by Lucy Auburn
Fucking chicken feet. Some people eat them. Maybe they had the right idea; I certainly would’ve been better off eating that foot than letting Meyer turn it into a weird ass necklace I wore around my neck without question.
I should’ve questioned him more. But I don’t know exactly what I would’ve said, because it’s not like I had any knowledge going into this.
That’s exactly the problem—here I am, a phoenix and a Grim, but neither side has been friendly for decades, even centuries. Straddling the divide is pretty fucking tough when there’s nothing but war in the middle. Phoenix don’t like Grims, and Grims don’t like phoenix, though I thought my teacher was an exception. Maybe he wasn’t.
Meyer doesn’t even like shifters.
He certainly didn’t like my demons. He was quick to want me to get rid of them—and now look where I am, alone in my room with a very overdue library book, realizing three months too late that I trusted the wrong Grim.
There has to be someone I can go to.
And there is. Right across the hall from me and a few doors down is the headmaster’s office. We’re not supposed to go there outside office hours—in fact, just opening up the door to the administrative hall is frowned on unless you have a reason to be there—but somehow this seems important enough to tell her about. She hired him under the impression that he was “one of the good ones,” whatever that is for a Grim, and she needs to know I have evidence he isn’t.
I grab the book, mentally apologize to the librarian for keeping it one more night, and sneak out of my room down the hall. It’s quiet up here; most of the upperclassmen are studying in the library or have broken off into various groups in the gym of quad. As I pass one of the windows I see a gaggle of shifters on the front lawn, lit by lamps they’ve placed all around them, practicing seamless shifts back and forth. Everyone is concentrated on midterms.
No one seems worried about the Grim in their midst. In fact, no one even looks at him twice, and he’s summoned a siren for Shimmer’s class more than once so all the phoenix students could learn to resist its song. He eats lunch and dinner in the dining hall with the other teachers and helps Fisk with his weekend training drills from time to time if I can’t make it. He’s been fully accepted by a group of people who hate Grims and all they stand for.
I just assumed that Meyer was earning trust, or people were getting used to having him around, but now I find myself wondering if something more sinister is going on. I can’t stop thinking about the way Olivia and Liam acted this morning, as if they were certain Meyer has been a teacher here all along. As if they’ve come to accept him so thoroughly that they’ve forgotten ever mistrusting him.
My paranoid thoughts are spinning out of control.
That, or I’ve started pulling on a loose thread, and now the whole fabric of everything around me is crumbling.
Standing in front of the headmaster’s office, I find myself uncertain which it is. But I’m here now, and I can’t go back, so I raise my fist to knock.
Only to freeze at the sound of voices. One voice in particular.
“Yes, that’s it. Just sit down for a moment and calm yourself, Lana. You don’t want to get upset over nothing.”
I go cold all over at the soothing tone in Meyer’s voice. What’s he doing in the headmaster’s office late at night? And why is every hair on my arm standing up in alarm at his words?
“Let’s just forget all about this, shall we? Tomorrow will be a new day.”
Her response is drowsy, “Tomorrow will be a new day.”
I can’t tell what’s going on in there without seeing it, and I can’t risk walking in on something I don’t understand. But there’s another way to know what’s going on in the headmaster’s office.
Heart pounding, I move quietly to the end of the hall—then rush towards the stairs to the roof, crossing my fingers that the shifters have kept the door unlocked for their late night parties and daytime hangs. Technically no students are allowed up on the roof, but one sacred tradition among the shifter students of Phoenix Academy is passing on a key from upperclassmen to underclassmen, along with a promise: never let the teachers or headmaster find the key and take it away, even if it means keeping your mouth shut and getting extra combat lessons with Fisk or Kade until you can barely see straight.
Problem is, I don’t have that key, and I doubt there’s time to fetch someone who does. So I cross my fingers as I reach the top of the stairs and push my hand against the doorway.
It opens at my touch. Letting out a tense breath, I step out onto the roof—careful to put Liam’s broken broomstick doorstop in place—and hurry quickly towards the glass dome over the headmaster’s office.
The roof is quiet and lonely tonight, the lights strung around the balcony unplugged, filled with nothing but the sounds of a gentle breeze and the distant sound of owls. So when I get to the glass dome and pace around it to find a good vantage point, I’m able to hear what’s going on inside fairly well.
More importantly, I can see what’s going on.
And it disturbs me.
The headmaster is sitting down. Meyer stands in front of her, his hand possessively placed on top of her head. I catch the last few words of his sentence. “So we’re in agreement, then?”
There’s a long moment. The headmaster’s hands twitch on the armrests of her chair. I move around, trying to get a good look at her face, but all I can see is some of her loose red hair. I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
But I do hear her response to him, loud and forcefully spoken. “No. I don’t agree.” She knocks his hand off her head, and for a moment I can see the scornful twist of her mouth. “What’s happening? Who are you? I barely remember...” Her words trail off; she looks away, hair falling over her face, which is twisted with emotion.
Meyer takes a step back from her and clasps his hands in front of himself, giving me a good look at the confusion and devastation on Towers’ face. It twists my stomach up in knots. She looks nothing like the strong, powerful woman I met when I was first brought to the academy, and definitely nothing like the woman who showed me the full power of her flame and made sure I knew she was willing to use it if I endangered her students.
She looks like a broken, lost little girl. There’s defiance in her eyes, but it’s quickly fading—replaced by confusion and fear.
He makes a motion towards his right, and she gasps, hand flying to her mouth, gaze riveted towards the corner of her office. I try to follow her eyes, but from my angle I can’t see where she’s looking.
Eyeing the opposite side of the dome, I consider moving—and losing the ability to hear what they’re saying—but in a moment I don’t need to.
Because the thing she’s looking at, that frightens her beyond all reason, steps out of the darkness and into the light.
It’s Mateo.
Chapter 28
My heart stops. Stutters. Starts back up again. All in the first moment that I see his face.
I find myself devouring his features: messy black hair, ruddy brown skin, shadowed stubble along his jaw, black tattoos swirling up his arms, and a belt at his hip that contains no doubt a whole arsenal of incendiary devices. It’s him. My Mateo. Bomber, bawdy flirter, dirty-joke-teller.
But what’s missing, undeniably, is that smirk he likes to wear, the swagger that animates his every movement, that turns a simple tilt of the head or glib joke into so much more. This isn’t the Mateo I know, who laughs with his head thrown back and gleefully pulls the pin on a grenade.
This Mateo is subdued. Tamed.
Enslaved.
Meyer flicks his fingers dismissively. “I don’t know what you did last time, but it didn’t stick. Do it again. Right this time.”
“Yes, Master.”
The rage that fills me burst into life like a living thing, consuming me body, mind, heart, and soul. It’s more than just emotion; looking down at my hands, I’m struck by the black and orange fire that wreathes them, like angry snakes swirl
ing up to my elbows.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see wings the span of my whole body, curling and dancing with flame. They’re electric, alive, an undeniable extension of me. Each beat of my heart makes them shiver; each flicker of emotion within me feeds them life.
When I look down into the dome, I can see through every shadow, spot every hidden thing, hear every movement with complete clarity. My senses are alive with phoenix power, with the rage of seeing a man I love forced to do this bastard’s bidding. The dim reflection of my face in the curve of the glass reveals that my irises are glowing with flame. The power isn’t something I summon; it’s a part of me, as alive as I am, and it rages with me.
If Yohan could see me now, he’d give me an A on my midterm without question.
Mateo puts the flat of his palm on the headmaster’s head, even as she cringes back from him in fear. “Forget all that happened tonight.”
She relaxes against the back of the chair. “Forget.”
“You’ve had a long day,” he says, voice wooden, missing every bit of energy and vitality I’ve known him for in all the days we spent together. “You were tired, and you fell asleep in your office. When you wake up, you won’t remember this. All you’ll remember is that everything at the school is being run as it should be—and you’re very, very grateful that Leo Meyer came on to help you run things.”
The headmaster hesitates. “Leo Meyer is...?”
“Your most trusted teacher.” Is it my imagination, or is there venom lacing Mateo’s words? Does his free hand curl into a fist—does he dare resist? But his words continue without any sign of rebellion. “You’ve been so overwhelmed lately. It’ll be nice to give Meyer some of your duties. It would make you happy.”
I look to the headmaster’s eyes for a fight, fire wreathing my body, some part of me desperate for an excuse to break through this thick glass and descend on the scene belong to—well, do what I don’t know, but I’m certainly mad enough to try.
But whatever rebellion lives inside her is cured by Mateo’s powers. “It would make me happy,” she agrees. “In fact, I think I may appoint Leo Meyer my deputy headmaster. After all, I can’t take on the duties of running the school on my own. I keep falling...”
Her sentence trails off into a yawn, and she falls limp into the cushion of her wingback chair, a light snore escaping her mouth.
Well, fuck. I draw my fire back into me, dismissing my wings with effort—there’s still so much anger in me. But even I can see that if I pop into the headmaster’s office without backup, I won’t survive very long.
After all, Meyer is the only teacher I’ve had who’s truly able to teach me about my powers.
And clearly he’s left out quite a few things.
I have to talk to them. It’s not enough just to see them—especially just Mateo. Now that I’ve gotten a little taste, my need to be with them is like a hunger within me, undeniable and irresistible.
Supposedly a Grim can’t summon a demon while another Grim is in control of them.
But Grims who aren’t soul bonded to their demons—a risk I doubt Meyer would take—aren’t able to summon them in their sleep. I learned that much from my ill-fated path to break our bond on my own. What we had was special, apparently, and I threw it all away.
Now is not the time for recriminations and regrets. Now is the time for actions, and I have just the thing to take them: a very, very overdue library book. One I’ll probably pay the price for keeping past its final deadline, but in the face of Meyer’s treachery I find myself not at all intimidated by one owl-eyed librarian.
The Arcane Arts of the Living and the Dead is heavy in my hands. Once, it was what I thought bound me to four murderous psychotic evil demons; now, it’s the tome that started it all, even though some part of what happened must’ve been fate or destiny.
Hopefully, within its pages there’s a spell that will help me out with this, and not just a bunch of description on how blood and guts can be used to do super gross things.
Trust it to Dicky to get the worst book on summoning imaginable. I’m just glad my truant street rat self never returned it to the library—if I had, it would no doubt be in Meyer’s possession right now, keeping me from the knowledge I desperately need to stop his creepy fuck self from using my guys to enslave the whole goddamn faculty.
Even Ocean Johnson, boring as he is, deserves better than that. Probably. Although it wouldn’t kill him to get a sense of humor, if that’s on the table.
Settling down on my bed yet again, I open up the book one more time, and look for something that will help me save the world—or at least get the bastard who took my demons from me.
Eventually, late into the night, eyes burning, I find it.
“A Spell to Summon Another’s Slaves. Warning: this spell may only be used per demonic connection, and runs the risk of the caster being discovered by the target if a no-seeking spell isn’t first cast. See page 72.”
Of-fucking-course there’s a spell to do this spell safely. Sticking my finger between the pages, I flip back to the page in question—and groan.
“No-Seeking Spell. Requires: a bowl full of unholy water, two skeins of mammal fur (attached skin optional), and a pinch of malice. Optional: death powder, to widen the effects.”
I need some fur, stat, and I don’t have the time, energy, patience, or freedom to buy it from an arts and crafts store or kill it myself.
Which means I’m going to have to get it another way.
And hope I don’t wind up super dead in the process.
Petra is not thrilled that I knocked on her door after midnight. “Freshie, don’t you know it’s midterms? And I was on baby phoenix duty last night. You do not want to wake me up.”
The memory of her full-grown wolf form staring me down is vivid in my mind, which makes me fidget more than a little from actual fear. Petra, unlike Liam and Sam, does not bluff or buster. “It’s important. Like, save-the-world important.” I can tell from her skepticism that I don’t have much credibility for heroism. “Okay, fine. It might not save the world, but it’s important enough that I was willing to risk your wrath, so just trust me. You want to help. And it won’t be painful.” Probably.
“What is it?” She yawns, trailing over to sit down on her bed and gesturing towards the wheeling desk chair nearby. “And make it quick. I fully intend to be asleep again in fifteen minutes.”
I open my mouth to tell her all of it: how I lost my demons, how Meyer has them instead, and most importantly, how he’s using them to keep the headmaster compliant for... something, probably evil, that I haven’t figured out yet. Maybe involving phoenix hearts or necromancy or more entrails.
But before I can even say the words, I can feel how Petra won’t believe them. So, absurdly, I ask her, “How long has Meyer been working here?”
She gives me an I-could-gut-you look, which from Petra is saying something, since that’s her resting shifter face. “Since I was a freshman. The headmaster brought him in to teach us important things about fighting demons. And Grims, of course.”
Here’s my chance, maybe. Leaning forward, I study her expression as I ask, “And what has he taught you?”
“Oh, you know.” Her eyes slide into a vague dreamlike state that disturbs me. “How to fight demons.”
“Like?” I prompt. I don’t know what I’m going for, but it feels like I’m onto something.
“Like...” A frown crosses her face. “How to...”
Urgently, I ask, “How many tests has he given you?”
“No one could remember that,” Petra says, though she looks agitated now, like it bothers her.
“Which classes did he teach you in his first year? What were they called? Did you enjoy them or hate them? How did you fit them in around your other classes?”
Looking cross, she opens her mouth and spits out, “Dani, what the fuck—wait.” A troubled expression crosses her face. “I don’t understand. I had six other classes freshman year. I remember them
because I made the honor roll and sent the letter home to my parents. So why don’t I remember...”
“What grade you got in Meyer’s class?” Heart beating double time, I tell her, “Because it didn’t exist. There wasn’t a class. He started working here a few months ago, shortly after I enrolled, specifically to teach me.”
Finally, there’s clarity in Petra’s eyes, instead of confusion. “That’s right! I had a meeting with the headmaster before she left campus to hire a new Grim teacher. I remember it distinctly. And she wouldn’t have done that if Meyer already worked here. So why do I remember him working here before I even started classes?”
“I don’t know,” I confess. “I have my suspicions. What I do know is that for some reason, he’s been fucking with the memories of everyone here, especially the headmaster. Using... using a demon he’s enslaved.”
I don’t tell her which demon, or that I know what it feels like to have his lips on mine, to see his wild laughter and feel my heart soar. Somehow I doubt she wants to hear anything about it right now.
“Okay.” Petra nods, looking decisive. “So you came here to tell me that?”
“Actually, I need something else from you. Something to help me put a stop to whatever it is that Meyer’s planning.” This next part, I doubt either of us will enjoy. “I need you to shift into a wolf and let me pull two handfuls of fur out of your coat.”
The look in her eyes makes it clear what she thinks of that.
So I weakly add, “Pretty please?”
Chapter 29
Stumbling back from two yellow eyes with handfuls of wolf hair in my possession, I find myself quite glad that I heal quickly. I’ve seen four former classmates be brutally murdered, and yet on my list of “Things Most Likely to Kill Dani Carpenter,” I’m pretty sure Petra goes at the top.
