by Lucy Auburn
Besides, his story kind of tugs on my heartstrings. A little. If it’s true, and not just a grift.
I tell Meyer, “It must suck, being... excommunicated? Because of who you love.”
“It’s a sad story,” he acknowledges as he pulls open the doors to the Great House for me, waving his ID near the card reader. “But when given the chance to teach the first surviving Black Phoenix the world has seen in centuries, well... I couldn’t resist. And it doesn’t hurt that I needed the cash.”
I know what that feels like, even though my dreams of owning Sara’s house have been blown to smithereens—literally, by Mateo’s overeager grenade-throwing hand no less.
When I reach my room, Meyer steps aside for me to use my new ID to get in, his eyes shadowed. I pause by the door frame, aware of the demons fanned out behind me, each of them giving Meyer a judgmental stare. “I don’t know how you figured out I was in trouble, but... thanks for saving me.”
“It’s what I’m here for.”
And I swear, Lynx gives him a look that could burn through three foot walls, but somehow he doesn’t feel it. As he takes the stairs down, he passes through half the demons’ incorporeal forms without even noticing.
“I don’t like that guy,” Sebastian says.
“You don’t like most people,” I point out to him. “Now excuse me, I need to get some actual sleep if I’m going to perform this ritual that’ll... that’ll send you home. Maybe Meyer can even help me with it. So, goodnight.”
I let them go on the final word, dismissing their forms. They wink out, returning to that nowhere place once again and leaving me alone.
More than anything, I want to tug them into this world, have them keep me company through the night, maybe even touch me in ways I’ve only dared to dream of. I want them to comfort me after everything I’ve just been through. I want to know that they’ll be there for me next time, when I need them to protect me from someone who wants to enslave me.
But we had a deal: they want to go home, and I said I would help them, instead of yanking them around behind me on an anchor, tied to me against their will. I can’t do to them what that Grim wanted to do to me.
He almost enslaved me.
That’s what settles in my bones as I sit on my bed and try to calm down, to be okay with being alone. There’s nothing more frightening and twisted than the realization that someone could snatch my will away from me just like that. It still has my stomach in knots, my heart pressing against my chest, even as I tell myself that the danger has passed and it’s time to let go of the fear.
I can’t do that to my demons.
I can’t make them stay with me against their will.
So it’s better not to spend too much time with them before we say goodbye forever. I already like them too much—I don’t dare let myself start to feel something more, something that would compromise my bruised phoenix heart in an entirely new way.
There are already hunters who want to rip that heart from my chest.
It would be a waste to give it away for free to four demons who didn’t ask for it and don’t want it in the first place.
When I wake up in the morning to sun streaming through the giant windows of my new room, there’s a sealed letter sliding underneath my door. At first I think it’s going to be another threatening note like the one I got last week, warning me the school wasn’t safe—no shit, figured that one out—but it’s on official Phoenix Academy letterhead.
Tearing it open, I find what turns out to be my new class schedule.
Tuesday through Thursday
9:00 AM, Phoenix Fire Casting 101 with Yohan Cheng
10:00 AM, Weapons Combat with Kade
11:00 AM, Phoenix History with Ocean Johnson
12:00 PM, Lunch
1:00 PM, Introduction to Hand-to-Hand Combat with Laura McKinley
2:00 PM, Pixie Resistance with Shimmer
3:00 PM, Shifter History with Ocean Johnson
Monday and Friday
9:00 AM, Phoenix Fire Casting 101 with Yohan Cheng
10:00 AM, Weapons Combat with Kade
11:00 AM, Phoenix History with Ocean Johnson
12:00 PM, Lunch
1:00 PM, Introduction to Hand-to-Hand Combat with Laura McKinley
2:00 PM, Grim Training with Leo Meyer (two hours)
I should be thrilled to get out of grueling Group Combat class with Jared Fisk, but something about Grim Training sounds so... ominous. I’ve only just barely started to get used to being reborn as a phoenix, surrounded by shifters and hunted by Grims. To find out that I’m also one of them, capable of summoning and controlling demons, a rare Black Phoenix—well, it’s going to take a little adjustment, even if it does explain literally every weird thing in my life.
I also can’t get Meyer’s words from last night out of my head. You’re going to have to get rid of them. Permanently. It’s nothing less than what I wanted when I stole Olivia’s ID and grabbed The Arcane Arts of the Living and the Dead from the top level library. I should be thrilled that a new instructor is around to help me perform the spell that will sever my accidental connection to four snarky demons and send them back to Purgatory, where they belong—and would rather stay.
But through the sleepless nights, strange occurrences, two runaway attempts—what can I say, old habits die hard—and a few overwhelming rescues at their hands, I’ve gotten attached. I can’t actually believe it, but I don’t want to say goodbye to the murderous psychos.
They’re my murderous psychos now.
Of course, as usual, their presence around me is tied to my anxiety, fear, and adrenaline. So just thinking about how upset I am at the thought of them leaving me winds up summoning them in all their glory—and here I am in my mussed Phoenix Academy branded pajamas, teal-tipped brown hair a bird’s nest around my head, yesterday’s makeup no doubt smudged in raccoon stripes beneath my eyes.
“Hey, Dani,” Ezra greets me, the first and the leader as usual. “No one’s trying to kill you this time, right?”
“Ha-ha. I’m fine. Just got my new class schedule.” He’s incorporeal, so I hold it up to him, but of course hot nerd Lynx is the one most interested in my classes—he hip-checks Ezra to get a better look.
And scowls. “This new guy is going to teach you for two hours twice a week?”
“Fuck that,” Mateo grumbles. “What can a Grim have to teach you in two hours? Be evil, do evil—that’s all they know.”
Ezra gives him a silencing glare; I try not to show how much it sucks to know that Mateo, too, thinks of that part of me as something bad. It makes sense; Grims control demons and use them for their purposes.
I just didn’t know they’d ever think of me that way.
“It’ll probably take that much training for me to know what the fuck I’m doing,” I point out. “I mean, I’m a Grim,” the word sticks in my throat, “and I can’t even stop Lynx from prancing shirtless in front of me during important lectures.”
Sebastian, twirling a knife between his fingers, points out, “You could, actually, if you ordered him to put his shirt back on.”
“She doesn’t want to do that.” Lynx scowls in Sebastian’s direction, and just gets a smirk in response. “Me being shirtless is the highlight of her day.”
I look down at my toes, their bickering a reminder of what I’m about to lose. Softly, I point out, “It was a highlight of my day. Not anymore.”
Harden your heart, Dani; you’ve said goodbye plenty of times.
Clearing my throat, I add in a louder tone, “We all agreed that I’d end this thing once I was safe. Well, I’m safe now. No more White Phoenix, and Meyer said last night that he was going to protect the academy grounds from any more invasions. So there’s no reason for you guys to stick around.”
Suddenly there’s silence in the room instead of bickering. Ezra’s green eyes meet mine, his gaze weighted. “That is what we said. But after last night...”
“I won’t make you stay.” I refuse
to meet his eyes. “I won’t... I won’t do that.”
Lynx softly asks, “Are you okay?”
I nod, forcing down my emotions. I try to tell myself it’s not a lie, even though the siren song still whispers in my head, haunting me, insisting that I’m alone and vulnerable.
“Okay.” Ezra takes a deep, steadying breath. “If you think you’re safe now and you want to end this thing like we planned, that’s what we’ll do. Do you still have the book?”
I motion towards the dresser in the corner of the room, where I tiredly stuffed all my things last night. “They forgot to take it back. I guess all the attempted murder distracted from library issues.”
“You should return the book as soon as you’re done using it. Otherwise, it might never be reshelved, and it’s a first edition.” Lynx looks distressed at just the thought of it. “There’s knowledge in there that would be lost forever.”
“Nerd,” Mateo mutters, but it has none of its usual heat. Talking about the inevitable end has somehow drained the energy from the room.
I can’t stand it. “Maybe one day in my training with Meyer he’ll teach me how to accidentally summon you guys with human entrails, like Richard did,” I joke. “May he rest in dickless peace.”
Ezra’s eyes move to me, and he frowns. “Dani... I thought you realized it by now. That shitface Richard didn’t summon us. You did.”
“What?” My mouth goes dry. “I wasn’t even awake at the time.”
Lynx objects too, “Subconscious summoning isn’t possible for a Grim. It has to be intentional, and as soon as they’re asleep or pass out, the link is broken. Dani has summoned us in her sleep.”
“And in her naughty dreams,” Mateo points out with an arch of his eyebrow that I do my best to ignore.
“I don’t know the details behind it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.” Ezra shrugs, nice and easy. “Richard and his shitty friends hadn’t finished the summoning spell when we were called to the mortal plane. They hadn’t even yanked Dani’s entrails out.” I wince at that particular vision. “Who else could’ve done it?”
He’s right. It must’ve been me. And now I have to undo it.
I just don’t know how I’ll bear the silence that will follow once they’re gone. It’s so stupid; I’ve lived nineteen years of my life completely alone, no one to claim me as theirs, moving from foster home to foster home, then running away to live on the streets. I shouldn’t need anybody.
But something in me is so broken that it’s latched onto four demons with blood on their hands, even though it makes no sense at all.
“Dani.” Kneeling by me, Ezra puts his incorporeal hand on my knee, even though it just passes through me—and sends an inexplicable shiver of yearning and desire shooting through my body, like the best drugs or sex I can only imagine. “I know it’s tough, but from here on out you’re going to have to figure this out without us—without much guidance at all, in fact. You’re the only known Black Phoenix to survive Grim clan purges in centuries; there’s no one else’s path to walk down. So you’ll have to make your own.”
Hardening my heart, which is still scarred from the claws that pierced it, I give him my best don’t-give-a-shit nod and smirk. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got this. I’m way too awesome to screw up without you guys around. Besides, it’ll be way easier to figure out my classes without Lynx strutting around shirtless or Mateo making off-color jokes only I can hear. I’ll ask Meyer for help during my last class today, and then... then do the ritual this evening. No big.”
I must sound convincing, because Ezra looks convinced, and Mateo’s muttering something about his jokes being better than that beneath his breath.
If only I believed my own words. I’d keep the demons by my side forever if I could—the only reason why I know I can’t is because I’d have to break their free will to do it, and that would make me no better than the Grims who tried to steal the heart from my chest.
It’s time to let them go, just like I’ve let go absolutely everyone in my life, in the end.
I guess I’ll manage to muddle through it alone, one way or another. I just hope nothing new tries to kill me.
At least if I die (permanently) they’ll be able to identify the body based on the garish gold phoenix embroidered on the back of all my academy clothes. Here lies Dani, properly branded.
Chapter 3
Waking into the breakfast hall, the high, Gothic-inspired ceiling stretching far above me, I feel heads swivel and conversation abruptly halt as I pass.
I almost didn’t come here this morning, but I’m a street rat who knows what it’s like to be hungry. Not just a little hungry, but hungry hungry. And here they let you eat as much food as you can in an hour, which is basically begging for me to consume half the contents of the cereal line.
As I grab my tray, load it with bowls, and let the madness begin, I feel a presence in the line behind me. A distinctly fidgety one. Glancing over my shoulder, I frown at who it is.
Perry.
The kid who helped me move rooms. It seems like ages ago but was actually just the other morning. He was dating one of the students the White Phoenix killed, and while I was in the bathroom I heard him talk about how he thought I’d done it.
Needless to say, I don’t really like Perry.
“Hey,” he says softly, looking distinctly like he’d rather be anywhere else but here. “So, uh, I’m glad you’re okay.”
I don’t have any words for this little shit, so I just make a grunting hmmmm sound. He fidgets next to me as I fill my first bowl with a delightful combination of cornflakes and sickly sweet marshmallow cereal.
“I just wanted to say...” He clears his throat, like there’s phlegm in it, but we both know he’s just being awkward because he accused me of murder. “I’m sorry I, uh, wasn’t the most welcoming to you.”
“You mean that thing where you thought I violently murdered your girlfriend and stole the cash from her safe?” I shove my second bowl under the chocolate cereal dispenser, watching the blood drain from Perry’s face. “Yeah, my ears work. I heard you talk all about your little theory with your Lands’ End catalog model friends.”
A little dimple forms between his brows. “Lands’… End?”
The prep doesn’t even know he’s a prep. Here he is at breakfast, bright and shiny early in the morning, wearing his wool blend blazer like a good boy, hair styled and slicked back. I barely even bothered to press down the cowlick in my teal-tipped brown hair, much less change clothes. I’m still in my bizarre Phoenix Academy branded pajamas, complete with a gold ink screenprint of a phoenix in flight.
They like branding around here.
“Anyway,” Perry hurriedly continues, watching me fill my third cereal bowl with puffs and flakes, “I just wanted to apologize. I didn’t even know you overheard me. As for the money... it turns out Eleanor’s suitemate borrowed it before the attack, so y’know...”
“Oh, so it wasn’t me, the homeless orphan? What a shocker that must be for you.” I don’t keep my voice low, and the girl in line in front of us looks over her shoulder with her lips slightly parted in shock. “I may be a dirty little thief, Perry, but I’m no murderer.”
“Yeah. Right. Okay. So, see you around.”
He hurries out of the dining hall without even grabbing his tray and dropping it off at the dishes line, which is just as well. One more minute with his fidgeting, apologizing presence and I would’ve had to mess up that perfectly preppy hair.
Grabbing my tray, I turn around to head towards my usual table, and pause.
Everyone is looking at me.
Well, maybe not literally everyone, but it feels like every other pair of eyes in this insane uniformed academy of paranormal college-aged kids is looking straight at me with naked curiosity.
As I pass through the rows of tables to get to the one where Olivia and Liam are already sitting, I hear snatches of conversation all around me.
“...a Black Phoenix, like a real o
ne.”
“So she’s a Grim?”
“I guess. No one really knows how it—”
“The headmaster hired a new teacher just to teach her. A Grim.”
“After everything that’s happened, I can’t believe the enemy is just allowed inside.”
“Sure she’s weird, but she defeated that White Phoenix.”
“I’ve never seen a Grim face-to-face before.”
“Well you’re in luck, because now there’s one of them around. Right here. In the school.”
So Meyer and I are apparently not the most popular around. Based on the conversations going on, though, he’s getting the shortest end of the stick. At least I’m a phoenix, whereas he’s just a Grim, the same one the shifters have trained since childhood to fight and the phoenix have known to fear since the moment they were activated.
It’s a breath of fresh air to sit next to Olivia and across from Liam, like usual. But even they seem a little subdued.
“What’s up?”
Olivia sighs, sounding forlorn. “I’ve got a test today, and I barely feel prepared. Think they’ll move it back because of everything that happened this weekend?”
Liam shrugs, like he couldn’t care less. “Who knows. I’ve got the same test, and my lion is ready to go.”
It’s odd to imagine how different their classes must be from mine, especially now that I’m studying not just phoenix stuff but also Grim stuff. “And here I thought you’d be talking about me.”
Biting her lower lip, Olivia admits, “We did, just a little. Mostly we were talking about the new teacher.”
“A Grim.” Liam shakes his head, looking like he can’t believe it. “Here. At the academy. Where he could just... take any heart he wants.”
It does sound pretty dire when put that way. “Is everyone upset about it?”
“A few people are curious,” Olivia tells me. “They’ve never met a Grim before, and this one is supposed to be different. I mean, the headmaster hired him, and she wouldn’t hire just anyone. Still, he’s a Grim. They summon demons and basically bathe in phoenix blood. No offense.”
