and leaned over with her elbows propped on her knees. “I worry about what conclusions the Council might resort to.”

So did I. But the Council was the least of our worries. If that demon at Terran Hospital was anything to go by, it meant that Emily would be in constant danger. The problem was that she felt that way about the Academy and the supernatural world. The difference was that she also felt trapped here. At least back in the human world, things were familiar and they made sense to her.

Astrid made a faster recovery than I did. She was allowed out before noon. I was forced to stay in the bed until I gulped down every last drop of the disgusting brew. If someone had a gun to my head, I would say that it did make me feel better. After the initial reaction to the scent and taste, the herbs in the brew eased some of the dimensional dissonance that was making my vision blur. It still wasn’t pleasant.

It was almost dark when Doctor Thorne finally discharged me. “Let’s not meet in here for a while,” he said.

“I would bet on it, but I think the odds suck.”

I heard him chuckling as I pushed the infirmary doors open. Before going back to the dorms, I swung by the Grove. My memory of last night was hazy at best. If there was a chance that the thing I had seen in the Ley dimension was still there, I figured I better report it to Jacqueline. But all was quiet in the Grove. Both Arcana seeds had grown into fully fledged trees bearing ripe, golden fruit. Their leaves were a lush darker green tipped with golden green where there were new flushes of growth. As I stood there, my apprehension about last night’s events seeped away until I wasn’t even sure what I had been worried about.

The purple nymph fluttered to my side. She made an agreeable chattering noise and pointed to the trees. I didn’t understand her words, but the gist permeated the language barrier. “Oh really?” I said. “Now all of a sudden I’m forgiven?” We were joined by the pink and yellow nymphs. They hovered in a row of colour in front of me. I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Fool me once,” I told them. The answering shriek almost busted my eardrum. “Just for that, I’m leaving. I may or may not come back. It depends on how nice you are to me.”

An acorn hit me in the back of the head. It was the only one. I counted it as a victory.

Sophie and Diana jumped up from Sophie’s bed when I walked through our bedroom door. “Finally!” Sophie shouted. “I thought he was going to keep you in there forever.” She pointed at a box on my bed. “Did you hear about Emily? She left that for you.”

“And there’s some big announcement the Council are going to make,” Diana added.

It was too much information in three seconds. Feeling like I was floating, I went to my bed and picked up the note left on the box. I knew the heavenly blade was inside.

A corner of the flap was slightly askew. “Couldn’t wait, huh?”

At least Sophie had the decency to seem abashed. “You were taking forever, and they wouldn’t let us into the infirmary in case you were still stealing powers.”

“Can we please not describe it that way?”

Diana shrugged. “What does the note say?”

I sat down on the bed and opened the envelope. Inside was a note card in thick paper. Emily had beautiful script. It matched everything else about her.

“Dear Alessia,” I read. “I appreciate the sentiment, but this should never have been given to me. I’m not cut out for this dangerous world the way you are. It scares me out of my mind even though everyone tells me my mind is the one thing they can’t manipulate. If I could, I would give up this power in a second. Even though I can see the supernaturals trying to protect us, it is too easy for them to slip. I just want to go home. I know my being here hasn’t been easy for you. I hope everything that I have seen is wrong.”

I turned the card over, but the other side was blank. “She’s gone?”

Sophie nodded. “The Sisterhood have agreed to watch her closely and the elite guard will have a squad always tailing her. She doesn’t know about the last part. Mama says this is the first time ever that a human has been allowed back into their world after learning about supernatural society.”

“So now they’re using Emily as a test case? I don’t like their chances.”

“Neither does Mama. At least the good thing is that she can’t be compelled to give any information and they can’t take it from her mind.”

Diana huffed. “Don’t worry about that. All you have to do is sneeze in her direction and she’d give up everything she’s got. I don’t like it.”

Her unease was amplified by the urgent conversations of the other students in the dining hall. After stowing the heavenly blade in Sophie’s ingredients box, we’d headed out for lunch. Without Emily present, they directed their gossiping towards the closest humans. “I’m suddenly not that hungry,” Sophie said.

“I am,” I said, “but we can get out of here if you want. I need to go to Rivia anyway to pick up a present for Max.”

All of a sudden, the furtive glances we were getting were of no consequences. Sophie frowned. “You heard what I said about presents and ascension, right?”

“You’ve seen all the fuss about Kai’s bond, right?” I brushed her off. “I figure it gives me immunity to whatever unreasonable shifter mojo is flying around.”

Diana snorted. She contained her laughter after Sophie shot her a dirty look. “You know what he’d love?” Diana started to say. “If you snuck into his room and –”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll hex you so bad, you’ll be in pain for a year.” Sophie rounded on me. “Why do you want to get him a present anyway? You’ve been at each other’s throats since Christmas.”

It was difficult to explain. Ever since Charles had mentioned Max might get shipped somewhere far away, a strange ominous feeling had settled in my chest. Clearly I wasn’t one for prophecies, but the former street kid in me knew when to trust gut instinct. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was on the horizon. Not wanting to frighten anyone and turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy, I went with the easier option.

“I never got to go to Max’s graduation. I might not see him for a while. Besides, if you’re going to be stubborn and refuse to get him a present, then I figure mine will be the next best thing.”

The fork bounced off my protection circle and clanged onto the floor beside me. Sophie huffed as Diana removed the butter knife from her vicinity. I flashed Sophie a smile. “Who knows you, baby?”

I also knew that Sophie would regret this once it was over. But I had the perfect present in mind. Rivia was no less gossipy than the Academy. Conversation coming from the brew houses was also Emily related.

“You know,” Sophie said, as I stuffed a sandwich down my throat, “I don’t think this is what the elite guards had in mind when they gave you permission to use Gabriel’s Key at your discretion.”

“Stop being a party-pooper,” Diana told her. She halted in front of the shop I’d led us to. “A tattoo place?”

They both stared at me. “That’s a bit permanent, isn’t it?” Diana asked.

“That’s kind of the point.” I grabbed the door handle and ushered them inside. Strangely, it had been the scarred shifter from the black market who had given me the idea. Supernatural healing meant that human-style tattoos would never stick. The one Kai had on his shoulder was done by a script mage who had the power to embed writing on any surface. I understood the process was similar to the way Professor Mortimer placed runes around the Academy. It was less about needles and more about will. At least I hoped.

A section of the store was blocked off behind a shimmering translucent forcefield while the script mage, a robust man with arms like tree trunks and a bushy beard, worked on his latest creation. His customer was a prim Nephilim whose snooty expression was completely at odds with the full body tattoo she was getting.

“Hi. I’m Savannah. Can I help you with anything?” a girl in a pair of denim coveralls asked. She had a spiderweb tattoo on her arm. The redback spider inside the web moved up and down the thread. That was a little more complicated than what I had in mind.

Sophie walked away toward the unoccupied part of the store.

I smiled brightly at Savannah. “Could you please show me what you have in the way of enchanted ink?”

“Sure. It’s just over here.” She led me to a set of shelves beside the counter where stacks of ink were housed behind glass cases in small vials. The ink was separated into species. “Are you any good with art?”

My face automatically scrunched. She laughed. “I’m okay with words, though,” I pointed out so as not to conjure up images of me drawing a stick figure on somebody’s arm.

“Right,” she said. “What species?”

“Shifter. Lion if it helps.”

She took a few steps to the right. “What colour fur when they shift?”

The answer escaped me. “Sophie,” I called. “What colour fur does Max have?”

“Gold,” she grunted without turning around. I could have told her that. A more specific answer was not forthcoming.

If Sophie’s surliness put her off, Savannah didn’t let it show. “Why don’t we just go with an all-purpose ink just to be sure. These ones are specifically designed to work with a shifter’s natural makeup.”

“Doesn’t the ink poison their cells like silver in order to stop their regeneration properties?” Diana asked.

“In a way. It’s not as harsh as silver but the spell blocks the healing process around the area.”

“Doesn’t that create a bit of a weak spot?”

Savannah smiled. “Perhaps you can ask a shifter the next time you see one.”

I wouldn’t. Questioning a shifter’s prowess was like dangling a red flag in front of a bull.

“Any shifter who can’t take a little bit of enchanted ink isn’t fit for the name,” the script mage piped up from his chair. Oh, so the forcefield wasn’t soundproof.

“Do you need a quill?” Savannah asked.

“I’ll take everything I need to draw it myself, please.”

She added a quill, which looked mostly like a fountain pen, as well as magical sterilizing equipment. As a last-minute addition, she reached into a drawer behind the counter and pulled out a red lion-shaped lollypop. “In case they need a distraction from the booboo.”

Even Sophie couldn’t help grinning at that thought. We arrived back at the Academy before dinner. Though she had been a downer the whole trip, I shoved the ink into Sophie’s hands.

“Diana and I are going to grab dinner take-away,” I told her. “What you do with this ink while we’re gone is up to you. We don’t ever have to speak about it again.”

I shut the door on her before she could react. Diana and I ambled leisurely to the dining hall. We waited in line patiently even though Diana wanted to take cuts from her brother who was close to the front. “Stay put,” I ordered.

She sighed. “What’s Sophie’s issue anyway?”

I scrubbed at my face. “You mean aside from the raging lunacy of shifter mating rituals?”

“I know all that. The rest of us aren’t exactly puffballs either. She’s lived her whole life with wolves. Shouldn’t she know how they behave by now?”

I raised a brow. “There’s a difference between being the soft human pet in a compound of overly protective wolves, and being a contender for mate of the alpha.”

“But it’s not like he’s declared his intentions towards her. You’re further along in the relationship stakes than she is.”

We inched forward in the line. There was a lot of gossip still flying around and the dining hall workers were the glue that held the gossip together. The fact Diana of all people could be asking about Max’s intentions was a testament to how well Max had managed to keep a lid on them. And how serious they probably were.

I bit the inside of my cheek. My suspicion that the thing smouldering between Max and Sophie was verging on mating-link territory grew more solid by the day.

Proof of that winked at me in the form of a glowing pink vial of enchanted ink that had replaced the black one we’d arrived home with. It sat innocuously on my bedside table.

“I’m starving,” Sophie said.

Neither Diana nor I said a word.

36

The bulletin came just as we were getting ready for bed. Sophie joined me on my bed as Orin Harcourt’s youthful face appeared in the mirror. “I wonder if he’ll ever age?” I asked.

“Doubt it,” Sophie said. “Soon he’ll look like Brigid’s older brother.

“Creepy.”

What Orin had to say definitely gave me the creeps. First, he made the announcement that Emily had returned to the human world. He made all the reassurances that she was being monitored so she wouldn’t blab about supernaturals. The part about the Sisterhood bodyguard and the elite guard tail was omitted. Not for the first time, I was glad Nora was on the Council. We’d never get to hear the whole truth otherwise.

Orin cleared his throat. “Secondly,” he said, “since the discovery of the fissures in the veil, it has come to Council attention that mysterious illnesses have been cropping up amongst our population.”

That definitely caught my attention. “As you will know, demonic energy is poisonous to us. While the fissures are not an immediate threat, the constant ebb and flow of energy disrupts our auras. Effective immediately, containment perimeters have been set up around each of these fissures. Elite guards will now patrol the sites to ensure no entities escape from other dimensions. If you suddenly exhibit any symptoms of ill health, make sure you attend sanctuary in Seraphina as a matter of urgency. Thank you for your time.”

“Great,” Sophie said, stretching her legs. “Just what we need on top of everything else. A supernatural pandemic.”

I couldn’t swallow the story so easily. Especially not after seeing what happened to Astrid. It was too much coincidence. “You’re not going to stay up all night reading that again, are you?” She pointed to Hilary’s diary and the Nephilim Codex that I had stacked beside me on the bed.

“I can go to the library if you find it disturbing.”

“It’s not the reading that I find disturbing,” she said. “It’s the obsessive page flipping and muttering to yourself.”

I made a face. “I’ll try to keep the muttering to a minimum.”

“You do that.”

It was barely lights-out before she cleared her throat. I hadn’t even noticed I had been cursing underneath my breath. If Sophie weren’t trying to sleep, I would smack my great-grandmother’s diary against something. Preferably something hard. There was just no way to make sense of the unintelligible writing. I kept thinking if I stared at it for long enough, I would suddenly have an epiphany of some kind. No such luck.

Switching over to the codex, I read the account of all the most notable Nephilim. It was obvious that the book hadn’t been updated since just after Raphael’s line had been murdered, because none of them were in there besides Kai’s paternal aunt Rebecca Pendragon. Before the attack on Seraphina, Rebecca had been the strongest healer in their House. She had a cloud of curly, dark blonde hair and light green eyes. In her portrait, she was smiling unabashedly. It said in the description that, unlike Kai, she was especially gifted at healing humans. I couldn’t help wondering if things would be different for me if Rebecca had been around. But that was like wondering what would happen if I didn’t make any of the choices I had leading up to this point.

Unsure when I fell asleep, I awoke to the sound of an incoming call over the mirror. “What the hell?” Sophie complained. The sky outside hadn’t even begun to lighten. Pushing the heavy codex off my chest, I shuffled out of bed. Though she complained, Sophie did the same. A mirror call outside of acceptable hours could only spell trouble.

The face that stared out at me when the call connected was the epitome of the word trouble. Except I didn’t really feel like hearing it. Sophie groaned and jumped back in bed. “Hang up,” she advised me.

Andrei heard her. “Wait!” he said, voice smoky. It sounded like his voice box had been shattered and then healed poorly. I didn’t recognise the room behind him.

“What for?” I snapped.

The questioned stumped him. This close, the blisters on his face were still weeping. How long ago had he gotten down from the cross? Not that it made a difference. No apology meant no speaking to him.

“Wrong answer,” I said. His mouth opened again but still no sound. Until the door behind him burst open. It busted right off its hinges and went flying across the room. Andrei ducked, clearly still in control of his reflexes. The corner of the door slammed into Andrei’s mirror, shattering the image into a thousand fractured pieces. Sound was the only thing transmitting now. What I head was a scuffle followed by a voice I knew.

“Took you long enough to get down,” Alastair Thompson said. “A five-year-old would have been able to get out of that crucifixion in less time.”

“Get your hands off me,” Andrei yelled. It was followed by the crunch of a fist. Something thudded along the carpet and then dead air.

“Umm...” Sophie said from her bed. “Did Max’s dad just kidnap Andrei?”

I rubbed my left eye. “Seems like it.”

“Should we be concerned?”

“No.” He was alive, and he wasn’t sorry. That was all I needed to know. Now that I was up, it would be impossible to get back to sleep. “I’m going to head to the Grove.”

Sophie sighed contentedly. “Good. It hasn’t been the same since you stopped.”

The nymphs were much less appreciative of the fact that I was here of my own good will. I didn’t sweat it. They were so used to procuring labour through deception that it might take some time before they stopped worrying that I might disappear.

Charles was a font of information when he slid into the seat next to me at lunch time. “Did you hear about Andrei?” All evidence that he had gone rogue were gone. Not that I expected it to leave any scars.

“Where is he?” Diana asked because I wouldn’t.

“Doing hard time with Dorian,” Charles laughed. “Can you imagine Andrei Popescu on a shifter routine? It’s going to kill him.”

In opposition to their animal halves, the shifters were renowned for their militaristic hierarchy. Even the non-soldiers had roles within the pack. Andrei slept past noon if he slept at all. If the structure didn’t kill him, Dorian would.

Trey was less amused by the news. “Great. Now I have to see his stupid face on breaks.”

He forgot that Max’s ascension was that weekend so he would be seeing Andrei’s stupid face much sooner. All of that was pushed to the side as worry started eating at me. It had only dawned on me this morning that I had neglected to consider that Max might not want a tattoo.

“What do people normally give shifters for their ascension?” I asked Trey out of curiosity.

“Sex,” he said with a deadly straight face. I waited for the punchline but none came. Fearing that I had severely misjudged the situation, I had to bite the bullet and call Max.

He looked better, though still not a hundred percent. I didn’t mention the veil fissure thing because I still didn’t really believe the theory. Knowing better than to make another crack at his appearance, I launched right into it.

“So, you know how all you shifters are hopped up on pheromones during your ascension?” I started. He chuckled.

“Did you call with the express intention of insulting me?” he asked.

I cast around, unsure what I had said to offend him. “I thought it was common knowledge.”

“Someone is pulling your leg. Just don’t go around saying that on the night. I don’t have time to defend your honour all night.”

I waved off his concern. “Anyway! You know how I have this thing about presents?”

“You mean how you didn’t get any for years and have developed a strange aloof obsession about it? Yes, I do.”

For two people who supposedly never spoke, Max sure knew a lot of stuff I had only ever told Sophie. The incident he referred to was a breakdown in Rivia when I tried to get Basil a Christmas present but couldn’t decide because he had everything and could conjure up anything he wanted. Demons couldn’t reduce me to tears, but that day had broken me. The stress of spending money and the overabundance of choices freaked me out.

Pushing it aside, I barrelled forward. “So I got you a present, well, Sophie and I did, but it’s not because we want to have sex with you. Well, I don’t but...anyway...”

What the heck was I even saying? There were too many possible landmines in this conversation. Never mind the fact that Sophie had turned the ink into a wicked pink colour.

“You’re rambling, Lex.” Something clouded passed across his face. Ah shit. This was going south fast. To salvage it, I fell back on instinct. As a shifter, he would appreciate that.

“I have this awful feeling,” I started to say, then caught myself. Did this constitute questioning his ability to look after himself? It was too hard to retain all of their customs. So I just came out with it. “I’ve had it for a while now. Something about where you might be going that makes the hair on the back on my neck stand up.” As I spoke, his expression became deceptively calm. “I saw a shifter with runes tattooed on his skin in the black market and I thought it couldn’t hurt to have some insurance.”

“Remind me to have a chat to you some time about going to the Ravenhall black market with Sophie on your own.” His voice was rough.

“Andrei was there.” Not my strongest defence. “But my point is, do you want a protection tattoo or not?”

After I had made it sound so enticing, I was prepared for a staunch refusal. The stretched-out silence certainly pointed to it. “Oh, and did I forget to mention, this is what the ink looks like?” I raised the vial of enchanted ink up so he could see the colour synonymous with Sophie’s personal brand of magic. Flecks of gold appeared in his grey eyes.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked.

I gave him my most reassuring smile. “Not really. But how hard can it be? It’s just writing.”

Somehow, that didn’t put him off. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Come to my place before the ceremony.”

“Ahhh.”

“You know where we live.”

“Yes, but –”

He cut the call. What had I gotten myself into?

“Have fun with that,” Sophie informed me when I told her I’d be meeting Max before the ceremony.

“You’re coming with me.”

“No, I’m not. I’ll be arriving with my parents and Jacqueline and Cassie like normal people and not weirdos who get themselves into strange situations they can’t salvage.”

“C’mon, Soph!”

“No can do.”

That was how I ended up getting ready two hours before Sophie and teleporting myself to the Reserve all by my lonesome. Not without more pleading that fell on deaf ears.

Shifters didn’t tend to go for formalwear most of the time, so I had chosen a simple pair of dark jeans and a midnight-blue top with a plunging back made modest with black lace. I braided my hair as best I could and let the braid fall over my shoulder.

My teleports using Gabriel’s Key weren’t as smooth as a Nephilim teleport. It couldn’t be because all the power came from the ring. As the artefact dragged me through the dimensional barriers, I felt the brush of coolness on my cheek from the fissures that surrounded the Reserve. I catalogued the ones I encountered just from this sector. The grip on my backpack became strained. There were more than a dozen on this side alone. Reappearing on the other side, I turned in a circle and gabbed at the Ley sight using my own power. There was a fissure nearby. But when I tried to move towards it, a ward threw up a barrier in my face. I huffed. At least I knew the Council were being true to their word. It still didn’t make me feel better.

The apprehension amplified by a factor of a thousand as I went to reach for the handle of the Thompsons’ front door and was assaulted by a full-body awareness of the guest already inside. A sliver each of heat and cold ran down my spine and collided in a puff of steam that I was sure made my cheeks red hot when the door opened for me.

“Hey, Lex,” Alistair Thompson said. Even in the presence of the world’s sexiest dad, I couldn’t shake the primeval awareness of Kai from my blood. “The boys are in the pool house.”

It was a line straight out of a teen drama, but I couldn’t quite reconcile it. “It’s around back and through the gate. Do you need an escort?”

Under different circumstances, I would have jumped at the chance to be escorted by Alistair. But the saccharine smile on his face said he knew exactly why my feet were suddenly cemented to the floor. “I’ll be fine.”

I was not.

Getting through the gate was as far as I got. Dani’s delighted laughter rang out over the back lawn. The gate smacked me in the back as I watched Kai tossing Dani into the air. She sailed higher than the tallest tip of the fifteen-foot magnolia. All the way down she screamed in sheer child-like joy. Kai’s wings burst from his back and he shot up, catching her halfway down so that the impact wouldn’t hurt her. They landed with a soft thud. She threw her arms around his neck. “Again!”

He would have obliged if Shayla hadn’t called out from the kitchen. “No, miss. It’s time for a bath and for you to get ready.”

“But I don’t want to!”

“Now, young lady!”

A defiant scowl crinkled on her face. Kai leaned in and whispered something in her ear. She giggled and nodded before he set her down. “The point of a door is to walk through it,” Charles informed me from behind. Too enamoured with Kai, I hadn’t noticed him sneaking up on me.

“Thanks, genius. I’ll try to remember that.”

“It’s too late to pretend to be cool, Lex.”

Thankfully, he was reading a paperback with a starship on the cover and didn’t wait around to give me shit. Pretending that I had only just arrived, I made my way across the grass, onto the tiled wet area around the pool, and into the pool house itself.

“Hi,” I said as I passed Kai. He watched me with an unreadable expression as I made every attempt to block out the bond.

Max was sprawled on the big leather couch to the left of the door. Supernaturals didn’t have televisions to point their furniture towards. Frankly, I didn’t know how they occupied most of their time.

“Well, look what the demons dragged in,” Max drawled. His colour was almost back to normal. I glanced at him and then back at Kai. Both of them were in jeans and shirts with their sleeves rolled up to their forearms. Kai’s shirt with an eggshell blue while Max’s was white.

“Cute,” I said. “You both dress the same. Maybe you can announce your undying bromance at the ascension.”

Charles snickered as he entered. “What did I say about coming in here?” Max snapped. Charles just shrugged at him.

“You think I’m going to miss it if Lex blows you up?”

I balked. “I’m not going to blow him up!”

Three pairs of eyes watched me speculatively. It was Max who finally spoke. “That’s why I needed the insurance.” He nodded in Kai’s direction.

“Maybe this is a bad idea.” Now that they had gotten it into my head, I was starting to have doubts too.

“No way,” Max said. “No guts, no glory.”

“Or possibly no guts because they’ll be splattered on the wall,” Charles said.

“Get out!” Max roared. Charles grinned and left the pool house only to pull up a deck chair outside and lounge on it. The glass walls gave Max no privacy. “I’m going to throttle him.”

“Can you leave it until after I’m done?” I asked, biting my lip. “I don’t want to be accused of starting a Thompson family feud on top of everything else. Where do you want the tattoo?”

Grunting, Max started unbuttoning his shirt. A spike of heart crawled up my neck. Wow. I really didn’t think things through. At least he didn’t want it on his butt, I supposed.

Turning away to give myself a second for composure, I found Kai’s gaze locked on me. It was impossible to dampen the turbulent flux of the bond entirely, but the circle I had drawn around it allowed me to think. If this was another shifter’s ascension and I had offered to give them such an intimate present, their head would be separated from their body already. But Kai would jump in front of a demon blade for Max, and through the bond, he felt my contained terror about what might be coming.

Stepping closer, I tried to whisper so Max wouldn’t hear. “If something goes wrong, can you please take me out so I don’t hurt him?”

“I won’t let anything go wrong.”

“Just in cas –”

He settled his palms on my shoulders, eyes boring into mine. “You’ll be fine. You’ve got the steadiest hands I’ve ever seen. Don’t let doubt get in your head.”

How could it when it was so full of how much I loved him?

But I took the advice. No matter how worried I had been, my preparation was efficient. Like Potions, I followed the instructions for filling the script pen with the enchanted ink to the letter. It occurred to me that I had picked up a touch of obsessive compulsiveness somewhere along the way. Inspecting Max’s skin, I clucked my tongue. He was unnaturally tan. The kind of healthy glow that humans were desperate to replicate with bottles and machines. “This colour is going to look washed out,” I commented.

“Leave it,” Max said immediately.

I shook my head. “It’s not going to look the same once it’s saturated into your skin.”

Working on a hunch, I stabbed the sharpened point of the script pen into my finger. A blazing warmth buzzed up my arm as the pen drew a couple of drops of blood. It wasn’t much but the addition of the ruby red of my blood turned the pink into a deeper shade.

“Ummm...” Max said. Kai scowled.

I flicked my injured finger to dispel the lick of pain. “Now we’re talking.”

Max chose his left pec muscle, right above his heart. I should have anticipated it. Kai had, and I could tell it was taking every inch of willpower not to react as I settled myself on an ottoman in front of Max. His legs stretched out on either side of me. The compromising position gave very little room to move. Lucky I was small and didn’t take up much space.

“Ready?” I asked. “They tell me this might sting a little.” I waved the lollipop in front of Max’s face. Kai smirked.

“What are you trying to say?” Max growled.

I pressed the pen to his skin so I didn’t have to justify my remark. His sharp inhale made my point for me. As soon as I began to draw, it was as though the pen took on a life of its own. Kai had been right. Instinctively, I knew how to do this. My mind drifted and I used every meditation technique to keep it focused. For some reason, I slipped into the Ley dimension. My hands became enveloped in lines of midnight and black lights. I concentrated on this feeling of apprehension that lingered whenever I thought of Max and Sophie. I poured every bit of love I could muster into the rune to keep him safe wherever he was posted. In the back of my mind, I suppressed the urgent clamouring that kept telling me I was running out of time. That Lucifer’s containment was only temporary. And that the only thing I ever had that was strong enough to stop him, the Angelical, was also the thing that might kill me.

I went into an almost trance-like state as I completed the outline of the tattoo and then proceeded to fill it in. I was no longer sitting in an intimate position with Max but in front of a canvas of my own art.

The ink flowed from the pen in a wash of Sophie’s magic and my own bone magic because of the blood I had given. It brushed Max’s skin and sank into his cells, binding with them in a way that no other ink could. Something tapped on the glass behind me and I heard Kai grunt, but I didn’t break my concentration.

Max tensed, his arm suddenly coming down beside me on the ottoman. Claws sliced into the foam. “Hold it,” Kai warned. To me, he said: “Keep going, Blue. You’re almost there.”

The final dot of ink sank into Max’s skin. I pulled back, sweat crowning my forehead for some reason. My eyes were too filled with colour. I blinked to dispel the Ley sight.

“Shit,” Charles spat from the doorway, his golden eyes fixed on the tattoo. Frowning, I went to inspect my work and my heart stopped. The tattoo was beautiful in a technical sense. It came out blood red with an edge of pink to denote Sophie’s influence. Each line was perfectly symmetrical, every dot of ink in its place. It contrasted stunningly with Max’s skin. At any other time, it might have been a point of pride. Except, I had stuffed up cosmically. Instead of drawing the rune for protection, I had somehow written an Angelical word: Mawatah. Death.

37

The pen dropped out of my hand as I covered my mouth with the other. “Max,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Distraught, I turned to Kai. “Can you remove it?”

When I went to try myself, Max snatched my wrist. His grey eyes were like a gathering storm with shards of sunlight breaking through it. “No,” he said. “It feels...right.”

“What are you talking about?” I hissed. “It’s not a rune! It’s...” I couldn’t even finish the sentence. He shook me gently. “Lex. It’s alright.”

My mind kept shoving that prophecy where I had killed him with Morning Star at me. I’d come here thinking that I could arrogantly forestall disaster, and instead, I had coveted it. A warm hand cupped my cheek. Angelfire filled my vision.

Kai was suddenly kneeling beside me. “Blue,” he said. I turned to him, my own eyes stinging. “It’s okay. It’s just a word.”

But we all knew my words were never throwaway. He wrapped one arm around me, and I allowed my head to lean on his shoulder. “You weren’t thinking of death when you wrote it,” Kai murmured. “Intent is everything with dead languages.”

“Angelical isn’t a dead language!”

“Well, you and the seraphim are the only ones who can speak it, so it might as well be,” Max said. His nonchalance didn’t seem put on. He prodded the skin with a finger to make sure the ink wouldn’t run and then started to put his shirt on. With a wicked smile, he raised a brow at me.

“Do you two want to get a room?”

It was only then that I realised I was still clinging to Kai. “Yeah,” Kai said smoothly, his palm on the small of my back. “Do you mind if we use your bed?”

Max’s brow creased. He stalked off muttering something about not getting any slack even though it was his ascension. I jumped off the ottoman and away from Kai. “I think Shayla might need some help in the house.”

I ran away before I could get myself into more trouble. Thankfully, Shayla did need my help. “Danielle!” Shayla barked. “Get back here right now.”

There were wet footprints on the floor. “Need a kid wrangler?” I asked.

“I’m going to strangle her when I get my hands on her.”

Though Dani hadn’t inherited any of her father’s shifter gifts, she was already showing promising signs of sorcery. Like her brothers, she could be a handful. Enclosing sections of the house in circles until I narrowed her down in the laundry, I scooped up the naked, soapy child in a towel and returned her to the upstairs bathroom.

“Lex!” she squealed. “Can I have a cake?”

She slapped the palm of her hand on the surface of the water. It sprayed all over the place including my hair and top.

“The last thing you need is sugar,” I said. Then I dumped a bucket of water over her head to clean away the soap. When she stopped sputtering, she pouted. “But Maxy is having cake!”

“Yes, but it’s his special day.”

Her lower lip trembled. I thought she was going to throw a tantrum about the cake until she grabbed my hand and held it to her cheek. “I don’t want him to go!” she wailed. My heart broke for her. Pulling the plug, I held her in a towel as the water drained.

“I know, baby. I don’t want him to go either. But sometimes we have to do things we don’t like to keep the people we love safe.”

Sullen from her heartbreak, she was more pliable to dressing and putting on her shoes. When I carried her downstairs, Shayla beamed. “You’re a lifesaver,” she said. Something wistful flashed across her face but she brushed it off.

“Want to help me decorate the house?” Shayla asked her daughter.

I set Dani down and she immediately zipped to the back door. “Maxy!” she screamed, making a break for the pool house.

Shayla sighed. “She doesn’t really understand what’s happening, but she knows he’s not going to be around for much longer.” She brushed her hand over her lips as her eyes moistened. Dani wasn’t the only one emotional about Max growing up.

“What else can I help with?” I asked, knowing distraction was the only thing that would get her through this. She shook her shoulders.

“Right! This place is a mess. Let’s get it in order.”

Hard labour took my mind off everything that was happening until it was time to leave for the convention centre. As alpha of the shifters, Durin and Yolanda hosted all the ascensions. As I trudged along the maze of bridges that connected the enormous tree canopies, the trees themselves whispered to me. It was a phenomenon that seemed to only happen in the Reserve. Their primal natures and the close connection they had to their territories seemed to have leaked into the trees. What they told me was a mishmash of images of feline fur brushing up against their trunks, of clawed feet scratching at bark, and the occasional hoot of an owl in its nest.

The shifters were phenomenally paranoid. There were guards crawling in the treetops as well as around the perimeter. I decided not to let it slip that the trees were giving away their locations to me. Though the trees didn’t feel emotion, they had survival instincts just like every other living creature. Their essences vibrated against my hedge magic as I translated their shaking into concern about the fissures surrounding their home. At least I knew I wasn’t the only one who was apprehensive.

The convention centre was lit up like an airport with Fae lanterns, the space big enough to hold a football game. Since I’d last been here, they had made additions, expanding the space to include the wide canopy of another two trees. The forest in front of the centre had been converted into a clearing where enchanted bonfires had been set up in the middle of the field. Meat roasted on spits that sizzled and sent up flashes of blue flame. Dozens of big tables ringed the clearing, adding additional seating in case they ran out upstairs. Most of the population of the Reserve would be here tonight. It would be the biggest congregation of shifters in the year. It was surprising the number of humans also in attendance.

Detaching myself from the Thompsons, I skipped down the staircase to where I spotted Basil, Nanna, and Trey’s family.

“You made it here in one piece,” Basil noted, knowing about my bright idea to gift Max a tattoo.

“Don’t even go there. It didn’t turn out the way I had expected.”

“Does anything ever with you?”

“I unbound you, didn’t I?”

“Touché.”

Odette and Laila were chatting about the latest news on Emily. They stopped talking when I looked in their direction. “Don’t mind me,” I said.

Odette waved her hand apologetically. “Sorry, Lex. We’re just a bit worried about the implications.”

By sundown, the clearing and the convention centre began to fill up in earnest. Sophie arrived with her parents and Diana with hers. We regrouped to get away from the adults who were taking this as an opportunity to ear bash Jacqueline about all the things they thought might improve Bloodline. Like it was so easy to take care of their kids.

Sophie had made a point not to approach Max or even get within hearing distance of him where he was grouped around the bonfire with his friends. For fifteen minutes, Sophie gave distracted answers while she stole furtive glances at him.

“Phew,” Trey exclaimed. “You can cut the pheromones in this place with a demon blade.”

Most of it was concentrated around Max. It felt like every shifter female in supernaturaldom had come out to play. They congregated in groups around him, trying to steal a moment of his time. A good number of them had zero inhibitions. One long-limbed girl, a lion shifter herself, sidled up to Max’s side and suddenly grabbed him in his special place.

Max’s growl sliced through the clearing, but it was Gwen who clocked the girl in the face and dragged her away.

Gwen appeared like a ghost in our midst a moment later. “A little help would be nice,” she said, eyes darting at Sophie. “I can’t spend all night babysitting him. There are too many of them.”

Raucous laughter erupted around Max again because Astrid had just tossed another audacious she-wolf aside. “Urgh,” Gwen complained. “You owe me bigtime.”

When she was gone, I wrapped an arm around Sophie. “You okay?”

She bit her lip and shuddered. “I have to be.”

“I don’t get the two of you at all,” Diana huffed.

“You wouldn’t,” Sophie snapped. “You’re not human.”

Diana stuck her tongue out. “And thank goodness for that. Being human sucks. How did it go today, by the way?” She was referring to the tattooing. Sophie’s dark features stilled.

I scratched at me cheek. “Ummm...there may have been a slight mishap.”

“A mishap?” Sophie said.

My recounting of what happened was light on details. It didn’t need to be spelled out, though. Sophie’s lips pressed together. “Why?...How?”

Suddenly her back was to me and she was weaving through the crowd. Max went preternaturally still when he sensed her close by. We couldn’t hear what they were saying but Max detached from his friends and was looming over Sophie, his head bent low.

“Wooo,” Trey teased. “That can’t be good.” He pointed. Against the reflection of the fire, dozens of night-glow shifter eyes sparked to life. All female.

Somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and my good humour fled. “Go away, Andrei.”

It really pissed me off that only a week after Kai had beat him up, he was looking almost healthy again. “Just give me a minute,” he said.

Trey eyed the vamp warily. “She said she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Since when does she need you to be her mouthpiece?”

The shifter loomed. I stepped in front of Trey, blocking him from moving forward. “It’s okay,” I told my friends, “I’ll just be a minute.”

Sighing, I pointed back towards the edge of the treeline. When we were far enough away that the revelry around the fire was only a slight hum in the background, I turned to face Andrei.

“What?”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, eyeing the crowd still visible. “Can we go for a walk?”

“Are you kidding? You’re worried about what they might think?”

His top lip curled, revealing sharpened canines. “I don’t want them getting the wrong impression.”

“And what impression is that? Or are you worried about Kai nailing you to another cross? Don’t be. If anyone is going to kick your ass tonight, it’ll be me.”

He kept staring off into the trees. “What’s your problem?” I asked.

He muttered something. “Sorry, I’m human. I can’t hear you.”

Scowling, he added volume to his words. “I’m meant to be patrolling the perimeter. If Dorian finds me away from my post, I’ll get in trouble.”

Not one of those words made a lick of sense. “Since when do you care what Dorian thinks? Actually, why are you even bothering to go along with this charade? You hate the elite guard. You hate guards, period. Why would you follow their orders?”

The wrenching of his face told me he hadn’t chosen anything. “What did Kai say to you?” I guessed. Kai could be persuasive when he wanted. If charm didn’t work, he was more than happy to employ threats as well.

“Nothing.” He ran his hand through his hair. Moonlight glinted off the side of his face. It was paler than usual with an almost waxy complexion.

Andrei turned his body towards the trees and made a walking motion. Exasperated, I followed along beside him.

“I can’t be away long. The ceremonial part is starting soon.”

He groaned in disgust. “You’re not missing out on anything but a lot of grunting and chest beating.”

“Maybe. But I still want to be there for Max.”

He grew quiet. We reached the other side of the sentinel of trees to come up on a wide track that bled into a wilder part of the Reserve.

The trees here spoke louder than their civilized counterparts. They were also more insistent with their images, clamouring to show me a fissure checkpoint and the guards in the trees surrounding it. Some of them were shifters. Others were human, with the occasional mate from another species. There were a few vamps and Fae who were mated to shifters, but they were rare. Out here, the guards in the trees all seemed to be in their human forms. They wore camouflage clothing and sported human weapons strapped to their backs.

That struck me as odd. “Do they train with guns in the Reserve?” I asked.

Andrei laced his hands behind his back. “They didn’t before that Sisterhood chick assassinated one of their guards. Now they’ve upped their level of paranoia into the stratosphere.”

So would I, if I were honest. He was silent for a second. “Surprised I knew that?” he asked tentatively.

“You’re not stupid, Andrei. That’s part of the problem. I know you understand and have thought about the consequences of what you do. Whether you care is the question.”

“I...”

An eternity might not be long enough to receive an apology.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” I tried to go back.

“C’mon, squirt.”

“No. You of all people should understand what it’s like for me. But all you can think about is your one-track mission. If you’re after job completion, that’s fine. I’ll still help you figure out what happened with your family. I just don’t want to socialise with you.”

He grabbed my arm when I tried to turn away. “Wait.”

His lips moved but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. My attention was dragged inward by the rustle of the trees. They painted a stark picture where there were too many guards in this sector all of a sudden. The image was hazy because it came to me in patterns of vibrations. Shaking Andrei off, I pulled the Ley dimension around me and inspected the scene.

My heart palpated. The forest was awash with unnatural energy that resonated on a different frequency to the earth dimension. Up ahead in the copse of redwoods, a guard crouched in the bracket created by a tree branch. His aura was a sickly, metallic red interspersed with brown. Demon.

“Lex?” Ignoring Andrei, I cut a path towards the fissure. My feet moved as though magnetised by the throbbing that was growing steadily louder.

Andrei yanked me back, dislodging the Ley sight just as we reached the open path that led to the fissure. A black-and-grey circle had been drawn around the fissure that sparked in mid-air. Inside the base of the circle sat a frail human female with her legs drawn up against her chest. She wore a threadbare grey sheath that I had hoped never to encounter again: the uniform provided by a psychiatric hospital. Cuts on her arms had healed into raised pink sores that looked like they had been reopened repeatedly. Her hair was a tangle that hung limp around her shoulders.

Three men in military gear stood at equal distance on the outside of the circle. They held rifles in their arms, their eyes glowing red. A fourth man in a thick black cloak knelt at the head of the five-pointed star inside the circle, chanting in a dead language. He made a long incision with a jagged knife on his left palm. His hands were adorned with claws the size of my finger. More demons.

I glanced up through the canopy. The sky was pitch black. The Reserve lived up to its name. It was a place with no human electronics that favoured nature. One of the things I loved most was sitting up on the balcony of Basil’s house and staring up at the blanket of stars. At the moment, not a single one of them could be seen.

Dropping into the Ley dimension once again, I tried to call out to Morning Star with little hope. As suspected, I couldn’t even feel the tug of it where I had left it under my bed. Just to try my luck, I attempted to call the heavenly blade. Also no go. It was a long shot anyway.

With its bleeding hand, the demon dropped blood on to the death circle. It sizzled as it hit the circle and spread out infecting the circle with red. The demon latched its bleeding paw around the women’s throat. It stood, dragging her up until her feet were no longer touching the ground. Her eyes were opaque.

I stared, dumbfounded as the demon dropped the knife, slapped his hand on her forehead and spoke in a guttural language that I couldn’t understand. I had, however, heard that speech before from the demon who had attacked Terran Hospital. Just like that time, the woman’s head snapped back like she was suddenly electrocuted. Mouth gaping wide open, her soul rattled inside her. In contrast to the muddy colour of the demon circle, her soul blazed with light that lit her up from the inside. It matched the colour of the fissure.

Faster than I could draw a circle to stop it, the demon ripped the woman’s soul from her body. Unlike what Giselle has taught me, the demon didn’t care about being careful with the release of energy surrounding the extraction of a soul. The crude tearing shot rays of lightning from the woman’s body that barrelled into the trees and scorched them into matchsticks. My circle tried to create a barrier around the fissure, but the demon had already begun its transfer.

As soon as the energy from the woman’s soul touched the fissure, it exploded in a wave of power that rocked the sector. I turned my back futilely as though that would shield me from the explosion. Instinct kicked in, making me withdraw into the bond where I screamed in panic, hoping that Kai could hear me, that he was somewhere safe, and that similar scenes weren’t occurring at every other fissure around the Reserve.

Andrei pushed me to the ground and threw himself on top of me. I had just enough time to draw a circle around us before everything in the world turned to fire.

38

A blanket of white light flashed around us. It cast a net about a hundred metres wide and scraped against my magic like the dredging of the ocean bed. Ghostly claws raked at my mind until keeping my eyes shut no longer protected my sight from the white tendrils of lightning. I opened them to find light blooming across my eyes like I was being bombarded with flash photography.

In the aftermath of the flashes came the trail of pain. Soon, my head felt like someone was taking a pickaxe to it. Blood trickled down my left nostril. My circle faded.

Andrei slumped on top of me, his dead weight pressing me into the ground. He had been wearing a utility belt with a spare light amulet and some knives that were now digging into my hip. If I had half a brain, I would have pretended to be crushed and knocked out. Instead, I tried to wriggle out from underneath him, alerting the demon that I was still conscious.

The bomb had shredding its cloak. It now lay like a discarded skin around the thing’s feet, along with the three guards.

Without the terrible disguise, the beast was still mostly human except for an overly large chest protected by what looked like glittering black scales. The same beaded skin raced up its left arm. Unlike any other demon I had seen, this thing’s eyes were darkness itself. Most demons I’d come into contact with had coal black or glowing red eyes. When you stared into them, horror reflected back at you. There was nothing staring back at me in the eyes of this demon. The emptiness frightened me more than anything.

As the demon reached down to grab hold of me, I frantically scrounged around for one of Andrei’s knives. My fingers grazed the blade, cutting my skin as the demon jerked me out from underneath him. I came away empty-handed and now also bleeding. The demon lifted me up. Its face was deceptively human. Its smile was almost pleasant.

“What have we got here?” it said. My breath hitched. Most demons found it difficult to produce human speech. Their languages were so diverse from ours that it was a rare demon that could communicate without telepathy or mind control. “Curious, little girl? Want to know how I can talk? I wasn’t always this way.”

It pressed a clawed finger to my temple. I whined as it exerted just the tiniest bit of pressure. Pain wasn’t the thing that had me trying to squirm away. It was the feeling of having my chest compressed because I was so miserable death seemed like the only real option. The demon imparted its memories on me.

In my mind, I was sitting on a milk crate, in a small room with no furniture or heating. A thin mattress that might as well have just been a sheet was crumpled up in the corner. Yellow and russet stains decorated the once-white foam. The door to the room opened. My fear was blunted by sheer exhaustion. The silhouette of two men filled the door. The one on the left puffed out smoke from a cigarette. “You got half an hour with him.”

He shut the door with an ominous click. A grubby, sweaty hand clamped around the back of my neck, pushing my face down into the sweat-soaked mattress. When it constricted, I felt it through the demon’s grip. The screams from his memory imparted onto me, his utter helplessness making my eyes water.

In the present, the demon didn’t care for my empathy. He had once been human. But on a night when he might have ended it, a night months ago when Jonah Rhee had released the demons from the Dominion prison, a demon had offered him a deal. His human body for the chance to not be helpless anymore. Since then it had twisted him and contorted his body into something monstrous. My throat locked.

“I’m sorry,” I tried to say. Scaly skin crinkled around those soulless eyes.

“Don’t be. I’m free. Soon, you will be too.”

We spoke words at the same time. The demon uttered that same spell it had used to rip the woman’s soul from her body. I attempted some words of light. They cancelled each other out even though my pronunciation was nothing more than a butchering of syllables. Thwarted, it slammed my back against the nearest tree. Shock jarred my spine, the impact scraping off a layer of skin.

I winced as the thing came in close, its face pressed right up to mine. It had no pupils. Still it stared as though trying to look right into my soul. Whatever it saw seemed to please it. “So, you’re the one the master is looking for.”

How come I couldn’t cross paths with a demon who just wanted to blend in and live a hassle-free existence? My life could be a buddy comedy. Fate was a bitch and it loved watching me squirm. I did so as the demon tried to burrow its thumb into my temple once more.

Out of options, I used my blood-soaked hand to trace a word on its shoulder. I’d already practiced the word once tonight. Might as well make it a double feature. The demon opened its mouth. Thoughts were much faster than actions.

Mawatah, I screamed in my head.

The demon choked on air, letting me go as it stumbled backwards. The thing clutched at its own throat before cracks began appearing in its skin. Light just like the human soul threaded through with brown shone through the cracks. It gave a shudder and then the demon exploded in a belching of dust. I threw my arms up over my head but there wasn’t enough left of its human body to warrant concern.

My victory was short-lived. Weak from the explosion, there hadn’t been much power in my Angelical command. Dizziness still made the world turn upside down. Bile rose up my throat, but when I coughed, it was blood that spilled over my lips. Without the demon threat to focus on, the flickers of pain were back with a vengeance.

My hands shook, no longer steady. My hands. Gabriel’s Key glowed in the afterlight of the explosion. I crawled to where Andrei lay and held on to his arm. For some reason, the first thing I tried to do was teleport out of the Reserve. My flight response had never been strong, but something kept urging me to stay as far away as possible. Leaving turned out to be a failure. And a relief. I could never forgive myself for running if my friends didn’t make it out alive.

Unsure why leaving had even entered my mind, I decided that maybe teleporting within the Reserve was still possible. Thankful that the ring worked on its own without the need to drain my power, I focused on the clearing outside the convention centre. My smile was deranged as we slipped through the dimensional barriers within the Reserve. The magic was unstable from the explosions and spells the demons had used to lock the place down. We crash landed on the trodden turf at the edge of the clearing.

Demons crawled all over the place, clashing in battles with the supernaturals who hadn’t been knocked unconscious by the soul bombs. Massive sinkholes had been carved into the perimeter, fallen trees layering over them. Andrei was one unconscious supernatural in a sea of limp bodies.

Portals spat demons into the Reserve. They organised themselves into a demonic ring around the perimeter, cutting off any route of escape except a teleport. The problem was, shifters didn’t have that power.

A roar went up in the clearing behind my back, but I couldn’t tell who had made it. Between the supernaturals and me was a flurry of demons. Throwing a circle around Andrei was the only thing I could do for him now. We were overwhelmed.

Like vultures, the demons slowed their stampede when they realised there was human flesh in their midst. I couldn’t take my eyes off the hulking puce-green demon scampering my way. It was bottom-heavy, shaking the ground as it ran awkwardly in a zigzag line towards me. Grappling for one of Andrei’s knives, I managed to roll away just as the demon stamped one of its clawed feet where my head has been.

Shuffling backwards so the demon wouldn’t trample on Andrei, I flicked my wrist and repositioned the short blade. When the demon charged again, I whipped the blade at its chest. The knife sailed through the air and embedded into bulbous flesh. It oozed a thick brown pus that reeked of rotten egg. Ignoring my gag reflex, I raced after it, jumping up and planting my feet on the demon’s thighs. Using the protruding blade for purchase, I twined the fingers of my left hand into the demon’s hair and gripped tight. With my right, I yanked the knife from the demon’s chest and stabbed it through the eye. The thing gave a short, brutal yell before it keeled over. I didn’t stop stabbing until it was crumpled on the ground.

I had a second to survey the scene around me before a pair of demons picked me as easy prey. Drawing in a slow breath, I pretended that this was just another training session inside Ravenhall. The two demons tag-teamed me, trying to go for my feet to trip me up. Their claws were shorter than their teeth. It told me that they were probably throat rippers.

The first one jumped at me, trying to grab onto my sleeve so it could throw off my balance. I pivoted out of the way as it leaped, trying to keep my eyes on them as they attacked. Low demons weren’t smart or too strong. They thrived on outnumbering their prey. Two to one weren’t great odds, and for once, I was bigger. The next time the one on my left leaped, I jumped too and booted it in the gut from mid-air. We landed together, me in a crouch, the demon in a slump of broken ribs. Its friend hissed, a forked tongue shooting out between its sharp teeth. The thing came running towards me. I flattened myself to the grass as it jumped and rolled as it sailed overhead. When it landed, I snapped my leg out and sent it tumbling head over heels away from Andrei.

My victories weren’t without casualty. My left hand was still bleeding from the cut. The pain in my head was making me queasy, and though I had held my own until now, I knew these demons were just henchmen. The bigger, stronger ones were locked in a battle with the supernaturals.

Taking a moment to catch my breath cost me. A half-dozen kikimora, half-insect, half-human demons, descended on me. One little knife wasn’t enough to defend against so many. I drew a circle just as the fist pincer sliced through the air in front of my face. It struck my circle and tried to burrow through. The circle flickered, sending shockwaves of pain through my head. My legs wouldn’t move when I commanded them to. The intention was there but it was like my brain had become detached from my body.

I keeled over, spitting more blood onto the grass. Again and again they struck, each time dispersing the pain until it shot all the way down my spine and into my chest. Crap!

Clutching at straws, I tried to think through the delirium. The only thing that came to mind was the power stealing. But as I let my gaze sweep across the clearing, I knew that wasn’t an option. What little stamina they had, the supernaturals sorely needed it.

That only left the trees. My chest ached at the thought of ripping energy from nature. But if I didn’t do something now, I was going to die. We were all going to die.

With my bleeding hand, I traced a smaller blood circle around me. I feathered my fingers and drew squiggly lines in the dirt to represent the roots of the trees. Then I drew a picture of the sun, the source of all life. When I flooded the blood circle with hedge magic, I almost wept because far from cringing away, the trees were already offering up their power. My hands were shaking uncontrollably when I placed my palm on the blood circle. One part of my mind latched on to the power being fed to me from the trees. The other part tried to hold my thoughts in place because I was having trouble thinking straight.

For some reason, the heavenly blade popped up in my head. As soon as it did, the lock popped in my mind and the words on the blade filled my thoughts. Anhiliah. Destroy.

A deep, groaning sound reverberated through the clearing. Starlight lit up the back of my eyelids as the pain in my mind became an aching crescendo. I cried out, my voice carrying over everything until the world itself exploded in a wash of blue and silvery black. The kikimora disintegrated. The circle around me fanned out and rippled over the clearing.

A terrified scream pierced through the drumming agony in my mind. I caught the circle a bare second before it touched Cassie, trying to draw it away from her. There wasn’t enough strength in me. My heart thumped at the same time a splatter of green blossomed around her, teleporting away just as the slice of my circle hit the spot where they had been.

“Run!” I screamed, unable to control the destructive force of the circles. The supernaturals fled, knowing the chaos my power could create. I closed my eyes and whined as the magic took over my body.

39

With the last bit of strength I could dredge up, I tried desperately to hold on to the Angelical. None of it stuck. It was like my body no longer knew how to reclaim its power. There was nowhere for the supernaturals to run except into the arms of the demons ringing the clearing. Most low demons had one goal: destruction. They barely understood the concept of self-preservation because Lucifer had never instilled it into them. In his eyes, they were expendable. They certainly proved it now by not fleeing even though the supernaturals were charging towards them, trying to get away from my destructive power.

A body crashed down in front of me. The circle wavered but recognised Kai’s presence and allowed him entry. He scooped me up in his arms, angelfire lashing out to hold me suspended. Jaw set harder than steel, Kai flooded me with every ounce of healing he could produce.

“Pull it back, Blue.”

Terrified, I didn’t fight the healing. Breaking down the barriers I had set up against the bond, I allowed myself to sink into it. If there was an emotional equivalent to Arcana fruit, it was a Nephilim bond.

Tranquillity like I had never known settled over me. It soothed the pain that distracted from clear thought and spiralled through my chest, knitting my broken body back together. While Kai healed me, I slipped into the Ley Dimension and swept my hands over the clearing like a painter drawing a wide arc. But instead of pulling the magic back, I infused it with bone magic comprised of memory, familiarity, and love. The blades of the circle phased through the supernaturals, the way any Sisterhood witch would have. They became solidified beyond that and cleaved the ranks of the demons into nothingness.

The clearing rocked with an excess of power that was sucked into the vacuum of the looming portals. It exploded and forced the portals to snap shut. For a second, everything was blissfully still. The angelfire ebbed, Kai’s arm slackening around me. He leaned over, his weight braced on his fist and began to cough. Blood splattered on the grass.

“Kai!”

“I’m fine,” he said, his tone scathing. “You couldn’t just run, could you?”

“Run?” It dawned on me that the urging to leave had come from Kai through the bond. Great. Now he was messing with my instincts as well.

“For your information,” I snapped, “it didn’t work!”

He reeled back, surprise flashing across his soot stained face. “You tried?”

Now was not the time to get into this.

The supernaturals regrouped around us, forming a protective circle. Among them, I recognised Max, Charles, and Trey on the left as well as Durin and Yolanda up the front. Several other shifters I didn’t know personally were dotted in equal distance around the circle. Astrid was a golden fixture on the right. She twirled her rapier in her right hand, the hem of her silver gown muddied and torn in the fight. Without needing the Ley sight, I picked up Jacqueline and Cassie’s energy in the formation behind me and Basil huddled in the corner with Nora, Laila, and Nanna. It didn’t surprise me that so many human guests were still standing. Our very nature created a buffer against a soul bomb.

Kai pushed himself up to standing. He swiped the back of his hand across his lips absently, his thoughts laser focused on something up ahead. He marched forward to take his place in the barrier around us.

The defensive positioning confused me until I blinked and realised that the night had been banished completely. The sky above us wasn’t clear but a strange opaque white like a cataract. What now?

Sophie crouched down beside me. “Diana?” I asked.

She pointed past the supernatural barrier. “She’ll be alright. The demons ignored most of the unconscious. Are you okay?” she asked.

“Not really.”

I didn’t know how not okay I was until Sophie helped me to my feet. It was hard not to be transfixed by the glowing rift that hung in the air at the edge of the clearing. Unlike a demonic portal, this thing sparkled in shimmering gold and silver.

“What the hell is that?” I said.

“A dimensional rift,” Professor Mortimer told me. He stood two metres to my left. The right sleeve of his dinner jacket was torn all the way to the elbow. “It’s what we use to hold the magical cities suspended within the Earth dimension.

No. I just wanted it all to stop. My foggy brain couldn’t take any more revelations about how much worse things could become. When did I ever get my way?

A voice rang out across the clearing. “Not bad,” Jacob Buchanan said. “Much better than the Seraphina massacre. Then again, you didn’t have a bone witch last time. Alessia. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Kai’s broad back went rigid. Hatred so vile it made my insides burn, coating the bond. It was difficult to tell whether the feeling originated from me or Kai. I made a beeline for the front of the supernatural formation only for Durin to block me out.

“Stay back,” he barked. Hell with that. I phased through the gap between him and Yolanda. She tried to grab hold of me, but her hand simply slipped past my shoulder.

Jacob grinned when he spotted me. Another portal had been created in the space beneath the rift. It wasn’t nearly as big as the ones I’d closed, but it was enough for the dozens of humans to file through it and take the place of the demons that had surrounded us. Their eyes glowed red and black and they carried heavy artillery.

“Shit,” Max swore.

The weapons weren’t the problem. Neither was their humanity. Demon possession evened the playing field, amplifying human strength. But there were some laws that were universal. Even the supernaturals couldn’t get past appearances sometimes. It was acceptable to fight a human adult. The issue was the two little girls barely out of diapers and the three boys with missing milk teeth. Babies.

The hairs on my arms stood on end as the protective instinct of every shifter was activated and morphed into hateful aggression. Most species were protective of their young, but being remedial in the conception department pushed the supernaturals’ instincts into hyperdrive.

Following on the heels of the humans were demons that possessed the lumbering gait of gorillas. Coarse silver hairs dotted their skin even though it appeared leathery like rhino hide. Their forelimbs were enormous, putting a weight burden on their torsos so that they appeared to walk on four legs even though they clearly had arms. Their heads were reptilian and protected by a skull plate that compressed their features into slitted menace. Unlike any earthly creature, sacks on the side of their heads throbbed with a sickly green that could only mean poison.

As the demons tumbled in twos and threes out of the new portal, a blunt force hit the Reserve, making the ground shake uncontrollably. I dropped low to the ground, hands pressed to the grass for balance. The shifters did the same. The opaque white sky blossomed in a fiery red mist that turned the world into a bloody landscape. It lasted all of five seconds before the white began to eat up the new energy. Twice more the unknown threat slammed against the sky. It made me realise the sky hadn’t turned white. Instead, the Reserve had been sheathed in an artificial cacoon.

The white barrier flickered for a second. The momentary weakness brought about splotches of transparency through which I could make out hundreds of figures on the other side wearing golden armour. The elite guard. They were out there, unable to reach us.

“Amazing what a few measly human souls can do,” Jacob observed. “Like this, for example.”

The front line of our defensive guard took a step forward, myself included, as Jacob reached out and plunked one of the little boys from the group in front of him. The child didn’t make a peep, his bloodshot eyes unblinking, his ruddy cheeks still. If it weren’t for the soft expansion of his chest, I would have thought him already dead. “Leave,” Jacob commanded. With a barely perceptible jerk, the demon inside the child writhed out of his mouth.

“Oh dear God,” Nanna breathed.

Free of the demon’s hold, the little boy whimpered. He kicked his stubby legs, crying desperately. Fury like I’d never known burst inside the bond. Kai’s angel blade was a blaze of heavenly fire in his white-knuckled grip.

“That’s right, Malachi,” Jacob smiled. “We are here again.”

“Put the boy down,” Durin snarled. All along his bare arms, coarse black hairs were beginning to sprout and thicken.

“I’ll do better than that.” The supernaturals managed to advance three steps before the gorilla demons marched forward and latched their meaty hands around the throat of every human on the field. Everybody halted.

“Still shackled by your ridiculous code, I see,” Jacob drawled. With the flick of his free hand, Jacob sent a burst of his blood-stained black magic into the atmosphere. The cloudy barrier swirled and cleared, becoming the reflective sheen of a mirror. And then, the mirror face rippled and I knew we were being broadcast over the MirrorNet for the whole of supernatural society to watch.

The shuddering sobs of the little boy in Jacob’s clutch boomed like thunder in my ears. Every laboured inhale over closed-up airways sent a wave of hysteria running through my veins. Impotent rage battered at me from all sides. The supernaturals were ready for a massacre, no longer caring about anything but inflicting pain. But if they dared to move a muscle, all of the innocent humans would die.

Without knowing it, I had slipped into the Ley dimension and feathered my bone magic over the captured humans. The children could be forgiven their possession. Unbearable terror marred their auras as it did some of the adults and teenagers who had been taken against their will. But not all of the humans had been unwilling participants.

My bone magic snagged on a middle-aged man with sagging features and a disturbing smile that had nothing to do with the demon currently piloting his consciousness. He was the poster child for why the supernaturals were hesitant to reveal themselves. Jacob’s head turned in my direction as though he could tell where my thoughts were occupied.

“When you set him free,” Jacob said, “he will make them over anew.”

“Keep dreaming,” I spat with bravado steeped in uncertainty. My fingers curled into fists.

“Your dreams have a tendency of coming to life, don’t they?” He smacked his palm onto the boy’s forehead and ripped out his soul in a deafening crack of released energy. Durin’s ferocious roar and the corresponding howls from the other shifters would have busted my eardrums if I hadn’t retreated into my mind where the pool of my magics resided. My physical arm lashed out in front of me, the bones in my hand crunching as I gathered them into a fist.

Jacob’s smirk was all I could focus on as my bone magic whipped out and held tightly to the little boy’s soul. Threads of blue and black crawled over the boy’s skin, feeding him my essence in order to keep him tethered to the Ley lines. Giselle was a master of soul manipulation, but Jacob was a god in comparison. He unstitched the boy’s soul faster than I could hold it in place. My only saving grace was that I had power and I used it as a band-aid rather than a cure. Around me, the shifters’ threatening lament became a confused crescendo.

Jacob gave a disappointed shake of his head. “What a waste,” he said. “All that power to a worthless human.”

He proved his contempt by lashing out. I wasn’t fast enough. Instead of continuing to battle with me for the soul of the little boy, he flicked his hand and wrenched the soul from a man in the group in front of him. The separation happened before I could split my attention. I screamed as the demon crushed the man’s skull the moment his soul was removed. Without a living body anchoring him to this dimension, his soul became lost. I whimpered as my bone magic tried to snatch the glowing white orb from Jacob’s fingers. Grinning, he tossed it into the sky. The soul morphed into a beam of light that spread over the barrier.

The trees screamed in my thoughts as their roots were torn asunder. It gave me a crude picture of the perimeter of the destruction. The Ley lines that held the Reserve suspended in place began to erode. The veil became a transparent coating as wards broke and the Reserve moved away from its foundations. The dimensional rift gaped, expanding until I could no longer see its edges. It widened as it grew in height, the golden light blending into a murky darkness at its centre.

A collective gasp went up around me as the world beyond the rift came into sight. A landscape of barren red stone continuously on fire. Hideous creatures crawled or flew over the parched ground, fighting with each other. Hell. Or Jacob’s manifestation of it. He was dragging all of the Reserve into the Hell dimension.

40

Distracted by horror, Jacob was able to snatch the boy’s soul from my grasp, crushing it in his fist and throwing it at the dimensional fissure. Again and again he tore souls from the humans, directing them like shooting stars into the void. The supernaturals broke formation. So did the demons. They came at us in a crushing wave. Purple and orange magic sprang from the earth closest to the dimensional rift as Basil and Professor Mortimer attempted to slow the momentum of the Reserve.

Somebody grabbed me and tossed me behind the line of defence. A feeling of warm tingling scattered over my skin as I rolled through Professor Mortimer’s deep purple arcane circle.

Skin and muscle split all around me as the shifters burst into their animal forms. Turning my head when Sophie gasped, I watched with terrified amazement as Max transformed into an enormous lion. Midnight-blue stripes slashed across his hide. Where the fur bristled on his back, it was streaked in bright pink. This was new. He looked like a toy lion that a child had dipped in a paint palette. Except you would be a moron to make fun of him. “Is he even bigger than normal?” I stammered.

Sophie’s eyes were all white. One of the gorilla demons snapped its fanged mouth at him. Max’s right paw shot out, claws swiping across the throat of the demon and ripping out chunks of flesh. Not satisfied that it was dead, Max snatched the demon’s body and beat it against the ground before using it as a club to decapitate another demon. Feral rage pulsated from him in waves that had my prey instincts urging me to retreat.

Everywhere I turned, the same heart-stopping fury radiated from all the shifters. While the vampires fought with cool detachment, shifters gave in to their animal halves in a fight, and boy, they were pissed.

Charles was the only one who hadn’t bothered to shift. Nor did he move far from his original position where the slumped over forms of his mother and sister was bundled. Anything that got too close was met with the savage frustration of a lion contained. One of the demons slipped through a gap left open by Durin and Yolanda. The monstrous thing ran three steps before Charles snapped a punch that punctured its ribcage. He proceeded to reach inside while the demon tried to claw at his eyes, and tore the demon’s heart right out. Blood soaked the front of his shirt, his hair, his skin. Charles gave no indication that he saw it as he paced around in a protective circle of his own, eyes glowing gold, lips bared back over sharpened teeth.

As the shifters fought off the advancing tide of demons, Cassie ran out in short bursts to drag the bodies of the unconscious inside Professor Mortimer’s circle. I never noticed just how quick she was. If I blinked, sometimes I missed her. She was almost as fast as an actual teleport. Speaking of which, I cocked my head to the side as I watched Astrid shove her rapier through a demon’s throat. She flicked her wrist and the blade came out the side of the demon’s neck, splashing its green blood on her dress.

Nephilim used teleportation as part of their defences. Pushing myself up, I spotted Kai at the very moment where he went to slice the neck of a demon. Grabbing it by its stubby hair, he tore its head clean off. He tossed the head aside to repeat the same motion twice more in the blink of an eye. His angel blade was capable of cleaving through skin and bone. Inside the bond, I felt his burning need for retribution. He just wanted to kill things with his bare hands. Not once did he teleport.

“Professor,” I asked, hoping it wouldn’t distract him from his incantation. “What’s wrong with the magic?”

He huffed out a frustrated breath. “The closer we get to the Hell mouth, the more of our energy is drained.” The muscles in his neck strained as he poured as much of his power as he could into keeping us out of Hell.

In a battle of skill and strength, the supernaturals would have crushed any opponent. But even they had a tipping point and the demons of Hell had always held the numbers. As quickly as the supernaturals could dispatch one demon, three more arrived to take its place. Kai had held a defensive line against Hell for hours until help arrived, but that was when he didn’t have anyone left to protect.

The sneer that broke out on Jacob’s face as Kai inched closer and closer filled me with dread. “Your spirit is commendable, Malachi,” he said. “But the master is right. Your line is an insufferable pain in the neck.”

He made a fist and swung his arm in a punching motion. Something collided with the side of the arcane circle, throwing me back down onto the ground. Twice more he hit us. Each time Nanna and Nora screamed and huddled closer together. I rolled onto my back, my vision overlayed with the Ley sight once more. The sweep of Jacob’s energy was a red-streaked grey that denoted mastery of necromancy. A metaphorical fist scraped at the sides of the purple arcane circle, scooping up whole sections of magic and converting it into energy. This he directed back into the circle itself. Professor Mortimer gasped with the effort of keeping both the circle and the Reverse in place.

“Let go!” Sophie yelled at him. A moment later Jacob struck again, and Sophie had erected her own circle. “Max! I need blood!”

Wondering how he heard her over the sound of demons baying, Max relieved a demon of its head and lobbed it through the circle at her. The hideous thing came to a thudding halt just two feet away. Using the demon’s blood, Sophie drew a circle in the grass and waved her hands in front of it. The words of power that spat from her mouth were barbed. When she was done, her circle was reinforced by a ring of red. A blood circle. When had she learned to do that?

I snuck a glance at where Nora and Nanna stood clutching each other’s hands. There was a disapproving frown on Nora’s face, but she said nothing. How could she under the circumstances?

When I tried to help Sophie reinforce the circle, she screamed. “Don’t touch it!”

Reeling, I retracted my power. “Why?”

“Just don’t!”

I was about to push it when an anguished cry broke out at the front of the defensive line. Getting to my feet, I was just in time to watch Durin’s body sinking beneath an avalanche of demons. Yolanda surged forward, snatching demons away as quickly as she could. For the first time, it wasn’t quick enough. I gasped, my feet trying to move forward when she went down too.

“Don’t move,” Basil yelled at me. “You’re unstable.”

It would have held much more authority if sweat weren’t pouring down his sideburns and his face wasn’t a sickly green. In the bond, Kai cursed up a storm. Giving up the inroads he’d made to get to Jacob, Kai backtracked and went about hacking demons to pieces. Max landed with a booming crash beside him. Before he touched the ground, I caught a glimpse of his chest. Etched there in a glowing primordial script was the Angelical word I had written. It pulsed like it was alive. Between the two of them, they managed to free Durin and Yolanda.

The four of them retreated, their chests heaving. Still the demons came. With little choice, they jumped back into the fight. How long until they would be overwhelmed again?

A cold feeling settled in my chest. It was the same feeling that had permeated my heart down in the cavern in the Fae forest all that time ago. Despair wrapped in helplessness. Biting the inside of my cheek until it drew blood, I forced the unhelpful thoughts back. Even if I wanted to revel in despair, Kai could surely feel it in the bond. The last thing he needed right now was to see that I was giving up hope.

Jacob’s distant blue eyes searched the field until his gaze landed on me. I’ll never understand why he chose a human, he spoke in my thoughts. Especially when it’s so easy to do this.

He snapped his fingers. The humans left in their ranks took aim with frightening efficiency. In their unpossessed state, they must have been military. Rifles clicked all around. Without warning, the humans opened fire. Bullets ripped through the clearing, tearing into demons that didn’t have the wherewithal to try and duck. A normal bullet didn’t do much besides piss a supernatural off unless you managed to unload a whole magazine into one’s brain. When Charles’s shoulder jerked and he gave a pained roar, my stomach felt like it was filling with lead.

“Silver bullets!” Charles yelled in warning. It didn’t come soon enough. Yolanda shuddered as bullets bit into her chest. Jacqueline appeared beside her. The headmistress held her cuffs up, moving as quickly as the bullets did to deflect them. She grabbed Yolanda and carried her back inside the arcane circle.

Jacqueline set Yolanda down roughly. My nostrils filled with the bitter scent of rotting flesh. The silver was already beginning to poison Yolanda. Her golden skin around the bullet wounds were bubbling up with pus and blackened blood.

“Pull back,” Durin ordered. A fiery boulder clogged my throat as Charles deliberately put his back to the bullets and took a couple dozen hits so he could shield the other shifters racing to get inside the circle. His legs collapsed just shy of the barrier. Max barrelled into him, pushing them all inside.

I didn’t have time to worry about how Sophie was managing to maintain a circle for so long and against such frightening odds. Basil and Professor Mortimer retracted their magic from the dimensional rift to help reinforce the circle. As a result, the Reserve slipped farther into the Hell dimension. Another minute and half the Reserve would be swallowed.

“Interesting,” Jacob said, his attention fixed on Sophie. I stepped in front of her, my legs barely able to keep me standing.

“Kai!” Max screamed. If Kai heard, he gave no indication. While everyone else had pulled back, he continued to move forward. I didn’t need the bond to tell me Kai had calculated the odds of us getting out of this alive. Even if we did, the dimensional rift would swallow the Reserve and everyone in it. Bullets firing shattered my concentration. Every time one went off near him, it was like my brain spasmed and I couldn’t think straight. Forcing the Ley sight around me, I begged it to slow down time so I could breathe.

Though the Ley dimension complied, that didn’t mean it changed reality. I saw Kai’s mission as plain as day. Jacob was the missing piece that denied him closure from the massacre of his family. Jacob was going to kill everyone else he cared about. So no matter what, Kai was going to get to the rogue mage. It was that unrelenting determination that had forged him from a sensitive, sheltered child into the man he was today. But formidable as he was, Kai wasn’t impervious to bullets. Even if he could teleport, there were too many guns.

The first bullet hit him on his left shoulder. It ripped right through tender muscle, the exit wound sprouting in a blossom of red. Kai jerked imperceptibly, ignoring the pain and continuing to cut down demons. Behind me, Cassie let out a sob. My head throbbed with the rust brown of the thousands of demons that swarmed him. I felt the swipe of claws against his right ribs as a demon got too close. My heart strained not to burst with fear. Always when I had been helpless, the only thing that stopped me from breaking was action.

If we were going to die, I wanted to do it by the side of the man I loved. My legs wobbled but I borrowed some of Kai’s determination and took a step forward.

“Lex!” Sophie shouted. Someone grabbed my arm. A demon snapped its jaws against Sophie’s circle. She shuddered involuntarily, her circle mimicking the action by cutting out temporarily. In that second, the demon managed to shove its arm through the circle. I grabbed it with my bone magic before Max sliced the arm off with his claws. The demon bellowed its rage, but it wasn’t the amputated arm that caused it to thrash. It was because my bone magic was sucking its essence away.

“Professor,” I breathed. “I can steal demon aura.”

There was a moment of startling silence.

“Of course,” he said, revelation soaked in his voice. “You are Lucifer’s creation. I never even considered it but –”

I was already working. As quickly as I could, I snatched up demon essences and funnelled them into power. Soon, I was standing without hunching. Jacob’s attention shifted from amusement while he watched Kai struggling towards him, to the flare of demonic energy that I had become. Alarm sprang to life in the bond, its distress evident when it couldn’t break through the demonic barrier. Without giving myself time to think, I shoved at the bond, forcing my way past the dissonance, and grabbed Kai’s soul.

“Blue!” he roared. And then his body flickered as it made the transition from flesh into wraith. Bullets and claws whipped right through him, hitting targets that would have been protected by his body. Rather than glee, Kai’s emotions became frantic. “Blue!”

Jacob let out a chuckle. “You can’t stop it, Malachi. Nobody but the master can now.”

I was tired of listening to him talk. I was tired of him breathing. As Kai launched himself in phased form towards Jacob, I snatched all the demon energy in the clearing and braced it against the dimensional rift. The earth around us groaned as the Reserve came to a shuddering halt. A bomb had started this. A bomb would end it.

Kai materialised into physical form as I let go of him to concentrate on pulling the Reserve back to its original position. He reappeared, his angel blade swinging out at Jacob’s neck. The rogue mage opened up a portal with deadly efficiency. He used them as his own way to teleport, disappearing and reappearing as quickly as any Nephilim. While they fought, I filtered demonic energy into the rift, muddying its beautiful essence with browns and blacks. One by one the demons fell to their knees. Blood trickled down my nostrils as heat licked my skin. I was no longer aware of anything around me besides the brightness of my aura and the demonic energy flowing through my veins. Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more heat – Boom!

The dimensional rift tore apart. The explosion pushed the Reserve clear of the opening. It spat Kai and Jacob aside. The last of my wherewithal was spent phasing Kai so he wouldn’t be crushed by the pressure. White light filled my vision. I fell to my knees and threw my arms up to protect my head. Screams rent the air as Sophie’s circle broke.

A shadow appeared beside me. My hope that Jacob would be destroyed was thwarted. Still, I took the win of blood pouring down the right side of his head where his skull was now concaved. Even in that state, Jacob’s flicking features smiled at me.

You’re almost there, Alessia, he said in my head. When he reached out, it was to place his palm on my arm. The heat of it was unexpected. My eyes rolled back in my head.

For a moment, my sight turned inward. The magic inside me spasmed out of control. The blue tones intermixed with the black to create a sludgy blend of colours that tarred everything they touched.

Worse still, it was beginning to leak from the chamber where it had always resided. My organs were covered in unstable magic. My body was a nuclear reactor with cracked pipes. Magical radioactive waste dripped from the vessel of my heart. It pooled in my gut, bubbling and boiling.

The only bright spot was where the bond burned bright. A few months ago, Kai’s angelfire had intersected with my magic. After I’d made him promise to back off, I was on my own and growing sick the way Jacob had intended. A sensation of wrongness coated my tongue. I knew then that I was broken at a cellular level.

The Angelical? I couldn’t help asking.

Afraid not, he mused. The Angelical is just a part of it. The strength of your power comes from Lucifer. You’re not Nephilim. Your frail human body can only sustain that much power for so long. You need him to fix you. Without it, you’ll break down and die.”

He touched my temple and everything receded.

41

Trying to argue with an uncooperative seraph was like trying to reason with a child. It was both pointless and frustrating. Yet I wouldn’t be dissuaded. “I just want the truth,” I seethed at Raphael through gritted teeth. He stood at the base of my bed in sanctuary, his features serenely calm.

“You already know too much,” he said.

“I have a right to know!”

“As I have the right not to tell you, little one.”

I was going to throw something at him. Raphael took a step back. My frustration hit the ceiling. “The more you skirt around it, the more I know I’m right.”

“Whether or not you are right doesn’t change the fact that I cannot convince Malachi to break the bond. His free will is more important to me than most.”

“This isn’t about free will anymore!” I’d woken up in Seraphina with Jacob’s threat ringing in my ear, but it was the other reality that scared me more. I had been sick with power poisoning for a while now and Kai was masking it by funnelling it through the bond. At first, he had probably thought he alone would take the brunt of it. But his connection to Raphael and Raphael’s corresponding connection to all life had put a spanner in the works.

Effectively, the bond was making all the supernaturals sick. It started off with those closest to him. The sicker I became the more it would spread until I would poison all of supernaturaldom.

Raphael’s expression softened. “It will always be about free will.” I was going to burst a capillary. “You must concentrate on getting well.”

It was a poor choice of words that spoke to how disturbed he truly was by the situation.

“Getting well at this point involves freeing the Prince of Darkness.”

“There is another way. If Michael seals you again, you won’t have access to your power. If nothing else, we can hold the sickness at bay indefinitely.”

I didn’t have indefinitely. At the rate at which I was declining, I wasn’t sure if I would see out the semester. And then there was the other thing. What Jacob had done to the Reserve was just a warm-up. Just before I’d passed out, Jacob’s thoughts had been a mirror in my mind. He would continue to attack supernatural cities, knowing that I couldn’t help interfering. He would push me until he thought I had no choice but to release his master. Or died. Whichever came first.

“I want to see Lucifer.”

“To what end, little one?”

“Because I’m tired of running away.”

Unlike all the other times we’d teleported into the containment cavern, I actually took note of our surroundings. My breath immediately came out in big puffs of condensation when we entered the icy enclosure. Outside the door on my left, Ariel and Uriel’s presence was a constant, reassuring presence.

“Do they know we’re in here?” I asked casually.

“Of course,” Raphael said. “They know all that goes on in containment.”

Hmm. I catalogued everything about the room. Where the icicles hung the densest in the top right corner, how the light from the small window behind Raphael slanted into wide beams that illuminated Lucifer’s golden hair, and how there were always white puffs of clouds floating past. I etched the scene into my memory, feeling the location cement in the sudden warmth of Gabriel’s Key on my finger.

Swallowing hard, I forced myself to step up to Lucifer’s altar. Raphael moved with me, closing the distance between us so that I felt the sweep of his cloak against my shoulder. Even comatose, Lucifer was too devastatingly beautiful to behold for long. I blinked away the moisture from my eyes. A riot of emotions collided in my chest, fighting with each other for dominance. Just like that one time Nanna had taken me to the art gallery, the urge to touch the masterpiece was too strong. I reached out a trembling hand and placed it on the icy skin on the side of his neck. My fingers turned numb, their trembling caused a ripple to dance across Lucifer’s cheek.

“There is no reason to fear him in this state,” Raphael said. Fear. Was that what this burning sensation in my gut could be? Contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t all stupid. The pants-crapping terror that clamped around my throat and threatened to make me accept Raphael’s solution was certainly at the forefront of my mind.

But as I stood there touching Lucifer’s mortal body, acid dripped from the chamber that held my heart. As each drop hit my gut, it turned into bile. Loss swelled up inside me and crushed the fear with rage. It was his fault I was now backed into a corner with my hackles raised. The bars of the cage solidified in my thoughts. Kai’s love that could never bear fruit. My friendships that would wither when I died. My life that had been one episode of misery after another. As each bar slid into place, I found myself staring into his ethereal face. My nails dug into his neck.

Fight or flight.

I was done running.

When Raphael returned us to sanctuary, I rounded on him. “This free will thing,” I said. “You can’t deny it, can you?”

“No, it’s our highest mandate.”

I nodded. “I want you, all of you, to stay out of my head. No seal, no mind reading, no interference.”

“Alessia…”

There was a tentative knock on the door. I blew out a breath. At least I knew it wasn’t Kai. There was nothing tentative about him where I was concerned. After a weighted pause, Raphael’s head bowed. He flicked his wrist and the door opened. Jacqueline poked her head in. “The Council are asking for her.”

With a disturbed nod, Raphael teleported away. If Jacqueline was worried about my docility as we made our way to the Council chamber, she didn’t mention it. At the moment, I was experiencing everything through a haze of disbelief. I had always known that being Lucifer’s scion had meant a death sentence. It just never occurred to me that it would be at the hands of the power he had given me. But it made perfect sense. Why would Lucifer give anything away for free? How else would he ensure compliance amongst his followers? It certainly wasn’t a generous health plan.

The dour expressions on the faces of everybody in the conference room didn’t blunt my apathy. They weren’t the ones on a timeline. Long after I was gone, they would still be in their current predicament.

“The Reserve?” I asked a tight-faced Durin sitting between Griff and Dorian in the seats closest to the door. It had been almost two weeks since Kai had brought me to sanctuary. For the first few days, the shifters who remained conscious during the fight had also been here. At least that was what Raphael had told me. I didn’t come into contact with them on account of being unconscious.

“We’re putting it back together,” Durin said. “Such as it is.”

I sat down in the spare seat next to Jacqueline, doing my best to avoid Kai’s intent inspection in the seat right opposite me and Declan’s fervent stare from my right.

“Alessia.” Angus said. At this point, I was sure he didn’t know what to do with me. “We’ve asked you here because we cannot come to a consensus.”

Declan rolled his eyes. “That’s a bloody understatement.” I see he had given up all pretences of civility. Ignoring his outburst, Angus continued.

“In light of what happened in the Reserve, the Human League wants an immediate bulletin to go out to the human population. They wish for the humans to be prepared for demon reprisal.”

“What else is new?” I found myself saying. The words were there, but it was absence of the snark behind it that worried me.

The vein in Declan’s brow threatened to burst. “How can you be so calm about it? You all saw what happened. He took control of humans as easily as driving. They have to be told.”

I leaned forward in my seat, tired of the conversation already. “How does knowing they’re going to die make things better?” I asked. The same question shot around in my head. I was sure Jacob knew the reaction he would get out of me.

“They can prepare!” Declan said.

“For what? How do you prepare to have your soul ripped from you?”

“We can implement educational programs. Teach people to ward their homes. Children can grow up knowing about the monsters so they can fight them.”

“Which monsters are you referring to?”

The way his eyes flicked around the room said he included the supernaturals in his sweeping generalisation. “If you were an unsuspecting human, wouldn’t you want to know the dangers that are out there?”

“You mean the way Emily knew and processed it so well?” Ivan observed. Unlike Declan, his speech wasn’t laced with turbulent emotion. It made the question come out more callous that I suspected he’d meant.

“Emily is different,” Declan said. “She –”

“How is she coping since she left?” I asked.

His mouth twitched. “She’s still getting used to life back at home.”

“So she’s miserable. Think for a second. If you could go back and unlearn everything you have about this world, would you do it?”

“No.”

I stared at him, at his flickering white aura that became laced with dark lines when he lied. “Try again.”

Instead of offering the truth, he tried to pin me with guilt. “You of all people should know what it feels like to be helpless in the face of all this. Nothing you’ve had done to you has been by choice.”

“Careful,” Kai rumbled. It was a single word so laced with vehemence that it sucked the wind out of Declan’s sails. Everyone probably thought Kai was taking exception to Declan’s assertion that the supernaturals had foisted this life on me. But I knew it was Declan’s assessment that I was helpless that rubbed Kai up the wrong way.

Swallowing hard, Declan cleared his throat. “So you don’t agree that we should tell the humans?”

“What do you want me to say?” I asked. “This gentle rollout you’re intending will take decades. It’ll chew up resources we don’t have and it will more than likely end in bloodshed.”

“What do you suggest instead? Clearly your Council don’t have the means or the inclination to stop the Hell dimension from doing whatever it feels like. How can we protect the humans?”

I was too tired to take his shit on top of everything else. “I don’t have the answers you want. You asked me if I thought the humans should be told. I gave you my answer. What more do you want from me? As far as I can tell, demons have been encroaching on the earth for as long as the supernaturals have been here. How is this any different to what’s always been going on?”

His eyes glowed bright with emotion. “You’re what’s different,” he snapped. A crack emitted from where Kai’s arms were crossed in front of him as he leaned on the glass table. Declan’s face turned green, but he pushed forward. I had to admire him for that. “Lucifer has never been so close to breaking free before.”

There was no defence to that statement. So I didn’t bother denying it. “And?”

A tendril of red burst in his left eye. “What do you mean, and? Isn’t that enough?”

I glanced around the table and took in the faces of the people who had come to be the makers and breakers of my world. Though what Declan said was annoyingly aggressive, it was the absolute truth. Before I stumbled into their world, everything had been chugging along swimmingly. Sure, there were demons, but for the most part, they had been contained by the supernaturals. I was the catalyst that had set all of this apocalyptic mess in motion.

Are you? Azrael’s voice resonated in my head. Clearly he hadn’t gotten the memo about staying away. This isn’t your mistake, Alessia. Your life is not a mistake. This mess is ours.

But you can’t fix it, was my despondent reply. You knew it when you made the bargain with Hilary. My life is a…sacrifice.

So much silence. In the very depths of my soul, I knew he couldn’t reply for fear of influencing my free will. That was okay.

Please stay out of my mind. Just like that, I knew he was gone. Regret swiped a finger down my spine. I bit my tongue, knowing I would never get a chance to say goodbye.

The same sense of grief wrapped around me as I swept my eyes over the room. Kai and Raphael had not breathed a word about how sick I truly was. Kai because he was still in furious denial. Raphael because he was eternally hopeful. Neither of those things changed the prognosis.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” I told the room at large. “The seraphim have offered to seal me up again. When I go through with it, I’ll just be another human. Are we done?”

The Council had nothing left for me, but Kai found me not two minutes later in the healing garden where Nanna had spent so much of her time while she was in Seraphina. His expression was tight, his muscles coiled like he was expecting an attack.

“Blue –” he started.

“Please remove the bond.”

He stood there over me, his shoulder strategically blocking out the buildings and any onlookers. Kai bared the edge of his teeth and leaned to me. His voice was alarmingly quiet. “No.”

In the reflection of his green eyes, my defeated smile was amplified. “Then we have nothing left to discuss.”

“The hell we don’t!”

“How long did you think you were going to keep doing that? When everybody else is dead?”

“We can figure out a way to fix you.”

I shook my head at him. His fingertips grazed my arm but couldn’t hold on because I was already teleporting. When I touched down inside the bedroom, Sophie was nowhere to be seen. That suited me perfectly.

I placed a mirror call through to Eugenia. “Tell your contact I agree to their terms,” I told her. “Blood for potion.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

There was no more time for hesitation. No more time for love. No more time.

42

On my birthday of all days, I stood just outside the elevator lobby of a New York penthouse and knocked on the ornate mahogany doors. It would have been easy enough just to teleport in, but I had no clue what Andrei was doing and no desire to walk in on something gross.

I had chosen three in the afternoon for my drop-in thinking it would give him plenty of time to pull himself together. Colour me shocked when the door opened and he was both awake and fully dressed in slacks and a white shirt. Having been knocked unconscious at the start of the invasion of the Reserve, Andrei had managed to come away pretty unscathed.

“What are you doing here?”

I had asked myself the same question repeatedly since Eugenia had come back to me a week after my initial request. We had exchanged vials in Ravenhall an hour ago. The reluctant press of her lip was not at all reassuring.

“Make sure you have somebody with you when you take this,” she’d warned. “Spells of this nature are unpredictable.”

I would have given anything to have Sophie by my side, but she would have a colossal meltdown if she knew what I was doing and I wanted to spare her that guilt. “I need an insurance policy. Can I come in?”

Expecting reluctance, I was surprised once more when he pushed the door open. “Who are you and what have you done with Andrei?”

“So you’re just as mouthy even when you’re asking for favours,” he muttered. Unlike the times I’d seen this room through the mirror, it was no longer strewn with takeout containers and dirty laundry. I panned the apartment and gaped.

“You got rid of the painting.”

“What are you, my parole officer?”

I couldn’t help smiling that he even knew that concept. Suddenly, he was standing right in front of me, his expression marred by a frown. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

His head turned to the side. “Right. So of all the people you could choose to be with on your birthday, you’re here with me?”

“How do you even know what day it is?”

“Lucky guess.”

I waved the obvious lie away. It didn’t matter that I turned nineteen today. Nothing much mattered besides breaking the bond. Reaching into the pocket of my jacket, I produced the vial of green potion.

“What’s that?” Andrei asked before I could offer an explanation. “It looks like radioactive waste!”

A fitting description. The potion gave off a neon green that was unappetizing just to look at. “It’s an anti-bond potion.”

His uneven blink made his face quiver. “What the hell are you thinking?” he hissed.

It was not the reaction I was expecting. Today really was a day of firsts. “I was thinking that out of everybody I know, you’d be the least judgemental.”

“There’s judgement and then there’s all-out stupidity. Do you have any idea how badly this could backfire?”

I peered at him, trying to determine where his objection lay. “So you’re worried about the danger of the potion and not about what I’m trying to do?”

He raked his hand through his hair. “I don’t give a damn if you’re trying to break the bond. If you asked me, Captain Nephilim shouldn’t have foisted it on you in the first place. But answer me this, doesn’t it concern you that you have to resort to powerful black magic in order to remove something you could easily break if you really wanted to?”

I had promised myself no tears today. But as Andrei glared at me, his blue eyes hauntingly worried, I felt moisture welling. In the week leading up to this point, I had spent every spare moment trying to convince myself that I didn’t want the bond. I sat in the Grove for hours, meditating and repeating that mantra over and over again. And every night, as I lay down to sleep, the bond flared to life, telling me that Kai’s iron grip wouldn’t release me. That I didn’t want him to. That if I spent more than a second in his presence, I would break down and agree to be sealed just so I could live the blissful lie until I died abruptly.

“Will you help me or not?”

“Yeah but –”

“There are no buts anymore.”

He snatched my arm and shook me. Painfully. “Do you hear what you’re saying?”

I tried to throw him off but wasn’t strong enough. Story of my life. “I know what I’m doing!”

“That’s what worries me. What the hell is going on?”

My mouth clamped shut. I felt the muscles in his arms contract and knew that he was fighting not to compel me to speak. After what happened at the auction, I was banking on guilt. “Dammit, squirt,” he snarled. And then, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” It was immediate. Did I want it? No. But did it have to be done regardless? Absolutely. Even if I weren’t making plans on the side, if I died and the bond remained in place, it would destroy Kai. No matter what happened, before I could leave, it had to be broken.

Andrei’s fists curled and he had to force them open. “Let’s get this over with then.”

Not wanting him to change his mind, I marched over to the plush leather couch and sat down cross-legged. Rather than follow me, Andrei disappeared into an adjacent room and came back with a couple of shot glasses and a bottle of tequila.

“Should we be mixing the potion with liquor?” I asked.

“It’s not for you.”

“I thought supernaturals couldn’t get drunk?”

He angled the bottle upward so I could see the crystal sitting at the bottom. It glowed a faint amber that made the tequila far richer in colour than it should be. “Enchanted.”

He poured liquor into two glasses, downed both of them, and then filled them again.

“Screw it,” he said, pushing one glass over to me. “We’re probably both going to die anyway so we might as well go out swinging.”

That reminded me! I slipped Gabriel’s Key off my finger and handed it to him. “Don’t be here when Kai comes looking.”

He recoiled as though I’d slapped him. “Is that what you think of me?”

I made a face. “I had hoped you’d be rational about it.”

“The penthouse is warded against teleport.” He gripped his thighs. “I’m not exactly Captain Nephilim’s biggest fan, but this is a real dick move. He’s obsessed with you. This is going to seriously mess him up.”

I knew that. I also knew that when he found out what I’d done, everyone who had even slightly caught wind of what I was doing would probably die. But on the other hand, everyone would die if I got sicker and Kai continued to use them as my lifeline. At least this way I would have a chance at going out true to myself.

Sighing, I picked up the shot glass and swallowed the contents. Unlike human tequila, it didn’t burn on the way down. In fact, it tasted a little like ambrosia from Seraphina. My fingertips and nose began to tingle. I slapped the glass back on the table in front of Andrei. “More please.”

He eyed me for a second before refilling. It barely touched my tongue on the way down. “Another.”

“Take it easy.”

By now my whole body was tingling. I felt like I was floating. “Another.”

He refilled my glass. This time, instead of taking the shot, I uncorked the potion. Andrei went preternaturally still. His mouth opened a fraction and then pressed shut again. I took a couple of calming breaths that did nothing because I was blissfully, magically drunk and brought the potion to my lips.

Andrei fisted his hands on his knees. They turned white as I tipped my head back and drank the potion in one gulp. Vile was not a strong enough description for the taste that coated the inside of my mouth. There were things in this world that stank so much it made you dry retch. There were things that tasted so awful you immediately threw up. Then there was this potion that caused me to burst into tears on contact.

My lips trembled as wetness coated my cheeks. No matter how much I wanted to spit the potion out, it was like it had turned to tar as soon as I swallowed it. Even if I spat, and I sure as heck did, it wouldn’t come back out.

Andrei appeared beside me. He lifted the tequila to my lips and used it to chase down the potion. It didn’t help. If anything, the potion latched on to the properties of the tequila and inverted it so that I was no longer blissful. Despair gripped me. All of the colour leeched from the penthouse as my vision blurred.

“Shit!” Andrei snapped. He disappeared in the blink of an eye and came back with a white face towel. A quick dab of my nostrils soaked the towel in blood. I curled into a ball on the couch as my heart constricted. It felt as though somebody had speared knives through my chest and was twisting it around. It was impossible to take in a breath because my airways were closing in. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t see.

“Lex!” Andrei pleaded. His cooling hand felt like sandpaper on my forehead. Knives stabbed at me from all directions. Something latched on to my heart and yanked. My whole body convulsed. My chest arched forward as though somebody had a string tied around my heart and was trying to pull it out.

Andrei sliced the front of my T-shirt open. His blue eyes bled into brightest crimson. It matched the patchy landscape of bruising that had appeared on my skin. I clutched at my chest and felt my heart beating too close to the surface. Andrei ripped my hands away, searching as though he could see something I couldn’t. His mouth opened wide, teeth turning sharp at the tips.

“Shit!” he spat.

The phantom hand tugged once more, sending me sprawling forward. My cries were no longer audible. My jaw ached and my vision became bathed in red. I was bleeding from my eyes. Andrei cleared everything away from the space between the couches because I was convulsing so badly it was as though I was having an epileptic fit. He tried to roll me over onto my side so I couldn’t swallow my own tongue. A spark of bone magic raced across my skin and leaped onto his hand. He yelped as it singed him.

The potion had reached my blood stream and was slowly making its way to the chamber where my magic resided. Sharpness pressed against my heart. The rest of my internal organs screamed as they were squished together. My head pounded from lack of oxygen. Andrei appeared in front of me in triplicate. The middle Andrei slapped his hands on my cheeks, holding my head in place. “Spit it out.” he ordered.

The compulsion feathered against my thoughts. My back arched into the first strains of a vomit reaction, but it didn’t take. His hysteria mounted in the increasing vulgarity of his swearing. I shook so violently that even his superior strength couldn’t hold me still.

Behind his back, a shadow blossomed. Hell no! Wards my ass!

I tried to open my mouth to warn him, but my throat was too full of blood. Andrei’s head whipped around, alerted by his own vampiric senses. Black smoke hissed and rose to the ceiling. A swirl of green angelfire traced a circle in the air. My ears popped as Kai shattered the wards around the penthouse. He appeared in a shower of mystical smoke and forest-green angelfire.

Andrei whipped around only for Kai to catch him by his throat. The vampire went airborne. Kai tossed him with such force he sailed across the apartment and hit the window at breakneck speed. Glass shattered against his back. He hung suspended in the air outside for the briefest second before gravity snatched him and he fell out of sight.

Blood gurgled out the side of my mouth when I tried to scream. It came out an incoherent gargle. My eyelids were almost sealed shut with congealed blood. I felt weightless all of a sudden. The world faded and I found myself sitting up. The Ley sight rose up around me in softer pastel colours than what I usually saw. Kai stomped down beside me. Angelfire coated his right hand. He reached out and his hand slipped through my chest. I gasped thinking I might have phased by accident, but his frantic movements made me look down. Everything stood still as I stared into my own bloated face and unmoving body. Not again! I really couldn’t make a habit of dying. Kai blasted angelfire into my chest repeatedly. The Ley sight faded. Fatigue clawed at me, urging me to close my eyes. I fell backwards.

The last thing I saw was a blurry shadow ringed in green before a hand pressed on my forehead and I passed out.

43

For the longest time before I woke, I seemed to hover in a suspended state between life and death. Between pain and numbness. I heard the slamming of doors and felt the scrape of unknown but somehow familiar magic rolling against my skin.

My breath came in shallow gasps, sucking any oxygen through a blocked nose. Soft pressure blanketed my face. A spiral of green magic swept gently over my face, breaking down the crusted blood and easing my struggling lungs. Cleared of obstructions, my breathing evened out.

And then came the pain. The tarred potion was slathered along my trachea. It had seeped into my blood and raced to my heart where it had bonded with my cells. As predicted by everybody who warned me against the potion, it had backfired. A potion meant to rid me of my feelings for Kai had actually tried to literally rip out my heart.

Angelfire flared once more and the world went dark. The next time I woke, the darkness was illuminated only by the light of the moon coming through the window above where I lay. My whole body ached but it was a muted pain. The kind of thing I had felt after being healed.

One by one, my senses came back. The smell of citrus and fresh linen. The warmth of cosy bed sheets against my skin. The comforting rise and fall of a breath taken without pain. Relief flooded through me. When I tried to push myself up on my elbows, a hand shot out of the dark and clamped around my left wrist.

“Don’t move,” Kai snarled.

Eyes snapping open, I found myself lying helpless at the mercy of a predator. He sat in an armchair to the left of the bed. The way the moonlight cut through the curtain cast that side of the room in shadow. My night vision had yet to kick in. All I could really discern were those green, night-glow eyes that burned with such lethal intensity. I never knew Nephilim could turn their headlights on the same way as shifters.

And then he moved forward into the light. He might have his civilised face on, but what stalked me behind those deceptively calm green eyes was feral. Possessive. It was nothing compared to the merciless rage that he kept chained to his side of the bond. Even contained, I felt the bleeding edge of it like a lick of fire against my skin.

I tracked him back, my prey instinct screaming at me to run and hide. Amazement was a stone in my throat as I traced my gaze along his bare, heavily muscled shoulders down to the taut planes on his chest.

Swallowing hard, I tried to tug my hand free. It was like trying to push at a brick wall. “Let go of me.”

Rather than do as I asked, Kai surged forward. One minute he was a solid presence in the chair. The next, the bed dipped as he caged me in it, his palms on either side of my head, my wrist still shackled in his hold. The lean repositioned his torso, dragging the material of his sweatpants precariously low on his hips. I became startlingly aware that my T-shirt was missing.

The scene inside the penthouse raced back with blinding clarity. Andrei! That kind of drop would be fatal to a human. “What happened to Andrei?” I hissed.

The darkest blue drenched Kai’s eyes, turning the green into almost black. Andrei’s name was not safe to use. Safety was the last thing on my mind at the moment. “You better not have killed him.”

His face pressed dangerously close. “When I get through with him, he’ll wish he was dead. So will Eugenia. And that thug who sold you the potion. And any other person who had anything to do with this.”

I wanted to smile at how predictably reliable he was. Even when he was having homicidal tendencies. Unable to move my arms, I had every intention of kneeing him in the ribs. Intentions were great and all, but execution really was the key to success. Sadly, my lethargic body meant I was sorely lacking in the execution department.

“What did you do to me?”

All civility fled from his features. The face that looked back at me was pure, unadulterated death.

“What did I do to you?” Calm. Too much calm in his voice. Mayday. Red flags waving. Finding a smidgen of strength, I tried to wriggle out of his hold. It did nothing but make him latch on harder. Reaching inside, I found my pool of magics serene beneath the protective layer of the bond. Calling to it, I tried to grab on for a boost of power. It kept rippling gently without so much as a swirl to indicate it had sensed me.

“Seriously,” I whined. “Let me go, now!”

“No. I’m never letting you go again.”

Red flashed across my eyes. “Beg your pardon?”

“You’re done treating me like a chew toy and spitting me out whenever you get scared that this might be too much to handle.”

“What the ever loving hell are you talking about?”

My left wrist was freed only for his hand to settle over the column of my throat. The calluses of his fingertips pressed against the overly sensitive skin beneath my ear. My pulse beat wildly as he ran his thumb along the artery. My eyes rolled back in my head, lids closing involuntarily. A cold sweat kissed my skin. I swear it turned to steam against his scalding touch. He leaned down, his head so close if I dared move, I’d be in trouble.

“What did you think was going to happen after I found you dead, Blue?” he asked in a hot scrape of words against my ear.

“I wasn’t dyi –”

His teeth snapped, jaw gritting at what he thought was an outright lie. “I wasn’t! The potion –”

Kai’s free fist slammed against the bed, pushing the mattress off balance and sending me bouncing. “You were choking on your own blood when I found you. Your heart was double its normal size! If I was thirty seconds later...”

He blinked slowly, taking in a shuddering breath. He had always been able to force a measure of calm, even if it was pretend. But the residue of fury was still eating at him. What frightened me was that everything else about him became terrifying in its precision. Right now, all of his senses were firing on a level I couldn’t possibly fathom. Fear had shaped his childhood and honed him into a merciless weapon.

I hated that his life had been one big stretch of violence and loss. When I had decided to take the potion, I told myself I had made peace with the fact that Kai would feel my loss while the potion made me oblivious. Staring into his molten green eyes now, my conviction wavered.

So did his grip. For a second, I thought maybe he’d come to his senses. Then he curled his arm around my back, lifting me up and pressing me tight to his chest. He sat down heavily on the bed, forcing me into his lap and locking his right arm around me. With his left, he tipped me chin up so I couldn’t look away.

“What were you going to do?” he said. “Just take this potion and hope that it would erode the bond? I’m a healer for goodness sake!”

“That’s why I had to take it!” I screamed at him, sick of feeling like every option was a bad one.

“And then what? Go on your merry way and forget about us? While this side of the bond drives me out of my mind?”

“Nobody asked you to bond with me in the first place! If you weren’t such an impossibly arrogant jackass, we could have avoided this whole thing.”

“Am I?” he bit out. “Am I arrogant in thinking that I want you? That you want me? That we’re supposed to be a team, and if things go bad, we’re meant to work it out together instead of running in the other direction. I don’t get you, Blue. If there’s a demon within a kilometre, you’ll do everything in your power to crash tackle it. But we hit a small snag and the first thing you do is bolt.”

I almost spat my lungs out. “A small snag? You call not being able to have children a small snag? You call my magic eroding a small snag?”

“Anything short of imminent death is fixable.”

I deflated. “How much more imminent do you need?”

“If we bond –”

Never before had I been so close to actually throwing a tantrum. “You’re insane.”

“Only because you make me insane.”

“Don’t blame this on me.” I poked him in the chest. “I’m sure you came out of the Nephilim factory this way. Woodchips for brains.”

His hands slid down the small of my back, sending shivers up my spine that made me arch into his chest. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask,” he murmured against my temple. “If I thought I had a choice, I wouldn’t have done it.”

No. This wasn’t happening. I could deal with a snapping, snarling jackass. But I had no defences against this softer side of him. I had just dragged an apology out of Malachi Pendragon. It was a hollow victory. He hadn’t done anything wrong. My already stretched heart ached for him in more ways than one. Holding fast to my resolve, I forced out words I didn’t mean.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. We could never work.”

“If you don’t want it,” he seethed, “just deny the bond and it’ll retract. The seraphim are meticulous about this free will thing. If you’re so desperate to get rid of me, just say the word.”

I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Instead, I inverted my attention and looked inside me. Just say the word. It sounded so easy. Go away, I prodded weakly. I don’t want to be bonded.

I wasn’t sure where it originated, but there was definitely laughter in my head. My eyes opened.

“It doesn’t work,” I pouted. “Clearly this free will thing is complete bullshit.”

“Right. So it works when you tell the seraphim to stay out of your head but not when you want to get rid of a simple bond.”

“It’s hardly simple! And the seraphim need to keep their mouths shut. What? They can’t get in my head so they go running to you? If they didn’t create this mess in the first place, I wouldn’t have to –”

I stopped short, the notion deflating. It didn’t matter.

The flash of fury in his eyes said it mattered to him. “You wouldn’t have to what?”

“None of your business.”

“The hell it isn’t.”

Here came the sandpaper. “No, it’s not. I don’t understand why you think you’ve got some kind of rights to butt into my life, but this isn’t a negotiation.”

“You want to try that again while you’re not sitting in my lap, Blue?”

Steam came out my nostrils. “Move your damn arms and I wouldn’t be here.”

He called my bluff and dropped his arms.

I was free. Why didn’t I move?

A muscle in Kai’s cheek jerked. A split second was all it took. I had the option of running. He’d given it to me no holds barred. “You’ve had enough chances.”

He claimed my mouth in a hot, demanding kiss full of possessiveness. I should have pushed back but my brain fried on contact. I clenched his shoulders, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him closer. His tongue swept over mine in tantalising arches that made my back bow, his bare skin scorching against mine. He nibbled at my bottom lip, running his tongue over the plump curve. He kissed me as though starved for human contact. As though fearing I would disappear.

Wasn’t that exactly what would happen? I was living on borrowed time. I knew it. Kai knew it. He just refused to accept it.

The thought punctured through the haze of desire, throwing ice water on me. I shoved away, bracing my hands on his shoulders. Blinking rapidly, I tried to clear my thoughts. Kai dipped his head and ran his teeth gently along the sensitive skin beneath my ear. I whimpered, locking my elbows so I wouldn’t melt.

“Blue,” he rasped in my ear. His voice sent delicious vibrations over my skin. I stared into his earnest gaze and time stood still. “I know what I am. I can’t live my life in quiet. I won’t. I don’t have a clue what will happen tomorrow. I just know that I don’t want to spend the time we have left arguing with you.”

Something about the way he spoke about time made my insides cold. The bond opened up and showed me that Kai didn’t think he would survive this war either. He believed he would die defending the people he loved. Defending me. So whether I was able to have kids or not was not worth worrying about.

Vehemence burned in my chest. I couldn’t fathom a world where Kai didn’t exist. To my dying breath, I wouldn’t allow that to happen. It was time for this fairytale to end. The bond flickered. Locking away my emotions so he wouldn’t worry, my turbulent thoughts suddenly calmed. I was holding on to him because I wanted him so badly it hurt. But if I could prevent his death and that of the people I cared about, I would have to let him go.

Decision made, I was suddenly starving for him.

I kissed him, my lips sealing over his, my hands grabbing at his short hair. He parted my mouth with his tongue. I opened up to him, deepening the kiss and borrowing his strength. Kai clenched me to him, holding me so tight I could hardly breathe. Still, it wasn’t enough. I tapped at his shoulder. He relaxed his twined fingers a fraction to allow me to ease away an inch.

His face went slack when I reached back and unclipped my bra. “Blue.” It snagged in his throat.

“I’m okay.”

He cupped my face. “Blue.” This time it was almost a lament. “Don’t rush into –”

“I love you, Malachi Pendragon.”

He was right. He had wings but he certainly wasn’t an angel. But he was unflinchingly gentle with me as he pushed aside the sheets and lay me down on the bed. Until he didn’t need to be anymore.

In typical fashion, he tried to blunt the pain with his magic when I gasped. “Don’t,” I rasped against his mouth.

“It’ll hurt.”

“Good. That’s how I know it’s real.”

I kissed his mouth, his throat, the tattoo on his shoulder, holding him close, branding his memory into my soul.

Afterwards, I fell asleep in his arms and woke in the same place, peaceful and safe. Kai’s breath was even warmth on my shoulder. The rise and fall of his chest against my back was bliss. I allowed myself a minute to hold on to this. And then, I had to shatter the bubble. Phasing out of his arms so I wouldn’t wake him, I got dressed in a half-wraith state. But while I was slipping my socks on, he snagged me around the waist and dragged me back onto the bed.

“Going somewhere?” His eyes were at half-mast. He smiled at me like a satisfied cat. I traced my finger over the scar on his brow that I could never get enough of.

“Have I told you that I love you?” I asked. Despite my best effort, grief sliced through the bond.

His gaze sharpened. “Blue?”

I shook my head. “Never in a million years did I think I could be this lucky.”

“It’s not luck,” he snapped, voice razor sharp, eyes darting as he tried to figure out where the threat was lurking. “You –”

It was now or never. With all my heart, I wished it was never. But I wasn’t made for happy endings.

My finger trailed on his chest over his heart. Oblivisah. Forget.

Kai’s entire body convulsed. He latched on to my hand, the bond whipping out urgently in an attempt to counteract the Angelical command. White light engulfed the connection, burning it away faster than Kai could restablish it. His grip one my wrist was so tight I thought it was going to break. More than the constricting pain, it was his loss of control that shattered my heart into tiny pieces.

“Blu –” he croaked as I felt the bond give way.

It turned out there was one thing in this world stronger than a Nephilim bond. As the Angelical traced through his body, stealing all his memories of the way he felt about me, a look of utter betrayal twisted his face. And then, it all gave way to nothing.

Kai’s eyes closed and he did as I commanded.

He forgot all about me.

44

Knowing I had very little time, I made Gabriel’s Key take me back to the Academy dorm. Sophie gave a startled shout, jumping up from her bed. The second my feet touched down, I collapsed on the floor. The bond crumbled into nothing, taking with it the buffer of Kai’s healing power.

I screamed as the aftermath of the Angelical hit me. It shot pain through my body, opening up the wounds Kai had stitched together. Sophie caught me before I smacked my head on the floor. “Lex! What’s happening?”

Speaking was out of the question. Dying was the only thing I could manage at the moment. The convulsions returned with a vengeance, bringing its friends, drooling and migraine. Kicking aside everything on the floor, Sophie made a move like she was going to run for help from the mirror.

“No,” I sputtered. “No.”

“Lex! I don’t know what to do!”

I wanted to tell her there was nothing that could be done but I’d bitten my tongue and the blood was mixing with the spit that was caking my mouth. Tears spilled over her cheeks. She swiped them away hastily.

“Okay,” she whisper-screamed. Catching hold of my hand, she gripped my wrist and snatched Gabriel’s Key from me. I was hardly aware of her slipping it onto her own finger and disappearing because the world had turned into one big earthquake of horror. Without Sophie to hold me still, I kicked out wildly. My foot smashed onto my side table so hard it cracked and tipped over. All of my things spilled onto the floor. The Nephilim Codex fell like an anvil on my thigh, causing me to yelp even harder.

I bit my tongue again. The fits made me roll towards the fallen table. My hand reached out to try and brace against the wall, but instead, I snatched at Hilary’s diary and scrunched the open pages involuntarily. I dragged the diary up against my chest without meaning to. Then I stretched my arm out again, repeating this twice more for no apparent reason whatsoever.

My stomach roiled. I threw up all over the floor. Some of it was still radioactive green. Most of it was bright red. It all mixed together in a puddle of brown that smeared onto the pages of the diary.

I grit my teeth, trying to hold on to something so I could stop jerking all over the floor. I raised my arm with the diary still in my grip. It flapped uselessly in front of my face. It happened again. That strange feeling of being separated from my physical body. My mind was suddenly still even though I could see my body continuing to spasm. The insane ramblings on the page somehow morphed into coherent sentences. My overwrought mind picked up the words inevitable and ultimate sacrifice.

Sophie popped back into the room. Her eyes widened when she saw the mess I made. “Lex?”

Ignoring the puddle of blood and bile, she grabbed my arms and pressed them to my sides. “Lex!” For some reason, she touched her fingers to the pulse point at my throat. “Shit!”

She straddled my chest. I was sure this wasn’t the right way to deal with a person having convulsions. Clamping my bottom jaw with her left hand, Sophie produced a vial of deep red potion. After my last experience, I tried to shy away but she held firm. Not in control of my own reactions, she had no trouble pouring the contents of the vial down my throat. It was followed by three others.

At first, I felt nothing. And then a shocking jolt hammered through my chest. A strange taste bloomed on my tongue. It was at once pleasant and sweet with the scent of confectioners’ sugar but with a weird irony aftertaste.

I had no complaints when the potion slid down my throat and almost immediately began to soothe the convulsions. Sophie shimmied down my front and yanked me into a sitting position. Curling her arm around me, she placed her palm on my chest and shot her magic into me. It reacted with the potion in my gut, increasing the effect until I was no longer shaking. After another minute, the pain in my head subsided. As did the convulsions.

When she saw that I was no longer in danger of banging my head and killing myself, Sophie raced out and brought me back a glass of water. I took small sips, worried that my throat would close up again. She sat down in front of me, right on the spit stain, and made sure I didn’t regress.

I wasn’t sure how long we sat there but I finished the glass of water. Sophie allowed me time to catch my breath. Then she broke down in tears. I drew her into a hug. “Hey,” I said. “I’m okay.”

She covered her face with her hands, sniffed for a bit and then rubbed her eyes. “You’re not okay!” she sobbed. “Did you just…did you just die?”

I cast my eyes to the spot where I had just lain on the floor. A chill ran down my spine as though somebody had just walked over my grave. “Maybe for a second.”

She choked on another sob. There was no amount of back rubbing that would make this better, but I tried anyway. “This isn’t normal. It’s not about the Angelical at all, is it?”

“Well, technically, I did just us –”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“Okay. Okay.”

Her bottom lip quivered but she stared at me with steel in her eyes. “Tell me.”

I told her everything but the real reason why I couldn’t bond with Kai and what I planned to do once I figured out exactly how I would gather enough power in one place. Sophie slumped back on her butt. She looked at me, turned her head to the window and then back at me again.

“I...” she stammered. “What?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It takes some getting used to.”

Suddenly I was so incredibly tired. Slipping off my shoes I crawled into bed and dragged the covers over me.

Sophie came and sat by my side. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish there was something I could do. Kai...”

“Please don’t.”

She nodded. “Okay. Sleep. You’ll feel better once you’ve rested.”

I closed my eyes and dropped out like a light. But I didn’t feel better once I had rested. I felt like somebody had reached inside my chest, ripped my heart out, torn it to pieces, and shoved the jagged, broken pieces back in. Habit had me sinking into the pool of magic, knowing I was searching for something that was no longer there. Every scrap of the bond had been purged from my body. All that was left was an empty chamber, rusting away slowly as my body betrayed me. Hope was the only reassurance that Kai was okay. A biting insistence clawed at my insides like a phantom limb that I could still feel. It made my skin tight, my chest hurt, and my brain fuzzy.

I didn’t need a stupid bond. Just good old-fashioned love was enough to make me want to scream into a pillow and tear it to shreds at the same time. Biting down on the corner of the sheets, I lay there for the longest time with my jaw clenched, trying to desensitise myself to a new reality without him.

Clutching at straws, I counted all the reasons why I had made my choice. Without realising it, I had begun to slip into meditative breathing. Something struck me as odd. It took several minutes to work out that my heart was beating in a strange staccato rhythm. I didn’t need to look inside to know that it was failing. The reality of my situation slammed back with cosmic force. Forever was no longer an option. Kai was no longer an option.

At least I would go out knowing he would survive. Maybe he even had a chance to be happy. Shoving back the wounded whine that tried to escape my throat, I forced my jaw open and removed the sheet. Massaging the side of my face, I inspected the room.

There was another vial of red potion on my bedside table. Sophie had cleaned up the mess and set everything right. The codex and Hilary’s diary were back on my bedside. Looking at the diary caused a sharp kick of apprehension to run through me.

While I was psyching myself to pick it up, Sophie came in with a tray of food. I set upon it like I hadn’t eaten in a century. With each bite, my memory came back piece by piece.

“Andrei!” I remembered suddenly.

“Shhh,” Sophie held on to the tray so I wouldn’t knock it over. “I put in a call through to Mum while you were asleep. He’s pretty badly hurt but he’s alive. They’ve moved him in with Victoria while he recovers.”

I blew out a breath and took another bite of my calzone, chewing thoughtfully. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I swallowed my pride. “How is Kai?”

She shook her head. “There’s been no news.”

The food turned to sludge in my mouth. Sophie waved her arms in front of my face. “That could just mean he hasn’t woken up. He’s strong. He’ll be fine.”

“It was Angelical.”

“You commanded him to forget. Not die. Or anything else terrible.” I wanted to tell her that it was terrible to me, but she was right. “What are you going to do about the illness?”

“Raphael seems to think that if I stop using magic altogether, it should stall the illness and I could live out my life.”

Sophie didn’t say anything, but the grim set of her lips told me she didn’t buy it. Her eyes shone with determination and an odd expression settled over her face. “I can make you more potion,” she said. “Maybe if you drink some every day, it’ll help you keep it together.”

“What’s in that stuff anyway?”

She was almost as good a liar as me. Living with shifters who could scent deception had taught her how to regulate her reactions so she wouldn’t be caught out. “It’s just a version of that elixir I made for the Halloween Showcase with a few switched ingredients.”

Uh huh. It was these switched ingredients that I was worried about. When I mentioned it to her, she raised a brow. “Do you really want to know?”

I did not. But I also knew she was hiding something from me. It was only fair since I was hiding a few things from her. What choice did I really have? “Okay. Thanks, Soph.”

She brushed imaginary dust off her jeans. “I better get started on a new formula.” With that, she picked up her backpack and set off. Under different circumstances, I might have followed her to see where she was going. But right now it was pointless. What other choice did I have?

Without further interruptions, I grabbed Hilary’s diary and flipped to the page that I had seen while having my fit. Once again, all I saw was incoherent markings. Working on an assumption, I packed up my own backpack, teleported to Ravenhall and broke into Eugenia’s house while she was out. Not really. Her door was always open because more than one person used it as a magical halfway house. If she didn’t know me, the house itself wouldn’t have allowed me in.

Picking up her summoning supplies, I ran to the Great Hall, ignoring everyone’s curious glances. “Summoning room, please,” I asked the hall. A door opened up to my left. The longest part of drawing the summoning circle was psyching myself up to touch the human skull. Cursing myself for not bringing gloves, I gingerly picked it up and placed it inside the middle section of the five-point pentagram.

When I was done drawing some blood, I slapped my hand down on the red circle. Concentrating on the skull, I attempted to call forth its owner. The visitation was almost immediate. My heart lurched as the semi-transparent body of a women in her forties appeared. She wore a faded set of running sweats, though the faded part might have had more to do with her wraith state than her lack of fashion sense. A pair of white earbuds flopped over her shoulders. She’d been out for a run when she died.

“Uh…hi,” I said. That was me. Bone witch to the core.

“Hello, Alessia.” Her eyes were sad. “My name is Holly.” She turned her head to regard me and it was then that I saw the two small puncture wounds on her neck. Vampire bite. Where the heck had Eugenia gotten her bones from? And why the hell were the elite guard allowing things like this to happen? I had always tried to be Switzerland in the ongoing war between the Human League and the supernaturals, but this was starting to piss me off too.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her. “If I had any other choice, I wouldn’t have disturbed you.”

Her focus turned to the skull and the rest of her bones that were scattered in strategic positions around the circle. “When we’re done,” she said, voice throaty, “can you please dispose of my bones?”

It was the least I could do. Once her bones were destroyed, nobody else would be able to summon her. I nodded, a morbid thought worming its way into my brain. What did I want done to me after I died? Swiping at nothing on my cheek, I made myself pay attention. Offering up the rattle, I placed it down next to her skull. “Could you please have a look to see if you can locate the souls of Alan or Sebastian Popescu?”

She shook her head. “It would be pointless,” she said. “I know what you search for but I won’t be able to find them. Nobody can.”

“Why?”

“They were unmade.”

It took a second for it to sink in. “Unmade?”

“Yes,” she said. “Their souls do not reside in the Sea of Souls.”

“But they were –”

“Soulless shells,” she reminded me. My lessons with Professor Suleiman came back with stinging clarity. A supernatural whose soul has been removed becomes an indiscriminate killing machine. She arched her head back to show me her scars. “Just like the one who killed me.”

It was no wonder Alan and Sebastian never showed up. They couldn’t. They would never be laid to rest. How would I be able to tell Andrei? And just as importantly, who had taken their souls and why?

Something occurred to me. Cursing that I didn’t have the information right in front of me, I reached for the pocket mirror. “Just a sec,” I told Holly.

Flipping through the mirror, I brought up information about the supernatural kids who had murdered Rachel’s mother. “Can you please search for the soul of Benjamin Reed?”

She did so and then shook her head mournfully. What the heck? How was it that all these people had just been harvested and nobody knew about it? The simple answer was that there was no time. Once a soul was removed from a supernatural host, they had to be put down.

Compartmentalising the information for now, I produced Hilary’s diary. “One more thing,” I said. Holding the diary out to her, I flipped the pages slowly. “Are you able to read these marking in the margins?”

Taking a step closer within the confines of her smaller circle, she ran her eyes along the blocks of writing. I crossed all my fingers and toes that this would pan out. My soul had almost crossed over when I’d been able to comprehend the words. Being a bone witch, I wouldn’t put it past Hilary to make the notes visible only to spirits.

As she scanned, I felt a pinch behind my left eye. Uh oh. I was overdoing it. As the seconds ticked by, the pain increased exponentially. It looked like I wasn’t out of the woods just yet. I was about to call it off when the Holly spoke:

“It says that somebody has to make the ultimate sacrifice,” she said. “Over and over again.”

And now my heart was pounding just as thunderously as my head. She had known. When Hilary had saved my life, she had known about the prophecies. Maybe she had even seen the prophecies like Emily and had written them down. The knowledge sealed my fate. One way or another, I wasn’t getting out of this one alive. It was time to stop stalling.

45

Sophie returned to the dorm while I was getting ready to leave. Seeming drained by whatever she’d been off doing, she didn’t notice I was packing until she fell sideways onto her bed and really stared.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she said.

“I can’t stay here when I could go off at any time.” To emphasise the point, I coughed blood onto the back off my hand.

At first she just blinked. Then her nostrils flared. “So you thought you’d just run away instead?” she asked. “Given that you’ve almost died twice in the past week, how far do you think you’ll get before it happens again? Did you think after all this time that we’d let you run off without searching for you?”

I stopped from shoving a pair of socks into the side pocket of my backpack. Dammit! She was right. If I just left, they would try to find me. When Kai returned without the bond, they would know something was deadly wrong. And then they would find a reason to make me stay.

Sophie pushed herself up to a sitting position. “I can’t help you if you’re not here.”

“I can…” The stupidity of it sank in. Fear had robbed me of logic. My dizzy brain was proof enough that I needed Sophie’s potion more than ever. But I couldn’t sit around waiting to lose control of my body either. I would stay until I was strong enough to finish this last mission.

“Okay,” I said. Sweeping the backpack of meagre supplies off my bed, I crawled in feeling like my body was weighted down. “I’m going to sleep for a bit.” Sophie’s disturbed expression was the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes.

There was still no sign of Kai the next day. Sophie promised she’d start spreading the news about our breakup. By the end of Dead Languages, the rumour mill blew up. For two days, I put up with side-eyes and snickering. Kai still hadn’t returned.

To prove to myself that I was serious, and to stop from going insane now that I couldn’t reach him in the bond, I ventured into Seraphina with the codex. I wasn’t surprised to find Patricia waiting for me outside the library building.

“Tell me it isn’t true,” she said, genuine distress in her voice. The hard line of my jaw was evidence enough.

“Oh, darling.” She hugged me to her ample chest. It took all of my willpower not to burst into tears. Christopher was equally puzzled when I slid the codex across the table to him.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“I don’t have any need for it anymore. Thank you anyway.”

Before he could regroup, I speed walked out of there. My path away was blocked by a swarm of Nephilim socialites. Most of them were sympathetic until somebody with ruby claws snatched me from their grasp. Chanelle turned me to face her, the death grip she had on my arm cutting off my circulation.

“This is a lie for attention, isn’t it?” she sniped. Even if it was, just the hint of a possible rift had her sniffing around.

“No, it’s not. He’s all yours.”

She searched my face. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for exactly. I’d been denying the bond for months. “If you’re done staring, I have to go home.”

Not that there was any relief at the Academy. Giselle and Matilda had been called away to help the elite guard disable the rifts. Left to my own devices, I ended up cross-legged and slumped on the mat in the illusion training room moping.

The mirror in our room went off like crazy. Sophie fielded all my calls, though she drew the line at taking the brunt of Nanna’s lecture for me. “I’m not sure why you find this so surprising, Nan,” I said. “I’ve been saying no for months.”

She brushed trembling fingers to her lips. “Yes, but I thought…are you sure, love?”

“Very sure.”

We stared at each other for a long beat. After a while, she sighed. “I don’t know why I bother,” she said. “I can never tell if you’re lying. Are you okay?”

I plastered on a smile. “Yeah. It’s a relief, actually.”

The conversation with Jacqueline was much harder to avoid. I received a summons bulletin from the first mirror I walked past just after lunch. Blowing out a breath, I skipped out on Supernatural Sex Ed and steeled my spine.

“Heard the news,” Alex announced as I walked past his desk. “Sucks to be you.” That was about as soft as he got so I took it.

Cassie was sitting on the chair I usually occupied. “Umm…am I interrupting?”

Jacqueline waved me over. “Not at all.”

“I can come back another time.”

“Honestly, it’s not a problem.”

I bit my bottom lip. “What I mean to say is, I don’t really want to have this conversation with one of you, let alone both of you.”

Jacqueline brightened, taking my sarcasm as a good sign. I flagged the air with my arms. “We really are done,” I said. Something occurred to me. “Have you been in contact with him?”

Jacqueline shook her head. “Nobody’s seen him.”

Shit! “Is anybody looking for him?”

Cassie rested her head on the table glumly. “Yeah, right. Like we want to be the first people he sees if you guys have really broken up.”

It was only then that I remembered they didn’t know about the Angelical. “Should we be worried?” I asked tentatively.

“Are you worried?” Jacqueline hedged.

“In a general sense.”

Cassie groaned.

“Did you pull me out of class for something school related?” I asked. Two sets of eyes blinked at me like I was a dolt. “Right. I’m going now.”

“Lex,” Jacqueline called out. I turned back around. She was patting Cassie’s hand. “I’m sure whatever happened, you’ll work it out.”

I shook my head at her. “Not this time.”

Never again.

As I pushed open her door, the finality of it hit me. I would never again be the first one Kai looked for when he entered a room. I’d never be the one to argue with him when he was being unreasonable. When I was hurt, he wouldn’t be there to heal me. When I was afraid, he would be indifferent.

Two days later, Kai returned to the Academy. I knew it the second he set foot on Academy soil. I was in the Grove and the nymphs suddenly froze. They let out an ecstatic chorus of chirps reserved specifically for Kai. Well, I guess we knew where their loyalty lay.

I may have dawdled for too long with my chores while debating whether I should skip Weaponry and Combat until I could get myself together. Then I thought of how it would look if I just didn’t show up to any of his classes.

Reminding myself that I was going for cool detachment, I had no choice but to face the music. By the time I made it, the first part of class was already underway. Everyone had paired off and were sparring with each other. The flurry of movement meant that I didn’t have a focal point to settle my attention on. Using an advanced form of selective gaze that I had just invented, I snuck into the room and kept to the edges. I was just about to start a couple of stretches when a voice cut through the sound of weapons clanging and thudding against each other.

“Is there a reason why you’re late, Alessia?” Kai asked from behind me. Having gotten used to the warning from the bond, I was completely unprepared for him sneaking up on me. Suppressing a full-body shudder, I turned around. My broken heart lurched at the sight of him.

He was in navy Bloodline sweats and a maroon T-shirt. Last time I’d seen him, the colour was bleeding from his face. Today, he was glowing with Nephilim health. Apathy coated his expression. It reached out and slapped me so hard I felt my knees wanting to buckle. Kai had been many things since we first met but never uncaring. Through sheer force of stubbornness, I made myself speak.

“Sorry. I was with the nymphs and lost track of time.”

His looked at me like I was barely there. “Don’t make a habit of it.”

Sasha snuck up beside me as Kai turned his back and walked away. Trey, Roland, and the girls were with him.

“What’s the protocol here?” Sasha asked. “Are we kicking his ass for hurting you or what?”

I bit my lips together, but instead of the stoic power pose I intended to imitate, my head leaned wearily against his shoulder. “Lex?” There was a dangerous catch his voice. He wrapped an arm around me.

“That’s it,” Trey said. His nostrils flared. “I’m going to go get myself killed. Who’s coming with me?”

Roland blew out a breath. “If we must. Tell Mum I love her, Diana.”

“As if I’d stay behind!” Diana shot back.

I thought they were kidding until Trey flexed his fist and started walking. “Whoa!” I jumped in front of him. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’ll knock your head off.”

“Doesn’t matter. Nobody messes with our friends.”

“Trey.” He tried to move around me. So did Sasha. “Can you guys stop? Please. I’m really tired of being under a microscope. I just want to let it go.”

Copper flared in Trey’s eyes. I planted myself in front of him and wouldn’t budge. “Fine,” he said. “But if I see you crying, I’ll find a way to kill him.”

My bottom lip was almost chewed raw by the end of class. I’d spent most of it sitting on the sidelines while my classmates eyed me speculatively. Kai and I had been on tentative ground before. And then he’d started up with his campaign to win me over. So now nobody knew how to behave. When the bell rang, James was over it.

“For goodness sake,” he said. “There’s an easy way to settle this.”

He strode past and shoved me hard into the wall. With no warning, I only just managed not to trip over the bags of equipment by the bleachers. Muscle memory urged me to phase, but I caught myself just in time. The last thing I needed was to get sick again so soon. My hip smashed into the bench. I came away with a gash the length of my hand.

“What the heck was that?” I yelled, marching up to him. Trey’s vicious snarl filled the room, but it was the distinct lack of response from Kai that had the entire class dumbstruck. If he even had a smidgen of affection left for me, there would be a James-sized hole in the wall. Kai stood on the other side of the room in an at-ease stance, just watching us.

“You have classes to get to,” he said. Then he turned his back and started packing away punching bags.

It wasn’t even worth hitting James back even though I desperately wanted to wipe the elated smile from his face. “The insanity has finally lifted,” he said when Sophie bundled me past. Diana turned around and jabbed him in the head. He toppled backward onto the mat.

“It doesn’t feel any better,” she muttered as we filed out the door.

No, I wanted to tell her. Nothing would feel better again.

James had a big mouth. By the end of the week, news had spread far and wide. The calls from party vendors died out. They were replaced by calls from everyone I knew.

I sat stony-faced watching Durin pace around through the mirror. Yolanda’s voice was sceptical. “So you both just decided it was in your best interest to end things?” she asked for the third time.

Durin grumbled. “He must have done something. A Nephilim bond doesn’t just go away.”

“It does if I don’t accept it.”

He rounded on me, nudging Yolanda aside so that his head filled the whole mirror. “What did he do?”

“Nothing! We’re just really bad for each other. He finally realised that after what happened with Andrei. I don’t want him to spend the rest of his life beating up on people because they look at me sideways.”

They shuffled off into a corner of the room away from the mirror to deliberate. I was going to kill Sophie for picking up this call.

“If you ever stop beating up on people because they look at me sideways,” Yolanda hissed at her mate, “we’re going to have a problem.”

“Nobody is going to get a chance to look at you sideways,” he growled in response.

When they returned, the verdict was unchanged. “You’re so full of it,” Yolanda said. “Just because we can’t tell that you’re lying doesn’t mean you’re not.”

Urgh!

It was the call from Max that sent me over the edge. Neither Sophie nor I wanted to speak to him, so we didn’t answer.

“Better just avoid him,” Sophie said. “His transfer’s been delayed on account of the Reserve needing additional guards. He’s in a crappy mood already.”

Not wanting to be alone one night after dinner while Sophie had work, I ducked into the Grove and sat there licking my wounds. The nymphs weren’t sure what to do with me. Bullying me at the moment had little effect. I was already as miserable as possible.

Phoenix came to sit beside me at the Arcana pool. I spent hours stroking his hair and sniffing away ridiculous tears. He licked my hand and sat down, placing his head on my knee. I leaned over and pressed my cheek to the top of his head. My tears fell on his nose, but he didn’t move an inch. After what felt like forever, I splashed water on my face and dabbed it clean with the sleeve of my top. I touched the tip of my finger onto the water’s surface. “Andrei Popescu, please.”

The surface of the pool rippled and turned into a mirror. Andrei’s battered face appeared a moment later. I tapped my chin. “How are you feeling?”

“How do you think I feel?” he said. “I fell fifteen storeys and that’s the lesser of two evils. That uptight old woman is in my face twenty-four-seven. I’m going out of my mind here.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“She keeps trying to trick me into drinking blood.”

“Maybe you should give it a try. You’re not looking so crash hot.”

He snorted. “You’re one to talk. Last time I saw you, there was blood coming out of your eyes. And yet you looked less dead than you do now.” He paused. “How did you pull it off?”

I wrung my hands, debating whether I should tell him. What could it hurt? Andrei was many things, but he wasn’t much of a gossip. “I hit him with an Angelical word.”

His face froze so completely I thought the mirror portal might have glitched. Then he whistled. “That’s really bad, squirt. Mind telling me why you’re doing a kamikaze run?”

Dammit! I regretted it already. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t give me that.” He peered at me through the mirror, his bruised eyes narrowing. “This isn’t a goodbye conversation is it?”

It was a good thing he couldn’t hear my heart beating. “You’re talking gibberish.”

“Lex.”

Why did everyone keep saying my name like that? In an effort to redirect his line of enquiry, I told him what the wraith had revealed to me. In the blink of an eye, his face closed over. A ring of dull red throbbed in his eyes. “I have to go,” he said, voice shaking.

Goodbye, Andrei.

I hoped it was enough for him to make his own investigations. That was one less thread loose. It was getting late and I hadn’t really moved. The yowies came out to play while I sat there contemplating whether the nymphs would lose their tiny heads if I turned the Arcana trees into topiary. It seemed like it would be therapeutic.

I was smiling manically when Phoenix suddenly raised his head. He let out a soft growl that was more of a warning than a threat. All sense of serenity disappeared at the sound of wings flapping and the feeling of displaced air hitting my back. Phoenix got to his feet and padded around to place himself between me and where Kai had just touched down.

Affection overwhelmed me. I wrapped my arms around the dingo and hugged him. Phoenix leaned into me as though trying to transfer his strength.

“Go,” I told him. “I’ll be okay.”

He pressed his nose to my cheek as his upper lip trembled. I could just imagine him issuing the same threat Trey had done in class. He trotted slowly back out the path with the yowies following behind.

Dusting grass off my butt, I stood up to face Kai. Standing there bathed in moonlight, his expression was steeped in shadow. His green eyes were night-glow but lacked emotion. They were vacant like nobody was home in there. It was apt. My Kai had left the building.

“Lights out was an hour ago,” he said. He really was a barrel of laughs.

“I lost track of time.”

“That seems to be a frequent excuse of yours.”

I shrugged. “I’ll try harder next time.”

Thinking he was just being an uptight guard, I attempted to move past him. His arm came down in front of me, barring my way. “Wait.”

I halted, my pulse an unsteady beat in my ear. “Yes?”

“I wanted to ask, are you okay?”

There was that hysterical laughing in my head again. Ask a stupid question. “I’m just peachy.”

He frowned and then ran his hand through his hair. At the last second, I stopped myself from etching every movement into my soul. Stop it, Lex. He’s not yours anymore.

It was going to be a difficult habit to break. Luckily, it wouldn’t be prolonged.

There was hesitation in his touch when he took my hand. Always before Kai had held me with contained possession, locking my wrist so that I couldn’t move. Now his touch was cold, his fingers just as detached as his feelings. I held my breath.

“I know you and I have had a strained relationship,” he said. “But I want you to know that I won’t say anything about what happened in the manor.”

“Eh?”

He stared at me unblinking as I made the connection. Oh. Right. Disappointment was a sharp sting. He was doing the letting me down gently routine. It would have been awkward if I could be assured that he felt anything. Even guilt. But as I took in his calm, unconcerned posture, it hit me: Kai remembered everything. He still had his memories. It was just that he didn’t feel anything associated with them. I had effectively turned him into a sociopath. If questioned, he would know all the details of our relationship. It would be enough to convince anybody that he’d suddenly stopped caring about me.

Even I was impressed by the effectiveness of the Angelical. Being impressed didn’t blunt the pain of a thousand knives stabbing me in the heart.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Water under the bridge.”

“Alessia.”

It was as if a stranger had spoken. I had never hated the sound of my own name so much. Not even when Lucifer spoke it. Thinking of the seraph made rage boil in my gut. It chased away some of my grief and allowed me to match Kai’s indifference.

“I’m perfectly fine,” I told him. “If I wasn’t, you would know, wouldn’t you?”

His eyes darted. I imagined him searching for a clue amongst his own feelings for the truth in my statement. He didn’t feel anything. So, how could I?

Finally, he nodded at me and teleported away.

Tired of wallowing, I went back to the dorm room with the intention of getting some sleep. If I wasn’t awake, I wouldn’t feel this constant ache that made me want to jump out of my own skin. Too late I realised that I’d been spoiled and arrogant. I’d been walking around denying the bond with the self-assurance that Kai would stubbornly keep it in place. Now that it was gone, I felt it keenly.

The walk back to the dorms was a complete blur. Light spilled out from the crack beneath the bedroom door. Odd. Sophie shouldn’t be up at this hour. I opened the door to find Basil sitting on my bed.

“Hi,” he said.

I burst into tears.

46

After convincing Basil not to murder Kai on the spot, I wiped away the tears from my cheeks. “Does Jacqueline know you’re here?” I asked.

He gave me a smug grin. “I slipped right past security. You’d be surprised how much you learn about avoiding security when you work for the Dominion prison.”

“How’s that going?”

He yawned. “Boring. I miss the good old days of reading in bed until dinner time and then going to the library.”

“Err...you forgot to mention your full-time job as MirrorNet extraordinaire,” Sophie said.

Basil sighed, learning back against the wall. “Are you sure yo –”

“Don’t say it,” I warned. “If I hear it one more time, I’m going to scream.”

He leaned in closer so his shoulder bumped mine. “And are you going to tell me what really happened or just the same lie you’ve been giving to everybody else?”

“It’s not a lie.”

“Not if you believe it, right?” He snapped his fingers and a line of orange light zapped under the door. It skirted along the wall and windows, sealing up the room. A dampening spell. “I still maintain that boy isn’t right in the head. But there’s no way I’m going to believe he’d break the bond. I spoke to him before I came here –”

Sophie and I exchanged alarmed looks. Basil grinned. “Did you think I wouldn’t check it out for myself? He’s a security risk.” Oh dear Gaia. He was taking his new position as head of the Dominion prison way too seriously. “Bruce and I had to make sure he wasn’t possessed.”

“And?” I asked.

He eyed me suspiciously. “He’s not. But that thing walking around in his body isn’t Malachi Pendragon. At least not all of him.” He stroked his chin. “I actually kind of like it. He’s less annoying this way.”

My laugh was dry. “Trust you to think that.”

“Do you think his grandmother is actually buying what you’re selling her?” Basil asked me. “Or anyone else who knows him? I had to put a hex on Max to get him to stay in the Reserve when he found out. Durin has banned any shifter from giving you grief, but I have to know what I’m working with here.”

I poked him in the hip. “I don’t think I care for this new responsible you.”

“And I don’t care for whatever it is that makes you believe you’re alone.” I hugged his side, desperately missing him despite him being right here.

“I blasted him with Angelical,” I told him.

“What?”

“I used Angelical on him to erase his feelings.”

Basil looked from me to Sophie and back again. “Lex!”

“I know!”

He got up and started pacing. “I...do you know...he’s....”

This wasn’t good. “I think I broke him,” I told Sophie.

Basil threw his arms into the air. “I’m not the only one you might have broken! You can’t just go around throwing Angelical at people.”

“I had no choice. The potion didn’t work, and he wouldn’t break the bond otherwise.”

“What potion?” Oops. Forgot I hadn’t told him about that either.

Sophie dug herself into a comfortable position under the covers. “I wish I had popcorn,” she said.

“Nothing,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

Basil was almost foaming at the mouth. “Of course it matters. Sooner or later, somebody is going to figure out he’s not right and –”

I gave a humourless chuckle. “As long as he bonds with somebody viable and spits out a healer child, I don’t think anyone is going to be too upset at me.”

“If he can even have children anymore. You have no idea what the Angelical might have done to him.”

“I had to stop him!”

Basil knelt down in front of me. “And what about you?” He took my hand. “You’ve had to give up so much for the sake of protecting people. What about what you want?”

“I don’t get to want things. My life isn’t a story with a happily ever after, Basil. I’m okay with that.”

“I’m not,” Sophie piped up.

“Me either,” Basil said. He searched my face. “What aren’t you telling me?”

I patted his cheek. “I’ve told you more than I have anybody else. The rest is mine to bear.”

“What the hell kind of logic is that?” Basil roared. Lucky there was a spell to keep in sound.

Try as he might, I refused to tell him any more. He left muttering a string of curses.

I was feeling lighter after having seen him. And then I woke up feeling smothered. My nostrils were blocked. Pressure built behind my left eye. “Sophie?”

She rolled over in her bed. “Soph! I need to turn the light on.”

She grumbled and I heard the sound of her moving around under her blankets. I flicked on the Fae lantern and started at myself in the mirror. Blood caked the lower half of my face. It stuck in my hair and all over my sheets. When I stood up, it felt like somebody was holding a drill to my head.

“Oh, Lex!” Sophie hissed. Her eyes were filling up. “Go and take a shower. I’ll fix this and make you some potion.”

I stood under the spray for longer than was necessary. The whole time, I clamped my lips shut so I wouldn’t throw up. My blood painted the water a diluted pink and didn’t run clear for ages. While I dressed, I started bleeding again. Walking down the hallway before dawn with tissue paper stuffed up my nose wasn’t a classy getup. Sophie had changed my sheets and comforter while I was gone. She had a vial of her potion ready for me. It was darker than the ones she’d given me previously.

I gulped it down. Within thirty seconds the pulsing in my head eased. My bloody nose crusted and didn’t run anymore.

“Soph,” I said, holding up the vial. “I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth but what the heck is this stuff?”

She started biting her nails again. “You really don’t want to know.”

I sat there pinching my nostrils together and trying to think of the worst possible thing she could be doing. Oh jeez. “Please tell me I’m not drinking supernatural essence.”

She didn’t say a word. “Sophie...”

“I’m going back to sleep,” she announced. She jumped back under the covers and lifted them over her head.

“You’re not killing anyone, right?”

She ripped off the covers and gave me a dirty look. “Of course not!”

“But....”

“But you don’t need to know.”

“Don’t need to know or is this one of those things that I shouldn’t know in case it incriminates you later amongst a jury of your peers.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Who cares? In case you’ve forgotten, you’re dying!”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. “Please don’t do anything you’ll regret on account of me.”

Storming out of bed, she came and stood right in front of me. “And what exactly is it you’re doing?”

“Soph.”

She scrunched her face up to stop from crying. “We’ve shared a bedroom, a life, for almost three years. I know you, Lex. You’re going to try and do something scary and I don’t like it.”

I closed my eyes for a second. The strain of everything threatened to overwhelm me. Turned out, knowing you were going to die was a lot harder than just dying. I couldn’t help swiping the back of my arm across my nose even though I was no longer bleeding.

Despite the assistance of Sophie’s death potion, my body was breaking down at a much faster rate than I had first anticipated. It scared me to think how much Kai had been healing me without my knowledge. My window for action was rapidly shrinking.

“Now that you mention it,” I said. “I am just slightly terrified.”

Grabbing me, she held me tight. “Are you sure there isn’t any other way?”

“Not unless we can go back and undo all the Angelical I’ve spoken. And all the other stuff I’ve done since I came here.”

“How can this be the only way?”

I squeezed her back hard. “Because Lucifer has been an asshole for an eternity and he’s not about to stop now.”

Not knowing how long the potion would last, and how much time I actually had before my illness rendered me useless or dead, I asked for access to the heavenly blade.

“What for?” Sophie wanted to know. “You just had an epic meltdown after speaking an Angelical word. What if touching the blade brings on another episode?”

“If I second-guessed everything, I’d never leave the room.”

“That might not be the worst idea.” She retrieved the blade for me nonetheless.

My hand shook a little as I went to grab hold of the handle. When nothing cataclysmic happened, I let out a long withheld breath. “I’m coming with you,” Sophie said.

“No, you’re not.”

“The hell –”

I teleported. Boy, that was a handy trick. She might be pissed later but it was better than trying to explain to her what I was doing. The Great Hall was deserted at this time of night. Still I locked what was left of my magic away and glided up the steps in a half-phase. Once inside, I picked an empty room and sealed the doors and windows with exclusion runes. Drawing an invisibility circle, I sank bone magic into it. Sweating when I was done, I sat there on the cold marble floor, my head bowed between bent knees. Shit.

It wasn’t even that much magical expenditure, but I felt as though I’d gone three rounds with a manticore. How on earth was I going to pull off this half-baked idea? Shaking myself, I pushed forward, remembering that time was not my friend.

In an effort to conserve energy, I had picked up a piece of blue chalk from Sophie’s ingredients box. Using it as a visual aid, I drew a big circle the circumference of the room. When I was done, I drew six smaller concentric circles until the final one was the size of a dinner plate. Placing the heavenly blade inside the circle, I went around filling in the rest of the space. More circles, always in denominations of three and intersecting each other, were placed at equal intervals to build a structure that was unbreakable. The last thing I needed was for the summoning to backfire and take Ravenhall with it.

The wards I drew were a mix of runes and sigils from an ancient Celtic druidic civilisation. Like my hedge magic, it was the language of this plane and I wanted it to reinforce the magic that I would be summoning. When the circle was complete, it resembled a talisman used by witches who dealt with astrological hexes.

As an added layer of protection, I slipped into the Ley dimension. Shadows danced behind my eyelids as the flash of blue and black magic imprinted on me. The circle was a mass of interconnected waves. The blade glowed an unearthly silver, calling to mind that thread that had come from the sky while I had been trying to grow the Arcana trees.

Gritting my teeth, I reminded myself that if I dawdled, Jacob would get his wish. Thinking of the mage sent a shiver of intense hatred through my veins. When I got my hands on him, I would make him pay. A voice deep in my mind chuckled, knowing I would probably never get the chance. But I pushed it aside and leaned into the rage that was the only thing keeping me going at the moment.

Reaching out, I placed a tentative hand on the blade. The flare of light almost blinded me. Shutting my eyes was useless but I did it anyway. Taking a weighted breath, I gathered every scrap of concentration I could and forced it into the circle. “Show me the Hell dimension,” I said aloud despite being alone. “Take me to the spot where there are the most demons present.”

Magic fluctuated within and outside the circle. My gut roiled as the room wavered around me. Nausea clawed its way up my throat. The hand that touched the heavenly blade shook. Pressing my free hand into a fist, I grabbed the Ley dimension and wouldn’t let go. Slowly, the image around me flickered at the edges and the room disintegrated. In its place, a towering white crystal cathedral rose up to the sky. Its tallest spire touched the tip of the clouds. I took in the unearthly frontage of the building, which was decorated in a frosted, eight-pointed star, the four main points longer than the four in between. The Morning Star.

A gasp caught in my throat. Panning my gaze further out, I watched as the sky bled from blue to orange to red as the horizon expanded away from the cathedral structure. Just as the sky turned to bloody ash, so too did the earth beneath it. It was as though the building and the immediate area surrounding it was an oasis in a desert of desolation. I recognised it for what it was. A piece of the heavenly realm cast down to Hell.

Lucifer’s stronghold.

Biting my bottom lip, I squinted as black and red dots materialised in front of my eyes. As my focus tunnelled, the dots began to solidify into recognisable forms. I saw then why it had taken me so long to notice that there were life forms down on the ground. It was because there were so many of them that they made up the ground. What I was seeing wasn’t parched red-and-black earth. They were demons. So many of them that they stood and crawled all over each other.

Stacked two and three in a spot, they fought with tooth and nail to be at the perimeter of the barrier that kept the cathedral in its heavenly cocoon. The circumference must have been hundreds of metres wide. So many demons it hurt my head to even count. Many more than there were supernaturals. And those were only the low demons that I could actually physically pinpoint. In between, black and brown steaks like ribboned clouds whipped through the air. The demon essences coiled and stretched as they too tried to find a path back to their master. It was their presence that caused the air to be tainted in an oppressive darkness.

A blaze of blue-tinged purple lit up the sky as a creature with immense black wings glided through the air around the perimeter. It was joined by another and another until the air itself was teeming with purple fire. The winged demons on the ground gave brutal, impotent screams as they were unable to lift off the ground for fear of being eviscerated by the winged creatures. They were like nothing I had ever seen.

Having met a dragon up close, I knew these things weren’t of the same species. While the dragons were sleek creatures of unbreakable scales and sharp intelligence, these winged creatures were rough-skinned, their hides abrasive like that of a shark. Where a dragon’s wings were immense and membranous, the demon creatures had delicate, papery-thin wings that reminded me of the fins of a fighting fish. As I crouched in the summoning circle watching them, a single word popped into my head: leviathan.

In Demonology 101, we had learned that leviathan were sea demons created by Lucifer when he had first been deposed from his throne. The Earthly realm was so densely packed with water that the armies of the leviathan quickly overcame those of the other seraphim. But Gaia had risen up against Lucifer and destroyed the leviathan when she caused the seas to open up and swallow them whole. These things that now rose in the sky and slid through the air as though they were swimming had been upgraded.

Where was Jacob in all of this? Touching the blades edge once more, I asked it to show me the demonic mage. Rather than holed up nursing his wounds, the circle offered up an image of Jacob standing inside a blood circle surrounded by six open portals.

“Raise them up,” he barked to his minions on the other side of the portals. “Take as many of them as you can and turn them.” Through the opening of the portal directly in my eye line, I saw another mage cloaked like the necromancer who had tried to kill me with ghouls while I was forsaken. His face was covered, his back enveloped in darkness punctured by the white glow of the moon. In the field behind his back a building sat silent. All of its windows were dark except for the ground floor. I recognised it instantly. Nanna’s psychiatric hospital.

The mage in the portal raised his hands and made a curling motion. From the space around Jacob, a dense cloud of demon essences swirled and jumped through the portal. They twirled around the mage, picking up flecks of his grey magic before shooting through the windows of the hospital.

The building that had been silent only a second ago erupted in a chorus of wailing. My throat locked as I imagined those poor people being possessed. He was building an army of possessed humans. For what reason, I wasn’t sure.

Retracting my hand, I dismantled the circles and strode to the commune where the remainder of the Sisterhood now resided. Matilda opened the door. “Shouldn’t you be at the Academy?” she said.

“Where’s Giselle?” Forget politeness.

“Guarding Emily. Why?”

“I need help.”

Her eyes brushed over me in a sweep like she was checking for injuries. “What kind of help?”

“The fatal kind.”

“Lex…”

She did a perfect impression of a statue when I was done telling her what I wanted. If I had known it was that easy to shut her up, I would have suggested a suicide mission sooner. After swallowing like she was trying to push down a boulder, she shook herself. “You’re sure there’s no other way?”

“Even if there is,” I said, “I don’t have the time.”

She bit the inside of the cheek. “I’ll discuss it with G.”

Even as she closed the door, the sudden hardness of her voice told me I would get my wish. Because wasn’t that what the Sisterhood had been gunning for all along? My death, to be free of Lucifer’s prophecy?

47

A week later, I got my answer. Surprised that she would use the mirror, I tried not to let my desperation show. Every day I woke up covered in blood. To get by, I’d been drinking two vials of Sophie’s potion just to keep myself together. But I knew I wasn’t getting any better. This needed to happen now.

“You have a deal,” Giselle said. “The Sisterhood will back you.”

Great. I had their support to die. It felt like a mistake more than a victory.

Without Giselle to train me and Kai to find a replacement for her, my evenings were freed up. The illusion training room wasn’t my favourite place. Giselle had tainted it with her tough love training. But as I sealed the door so nobody could get in, I thought about what it was I needed.

“Hello, room,” I said aloud.

“Alessia,” the MirrorNet voice responded.

“I need you to do some calculations for me. Comb through the MirrorNet database. Look for any information you can about how much force is expelled when a seraph is unmade. Cross-reference that with the strength of my magic circles. Then work out how many demons I would have to drain to get enough power to contain the explosion.”

“Affirmative,” the MirrorNet answered. Lucifer’s spitting image appeared suspended in the middle of the room. I took an involuntary step backwards. Even knowing he wasn’t real, I reacted to him with an inward shudder.

Next, the Mirror created a magic circle around him that perfectly matched the integrated dual lines of my hedge magic and bone magic. And then it began to rotate the circle around Lucifer.

“A suggestion?” the Net said. “Human souls are more powerful than demon souls.”

I blew out an exasperated breath. “Yes, I know. But we’re not going to kill any humans if we can help it.”

“Understood.”

Even the artificial life forms around here were prejudiced against humans. How could we stand a chance?

As the MirrorNet personality worked, the Fae lanterns in the ceiling flickered. That couldn’t be good. “Mirror, what’s happening?”

“The calculations are extensive. They require more power.” I didn’t like the sound of that. Creeping over to the door, I unlocked it and glanced outside. Ah shit. Half the Academy had been powered down.

Streaks of gold sailed through the sky. “It’s the illusion training room,” Curtis shouted at his guard partner.

“Who’s inside?” came Astrid’s reply.

“Alessia.”

“Oh,” Astrid’s voice was suddenly soft. “Alright. Let’s just leave her be.”

Sympathy points. I would take it if it got them off my back. While I waited for the Mirror personality to complete its calculations, I unstrapped Morning Star from my back and went through the many drills Giselle had drummed into me. Intent on my mission, I didn’t hear the sound of knocking on the door until it became an insistent banging.

“Mirror. Lock the simulation to my voice command and Academy identification.”

The blue circle magically stamped on the back of my hand blazed. “Simulation locked.”

“Power it down.”

“Would you like for the calculations to continue during power save mode?”

“Yes, please.”

“Very well.”

Walking to the door, I opened it to find Tyler leaning against the frame. “Any chance I can get the power back to the east sector?” he asked, a wry smile tugging at his mouth. “I’m sort of running blind out there.”

I raised a brow. “Can’t you produce fire?”

“Not indefinitely.”

“The east sector has an everlasting flame.”

He stalked around contemplatively. “You have a good head for strategy. And a good memory. You’re going to make a hell of a guard one day.” He grinned. “Okay, you got me. I was just curious about what you’ve been doing in here. Rumour is you’re working on a spell to get Malachi back.”

Of course it was. Half the school was still in disbelief about the truth of the matter. So was half of supernatural society. Cassie absolutely refused to acknowledge it. As a result, she wasn’t speaking to me.

I swept my arm out wide, pointing at the room with Morning Star. “As you can see, no spellwork is happening here.”

He ambled in. “Is this the infamous demon blade?”

I tossed it at him, and he caught the handle. Morning Star reacted by shaking violently. In his grip, the blade began to morph from a sleek, short sabre to a heavier broadsword with a sharp-toothed edge. I frowned as a lick of red ran along its tip. Tyler yelped and dropped the blade like it was on fire.

We both stared as Morning Star clattered to the ground, reshaping back into its original form that belonged to me. Tyler shook his hand. “You really brand your stuff, huh?”

I shrugged and held out my arm, my palm turned up. Morning Star shot from the floor into my grip. “It’s an only-child thing.” I eyed him curiously. “Shouldn’t you be guarding Emily?”

He answered too quickly. “Another guard has this shift.” Judging by the way his eyes flicked to me and then down at the floor, I assumed the other guard was Kai. My mind immediately offered up a slideshow of Emily’s various reactions to Kai’s presence. In all honesty, they would make more sense than Kai and I ever did. Casting out for something to redirect my thoughts, I asked Tyler about the fissures.

“The Sisterhood have contained them as best they can. Giselle says the only way to repair them is by sealing them with soul energy and we know why that can’t happen.”

Speaking of souls, I found myself curious about Andrei’s situation. “The elite guard would punish anyone caught stealing souls, wouldn’t they?” I asked.

“Of course.” He frowned as though it was obvious.

“I’m given to believe that there have been some instances where the theft of souls has been covered up.”

Now that frown edged on a grimace. “There is no reason why the elite guard would cover up a death that way.” He was a little too adamant. “I’m assuming you mean the Popescu incident? You do know that was investigated but it went nowhere?”

“Did they ever get a necromancer to do a summoning?” I countered.

He nodded. “Of course. Nothing turned up.”

Rolling my wrist to keep it supple, I regarded him. “Did you ever think that was because their souls were unmade?”

He paused just for a fraction of a second. I could see his critical thinking warring with his training as an elite guard. It wasn’t long before the latter won. “I’m sure that thread was followed. If nothing came of it, that probably means they were unable to find the culprit.”

“But then why condemn the Popescus to the Book of Beasts?”

He shrugged, his care factor for Andrei’s family disturbingly slim. “Sometimes, politics trump the truth.”

I couldn’t quite be sure but it sounded like he was trying to say that the culprits were either well connected, or catching them might have a detrimental effect that the elite guard or the Council weren’t willing to broadcast publicly. So they had thrown Andrei’s family under the bus. No wonder he was insane.

Overhead, the Mirror personality beeped. Tyler and I looked at each other for a moment before he got the hint that he’d overstayed his welcome. He resealed the door on his way out.

Commanding the MirrorNet to unlock, the personality went right into its explanation. “The unmaking of a seraph would discharge a pulse of energy so immense that it would destroy the barriers holding this dimension together,” it said. “Your strength is compromised. With the assistance of demon essence, it would take two million demons or supernaturals to nullify the blast.”

What the heck?

“That’s impossible!” I sputtered.

“Alternatively,” the MirrorNet offered, “it would take two hundred and fifty thousand human souls to create the same resistance.” I hadn’t asked but it had done the human calculation anyway.

“What about my soul?” I asked.

“Such as it is?” I didn’t think it would sting coming from an artificial intelligence, but I was wrong.

“Yes.”

“Unknown. Your soul is not a quantifiable source of energy.”

That meant I had to plan without counting on my soul as backup.

Deciding that what I was doing was more important than Academy classes, I skipped out on school the next day and met up with Ashton outside the State Library.

“Well, look at you,” he said with the same warm grin he’d given me when I’d first joined Terran Academy.

“Hey. How goes guarding Emily?”

Too old to attend Bloodline, Ashton had taken up a position as a freelance agent working for the Human League after Terran was closed for renovations. His ability with tech was the reason why I needed his help now.

“It’s not the best gig in the world,” he told me. “She’s really paranoid.”

I wasn’t surprised. Taking her away from supernatural energy didn’t mean that these things would automatically disappear.

Though we had agreed to meet in front of the iconic Melbourne building, we settled into a café around the corner. While Ashton booted up his laptop, I found myself scanning the headlines on the free newspapers by the register. “Ummm,” I said absently. “What’s with all the doom and gloom?”

I snagged one from the stand. The headline was of a suicide murder pact in a small country town close to Echuca. Ashton flicked his gaze over the newspaper briefly. “You haven’t heard? That kind of stuff has been happening all over the place. Ever since what happened in that monster prison. You should see the conspiracy theories that are popping up.”

I could just imagine. Swallowing hard, I pinned him with my gaze. “Do you still think humans need to know about supernaturals?”

He stopped tapping for a second. “Something needs to be done,” he said. “Whether that should be a supernatural reveal? I don’t know. Emily sure is taking it badly. But what else can we do? It looks like the demons have suddenly decided it’s fine for a full-scale invasion. It’s like they’re gearing up for something. This is ready, by the way. What records do you need?”

Lacing my hands in front of each other so they wouldn’t shake, I told him what I needed. “Criminal records from all of the prisons in Australia.”

He scratched at his stubble. “What for?”

Sensing that he would be less than impressed with the truth, I offered him the requisite lie. “The family of a friend was murdered and I want to check if the culprit might be human.”

“That’s a lot of effort to go to for a monster.”

I smiled ruefully. “He saved my life once. I owe him this much.”

Ashton blew out a breath. “Okay, but it’s going to take me a bit of time.”

“Can you pass it on to Matilda when it’s done?” I touched his wrist to stop him from already obsessively going down a rabbit hole.

“Without the threat of Lucifer, do you think the humans have a chance at survival with the supernaturals still hidden?” I asked.

“As long as they keep to their edict. But that’s a pipe dream, isn’t it? When will we ever be rid of Lucifer?”

More than once, I had thought the exact same thing.

48

My absence from class had been duly noted. I arrived back at the Academy to be greeted by a bulletin asking me to see the headmistress as soon as I arrived. Ignoring it, I put a call through to Eugenia instead.

“I need you to get me a list of all the bounties that are currently available,” I said. “And if you can bypass the Dominion security, get me the details of all the current prisoners as well.” It was difficult to contemplate exactly what I was intending. The ball of rage that had been simmering in my chest was gathering momentum. Even as I was dying, Lucifer would force me to become something horrible. He would strip me of the one thing that I had clung to despite these awful powers. He would turn me into a cold-blooded killer.

“Well hello to you too,” she smirked, completely ignoring my request with a segue that put a crick in my neck. “Sometimes fate works in very obvious ways. Do you know who I just received a visit from?”

“I don’t have time for this.”

Her smile was sickeningly smug. “Oh, I bet you do. Your ex just left here about ten minutes ago.”

Trying to keep my face straight, I shoved aside all of the feelings that were threatening to burst through. “And?”

“And I thought from all the reports I’ve received that he was supposed to be some kind of walking shell. But I have pretty damning evidence of the exact opposite.” She lifted her chin to reveal the fingerprint bruising beginning to show around her neck. My heart stilled.

“What the heck is that?” I didn’t dare breathe.

“Courtesy of one confused but rapidly hurtling towards pissed-off Nephilim.” She ran a tongue across her bottom lip. “Don’t look so terrified, witchling. It was kinda hot. He’s something, isn’t he?”

“What do you mean he was pissed off?” By my account, he was incapable of producing any emotion even close to pissed. More than anything else, that was why I couldn’t bring myself to be around him anymore.

She shrugged. “To be honest, I thought I’d be getting this visit sooner. Had my bags packed and everything. I thought you’d pulled off some kind of miracle. But the potion didn’t work, did it?” she said, eyeing me closely. “You did something else to him to make him stop coming after you.”

This was why I had avoided her since the failed potion debacle. “What did he say?”

She tapped her chin. “It wasn’t what he said, per se,” she noted. “His eyes were completely unfocused. If I didn’t know better, I might have thought he had taken a potion of his own.”

This couldn’t be happening. How could he possibly be resisting an Angelical command?

“Whatever you did,” Eugenia surmised, “he’s starting to get ticked off. This thing is going to blow up in your face shortly.”

There was no need for her to look so delighted about it. Taking a gulping breath, I forced my rapidly beating heart to slow down. It was just a distraction. White noise. It had been weeks since the incident. If Kai ever did regain his feelings, there would be no bond to speak of.

“Can you please just get me what I need?” I pressed.

“Sure, but what is this about?”

“I’m taking the fight to Lucifer.”

“Aless –”

I ended the call before I had to listen to yet another lecture. Under the circumstances, I dispensed with the Academy altogether. Retrieving two additional vials of Sophie’s potion from the nightstand, I gulped them both down and waited for the numbness to settle over me. The effects were incredible. It was no wonder her great-grandfather had been feared.

Running my thumb over Gabriel’s Key, I commanded the ring to take me directly to Lucifer’s chamber. Before it dragged me through the Ley dimension, I jumped into a phase and attempted to appear on the other side in a state of complete nothingness. But as soon as I appeared, so too did Uriel. Since my edict not to get into my head, the seraphim had raised the alert that I was not to be inside the chamber on my own. Actually, that might have always been the case anyway. They were just wary now.

His face was completely serene. Though he didn’t smile at me outright, there was a spark of amusement in his eyes. Like I was just a cheeky kid trying to pull a fast one over him.

“Alessia,” he said. “You look well.”

Was he being sarcastic? Well was not how I would describe my reflection these days. I wasn’t normally anything to write home about, but my eyes had always been a piercing shade of blue that lifted the rest of my features. Now they were washed-out like the light had been extinguished from my soul.

I smiled. Walking casually up to the dais, I glanced at Lucifer’s surreal features.

Uriel glided beside me. They were definitely jumpy as hell. It was the reason why I always came here unarmed. There was no way to explain why I had a weapon otherwise. “He remains the same,” Uriel informed me.

“His vessel remains the same,” I contradicted. “Where his grace resides is another matter.” Not for the first time, I cursed myself and my carelessness for allowing Behemoth to bleed me in the cavern beneath the Fae forest. If Lucifer’s grace had never been freed, I wouldn’t be in this position now. Logic wasn’t my strong suit at the moment. Uriel pointed out the flaw in my reasoning when I voiced my regret.

“How could you possibly have known?” he asked. “Even if you did, Lucifer’s will might still have been carried out. He was always treacherous. Do not allow him to take governance in your thoughts.”

That was a bit hard considering it was the fumes of Lucifer’s blood keeping me alive at the moment. This was the third time I had tried to sneak into the chamber without the seraphim catching me. Every time I had been a failure.

Gulping, I thought about dropping into the Ley dimension. But from what I could already sense, I would be almost blinded by the strength of Lucifer’s aura. Never mind Uriel and Ariel’s as well.

“Don’t you get tired of watching him?” I asked, completely without motive.

“It is our penance,” he said, with a hint of regret in his voice. “When the war broke out, I allowed him through the barrier believing he would never destroy the paradise that was our home.”

“He lied to you.”

“Yes. But to Lucifer, a lie and the truth are the same. It is his nature.”

“Is Gabriel all alone up there?”

He shook his head. “She is the last of our order. The last Archangel. But there are others.”

“Do you ever get homesick?”

“What would be the point?” Wistfulness belied his words now. A silent longing that would go unfulfilled because he had chosen to fall to save the tiny world that he had helped destroy. “Sometimes, duty is worth everything. Sacrifice has its own merits.”

His words echoed in my ear. It made me nervous thinking about what might happen should I be successful. There would be no need for them to watch anything. They might be free. What would happen then?

“He is bound at the moment,” I hedged.

“Yes. By heavenly magic.”

Hmmm. “We allowed him in once,” Uriel said. “We must keep him in forever.”

I was still ruminating on what he’d said when I finally returned to the Academy. At the moment, it was just a place to sleep and recover while I made plans. That was not at all how Sophie and Diana saw it.

“The boys are asking questions,” Sophie snapped at me. “You think nobody notices that you’re never in class anymore?”

I wanted to tell her it didn’t matter if I was going to flunk out of the end-of-semester trials because I would likely be dead by then. Sophie’s indignation was amplified by the irritation on Diana’s face.

“Don’t bloody worry about the boys!” Diana seethed. “Where the hell have you even been? I knew you were full of shit when you said you didn’t care about Kai, but this is taking it a step too far.”

It took everything in me not to look at Sophie. Not that she was receptive to my conspiratorial glances at the moment.

“It was just a few classes,” I said lamely.

“Just a few?” Diana snorted. “You haven’t shown up to a single Weaponry and Combat class in weeks. Not to mention all the other classes you’ve missed.”

“I’m injured. Professor Mortimer said it might take some time for me to recover from what happened in the Reserve.”

Her whole body twitched. She stepped up to me, obliterating any personal space. “Don’t think for a second that I’m an idiot,” she said. Her arm whipped out and she grabbed me by the shoulder before I could weasel away. “Whatever you’re doing, just stop it right now before I knock you out and lock you away.”

Sophie’s eyes bugged out, knowing it was exactly the wrong thing to say even if Diana’s intentions had been good. So that she wouldn’t see my bottom lip quivering, I wrapped my arms around her.

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Di,” I said. It was the complete opposite. I had to avoid all of them because I knew if they really understood what I had been intending to do, they would try to stop me. When they realised they couldn’t, they would try to help me, which was infinitely worse. I wasn’t coming back from this, and anyone I took with me probably wouldn’t either. I could rationalise away the Sisterhood because they had been gearing up for this showdown for centuries. But I could never allow my friends to make a sacrifice because of me.

“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 determination 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.

“Look at you!” Celine gushed. She caught my arms and raised them up, spinning me around so she could inspect her handiwork. “I had so many other embellishments I wanted to add but this will have to do with a week’s notice.”

For the sake of survival, I turned into a robot, not even bothering to argue with her when she insisted I wasn’t allowed to pay for the dress. In a blur, she wrapped it up in a beautiful white box and tied it together with a matching blue ribbon.

Feeling like I had an explosive about to go off in my chest, I was halfway out the door when I turned back. “Thank you,” my uneven voice said.

Her eyes were glassy. “Life is unpredictable,” she said. “We bend or we break. I don’t think you’re the breakable type, sweetheart.”

Maybe she was right. But for right now, I felt like I was coming apart. The next time I teleported, it wasn’t back to the dorm but to that remote mountainside that couldn’t be reached by anything but wings or teleport. Dropping the box on the pine-laden floor, I bolted to the edge of the cliff and stood there with my back turned to the sheer drop, my gaze locked to the spot where Kai had told me he loved me for the first time.

For just the smallest amount of time, I allowed myself to break. Even if it was temporary. I sank down onto the ground and cried until the sky turned dark.

Forty-Nine

By some stroke of mercy, for the week leading up to his bonding ceremony, Kai was absent from classes. I had stood in front of the mirror for half an hour psyching myself up to face him only to be informed by Tyler that Kai was too busy with bonding ceremony setup.

“Did you think he would be here?” Isla admonished. “After the bonding, the Laurents will probably force him to quit the elite guard. I bet she’s pregnant within the month.”

“If she isn’t already,” Orla piped up.

Both of them seared me with scathing looks but I just sat there with my robotic face on, completely tapped out of all emotion. I knew they did it simply to get a reaction.

“She’s dead inside,” Orla sniffed.

The MirrorNet had never before been such a no-go zone. To date, I was still receiving messages from people wanting to assure me that they would boycott the replay of the ceremony on principle. It would have meant more if it wasn’t just the replay they were boycotting. But it was much more than I had received before, so I took it.

Sophie was becoming more and more agitated as each day progressed. The calls I did take were from Giselle and Matilda. Giselle to inform me that the Sisterhood were prepared for whatever consequences might arise and to remind me to keep practicing my technique.

Matilda came up with the list of names that Ashton had passed on. “How many?” I asked.

“He had to open the search wider,” she said. “He included the inmates from the supermax prisons in the States. We’re looking at about two hundred thousand.”

The night before Kai’s bonding ceremony, I left the Academy. Taking the whole stash of remaining potion vials with me, I left Sophie a note to let her know I would see her at the ceremony. She would be pissed, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to argue with her at the moment. It felt like I had done nothing but argue with her since I found out about being sick.

Being away from her on the last night of my life felt terrible. Holed up in the Sisterhood compound, I wanted to do nothing but run away.

When I arrived, I was surprised to find Jessica in their midst. It wasn’t at all surprising to see Rachel, but it was the presence of the Evil Three that made me pause. “No,” I said immediately.

“Too bad,” Harlow said. “You can’t do this without us.”

“Yeah, I can. You’re nuts if you think you’re coming.”

Giselle crossed her arms over her chest. “They understand the risks. This isn’t daycare. They’ve been training for this their entire lives.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Are you going to whine the entire time you’re here?” a new voice asked. I took a step back, holding the dress box in front of me as a stranger appeared in the doorway leading to the kitchen. A familiar warning signal went off in my brain, but I didn’t recognise the slim brunette who triggered it.

“This is Simone,” Matilda said. “You might know her from the attempt to steal your...Malachi’s soul.”

That’s where I knew her from. She had been the third member of the Sisterhood that night. Simone glanced at me up and down, nose scrunching. She had an expansive face that left too much space between her eyes. Her brow was prominent, as was her chin. It gave her a brutish look that fit perfectly with her chosen profession.

“Where have you been?” I found myself asking.

“Not slaving to the whim of monsters,” she snarked back. Then she pushed open the front door and disappeared.

We went through the game plan over and over again. And then Giselle made me practice unstitching her soul until I was able to do it with barely a thought.

Around witching hour, she made me stop. “You need to get some sleep.”

“I’ll be sleeping plenty soon.”

Yanking the demon blade from my grasp, she shoved me in the back until I started making my own way into the cramped house. “Even if that’s true,” she said, “you’ll be no good to anyone tomorrow if you’re tired.”

That wasn’t at all helpful when I stepped through the back door and into the kitchen to find everyone but Simone sitting around the table sipping dully from wine glasses.

Giselle narrowed her eyes at everybody. Matilda waved her off. “C’mon, G. It’s a battle tradition.”

“It’s how people get themselves unnecessarily killed. I’m not doing this if you’re all hungover tomorrow. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am not going down because someone trips over their own feet.”

“Just one drink then before we hit the sack,” Matilda said. One too many in her case because her words were slurring. She filled two wine glasses while I went to clean the dirt off my hands. When I sat down, she pushed an overly filled glass in front of me. Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, I picked up the glass and took a sip.

“Urgh, tastes like feet,” I sputtered. It felt sandy going down my throat.

“That’s how you know it’s any good.” Harlow clinked her glass with mine. Despite thinking that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, before I’d even had half the glass, my eyes were drooping.

“Jeez,” Matilda said to Giselle. “You weren’t kidding. She’s got a completely susceptible mind to influence.”

Yawning, I tried to peel my eyelids open. “What are you talking about?”

“Five, four, three...” Matilda said. I didn’t hear the last of it because I fell asleep.

Gasping because my airways were clogged with blood, I woke up dizzy like there was cotton wool in my head. The sheets were caked in blood. For a second, confusion made me sluggish. I lay on a single bed in a broom closet. It was small enough that I felt claustrophobic. The light coming from the window above my head as way too bright. It must have been noon at least.

Pressing my hand on the wall to help steady myself, I fished around in the backpack at the base of the bed for Sophie’s vials of potion.

Forcing the potion past my sticky, blood-spattered lips, I tossed my head back to swallow. As I sat with my back to the wall, somebody knocked on the door. “I heard banging,” Rachel said. The doorknob turned.

“Don’t!” I called out.

“Just making sure you’re not – holy shit!” she caught sight of my morning ritual.

“Shhh. Keep it down.” I got up on shaky legs. “I’m fine. It’s just a bit of a side-effect from speaking all those Angelical words.”

“This isn’t a side-effect!” she snapped. “It’s...I don’t know. But blood coming out from any hole isn’t a good sign.”

“Thanks for the visual. I’m okay, really. I just need to get cleaned up.” Now that Sophie’s potion had had some time to kick in, I was feeling better. Scraping the tip of my teeth over my fuzzy tongue, I went into the bathroom and scrubbed myself raw. My illness was the cause of the bleeding, but I suspected the woozy feeling was from something else.

Downstairs, the others were rattling around in the kitchen.

“You drugged me,” I accused Matilda who was at the sink.

“You got it!”

“What gives?”

She turned around and ran a cloth over the edge of one of her hunting knives. “Come off it. You were so wired yesterday there was no way you were going to get any shut-eye. If it helps, I also put a little something in the other girls’ drinks as well.”

“No, it does not help,” Alison complained, coming into the kitchen rubbing her head. “What time is it?”

“Three.”

I balked. “Are you serious?” The party started at four with the official ceremony happening at six. My message to Sophie had said that I would meet her there at four sharp.

“You’re burning daylight standing there with your mouth hanging open,” Matilda informed me. Racing back upstairs, I scrambled to get ready. It wouldn’t matter that I was in a ball gown for the ritual. Nothing mattered except my conviction. Braiding my hair just to keep it out of the way, I went without make-up or any other embellishments.

My things were already packed from the night before. At the last minute, I replaced Morning Star with the heavenly blade.

I wrapped the demon blade inside its scabbard and left a note that it would be bequeathed to Charles after I was gone. With my throat feeling hoarse, I scampered downstairs.

Harlow’s jaw hit the floor when she saw me. “Nice ‘screw you’ dress!”

I bit my tongue because the next thing out of my mouth was that this was my burial dress.

The screen door opened and in walked Giselle, Jessica, and Simone. None of them were coming to the party. Only the Evil Three had been invited. “You ready?” Giselle asked me one last time as I handed her my backpack.

“No,” I answered honestly. “But it’ll happen anyway.”

“Don’t let those monsters get in your head.”

“I already have a monster in my head. That’s why I’m in this mess in the first place.”

I teleported the Evil Three to Seraphina. We landed in the garden at sanctuary. Fae lights hung in swooping rhythms amongst the tree branches and all along the paths. The scent of Arcana peppered the air between notes of lilac and peony. Music played in gentle strains in the near distance, undercut by the low murmur of conversation and laughter. Something tingled along my skin and caused the hairs on my arms to stand on end. Heady anticipating clung to the air like the still tenseness before a storm broke. It was as though the city was holding its breath.

There was magic in the air. So much that I was having difficulty separating what was there to protect us and what was being created by the presence of so many powerful supernaturals in one place.

Harlow whistled. “So this is the famous city of the Nephilim,” she said. In support of her statement, a squadron of Nephilim guards marched by, their golden armour gleaming in the moonlight. Every once in a while, a flash of colour would blossom in the air above us, revealing the arrival of another guest.

“Trust me,” I said. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

As we walked, the Evil Three moved to create a semi-circle around my back. It only managed to shield me until we reached the ballroom entrance.

Spotting Sophie and Diana, I raised my arm to wave, only for it to be caught in a big, tanned hand. “We need to talk,” Max’s voice rumbled in my ear. Plucking me straight out from between Harlow and Alison, Max dragged me away from the crowd.

50

My first instinct when faced with an enraged predator was to run. Unfortunately, Max enveloped the hand where Gabriel’s Key was adorned and scrunched it into a fist. “Try it and you’ll know the meaning of regret.”

“I think I already do!” I hissed, almost running because his gait was so long. “Can you let go? I can walk on my own!”

“Right,” he said. “Just like you can return a call?”

Instead of doing as I asked, he grabbed me around the waist, hoisted me over his shoulder, and barged into a building that looked very much like a military barracks from the outside.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shouted when he finally released me. My head was spinning again from the flipped equilibrium. Max slammed the door shut. I spun around to come face to face with a thousand spears pointing right at me. An armoury. Fantastic. Stuck between a pointy end and a pissed-off shifter. I knew which I preferred. Making towards the spears, I tried to put some distance between us. In hindsight, a mirror call would have been preferable to this face-off with him now.

Free of the influence of my poisoned bond, Max was back to his golden glory. He was no less gorgeous than Kai in his own way. His fearsome expression clashed with the black suit he wore but was a perfect representation of who he was at his core. Danger lurking behind civility. I took a mental picture and held on to it. Then I realised that memory was for the living.

“Why are you smiling?” he snarled.

“Is smiling against the law now?”

He took a menacing step towards me. I straightened my spine and kept my eyes level with his golden orbs, not feeling much like accepting his dominance today.

“What have you done?” Max’s steps were measured as he came to stand two feet in front of me. Sensing that I was cornered, I forced my heartbeat to slow so that he wouldn’t feel my apprehension.

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Lex!” It came out as a roar that shook both me and the building. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I crossed my arms over my chest.

“What would you like me to say, Maximus?” Keeping my tone light, I used it to try and temper the rage simmering beneath his human face.

“I don’t need you to say anything. Just undo whatever the hell you did to my best friend.”

“I didn’t do anything but break the bond. As I have every right to when I have no intention of going through with it. Like I’ve been telling everyone all summer. I’m sorry if that upsets you. But look where we are. Kai’s bonding ceremony. He’ll have a chance to have kids.”

“Screw kids!” A low growl began at the base of his throat. It was just about the last thing I had ever expected to come out of a shifter’s mouth. “Do you think that’s all he’s good for? Yeah, I know, he’s the last of his damn line. But so what? We can heal well enough on our own. Anyone who whines about it can come through me. I know you’ve taken most of the heat from those pissy Nephilim. But Kai doesn’t care about any of that. Do you know wanna know what upsets me? He was dead inside for so long after his family. And then you come along, and he had a chance to be happy. This bonding is complete bullshit. I really thought you of all people would have the backbone to stick with it. Are all you humans so breakable?”

I suddenly got the feeling that we weren’t strictly speaking about Kai and me anymore. “I’m not forcing him to bond with Chanelle,” I said. “There are a million girls who would cut off their right arm just for the chance to be near him.”

Before Max could have an aneurysm, or the shifter equivalent, I closed the distance between us and hugged him. He was so taken aback by the gesture that I felt his muscles grow taut around me.

“Promise me you’ll look after him,” I asked. He made an exasperated choking sound at the back of his throat. That was the precise moment when the door burst open and Sophie barged in.

“Okay,” she said, taking in the scene. “Whatever is going on here, it’s finished.”

In response to her measured tone, Max’s aggression hit the ceiling. “You walk in on me with another woman and all you can do is get all prim and proper?” he snarled.

She held out her hand for me. “Do I look like one of your harem?” she snapped back. I grabbed her and raced out of the room, chancing a bit of magic usage by throwing a protection circle around us because Max let out a roar that fluttered over my skin in a turbulent scrape and made me want to pee myself.

“Wow,” I said. “You’re going to have a lot of fun with that.”

She whirled on me. “How many goodbyes is that now?” Her big, brown eyes moistened. “What are you doing, Lex?”

“I’m dying, Soph. If I don’t get them in now, what if I don’t get a chance?”

She stopped dead in her tracks. “You won’t. I’ll keep improving the potion. We’ll figure out some other way.”

I smiled at her. “I know you will.” It was the truth. She would try for the rest of her life if she had to. I just didn’t have that kind of time. So I brushed it off. “I just don’t want to have any regrets.”

One of them strode past me at that very second. Cassie marched through the courtyard in a golden dress that hugged her statuesque figure. Her nose lifted in the air when she saw me. Beside her, Maddison leaned in and said something. “Give me a second,” I told Sophie.

“Cass!” I had to speed walk to catch up to her.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said without breaking her stride. Dammit! When had she gotten so tall?

“Can you please stop for a second?”

She halted, and I almost ran into the back of her. For a moment, her face softened when she took in my dress, but she slammed her iron curtain back when I tried to smile at her. “What?”

“Please don’t be angry with me.”

Her snort was so full of teenage derision. “Can you please not run away so that Kai doesn’t bond with that slimy bitch?”

“Cass –”

“Then I’m angry with you!” She turned and those long legs of hers carried her off before I could think of a way to make her stay.

“I don’t think anything is going to permeate her head right now,” Sophie said, chewing on her bottom lip. “She’s really upset. So is Astrid, by the way. She can’t even begin to understand how this happened and she’s terrified of what this bonding means for her friendship with Kai.”

“Are you trying to make me feel bad?” I snapped.

“Yes.” She glided past me into the room. “Whatever else is going on in that head of yours, I want you to feel awful about what you might be leaving behind.”

Excusing myself, I asked the closest Nephilim attendant to find me something to write on. He returned in the blink of an eye with a set of golden-trimmed note cards with matching envelopes and a fountain pen. Even their scrap paper was fancier here. Bloody Nephilim. While the party was in full swing, I was literally in the closet writing notes. One for Cassie and the other for Astrid. When I was done, I gave them to the one person I knew I could trust not to peek.

Charles did a full double-take when I tapped him on the shoulder. “You look so pretty,” he blurted out in his half-breaking voice. The boy in him grabbed me and spun me around in a circle. “I wish this was your bonding.”

He left it at that, and I wanted to just lean my forehead against his chest and bawl my bloody eyes out, because out of everybody, Charles had never questioned why I did anything. He simply accepted that I had my reasons and trusted that I could look after myself.

“I need you to give these to the girls,” I told him. “You’ll know when.”

“Okay,” he said, drawing the word out in his confusion. “Don’t I get one?”

You could have ripped my heart out there and then. Getting up on my toes, I kissed him on the cheek. “I’m so proud of you it hurts.”

Smiling at his perplexed expression, I allowed myself to be pulled away into the orbit around my friends. Trey, Roland and Sasha were engaged in a heated discussion with Dev about what kinds of tests we would be assigned for our end-of-semester exam trials. Isla spent fifteen minutes arguing with Orla about whether it was morally objectionable to accidentally on purpose injure James in said trials. I found it disconcerting that Isla was the one arguing that they shouldn’t do it.

Nanna stood on the outside of the gathering, whispering conspiratorially with Nora and Mani, their identically furrowed brows making me nervous. Not as nervous as where Jacqueline and Professor Mortimer had their heads together with Professor McKenna who had a vial of what looked like blood hanging around her neck.

Once in a while, Meryl Laurent would try to sidle up to them in order to claim some of Jacqueline’s attention. At which point the headmistress did a startling impression of Cassie and marched off with her nose in the air.

As six o’clock crept closer, I found myself outside the ballroom sitting next to Basil and Sophie on the stone lip of the fountain. With so many guests, hundreds by my quick census, the hall itself was overflowing onto the courtyard and lawns surrounding it. There were just as many people inside as there were out here. But we sat in a quiet bubble that I was grateful nobody else tried to burst.

I blinked and we could be inside the dorm room again, the three of us talking late into the night about nothing and everything. I closed my eyes for a second and drew the Ley dimension around us, asking for a moment in time to savour these two people who had become irrevocably linked to me.

Opening my eyes to the Ley sight, I blinked from the assault of colour around me. It made the lack of everything around the rainbow nucleus more pronounced.

“Basil,” I asked. “What’s going on around the perimeter of Seraphina?”

“The elite guard are putting up veil barriers.”

My blank look begged for an explanation. “They’re pockets, or in this case, whole sections of barriers that destroy magic of any kind. It means that anything trying to attack the city will have a much more difficult time getting their hooks in.”

“Kind of like the way the wards try and stop magic from getting into a space?” Sophie asked.

“A little like that. It’s more closely aligned to the way a draining works. It takes away the magic until it renders a supernatural, or in this case, a demon, completely mortal.”

“I wish it could do that to Lucifer,” I blurted out.

“If only.” Basil leaned over and touched his shoulder with mine. “This is still unbelievable.”

I gave him a wry smile. “Are you sure you’re not secretly happy that Kai is out of the picture?”

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in closer. “I would have gotten used to it eventually,” he said. “By the time you turned forty or fifty, I might have even gotten used to the idea of you settling down. But this...” He shook his head. “It’s unnatural.”

“What kind of heartless cow jumps on somebody who has just gotten out of a relationship?” Sophie asked.

At that precise moment, the music died out and the heartless cow in question made an appearance in the alcove beside the entrance to the ballroom. Her ivory gown floated around her like a soft cloud, playing backdrop nicely to her mop of wavy, dark hair that hung like a curtain down her back. A circlet in starlit Mithril wove around the crown of her head, dripping emeralds at even intervals. Like Lucifer, she was so beautiful it was painful to look at her for too long. And then Kai appeared beside her and everything became background noise.

He was a certified sweatpants and T-shirt man, and it was a punch in the heart every time he put on a suit. Nephilim who were guards were supposed to be bonded in their armour as a sign of their dedication to their calling. But Kai in armour was more breathtaking than the sunrise and I had a feeling Chanelle might have had something to do with his outfit choice.

Whether or not she had taken advantage, Kai had enough affection for her that he had made himself lesser. I took in a pained breath, feeling like there was acid corroding my heart. There was nothing ostentatious about him, just clean, honourable, faithful to a fault, Malachi Pendragon. Those things made him shine far brighter than Chanelle’s material adornments, and I found myself hopping off the ledge as though I might take a step towards him. Basil was suddenly there beside me, anchoring me to the spot.

His grip on my hand was tight. My returned grip was tighter. As the Fae lights dimmed, we waited for the bonding couple to enter the ballroom. The lights around the couple were meant to be the only ones lit, but as it grew darker, a lick of magic whispered over my gown. Uh oh.

It started as a sprinkling of starlight at the hem and crawled up the skirt, over my hips and settled on my chest. The cornflower blue deepened until it became midnight blue in a hue that would make the night sky envious. I was literally glowing with starlight. Gasps broke out all around me. The doorway to the hall became blocked with guests wanting a better view. Feeling a sweep of ill intent, I refused to catch Chanelle’s eye, knowing she was ripping chunks out of me with her gaze.

Unsure how to stop it, I shook the skirt which only served to send sparks of light onto the surrounding grass. When they landed, the lawn became dusted by light that sank into the earth and started to grow.

Oh heavens no! I felt the tug of hedge magic as each little moonlight seed sent forth a shoot that grew before my very eyes into a circle of soft blue blooms. After I died, I was going to come back as a vengeful spirit to haunt Celine’s shop for eternity.

“You little bitch!” Chanelle wailed.

I took a step back, the mortification sinking in despite the many faces grinning at me from the sidelines. And then, a voice that cut out all other distractions gripped me.

“Blue.” It came out in a harsh rasp that made me think he was in pain. The theory was vindicated when he clutched at his head, falling down on one knee and groaning.

Blue! he screamed, and I knew it was for my ears only. A soul-wrenching scream of such unbelievable torment it snatched at a piece of my soul. That was when I saw it. Not the bond but something I had forgotten about, because like Kai, it wasn’t as showy as a Nephilim bond. It was a soul link. The one I had established when the Sisterhood had tried to steal his soul.

A demure little thread that had been chipping away at the Angelical, making inroads until it succeeded in its task of freeing him. It was then that I knew my time was up. There was no way for me to spare him or anyone else the pain of my death.

As the supernaturals swarmed on him, I stepped back and commanded Gabriel’s Key take me to the chamber. What I hadn’t counted on was the tenacity of a kitchen witch who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Just before I made the transition, she lashed out and grabbed me. I landed inside the cold of Lucifer’s tomb with Sophie clinging to my arm, the self-satisfied smile on her face disintegrating as she laid eyes on the Prince of Darkness.

51

I latched onto her elbow, fully intending to throw her back, when a wave of nausea rocked me sideways. “Lex?” Sophie was by my side. Sucking in a breath, I pushed her off, knowing I had scant time.

“Why did you do that?” I shouted even as I raced to place my hand on Lucifer’s shoulder.

“Why do you think?” she snapped at me. “You’re trying to die.”

“No.” I shook my head at her. “I’m going to die. I’m trying to make it count.”

“Lex....”

“No! Go back to the ballroom. You can’t be here!”

Rather than argue with her, I grabbed her shoulder and teleported to the garden where the Evil Three were waiting for me. Sophie wrapped her arms around me, refusing to let go as soon as she saw who was there.

“So you’ll let them help you but not me?” she snarled.

“Get off me!” Hysteria laced my words. The thought of her dying made cold spread through my body.

Harlow scowled. “We don’t have time for this!”

I knew that, but Sophie wouldn’t be dissuaded. She clamped her hands around my temples. “We started this together,” she said, eyes watering even though her jaw was tight. “I’m not letting you run off and sacrifice yourself. So either you let me help you, or I’ll bring the supernaturals down on us.”

“This isn’t some sort of picnic!” I shot back. “It’s a one-time deal.”

“So? I’m not some kind of worthless sidekick! Don’t sideline me and call it protection!”

Her desperate argument was the exact same one I’d had with Kai. Now that I was on the other end of it, I could see why he was always so pissed off by my reaction. Couldn’t she see that I was doing this because I loved her? In her eyes, I saw that she was asking the same question. She was doing this because she loved me.

And then thudding footsteps coming closer took the choice from me. The Evil Three laced hands. I grabbed Sophie who held on to Harlow and took us all back to the chamber. The Evil Three immediately threw up a soul barrier. An oppressive weight of consciousness pressed against it. Oh shit! Whatever was happening back at the grand hall was not enough to keep the seraphim engaged.

Harlow tossed a knife at me. Slicing indiscriminately across my palm, I slammed my hand on Lucifer’s chest. The connection wrought a terrible, thundering groan that sounded like old hardwood cracking.

The others held on to my shoulder, my arms, and my waist as I pinpointed the Angelical word and released it in my mind.

“No!” I heard Uriel cry aloud because even under these dire circumstances, he was unable to go against my free will.

Exholvah. Unbind.

Being careful not to allow cosmic misinterpretation of the word, I sensed it the moment the wards keeping Lucifer inside the chamber shattered. It was a miracle considering the ice pick that was boring its way into my brain.

A boom hit the side of the chamber, spitting rock and dust at us as it exploded. My eyelids flickered as a stone the size of my fist collided with where my head would have been if I wasn’t phasing. The last thing I saw was Uriel’s pained expression before we teleported away.

The crystal cathedral in Hell had no wards against me. I had a feeling that my essence would allow me to slip inside, as welcomed as Lucifer himself. It helped that I was bringing his vessel home.

We crash landed on the other side in a room that would make a human king weep. You could fly a plane in here the ceiling was so high. To match the grandeur of the room, alternate cathedral and plain-glass windows spanned the entire length of the wall behind our back. Stained glass threw multicoloured lights that reminded me very much of the colours I’d only ever seen in the Ley dimension.

It had clearly been constructed for use being a ruling entity. To the far left, I spotted a pair of double golden doors. To my right was a dais with about twenty steps that led to a golden throne with a winged back that was crowned by a morning star.

Proving that nice things and me didn’t mix, I immediately spat blood on the pristine marble floor. Pushing myself up despite the brain-splitting headache, I teleported to Ravenhall and snatched up the Sisterhood.

By the time we arrived back at the crystal palace, my vision was swimming in blood. It leaked out the sides of my eyes every time the pulse in my brain thudded.

“Lex!” Sophie screamed, coming up beside me where I was doubled over, trying not to expel my lungs.

“Why is she here?” Giselle roared.

“We don’t have time for this!” I said. “Start the summoning.”

Giselle tossed my backpack at me which Sophie caught. She dragged me out of the way as the Sisterhood raced around like ants, sealing us into the throne room and erecting a version of a soul gate. While I sat there taking gulping breaths and trying not to pass out, Sophie rummaged around in my backpack. She found the remaining vials of her potion and forced them down my throat.

She turned to inspect the still body of Lucifer’s vessel. Typical that I had come through the teleport looking and feeling like week-old roadkill and he was unmarred by all of it. A tremble ran down Sophie’s spine.

“This is unbelievable,” she said. Belief had nothing to do with it.

“I need to draw a circle.” I forced myself to my feet and grabbed a piece of red chalk from the backpack. “Can you please set up the candles?”

Mouth pressed into a thin line, Sophie piled up the dozen or so black votive candles in front of her and lit them with her magic. The feeling of fingernails scraping up my neck had me shuddering as the soul circle ignited into life around us. It flicked with an iridescent glow like the coating of a priceless cream pearl. At intervals around the soul gate, the remaining members of the Sisterhood positioned themselves for their task.

While I drew my own circle with Lucifer’s vessel at its centre, I watched as Harlow and Giselle made their own. Their circles were rudimentary constructs of Earth magic and runes. Mine was a complex patchwork of Angelical and demonic symbols. The horror of them brushed against my soul, making a chill sweep over me. Unable to move Lucifer fully, each time I had to complete two lines, Sophie and I had to move parts of him aside. Both of us shuddered with revulsion.

“I’m never going to get the taint off me,” Sophie said, her skin ashen. Pushing forward with the task at hand regardless of the obstacle, I grit my teeth as the temperature in the room began to drop steadily.

“Why the hell is it so cold?” Matilda asked. Her breath came out in a dense cloud.

“Shut up and keep going,” Giselle told her.

Falling down on her knees, Matilda’s head bent over the sheet of paper in front of her. Each one of them had been given a list of the souls they were charged with stealing. I bit back a sudden sob, thinking about what I was going to do. Though they had all been judged as criminals, it still felt intrinsically wrong to take their souls. If I thought too hard about it, I would walk away.

An intrusive presence in my mind snapped its jaws at me. Hold it together! Giselle snarled in my thoughts. I should have known the mind witch wouldn’t have allowed me to go into this alone. In her thoughts I saw that she viewed me as soft. Anyone was soft compared to her.

A few of them for the lives of all of us. It’s not even a contest, she urged. Just to prove that manipulation wasn’t above her pay grade, she threw up mental images of everyone I loved to remind me why this had to be done. I whimpered as she cemented our connection into place, while at the same time reaching into the Soul dimension, filtering through all the people in the supermax prison and ripping out the soul of her target.

Unable to stand the man’s agonised cry, I tried to withdraw but she held me firm. Serial rapist, Giselle reminded me. I bit my lip drawing blood.

In the depths of my mind, I knew that I was doing this for another reason. Staring ahead at Lucifer’s vessel, bile and bitter hatred coated my throat. My whole life had been his construct. My death would be a testament to his absolute control. Despite all the power I had been given, when it really mattered most, I would be helpless. It made me enraged.

Tearing the heavenly blade from my backpack, I unsheathed it and laid it down in front of me. With the knife that Giselle had given me, I reopened the wound in my palm and began to crawl around the demonic circle I had drawn. Dripping blood at even intervals along the inside perimeter, I infused the blood with words of power. When I was done, I pressed my finger to a drop of blood and used it to draw a word of Angelical. While the blood faded towards the end, each word was clear as permanent marker in my brain.

“Are you ready?” Giselle called out.

No. “Yes.”

My hands were already shaking. The exertion of even thinking the Angelical had burned through the reserves of Sophie’s potion. How in the world was I going to keep this together?

“Which one of you is going to do it?” I gulped. Despite what the MirrorNet said, I knew my soul was the strongest by far. We needed it to reinforce the circle when Lucifer exploded. The sticky issue was that stealing my soul would mean killing me. While we’d made plans, the intention had always been there. It was just that we had never settled on who would do it. I was adamant that it couldn’t be one of the Evil Three. It was bad enough that they were here at all. To make them take my life was impossible.

“Me,” Simone said. It made sense. She barely knew me. The fact that she hadn’t chosen to return until now said that she had very little investment in anything but her mission.

“Do what?” Sophie asked, returning to my side.

Nobody said a word, but as she took in my resigned posture and the rigid positions of the Sisterhood, it dawned on her. “No way!” she shouted.

“It’s the only way –”

“Don’t give me that bullshit! There has to –”

“There isn’t! Don’t you think I would jump on it if there was some way I wouldn’t have to die?” Something burst in my left eye. It sent a sharp sting down my jaw and made my words falter. A cloudy blotch appeared in my vision. It was beginning. My body was starting to break down. “I’m dying, Sophie.”

Her face crumbled. “No.”

I hugged her, hating that she was here and yet selfishly glad that she was. Sophie’s presence made me calmer.

“I want to go out the way I came into this world,” I told her. “Kicking and screaming and killing somebody on my way.”

She shuddered against me, caught between grief and the ridiculousness of my remark. My mother had died when I was born. It was only fair that I would take out the seraph that had caused her death when I died.

The sky outside darkened. A blast of purple and blue fire licked at the barrier that Lucifer had constructed to keep the demons from dirtying his monument. “We need to do this now,” Giselle said.

Reluctantly detaching from me, Sophie refused to leave the perimeter of my circle. She sat with her legs crossed in front of her, lips still quivering but a resolute shine in her eyes. With all my self-control, I closed my eyes and pushed everything away. Dropping into the Ley dimension, I allowed it to overlay in front of me.

The brightness of Lucifer’s vessel had me throwing my arms out in front of my face. It did nothing to shield me from the blinding energy. I was on my knees, forehead pressed to the cold floor beneath the circle before I knew what I was doing.

It had always been instinct to bow down to the seraphim. But whereas Raphael and Azrael commanded meekness through their grace, Lucifer elicited fear. Even before I had a chance to summon him, terror wracked my body at the vastness of his essence. How the hell was I going to do this if I couldn’t even look at him?

Earth, Giselle pressed, her voice now a squeak because she couldn’t help but shy away from his presence either. Latching on to her advice, I sank my hedge magic into the surrounding tainted earth and allowed it to anchor me into place. The energy here was muddy. It pushed back against my hold, trying to make me detach.

Feeling like sludge was pouring over me, I grabbed at the Ley dimension out of instinct and asked it to strengthen me. The shift happened without me knowing how it happened. As I watched dumbly, the threads of the soul lines bulged and stretched until a second layer of reality settled over the earth beneath me. It was like two sheets of weaving sitting on top of each other. The bottom layer was the earth from the Hell dimension. The top one was...Nanna’s home on earth before she had been possessed.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I grabbed at the Ley lines from Nanna’s place and used them to weave a barrier around Lucifer’s vessel. It created a spider’s web around him that blocked out some of the light coming from his body. He looked the way Gaia did when Hilary had bound her.

Now that he was mummified by threads that looked very much like plant vines, I was able to open my eyes. They still stung like a bitch, but I could at least see what I was doing.

Taking in a calming breath, I began to collect demon essences. My body jerked as the rushing of essences washed over me. I heard Sophie gasp beside me as I doubled over and smashed my cheek on the floor. My Ley sight began to muddy as I snatched up pieces of demon souls like a net dredging up the surface of the ocean.

A unified bellow rocked the cathedral as the demons surrounding it cried out from pain and fear. On and on the net rolled, collecting up every demon essence it could touch. My head pounded. Without knowing why, I reached out for the handle of the heavenly blade. Grasping it tight, I spoke a silent prayer that my sacrifice wouldn’t be cut short.

And then I touched on the soul of somebody as strong as me. My second layer of vision snagged on Jacob. He stood on his own, untouched by the other scrambling demons at the barrier to the cathedral. His mouth opened in a twisted grimace as I tugged at his soul and began to tear it away.

His scream was music to my ears. It soothed some of the rage that had been bubbling in me since the moment he hurt me with the heavenly blade. But I should have known that good things were anathema to my very existence. My smugness was cut short but the sudden burst of blinding white light that appeared in the circle with me. I suppressed a hiss, terror budding that Lucifer was able to breach the soul barrier so easily. Sophie cried out and scampered backwards. Her arms came up to cover her head.

I felt the Sisterhood bear down on the instinct, but one by one, they buckled too. In a strange twist of fate, I managed to lift my head and stare directly into the wintery blue eyes of the Morning Star.

“Thanks for coming without being called,” I said. “Saves me the trouble.”

If he was disturbed by the ritual that I was about to perform, it didn’t show on his unearthly beautiful face. My heart ached in my chest as something ancient reached in and held it still.

“You are the funniest little thing,” Lucifer said, his voice at once terrible and beautiful. “Still obstinate even though you are about to break.”

“I could say the same for you.” I smiled at him, wanting to do something to show that I wasn’t afraid even though I was pretty sure I had peed myself.

“You are most definitely mine, Alessia.” His gaze shifted to the left, eyes glowing with arctic emotion. He sighed and tapped on the side of his head. “Free will. An obstacle since the beginning. It’s a good thing most beings are so easily persuaded.”

The weight of his words settled on me like napalm. “No!” I moved towards his vessel as quickly as I could. But even supernatural speed couldn’t hope to be fast enough.

Do it! Giselle screamed in my head. Despite being a thought, it sounded gargled like she was having trouble piecing her mind together. I tripped over Lucifer’s side as the Sisterhood funnelled all the souls they had collected through me. Raising my arm, I was about to stab Lucifer’s vessel in the heart when I felt his grace whipping across the earth and slam into Jacob.

The tip of the heavenly blade had just nicked his skin when the doors to the cathedral exploded and demons poured in around us.

52

The moment the heavenly blade sank into Lucifer’s chest, a pulse of unbearable energy coursed through my veins. The force of hundreds of thousands of souls slammed into the seraph’s essence, but Simone hadn’t had enough time to finish the job. Through the Ley sight, I sensed her slumped over on her side, trying to push her body up to standing. No!

If I destroyed him now, without my soul to strengthen the ritual, I would kill everyone in this dimension and potentially all those surrounding it. But the ritual had already been initiated. Thinking to end it myself, I tried to pull the heavenly blade out of Lucifer’s vessel but my physical strength failed.

A force built up around Lucifer’s vessel, a collision of energy so dense it threatened to blow a crater in the Hell dimension. It shoved at the perimeter of my circle, rapidly eating away at my magic. Giselle cursed in my mind at the miscalculation. With his grace anchored to another vessel and my strength failing, we had lost our window to performing the ritual properly. The cascade had begun and even my soul couldn’t stop it now.

But as the energy of the souls funnelled through me, I felt my body beginning to respond. The essences acted like a jolt of electricity. I was a conduit that would burn itself out before long, but until then, I was able push myself up to a standing position. Letting go of the handle of the heavenly blade, I drew a single soul circle and infused it with Angelical. Decipulah. Contain.

The world flashed in a blast of golden light. It threw me six feet into the air. My back hit the side of the circle where I was plastered as the rush of the explosion battered me. Sandpaper and lava scraped against me, the scream was unable to escape my throat because it was closed over. The heat from the explosion stripped off pieces of my skin, but just as quickly, the rush of souls through me repaired the damage.

I wailed in agony. The Angelical tore at me at the same time the power of the souls contained me. It was a cosmic equilibrium that resulted in pain far greater than what I’d felt when I’d been stabbed by the heavenly blade. My mind went blank.

It felt like an eternity but must have been seconds, because when the shock waves finally subsided, Jacob had only just stepped into the cathedral.

I bent over, my palms on my knees as I tried to steady my breathing. Sophie scrambled to my side, the demonic circle no longer active thanks to the blast. The Evil Three groaned as demons charged against the soul circle. Outside the cathedral, I felt them scrambling over the broken bodies of their fallen comrades who I had harvested. Like a plague, they crawled over each other to get to us, more and more of them popping out of nowhere.

But it was the demonic mage who held my attention. As the Sisterhood fell back from the edge of the soul circle, I watched him cut a smooth path from across the floor, the demons scrambling around him knowing instinctively not to touch him. Though the body might have been his, the expression on his face showed an amusement that was steeped in Lucifer’s detached humour.

As he got closer and the Sisterhood closed in, his smile grew into a long stretch across Jacob’s face. Without knowing it, the Sisterhood had formed a protective circle around me. Lucifer arched one of Jacob’s brows. It was freaky as hell because a seraph possession was nothing like a demon one. Being lower creatures, demon essences were able to hide within a human more easily. Lucifer’s presence was too much for even Jacob. Blue veins decorated his skin, throbbed at his temple, and around his throat. Golden light poured from all of Jacob’s orifices, making his features glow but causing his expressions to look like a demonic jack o’lantern.

“The fearsome Sisterhood,” Lucifer drawled in Jacob’s scratchy voice. “I have a present for your deity from a score still unsettled.” He waved his left hand and two leviathans burst through the already crumbling wall of the cathedral. Rock and dust spat into the room, smashing into the backs of unsuspecting demons.

Up close, the leviathan’s hides were definitely coated with rough skin. Outside of the water, it cracked and shrivelled. When they roared, I knew it was because they were in absolute torment. Their laboured breath came from lungs that were accustomed to moisture in the air. It made them mindless with rage and pain.

The first of the leviathans charged at the soul circle. It scratched a set of ten-inch claws at the barrier. A shot of electricity whipped out from the circle, snatched the leviathan by the torso, and threw it into the wall. The thing braced with ridiculously elegant wings and snarled as it regrouped. Not learning from its companion, the second leviathan barrelled into the barrier. In its killing rage, the leviathan, like the low demons, didn’t perceive the concept of self-preservation. They were fuelled by Lucifer’s command alone. Like its companion, the leviathan got in a single shuddering hit before it too was rejected.

The Sisterhood took no encouragement from the soul circle’s ability to withstand the leviathan attack. The circle itself was drawn from their energy. With each hit, I had watched them shudder. With the constant clawing of thousands of demons all around us, I knew it wouldn’t be long before the barrier fell.

An itch crawled down my right nostril, followed by a dull pain in my head. Here we go. The impact of the souls was already beginning to wear off. With my gaze locked on Jacob, I forced myself to take a long breath. Not thinking straight, I grabbed the handle of the heavenly blade and dislodged it from Lucifer’s vessel.

Jessica was standing closest to me, her back just barely inches to my right. I ripped Gabriel’s Key off my finger and pressed it into her hand.

“Go!” I screamed at them. In my head, I told Giselle to run.

“Not happening,” Giselle said aloud.

“We’re overrun.”

Matilda cleared her throat. “Then we die fighting.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Take Sophie. Go back to Seraphina. I’ll hold him off.”

“You’re joking, right?” Harlow said, her voice quivering. “You can barely stand up right now.”

“I’m dead either way. But the rest of you can still make it out.”

“For how long?” Sophie shot back. What the hell was wrong with all these people?

“So much loyalty,” Lucifer said, his lit-up eyes locked on me. “I’m impressed.”

I bared my teeth at him. “Oh I don’t know if this has anything to do with me. I think they’re all here mostly because they hate your guts and would jump at the chance to see you unmade. It’s like a special skill you have.”

Even Giselle made a strange gargled sound at my insolence. At their core, they were human and had been fashioned to be subservient to the seraphim. But I was so sick of this particular seraph and his dominion over me.

Lucifer just laughed at my bravado. Even lodged in Jacob’s body, I knew he could still feel my terror through our unwitting bond.

“You’re such a funny little girl,” he said. “It’s a shame you’ve chosen not to accept my offer. Tell you what, why don’t we forget about everything that’s happened and I’ll let these humans live if you release me?”

Lifting my head, I looked him square in the face. “Screw you.”

“Funnily enough, I thought that might be your answer.” He waved his hands at the demons around him. “Kill them all. Bring her to me.”

My head whipped towards Sophie. “Go!” I pleaded. In answer, she dropped down into a crouch and picked up the knife I had discarded earlier. My attention split as the demons all around us lifted their heads to the sky and screeched. Their garbled voices were like a death knell that reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. I felt moisture leaking down my neck.

As physically gruesome as they were, the low demons were the least of our worries. Like me, Matilda and Giselle were tracking the swirling movement of the mist demons that circled around us. As soon as the circle broke, those demons would seek to possess us.

The two Sisterhood witches traded a glance. With Giselle’s presence still latched on my mind, I felt their promise to each other that if the worst happened, they would take each other out no question.

The knowledge had me gripping the heavenly blade tighter. I was like a fly caught in amber. There were no good choices to make.

With my strength at its weakest ever, I didn’t think I could produce another Angelical word without dying here and now. I would have been okay with that if I could guarantee that my sacrifice would save my friends.

There were too many demons to actually fight. The only option was for them to leave me, but they were being ridiculously stubborn. I couldn’t leave with them. It was pointless. Sophie’s potion was becoming less and less viable. Even if we retreated, I had days to live. The problem was that now I had alerted the demons to the fact that we had tried to kill their master. And now Jacob was here. Whatever he had been doing with his collection of demons, it meant that he would probably be gearing up to attack the supernaturals.

As I stood there grappling with my unhappy choices, one thing became clear. If I was going to die, I was taking Jacob down with me.

Without giving myself time to reconsider all of the possibilities, I gathered up all my strength, phased through the line of the Sisterhood, and started running.

“Lex!” I heard Sophie scream, but my vision was already tunnelled. I wasn’t getting out of this. The best thing I could do was hurt something on the way out. That seemed like a good enough bet. Pain blasted my mind at the tip of my skull and ran all the way down my spine. Despite being in a phased state, my body was still breaking down. That didn’t stop me from advancing like a bullet towards Jacob. I wasn’t at all surprised by the cool touch of ice as I phased through the demons. It made sense for them to feel cold.

It was impossible to think that I could surprise Lucifer given that he felt my presence keenly. What I was counting on was that he wouldn’t try to kill me unless there was absolutely no choice.

Using Jacob’s powers, Lucifer erected an arcane circle of his own.

“Nice try,” I hissed, running straight through it. Two metres in front of the mage, a serrated-edged sword appeared in his hands. He swung it out in a wide arc that was worthless because I was still mid-phase. Coming to a dead stop a few feet away from him, I made myself corporeal and tried to stab him in the gut. It would have been better to go for the head, but I had a vendetta to return. Having lost the only advantage a human like me had over a supernatural, Jacob was able to evade the slice of the heavenly blade. His sword clashed with the blade’s sharp metal, the clang of weapons ringing in my ears even as the impact jarred up my arm. Ignoring the discomfort, I pivoted to the left, kicking out and trying to sweep his legs out from underneath him. The problem was, I was still in this gown. It made manoeuvring difficult.

Luckily, unlike shifters and vampires, mages weren’t gifted with additional physical strength. Their advantage was in spellwork, something that was somewhat negated by the fact that I kept disappearing on him. My head pounded as I phased to avoid the lash of lightning that jumped from his open hands. Phasing through yet another circle, this one necromantic, I hammered a kick to his sternum. He staggered back a few steps but remained upright. Or maybe it was that I was swaying. Dizziness stole my thoughts, as I tried not to bend over and throw up.

Behind me, I heard the approach of a demon and phased. Its body hurtled past. The demon lost its footing, running headlong into the mage who had summoned it to help him. If only I could produce some kind of circle or anything else.

Something kicked me in the chest. This time, I fell to my knees as a trickle of blood built up in my throat. The hollow sound of wind blowing through a tunnel assaulted my ears. Inside, a rip sounded as Lucifer held out an arm. An imaginary force lashed around my soul. I grit my teeth as he tried to harvest my energy. Bearing down on the Ley dimension, I stitched myself back together and secured it to the lines of power running all around me. Picking at the threads from the layer of energy of Nanna’s old home, I sliced the lines in two and then patched them together, intersecting then through my soul tether, and making it unbreakable.

“Try again,” I snarled. I would die today, but it wouldn’t be because some asshole would steal my soul. There was nothing more terrifying than the thought of being unmade. At the end of all this, I had bet on joining Azrael for eternity. No way was I going to allow Lucifer to take that away from me as well.

Jacob’s face twisted. Light like molten lava itself trickled from his left eye and slid down his face. I would have thought he was crying had his whole face not warped slightly out of focus. “You might find comfort in my brother’s presence now,” Lucifer said. “But it will turn to boredom.”

I groaned with irritation. “Jeez you talk a lot. It’s no wonder the other archangels wanted to kill you!”

There it was again, the tiniest twinge of something unpleasant over his features. It was almost as though being inside Jacob was slowly stitching some humanity into him at the same time he was destroying Jacob’s body.

Ignoring the fact that I was literally falling apart, I took a single step towards him. And that was when my knees decided that I was too heavy. Agony shot up my thighs as I crashed onto the marble floor.

Lucifer smiled. “Release me, Alessia. It’s the only way.”

“Shut up!” I screamed, tears stinging my eyes. Demons began to amass in a circle around me, not daring to touch me just yet because they hadn’t been given permission. A slimy demon with a dozen tentacles for limbs but no discernible face slithered closer. It reminded me of an unholy lovechild of a slug and an octopus. One of the popobawa demons banged into its side as they scrambled past.

The thing whipped out with a suctioned tentacle and grabbed the demon. A slash opened up on its side to reveal razor-sharp teeth in a sluggish mouth. It chomped down on the popobawa’s head, searing it clean off.

Behind this monstrosity, three of its friends were pressed up against the soul circle. They climbed up its invisible sides. One of them slithered up the circle and stayed there. A beat of brown magic shone where it touched the circle, the throb of energies warring with each other.

Distantly, I heard Matilda groan.

“So tiny,” Lucifer said. “If that’s the best Gaia can do, it won’t be a challenge at all.” The side of Jacob’s face wobbled. “I grow impatient. Finish it!”

What was left of the cathedral erupted in a cacophony of rapturous wailing. The demons redoubled their efforts. A dozen leviathans crammed themselves through the windows causing that wall to crumble. Red-tinged light saturated my vision. The Sisterhood wailed as the demons hammered into the soul circle, going for a single critical hit. I sensed it the moment the circle broke, a wave of such terrible sorrow sweeping over me like the earth itself weeping.

No! Clutching at my chest, I pulled every bit of power I could from the Ley dimension around me and used it to grab on to the demons close by. With a very practiced tug, I snatched their essences and ripped them apart. It wouldn’t be enough. Why was nothing ever enough?

Sophie screamed. My head felt like it was exploding. And then the floor pulsed with pent-up energy as I released the demon essences. The dispelling of energy caused a ripple to fan out, destroying everything in its wake for a three-metre radius. It would give them two seconds of reprieve. Just enough time to teleport if they had a brain cell between them. Giselle howled an enraged war cry in my head. Nope. Brainless.

“Very good,” Lucifer praised, like he was some kind of mentor. “You’ve held out much longer than any other human could. The fact that you didn’t break after the first Angelical word is a testament to what you could be if you restored me.”

I was about to spit in his face when green-laced black smoke sizzled in the air between us. Goodness no! Kai would keep his promise no matter the cost.

The jackass appeared in a billow of angelfire poisoned by the atmosphere of Hell. He landed in a crouch and unfurled, the deadly set of his features more frightening than anything I’d seen on Lucifer.

“Let me show you the reason why she didn’t break,” Kai said, blistering rage spitting from his angel blade. Angelfire licked down the blade’s tip, a beam so bright against the red sky that I thought I was going to go blind.

And then the sky itself opened up in rainbow hues of orange and purple. Great gaping portals appeared all around us and spat out elite guards.

53

Distantly, I was aware of Professor Mortimer and Basil erecting another circle around themselves and the Sisterhood. The steel of the Nephilim guards’ blades met with claws and teeth, spine and venom. A thunderous roar cracked through the cathedral as the world’s biggest Kodiak bear lumbered through a portal and cut its way past the demons to snatch a leviathan right out of the air.

All of it was secondary to the flash of Kai’s sword as it clashed with Lucifer’s demon blade. No, not Lucifer’s, Jacob’s. The glow around the mage’s eyes had dimmed a little. Proof that the seraph had relinquished control of Jacob’s body in order to allow the mage to resurface. The serpentine smile on Jacob’s face was his own. A sickly thing that spoke of a demented mind.

“Let’s see how much you’ve learned since last time,” Jacob said.

Kai slashed out at the mage, his angel blade moving so quickly I could hardly keep up. My vision doubled as the Nephilim appeared in two places at once. Or at least I thought that was the case until I realised he was so fast that what I was seeing was the place where he had been and then the place where he truly was. Never one to stick to honour in a fight, Jacob called more demons to his aid.

Kai spun around as a demon whipped its spiny tail in his direction. The clang of the angel blade as it hit bone made me wince, but Kai continued to bear down, forcing the blade right through and out the other side. The demon bellowed as its limb was severed. While it was wasting time screaming like a baby, Kai chopped its head off. Demons swarmed him and his skin sizzled with prolonged contact with the Hell dimension. Still he pushed forward, wrath making him blind to anything but his quarry.

Somebody grabbed my arm. I was in the middle of trying to fight them off when Tyler’s voice spoke in my ear. “Easy,” he said.

“No!” I shoved at him.

But he wasn’t listening. I suddenly found myself inside Professor Mortimer and Basil’s circle. Beating at Tyler even though he had already let go of me, I tried to get to my feet and move back in Kai’s direction. Somebody latched on to my arm. Jessica’s blood-caked face appeared in front of me.

“Don’t be daft,” she said. “You won’t last a second out there.”

“Why isn’t the teleport working?” I heard Jacqueline shout. Outside of the protective circle, the supernaturals were battling with the demons, doing what I had always feared: throwing their lives away in a ridiculous bid to save me even though I would die regardless of whether we made it out today or not.

“Something’s dampening the magic,” Professor Mortimer said. He made a gripping hand gesture. Purple magic shot from his fist, scooped up a demon, and crushed it like a tin can. Sweat glistened across his brow.

A lion in the distance shook demons from its mane, stomped on them with one great paw, and roared his discontent. The earth shook as though it was quivering from Max’s fury. A demon jumped on his back. Max rolled, flattening the demon with the sheer weight of his body. Mid-roll, he snatched at a few more demons around him, battering them against the earth as he got back to his feet. Not losing any momentum, Max opened his jaw and clamped down on the torso of another demon. He shook it like a doll, the crunch of the thing’s bones making a frightening rattling sound.

Past his shoulder, Angus flipped his rapier in the air, snapped a demon’s neck, and then caught the blade on the way down. The elegance of his movement was so fluid I would have thought he was dancing if not for the fact that the front of his shirt was covered in blood. He’d draped demon guts around his neck like the laurels of a gruesome battle. The beatific smile on his face was more terrifying than any demon I had ever seen.

It was the tall figure with the bloodshot eyes to the right of Angus that had me blinking as though I might already be dead. Andrei’s arm whipped out as a demon came close. He grabbed the thing by the throat and pulled it closer. Ignoring the fact that the demon was lacerating his skin, Andrei stared into the demon’s eyes.

The demon stopped struggling. Its limbs grew limp. That was when Andrei released it. Instead of trying to rip his face off, the demon sprang at another demon that was about to claw at Andrei’s shoulder. A smile slashed across the vampire’s face as he turned to compel another puppet. Trust Andrei to come to a fight and get demons to do his dirty work.

As much as the supernaturals were holding back the tide of demons, they would continue to come. My Ley sight furnished me with an unending wave of them, called to the battle by their master’s presence.

A soft hand touched my cheek. Sophie knelt down beside me, her pink magic soothing the pounding in my head.

An explosion of green light in the near distance made my insides clench. Scrambling to my feet, I shot Jessica a dirty glare when she tried to snatch my arm to keep me still. Sophie helped me to stay upright as we moved to the edge of the circle closest to where Kai was still trying to get to Jacob. Chicken shit, I thought in my head.

The mage turned his gaze towards me, his eyes glowing madly. Five more demons descended on Kai. I flinched as one raked its claws down his back, leaving a trail of blood and black poison. Kai spun around, flipped his sword in his wrist without taking his eyes off the demon and swung. It clipped the demon on the side of its ribs. Kai’s teeth clenched in brutal satisfaction as he cleaved his way across the demon’s torso, cutting the thing in two. With barely a breath, he turned back around and refocused on Jacob.

Smoke was billowing from Kai’s body in earnest now. His limbs seemed a bit heavier as his movement slowed. As formidable as he was, the Hell dimension was slowly sapping his energy. Unless we could find a way to get out of here, the demons would overwhelm us.

The source of the blockage had to be Jacob. His magic was keeping the supernaturals from teleporting. If Kai was able to kill him, they might have a chance to get out. The problem was, Jacob was currently housing a seraph in his body.

The only option then was to get the seraph out.

Forcing myself away from the edge of the circle, Sophie and I backtracked to where Lucifer’s mortal body still lay. There were stab wounds to his chest and neck. Arching a brow at the Sisterhood, I saw Rachel shrug.

“It was worth a try,” she said. I nodded. Right now, anything was worth a try. Just like the thing I was about to do.

I reached out a hand, palm up, between us. “Knife.”

She produced a hunting knife from the holster on the side of her boots. Leaning down beside Lucifer’s body, I picked up his hand and resisted the urge to whimper at the blast of ice that stabbed me in the chest. My nose was suddenly so cold I could no longer feel it. My teeth chattered but it didn’t stop me from slicing the blade down in a line close to the soft flesh of his thumb.

An awareness pressed down on my mind. Lucifer’s consciousness detached from Jacob for a moment to watch curiously. Making the same incision on my own palm, I bit my lips together to stop from exclaiming.

When blood began to trickle from my palm, I mashed it together with Lucifer’s and sank into the Ley dimension.

Another roar feathered over me, this time coming from right above us. Somehow, Max had found himself scrambling over the top of the domed circle. My suspicion was that something had gotten too close to Sophie.

And then I pushed it all away as something brushed up against my magic. The little tug of a soul link that told me Kai was close and that he needed me. In my mind’s eyes, I watched his knee buckle as he crashed down just a few feet in front of Jacob. The mage swept out an arm and a bolt of lightning chased through the air, striking the demons around Kai and then whipping around to hit him in the chest. I wanted to scream but knew that my distress would scatter his focus. Especially since I knew he had done it on purpose. He’d given up an advantage so he could get closer to his prey. The jolt of lightning felled the demons, leaving the path in front of him clear.

In a feat that was almost impossible for any mortal being, Kai got up and lifted his angel blade once more. Jacob grinned.

“You see why I had to do it?” he said. “Pendragon blood is too unpredictable.”

No! Don’t let him get to you. I threw up a buffer as the spark of unrelenting rage tried to snatch at Kai’s heart and make him lose control. He paused mid-step from the charge, his muscles bunched without an avenue for release.

Blue. A single word that threatened to undo everything. Despite all of his fury, his terror, his chagrin, when he said my name, all I felt was the soul-deep love.

Kill him for me, I ordered, my own fury at the unfairness of everything sinking tentacles into my heart. Kai smirked.

As you wish.

At the very same moment that Kai struck out with his angel blade, I grabbed at Lucifer’s essence through the Ley dimension and hauled him back out of Jacob’s body. He resisted, of course, but I gripped his bleeding palm and used the blood he had shared with me as an anchor. In the Ley dimension, I held the thread of our blood tight, commanding it to release him from Jacob. If he was at full power, there was no way I could have done it. But he wasn’t. The mage roared at the painful separation. It hurt so much he didn’t notice when Kai’s angel blade pierced him through his chest. Lucifer screamed in my head at the same time Jacob let out a howl.

Kai smiled, eyes gone forest green as he twisted the angel blade and yanked it upwards, slicing clean through Jacob’s chest, up his neck, and through his skull. Kai had literally split him in two. The seraph’s thundering rage was something to behold. He lit up the red sky in a burst of such startling white light that I thought the sun had burned itself out.

Kai threw his arms up to shield his eyes. Lucifer tried to advance but I was holding on too tightly. Even if I died now, I wouldn’t let him go.

Alessia, he said in my mind. And then, of all things, he screamed. He’d broken their first rule, and it came back to bite him in the ass. So the free will thing wasn’t just a stubborn part of seraphim code. It has consequences. Lucifer’s grace retreated, disappearing into his mortal vessel. I held the heavenly blade in my flaccid grip.

Somebody placed a hand on my shoulder as the light returned to a sickly red glow. All around us, demons stood frozen, unsure exactly what had happened.

I looked up into Simone’s smiling face. She had one hand on my shoulder and the other on Sophie’s arm. For some reason, her smile grazed a finger of ice down my spine. Behind her back, Jessica was holding onto Simone’s waist. I glanced down at her hand where Gabriel’s Key was now firmly lodged.

“Time to go,” Jessica said.

“What the hell?” Giselle leaped towards her friend.

I didn’t have time to inhale before Jessica teleported us away. The last thing I saw was Kai’s disbelieving features before I was sucked through the Ley dimension.

54

We landed on the other side on the lawn of a building that I knew too well. Terran Academy. Darkness settled over us once more, lit up only by the small lights around the borders of the garden beds. In the distance, I heard the sonorous crash of waves against the rocks and beach. I let go of Lucifer’s hand in order to push myself up to sitting.

The presence of the seraph’s body made my skin crawl. Though not as much as the fact that the Sisterhood had teleported us away from the Hell dimension the second after Jacob died and his wards had lifted.

Soul magic blew a chill over my skin as the sky around us crackled with the appearance of the domed soul gate. It added a layer of illumination to the darkened sky. No wonder it had taken so long for them to rebuild Terran Academy. They weren’t working on the building. They were resurrecting the gate. Looking up was a bad idea, and yet once I saw the dimensional rift floating in the air just below where the moon hung, I couldn’t tear my gaze away.

And then my attention became locked to the figure that teleported just above the edge of the soul gate. Kai and a fleet of Nephilim guards appeared. His left cheek was still bruised from the fight with Jacob. Having been in the Hell dimension for too long, it would take a little time for him to regain his full strength. The crazed look in his eyes as he spotted me said none of that mattered.

On his command, the Nephilim charged. Unfortunately, the soul gate had kept them out once before. Their angel blades hit the edge of the gate and bounced off, sending sparks skirting across the lawn. The gate retaliated with its own magic, striking the supernaturals with lightning and hurling them across the sky.

Other portals opened up as more supernaturals spilled out. Having grabbed on to Jessica at the last second, Giselle came through the teleport unbalanced. She rolled expertly to her feet, a scowl darkening her features. “What do you think –”

A figure stepped out from the shadows around her and clubbed her across the head with a baseball bat. Her eyes went wide for a second before they rolled back in her head and she crumpled. Not before I registered the shock that had made her too slow to anticipate in the first place.

Declan braced the baseball bat in front of him. His gaze settled on me first, swept over to Sophie, and then landed on Lucifer.

“Get them ready,” he said.

I reared. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I screamed. My gut roiled. When I tried to get up onto my feet, my body wouldn’t cooperate. I was out of time. Declan crouched down in front of me, his eyes penetrating. He tipped my chin up, his face expressionless.

“I’m doing what we should have done from the beginning,” he said. “What you were too weak to do because of your love of the monsters.” Beside me, Sophie yelped.

More humans detached from the shadows, bringing with them ingredients and implements for a ritual. All of them were dressed in military fatigues with guns strapped to their back and belts.

“Jessica!” I pleaded. Her top lip curled. She snatched Gabriel’s Key from her finger and tossed it at me. The ring landed in the grass. Heavenly or not, it wouldn’t work with the soul gate erected. She shuddered as though using the ring had been repulsive. I grabbed it all the same. Reaching out, she snatched Sophie’s arm.

“They killed my best friend and you did nothing,” she said. “This isn’t even close to payback.”

I couldn’t work out what this was until one of the military guys brought out another figure from over the slope of the hill where I could just see the outline of a van. The person in his hold didn’t struggle. They travelled under a gap in the tree canopy. For a split second, moonlight hit the crown of the prisoner’s blonde hair. I cursed up a storm in my head. Emily.

It was only when she was pushed closer and she saw me sitting there in the grass that her instincts kicked in. She whimpered behind the tape that had been stuck over her mouth.

Holding her in place just outside of my reach, the military dude pressed the barrel of a gun under her chin. “Shut up,” he said. She immediately quietened.

After years of being terrorised by demons and supernatural magic, there was something crudely horrifying about guns. It set my teeth on edge as I thought about all those weapons the Sisterhood had constructed in their mission to destroy the supernaturals. But these people weren’t Sisterhood. They weren’t even Terrans. They were Human League. Why did humans always have to mess everything up?

While I had been distracted by Emily’s hostage situation, Simone and Jessica had dragged Sophie off to the far side of the lawn. There, somebody set up a cauldron and lit a fire beneath it with a camping stove. The military guys were bringing out one hostage after another, lining them up beside a shaking Emily like ducks in a carnival game.

The sound of propellers caught my attention before the flashing of lights alerted me that there were humans in the air. My knuckles turned white where my hands were bunched around the tufts of lawn. The symbol on the side of the helicopters said one was a police chopper and the other was from a local news station. They did a slow circle around the location of the dimensional rift.

Fae and Nephilim guards ascended into the air, readying themselves for the moment when the magic would interfere with the technology. It came accompanied by a metallic screeching that made me shiver. The police helicopter threw out sparks and started to cough smoke. Its propellers stopped spinning. Both choppers began their untimely descent, Fae and Nephilim trailing behind them.

Judging by the size of the rift relative to its distance, I would say that it was already the size of a football field. It would be even bigger once Declan was finished with his ritual. Already the lights in the city below were being short-circuited by magical interference. If the rift became any bigger, it would take out all technology in the city.

The Human League had always wanted to bring the supernatural world crashing into the human world. What better way to do that than with a mass awakening? The human population was too big for the supernaturals to compel or glamour in its entirety.

A pair of sweaty, hairy knuckled hands grabbed me. Something smashed against the soul gate again as a military guy lifted me up to my feet and pretty much tossed me inside the circle they had drawn around Sophie.

My heart almost busted out of my chest when they gave Lucifer the same treatment. The indignity of it would have set him off big time if he hadn’t been locked up inside the vessel.

While Jessica and Simone were drawing their own circle around the hostages, some of whom were children no older than five or six, Declan approached us. In his hand, he held a vial of Sophie’s potion. The one she had been giving me in order to keep me alive.

He rolled the glass vial between his fingers. The fire beneath the cauldron cracked, spitting blue flames against the small pit that they had dug out of the grass.

“You know what we want,” Declan said to Sophie.

She raised her head defiantly. “Go to hell!”

He shook his head, looking mournful. “That’s what we’re trying to prevent. Were you not just there? Haven’t you seen what our future will be like either way? If the demons win, we will be overrun and enslaved. If the supernaturals win, we will be at their mercy for all eternity. The only hope we have is if we become stronger than they are.”

I snorted. “And how are you going to do that?”

Sophie glanced away as I struggled to grasp at the silent communication that was going on between them. Another boom against the soul gate broke the hum of activity. A lion-shaped boulder hit the side, was thrown off, shook himself, and readied for another assault. It was only Professor Mortimer’s magic that kept Max from running headlong into the soul gate again. In his anxiousness to get to Sophie, Max hadn’t noticed that the rebuff from the soul gate had injured his back legs. One more hit and I wasn’t sure if he would get up.

“Stop it!” Sophie snapped. “Leave them alone.”

“I’m not making them do a thing,” Declan said. “All I want is to have a fighting chance.”

“What you’re going to get is anarchy!” I said. “People are going to riot in the streets. Or worse, they’ll be so scared they’ll lose their minds.”

He shook his head at me. “That’s so very easy for you to say when you’ve been sheltered by the supernaturals since the moment they found out about you. The rest of us can live or die and they wouldn’t even blink.”

I grit my teeth. “You know perfectly well that’s not true. Do you think they would have let you walk among them for so long if they didn’t think you were worth listening to?”

Somebody behind his back snorted. “Listening is just a stalling tactic,” Simone said. “Action is the only thing they understand.”

“What the hell would you know?” I barked. “You’ve been around for two seconds!”

A slow grin spread across her face and touched the very depths of her eyes. “And you know everything, do you?” she humoured me. “Do you perhaps know how the vampires produce their blood juice? How many humans suffer for that trade? Or has your vampire sidekick bitched and moaned to you so much about his poor family dying that you no longer care about what happens to your own kind?”

I opened my mouth, tried to speak and then shut it again. “What?”

She leaned forward, flashing her teeth at me. “The little boys were the easiest. Their souls slipped out of them like bananas out of their skin. It was child’s play.”

Shaking my head, I tried to comprehend what she was saying. “You killed Andrei’s family.”

She wagged a finger at me. “Not technically true. That Nephilim up there killed them. I simply made them forget who they were.”

“And Rachel’s mum?”

Her features pinched. “Rachel needed a push. We were looking for a hedge witch.”

I couldn’t believe it. “You thought she was me. You killed her mum on a hunch.” Anger filled my words, but they were blunted by my shock. All this time I had been looking for a supernatural culprit and the humans had been the ones to cause it all. Why was I surprised? Giselle had been employed in the Dominion prison for years without detection. The Sisterhood had infiltrated supernatural society the same way as supernaturals integrated into the human world. They were all as bad as each other as far as I was concerned. And while they were all bickering, Lucifer was silently building an army.

Right now, my immediate concern was the way Declan was watching Sophie with keen interest. He held up the potion once more. “You know how to do it,” he said.

“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest. His eyes flicked to me.

“Very well.” Turning, he made a gathering motion with his hands. From the back of another van, the military guys carried out more hostages. Sophie hissed at the same time my heart sank. These hostages were unconscious, their hands and feet bound in chains of silver. The black tar poison splashed across their skin and clothing.

“You sick bastard,” Sophie spat, trying to get to her feet. Simone kicked her back down. I sat there staring, my tongue coated in bitterness. They had taken pups from the Zambian compound.

“How could you?” I breathed.

“We do what we must to keep ourselves alive,” Declan said. He waved the vial in the air again. “Why don’t you tell her where the potion she’s been drinking came from?” This he directed at Sophie.

She turned her head away again. “Your meek little friend here has been hunting supernatural criminals,” he said. “What makes what you did and what we’re doing so different?”

“I didn’t kill anybody!” Sophie cried.

“No,” he said. “You just hunted them, bled them, and then fed their essence to Alessia to keep her alive.”

I blinked slowly, trying to take in what he was saying without the screaming going on in my head. I had already guessed at what Sophie was doing, but to be hit with the truth of it was more shocking than I had anticipated. Her head was downturned.

“I didn’t kill them,” she said again softly, and my heart ached for her. Because of me, she’d embraced the stigma of her great grandfather’s actions and tainted herself with the same brush. If the supernaturals found out, how would they react?

Fury simmered beneath my skin. “So now what?” I said to Declan. But as I stared ahead at him, Lucifer’s prone body gave me my answer. They were going to try and steal his power for themselves. “Are you out of your mind? He’s an archangel! You can’t just harvest him. It’ll destroy us all!”

Narrowing his eyes, Declan placed the vial of potion in front of him on the grass. “That’s why we’re going to do a test run.”

He stared at me unblinking until the cold dread of his intention slid down my rigid spine. “No way,” Sophie said. “You can forget it!”

Declan tapped at his chin. “You can do whatever you like,” he said. “Everything you need is laid out in front of you.” He glanced down at his watch. “But for every fifteen minutes that you delay, one of those shifters is going to die.”

I had every intention of ripping his soul right out of his body. If there weren’t suddenly a dozen rifles pointed right at me, I would have. What strength I would use was beyond me. But if I died, I would die happy knowing I had taken Declan with me. Before he stood up, Declan placed a boning knife into the circle within my reach. “Just in case you decide that it’ll be easier if you’re not breathing.”

With that, he turned his back and walked to where Jessica and Simone were finishing up their circles. Goosebumps scattered down my arms as though a cold breeze had swept past.

“Lex,” Sophie said. “I can’t –”

“Shhh.” I reached out and held her hand, my fuzzy brain working furiously to try and find a solution to our problem. The issue was, there were so many problems I didn’t even know where to begin. And at the back of my mind, Kai’s frantic presence within the soul link kept dragging my attention away.

The shaking of my hand transferred up Sophie’s arm. She placed her other hand over mine, trying to still my convulsing.

“I’m not going to make it,” I told her. Glancing up to the sky, I saw that the elite guard were now also present. Angus’s black wings were ringed in a steely silver glow, his expression harder than granite. “They’ll find a way in eventually,” I assured her, knowing that given long enough, Kai would always find a way to get to me. “You just have to stall until they do.”

She tugged at our intertwined hands. “You will be –”

“No, Soph. I won’t be.”

Even now I felt the seam of my soul coming apart. I hadn’t stopped bleeding from my nostrils the entire time we’d been here. My head felt like someone was taking a scalpel to it. Inside, the pools of my magic were waning. “If it comes down to it and you need time, I want you to perform the ritual on me.”

She let go of my hand in steadfast refusal. “No!”

“Don’t be stupid. I’ll never forgive myself if they murder the kids.”

Sophie shook her head in disbelief, her eyes welling. I took in a shuddering breath of my own, not fully comprehending the words that were coming out of my own mouth.

And then, because we didn’t have enough problems already, Simone clapped her hands and stood up. Declan back-paced so that he was a good distance away from their circle. One of the military guys brought a child hostage up to the circle and placed the little girl within Simone’s reach.

Apprehension clutched at my heart. I reached out and stole the potion that Declan had left on the ground. Drinking it down despite knowing where it had come from, I watched as Simone uttered the words of an unbinding spell.

In the Ley sight, I saw her perform the thing I had been trying to perfect for months now. The unstitching of a soul. She did it with the practiced hand of an expert craftsman. Where I had always been slow and unwieldy, the girl’s soul came away clean. She gave a brutal little scream that made my insides curl. The last tendril of soul that was linked to the Ley lines almost broke apart. I whipped out with my bone magic and tried to hold it in. Simone staggered forward as I countered her command, my raw magic stopping her dead in her tracks.

The butt of a rifle smacked me in the right side of my head. Pain fractured down my jaw and neck as I fell sideways. Sophie yelped and fury ignited on Kai’s side of the soul link. It wasn’t comforting knowing the man who hit me was going to die, because I had let go of the girl’s soul. Simone grabbed it and performed the last rites of her ritual. Declan fell to his knees and threw his arms over his head as a flash of blinding light flared. It lifted into the sky, sailing directly up and into the orbit of the dimensional rift. There, it exploded in a shower of streaking lights. The reverberating boom could be heard all over the city. And in the aftermath of the explosion, the dimensional rift widened by the length of another football field.

In its wake, I heard a groan of dimensional anchors breaking. Blinking back tears, I saw that the rift was now a gaping-wide hole in the horizon. Through it, Seraphina’s spires rose up. The soul link vibrated with horror-filled shock as Kai and I realised the same thing at once. They were going to bring Seraphina down to earth.

55

There would be no going back from this now. The technology might have failed close to the rift, but it was so large that a recording could be made from a great distance. Not to mention the millions of people who were watching it live. The wailing of sirens filled the night.

The thing about high magic was that it required no balance. Mages could conjure something from thin air, drawing from the reserves of their power which they learned to cultivate from a young age. Low magic was different. For every action, there was a consequence. While Jacob had been able to tear apart souls to create a dimensional rift that only affected the focal point he chose, Simone wasn’t able to do the same.

I swallowed hard as the shockwave rippled past the borders of Seraphina. It clashed with the veil barriers the elite guards had erected. In a perverse tainting of magic, the pulse of the soul’s destruction reversed the intention of the magic. Instead of keeping demons out, the veils became a signal. It sucked in demonic energy and tore a hole in the barriers keeping the demons in the Hell dimension.

My mouth gaped as an enormous claw breached the perimeter of the rift. It grabbed at the unstable barrier like it was a piece of tissue paper and tore a hole right through the dimensions. The thing’s arm was the length of a construction crane, long enough that when its shoulder was birthed from the rift, its hand touched the ground with no effort.

The earth groaned like a woman in labour. The ground shifted as the demon stomped its legs to test its balance. My neck grew sore craning to take in the demon in its entirety. The thing was massive. Bigger than the demon that had come through the portal last semester at the Academy. Unlike that demon, this thing wasn’t frail looking. In fact, the more I gaped at it, the more it struck me that it might not be a demon. Proportionally, it looked exactly like a man. Balding and with eyes glowing like lava, it boasted a physique of a fighter. The bulging muscles on its shoulders were like small mountain ranges.

“Is that…” Sophie couldn’t finish. Absently, I think I nodded but I was too riveted to really respond. This wasn’t a demon. It was a being from another dimension. The giant took a tentative step forward. It walked clear of the hole it had created. Each step caused the ground to rumble anew. According to Magic History, trespassing across an interdimentional barrier was a painful and disorienting process. The giant proved this by throwing its head back and bellowing its rage. My ears popped and filled with liquid as the humans around me made pained faces and covered their heads.

Elite guards raced from the portals Basil and Professor Mortimer opened, moving to intercept the giant before it could destroy the city. Next to this thing, they appeared like ants crawling away from a curious bully.

Behind the giant, demons spat from the breach, falling from the sky in a suicidal wave. The rift was high enough that even a demon couldn’t survive that kind of a fall. That was the beauty of overwhelming numbers. They had blood and bodies to spare. As the demons fell, they created a pile of stacked carcasses that grew ever higher. It closed the distance between the rift and the earth, making it possible for the ones coming behind to survive the fall.

And then there were the winged demons. Great lumbering beasts that never should have been able to take flight they were so twisted. Once the winged demons had amassed in numbers, they began to ferry the other demons over. Demon cooperation, the thing nobody had counted on. Behind those demons came the ones without form. They slipped through the portal and immediately went in search of vessels.

I heard the MirrorNet’s voice telling me that there were millions of demons in the Hell dimension. Watching them come streaming out of the rift, I knew that the city and soon the world would be overrun. There were simply too many of them.

Without knowing why, I lifted my head to the sky above the soul gate. Kai hung suspended in the air, his wings defying the laws of physics and allowing him to hover without much effort. Normally he would have been the first to try and intercept the breaking wave of demons. But Kai remained exactly where he was, attention locked on me. Through the link I felt the terrible battle raging inside him. Every protective instinct screamed at him to go and meet the demons head-on, even if it was a suicide mission. But Kai clamped down on it, pushing it aside, because in his very soul, he was once a healer more than he was a fighter. That intrinsic part of him told him I was dying and even his considerable healing ability couldn’t save me. There was nothing he could do about it and it ate at him in a damaging fury that made him lash out at anything that came close.

And they were too close.

Drawn by the irresistible allure of a human soul, the demons had followed its origin back to Terran. They sprang from all sides of the soul gate, hitting the barrier, and were flung off. My vision became filled with gaping mouths, vicious claws, and the sparks of the soul gate as it rejected any demons that tried to trespass. The supernaturals around us clashed with the demons while Declan looked on unemotionally.

“Keep going,” he ordered Simone.

Blood trickled out of the side of my mouth as I lay there unable to get back up again. Sophie tried to lift me, but I was dead weight. I struggled to maintain consciousness. The world around me became a landscape of pain and explosive sound. Between the supernaturals redoubling their efforts to destroy the soul gate and fight the demons and Simone unleashing human souls, there was not a moment to take in anything else.

And then there were no human bodies left besides Emily. She struggled as best she could, but she wasn’t strong enough to throw off the two men who held her captive.

Sophie was sobbing quietly beside me, her hand gripping my shoulder. In my head, I slammed my fists on the grass, got up and kicked some serious ass. In reality, I coughed up more blood and closed my eyes, unable to stand the thought of what was coming. It was a shameful relief when Emily’s crying pissed off one of the men and he punched her in the head, knocking her out cold.

When Simone reached out for Emily’s soul, the world stood absolutely still. Now more than ever, in the ethereal light thrown off by the dimensional rift, Emily looked just like an angel with her wings clipped.

But Simone gave no shits about looks or morals. Like the rest of her, Emily’s spirit was gentle to the core. It gave no resistance as it was unclipped and slipped into Simone’s grasp. “Brace yourselves,” Simone said. “She’s powerful.”

Simone released Emily’s soul into the aether. It sailed up towards the dimensional rift and exploded in a blaze of cosmic lights that would rival a meteor shower. Emily’s soul went supernova inside the rift.

A roar filled my ears. I was unable to cover my head to stop the sound from coming. It was like the crash of a thousand waves rolling endlessly over each other. Sophie threw herself on top of me as though it would shield me from the inevitable shockwave of Emily’s unmaking.

I cried out as a pulse of horrific grief smashed into my chest. For a second, it felt as though my soul was once again floating out of my body.

With Sophie’s weight on top of me and the world looking like it had been hit by a sudden snowdrift, I felt my eyes being compelled open.

I let out a shocked breath when a figure materialised beside Emily. The two guys holding her upright gave no indication that they sensed another presence.

The stranger’s mop of black hair was natural on the left side but braided in thick rows on the right. She wore a teal gown that perfectly offset her dark skin and the flat gold bangles at her wrist. At her throat was a gold pendant in the shape of a book. I’d seen her image before in the Nephilim Codex.

I shielded my eyes and whimpered. “Gabriel.” The messenger. “You’re the one who has been sending Emily visions.”

She smiled. I wanted to fly into a rage. Here she was, an archangel still firmly seated in the heavenly realm, and she hadn’t lifted a finger to help Emily. Or me for that matter.

“Unlike my brothers, I cannot speak to humans so freely,” she said in that Caribbean accent that had stumped me all this time. The sound of her voice was like knives stabbing into my brain. “My time here is limited. But know this, what happens today will have repercussions for all the dimensions. Choose wisely. Make the sacrifice.”

I was already dying. What more did she want from me? But I didn’t have time to ask because her essence shimmered and disappeared.

A crunching, creaking sound erupted in the sky above us. The dimensional rift rumbled as white light snapped along the edges of the Nephilim city. And then it began to move. My heart kicked inside my chest as Seraphina slid through the rift.

Kai finally tore his attention away from where he was ripping a demon in two. The expression on his face stopped me cold. For a fraction of a second, our eyes met, and the carefully cultivated mask he held up for the world slipped. Green eyes saturated in blue as I held my breath and stared into the vulnerable face of a young Nephilim boy who should never have been thrust so brutally into battle. The boy who had given up everything to hold the line while those around him perished, knowing full well that there was no victory, and fighting on anyway.

History was repeating itself. Despite how hard he had worked, Kai was in the same place. Unable to protect those he loved. The futility caused a lick of angelfire to burn across his shoulders, casting his features in a dark green glow that mirrored the inferno blazing inside of him. With a single tug, Kai ripped off the head of the demon in his grip and launched himself at the soul gate. I felt his intention as plain as day. If he couldn’t help to win the battle, he was at least going to take out Declan. The soul gate had other ideas, grabbing him and throwing him across the lawn.

Sophie clawed at my arm, dragging my attention away from where Kai landed in the bushes, blood spilling out of his mouth. One of the military idiots had taken hold of a wolf pup. Aisha. Her crown of coarse black hair and the dark freckles on her brown skin reminded me of a doll. I grit my teeth as the five-year-old lay limp as she was unceremoniously dumped on the grass in front of the others.

“Don’t!” Sophie screamed.

“Fifteen minutes is up,” the military guy said.

No, I wanted to tell him. Time is up. In the blink of an eye, I took stock of everything that was happening around me. Seraphina half-hanging out of the dimensional rift, the giant swinging its arms trying to swat at the elite guards, the demon wave crashing around us, my friends trying to stop them from hurting us even though we were the ones protected by the soul gate. Kai pushing himself up and rolling his shoulders, determination etched in every line of his body. Sophie caught in the impossible position of choosing between the lives of two people she loved.

The military guy raised his rifle. With the last of my strength, I gathered up all the bone magic I could. Then I took Gabriel’s Key and pressed it to Sophie’s hands. I wouldn’t need it anymore and I wanted her to have it.

“Sophie,” I whispered. “Protect us.”

Though her body stilled, a pink circle traced around us as I threw out bone magic and grabbed hold of Simone and Declan. A knife stabbed its way down the back of my head. I pitched forward but refused to let go. Declan clutched at his throat. Simone groaned, falling forward amongst the still bodies of those she had killed. She resisted like Giselle had explained to me, but in the end, though I was weakened, I was still Lucifer’s scion.

“Stop her!” Jessica screamed, scrambling to get to me in time. Sophie used the knife Declan had given us to draw blood from her palm. Gunfire pelted at the circle just as she slammed her hand down on the blood circle. They halted as they hit the side of the circle, burrowing in but unable to get past.

Closing my eyes, I yanked without any form of finesse whatsoever. That was the thing about power and not giving a rat’s ass about hurting people. It meant I didn’t need to be delicate. Declan and Simone cried out in agony as I tore their souls from their bodies, from the Ley dimension, and cast them up towards the soul gate. The tearing of their essences left a gaping hole in the Ley lines that rattled with emptiness. Remembering the way the demon had shaped human souls into a weapon, I shaped their white light into an imitation of Morning Star.

“Blue!” Kai screamed, charging at the soul gate.

I didn’t have enough power left to stop him. The tip of the soul weapon hit the soul gate and tore right through it. At the same time Kai slammed into the gate, his angel blade piercing its skin. The gate compensated for the surge in my power hitting it by funnelling it into Kai. He groaned as his body was flooded with energy it was not built to contain. My heart stopped as his soul was torn assumer. The torturous sound he made imprinted on me, drawing tears to my eyes. A flash of pink light engulfed him at the last second before he was unmade. Distantly, I heard Sophie chanting a spell as though through a fog.

And then the world turned into nothing.

56

Once, I had been forsaken. My aura had been so bright that it had blocked out the presence of everything and everyone around me. But that had been a single drop in the ocean compared to the fiery ball of unrelenting light that seeped out of every pore in my body as I broke apart.

As my soul transcended through the veil and there was nothing else in the horizon besides my aura, I finally understood. I was Lucifer’s blood. My unmaking would be as his might be. A destructive force that would destroy this dimension and all others around it. Lucifer’s last practical joke. Every single one of Emily’s prophecies was coming to life.

The notion settled into place, but it didn’t fit.

Death was an easy way out. Death had always been in my blood. From Hilary, to my mother, to Azrael. It was almost comforting.

Azrael. After I wiped out all the lower beings and demons, the archangels would prevail. And even though he was trapped, Lucifer would begin again. He would raise another scion in another dimension to take my place. In death, I would be helpless to stop him.

Helpless. The word whipped around my soul and caused bitterness to filter through me. No. I could never be helpless again.

And then it was all drowned out by the touch of a sliver of green angelfire that called to me despite the oppressive forces stealing my soul. Kai was still trying to reach me despite his own unmaking. The depthless despair clouded his soul in darkness. When this was done, he and everything that I loved would cease to exist.

This is war, Giselle’s voice suddenly reverberated in my skull. What would you do to win?

How did you win against a seraph? At the core of my being, I was just a human. A hedge witch. A bone witch. The ultimate sacrifice.

Lucifer, I spoke through the veil.

He materialised in front of me within the golden glow of seraphim light. You called?

His essence was completely unblemished despite the destruction that had been wrought on his physical vessel. The only thing that marred his aura were the lines of magic I had used to shield myself from his full glory. Only then did I understand. There had never been anything I could have done to destroy him. He was seraphim. I was a human despite all evidence to the contrary. My power was his and it had been a smokescreen to give me hope that I could one day circumvent the prophecy.

But sometimes, you just had to take a step back in order to move forward.

Change it, I asked, knowing now that he had the power to reverse what had happened.

With an arched brow, he moved towards me. Change what, Alessia?

All of this, I thought. Change it back to what it once was. All of them will be safe and the humans won’t know of our world. Promise me and I will release you.

With a smile that lit up everything around it in gold, he shook his head. That’s not how this works, he drawled. The humans are inconsequential. But the supernaturals…they have stood against me. They will continue to be a barrier. I cannot allow that insult to go unpunished. But I promise to give them a fighting finish.

Once more I saw the field of battle. He would allow the supernaturals to live simply to cut them down for his amusement. It was always about ego with him. Then good luck with your next scion, I thought. You’ve waited for centuries. What’s a few more?

His grin widened. In the expanse of nothingness between us, he showed me the consequences of my death. The world as I knew it was being obliterated.

Fifty-percent is still better than nothing, Alessia.

Fifty-percent. The statistic rolled around in my disembodied mind as his hedge-magic laced aura flickered once more. At half his strength, would the supernaturals be able to hold him off? At this point, I didn’t have much of a choice.

I agree, I told him.

Lucifer studied me. You destroyed my lieutenant. It is your duty to take his place.

He showed me Jacob’s last mission and my soul trembled. Nineteen years ago, Hilary made a bargain with a seraph. I couldn’t help but do the same.

Lucifer’s ice-capped blue eyes crinkled at the corners when he felt my agreement. So it begins.

My soul whined. Refoverah. Restore.

As the Angelical whispered across the veil, I called upon the bone magic and began to weave a web of my own.

The messed-up thing was that the heavens felt like they opened up and showered light upon him. Good or bad, the Ley dimension saw only the return of a sovereign. Something inside my soul snapped shut as, one by one, the bindings the seraphim had placed on Lucifer unwound. A wave of unbearable grief and terror sank into my heart. Before my connection to everything I had ever known retracted, I sent one last message. And then he was whole again. Devastatingly beautiful and terrifyingly fearsome.

Lucifer snapped his fingers and reality did his bidding. My eyes closed and I was taken by the darkness.

* * *

I blinked and the room spun. For a second, the soft linen around me reminded me of being inside Seraphina. But the quality of the light was all wrong. There was a distinctly red tinge to the sunlight streaming through the window. Not to mention the window itself being situated up too high. A soft voice and even softer hands soothed me.

“It’s alright, Alessia,” the woman said. “You’re safe.”

Turning, I forced my eyes to remain open and found myself staring right into the light green eyes of a dead woman. Rebecca Pendragon.

I shot upright and scampered back in the bed. In my hurry, I twisted the sheets around my ankle, and it threatened to send me head over ass onto the floor. She stood up and grabbed hold of my arm before I toppled. Her touch was solid.

Eyes wider than canyons, I stared at the spot where our bodies touched. “I’m dead,” I said. After all that, I ended up dying. Staring down at my body, I saw that my clothing had been stripped and I was lying there in just my underwear. Urgh.

Her gentle smile didn’t even lift her cheeks. There was something about it that reminded me so much of Kai that a lump formed in my throat. “No, you’re not,” she said. “Neither am I.”

All of my questions bottlenecked on my tongue. Before they could spill out, the enormous golden door creaked open. A creature with the overly muscled body of a gladiator and the head of a bull stepped in. Its private parts were covered by a leather tunic, the straps leading up its chest and shoulders to create the world’s gaudiest costume.

Too weak to fight but too terrified not to try, I cast about the room for something to use as a weapon. Rebecca sat back down on her chair, her features drawn tight.

“The master wants to see her,” the bull gladiator said. At least that was what I thought it said. Its voice was like gravel going through a rock crusher. Some things just weren’t meant for speech.

Rebecca straightened her spine. “She’s not strong enough yet.”

The bull lowered its head and gave a short, groaning roar. “Now!”

Though she didn’t move a muscle, I felt a spike of apprehension radiating from her before she walked slowly to another set of doors that turned out to be a closet.

Before opening it, Rebecca turned to the bull man. “She needs some privacy.” Her poker face was terrible. If Kai lied that poorly, he would have been dead a hundred times over. It reminded me that his kin had been made to heal. Once upon a time, they would have been the ones sheltered and protected by Michael’s bloodline.

The bull man crossed his muscled arms. Or at least he tried to. The bulk of them meant his elbows could barely bend. His nostrils flared as steam billowed out of them. Rebecca and I both got the message quick smart.

She rummaged through the contents of the closet and pulled out a preppy eggshell-blue dress. All I needed was a cardigan slung over my shoulders and I would be ready for an Ivy League university visit. “I don’t think so,” I said.

“We don’t have time for an argument about fashion.”

Moving back towards me, Rebecca helped me to my feet. Her touch was deft and gentle as though I was some kind of princess wrapped up in cotton wool. Pendragons! Were all of them going to treat me as though I was fragile?

It was only while she was slipping the dress over my shoulders that her grip on my waist suddenly turned to iron. The pinch was a surprise and it made me gasp aloud. When my gaze snapped to hers, there was wetness in her eyes. It dawned on me that she was trying to make me appear meek for some reason.

The thing was, I felt perfectly fine. Looking down at my hands, I saw that they were steady. For months now, they had been overtaken by tremors that hadn’t hindered their function but kept throwing reminders in my face that I was unwell. Now they felt like my hands again.

When he saw that I was ready, the bull man marched out the door. Determining that I was meant to follow him, I stepped lightly behind and started walking. Rebecca trailed after us, her attention boring into my back.

The cathedral appeared to have been restored. Rebecca cleared her throat and I looked up from where I had been staring at the floor. Up ahead, demons lined the sides of the ornate hallways. They started off in single file and then their numbers multiplied until we got to the double doors that the leviathan had broken. They too had been restored. It was like a line in the sand had been drawn across the threshold. When we reached it, the bull man stepped aside, though not very far as he was hemmed in by other demons.

The doorway opened out to the familiar throne room. Even from this distance, I recognised the figure glowing on the throne. “Keep walking,” Rebecca urged me. My feet were weighted down with cement.

Stalling, I inspected the other people in the room with him. While the low demons were permitted in this section of the cathedral, Lucifer’s immediate presence seemed to be reserved for those he considered to be higher on the pecking order. No surprises that they were all humanoid. Some of them were supernatural. Vampires, shifters, and Fae glared at me as though I was nothing more than prey.

Closest to the throne, four figures in heavy silver cloaks stood with their cowls raised over their heads. A heavy air of death clung to them in a choking cloud that came through my bone magic as a murky grey. Necromancers.

As the closest of Lucifers acolytes silently judged me, Rebecca placed her warm palm on my lower back. A surge of cautious trepidation filtered through her fingers. I shivered as the touch of her emotions brushed up against my chest. The codex had said nothing about her being an empath, but the smattering of emotions I’d felt from her since I’d woken up made that evident. Her fingers curled slightly against my skin. She was doing her best to suppress her emotion, but she was terrified.

A seed of pure defiance planted itself in my chest. I was so done being afraid. Stepping over the threshold, I marched across the floor so quickly Rebecca stumbled to keep up with me. Like Kai, she was tall and her stride was long. But she walked like every step was going to come down on hot coals. How had she come to be here? Did Raphael know she was here? Why had she been kept alive? In the back of my mind, even though it was irrelevant now, was the other thing that had absolute fury simmering in my chest: Rebecca had been alive all this time. Kai wasn’t the last of his line. We could have bonded.

Instead, I had been absconded to the Hell dimension. Try as I might, I couldn’t locate Kai’s soul in the Ley dimension or anywhere else. He was lost and so was I.

That one thought cauterised every scrap of fear and left behind a diamond-hard resolution. As I approached the throne, Lucifer got to his feet. Today, he was adorned in armour that replicated the battle armour of the Nephilim. Only his armour was in a stunning polished silver that made him shine brighter than a star. He walked to the front of the dais.

“Alessia,” he said. “So happy you could join us.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” I told him, smiling as though I had meant to be here all along. The hall grew quiet as the supernaturals around us tensed. I had a feeling they were not used to speaking out of turn. Well, things changed.

Lucifer grinned at me, his amusement lighting up those crystalline blue eyes. I would have been fooled by the mirth in them if I didn’t know him well enough by now. He raised a hand and conjured up a ball of light. The necromancers didn’t cringe, but in the Ley sight, I saw their auras shying away from the Morning Star.

“We seem to have a slight technical difficulty,” he said. “The totality of my powers has been bound somehow.”

I cocked my head to the side. In the Ley sight, I saw exactly what he was referring to. The same bone magic spell that had hindered Gaia now wound around him too. If he didn’t want me to use my magic, he shouldn’t have given me all this power.

“It would seem so,” I observed.

He took a step towards me. The demons outside the room shrank. “Unbind me.”

“No, thank you.”

Rebecca inhaled. If she weren’t standing so close, I wouldn’t have heard it. Or maybe it happened via an emotive transfer. Whatever it was, Lucifer picked up on it too. His eyes narrowed. Then his smile returned, its edges tipped with cruel amusement.

“Rebecca,” he drawled. “You’ve been a guest in my cathedral for quite some time. Jacob’s protection of you has kept you pampered and pretty.” Lucifer turned. “But Jacob is gone, and I have no need for a healer.”

Lucifer hopped down the staircase to stand a few steps in front of me. Though he addressed Rebecca, his eyes never left my face. I was sure he tracked it when my left cheek twitched. Not caring, I turned toward Kai’s aunt.

“Did he hurt you?” It was a general statement, but she knew what I meant.

“No,” she said immediately, her face openly terrified. “I was a guest.”

“Why?”

“He…” she swallowed. “Loved me.” Gross!

“So Jacob murdered your whole family, kidnapped you, and hid you here while Kai suffered a torment thinking he was the last Pendragon alive. Did you love him?”

“No.” This was spat out with such distaste that I wanted to throat punch someone.

In my head, I replayed the moment Kai had split Jacob in two with the heavenly blade. It hadn’t been enough.

“The things we do for love.” Lucifer made to step closer to Rebecca and I found myself suddenly in his path.

“Alessia.”

“My Lord,” I said, voice laced with sweet condescension. Rebecca clutched at my hand as the necromancers broke their stance.

“Don’t forget your promise,” Lucifer said.

“Believe me, I forget nothing.”

His eyes widened. The problem with putting two bullshit artists in a room was that you never knew what was real or not. I couldn’t quite be sure whether Lucifer was actually insane and would kill me in a blink, and he wasn’t sure if I was as mentally deficient as I pretended to be. As a result, we both smiled.

The thing was, he was still the master of his domain. I was just the upstart he had created. “You want her freedom?” Lucifer asked. He raised his hand. A flicker of seraphim power brushed over Rebecca. Through the Ley sight, I saw a ring of gold that had been glowing around her light green angelfire burn itself out. I also saw the shroud of demonic energy that was masking her aura from being detected. No wonder nobody knew she was here.

The moment the gold ring disappeared, the demons went into a frenzy. Lucifer nodded and they surged through the doorway, running towards the Nephilim as though she was the last meal to be had.

Crying out, Rebecca took two steps back, ready to run. It said a lot that she didn’t attempt to cower behind me. When running from predators, you didn’t have to be the fastest. You just had to be faster than the other sucker. But even though she knew she was going to die, Rebecca wouldn’t betray me to the demons.

They were just two metres from us when I lashed out with my bone magic. One by one I gathered up their essences. When I was done with the demons inside the cathedral, I expanded my reach and grabbed as many of the ones outside the perimeter as I could.

Mawatah. Death.

The Angelical dashed through the Hell dimension like a tsunami. It devastated the demons in its wake and caused a ripple that destroyed the earth around it.

When the wave finally subsided, I blinked once and looked up into the face of a seraph grinning like he’d won the lottery.

“Next time,” I said, calm seeping into my voice, “I won’t stop at just demons.”

While he had been bound, my power was stifled too. But as the Angelical threatened to break down my physical body, I felt his power rise up and smooth over the cracks. He was so close to his goal and I was his means of getting there. No way was he going to allow me to die.

Lucifer turned on his heel and took the steps back up to his throne. “Take your place, Alessia.”

Giving Rebecca’s hand one last squeeze, I ascended the steps past the necromancers and went to stand on the left side of his throne.

“You understand my mission?” he asked.

“Yes.”

It had been part of our agreement and the reason why he had been so ready to accept my offer. The lives of the humans and supernaturals meant nothing to him. The earth dimension was exactly as he liked it. Submissive, petty, and terrified of their own shadows while infighting with each other. It wasn’t the humans Lucifer wanted. It was the heavens. He had been cast out against his will and now he wanted revenge.

“Find my blade. Restore it to me.”

I nodded as his laughter filled the throne room. It vibrated through the Ley dimension which was a connection to everything. The knowledge chased through the Sea of Souls, making Azrael aware of his delight.

Thank you for providing me with the key, brother, Lucifer crooned. Azrael gave no response. There didn’t need to be any. The game of war was won by knowing when to concede the battle. It was about how much you were willing to sacrifice. By allowing Hilary and Azrael to make their deal that saved my life, Lucifer was now in control of one of the only people who might be able to commune with the beings who hid his angel blade.

Once he had possession of it, even my bindings wouldn’t stop him. And then he would make a play for the heavenly realm.

“You’re not strong enough,” Lucifer told me. I didn’t contradict him because he was probably right. “But that is easily fixed.”

The room cleared of all but the necromancers. Rebecca cast me a quivering look before she disappeared in the clutch of a vampire guard. Two demon blades appeared in Lucifer’s grip. The room shimmered, and in its place, we materialised in a field of dead red earth. Lucifer tossed one of the blades towards me. It burned my hand. I clamped my jaw together to stop from crying out.

Drawing on the insidious rage inside me, I swiped the edge of the blade against my palm and let my blood drip over the steel. It sucked in every drop, the metal turning almost as red as the sky. I raised my head up and met Lucifer’s gaze.

“Let’s see what you’re made of,” he said.

Pressing my will on the demon blade, I reshaped it to fit my frame. With a wintery smile on my lips, I stood there unflinching as the Prince of Darkness advanced on me. There was something calming about knowing that winning wasn’t an option. But there were varying degrees of loss. I had scraped the bottom and there was nowhere left to go. Only one sacrifice was left, and I was finally ready to make it.

All of this had begun with a prophecy and the fallacy of a bone witch. That was how it would end.

Epilogue

Sophie

So this was what it felt like to be locked inside a celestial jail cell. There was something disconcerting about being caged up by the seraphim. It was no wonder Lex had always come away from it with her hackles raised. Thinking of her made my heart grow spines.

It compounded with the chill that kept sweeping over me knowing that Lucifer was back. And the bone-deep ache when I thought about what had happened to Kai.

In the end, I wasn’t strong enough. I bit my lip and tried to hold back the tears at the thought of where I might have accidentally transmutated his soul. Never mind where his physical body had ended up. I shuddered thinking about Kai existing somewhere without his soul. His body wasn’t in this dimension because we would have heard about a wayward Nephilim massacring people by now. That thought made things infinitely worse.

It had been a miscalculation on my part. The wrong words of light spoken with the right intention. She was too quick. Lex might have been small and weaker than a supernatural child, but she had more bone magic than all of them combined. When the soul gate latched on to her, all I could think of was that she would want to save him. But I hadn’t done that. Instead, I had destroyed him.

Raising my knees up to support my arms, I let my head hang between them. It felt wrong to be safe knowing my best friend was somewhere in the Hell dimension. It had been disorienting to feel the flash that burned without mercy, and then somehow wake up inside Seraphina unscathed.

As the dimensions hung on the precipice of annihilation, we all heard her bargain with Lucifer. His release for the safety of the humans. It was just like the Council to take exception to the fact that Lex hadn’t been able to bargain for their species. Like she had a choice!

Seraphina was anchored in place once more. As soon as order had been restored, the Nephilim guards had rounded up my parents and the remaining members of the Sisterhood.

Across from me, Matilda sat with her back against the only wall in her cell, carving something into the marble floor with the point of her knife. Within seconds of her making an indent, magic smoothed over the breakage again. I recognised the useless endeavour as a nervous tick brought on by anxiety, but it didn’t make the sound any less irritating.

“Could you please stop doing that?” I asked, rubbing at my temples. She paused and replaced her knife in her boot. Five minutes later, she began tapping her fingers against the wall. Breathing out slowly, I stared straight ahead. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Giselle’s chest rising and falling, but she didn’t stir. She hadn’t done so after the cataclysm, and no matter how hard Matilda and Rachel tried, they couldn’t wake her.

The walls rumbled around us and I sighed. “You’ve gotta give him points for trying,” Harlow said from her cell at the end of the row of cages.

Alison kicked at the glowing bars, wincing at the shock she received. “Too bad he’s the only one. I knew this was how it would turn out.”

It was pointless ruminating on what could and might have been done because this was how it was. Max didn’t agree. An hour after we’d been taken, an almighty roar had gone up outside the cells. We heard the stomping of feet as Nephilim guards swarmed around the door. For all of the racket he made, Max didn’t manage to get inside. Not with Uriel now guarding us. The Sisterhood might be able to phase out of the cells if they tried hard enough, but they wouldn’t be able to do so without Uriel detecting it.

Since then Max had been coming at least once a day. At this point, it was just to make his displeasure at my incarceration known. My heart skidded whenever I felt his presence, both warmed by his loyalty and terrified by it at the same time. Locked up, I could still hold on to the possibility of his feelings for me.

What would happen when I confirmed that I had been harnessing supernatural essences with black magic? How would he look at me then? Never mind the fact that I was responsible for the disappearance and likely death of his best friend.

No. The longer he stayed out, the better. At least until I could cope with losing Lex and him at the same time. I played with the band of Gabriel’s Key inside the front pocket of my jeans. Nobody had bothered to pat me down for weapons. Trinkets weren’t the source of my power. It was what was inside that counted.

That was exactly what the Council must have been thinking when I was summoned before them. Unlike every other time, Mama and Dad were nowhere to be seen. Instead, I was marched into the Council chambers by a dozen Nephilim guards. They swooped around me like I was some kind of insane criminal. Technically, I was. What I had done was highly illegal in supernatural society. But given the choice, I would have gladly done it again. And I would do a lot more if there was the slightest chance it would bring Lex back.

No matter how hard I had tried to come to terms with her inevitable death, I just couldn’t bring myself to accept it. Just like I was finding it impossible to accept her loss now. Sometimes, a person just reached into your soul and left a mark. I missed my best friend and it made me obstinate.

“Speak truthfully,” Orin reminded me once I was standing in front of them. “Your freedom and that of your species depends on it.”

I watched Durin frown even though he didn’t pipe up. “I have no reason to lie or be deceptive,” I said.

“So you freely admit that you committed crimes punishable by death?”

Without skipping a beat, I opened my mouth to respond. My answer was cut off by the ear-splitting growl of a lion.

“Contain him!” Orin shouted at the Nephilim guards.

The pleading look I gave Durin was met with a grimace. But it was Griff who tried to come to my aid. “Perhaps we should allow him –” the para-human began.

“He’s not Council and they’re not mated,” Durin said. “There’s no reason for Max to be here.”

The rebuff hurt more than if he had marched up and backhanded me. With that single statement, I knew exactly where I stood with the shifters. My throat clogged up and I had difficulty swallowing.

Orin repeated his question.

“Yes,” I said, knowing I was incriminating myself. Everything seemed so pointless at the moment.

“You knew Alessia was compromised,” Victoria said. “You should have alerted the Council straight away.”

Clearing my throat, I looked her in her shrivelled face. “But I didn’t,” I said. “What I should have done makes no difference now.”

There were a lot of things I should have done. Snitching on my best friend was not one of them. “The elite guard could have contained the problem,” Victoria continued.

I doubted it. They were the ones who had encouraged her in the first place. And they were the ones now sealing off all exit and entry points to all the supernatural cities and the academies. Soon, no human would be able to broach their sanctuaries without setting off wards that would kill on sight.

“Did you have any idea what she was intending?” Megan asked.

“No.” And then because I didn’t want to be contrary when there was so much at stake, I elaborated. “I don’t think it was a premeditated decision. She was forced into it.”

“Better that we had all perished,” Durin said.

“Maybe,” I whispered. All the strength felt like it was sapping from my limbs. “But you know what Lex was like. If she thought she could protect us, she would have made any kind of deal.”

“She doesn’t think about the consequences is more like it!” Scott snapped.

I wanted to ask him what he would have done differently in her place, but it was pointless arguing with idiots.

It should have been a relief not to be sentenced to death on the spot. What it felt like was an anticlimax. I knew I was in shock. Right now, I was running on disbelief. A day later, the bubble burst.

The cell doors opened and my parents were marched into the room by guards. They were accompanied by Scott and Orin. The bars lowered around all of us. I wanted to run to them, but the guards formed a barrier between us.

“Mama?” I asked, not liking the deep lines bracketing her lips.

“The supernaturals have decided to exile us,” she said. Her gaze swept over the room. “All of us. They’re going to wipe our minds and deposit us back into the human world.”

“What the hell?” Harlow shouted. “They can get stuffed. What gives them the right to make these kinds of decisions?”

“What about the other humans?” I asked, thinking of the human mates inside the Reserve.

“It’s just us,” Mama said. “Any of us who had prolonged contact with Declan and might be compromised. And Bethany.”

The shell of apathy cracked and in its place was a rage like I’d never felt before. “So they’re just going to toss us out because they’re afraid?” My jaw clamped so hard I could already feel the strain. “It’s not as though they’ve never done anything wrong. Why didn’t the Nephilim Council get exiled when they conspired to kill Lex?”

“We took a vote,” Orin informed me. “Majority rules.”

“What kind of majority?”

“None of your business.”

I took a step towards him only to be met with the blazing ends of Nephilim broadswords. Looking to Mama, I spoke again. “What kind of majority? The kind that might be tipped if Kai was still around?”

Nobody answered me. The air grew thick with tension that ratcheted up a notch when a shadow blocked out the light from the door. Max came charging in, his eyes glowing gold as the Nephilim guards attempted to block his way. But it was the edge of red that bled into the very centre of his irises that made my heart stop. That wasn’t anything to do with going rogue. If I didn’t know any better, I would have almost classed it as demonic. It didn’t make the slightest lick of sense. Neither did the way the Nephilim suddenly shrank back at the smouldering of his displeasure.

“I’m not in the mood,” he spat at the guards. Nobody moved a muscle as he stalked up to me, grabbed me by the wrist, and moved me into the corner where if we whispered, maybe their supernatural hearing wouldn’t pick up the sound of our voices. Max didn’t whisper.

“Mate with me,” he said, as casually as though he were asking me for the time.

“Now hold on a second,” Dad interjected. Mama stopped him from barging over.

Blinking rapidly, I tried to take a calming breath. Despite everything that was happening, heat crawled up my neck and blazed in an inferno across my cheeks. “You’re out of your mind.”

When I tried to step back, he reached out and clamped his hand around my forearm. “If we’re mated, you could stay.”

It was about as romantic as a lump of coal. Still, I was tempted. Just like I was tempted by everything else about him. That was part of the problem. Frantic all of a sudden, I feathered my magic over the seal that kept the thing in my chest contained. My heart only stopped skidding when I saw it was intact. If Max found out about it, I would never see the light of day again.

“Is that what you’re most concerned about?” I snapped to divert his attention.

“It’s what I’m most concerned about at the moment.”

I tried to tug away. He held firm. “You need to get your priorities straight.”

His top lip curled. That dot of red began to pulse in an uneven rhythm that was both horrifying and mesmerising. What the heck was happening? “Stay with me.”

I spoke through gritted teeth. “My best friend is missing.”

He spoke through what sounded like hot coals in his throat. “So is mine. I can’t do anything about that right now. Not until I settle this.”

The hot lick of gold that drenched his eyes at that very second told me he was an inch away from losing it completely. Helplessness would do that to an alpha. Kai was missing and Max had no way of finding him. The Reserve was still being rebuilt, its defences at half-strength. And now there was news of Lucifer’s return.

The only thing he had any control over would be my whereabouts if we were mated. I would end up in a cage in the Reserve just as surely as I had been in a cage all my life in Zambia. But despite his crazy eyes and his tendency to regress into a non-verbal cave man, I swallowed hard at the thought of never seeing him again.

“Why don’t you come with me?” I held my breath. It was a lot to ask. Too much. Especially right now. What sent a frightening thrill through me was that when he answered, it wasn’t because I was asking him to leave everything he had ever known behind. It was the other implication that had his grip tightening even harder.

“Come with you where?” It was a possessive growl.

I forced in a breath, willing my heart to beat normally. Or at least as normally as it could in this situation. “Back to the human world, of course,” I answered.

“Sophie!”

“No,” I said simply. Loudly. He wouldn’t let go. “I said no. I decline as per shifter custom.”

He was lucky there were no shifters around. I was lucky there were others present. If the crowd was different, if he didn’t back down, they would make him. If the crowd wasn’t around, I had a feeling he would try to convince me in other ways.

“Why are you making this so difficult?” he said, even as he released me.

I bit the inside of my cheek, hating that I was hurting him in the process of asserting my independence. But it had to be done. “Because I’m just a human and I’ve never fit in your world.” I swept my arm around the room. “As demonstrated by this.”

“That’s not –”

“Really? So you’d be okay with me walking around the Reserve unguarded during the mating moons? You wouldn’t be looking over your shoulder knowing that almost every female in your pride and half the other female shifters might try to kill me because they don’t think I’m fit to mate with their alpha? Never mind the fact that I’ve committed a crime.”

“Soph –” There was too much warning in it. Like he was trying to pretend I hadn’t done anything awful so he could still see me a certain way. Like my concerns were unreasonable and the only thing that mattered was that I was present, and I was compliant.

“Go away. I’m done with this conversation. You are released from any obligation to me. I’m sorry. I can’t be who you want me to be.”

A rumble started in the base of his chest. I turned away and marched back to the Nephilim guards, hoping to use them as a barrier if Max decided he didn’t care for shifter customs at the moment. When I heard the unmistakeable sound of bones snapping, I knew that was exactly what he was intending. Strangely enough, Orin was the one who stepped in his way. The Fae had a death wish.

“The girl wants to return to the human world,” Orin said, holding out his hand. Like Brigid, he was a wind elemental. Air whipped against Max’s chest, making it difficult for him to move forward. “Take him,” Orin ordered. One of the Nephilim guards grabbed Max and teleported him away.

His name lodged in my throat. I bit my tongue to keep it from slipping out. Goodbye, Maximus.

Mama clamped her hand on my arm. I braced my spine and pulled my shoulders back, trying to look composed even though I was weeping inside.

“What do we do about her?” one of the Nephilim guards asked Scott. The Councilman sneered.

“Is she truly bound?”

“Raphael has confirmed that she can’t be awoken.”

“Then she shouldn’t be a problem.”

“She also can’t be wiped then. If she happens to wake in the meantime…”

Scott cracked his knuckles. “Then she remains here.”

“No way,” Matilda said. “Either we all go or none of us do.”

“That’s not your decision to make,” Orin said. “You’ve been sentenced. Be thankful exile was the outcome.”

While they bickered, I found myself kneeling beside Giselle. Even though she was bound, there was still something scary about her. Like a wraith lying in wait to pounce. I kept thinking of the surprised betrayal on her face before Declan had hit her. Brushing a strand of hair from her face, my finger touched the skin on her temple. As soon as we made contact, a howl ripped through my mind. I smelt cut grass and clean earth.

I clutched at my ears as icy cold clamped around my mind. “Sophie!” Mama cried. The room receded as my eyes rolled back in my head. And then all of it disappeared as I heard her voice.

“Sophie,” Lex said, and I knew I was hearing it as an imprint inside the mind witch’s thoughts. “I tried but it wasn’t good enough. All this time I’ve been fighting against this prophecy, but I screwed it up anyway. I’m so sorry that you’ll have to bear the brunt of this now. At the end of the line, I’m glad it’ll be you and me. Don’t let them make you forget who you are. I love you. Take care of yourself.”

Giselle’s eyes snapped open as the message receded. Her disapproving glare almost made me laugh. Looking up, I stared into the alarmed faces of the Nephilim guards, and worst of all, my parents.

“I love you,” I told them, as I told myself they were better off having their minds wiped than follow me.

White filled Mama’s eyes. “Soph –”

I teleported away.

Dear Reader

If you’ve made it this far with me, I want to say a huge thank you for your patience. This year has been a bit of an unpredictable ride and I apologise that Bloodline Fallacy took some time to be completed. On top of everything else, I had a personal tragedy that derailed everything.

As a result, there won’t be a pre-order for the next book in the Bloodline series until I can be certain that it will be released on schedule. If you want to be kept up to date with the timeline for possible release, please Join my reader group where you will be the first to know all of the news. Plus we have a lot of fun with snippets and other book chatter.

While you’re here, I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has bought, read and shared the Bloodline series. I appreciate every single one of you who has left a review, flagged typos and grammatical errors and just plain allowed me to do the thing that I love most. You will never know how much it means to me.

And finally, if you are having reading withdrawals, feel free to check out my other series Origin which is a bit of an Academy mash-up with X-men.

All the best,

Lan

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