by Jill Archer
“Don’t say that,” he said, grabbing my hands and pulling me over to him. I yelped, from surprise rather than pain, and he flipped me onto my back and leaned over me. I lay beneath him on the bed, panting, trying not to get angry. He grinned at me.
“Do you want to get up? I’ll let you up. Or, better still, you can unleash your magic and we can have our first real lesson.” A fissure of alarm raced down my back. He wanted me to lose control?
“Noon, that day I laid my hand over your demon mark, I only wanted one thing. If you hadn’t pushed me away…”
“But we’re the same,” I said, trying to instill a little sanity back into the conversation. That was really hard to do with Ari’s hard body looming over mine. I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the sight of him. “We’re like two negatives, instead of a negative and a positive. We’re not made to fit.”
“Like attracts like,” he said dismissively.
“Opposites attract,” I countered.
“Why is it so hard to believe that I’m attracted to you?” One of my hands was pinned at my side and the other was caught in Ari’s grip. I made a fist and he squeezed back, somehow making the aggressive gesture affectionate.
“Noon, open your eyes.” I did.
“Ari,” I said, defiantly meeting his gaze and sitting up. “If you are attracted to me, I’m sure the novelty will wear off.” We sat on the bed facing each other, no longer touching. “Before long, you’ll go back to dating Mederies from the Gaia Tribe. They suit you. I don’t.”
To his credit, Ari looked confused.
“You forget,” I said. “I saw you with her.”
“Who?” Now he looked positively thrown. But I was losing patience.
“The redheaded beauty, the Mederi from Marduk’s the night I found out you were a student here. The one who was attacked by a rogare demon just before classes started.” Luck, I hated sounding jealous. I don’t think I ever had been before. It was so unbecoming.
“Oh, her.”
We stared at each other for a moment, all former feelings completely dashed. Ari looked upset, but I couldn’t tell if it was because I’d mentioned the as yet unpunished rogare demon who was responsible for the attack, or because my words implied I had the right to comment on other women he’d obviously been attracted to.
“Her,” I said, scooting to the edge of the bed, intending to get up.
Ari put his hand on my arm. He didn’t grab me, only made it clear he didn’t want me to go. “I stopped seeing her that night, right after I knew you were a student here.”
I gave him what I hoped to be a sardonic expression.
“Noon, I swear I’m telling the truth. Mederies are all the same. None of them stand out. Not like you.”
“Yep, that’s me. I stick out like a sore thumb.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, managing to sound frustrated. Neither of us spoke for a moment. Finally, Ari broke the silence with a complete non sequitur.
“Noon, did your mom ever bake coffer cookies?”
What… ? No… The thought of Aurelia baking cookies was laughable.
“You know what they are though, right?”
I raised my brow at him, but answered his question. “They’re the ones with the jelly filling. The ones shaped like miniature baskets, or caskets, that people like to pair with coffee?”
He nodded. “Well, Hyrke mothers all across New Babylon bake them. To get the imprint in the center of the cookie where the jam goes, they push their thumb into it. That’s why some kids call them thumbprint cookies.”
Okay…
“Well, as I said, signatures are called signatures because each one is different. It’s an easy term for something difficult to describe. Everyone with waning magic has a signature… so demons have them too.” I nodded, and tried to ignore the fear I felt at the thought of feeling any part of a demon, even something as amorphous as its signature. “Which brings me to the other reason signatures are called signatures. The demons use them to mark one another.”
“What do you mean ‘mark one another’?”
He grinned. “Just what I said. Sometimes, when there’s a strong enough attraction, waning magic can be used as a brand to mark someone. It’s called a signare, which is the magical equivalent of pressing your thumb into someone else’s heart. Not everyone can do it.”
“Why would I want to do it?”
“Why do you want to do anything with someone you’re attracted to?” This time his grin was positively ear splitting. “Because it feels good, for one thing.”
He moved toward me and put both of his hands on my waist. He moved them under my sweater and up the sides of my shirt.
“What are you doing?” I cried, clamping my hands down on his through my sweater. That hot feeling that Ari called arousal relapsed as suddenly as a half-treated fever. The feeling washed over me, inflaming every part of me. My body wanted his hands exactly where they were. My mind knew I had to get out of his room immediately.
“Let me show you something,” he said, inching his hands higher. I shook my head. “Please,” he added. Again, that word. I’d only ever heard him use it one other time. When he’d asked me not to leave St. Luck’s. I loosened my hold on his hands. He moved them slowly up my ribcage, brushing the soft curve of my breasts through the fabric of my tunic and undershirt. It made my breath hitch, which gave him a start, but he continued undeterred toward whatever purpose he had in mind. He raised my arms and removed my sweater, popping it off my head and tossing it to the floor.
“That’s better,” he murmured. He began to unbutton my tunic.
“Ari,” I started to warn, but he shushed me and told me to trust him and to keep my hands at my side.
“Signatures can change,” he said. “Depending on what the sender is experiencing.”
I was having a hard time remembering our earlier discussion. Ari was throwing off massive amounts of heat, or at least that’s what it felt like to me. I tried to shield myself as I had on other occasions by shoving a counterforce back at Ari.
“Don’t,” he said. “I’m not pushing magic at you. You’re just experiencing my signature right now. You’re actually doing this to me.”
Very slowly, I ratcheted down the amount of force I was shoving toward him. As I did, the heat I felt became more intense. But the less I fought it, the less it felt like heat and the more it felt like energy. Yes, they were the same thing. But the difference was in what it felt like. The one felt like blistering pain and the other felt like a warm, tingly glow.
“What you’re feeling is your effect on me,” he said.
His signature was tingly—very tingly. He unbuttoned the last button on my tunic and pushed the shirt from my shoulders. It fell softly behind me. “Do you feel that?” he said, placing his hand on my demon mark. The cloth of my undershirt was still between us and I was thankful for the barrier. Because Ari’s touch there hurt. But the feeling it created elsewhere—lower down especially—was exquisite. I grabbed his hand and flung it off me.
“Stop!”
He chuckled, the sound low and deep in his throat. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.
“Of course, it works both ways,” he said clinically, as if what we’d just experienced hadn’t happened. “I can feel my effect on you.”
I blushed. This was embarrassing. I didn’t want Ari to know how he made me feel. I turned away.
“Sorry, Noon,” he whispered roughly. “There’s no way I will ever not be able to tell what you’re feeling. That’s just the way our magic works.”
I turned back to him and he tweaked my nose. “You could never hide from me, any more than I could hide from you.”
“I’m not hiding anymore. Remember, I declared?”
“You’re not? Good.”
He reached for the hem of my undershirt and I grabbed his hand, my breath now ragged. Coming to Ari’s room didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. Sure, I was no virgin, but I’d never truly given myself to an
yone. Anything I’d done previously had been with Hyrkes, who had no magic. No Hyrke had ever known me, who I was, what I was. No Hyrke had ever felt me the way Ari was feeling me right now. I didn’t like it. It made me feel vulnerable and exposed. I didn’t want to be naked in front of him, physically or magically.
Ari brushed my mouth with a kiss and then bent to kiss my neck. Hot breath and moist lips traced the blood in my veins. My pulse quickened and he bit me there, gently. I stifled a growl. What was he doing to me?
“I want to touch your demon mark,” he said, “skin to skin.”
I knew what he was really asking. Was I willing to let him make his mark on my heart?
“No.” I was afraid. But even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t let him do that to me just in the name of fun. If I ever let someone mark me magically, it would be because I felt something for them beyond a magical or physical attraction.
“Fine. I wanted you to be first, but if you won’t, I will.” And with one fluid motion, he swept off his shirt so that he was sitting bare-chested in front of me, his eyes smoky and unreadable, his whole body as tense as a feral beast ready to spring. Ari had never looked overly bulky but, I realized now, the loose cut of his clothes had hidden hard, deeply sculpted muscles. It was hard to keep my hands off him. My instant reaction was that he looked much stronger than I’d suspected he was.
Ari made no move. He just watched me, watching him. He seemed to want to underscore the meaning of his gesture, that he was opening himself up to me, giving himself freely to me and whatever feelings came of this. My gaze finally settled on the spot of skin just above his left breastbone. His demon mark was large and dark. Mine looked like a tiny drop of spilled café au lait, whereas his looked like a huge inky stain. I knew I shouldn’t, knew it was likely to set something free in this world that I wouldn’t be able to catch and contain again, but I couldn’t help myself. I raised my hand and reached out to touch the mark. I made contact with only two fingers but the shock of it was fierce. A swift current of energy traveled instantaneously from my fingers, up my arm, and into my chest where it exploded in a burst of electrifying heat. Ari hissed and I remembered how much it had hurt when he’d touched mine, even through my shirt.
“I’m sorry,” I said, snatching my hand away.
“Don’t be.”
His voice was as rough as I’d ever heard it, like his throat was cut up from swallowing glass. His eyes smoldered as he looked at me. Was it supposed to hurt? I didn’t want to hurt him. I hated that my magic had the power to hurt, instead of heal. Instinctively I pushed Ari down onto the bed and straddled him. He grabbed me at the waist and moved his hands up my back, pressing me toward him. I knew what he wanted. What he needed. Because I felt it too.
Our magic swirled around us, writhing and twisting, building and cresting, until the two parts of it finally crashed together, leaving a whirling vortex of swirling energies melded together in one great big roiling, boiling mass. Ari’s hands were wrapped in my hair as he lowered my head to his chest. I brought my mouth down on his demon mark and kissed him there. He bucked under me, but held me tightly to him. All thoughts of gentle healing were gone as I raked my hands up his sides, my nails clawing smooth skin, my fingertips feeling hard muscle and sharp bones beneath. I finally raised my head and moved my lips from Ari’s chest to his mouth, giving him a kiss at least as good as those he’d given me. After a while, I came up for breath.
“The lesson is over for today,” Ari croaked and then laughed. “You’re going to kill me, Noon.”
He was smiling when he said it, but the joke still stung.
Chapter 9
Safely wrapped once again in tunic, sweater, and cloak, I left Ari and walked back to my room at Megiddo. Ivy had left a note:
Noon—
Fitz and I are going to the Black Onion for lunch. If you can, meet us there. If not, see you later at Corpus Justica!
Ivy
p.s. Your mother rang and Waldron Seknecus wants to see you.
Terrific. I wasn’t sure which part of the p.s. to respond to first. Neither option was appealing. I opted for visiting the dean of demon affairs, which said volumes about my relationship with my mother. Once again I trudged across campus in the cold and the muck, trying to ignore the feeling that, at any moment, I might feel the signature of the rogare demon who was terrorizing traveling Mederies. After I’d looked back over my shoulder for the fifteenth time, I decided to focus on something a little less frightening (albeit, only marginally less): Ari.
We’d made plans to meet later for dinner to go over more Manipulation. My stomach did a little flip thinking about what that had meant this morning, but Ari promised there would be fewer “distractions” this evening. I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed.
I walked over to Warenne Building and stepped inside. The building’s furnace obviously had only two settings: hot and Hell’s fury. I quickly unwrapped myself, trying to ignore the fiery pain as my ears adjusted from sub-zero to sizzling.
There was a reason students had dubbed this building the “Rabbit Warren.” Its passages were long, narrow, and twisty. There were lots of dead-ends and corridors that appeared to go nowhere. Windows were scarce and some of the hall lights blinked spasmodically, creating a surreal zoetrope effect as students wound their way through the aboveground maze. The Rabbit Warren was three-stories high but might as well have been three-stories deep for all the natural light it got. I remembered all too well where Waldron Seknecus’ office was. My name was still the last name scrawled at the bottom of The List and likely to be the last for this year. I knocked on the door, my hand shaking only a little.
I heard rustling from behind the door and a shuffling sound as footsteps approached. The door opened and a white-haired, wrinkly old man stood in front of me. He had a hawkish nose and his eyes were glazed with age, but he was clean shaven and his hair was closely cropped. No flowing white locks or beard for this octogenarian. I suddenly understood what Ari meant when he’d said that everyone’s signatures would feel different. Seknecus’ signature felt like a piece of hard white oak—solid and strong. Something that could be used for many purposes: a sturdy bench upon which to prop a struggling student or the weapon by which they were dealt a death blow to the head.
It was hard to imagine that chatty, lackadaisical Fitz had grown up—and by all accounts happily—on the Seknecai estate. I wondered what Fitz’s mother, Ivy’s aunt, was like. The head housekeeper for a Maegester like Seknecus was unlikely to be meek.
The windows in Seknecus’ office were large and expansive. After the dark and depth of the Rabbit Warren, stepping into the room felt like stepping out of a cave onto a high rocky plateau. New Babylon spread out beneath us, its blinking lights peeking out from under an icy layer of soot and snow. The dean of demon affairs’ office was spacious but stacked floor to ceiling with books, both old and new, apparently in no particular order. Immediately, I spotted my Oathbreaking book, First Year Oathbreaking: Cases, Questions, and Notes, sitting next to what appeared to be an original copy of A Maegester’s Manifesto: How to Avoid Demon War by Allighiero Lotharius. Lotharius was reputed to be a direct descendant of Lothario, one of Lucifer’s fiercest battle lords. Reprints of the book were quite popular among Host and Hyrke alike and original copies were treated as devotional relics.
I stood front and center on a hand-woven wool rug with a motif of rosettes and stars. Its colors were somewhat faded but at one time it must have been an extravagant red. The room smelled dusty but not musty, like old leather, aged paper, and something else I couldn’t quite place, smoke or some sort of acrid burning smell, though there was no fireplace that I could see.
“So, you’re Nouiomo Onyx,” Seknecus said.
I nodded. Then cleared my throat. And then finally spoke.
“I am.” I wondered what kind of vibe I was giving off in my signature. I was nervous but determined to show well.
“I’ve heard about you, like everyone else in the Host. I
had my suspicions but, out of respect for your father, I’ve kept my distance. He and I were good friends once, but he made it clear after you and your brother were born that your mother was in no state to receive visitors. And that never really changed, did it?”
I had to work hard to keep the surprised look off of my face. I’d had no idea that Seknecus and my father were close. But then I hardly knew a thing about my father since I rarely saw him. It was true that Aurelia was somewhat of a shut-in, although she’d likely find the comment offensive.
“I’ve been watching you, wondering, waiting to see where you’d end up. After all, there are other demon law schools,” Seknecus said, making a moue of distaste that showed me exactly what he thought of them. “But I was happy to see that you chose St. Lucifer’s.”
Technically my mother chose St. Lucifer’s… But there seemed no reason to interrupt to clarify that bit of misinformation. Seknecus wandered around the room, picking through papers, flipping open and quickly shutting the front covers of various leather-bound books, never meeting my eye. I had no doubt, however, that his attention was fully focused on me.
“So, you see, seeing your name on my list wasn’t exactly a surprise, although it appeared much later than I would have liked.”
He glanced at me then, with a frown of disapproval. I did my best to look expressionless because none seemed appropriate. It wouldn’t do to look amused, bored, or, Luck forbid, rebellious. Seknecus stared at me with narrowed eyes and then went back to wandering.
“You’ve got some catching up to do,” he said, addressing a copy of Sin and Sanction: Codification & Case Law. “It doesn’t matter why or what excuses you’ve got for yourself. You will be held to the same standards as everyone else, regardless of whose daughter you are. And you’ve missed a lot of class already.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off with a wave.
“Manipulation class,” he clarified. “You’re going to have to work ten times as hard as everyone else just to pass. Quintus Rochester doesn’t go easy on students and he’s likely to see your absence during the early part of the semester as a challenge. You know, failing is not an option. Not if you want to live.”
