by Abbie Lyons
He stopped, leaving us to think about the question in silence.
He brushed back his hair dramatically. “I’m not saying there’s a right or wrong answer. Perhaps it’s right that the guardian angels who study at Elysium can take pleasure in their work while we’re meant to feel apathetic about ours. Perhaps it’s not. Sometimes the questions themselves might be more important than the answers.”
So that’s what this Elysium Academy people were talking about was—our opposite. Were this, I don’t know, a day ago, maybe the existence of a school for angels would’ve shocked me. Now that kind of info was just par for the course.
“I look forward to exploring many questions with all of you this semester,” said Professor Frost as he ended class. “Nova, just a reminder to stick around for a few moments.”
I wasn’t sure why he had to say that in front of everybody. For what felt like the millionth time since I arrived at school, all eyes were on me.
All but one set of eyes—Raines was glaring at Professor Frost, his red eyes in full force.
Does that mean he’s...jealous?
Professor Frost grabbed a seat next to me after everybody else had filed out. He was almost too tall for the chair, such that when he sat, the edge of his long leg was very close to mine. And then he looked me deep in the eyes.
“I’m glad we have a moment to chat,” he said. “This is going to be my first.”
I gulped. “Your, uh...first?”
“My first time proctoring an exetasis,” he said, totally smoothly. “Usually they leave the bulk of the testing to the more senior professors, so you’ll be my first and only exetasis assignment this year.” He shook his head and laughed. Ugh, even his laughs were sexy. “I’ve been teaching here three years, and I guess I still have to keep proving myself. Maybe they thought a half-demon would be easier to handle for my first one.”
How do I even respond to that?
“That’s me. Easy to handle,” was the best I could muster.
For the briefest moment, he put his hand on mine, setting every fiber of my being on fire. Then, as if he realized that maybe that wasn’t appropriate, or that he didn’t actually want to touch me after all, he drew it back.
He cleared his throat. God, did I really have a thing for the sexy professor type? It felt so...cliché.
“I just want you to know there’s nothing to be nervous about,” he said. “Dean Harlowe told me that you’re only just beginning to learn about your demon heritage. Your exetasis will be a learning experience for both of us. I’m looking forward to it.”
“I appreciate it, professor,” I said. “I am too.” I think.
“Oh no no no,” he said jovially. “Outside of class there’s no need to call me that. If we’re going to be working so closely together you might as well just call me Wilder.”
Oh, so we’re on a first-name basis now, huh?
“Perfect. Thanks, Wilder.”
In my nervousness, I’d failed to ask the important question of what we actually do in the exetasis sessions, but I was starting to get the feeling they must be intense experiences. I wondered if his good looks wouldn’t make the whole thing even more intimidating.
Here’s hoping they don’t.
Chapter Eight
“Shit, I could sleep for a million years right now,” I complained. “I’m pretty sure nobody in the whole world’s had a longer last couple days than I have.”
I took a big gulp of coffee.
“That’s already your fourth cup,” Teddy said in amazement.
“Yep. And cups five and six are on their way.”
Finally, our day was winding down.
Well, sort of. We still had the relics tour.
Hence the coffee.
Teddy, Morgan, and I were seated together for dinner at the refectory. It wasn’t as if we were being actively shunned by the rest of the school or anything—I wasn’t sure Camilla had quite that much sway—but it was still too early to have really made any other friends. Honestly, I was just thankful that I had two people willing to sit with me. Solo meals were pretty much the standard in my life the past few years, and I can’t say my foster homes were all that much better at doing family dinners.
I yawned. “So what are these relics, anyway? And why am I supposed to be jazzed about getting to see them?”
“Oy, there are so many things I forget you don’t know yet,” Morgan said. She was already polishing off a second helping of ice cream. “The relics are very interesting. They’re mostly weapons and other magical items used in the last war against Chaos.”
“The war against Chaos?” I was beginning to sound like a Jeopardy contestant, only speaking in the form of questions. “When was that?”
“Thousands upon thousands of years ago. Very few written records exist. It’s almost mythical, really. Nobody knows how true the stories told about it are, but the relics have been in the hands of Hades Academy ever since it was established. It’s fascinating stuff, really.”
“And not only that!” added Teddy with excitement. “They’re stored in the underground! After tonight, we might never get to go there again.”
Morgan swallowed another spoonful of ice cream. “Before you ask what the underground is, because I know that was going to be the next question, let me explain. There’s a huge underground complex beneath Hades Academy. To reach it, we take a twenty-minute elevator ride deep into the Earth. That’s where the legends say us demons sprang from to begin with.” She wiggled her fingers. “But again, nobody knows exactly how true that is.”
I was beginning to see that even in the supernatural world, there were still legends and mythologies. I’d been thinking that a supernatural race like ours wouldn’t have things like those—like, if you’re an actual demon, why bother with fairy tales or guesswork? But nope—nobody seemed to have a clear timeline of demon history. There was just as much murkiness and conjecture as in human history. Then again, demon history was what, several millennia longer than human history? I probably should’ve taken notes at some point.
Teddy had a dumb little smile on his face. “I just can’t wait to ride that elevator,” he whispered. “It’s going to be so cool.”
Sigh. Teddy, so pure.
“Well, I guess maybe this sounds worth staying up for,” I said. “In the meantime, I’m due for another refill. Anybody need anything while I’m up?”
“I could never drink that much caffeine,” Teddy said, pushing his hair out of his face. “I’d have terrible heart palpitations.”
I took that to mean that nobody needed anything. As I walked over to the giant silver urn that held coffee, I spotted the Infernal Three over in a corner. Raines was staring right at me.
It’s like he always knows when I’m about to walk by. And why does he always look so pissed?
I did my best not to look at him. Yes, he was hot. Not that I was playing comparisons, but while Professor Frost—Wilder—had that sexy distractible academic thing going on, Raines was more...brooding. Wicked. Like the vampire hero in a YA novel. Which I hated to admit was exactly my type.
Ordinarily, anyway. When I wasn’t at Demon U.
But his general pissiness combined with Morgan’s warnings about the Infernal Three were enough to make me think that he was—for now, at least—better left ignored. I wasn’t going to make any more enemies than necessary.
Except that was easier said than done. Apparently, Raines’s hard stares weren’t only noticeable to me. I should’ve known.
“That damned boy is always giving you looks,” Morgan said when I got back with cup of coffee number five. “I think he’s got a wee bit of a crush. Which is understandable”—her eyes flew open, as if she thought I’d be insulted—”because you’re lovely. But why does he always seem so mad about it?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said. “I barely know the guy. You’re the one who told me those boys are bad news.”
She nodded solemnly. “Aye. They sure are.”
“You’re talking about Raines?” Teddy asked.
“Who else? Unless there’s some other miserable looking boy with killer cheekbones who’s been staring at Nova that we’ve just so happened to miss.”
“I do mean Raines,” Teddy confirmed. “He sat with me at lunch earlier and we talked all about school. He’s pretty nice. Better than most of the others I’ve met so far.”
That was news to me. It was hard to even picture Raines and Teddy sitting together having a one-on-one conversation. But I was secretly very happy to hear it. It was easy to have a soft spot for a kid like Teddy, and if Raines was taking him under his wing, well...
Maybe he wasn’t such a jerk after all.
To be determined.
After two more cups of coffee, I was looking and feeling “awfully peppy” as Morgan put it, and the thought of taking some sort of crazy elevator far into the ground was sounding a little more my speed. I wondered what it’d look like down there. Dark? Scary? Full of hellfire and brimstone?
“It’s weird that demons don’t have some kind of magical awakening spell,” I chirped. “Like, we drink coffee just like everyone else? You’d think there’d be something more, I dunno, efficient! I mean, that giant silver urn is pretty badass looking, but—”
“Bloody hell, woman, calm down,” Morgan said. “Seems like coffee works plenty well for you.”
Teddy cracked up. I blushed and pushed away the rest of my coffee. She had a point.
The giant bell sounded. Outside, I could it was ink-black and starless—never had the phrase “the dead of night” felt so literal. We left the refectory and joined a crowd of first-year students already waiting in the Great Hall. Apparently, the doors to the elevator were tucked away in a dark little nook in the far left. Everybody seemed awfully eager to get on.
“So, stupid question maybe,” I began, carefully modulating my voice so I didn’t sound too hyper, “but do we all just take the same elevator? If it takes twenty minutes, aren’t we going to be waiting here for hours?”
Morgan gave me a pat on the shoulder. “No such thing as a stupid question, love. You’re probably picturing the kind of elevator you might find in the human world. This one is a bit bigger than you’re used to.”
I was pleasantly surprised that the answer amounted to “big elevator” and not “demon magic.”
“It’s exactly as I imagined it!” exclaimed Teddy as we followed the rest of the crowd through the doors. “It’s a feat of engineering!”
Big had been an understatement. It wasn’t so much an elevator as it was a gigantic room that—evidently—could be lowered way down into the ground. There were rows and rows of seats, like a movie theater without a screen. It could’ve comfortably fit...I couldn’t even tell. Hundreds? Thousands?
“One last question,” I said.
“This is not going to be your last question, you little heathen,” Morgan joked. “But go ahead.”
“Why in the ever-living fuck is this elevator so huge?”
“In case of emergency. Should something happen, the entire school would be able to evacuate underground.”
“Something happen?” I repeated. What could possibly be threatening enough to send actual demons into hiding?
Morgan shrugged. “Just a precaution.”
Teddy looked briefly concerned, but shook it off and went back to looking around in wonder as we took our seats, and rightly so. It was pretty damn rad that we were standing in this room the size of three gymnasiums that would, in several minutes, move miles underground. Practical? Maybe not. Impressive? For damn sure.
Lots of faculty members were also joining us for the trip downward. Presumably, they didn’t get many opportunities to see the relics either and they must’ve relished the chance. The only one of mine I didn’t see was Stultior, who was probably back in the faculty residence sleeping off all that napping.
“Attention!” called Dean Harlowe in a booming voice from the back of the room. “It looks like we’ve all gathered, and I trust you’re eager to begin the journey down. Now, I understand that you’re excited, but I remind you to treat this occasion with the solemnity and respect that it so richly deserves. Legend says that our people once lived in the depths of the Earth, and each of us should have an appreciation for seeing where we may have come from. As for the relics...let them be a reminder to you of the long period of peace and balance of which we’ve been lucky to live in. Hope that these relics will never be used again and remain in stillness in the dark below.”
She made me feel like a pilgrim taking my first journey to the Holy Land, or a tourist about to get a private viewing of the Mona Lisa. I’d never been big on museums—at least not since I’d graduated from elementary school—but this was making me genuinely hype.
A few moments after she concluded her speech, the ground beneath our feet began to shake before beginning to slowly lurch downward. Taking an elevator at a mall or something is one thing, but you’ll never truly be prepared for the first time you experience the sensation of an entire room sinking into the ground. As the descent picked up speed, my stomach started to turn.
They maybe should’ve warned us that we might feel like we have to puke.
“It’s like something out of Disney World,” Teddy piped up.
“You’ve been to Disney?”
Teddy stared at me. “Of course I’ve been to Disney.”
“It is the most magical place on earth,” Morgan said solemnly.
Honestly, I couldn’t argue with that. It’s just that the thought hadn’t occurred to me yet—even families of demons did normal real-world stuff like take Disney World vacations. Of course, I’d never been there, but that was due more to the no family thing than the demon thing.
We kept the conversation to a minimum. Turns out speaking feels unpleasant when you’re sitting in a chair hurtling into the depths of the planet. I looked around to see how other students coped with it. Some had stone-blank looks on their faces, while others were clearly super nervous. I was especially pleased to see that Camilla seemed to be gritting her teeth and holding back tears. Nice to see that bitchy demon purist couldn’t even handle twenty minutes of discomfort.
And really, that terrible falling sensation got better with time. Just something your body had to adjust to.
Toward the end of our descent, our speed began to slow, and a few minutes later we came to a complete stop. Everybody was finally able to catch their breath. I worked my jaw a little to equalize the pressure in my ears.
“Wow,” Teddy said. “That was incredible.”
“I hear it’s much easier going back up,” Morgan said, wiping some sweat from her brow. “I’m not feeling quite at my best after that.”
I laughed. “I wonder what it feels like in reverse.”
Students and professors began to rise from their chairs and queue into the aisles as if they were leaving a concert or a baseball game.
“I just think it’s so incredible how they built this whole system,” Teddy told us. “Think of all the time and resources!”
“You seem more excited about the elevator than the relics,” I teased.
“Maybe so, maybe so.” Teddy pushed his glasses up his nose for the thousandth time that night.
When we finally filed out the door, we came into what looked, essentially, like a fancy-ass museum. We’d basically just gone on a giant demon elevator to go on a museum field trip. Growing up going on many such field trips in New York City, I felt a pang of nostalgia. The only thing missing was a brown paper bag lunch shittier than everybody else’s.
There were display cases littered throughout, complete with placards explaining the relics contained within, with dramatic bluish uplighting sending soft spotlights up towards the vaulted ceiling and stone walls. For what felt like the billionth time, I was impressed. I half-expected one more big speech from Dean Harlowe, but we were left to explore on our own.
“Well, where shall we start?” Morgan asked. I nodded at the neares
t case.
“There?”
Inside was a sword wilder than anything you’d ever see in a movie. Like, Lord of the Rings swords had nothing on this one. The blade itself was a dark crimson, and the black handle was riddled with shiny diamonds. But all that is burying the lede. This fucking thing was huge.
“Who would even be able to swing something that hefty?” I wondered aloud.
“Read the placard, dear,” Morgan said.
Sword of Kimaris: Made of the rare metal crimson adamantine, of which there is no longer any left in the natural world. It was mined hundreds of thousands of years ago, and relics such as this are all that remains of the material. This blade possesses the power to rend existence, opening a void to consume reality into Chaos. Though its full power has never been unleashed, it would have been wielded by a demon ten to twenty feet in height.
“Ten to twenty feet?” I asked. “What the literal Hell?”
“They say that some of the demons who originally sprang from the Earth were giant in height,” Morgan said. “But when demons began living on the surface among the humans, our sizes slowly began to decline. But those demons of the past were absolute units.”
Always something new to learn here at Hades Academy. Twenty-foot demons? Sure, why not?
“But again,” Morgan added. “Some of this is just the stuff of myth. I’d even wager some of these relics are forgeries.”
“Well forgery or not,” I said motioning at the sword, “that thing could definitely fuck some shit up.”
Not every relic was as fascinating as a badass weapon made for a giant demon—probably why they kept that one right up front. There were necklaces, chalices that demon fighters drank from, and freaky looking suits of armor complete with spikes on the shoulders.
One case held a few shovels. Fancy looking shovels to be sure, but still just shovels. Those definitely called for a look at the placard.
Shovels of Malthus: These are among the oldest relics in the collection. They are said to have been used by our demon ancestors to dig themselves up from the ground and on to the surface.
